A/N:

Okay, so this is the last act, but not the definitive ending. In like a couple of days to a week (no promises though), I should have a very last very brief epilogue chapter uploaded. And that's all I have to say on that.

Content warnings: allusions and depictions of traumatic experiences (violent altercations/brutality, mild blood/gore, near-death experience, bomb explosion), suicidal ideation (fatal bullet injury), self-destructive behavior/unhealthy coping mechanisms, and catastrophic thinking. Message or review if you would like anything else to be added.

As usual, OCs and references can be located at the END of the act. Without further ado, I hope you enjoy the concluding act!

-Reddie

"We don't have time for this! Leave me!" Hanzo grits out, his wound soaking into his clothing.

Jesse disregards the words entirely, trying to scoop the injured man into his arms despite the bullets flying overhead. Hanzo snarls, shoving at the other man with a bloody hand. A crimson handprint soaks into the scarlet fabric, and the sight weakens Hanzo considerably. Metal fingers dig into his shoulder. A dizzying nausea seizes the bleeding archer with the thought that this would be the end.

On the brink of finding peace with it, Jesse's flesh hand comes up to seize Hanzo's arm, grip shaky.

Voice a notch too loud, Jesse cries, "Like hell I'm leaving you here!" The volume has Hanzo reacting just as violently in response.

"You promised not to be reckless!" Voice breaking, he cries, "We made a pact!"

"Sweetheart, trust me. I ain't a fan of breakin' promises."

It cracks Hanzo's heart like a bullet piercing glass, because this moment is perfect. He realizes, looking up into those worried umber eyes, that he wants to die like this. No other death is acceptable. Jesse can't take this from him. Hanzo won't allow it.

It hardly registers that Jesse is carrying him.

Losing coherence, he commands, "Put… me down…"

Jesse's gaze lids shut from Hanzo's bleary eyes, shaking his head as he murmurs something soft, something penitent. The words are lost to the agony of a trickling bullet wound in Hanzo's side, the way darkness consumes his consciousness.

What did he hear: a prayer, an apology? Neither felt right.

At 18:00, Hanzo awakes with a start to the alarm on his phone. The faint light filtering into his hotel room peeks through the curtains, drawing him to the window. If he looks out past it long enough, he can spot the London Eye in the distance, glowing against the last traces of the sun. It marks concrete evidence of a change in location. He is an ocean away from the bar in New York. And yet he still feels as though he has not moved an inch.

I am still here, he thinks to himself blankly, absentmindedly tracing the scar under his ribs.

A knock at the door grounds him in the present. Giselle calls him, draws him away from the window, forward into the present.

"Hanzo? It's time to leave. Coppélia is waiting for you."

He answers swiftly, reminded by the tightness in the director's voice of the recent debacle at the airport, how it left Giselle red-faced and hoarse from the extensive hold-ups to scan Coppélia as they came in from New York. Already, it proved to affirm for him how unkind this city could be to an omnic.

But London could be much worse.

A late November snow fell over the city last night. Standing before the London Royal Opera House in his only winter coat, it would make for a more breathtaking sight if the sidewalks had not been littered with anti-omnic protestors. Instead, he braces an arm over her frame, throat stifled and choked with inexplicable anger. Coppélia murmurs to herself, comforting, a wispy sound hardly audible over the rabble.

"All that matters is what I choose to be now."

Internally, he questions the worth of those words when faced with such a hateful crowd.

They find haven backstage. As Hanzo is called to briskly check the perimeter for threats, Coppélia, finally having a moment alone, unravels, steadying herself against a wall before crumpling to the floor, overwhelmed by all the emotions spinning through her processors. Her late master's gift, not for the first time, turns against her as a curse. She registers the shift in the din, voices calling everyone to their places as they get ready for the performance. The world whirls all around, the company moves forward, disregarding her. The show must go on. Where is her strength to stand when she needs it most?

Before she can process, Giselle gathers the dancer up into her arms, lifts her up to her feet. As Giselle slowly begins to let go, Coppélia finds herself holding on like a child, feeling undignified, but her director doesn't seem to mind either way. Coppélia stays there, cradled in her director's gentle arms.

