Chapter 9

The Little Bird's Treasure

Jack stared at the ceiling.

That hadn't changed for a while. Not when she had entered the room, not when they started to talk.

"Some kind of shock collar, huh? Winston thinks it'll work?"

Jack's voice sounded beaten. Not just like someone who had a bad day, more like a marathon runner that came in fourth place after leading the field for an hour.

"He does. Lena and Amélie were relieved, too."

Her patient twitched at those names, clearly agitated. He began to grumble in blind fury.

"Back in my day I would've rammed the butt of my rifle square to that cocky brat's face!"

Just as he tried to sit up, Angela held him gently down by the shoulder. That finally earned her the grizzled veterans attention. His begrudging gaze produced a shiver in the area around her neck, but it was nothing she couldn't handle.

"We're not in the good old days anymore Jack. Please, you need to rest. The burden is no longer on you."

Jack wouldn't resist a lady, plus this headache was killing him. So he let himself get pushed back down into the cushion. Even though the doctor smiled, it stung. Morrison was commander no longer, yet the sense of duty would never truly vanish.

He thought back to the moment when his reflexes failed him.

"I would've taught that Lena girl a lesson even then, if it wouldn't hurt so much."

"What do you mean?"

"Being betrayed. Shocks me every time."

There was an uncomfortable silence in the room for a while. Both of them had not expected for him to admit to something like this. Their thoughts drifted to Gabriel.

It had been paralyzing, to get attacked by one of his own agents… again. He couldn't move, didn't want to move anymore. He had felt miserable. A failure as commander. What else could he call himself?

That's why Jack had chosen to become a lone wolf vigilante in the first place.

Soldier 76.

Unfit to lead.

"It's not the same Jack. Lena surely doesn't think of you in a bad way, she has just grown very protective of Amélie."

Wasn't he supposed to be protective of his best friend's wife? He knew that the murder had been Talon's work, not that of Gerard's gentle and ever so cheerful spouse. If only it wasn't so impossible to trust.

In a way he was jealous of little miss Oxton.

He hoped this collar would work. He hoped that it wouldn't even have to work, that one day he could apologize to miss Lacroix for being so mistrustful. To finally share his condolences.

That would be nice.

Jack started to stare at the ceiling again.

There was a sad smile, a wish for him to get better, to not worry so much. A small kiss on the forehead. Then the doctor took her leave.

Angela leaned against the closed door of her office, shut her eyes and let out a heavy sigh.

This was way too much for one day. It felt like an emotional rollercoaster running on repeat.

The doctor didn't want to, but she would have to open her eyes again at some point. She began with the left one.

A pair of curious, yellow eyes looked back at her from below, sitting on a small stool inside her doctor's office.

Angela contemplated on closing that eye again.

She did.

Half a minute went by before she opened it back up. Amélie had her head tilted sideways now, watching the doctor with furrowed eyebrows.

Did I expect her to vanish or something?

She cracked up a bit at that, immediately clearing her throat afterwards and blinking her eyes open.

"Sorry there, I needed a second to think."

Amélie smiled shyly at the doctor. Angela was a bit surprised to see no confusion in her eyes, but Lena and the others had probably gotten her used to worse behavior.

"Tell me, how do you feel?"

Angela moved over to another stool and sat down in front of Amélie, studying the woman. Her office was arranged in a very practical manner, so she could immediately reach for utensils like a multitude of bandages and remedies.

"It's… complicated."

Amélie was fidgeting with her hands and averting her gaze from time to time, before looking back at the doctor. The French girl was taller than Angela, yet she made herself smaller in front of her.

"I feel bad for what happened to monsieur Morrison. It's good to see everyone again. I'm surprised and relieved that I'm not in chains for…"

There was a sharp intake of breath from Amélie, struggling for a second. She needed to look into the doctor's eyes for this, her own amber gaze burdened with sorrow and regret.

"It's good to see you again, Angela. I'm so sorry for what I've made you go through, mon oisillon. Je suis vraiment désolé…"

The doctor felt herself tense up. Just as Jack and Gerard, the two women also had been best friends once. A long time ago.

Mon oisillon.

Little bird, was it? It felt odd to be called that way again. The most curious thing however was that Amélie didn't even try to hide behind Talon. She was sorry for her wrongdoings.

"So you have a full recollection of what you have done after Gerard's murder?"

It didn't look like Amélie had been expecting another reaction from Angela upon calling her by her old pet name. Only hoped.

"Oui."

"What have they done to you after that?"

"Completed conditioning."

"Which entailed what exactly?"

It was obvious that Amélie wanted to avoid a detailed description, but the doctor saw no way around it.

