Lena's eyes peeked just over a small formation of rocks as she crouched low, watching the small, wooden house that sat in this small gorge beyond the town she'd just left. Resting between two mighty crags that rose up either side of it, the house seemed almost decrepit, if anything, or perhaps, 'lived in'. With the shade from the two walls of rock, the area surrounding her actually had some greenery, making quite a peacefully rustic scene amidst the dead desert sands.
Being the first possible residence of Jesse McCree, Lena eyed it fiercely, wary of anybody not by the same name possibly residing inside it's wooden frame, with stood quite battered, with some planks even having fallen down to the dirt below. She had kept watch for a good hour, with nothing of note having occurred, and becoming rather bored, she decided to slowly creep around the rubble that had kept her out of sight, carefully stepping toward the small home.
She bit her bottom lip as she treaded softly up toward the wooden porch that jutted out from the small building, her feet just barely making a noise apart from the intermediate crackle of the tiny bulbs of dirt that crumbled beneath her. Making it to the porch, she took a step onto the first of three steps, the wood creaking loudly beneath her as her face grimaced, though she went on to the top, quickly, not wanting the stairs to break with her atop of them.
"Phew," she whispered to herself as she watched the door, taking one other step further before pausing, immediately, her heart skipping a beat as the low clicking of a gun broke past her ear.
In a split second, Lena was replaced by the blue absence of atmosphere, her body having disappeared entirely from the porch as she huddled down behind the rocks she'd just been behind just a moment earlier. She held her mouth to keep from crying out in fear as she looked around, having not brought a weapon herself. Nearly in a panic, she froze as the wooden creaking arose again, this time louder, as the door to the house opened.
"Trace," came a low, gravelly voice, "C'mon; I know it's you."
Lena's eyes shut as her upper body sank in relief, slowly picking herself up as she shot a glance overtop her cover, angrily, "You scared the living daylights outta me!"
"Can't be too careful out here," Jesse explained, leaning against the frame of the door, playing with a pistol in his hands, "Sounds like you've already found that out."
She began to roll her eyes, though she quickly changed to a glare of confusion as she began toward him, "How'd you…"
Jesse shrugged, waving her in as he turned and began back into the darkness within his home, grabbing a shirt from the back of a chair before disappearing from Lena's view, speaking as he went, just within earshot, "I can't believe you came all this way. I told ya'll I'd be back."
"Well, Winston sent out the recall without a word from you," Lena explained as she stepped casually into the house, stopping in surprise at the state with which McCree had been living in, just barely able to complete her thought as she looked around, horrified, "We were…worried."
The walls were completely bare, with the floor completely in shambles, as if his home had been ransacked a good fifteen times. There were clothes, shelves, picture frames, all on the ground; a dresser had been turned over, and even a blanket laid on the ground, ripped clear down the middle. Lena was completely unable to speak, given the state of this man's home, though Jesse went on as if it hadn't fazed him a bit.
"I can care for myself," he muttered, faintingly, from the other room, "How's the old ape, anyway?"
Lena didn't hear him as she remained standing in the entryway, still, attempting to take in the chaos until Jesse leaned through the far door, staring at her, "What's wrong?"
"This!" she shouted, dramatically, "You live like this?!"
Jesse looked down at the floor as if the mess had been a brand new thing to him, though he simply shrugged, "No big deal. I'll get some coffee goin'."
Lena frowned at his nonchalance, stomping her way into the room and crouching down, trying to sort out everything that was lying there, grabbing a lengthy plank of wood, which broke off of its adjoining section as she yanked it from the pile, leaving her even more frustrated as she rose to her feet, dropping the half of the plank she'd ended up with.
"I think you're making it worse," Jesse chimed in, standing in the same door he'd looked through a moment ago, "Might as well leave it. With you running around, I'm sure anything that goes back up will come down again."
He disappeared into the other room again, though having been insulted, Lena grew more determined, jumping right into the fray and begrudgingly sorting the mess into different piles. The rolled the large blanket into a manageable ball, tossing it to the side, grabbing a torn up chair and putting those pieces into her trash pile, taking ahold of some leather sleeve of a jacket and yanking out of the pi-
"Oh…" she whispered to herself, sadly, as she reached down to grab the pulsing blue cube that had been a part of the rubble, bring it up to her face, reverently, noticing the button that hadn't yet been pushed to acknowledge the recall order.
She looked up and walked into the room that Jesse was in, speaking up as she went along, "Hey Jesse, why didn't you-"
Pausing at the kitchen doorway, she saw Jesse sitting on a short stool just next to the counter alongside the gentle churning of the coffee maker, his body hung low as he reached over to his right arm, cleaning a nasty gash that led along the side of it. She hadn't noticed it in the doorway, though she now hurried over to his side, crouching down beside him and taking his arm from him, though he immediately pulled it back away from her, watching her blankly.
