The two walked along the barracks with caution. Noah managed to cut off his pursuers, but that didn't mean they were out just yet. Fareeha kept a close eye on things as Noah tried maintaining focus. He expects to wake up anytime now in a cold sweat once Fareeha inevitably gets hurt. Then he'll wake up in his cell once more with the nightmares and no hope of escape.

You want to wake up because you know you don't deserve their mercy. I like that you're honest with yourself.

Noah watched as Fareeha continued to hold the lead.

Doesn't it make you wonder how could such a wonderful woman ever love you? Angela was already high above your standards, and you barely went down a level with Fareeha. Are you actually trying to bring people down, Noah?

"Noah!" He snapped out of his delusion and faced Fareeha. "Are you okay? You spaced out again."

"I'm fine. Let's keep moving," he urges.

She stops him mid-step, "Are you sure? You've been trapped here for months. If anything happened to you, please tell me."

The concern was so nice. Other than Sombra, no one else at Talon would've cared if he hurt himself or even died.

"I don't deserve any of you."

"Hm?"

"Nothing. I'm just tired. You don't always get rescued by Overwatch from a Talon base, right?" He winked and tried to smile. She stepped forward and grabbed his hand. He blushed when she did, but she rolled up his sleeve. Welts and bruises from his beatings were still there and she scowled at them. "They're going to pay."

"Let's just get out of here first. I just want to sleep in my warm bed back home." Home. Just being near his friends was home enough for him, but the beds at Gibraltar aren't the worst.

He almost groaned when she rolled up his other sleeve. "Jesus. Noah, what did they do to you? And be honest with me." He looked at her and the nightmare version returned. The concern on her face was no longer there, instead disdain resided in its place as void, pupilles eyes stared at him. "I...I-"

"There they are!" Fareeha pushed Noah down as they dodged Talon soldiers' fire. She picked up her gun and returned fire. The few that didn't retreat fell to her attack. She sighed in annoyance before running to the doorway and sealing it shut by jamming her rifle through the handles.

"Noah, let's go!" He got up and ran after her.

You can keep running Noah, but you'll never catch up.

He scowled and managed to catch up with Fareeha. The captain was on her comms again and managed to get a signal as they begin to ascend the stairs. "Come on, come on, answer!"

Noah turned around and saw more Talon soldiers. He raised his gun up to provide covering fire for the both of them.

Meanwhile, Angela was being held back. "Zarya, let me go!"

"You're asking for death! If you go down there, how many soldiers do you expect to fight? It will be too much for you." The medic continued to struggle against the Russian woman's grip. "And you are letting one of our comrades die down there! You cannot expect me to stay still while Fareeha is in danger."

Winston walked to the struggling pair, "Angela, please, you must be calm. You might give our position away."

Angela stopped struggling and limply hung in Zarya's grasp. She was losing it. Fareeha fell into the hole and hadn't flown out. Her armor must've been damaged and who knows who's down there waiting to kill her. It was unbearable.

"Hold on. Wait, I'm hearing something. Switch to my channel and listen. Everyone please follow." Angela and everyone else that wasn't with them switched to Winston's channel. Burr and Ana were hiding in the cells when they heard Fareeha.

"Come in?! Come in?! This is Pharah! I'm in the barracks in the underground area! Req-" A loud gunshot was heard along with another voice. "Damn it! Fareeha, they found us! Where the hell is back up?!"

"It's coming! Hurry up, we can't hold our position for long!"

Everyone, especially Angela, Burr, and Lena froze when they heard that voice. Tracer and her group went onward toward the barracks as did everyone else when Burr saw several Talon soldiers below him. He jumped down surprising the group of soldiers with his abrupt landing. With the new information, the agent tore through them until one was left. He grabbed the soldier by the throat and lifted him up. "Where are the barracks? Talk before I crush your larynx."

The soldier pointed to the barracks and Burr knocked him out. At this point, Ana actually found herself trying to catch up to him. She hoped that somehow things were going to get better for them. The battle gets harder with every step and every soldier. Each one appears well-rested, fresh, while Overwatch's stamina is slowly being chipped away. Even someone with as much skill as Gerard like Burr eventually got tired. Ana pulled out her nano-booster. She managed to keep one on her in case of emergencies and she knew that now more than ever the situation might call for it.