"I was… strapped into their medical lab and… tortured. Day and night. By shock mostly. They also pumped me full of medication until I felt no more. They lowered my heartrate to about 10 beats per minute in the process to achieve perfect aim with the rifle."

Amélie took a deep breath, shivering at the mere thought of continuing. She hated reliving the next part. In the meanwhile, the doctor was reaching for her stethoscope.

"Open up, please."

The pilot's jacket was opened without any hesitation. Her chest was exposed, the body suit still torn up below. Angela pressed the cold end of the stethoscope to the slightly less cold, blue chest, counting the beats.

There was something chilling about the three-second-long void in between them.

"Roughly 20 beats per minute. Your heartrate seems to have improved. Why would that be? And somebody has to get you new clothes."

Amélie blushed ever so slightly at that.

"I… laid off on my medication. And Lena is doing that right now…"

"Lena, huh? That won't end well for you."

There was a small chuckle between the two of them.

"About the medication: Why have you done so?"

"I wanted to feel more."

Angela regarded her cautiously.

"Continue please."

"Bien sûr. After they drained me of emotions, they tried to associate whatever feeling was left to me to killing. For that… they had some sort of… auto injector strapped to me. It would pump chemicals into my system that made me feel ecstatic at the moment of… the kill."

Another deep breath. Back when they began to make her perform murders, she still had a shred of conscience left to her. They took that, too.

"…t-they had captives… they made me… they pleaded for mercy… mon dieu"

'Refusal again, miss Lacroix? You disappoint. Bring her to the medical lab for another session!'

Amélie shivered.

"… t-they gave me a knife… they let me lose…the whole prison wing… entering each cell… it felt so good Angela… to see the life fade before my eyes!"

Her voice had grown excited, unbeknownst to herself. At some point between murders, Widowmaker had needed no encouragement anymore. The thrill had been addicting.

They made her do this. They made it feel so good. Something in her craved the feeling. It would be easy to break the doctors neck. She could be strong again. It would only take a second!

"Amélie, enough! Stay with me!"

She felt a firm grip dig into both her shoulders. Angela was staring back at her, eyes wide open in disbelief.

Becoming aware of herself, Amélie quickly erased the smile that had developed as she thought about the delicious feeling of ecstasy, surfacing each time she gutted some random nobody below her.

Amélie raised her hands, resting on the doctor's shoulders, staring at her oh so fragile neck.

A voice made her pause.

'Where we will go, you won't kill anyone anymore. If you do, I never want to see you again.'

Realization hit her that she was trembling all over. Her body was torn between the feelings of thrill and horror as she pondered on killing the doctor.

The horror quickly overwhelmed her. What was she doing?! She had promised!

"Je ne veux plus le faire! Vous ne me pouvez pas forcer de le faire!"

Angela was experiencing a similar horror, as she witnessed Amélie gripping her own head with both hands, pressing down on it as if she wanted to squash it in between them, screaming out in French. The breathing of her patient was erratic, eyes wildly looking around the office in a fit of paranoia.

It was all over as quickly as it came.

The doctor had rolled up with her stool and bent towards Amélie, gently pulling the hysteric girl into a firm embrace. One hand held her back while the other was softly straddling the head beside her.

There was a soothing whisper in her ear.

"Calm down Amélie, Schätzchen. It's okay. Nobody is going to make you do this ever again. I promise."

The strength in her body slowly let up. Amélie was breathless. It took a moment for her arms to uselessly fall to her sides. Her eyes regained their focus.

That was the second time today that somebody had to hold her. She was so pathetic, so weak. With a shudder, her hands reached back up to return the embrace.

Amélie held back tears. They welled up in her eyes, but not only because the urge to murder was clawing at her mind. Somewhere deep inside she had feared that her best friend would all but hate her by now.

There was an incredible feeling of relief to hear Angela's words, so much so that it drowned out all the destructive thoughts in her head. And it was triggered by something so small.

Schätzchen had been Angela's pet name for Amélie.

"We made an emergency quarter ready for you."

That's what Angela had told her.

After her breakdown and subsequent handling of her past, she felt as if some enormous burden was lifted from her shoulders. The doctor had asked a few more questions about minor details and checked her vitals. Then they even went for a cup of tea in the cafeteria.

There was a little smile on Amélie's lips. A therapy plan was laid out on the desk of her little quarter. She looked forward to it.

Her new, windowless lodging was nothing special. Aside from the bathroom there was a metal desk, a metal chair, a single bed with a metal frame, a metal cupboard and a television. At least she had a rug that wasn't made out of metal. It was pretty ugly though.

"Please be aware that you cannot leave the complex without Overwatch supervision. For your own safety."

Right. There's the catch. She was still at least something of a prisoner in here.