"Jesse! You live like this?!" Lena wondered, bluntly, yanking his arm back toward her to help him clean it.
His face grimaced in pain as the wound reopened due to the sudden movements, yet he still managed to pull himself back, spinning away on the stool as he began again, "I have no choice. And I'm already reminded why I didn't push that button."
He grumbled to himself, having noticed the cube in Lena's other hand, though with no part of her brain that currently understood rejections, she bolted in front of him in a flash of blue, stealing away his first aid kit and grabbing his wrist once again, her teeth seething angrily, "If you don't let me help suture you, I'm gonna pour that coffee right on top of you!"
Jesse sighed, relinquishing his arm to Lena as she placed it properly in front of herself, beginning to clean the fresh blood that had begun pouring down his arm, grumbling lightly as she did so, "I swear to god; one of these days, you'll all know I'm always right."
Looking away to avoid any repurcushion, Jesse rolled his eyes before they returned to meet the block that Lena had dropped onto the ground, the blue cube that had transparent patterns on it where blue lights pulsated in and out of existence ever since the recall had been ordered. When he'd left Overwatch, it had been given to him, as similar ones had been given to everybody, besides Angela, who had quit at the time, with Winston instructing them to push the covered button as a way to answer the recall, giving him a sort of 'inventory' on all the returning members.
Jesse's eyes fell low, sadly, recollecting the day it had first gone off. Had it done so just a week earlier, he thought to himself, begrudgingly…
"I thought you living next to that city was worrisome," Lena muttered aloud, breaking his train of thought, "If all this is your definition of 'caring for yourself', I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to go Webster's on your ass again."
He replied in a gravelly voice, "It's not the worst it's been, I can assure you."
Lena brought out the needle to begin suturing his arm up, speaking softer as she was also concentrating, "Okay, I'm gonna need some explanation. some answers. And I'm preventing you from bleeding out, so I think I deserve some."
Jesse shook his head, "It's best you don't know anything, trust me. The more you know, the later you leave the place- the more danger you're in."
Lena's eyed jumped up to meet his, causing him to smirk, only slightly, as he turned away, shaking his head, "Of course, I know you won't abide by any of that. Must be why Winston sent you."
Nodding, Lena carefully pulled his skin together, slowly poking the needle and thread through to keep the ends attached, "How'd you know I was here?"
Jesse groaned, rubbing his face, "A little birdy told me- GAH!"
He whipped his head around toward Lena, who was already staring back with a frown, having poked the injury with the needle, "The fuck's your problem?!"
Lena replied, angrily, "No lies, mister."
"Fuck," Jesse repeated, angrily, "Those thugs at the bar told me; that good enough for ya?!"
Lena peered over toward the door, "Are they who ransacked your house?"
"Yes," Jesse answered, resting his elbow on his knee as his head fell onto his hand, "Happy now?"
Thinking for a moment, Lena shook her head, concentrating on her first aid, "For now, yeah. I already figured out that my clothes tipped 'em off."
"Another spectacular demonstration of espionage by Overwatch's premiere atmospheric spy," Jesse grumbled, sarcastically, sighing to himself, "They said the nearly took the bartender's head off because of you."
Lena frowned, "How was I supposed to know?"
"You weren't; you were supposed to infer," Jesse explained, "Probably don't wander around in an ex-gangster's garb in an area where gang activity is increasingly, particularly the gang which that ex-gangster sold out."
"The Deadlock Gang?" Lena wondered aloud.
"The very same," Jesse explained, begrudgingly, "So now you know what explains everything; with all that, I'd be happy if you'd return to your superior and let him know what I already have- that I'll push that damn button when I can."
Lena paused her work, staring up toward him, "So you're going to beat them alone? Even last time, you were only a sting; you needed Blackwatch to-"
She stopped herself, quickly becoming silent as she focused solely on her suture, slowly becoming the recipient of Jesse's stare as he spoke up, lowly, "Needed who?"
He grinned, rather devilishly, as Lena was unable to answer the question, "Could it be that my well-being isn't what you were checking on, Lena Oxton?"
Lena's eyes narrowed as she remained fixed on the spindle of thread that fell from his arm, not wanting to speak any further. Just as well, Jesse stood up, grunting as he did, walking over toward the counter and pouring himself a cup of coffee with the lengthy line of thread still falling down his side.
"So you're checking up on me. Making sure I'm not one of Gabriel's cronies, huh?" he questioned, though with more accusatory vitriol than anything else.
Lena couldn't find the will to answer him as he turned to walk off, turning the corner to enter into the damaged collection of housewares that laid strewn across his living room. Lena remained crouched down in the kitchen, leaning back against the counter, disillusioned by the fact that what she was doing had seemed to be so untrusting. While she, herself, had been worried of Jesse McCree's well-being, that wasn't the point of the mission, she understood.
