"How's training going?" Mercy asked with a smile.

"Just kill me now." Alessandro answered, taking a big bite if his sandwich. Mercy frowned and gave him a confused look, to which he chuckled. "I have never felt more physically exhausted or sore in my life, only thing that hurt more than this was having that building collapse on me."

"Reinhardt goes a bit far on physical training, yes? But you need it." Mercy said matter-of-factly. "And I've offered to take care of you if you feel that bad."

"If I can't take this kind of pain how will I do in an actual battle? I might as well try and get used to pain early on when I have you around me and I'm in a safe place." Alessandro replied, taking another bite of his sandwich. Mercy sighed and grabbed a napkin, dabbing at his mouth despite his annoyed grunt. In all honesty he had grown accustomed to Mercy's motherly behavior; she acted that way with everyone in the base. Even Reinhardt who was well above her age. Sure, maybe she didn't wipe Reinhardt's mouth but she was still a motherly presence to them all. Just a bit more with the boy. Alessandro had been living here for one month now and had started to grow used to the people here; although he noticed Mercy seemed to take special care of him sometimes. She always went to wake him up in the morning and she always accompanied him during lunch.

"On a scale of one to ten, how great is your pain?" Mercy asked.

"A minus one." He answered sarcastically. "I don't need medical attention; I'll take the pain myself."

"Very well, very well, I won't press the subject anymore. But if you need help just ask." Mercy said, smiling as he nodded at her. She didn't need to ask him to know how he was doing; he was fine but obviously very sore. His movements were very stiff and pained. She would have to speak to Reinhardt about this.

Wait…no. Reinhardt knows how to train any new recruit, as do the rest. I have no need to interfere. I'm not this boy's mother. She thought to herself.

"I gotta admit, the training schedule you guys gave me was odd." He said, snapping her out of her thoughts. "Wake up, have breakfast, practice hand to hand combat and swordplay with Genji for three hours. Then I go with Reinhardt and spend the next three hours purely on working out and learning about honor and the doing the right thing, Reinhardt is a big fan of teaching me that, then I have lunch and go with you for medical training and later on Dva forces me to game with her."

"Yes, well, I don't think playing videogames counts as training. And you volunteered for my medical training." Mercy reminded him. "You also forgot that after your time with Dva you always go the shooting range with Tracer to learn how to shoot and an hour before you go to sleep Mei likes to lecture you about the threats to our planet."

"I never asked for Mei's, although I don't mind it, and I also volunteered for Tracer's shooting classes. All in all I'm busier than I've ever been."

"Lunch time's over. Time for class." She said as she stood up. He took the last bite of his sandwich and wiped his mouth, downing his drink in one go and standing up. She chuckled and shook her head slightly and the two began walking down the hallways to the medical wing. Mercy had to admit, she quite enjoyed her time teaching him. It was like that time she never managed to have with her own son, mainly because she didn't haveher own child.

"When are you guys going to get the others?" He asked, making Mercy stop in her tracks.

The others.

He meant the other people that they had found to join Overwatch. After recruiting Pharah (who was now perfectly fine and getting along well with the others. She sometimes even helped Genji or Tracer teach the boy how to fight or shoot.) the group hadn't stepped foot out of the base again. They had their list of people to recruit, they knew where they were at, but they didn't want to go out and risk losing anyone just yet. Last time had been a surprise and it made them much more wary of Talon.

"When we are all ready to go." She answered seriously.

"Well I don't see any of you guys that aren't ready; you're all excellent at what you do."

"Have you forgotten you're still in training?" Mercy turned to him, crossing her arms. She was surprised to see he looked actually confused.

"I don't count. You guys are Overwatch, not me." He said. "You guys can save the world, not me. I couldn't even save my family." He clenched his fists, sudden anger surging through his veins.

"You are here because we want you. We need you." Mercy said in a kind voice. "You're one of us now."

"I'm here because you guys saved my life, that's all. I don't belong." He said angrily, glaring at Mercy. She wondered where all this sudden anger came from, anyone who spent at least a week with him could tell he wasn't one to feel down or get mad, not for himself or for his situation. She admired that of him, it was a fantastic trait for a growing hero.

"You're here because we think you can be a hero. You're here because we want you here and you wanted to be here." Mercy said.

"I didn't have a choice, I have no where else to go." He murmured.

"Didn't you tell us you had a father?"

"He's a soldier. He's either out, meaning I'd be stuck in military housing which is basically an orphanage, or he's going to die. Then I'll actually be put in an orphanage."

"Have you contacted your father at all since you came here?" Mercy asked again, cupping his chin in a hand and forcing him to look at her. "Don't lie to me."

"I…I can't." He admitted, his gaze going away. "I tried a few times but I always end up hanging up."

"Why?"