The collar on her neck reminded her of this, too. It had been cool at first, but now it had adjusted to her temperature. She didn't like the look of it. Amélie contemplated on this while checking herself out in the mirror together with the other head on her shoulder.

Wait what?

"Lena!"

Her heart skipped a beat. A whole six seconds of nothing.

"What'cha lookin' at, luv?"

The ex-pilot's arms found their way around her waist as she was hugging her from behind. Lena had to stand on her tip toes to pull this stunt off.

"Someone… who is vastly overdue to bring me new clothes!"

"D'aww, you missed me! You're so cute!"

Amélie was pressing her lips tightly together while color rose to her cheeks. This cocky, insolent brat never missed a beat.

"Not as much as being properly clothed."

"Why I think you'd look most proper without any clothes at all, but that's just me~"

She could see in the mirror how Lena wiggled stupidly with her eyebrows and pressed a little kiss to her neck. Amélie shivered and made her best impression of annoyance.

"You are really abysmal at flirting, just so you know Chérie."

That was a lie.

"You have to teach me, luv! C'mon, flirt with me!"

She resisted the urge punch that cocky grin off her face. Taking a deep breath, Amélie turned around to properly look at Lena. The girl had two bags behind her.

"Maybe. If I like what you have there."

"So in a minute then, got it!"

A minute later Amélie was looking at herself in the mirror again.

She was wearing a black shirt that somehow managed to be too loose at the top, so her shoulder would pop out, and too short at the same time, so her stomach wasn't covered at all. Lena had also bought her a pair of blue jeans hot pants and brown, high heeled sandals.

Amélie was speechless. She didn't even want to discuss Lena's choice of pink underwear. The Brit's head poked in again over her shoulder, grinning widely at her own creation.

"I am NOT walking through the base like this!"

That's where Lena revealed her plans.

"This is not for the base, dummy! We're going outside!"

"I can only go outside under supervision Le-"

Amélie turned around again and was stunned. Somehow Lena had also managed to change into something… less compromising. She wore a plain white polo shirt in combination with some blue running shorts and sneakers.

"Hi there lovely, I'm your supervisor for the day!"

Her chronal accelerator also looked way more casual, strapped to her chest by a harness made of some smooth, black fabric. It didn't have to be so big in a non-combat setting, apparently, as it was barely bothering her when Lena went in to kiss her speechless captive.

Amélie fell head over heels into the kiss. She had longed for Lena's lips ever since they had left that aircraft, although she would never admit to that. It was so sweet and over way too soon.

"You look gorgeous, luv."

"T-Thanks.."

"D'aww. That's it? You're awful at flirting, you know that?"

Lena teased her with a wink, took her by the hand and dragged Amélie along before the embarrassed, little blueberry could even respond.

By the time they reached the exit, Amélie could've died from all the side glances her new outfit had bestowed upon her. The absolute worst was when they heard Angela whistle insinuatingly somewhere behind them.

Jesse had been lucky to hold siesta at this time of day. He wouldn't have survived.

Bien sûr ~ Of course

Schätzchen ~ treasure (cutification)

Mon oisillon. Je suis vraiment désolé… ~ My little bird. I am so sorry...

"Je ne veux plus le faire! Vous ne me pouvez pas forcer de le faire!" ~ I don't want to! You cannot make me do it!

Ahh, there is so much stuff to write! The medical scene got a lot longer than expected.
It's so much fun to explore Widow's inner conflict! You just know she's gonna crack at some point.
I also should really stop promising smut...~
But next chapter, promise! <3

Morrison rant (for the unhappy)

There were some comments about Jack being badly written in the last chapter. I wasn't really fair to him then, so I tried to explain his behavior properly in this chapter. Again, same comment, without much explanation mind you. Well here's my thought process:

Fact is Jack's gotten old, and age lends itself to mistakes of the body and mind. His organization crumbled under him because his subordinates rebelled, so doubt about his own leadership qualities are a given. All of the characters in this story have some sort of trauma or inability. Jack is no exception. He's gotten insecure inside, especially when it comes to friendly fire. He opened up in this chapter to Angela because she is the most likely candidate for that. Therefore this was my best way of writing engaging exposition.

If that's not how you like him, I can't help. That's my fiction. The real Tracer isn't insane, but this one is. The real Widow isn't weak, but this one is. The real jack isn't a shell-shocked mess, but this one is. Honestly, when I was in the position of disliking how the other Widowtracer fanfics went, I started my own. You're free to do the same and make Jack as awesome of a side character as he deserves to be. When I get a review like this, saying I butchered a character, I can try to explain why they are this way in my fiction, but I can't just suddenly change a whole chapter. That feedback really only serves to get me down and think twice about continuing the story.