"You're shaking." Fondly, Giselle asks, "Are you alright?"

"I can be," Coppélia answers tentatively, a trembling balance between outright truth and determination.

"Remember, I believe in you," she reasserts in that same tender tone, fingers splayed across Coppélia's shoulder plate. The dancer bows her head, humbled, wishing she could cry, smile, do something to show the director how much the words meant.

Metal fingers find their way to prosthetic ones, entwining briefly before releasing.

Giselle's heartbeat stumbles, and now it's her turn to feel undignified. Coppélia does not notice, would not judge even if a scan had been running.

"Thank you."

Giselle watches her go, just as before in so many performances. But the exhale she releases hollows out her ribcage, allowing room for something else to blossom, something altogether beautiful and terrifying. Her throat dries up, tightens in speechlessness as echoes of Amélie loom over her head. And the director holds her breath, hoping against hope that she will not drown again, half knowing and fully denying she'd already been pulled head over heels under the tide.

The crashing cymbals vibrate through her, turning her exhale into a sharp quiet gasp of "Russia". Running, she resolves that the present takes precedence, that she has worked hard to make what she has built now, and she must protect it with everything in her.

Hanzo finishes his rounds halfway into the first act of the production, but every ten or twenty minutes or so, Giselle sends him back off to check the perimeter again, as if paranoid. At first, it is unsurprising to him, as he himself was still a bit shaken over the crowd of protestors outside the theatre. To think a radical might have laid plot to infiltrate and harm her during the performance is not beyond rationality, unfortunate to think.

During intermission, she hunkers down next to him for a drink of water. As soon as he is half-relaxed, his name is thrown into the air from across the stage somewhere. Unconsciously, he breathes out a complaint of Giselle's exhaustive hypervigilance. The dancer knits her brows together, seeming angry, but almost pitifully wistful.

Veronika comments, "She doesn't want to see it happen again, I'm sure."

"Again?" Hanzo's eyes widen. Veronika seems to grow more frustrated by the repetition of the word, but he presses. "What was the first time?"

"A bomb," Are the only words Veronika can muster, deeply upset.

"Hanzo!" Giselle hisses, marching up to him, "I'm not paying you to slack off with the dancers! Go check the perimeter again!" At the involuntary beleaguered expression he makes, she fumes, "If you don't like it, then quit. It would save us the money if I did this myself too." The director turns her back on him, stomping away. He stares after her, prickled. He turns to Veronika, seeking sympathy.

For the first time, Veronika pushes him away, "Go on and apologize. She needs you now more than ever."

Veronika refuses to bring up their prior conversation when he approaches her after the show. Hesitant to talk to Giselle in her current temper, Hanzo decides later to investigate this bombing incident with Coppélia herself. But as soon as the performance is over, the dancer is disappearing through a backdoor, out into the chilly London streets. As she casts a brief backwards glance, he quickly realizes she is sneaking out alone.

She moves swiftly, feet light across the ground until she leaps, forcefully ascends from dumpster top to awning to roof and continues skipping across each surface like the floor of any stage. He feels his veins tighten, blood pounding in his ears as he rushes after her. He isn't worried about keeping at her heels so much as he is angry that she attempt something as reckless as this on his watch. Surely, she must know, must be painfully aware of what sort of danger could be waiting for an omnic celebrity in a city as tense as this.

They make it all the way to the edge of King's Row, an entrance to the Underworld right before her. She halts a figure emerging from the depths of the crowded makeshift city, pleading in her voice as she clasps her hands before them.

"Could you help me at all? I don't know where else to turn."

Hanzo does not expect the harsh reply, "I don't owe you anything, princess. Get lost, before I make you." They shove past her, but she seems panicked, reaching after one of them, grasping their shoulder.

"You don't understand. I don't have much time! Please-"

"I said, get lost!"

When a metal fist meets her side, he cries out, "Coppélia!" All eyes turn to him. The omnics waste no time fleeing as soon as they spot him. Coppélia staggers backwards, hand over the dent in her side. She grips at her other arm, shaking. As he steps forward, she shouts.