"Mercy, my entire family died while he was out. I-I can't talk him now, knowing what happened. I-I just can't." His voice cracked and he pulled back, looking away. His anger had left as quickly as it came, replaced by sadness. This was something rare for him as well. "Sometimes I can't even sleep without feeling like I'm back there. With the building crumbling on me. But talk about it? Explain to him? No…not yet."

"How long have you felt like this? Do you have any other feelings of that day?" She asked with a serious voice. This is what Alessandro had come to recognize was her work voice; he could practically see the gears turning in her head now. She'd try to fix the problem at all costs.

"Mercy, I'm fine. I just can't talk about it yet, ok?"

"Nonsense, now tell me." He opened his mouth but she shot him a glare. Obviously he had no way out of this.

"Sometimes when I'm at the range and we're shooting I get a flashback. I jump or panic for a second. Sometimes I just have terrible nightmares about that day or I hear my sister's voices while I walk the hallways." He chuckled bitterly. "I can hear their voices sometimes."

"And you haven't told anyone about this?!" Mercy asked angrily, making him take a step back despite himself. She could be quite scary sometimes. Not Reaper scary, mind you, but scary nonetheless.

"It didn't really matter. I just had to get over it." He mumbled sheepishly, looking away.

"You are suffering from Post-traumatic stress. I should've expected this, how foolish of me!" Mercy grabbed his wrist and began walking to the medical wing with him in tow. "You're lucky you haven't gotten a panic attack while fighting or shooting. Most people in your place would be worse. This would also explain your sudden anger, I'd bet you've had little anger moments with the others as well. Sudden changes in your mood?"

"Um…well…maybe I had a tiny, little, attack?" He admitted.

"When? Where? How long? And how bad?"

"My room, midnight, lasted..." He sighed. "Lasted two hours and I guess it was kinda bad. I was shaking in my arms mumbling nonsense the entire time as I heard my sisters calling out to me." He said this easily enough, but his eyes betrayed him. She could see it had affected him much more than he let on.

"We told you that if anything happens you come to us, any of us! Why did you not?!" The two arrived at the medical wing and Mercy tapped the control console, opening the door. She pulled him inside and sat him on a chair, immediately going to a drawer full of medicines.

"Is there medicine for PTSD? 'Cause I never heard of that." He asked, dodging her question. She decided to drop it or now.

"Yes, there are some medicines which help but the actual treatment is therapy. I've devised a machine that is supposed to help for this but it's not complete. First time I tried to use it my patient nearly went mad."

"Then let's avoid using experimental therapy tech on me, yeah?"

"Agreed."

Mercy closed the drawer and opened another, still searching for the correct medicine. She sighed and remembered why she hated this type of condition, it was a mental sickness. It wasn't something to be very worried about, seeing as he was faring quite well compared to the cases she had seen. But she always preferred to cure people with a simple swing of her staff. You can't do that with a person's mind. She opened another cabinet and grabbed a small plastic bottle and tossed it to Alessandro, who caught it in one hand.

"Take one of those after each meal, with water. If after a month your condition has not gotten better then tell me."

"I won't go mad, right?" He asked in a joking tone, shutting up and looking away when he saw Mercy's face.

"Promise you will tell us if you get worse, or if you don't get better."

"Easy, I promise."

"I expect you to keep that promise." Mercy said seriously. "Now take a pill and let us start class. Today I'll teach you how to properly make incisions and remove unwanted pests from the body."

"Unwanted pests?" He asked, raising an eyebrow as he grabbed a bottle of water and swallowed his pill. "What, like a tapeworm? Didn't tapeworms go extinct after some doctor in the twenty-second century made a new medicine with herbal plants?"

"No, not like the tapeworm. As you said they no longer exist. Pests such as bullets, tumors, any sort of fragment, knives, and basically anything that can fly, be stabbed into a body or grow in the body." Mercy laughed lightly seeing his confused, and worried, face. "Come now, it won't be that bad." He managed a smile and got up, about to go into the next room with her (where she taught him surgical operations) but the entrance to the medical wing opened and Winston walked in.

"Am I interrupting something?" He asked, giving Mercy a nod and holding his fist for Alessandro. The doctor raised an eyebrow as he fist bumped it and Winston did a very awkward explosion sound.

"We were just about to start our little class." Mercy said. "Do you need something?"

"We have a problem. Everyone's going to the conference room for a meeting." Winston said. He certainly looked nervous. "It's about our list of new recruits, they may be in trouble."

Yay! A new chapter!

Sorry that it's been so long guys, I know some of you have been waiting! I just ran into a lot of trouble. School just finished and I used to write everything on my school laptop, so I had to pass all my documents to my own laptop here at home which was more troublesome than you'd think. I also had a lot of trouble with word on this laptop (god damn these programs being much more complicated than they should be) and before that it was finals week so I wasn't working either way.

But here I am!

And although I didn't write recently, I've been thinking about this fic A LOT. And I got some things in store for you guys, if all goes well it'll be very feelsy :3

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Don't forget to fav, follow and (most importantly) review because your opinion is always valued!