Angela spent the short flight to the police station swinging between being fatigued to the point where she worried about falling asleep while standing upright; and an anxious alertness that had her endlessly fidgeting, so much so that she almost accidentally hit Fareeha in the face when her wings flared up sharply. An apologetic glance toward her girlfriend revealed that she wasn't faring much better, although she was very good at concealing it. It was only the little things that gave her away, like the constant twitching of her eyes to and fro, as if she were still on the battlefield scanning for hostiles.
When they touched down on a dusty, deserted town square, the anxiety finally won out. She wanted answers, and she wanted them now.
A haggard-looking man in a uniform led them through winding corridors into the basement of the building, explaining the situation with about as much enthusiasm as a sloth. Or Hana after she'd just woken up.
"They captured them as they were trying to blow a hole through the border fence." Fareeha translated quietly. "Apparently with enough ordnance to level a small mountain."
They rounded a final corner and came upon a long corridor with multiple heavy steel doors leading off to either side.
"They keep them separated, but other than that have obviously no idea what they're supposed to do with them. Apparently the large one says nothing at all, while the crazy one keeps talking so fast they can't make heads nor tails of it."
They shared an uneasy glance when they came to a stop before the last two doors to either side of the corridor.
"Alright, Pharah is with me, with the big one. Shrike goes with you to talk to the small one." Jack said to Angela. She cocked her head, wondering why in the world he'd force her and Ana into a small room. Even he couldn't be that oblivious to the current state of their relationship.
'Whatever', she thought, squaring her shoulders. 'Maybe he's trying to force us to bond, or something like that.'
They both entered the room, a standard affair with barren concrete walls, a two-way mirror, and a table and chairs bolted to the floor. But the sight that greeted her was nothing short of grotesque. A small, lithe man was lounging in an almost impossible position in his steel chair, constantly twitching and wringing his hands. His smell of cordite and phosphorus was overpowering, and was his hair actually on fire?! He missed both his right leg and hand, and wore prosthetics that basically screamed homemade. But the one thing that truly unsettled her was the look in his eyes. Equal parts mania and insanity, and a well-concealed glint of intelligence. She knew they'd have to tread lightly around this man.
"Who are you, and why did you blow up that building in the refugee camp?" Ana asked straight away, forgoing the chair and leaning on the table. So much for subtlety.
"Blimey, no 'hello's, no 'how are you doing's, no introductions, that's just no way to treat a gentleman, now is it? Whatever happened to proper mannerisms, I wonder?"
Ana leaned in as much as she could, trying her best to appear menacing with her glowing mask. "You do not get to ask any questions, scum. Now answer, before I introduce your face to my fist!"
Angela probably should have seen his response coming, given his appearance and demeanor so far, but it still surprised her: he looked at Ana for a stunned moment, before breaking out in shrieking laughter.
"I thought I'd never see the day!" he howled between bouts of laughing, at one point actually wiping tears from his eyes. "So you're the bad cop, and the other sheila over there is the good one?"
It seemed like he'd noticed Angela's presence for the first time, and something almost visibly clicked in his mind.
"Ooohhh, wait a minute, so you're that angel lady that creepy bloke cracked such a fat on. Bugger it, now I gotta pay him back."
Had Angela seen the look on her own face, she probably would have broken down laughing, too. As it was, the only thing she managed to do was utter "I...uh...what?!"
To the man's credit he only started giggling when he dove into his explanation. "You see, a few weeks ago this wannabe grommet walked into our hideout like he owned the place and started talking and talking, and frankly it made my head hurt. Though that could also be from the whacking when I called his mask thingamabob a skull, and then he went into this spiel about owls and symbols and it got really long-winded so I stopped paying attention."
She shot Ana a look of utter disbelief, and imagined she wore a similar expression beneath her mask; all the while the lunatic continued to prattle on.
"...so Roadie had had enough of his whinge and just whacked 'im with a good load from his gun, and then that bloke just turned into smoke, I shit ya not, and started cackling like one of those movie villains. So then he talked about these guys who had stolen his cookies or something and how he wanted them dead, especially you there."
That grabbed her attention again, and she refocused on his monologue. They both wisely refrained from interrupting him.
"And so he dumped this load of cash that he pulled out of his arse on the table, and said he wanted some big fireworks for you people, and that here would be good spot to get you all. We just had to rig the place up good and wait for you to march in. so I thought, 'hang on, they ain't gonna be stupid, they'll bugger the fuck outta there when they get a whiff of my special brew', and then it came to me: delayed explosions! Genius!"
"Delayed explosions? Explain yourself!" Ana barked. Angela couldn't help the shiver that ran down her spine when she realized how all of them could have been blown up back in the camp.
Thankfully Ana's interruption didn't seem to derail his train of thought, quite the contrary. He seemed to take genuine pleasure and excitement from people being interested in his sick scheme.
"You see, it would have been brilliant! First a smaller explosion, you know, just a few blokes dead, and then you hero types would swoop in and save everyone, and then the real bomb would go off! Would have gotten you all good, you see, in a big ball of fire!"
His explanation became more and more animated, with wild gestures and barely-contained laughing, and still he went on.
"So I might have made the first blast a little bit too strong and it set off the other one right away, which was kind of a bummer. But it was such a beautiful explosion, you should have seen it! All the debris flying around, the people screaming, it was gorgeous!"
