I was still new to Overwatch; I got lost a few times, but was able to find my way to the third floor common roon. Just as Angela said, Mei was there, and from the looks of it, she was in her sleeping clothes; an oversized shirt and blue fuzzy pants. She was drinking tea, and talking to Zenyatta the damn Can, floating in midair like some damn robotic monk.

I felt the anger growing in me. How could she talk to that fucking thing?

I saw my reflection in her glasses. I was some big Ruskie who was yelling at them. Of course I was scaring her; she was so tiny. Suddenly I was ashamed. I didn't mean to scare her; I never wanted to scare her.

No, I couldn't be that big, mean Ruskie. I couldn't scare her again. If that meant swallowing my pride and getting close to an Omnic…then so be it.

"Hello?"

Both of them looked up.

"I, I was hoping to talk to you, Mei," I said. I could feel myself blushing.

"It sounds like you need privacy," Zenyatta said. "I will leave you. I will be meditating in my quarters if I am needed."

"Thank you, Zen," Mei said.

I stepped aside so the Ominc could float passed me. There was plenty of room, but I didn't want to get close to him.

"Thank you for being civil," he said. Then, he whispered. "You must know that this is a safe place. I know there are terrible things done in Russia."

"Da, Angela told me."

"Then I am glad."

What was this world coming to? I could tell the damn Omnic was sincere. I watched him as he floated on out, not a care in the world.

"You're up late," Mei said, making me remember what made me find her. Other than Angela's insistence.

"You are, too," I mumbled. What was I supposed to say?

"What kept you up?"

"I..."

What should I say?

Fuck it.

"Do you like me?" I stammered.

Mei was taken back. I thought she would blush, or run, but she laughed instead.

"You've been talking to Mercy, haven't you?"

"Y-yes…"

"She knows how to be direct," Mei said, all smiles. I let myself stare at her. This was either safe, or a trap that I deserved to fall for. "Yes, I do."

"You…you do?" I couldn't think of anything to say, nothing better than that.

"I wanted to tell you that when I first saw you," she said. "But I didn't want to make things…weird. Especially if you didn't like women. I had to ask Zenyatta for help."

"Why ask him for help?"

"It may surprise you, but he actually has really helpful advice," she said. "He's really good at reading people, too."

"Help. Strange for an Omnic to give help."

"If there's one thing I found out, the world is full of strange things," she smiled. I couldn't take my eyes off that smile. "Being gay, well, openly gay, is new to me. I already asked Fareeha for advice, too."

"I'll have to ask her. I don't know how to be gay."

"That makes two of us," she laughed. "What made you pretend to be straight?"

I snorted. This pretty woman didn't understand.

"You cannot be gay in Russia."

"What do you mean?"

I sat down next to her.

"You never heard of Occupy Paedophilia, have you?" I asked. "Many Russians, nearly half, think that being gay is a disease, a sickness. Like you'd catch a cold. There are people who try to trick gays to outing themselves, and they beat them."

"There has to be a law against that!"

"Oh, there's a law, alright," I said. "Have you ever heard of the 'On Protecting of Children from Information Harmful to their Health and Development' amendment?"

"That's a mouthful."

"Da. A mouthful, but it is an amendment to Russian law."

"You can't mean it bans homosexuality," she gasped.

"No, it doesn't ban it. But it bans the mention of it where children might see it; for their 'protection.' And if you can't talk about it, well, hard to say how it might be a real thing."

"You mean you can't even show a picture of a woman holding a woman's hand?" Mei said. "Or a rainbow?"

"Only if you want to be arrested," I said. "When I was ten, they tried to have a Gay Pride Parade. The police arrested anyone they could get their hands on."

"They can't do that."

"It was better than what the Occupy Paedophilia goons did to them."

"Then…How can you be so calm about this?"

"Because I had to be. Because everyone had to be. You cannot speak out against the state, so you learn to live with it. I found myself looking at girls more and more as I grew up, but I knew better than to act upon it. I never, ever wanted to end up like those who were caught."

"Then how did you find any help? You're too comfortable with saying you're, well, gay. I've seen people who have been in denial all their lives, they don't take it well when they have to out themselves."

"There are still places where you can say what you are," I said. "Message boards. Forums. Places online. Un-indexed, of course; dark and hard to find. Those are the safest, but they are still dangerous."

"How can they be dangerous?"

"Russians believe that gays are pedophiles. Many Russians, anyways." I shifted in my seat. I was better at admitting what I was, but it still rubbed some part of me the wrong way. "They say gays are children rapists, animal fuckers, or Omnic spies."

"That's insane. Who says that?"

"Nearly every school teacher I've ever had. When I first realized what I was…I was in a bad place. Finding out I liked women sent me to a worse one. I never wanted to seduce a child, to have a dog have its way with me, or to help a fucking Omnic. They said that's what I was, but I felt none of those things. It took me a long time, and the right message boards, to realize the lies.

"You have to be careful. You have to find the right message boards, and they are hidden. You have to speak in code, and you have to figure out what the code is to begin with. But the people who post things; I've never met them, meeting in person is too dangerous, but they were the loveliest people I've ever met. When I was in a bad place, they helped make me better. And when others said they were in the same place, I helped them, too."

"Why can't you meet them in person?"

"Occupy Paedophilia reads the boards, too. They like to make traps, lure people out. Make it seem like there is a safe place, then spring their trap. That is why you cannot be gay in Russia. They will find out."

Mei took my hand. God, she was so tiny.

"How can you fight for them?" Mei asked. "Why fight for them?"