"Hanzo, get away from me!"

"Coppélia, what's wrong?" He tries to lift her arm, see the damage, but she jerks away with a grunt, running away. He follows, scaling behind her as she leaps again to building tops, over mansions, between alleyways, rising to the tops of towering buildings. At last she stops, over the precipice of an abandoned church. Hanzo catches up, closing in.

"This is your last warning: get away from me."

He fumes, "Not until you explain what—"

Her arm opens with a click, hand retracting into her wide wrist. A faint beeping pulse becomes evident from a small wire-wrapped box, a timer ticking off in time to the sound. He feels his heart drop in his stomach as she yanks it out.

"Just go!"

She launches it into the air as high as she can get it, watching with a prayer lodged in her voice box, a quiet but desperate plea that this time, things will go right, everything will remain intact and undestroyed.

Hanzo watches the bomb explode brightly against the sky just before gravity can begin tugging it back down to where it came from. Small pieces fall to earth, nothing but ash and molten plastic bits. He is frozen in place, in shock at the sight before him, a million thoughts spinning through his head. And when Coppélia casts eyes to him, she sighs, drawing towards him at last. She crumples, frame shaking as she folds her hands over her chest, holding herself.

He hesitates, before placing a hand upon the back of her shoulder.

"I'll be alright," she reassures, voice stilted as the words buffered in between. "Just. Give me a moment."

And he waits for her, to tell her all about the loud crowds and bones and blood and wreckage all part of her memory before she was sentient, how every month her arms are programmed to create bombs inside them, about the two times she attempted to hack and detach her arms they backfired on her and nearly self-destructed, and so every time she travels, where there's no guaranteed Annecy Lake to drown her bombs in, she lives in fear of reliving the past she sought to leave behind.

"In Russia," she admits, heartbroken and so very loathing, "I was held up at a gala on the night one was set to go off, and couldn't get to open air or water in time. I told them I went back to the theatre we performed in because I had forgotten something and… no one was there. I checked, scanned multiple times to be sure. So I planted it there. The performance schedule was ruined, and we were banned from returning to that theatre even after the stage was reconstructed. They all think an anti-omnic radical planted the bomb, but it was my fault." Her voice sags with shame, "Nobody else knows it was me. Not even Giselle…"

Hanzo pauses, takes in her confession, before responding, astonished and confused, "Why then, would you think this was appropriate to tell me?"

"Because…" She hesitates, before settling on a firm nod, "I've seen... glimpses of your past. But I took the time to think about what that meant, what it said about who you are now… and I thought, you and I… perhaps we could understand each other, even if just a little." Before he can reject, let alone respond to that, Coppélia looks away from him, "We should be heading back. I don't want to worry Giselle."

She leads the way, giving him only the chance to follow. On the way back, they pass by St. Paul's Cathedral. She outpours more facts, tells him the story of Paul the Apostle, about how a violent persecutor of early Christians became a dedicated writer, a fervid preacher for the people he once condemned.

"I like him," she says, with a touch of reverence. "I'm well aware he isn't perfect, but… if a ruthless killer can find redemption, be called a hero by those he'd wronged, well…" she looks skyward, like Giselle, "maybe there's a chance for me too."

The words take to him like a stab. Hanzo says nothing, suppressing tears and agreeing only internally that she had been right earlier: maybe they could understand each other.

Maybe they do understand each other, perfectly.

With Hanzo as her unwilling chaperone, Coppélia approaches the Underworld unbelievably early the next morning to have the dent in her side repaired by a much kinder denizen emerging from the slum's depths. She repays them well for their efforts, but Hanzo doesn't miss her comment of wishing she could do more for them.

Days pass and Giselle never notices, never questions why they had come back late. Between classes and rehearsals, she is too busy negotiating a ticket onboard a British plane for her most beloved omnic dancer. The look of victory that crosses her expression when she secures Coppélia's seat fills Hanzo with a slight fondness, and overwhelming exasperation. It is a basic right, he thinks to himself sullenly, but cannot bring himself to ever say that aloud to Giselle after all the work she had put in. He is simply grateful she is too preoccupied to notice much else.