Her daughter would agree as she and Noah jumped into a closet. They stood there quietly as Talon soldiers ran past them. If they made so much as of a peep, it could give their position away. Their backs touched as they waited for the footsteps of enemies to leave them be and all the while Fareeha just enjoyed finding her friend. Granted, it would've been better if he hadn't been taken in the first place, but she had to appreciate what was given. Talon was either going to be defeated or live to fight on another day. It didn't matter to her. Because right now, the one she cares for wall back with her.

"Jesus Christ, it's going to take us forever to sneak through here. You wouldn't happen to have a spare comm link?" She shook her head no and he rolled his eyes. "That's fine, I'm sure we can find something."

"Sure, just let me know when you see something." He smirked and slowly opened the door. He peeked out and walked out with caution. "The coast seems clear, we'll just have to be sneaky." Fareeha nodded and followed him until Noah opened the door next to them.

When he did, the other side revealed to them a Talon operative in that special set of armor he'd seen before meeting up with Fareeha. He went to shut the door, but the operative stopped him and struck him in the chest. He went flying back and hit the wall hard. Fareeha saw this and pulled out her gun. The Talon operative tilted their head before assuming a stance. They threw a high kick in which Fareeha caught and countered with an open palm strike. She struck the helmet hard and disoriented her opponent. Not wasting anytime she threw a hard hook, but the operative recovered quickly and grabbed Fareeha. They twisted her arm to go behind her back effectively disabling and further movement on her end.

"AH!" Fareeha's arm began to twist as the operative smiled underneath their mask. They didn't see Noah moving behind them before he pistol whipped them in the back of the head. They let go of Fareeha as Noah kicked them hard in the stomach and raised his gun toward their head before pulling the trigger. Dodging the shot, they slapped the gun out his hand and tackled him to the floor. They grabbed his throat and began to squeeze the life out of him. Noah slapped them, clawed at their mask, and struggled for freedom, but it didn't come until Fareeha stabbed them in the shoulder with a knife she took from the armory.

Fareeha jumped on their back and repeatedly stabbed them again and again until they grabbed her from her shoulder and flipped Fareeha off them. She hit the ground hard and groaned as the operative raised their foot to crush her skull. A blue beam came to their view and left a gaping hole in their chest before the act was committed. The operative looked to see Noah on one knee and his hand glowing with blue energy before he fell back on the floor.

"Oh my God. Noah, what is that?"

"New toy. From a friend." He got up and rubbed his throat as he walked over to Fareeha. He offered a hand and she gladly accepted it. He looked at the dead operative and walked over. "Noah, what're you doing?"

"Finding comms. I know a person that could tell us what's going on here. They'll know what to do." He grabbed the comms from the helmet and sifted through the many channels. "Sombra? Sombra? Come in."

"Noah? Shit, are you out already? I hope so because things are not looking too good over there."

"I'm still here, Sombra. Where are you?" There was silence as Fareeha watched him wait for an answer.

"What the hell are you still doing there?! Don't you know the whole place is gonna come down on your head?"

"What're you talking about?"

"The guys who run this group are going to blow this mountain up. You have forty five minutes at best to get out of there or else you'll be buried under thousands of tons of rubble!"

Noah's eyes widened as he looked at Fareeha fearfully. "Luckily I thought this through. I establish one of my longest ranged translocators in the cave system below. An escape plan for myself, but I think it can be expanded upon by your team. Get to the translocator, voice activate it with the code I send, and you and your friends will be free! I'll send the location to you now."

The communicator lit up and showed the location. "Fareeha, tell everyone we gotta get out of here."

"What? Why do we have to do that?" Noah stood up and reloaded his gun. "Because this entire place is rigged to blow and we forty five minutes before it all goes to hell." Fareeha grabbed his communicator and downloaded the information.

Everyone's communicator rang and they looked to see a location in the caves below. 'Do Not Stall. This Is A Full Retreat.'