Something within Angela snapped. She had just spent the last fifteen hours treating the victims of this maniac. Had seen families torn apart, people shattered by grief and loss, and this degenerate talked about it like an achievement? She sprung into action, crossing the distance in three quick strides before picking him up and, in a feat of strength she would've thought impossible in her exhaustion, threw him against the nearest wall. She heard a satisfying 'thunk' as the back of his head connected with the concrete, and held him in place before he could move in any way.
"Du mieses Stück Scheiße!" she snarled, faces so close their noses almost touched, and for a brief moment she could see genuine fear flicker through his eyes.
"Aren't you supposed to be the good sheila here?" he mumbled through a nervous giggle, trying to look anywhere but at her.
"You killed forty nine people, and injured over a hundred, and you're proud of that?!" she shouted in her righteous fury.
"I, well, it was just those Arab omnic-loving scrubs, ain't no one missing them, right?" he replied shakily.
Before anyone could react she'd drawn her pistol and shoved it under his chin so hard his head cracked back against the wall.
"You degenerate filth!" she growled, pressing the muzzle even harder into the soft flesh beneath his jaw while her finger tensed on the trigger.
Before she could pull it, though, her arm was yanked away. She whipped her head around to see Ana wrenching the pistol from her grip.
"What the hell are you doing?!" she hissed at the doctor, moments before the door burst open and a group of policemen stormed into the room, guns drawn and pointed at them. They started yelling in Arabic, Ana slowly raising both of her hands and calmly replying, obviously trying to defuse the situation.
It slowly dawned on Angela what she'd been about to do and she let go of the lunatic, stumbling back until she hit the table with the back of her thighs. The commotion continued around her but she payed it no attention, all of her efforts instead focused on stopping her hands from shaking.
She remembered very little from that point onward. Jack's disapproving voice, rough hands that shoved her through the corridors and back outside. Waving off a concerned Fareeha, sitting by herself on the Orca; actually wanting to fall asleep but unable to. It all blurred together, became white noise. She knew what was happening, of course. Her mind was trying to disassociate, to deal with what she had just gone through in the last 20 hours. Only it was doing a terrible job at it.
She was immensely grateful that Jack didn't insist on an immediate mission debrief. She went through her post-OP routine on autopilot, deciding (for once) to delay cleaning and maintenance of her gear until after she'd slept. The communal shower was deserted, much to her relief, and she spent an inordinate amount of time under the hot water. The images replayed in her mind. Maimed bodies. Torn off limbs. Crying children and dead parents, crying parents and dead children. Her almost killing someone in cold blood.
There definitely weren't tears mixing with the water running down her face. Her red and puffy eyes were obviously due to her exhaustion.
When she had finally composed herself she was already dangerously swaying on her feet. It was high time she finally got to her bed, though by now she'd make do with any moderately comfortable surface. Angela fetched her towel and dried herself off, not bothering with her hair at all. She'd have to fight with a nest of tangles come morning, but right now she didn't care.
Just as she was about to finish getting dressed for the trek to her room the door opened and Fareeha strode in, covered in oil stains and sweat. She never put off maintenance of her gear, but Angela was well past the point of feeling guilty.
"Angela..." Fareeha started but trailed off. She seemed to realize that now wasn't the right moment to have a serious conversation. Or any conversation at all, really. The Egyptian took a deep breath.
"I'll see you in our quarters soon. Unless you want to be alone tonight?"
Angela considered for a second, but in all honesty, Fareeha needn't have asked in the first place.
"No." she said, quietly, and hated herself for sounding so weak and needy with just that single word.
Fareeha graced her with a gentle smile and reached out, but stopped herself at the last second. She probably didn't want to get her all dirty right after taking a shower, but this was yet again an example for why she loved this woman so much. No matter how disgusting she must've felt herself, no matter how tired she was, her first thought was always the safety and well-being of others. Including mental well-being.
"I'll see you as soon as I'm finished." Fareeha finally said, and started to shimmy out of her clothes.
Angela briefly considered waiting for her to finish her shower, but a huge yawn, followed by droopy eyelids made her decide otherwise. Fareeha had done enough today, she wouldn't burden her any more by making her carry her sleeping form to their bed. And so she made the trek, shuffling footsteps and doubling back after accidentally taking a right where she should've taken a left, until she finally, finally, collapsed onto her bed; falling asleep before she could even take off her fuzzy slippers.
She woke briefly during the night to find that Fareeha had slipped into bed beside her, spooning her from behind with a strong arm securely wrapped around her waist. Her slippers were off and she was covered by a warm blanket; and she sluggishly turned around in Fareeha's embrace, entangling their legs and nuzzling into the crook of her neck. Her sleep-addled mind recognized that there was something clamoring for attention, something that would keep her up if she let it past the barrier of sleepy exhaustion, but for now the soft, warm body next to her was all that mattered, and sleep quickly found her again.
i'm so sorry about the delay. this chapter just refused to come together; i'm still less than pleased with it but i'Ve got to publish it at some point. it's been lying on my harddrive for almost three weeks by now and i've kept picking at it, but...oh well, no use dwelling on it. i might do a re-write at some point in the future (though knowing me, probably not ._.)
song of the day is sugar by made out of babies. basically what i imagine junkrat's mind to sound like from the inside
cheers