He has no such recourse, still mulling over the consequences of Coppélia's bomb. Only one news article ever comes up about the explosion, dismissing a large flash in the London sky as a mere rumor, an imagined incident with no video evidence to capture it. He remains vigilant of the news feeds, consistently on edge until the very end of their stay. But Coppélia seems more than merry after their last performance at the opera house. He arrives for her backstage, dropping by the open door of her dressing room.

"Hush," she giggles, a single metal finger pressed against the line of her lips. "I'm in a call."

He responds matter-of-factly, "Giselle says we need to head back as soon as possible."

"Tell her she won't regret waiting a few minutes."

Hanzo huffs as he turns to report back to Giselle, only to find her right there in front of him. For a second, she looks furious, but the expression altogether melts away. Giselle isn't looking at him, but through him, caught off guard by Coppélia's remark.

With a controlled tone, he asks, "Did you hear any of that?"

"Yes. Pardon me, Hanzo." And he steps aside, letting the director into the dressing room. He hears muffled French through the wall as he waits, trying not to listen or get more involved than he has to with either of their lives. He checks his phone, eyeing the date, his departure inching ever closer.

"Not much time left," he muses to himself, feeling hollow. On the other side of the wall, he hears them laugh, and he can't help but feel like a fool. He has tried to convince himself he only stuck around to stay safe under their mobility. But here, with this company, he knows he half-hoped for something he could never have.

Soon, they are in the airplane, bound into the sky. As he looks down at the world below him, he is struck with the realization of his detachment from everyone on earth. He tears his eyes away, blinking back a surge of tears threatening to surface. Xiuying sits beside him, asleep. Hanzo channels his focus into the rise and fall of her breathing, emptying his mind of all other thoughts. But the shadows all around him swell and sink into his bones.

Hanzo convinces himself once again that he doesn't belong anywhere anymore, but he swears he will find a way to make peace with that.

The company celebrates Christmas in Annecy. The gathering is a quiet one. When Veronika arrives, she no longer wishes to speak to Hanzo, mysteriously giving him the silent treatment. To further the silence, Xiuying gently announces her retirement from the company. Myrtle hobbles up, her ankle noticeably encased in a thick cast, to ask Xiuying about future plans. And the old dancer confesses to uncertainty. She has a couple of options in mind: either returning to ice skating as a coach, or otherwise continuing ballet as an instructor. Veronika and Rico comment on how they too might take a break come springtime, but drop to a whisper too late once they notice the director in their midst. When the evening dwindles to its inevitable end, Xiuying says her farewells. Hanzo watches numbly as Giselle embraces her, arms faintly trembling.

Later in the middle of the night, on the way to the kitchen for water, he hears Giselle. On the living room couch, she is crumpled and crying against Coppélia.

Coppélia murmurs, holding her close, "You tried your best to raise funds for her knee implants, Giselle. I promise the effort was enough."

"If it was enough, she wouldn't have left!" Giselle grinds her forehead against the dancer's shoulder, "My world is falling apart, Coppélia. I don't know how we'll manage."

"We'll be alright. It isn't over yet," the young dancer croons, "I'm still here, aren't I?"

Hanzo leaves silently, sickened by the feeling that he intruded upon something he shouldn't have. The lingering ache in his heart more and more feels like evidence of his folly.

Maybe he should have just left in New York.

The next evening, he catches her up late, shaking the dust off one of several old white canvases. Painting supplies lie in little piles on the newspaper-covered floor. Hanzo can't help but notice his director's bare feet, her jutting bunions and crooked toes from the constant strain of past performances. No wonder Xiuying had to retire, he thinks to himself, caught between a deeper admiration and disenchantment with the art form. He knows for certain now though, the depth of his respect for each dancer's determination.

Giselle bends and then rises to offer him a brush, with eyes like Jiyeong before a sparring match: playful, but driven.

"Hanzo, do you know how to paint?"