"Give me your communicator. I need to tell everyone." She did and he grabbed it. Pressing on all contacts, he let his voice be heard, "Alright listen everyone, I've just been informed that the Talon leaders have escaped and are planning to bury us all underneath this rock. We have forty three minutes to reach the cave systems below and find a translocator. Get there immediately and meet up with Fareeha and I."

Everyone immediately agreed and continued their way into the barracks. The caves were below that area. Burr and Ana were running the hardest to catch up. With the map Noah sent, they saw that prison cells were the furthest away. "We can't catch up, Burr, it'll take us too long to catch up to them."

Burr scanned the room as they ran and saw an elevator. He ran over to it and opened the doors. He looked up and down to see where it was. "The quickest way from point A to B is a straight line." Ana rolled her eye as Burr jumped down. Ana quickly followed and saw Burr form a shield and slid down the walls on it. She felt the wind blow against her skin as she reached out. Burr grabbed her hand and pulled her down. The two rode down the elevator shaft with the expanded shield scraping the walls.

"Burr, how're we going to land?"

"I got a plan! But I need your rifle!" She handed him her gun as he took aim. "Hold on!"

He fired one round and the bullet cut the cord. They both jumped up and grabbed it. The two suddenly went flying. The sudden change of falling to rising almost made the two face whiplash when Burr let the cord go and the two landed on an elevator doorway. Burr panted hard when Ana laughed. "That was highly unnecessary, but fun." She grabbed the elevator door and pulled it open.

"I'm really starting to wonder who's really old here." Ana shook her head and opened it. They were at the barracks level. Behind them, the wraith returned and held out his gun. Ana caught on this time and turned her rifle toward it. Two fingers. Two triggers. Two gunshots. One fallen.

Burr grunted loudly as he held his side. Reaper's smoking gun lay on the floor with a small bullet hole in it. Ana fired another round and Reaper faded into the shadows. Burr fell onto the ground.

"Aw shit." Blood was pouring down his gut. Ana pulled out one of her needles and injected it into Burr. He grimaced in pain as the medicine worked on slowing the pain down. "That was foolish. Especially considering you have those shields."

"Didn't think that through did you?" Burr and Ana looked up to see Reaper. He shot Ana in the chest and kicked Burr. Burr groaned, but got up and threw a hard left. Reaper caught it and felt the metal hand beneath. "Interesting. I see you got something to replace what I've taken. Let's fix that."

Reaper crushed the metal hand and Burr grimaced at his new hand being destroyed. He tore the prosthetic off and slapped Burr away. "You've been a thorn in my side for too long. You're almost as hated as Jack Morrison. And I'll tell you, that's no small feat."

Burr gritted his teeth when he threw another punch. It caught Reaper off guard, but it stopped in place when Reaper was hit. He screamed in pain as Reaper grabbed his other hand. "But soon to be like Morrison, you will die."

Ana tried getting up, but her chest was in too great of pain. The body armor stopped the bullet, but the force still packed a punch. She reached for her gun and fired blindly. The bullet nicked Reaper's hood, but didn't garner a reaction. That was until a cable went flying past his head and stuck to the wall. He turned and saw Widowmaker flying towards him! "Hands off!"

Ana looked with shock as Widowmaker kicked Reaper in the head before sliding onto the floor and firing two rounds into his kneecaps. Burr fell to the floor as Widow dropped her toxic bomb and grabbed Burr. Ana managed to get on her feet and help Widowmaker hold onto Burr. The two ran as fast as they could as Reaper was suffering in Widow's poison. He let out a scream of rage knowing he had let Burr slip through his fingers yet again.

The trio ran for awhile until Burr stopped them. The healing shot Ana gave him finally kicked in and was slowly sealing the wound. He gasped in relief before moving away from them and towards the wall. He looked at Widowmaker and smiled.

"I trust you found my note." Widowmaker nodded and looked at Ana. She held out her hand. "La paix." Ana looked at her hand and sighed.

"I hope I don't regret this, but سلم سلام." Burr smiled and walked up to them. "Alright girls we need to head to the caves. Widow can you lead the way?"

