Fareeha looked over her friend, her soft smile becoming a slight frown as she heard Angela admit to thinking she was losing her mind. It had been some time since they had caught up, but it wasn't like Angela to let anyone in on how she was truly feeling. She was always the one who people came to, not just for medical attention. The woman had been one of the strongest people she had known, ever since she was a kid. She remembered the visits to this place, her mother always running off to talk about 'Overwatch this' and 'Protecting that'.
Of course no matter how annoying her mother had been, Fareeha had always known that deep down it was for a good cause. Plus she got to meet and be close with some of the greatest heroes that all of the kids in school looked up to. Though most of them asked about Reinhardt, the charismatic knight in shining armor, none asked about the one woman who was just as important. The angelic medic who made sure to keep the team alive, the caretaker who's family was her sole duty to protect. Fareeha had always looked up to Angela just as much as her own mother, if not more in certain ways.
Fareeha sighed softly and scooted closer, pulling Angela's head onto her shoulder and rubbing it slowly. It was an old move that Fareeha had been through a few times in her life. She might not have the same caress or soft touch that Angela had, but she did her best. She didn't speak, merely rubbing that golden hair slowly, feeling the soft heartbeat of the woman against her chest.
Angela was surprised as her head was brought against Fareeha's shoulder, her hair being stroked rather slowly and calmly. She took a soft breath, doing her best to hold in the hot tears that she could already feel coming. Instead she smiled and pushed herself a bit more against Fareeha, her hand coming up to grab at the woman's shirt and tightly gripping it. Her heart was beating quickly, her cheeks a tad flushed as she tried to keep herself calm.
"You don't have to talk about it, but holding it in will only hurt more." Fareeha spoke softly as she stroked Angela's head, the words ringing in the woman's ears as one's that she herself had spoken. There had been more than a few times in Fareeha's childhood that she had been so angry at the world, so angry at everything. Her mind filled with the images of that day. Reinhardt, Torb, McCree, Angela and even Jack. All of them coming to her room as she waited for her mother. All of them coming in, their faces immediately painting the picture of what had happened.
"Fareeha... I'm... I'm sorry but..." Angela spoke softly, sitting beside the girl and pulling her close, doing her best to hold back the tears as she couldn't even imagine what the poor girl was going through.
"What's going on Angela? Why are all of you here? Where's my mom?" Fareeha asked softly, looking along the group of faces as she tried to get an answer from any of them. Each of the men looked away as the girl looked at them, unable to bring themselves to answer the question.
"Fareeha... you need to understand something..." Jack came close and knelt down, swallowing hard as he put his hand on the girl's shoulder. He finally looked her in the eyes, clenching his jaw a bit as he saw so very much of Ana in the girl. He had been wanting to tell the girl something important for a while, he had been wanting to tell her that she had more than her mother. To hold her in his arms and call her what she was, instead of having to be so proper with her. But now, how could he admit to such a thing after failing her in such a way?
"Understand WHAT? TELL ME! TELL ME NOW!" Fareeha was getting frantic, her lips quivering a bit as tears began to work their way into the corners of her eyes. This had to be some sort of cruel joke. They were all just acting sad and mopey for no reason. Right?
"Your mother... she... she won't..." Angela tried to mutter out the news, choking hard on the words before Jack finally got it out.
"Your mother saved us Fareeha. She is a true hero, to us all. But she won't be coming home..." Jack felt himself hardening as he spoke, his heart growing a bit cold as he did his best to get the point across. He swallowed again before standing and turning to leave, unable to stand the room any longer.
Fareeha sat there, fists clenched as the man walked away from her after ripping her heart out. The other men still weren't looking at her, all of them instead looking at their feet or at anything that wasn't the broken little girl.
"You... You..." Fareeha sputtered a bit, her body growing hot with rage as she glared at the back of Jack's head, eyes filled with hatred at the man she blamed, having nobody else.
"YOU'RE A DAMN LIAR!" She yelled, pushing Angela away from her and standing before pointing at Jack with malice. "SHE CAN'T BE GONE, SHE CAN'T BE DEAD. YOU'LL SEE, SHE'LL COME BACK AND SHE'LL... SHE'LL..." Fareeha's anger had her breathing heavily, tears now streaming freely down her cheeks before she clenched her fists into balls and let out a pained scream, the room echoing the noise and making the men and Angela flinch from the sharp tone.
Jack took a deep breath, the ringing in his ears settling as he left the room. He grit his teeth as he made his way down the hall, stopping for a second to punch one of the walls repeatedly, to the point that his knuckles began to bleed slightly. The pain wasn't enough, not after what he had just put the girl through.
Angela grabbed the girl and pulled her into a tight squeeze of a hug, quickly rubbing her head and holding back her own tears as she tried to console the child to the best of her ability.
"Calm down Fareeha, it will be okay... We're all still here for you... we won't ever leave you... it's okay..."
Fareeha took some slow breaths as she remembered the day, swallowing a bit at the words that she had shouted at the man in anger, even though she knew he wasn't to blame. She had just needed an outlet, and it so happened to be him. She was a little ashamed that she had never been able to properly apologize, the last she had spoken to him being to his gravestone. She shook her head a bit to get the negative thoughts from her mind, as right now she needed to focus on Angela. Her own problems could wait.
Mercy basked in the slight warmth and comfort that Fareeha was giving her, her mind starting to slowly stop racing and let her see things in an order that she could somewhat explain.
"I've been seeing things Fareeha... things that aren't really there. Things that feel real, until I wake up to find out that they aren't." Angela began to talk, her tone soft and serious, the images of what had been happening the past few days coming back to her mind.
"I saw... I saw Gabriel. He was here and yet he wasn't. I saw Genji too, but he was... so..." Mercy began to sniffle a bit as she remembered the man that had stood before her in the horrific dream.
"Well these things, these visions, they aren't real. We both know that. Perhaps you are just tired? We both know how you sometimes go a little too long without rest." Fareeha tried to lighten the mood a bit, keeping the woman held against her as she felt the warmth of tears against her shoulder.
"It's not that. Something happened during my last mission Fareeha. There was this AI... Anubis..."
"Anubis? The God Program that controlled all those Omnics? How was it still active?" This new revelation intrigued Fareeha, as she had looked over the reports for that certain AI before. It was said that it had been destroyed back in the day, yet here she was being told that it was the exact opposite.
"Y-yes.. He held my team and I captive. The things I saw while I was held were living nightmares, and it seems that... they've followed me out." Mercy tried to hold herself together as her body shivered a bit, the back of her neck starting to ache a slight bit as she rolled her head slightly to relieve the pain.
"Well, I don't really know what I can do..." Fareeha began to comfort the woman, her hand rubbing Mercy's neck and shoulders softly with a small smile, hoping to help in some way. Mercy blinked and looked up at the woman, eyes going wide as the face of Ana stared back at her, eye wound front and center. The sight of it made Mercy's stomach drop and churn heavily, almost making her sick right there on the spot. Ana spoke, mouth curling into a wide smile as her good eye began to glow a bit red, her voice a bit distorted.
"...Are we having a good time yet Angela?"