"I will show you what I can do, Ms. Sauveterre."

He accepts the brush into his hand.

Over the course of the month, they set to work on several paintings, a task Hanzo finds to be therapeutic on particularly bad days. Giselle creates various scenes of water: lakes glittering under vibrant orange sunsets, vast oceans spattered with sailboats, a pair of lovers admiring a river from a balcony. They all resemble Annecy in some way or another. He admires the pride she takes in her home, attempting to ignore his own longing to reclaim one.

Hanzo's homesickness shows through in images of cherry blossom trees framed through torii gates, miles of brush in the ruddy Santa Fe desert, and a smiling bride with scarlet eyeliner.

Giselle chuckles, tossing aside an empty tube of vermilion, "You certainly seem to love the color red."

The line jolts him from his focus, as he scratches the canvas with a smear of dark crimson against the pale orange sky. He tries to remain calm, hoping to save the painting. He wipes the stain away with the rag, then tries to brush over it with several layers of the orange left on his palette. He tries to paint the sun over it, but the mark shows through, like a scar on Genji's flesh. He can't erase his mistakes so easily.

When she asks if he's okay, he excuses himself to go vomit. After he returns, he sees Giselle has done him the favor of discarding the old painting and given him a new canvas.

All that matters is what I choose to be now.

The words ring in his ears and bring tears to his eyes. This time, he can find no strength to stop the emotion from rushing out. Giselle seems stunned by the sight, but says nothing, touching his shoulder briefly before continuing with her work. He steadies himself, before continuing as well. He paints a ballet studio, with the silhouette of a single dancer at the center. The moon through the window serves as the figure's spotlight.

Towards the end of the month, when Giselle dismisses the company for a break, they eventually sell the paintings on the street and in auctions for negotiated prices. Giselle's pieces far outnumber and outsell Hanzo's. But by the end of their first afternoon out, all of Hanzo's paintings are gone, whisked away by eager locals. He is pleased only by the profit Giselle lets him keep for his own work, but bitterness sits beneath his tongue. To think that strangers are more deserving of claim to homes he can never return to… wounds him in ways he can't describe.

There are mere days between him and his departure now. As he settles to sleep for the night, he has nightmares, but not of the altercation. Instead, he is haunted by his ruined painting, clinging to it in a landfill as he sinks beneath falling mounds of bloody garbage. While he suffocates buried below it all, breathing in the rotten blood of dead rabbits and two wolves, a muffled voice attempts to reach him.

All that matters is…

As he wakes up all alone in the apartment, he can't help but feel like that was the biggest lie he'd ever been told.

As dawn washes over the snowy mountains of Annecy, Coppélia lets out a small gasp. Giselle and the hot air balloon pilot look to her in concern.

Giselle places a hand on the dancer's shoulder, voice soft, "Is something the matter, Coppélia?"

"It's…" Coppélia shakes her head, skewing her ushanka, "I forgot to tell Hanzo we'd be out today."

"Oh, that? No need to worry. I left him a note on the kitchen table, so he'll be well aware of where we are in case he needs to contact us."

"…I see." As Giselle readjusts the dancer's hat, Coppélia murmurs shyly, "Thank you."

"Hmph, what kind of boss would I be if I didn't keep him informed?"

Coppélia covers her mouth, "Ah! My apologies! I don't question your professionalism at all!"

Giselle goes silent at that and simply smiles, but then slowly takes her hand away. Coppélia curls into herself somewhat, wondering what she'd said wrong. Giselle stares out at the land below them, so high up. She feels somewhat disoriented, a dreamy weightlessness that airplanes and alcohol could never give her. But she wonders how much of that is caused by Coppélia's company.

"Well, you should," she murmurs at last, tugging slightly at her violet scarf.

Coppélia perks up, "Hm?"

"You should question me, sometimes. Given everything you've gone through."

"Hm." Coppélia takes a moment to think, folding her hands over her knees, fiddling with her thumbs. "Well, I haven't perceived anything worth questioning. I trust you. You're a good person."

"Oh?" Giselle chuckles, "And what has led you to think that?"