A loud *CLACK* broke through the air, causing Lena to jump in surprise as a picture frame slid across the kitchen, coming to a stop near enough for her eyes to look up toward its contents. Behind the broken pane of glass was a picture, cut down the middle, with the unmistakable image of a woman and two children. Lena slowly looked up toward the doorway, seeing Jesse standing there, his back against its frame as he pulled the mug of coffee down from his lid.
"You want to test my loyalty? See if I'm a trustworthy agent? that I didn't turn to the dark side and that I'm still a part of Overwatch?" he questioned, deeply, "Ask those three whether or not I'm a loyal man. They'll tell you that I am."
He paused for a moment as he took another swig of coffee, slowly continuing as he pulled his hand down once again, "Of course, they wouldn't be able to tell you themselves now. They're about as dead as I feel these days."
He turned away, lowering his arm to his side before dropping the mug onto the ground without any sense of care, the porcelain material sending a loud *CLANG* into the air as it hit the ground, rolling around for a moment before laying there, steadily. Jesse walked deeper into the house, turning a corner out of Lena's sight, leaving her along in the kitchen, pulling the frame up to her face to examine the picture.
The woman and two children were beautiful, she thought to herself, sadly. She wished she could have met them; had she even known Jesse had a family.
She looked up in an instant as Jesse returned, "Here. Give this to Winston. Should be all the proof he needs."
He walked halfway through the kitchen before simply tossing something through the air toward her, Lena catching it skillfully before quickly pulling it close to her face, staring at the tiny pendant critically, unable to figure out what it signified. It was a rusted over silver pendant, shaped something like an 'M', though with no other discernable portions of it.
"That man they found out knew the bitch who shot Amari's eyes out," Jesse explained, "That belonged to him."
Lena's eyes flickered for a moment before she looked up at him, worriedly, "You mean-"
"I found him," he answered, nonchalantly, "Brought him back here. Questioned him. Tortured him. He didn't know nothin'. That was on the report I received; should do plenty to confirm his identity. It's about all that's left of him, anyway."
Almost able to feel her eyes sinking back into herself, Lena stared, almost frighteningly, toward the man she had so long considered an older brother. He seemed like someone else now; some grotesque, distortion of the Jesse McCree she had once known. As he readjusted himself to begin walking, she flinched, unconsciously, though he didn't seem to notice.
"Best you leave and get that back to him, y'know," Jesse muttered, cutting the thread from his arm with a pocket knife, leaving a portion of his wound still open, "I doubt you'd be prepared to stay out here, anyway, and remain-"
Lena's ears perked up at his sudden silence, standing up to look out the kitchen window, though Jesse rushed back into the kitchen, throwing his arm through the air to direct her to step back, "Get away from there! Goddamn; I thought they were done."
"Who?!" Lena wondered aloud.
Jesse quickly darted toward the kitchen table, ripping the rug from beneath it and running his finger along one of the wooden planks, "Those guys you saw at the bar. They're back; they never come here twice in a day. Fuck!"
He found a small digit in one of the planks, allowing him to tear the trap door up and point down into the crawlspace, turning toward Lena, "Get down there."
"What?!" Lena pleaded, her eyes full of fright, "I'm not going down there! I'm gonna help you get rid of those monsters once and for all!"
"Lena," Jesse spoke up, lowly, in a desperately soft tone, "Get down there. If they see you, they will kill you."
Her breaths shook for the briefest moments before the made her way over toward the door, not breaking eye contact with Jesse until she hopped down into the cramped space, haunted by the look of fear she had just seen in his eyes. She ducked down, allowing Jesse to slam the door shut, leaving Lena in total darkness, save for the tiny slits of light that broke through the wooden slats of floor above her.
She remained there for only a moment before her determination grew leaps and bounds within her, listening to Jesse's footsteps go through the house. She examined her surroundings, finding that, while some of the crawlspace was walled off to support the house above, there was plenty of space to maneuver around, she wondered if it had been there to hide contraband.
Lena quickly crawled through on all fours, her hands quickly pushing away dirt, mud, and cobwebs that had all accumulated down here, careful to keep her eyes up to make sure she wasn't about to run into anything. She began turning, circumnavigating around the house, hoping to, eventually, come to the living room, though, suddenly, she paused, the slamming of the front door causing the house to vibrate, just barely.
She heard muffled voices, angry ones, as she remained there, intently, only a tad bit shaken, before her eyes narrowed, a foreign noise beginning to enter her ears. It was a shallow, cold sort of noise, almost like a shivering…breathing, she thought. She lifted her head, curiously, trying to peek up through the wooden slats, though just as she did so, a loud *BANG* shook the house once again, Lena immediately returning to Jesse's situation. She continued along, desperately, her mind on nothing more than the stranger within her old friend's body.