"Oui." She led the group downwards and pulled down her goggles. "Be ready for a fight, Burr." Burr nodded and summoned his shield.

The others were fighting their way through as well. Mercy backed Winston as he went into a primal rage and broke through the lines of many soldiers. The caves were on their route anyways so it only served to add more of an incentive. They tore through many Talon troops until they heard a loud boom. It was D-Va! She was out of her mech and falling to the ground. Mercy stopped following Winston and glided to her, but Tracer was there and caught here. Lucio came sliding in and provided a shield for everybody. It seemed that the pathway was being integrated into one as all the agents reunited.

Genji and McCree were working solidly together with the Dragonblade/Dead Eye combo. Mei provided solid defenses along with the turrets made by their weapons expert. 76 landed with Reinhardt as the tank hit the ground hard. 76 took advantage of the shield and became Reinhardt's right hand gunman. The combo allowed the two to protect more. Zenyatta stood next to Zarya and the two were fighting back to back. The orbs deflected any projectiles toward Zarya and the Russian provided shielding for the Omnic.

However even with everyone once again together. The constant waves of enemies whittled them away until one by one each were down. Talon was winning and Overwatch could barely keep up. When 76 fell, almost everyone was gone. Until Mercy came flying in.

"The doctor has seen enough. Heroes Never Die!" Golden light erupted over all the heroes until one by one they got up. And the fight continued. The doctor smiled at her handiwork as she took on a soldier swinging his gun like a club. She used her staff like an expert and took him down quickly. "Whoops. That looked like it hurt."

She pulled out her sidearm and fired away with McCree. Junkrat and Roadhog were riding around the battlefield, lighting it up with fire. "You're gonna love this next trick! Hit Roadie!"

Roadhog grabbed his scrap gun and fired away in a circle. All Overwatch agents took cover as the duo began clearing the room. Tracer rolled out under her cover and grabbed her pulse bomb. Throwing it like a frisbee, it whizzed passed Junkrat and Roadhog. It stuck to the wall before exploding and leaving a massive hole in its wake. The agents all ran for it as Talon operatives chased after them.

Meanwhile, Noah and Fareeha were running through the halls with the man-made setting slowly being replaced with natural rock. Fareeha stopped running and looked around. "Noah, in here." They turned and went through a pair of doors to find themselves on a balcony. The two were stunned to see the caves below.

It was massive. Ships, jets, living quarters, and experimental weapons were everywhere. "Holy crap. This place is enough to arm nations. How the hell can they even destroy this?"

"It seems impossible, but here, hand me your rifle. Let me scope out the area." Noah handed her the gun and she scouted their location. "Okay, so I can see the cave system we stored our vehicles in, but I find it unlikely that we'll make it there. And what does this translocator look like anyway?"

Noah pulled out his communicator and looked at the message. "Hold on. The location is a few hundred meters from here. And once we're there, it can be voice activated. We just have to make sure everyone else is here before we do." Fareeha nodded before grabbing Noah by the shoulder.

"Jump!" They both jumped off the balcony and Noah could see a tank pointing its cannon their way. The two managed to dodge the fireball of a balcony and roughly land on the ground below. Fareeha managed to do a front roll while Noah scrambled to get on his feet. The tank turned its attention on them and fired another shell. It barely missed them as the two took off running. Talon soldiers were alerted of their actions and soon the entire place was being turned on them.

Fareeha and Noah returned fire with limited success as each soldier seemed to have a fresh replacement. The captain ran toward a weapon cache and pulled out a grenade launcher. She loaded quickly before taking aim and firing at the tank. The black tank took the grenade and appeared unharmed. It didn't reload, instead it simply floored it. It easily tore through all the mini structures and obstacles in its way as Noah pulled Fareeha down to the cave's edge. It drove right past them and crashed into the wall.

"Get up. Get up!" Noah panted as he pulled Fareeha along. He held out his hand and fired a beam near the tank. He hit several energy cores and the two were blown back by the force of the explosion. They were blown into a room which sealed itself off. Noah grabbed onto Fareeha and, taking the brunt of it, slid against the floor before crashing into the wall.