Without hesitation, Coppélia responds, "You've always believed in me, looking at me for what I can be instead of what I have been. I owe you," she pauses, catching herself, "…great respect for that."

"Respect…" the director echoes, softly. Coppélia nods. Giselle continues, "I'm curious, Coppélia. Why did you go to the trouble of booking this flight for us? Just to thank me?"

Before Coppélia responds, the pilot chimes in, "Ladies, we'll be landing soon, so be prepared." They affirm the pilot's message before continuing with their conversation.

"I'll tell you later," Coppélia admits. "There's… more to it than that."

Giselle's heart twists needlessly in her chest.

What am I to you?

How much could I mean to them anyhow?

Hanzo wonders while packing his belongings together. And what did it matter, really? If anyone cared enough to miss him, they would move on with their lives eventually, as he does every time. And he already knows he could never remain here, not when his very presence endangers them further and further the longer he stays. He doesn't want to think about Eduard screaming in agony, about Myrtle mourning with Rico's corpse in her arms, about Giselle held at gunpoint or with a knife to her throat.

An early start on his departure may do more good than harm for the company.

Packing away his storm bow, he can envision the course of events that would follow his departure: Giselle would panic, and then cry—

"My world is falling apart, Coppélia."

For a second, the image of her sobbing over Xiuying stops him cold. Guilt descends upon him like a wave, brief but overwhelming. Then he continues the train of thought. After that, she might consider filing for a missing person report. But ultimately, she would have to move on and find another bodyguard to replace him. Still, he is haunted, to think of all the work she put in for him, for the entire company, only to watch it fall apart. He doesn't want that for her, for someone so noble.

Ruefully, he leaves behind the earnings he made off his paintings. It is penance, for betraying her like this. It is condolence, a prayer that she will get to keep her world the way Hanzo never could.

Hanzo boards a bus. As he glances behind him to say farewell to Annecy, Coppélia reaches for him one last time.

All that matters is what I choose to be now.

Any truth to that, Hanzo decided, would apply only to people like Coppélia. She had only ever committed such gruesome acts as a machine, never as a sentient force. She never chose to murder those civilians. But Hanzo certainly chose to murder his brother.

Nothing will ever change that.

The balloon lands in the commune of La Clusaz. After getting off, Giselle and Coppélia wander into the nearest restaurant for warmth and a bite to eat. Unknowingly, Coppélia does her director a favor by ordering her a hot chocolate with the meal, preventing the temptation of a glass of wine. Relieved and cozy, Giselle sighs happily as she sips from her mug. The poor abashed dancer looks aside, hiding the smitten flicker in her eye-lights. Coppélia is immensely thankful to find there aren't many other patrons around, most everyone too busy skiing outside.

When Giselle picks up the conversation where they last left off in the balloon, Coppélia stumbles over her words, grasping for her voice until she finds it at last.

"I didn't book the flight solely to thank you, Giselle," Coppélia folds her fingers into fists against the table, "I wanted to show you… how much I love you."

And she does. She speaks at length of her love, expressing the height of such affections further in unconscious pantomimes with her hands. And Giselle watches, listens in awe and slight surprise, despite having half-suspected the sort of love Coppélia had held for her for quite some time. Then the goldenness of Coppélia's eyes strikes her, and suddenly she is across a dinner table from Amélie.

"Dancing under the spotlight without you would be pointless," Amélie slides her hand across the table, not breaking her gaze. "I'm not leaving your side so easily, Giselle."

Giselle's eyes respond by forming tears, as soon as she is overwhelmed with the sadness that they cannot be. Coppélia is a dancer in her company, not a suitor, and certainly more than a proxy for a beloved friend long gone. And what better way for a ballet director to ruin a company and a companionship than dating the dancer she houses?

Giselle exhales in disbelief and despair, "Coppélia… don't you know what this means? Why love me of all people?"

"Because, Giselle," Coppélia takes her hands, "you made me believe I was more than a monster. I could never ask for anything more from someone as compassionate and gracious as you. I love you."