"Because it is my home," I said. "I love my home. When I was a girl, the First Omnic Crisis destroyed my village. I still have nightmares from it. You cannot know the damage they did; there was nothing left. When we were able to return, after Overwatch destroyed them, we had to rebuild everything; there was nothing but rubble. Seeing my home destroyed, I hated them. Everyone hated the Omnics. I hated them, and it made me mad seeing how weak we were."

"But they—"

"You cannot live in Russia and hate it. Patriotism, no, nationalism is everywhere. If there is a soldier in a store buying food, everyone moves aside and lets them move to the front. Newspapers and news channels are little more than mouthpieces for the state. If you speak out against the President, you risk being beaten or killed.

"Do you know what that does to a person? To a child? Russia is everything. It is their life, just as important as your family. Growing up, I wanted Russia to return to its former glory. To return to when we were truly strong, before the fall of the Wall. It isn't a choice, it is beaten into you at every turn. You don't just walk away from that."

"Then how do you live?" Mei asked. "How can you fight for something that would hurt you without even thinking about it?"

I couldn't think of anything to say. I still loved my country, I truly did. But knowing of the people whom I talked to on the message boards, knowing that many of them disappeared, I still couldn't bring myself to hate my country.

"I am gay. And I love my country," I finally said. "That is all I know, all I care about. Look at me, making a scene. I'm probably just another big Ruskie, scaring you off."

"I'll be lying if I said there was a part of me that says I should leave," Mei said. "But I don't care what it says."

I looked at her.

"How? Why?"

"You're not the only one with a story to tell," she smiled. "You asked me before how old I was. Well, I'm actually very old."

"Yes, you said something about cryogenics, didn't you?"

"I did," she said. "But that comes later. Growing up, I guess you could say that I was like you. In China, my parents didn't believe in gays. They thought it was…a sickness, I guess. They never talked about it, like it never existed. You see, years ago in China, decades ago, people were limited to only having one child. And everyone wanted a boy. It took them a while to realize that if everyone had boys, there wouldn't be enough girls to carry on the family tree."

"Little short-sighted, no?"

"Very," she smiled. It was nice to see her smile so big. "My parents couldn't even comprehend me being gay. I don't even think they would have. They were always setting me up on blind dates, introducing me to boys. I knew that I couldn't get away from it, so I let them. I let them show me around, show me off to their friends, always telling others 'we have a daughter!' I even had plenty of boyfriends."

I was awfully jealous of the boys.

"And it never ended. Even when I went away to university, they were always putting my name out there, telling others of their beautiful, smart daughter who would make a good wife. Always asking me when I would settle down. I hated it, but I knew I couldn't have it any other way.

"I studied environmental change in university. How the planet is warming, the effects it will have on a global scale, all of that. I joined Overwatch to help combat runaway climate change. You wouldn't think it, but the floods, hurricanes and droughts that hit the world are caused by rapid climate change."

"Really?"

"Really," she said, that warm smile creeping into the corner of her lips. It was something she cared greatly about. "I wanted to make a difference, to help save the world from itself. I was ultimately assigned to a Watchpoint in Antarctica. I loved the challenge, to study first-hand how to best counteract global warming. But I would be gone for a year, easily. And there was this girl that I liked."

She shook her head.

"I was going to tell her how I felt about her. I was going to tell my parents. But I never worked up the nerve. I promised myself, 'just tell them when you get back. It's only a year. You don't want to disappoint mother and father.' Too bad I never came back after that year."

"What happened?"

"A massive blizzard completely cut us off from the world," she said. "Destroyed nearly everything. We had no food, very little fuel. To save ourselves, we entered cryostasis to wait for a rescue mission. The next thing I know, I was waking up to a strange new world. I was in cryo for decades, the only one to survive."

"What happened to the others?" I asked.

"As the facility lost power, their cryopods unfroze," she said. "They probably starved to death, or froze, or suffocated."

How could she be so cheerful, so easy to smile?

"Well, when I was rescued and woken up, I missed many, many things. My parents passed away. The girl I liked, she either she never liked women or she forced herself to marry a man. She has three children now, and is middle aged. That is why Ana, Fareeha and Mercy know me, because I worked with them before I was frozen."

"And why you look so young."

"Yes, that too," she laughed. "I missed so much of life. So I made a promise to myself: I wouldn't let any other chance pass me up. I won't let another Xiuxiu slip through my fingers." She turned to me, taking my hands. "Zarya, I like you. I think you're the prettiest woman I've ever seen, and I want to get to you better."

"I…I..." I mumbled. My heart was pounding in my chest. "I don't know how to be gay. I have only told people online, behind screen names and proxy servers. Never, never like this."

"Zarya, it's fine," she smiled gently. "I've been there. If you need to take your time, just say so. But if you want to try being out in the open, I'm right here. And you know that you can always talk to Angela or Fareeha."

She looked at me, and I couldn't help but look at her. The next thing I knew, tiny little Mei had wrapped her arms around me.

"This isn't Russia. You can be who you really are here."

I missed my country. I missed being in the fight. But maybe being here wouldn't be so bad. Maybe it could be great, even.

My orders were to get Overwatch back into the Omnic Crisis. It was a long game, so maybe I could take my time and truly enjoy this safe place.

"I know you're not ready to be very open," Mei said, "so I want to apologize."

"Apologize? For what?"

The next thing I knew, she was kissing me. A quick peck on the lips, but it felt like the entire world was slamming to a halt.

"I promised myself that I would kiss the next pretty girl I saw," she smiled. "Sorry, but I want to keep this promise."

It felt like I was going to burst into flames.

"When you're ready for anything, please tell me," she smiled. "And please don't think any less of me for stealing that kiss."

I've never been kissed before.

It felt right.

I watched her leave. My orders could wait. I wanted to feel this again, to be wanted and desired. Come whatever may, I would fight for this feeling, for this place.