Noah took a few deep breaths as he looked down and saw that he was still holding Fareeha tightly. "You ok?" Fareeha was holding onto his arm and nodded. He let go of her and she rolled off him. He stood up and rubbed his neck. This battle was taking a lot out of him and the injection Sombra gave him was beginning to noticeably wear down. The fatigue he had been in was returning with a vengeance. He leaned over and Fareeha caught him.

"Are you ok? You took a nasty hit." He nodded and tried pushing himself off, but fell onto the floor. "I'm fine. I just need to make it." He panted harder. His vision was getting blurry as he fell to the ground again.

"Noah! Stay awake! Shit, what the hell happened to you?" Noah painfully chuckled. "I blew up a tank, fought a considerable amount of soldiers, and was running most of the way. I'm understandably tired."

Fareeha saw the wounds and took note of everything. His hands were calloused and worn, the armor was barely holding up, his heart rate was erratic, and his eyes were looking into her's with a mixture of worry and a trace of fear. "You need Mercy."

"I could use that actually."

"No. Angela. She needs to heal you." Noah's mind flashed back to Mercy's death and the phantom that plagued his mind. "No, no. That's-That's fine. I-I can do without her help. I can fend for myself. You need to get out of here."

"What're you talking about? One of the reasons we're here is to rescue you." Noah's eyes widened as he tried repressing the dreams. "No, you don't have to do that. I'll just slow you down. You should focus on other things. Not me. You'd be better off without me." It was all swirling around him. The adrenaline of battle had now worn off and the visions haunting him have returned with force.

"Are you-? What're you rambling about? Come on. We have to move. I'll carry you if I have to." She reached out to pull him up and he slapped her hand away. "No! You'll just get killed if you stay with me. You need to get a move on!"

She was perplexed. This wasn't the Noah that fought by her side earlier. He seemed to be regressing to something basic. "I'm not leaving you. Noah, none of us want to abandon you."

"Then you're all fools. I'm just a dead weight to you. I have done nothing, but worry and hurt you. I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't do that." Fareeha pulled him up. "Noah! Listen to me! I don't care what you think you are. You are my ally, my friend, someone I care for with all my heart. We've come here to save you and I will not have you prattle on about being dead weight."

Noah was stunned at the speech and looked down. Fareeha seemed to have broken through. "I don't deserve any of you. I should've ran away. It would've hurt, but you all would've moved on. I just keep hurting you guys. I was too incompetent to escape Deadlock. I used my death to hide from you. My promises to Lena and Angela broke already. Even bringing you here was my fault. Every drop of blood you spill today whether theirs or yours is all my fault. Why do you even care!"

Fareeha stood appalled. "You're our-"

"Do not say it is because I'm a friend. Even you have your limits. How can you possibly care for someone who's been nothing but a pain!" She kneeled there looking at him. His eyes were no longer serious or collected. They were a painful mix of anger, craze, need, and sadness. They seeked justification. "How could I-" She stopped herself. Noah looked at her with pleading eyes.

He was seeing if he was right. Fareeha would see her mistake, get up, leave, and seal him away in this room. It made so much sense in his head. The gears were clearly turning in her head and Noah let his head drop. The answer he seeked was going to come true.

Her hands came up and grasped his head. He looked up in total surprise when she kissed him. His mind was going overboard and slowly fell under its strength. The tension in his body melted away as the kiss continued. They parted and Noah couldn't stop his heart from beating any faster than anything else in the world. Fareeha held a bright blush, but her eyes were happy, content, and understanding.

"How could I go so far? I would go to the edge of the world toward the bitter end for my family in Overwatch. You included. Noah, I-I…" He stopped her and kissed her again. He held onto her tightly and refused to let go. The broke it again and Noah sat up. "Fareeha, I understand how you feel. I...think I can relate to that. And there's nothing I want more in the world than to be with you guys, but...I can't do it. They shattered me. Fareeha, I am broken."

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Thank you to SimplyKen for being my beta. It was cleaned up nicely with everything going great. So how would you rate this? Fav and Review plus I hope you ready for the next chapter. Someone's gonna die ;)