Giselle takes her hands away, unconsciously moving them up to hold Coppélia's face. The temptation to kiss her is immense, and yet… could she really foster the downfall of the dream she worked so hard to make a reality? For the first time, Giselle feels trapped within her role as a director, her role as the builder of a dream come true. For the first time, she sees a future before her that she never before dreamed she would ever want: to continue living together with the dancer in front of her, to continue to support Coppélia on and offstage for the rest of her life. She envisions a love returned at long last, and all she has to do is reach out and accept it.

It was never your dream to begin with, Giselle.

Yet Giselle lets her hands fall.

But I have a responsibility to its reality.

"I love you too. But before everything else, I am your director."

"Giselle…?"

"I'm saying we can't. Not as long as I run this company."

"…I understand." Coppélia's tone drops to something monotone, "Thank you for being honest with me."

"Thank you for such a lovely outing."

"It was my pleasure!" Coppélia replies, the spark of sincerity still ever so present in her voice. It makes Giselle's heart twinge in ways she can hardly tolerate.

The director rises to her feet, holding out her hand, "Now, let's head home, shall we?"

Knees weak, Coppélia takes her hand much like the day Giselle had found her. As they sit together in the ski lift down the mountain, she helplessly falls further in love with the way Giselle won't let go of her hand, as if afraid to lose her.

All that occupies Coppélia's mind is how she will ever find the will to move on, until the lock on the front door clicks open, and the world turns upside down in less than a second.

As Coppélia flees, she is grateful that she only needs to use internal processes to send a text.

Hanzo's phone goes off with rapid texts from Coppélia. Thinking he may as well close this chapter of his life, he makes the mistake of reading the texts as soon as the bus nears its first stop.

"Giselle and I are headed home. See you soon." –Coppélia, 14:44:32

"Hanzo, where are you?" – Coppélia, 15:02:45

"I'm heading back out." – Coppélia, 15:04:03

"Tell me where you are right now." – Coppélia, 15:04:07

"This is urgent! What is your location in town?" – Coppélia, 15:04:42

"Please respond right now! Giselle is in danger!" – Coppélia, 15:04:58

"There's a woman in the house looking for you." – Coppélia, 15:05:05

"Are you okay?" – Coppélia, 15:07:39

"Please, answer me!" – Coppélia, 15:10:23

"Meet me at the apartment" –Hanzo, 15:11:36

Hanzo bolts off at the bus stop.

Even now, Giselle doesn't quite believe it, but it begins to sink in just enough to hurt.

The girl spinning at the center of the room, the promise, the engagement ring over a candlelit dinner table, all come pouring out of Giselle's eyes like endless gallons of burning white wine. The director sobs as she curls in on herself, hidden away under her kitchen table with a near-empty bottle of wine. As she drains the last gulp with a choked hiccup, she damns all grace she once performed for the girl she so loved and cherished, the girl who unknowingly set off years of repressed suffering and struggle. It starts to sink in that Amélie is not just gone but dead, devoured by the woman slinking through her apartment now, with a rifle in hand and a threat in throat.

"No one can hide from my sight."

She says it with a laugh that sends a shudder through Giselle, followed by a jolt as she kicks something down.

"Oh god, oh god, oh god…"

Trying to quiet her own breathing, Giselle tries to listen for footsteps, but she hears none. Silent and nimble, footsteps still so much like the brilliant dancer Amélie once was. Apparently this so-called "Widowmaker" can be bothered to retain muscle memory but not the memories of her best friend. At this, Giselle tightens her grip on the bottle neck. Her assailant's feet come into sight.

"Better to come out now than have me find you," She coos, speaking English of all things, as if she assumed Giselle was some foreigner living abroad. "It might hurt less that way."

"You can't hurt me," She chokes out in French, before screaming, "more than you already have!"

Giselle smashes the bottle against the ground as Widowmaker turns, before tossing the table over her head. Rising quickly, Giselle watches Widowmaker collapse beneath the table with a grunt. Giselle takes her chance to strike while her adversary is down, crying out with every aching feeling in her chest, only to miss as Widowmaker recovers quickly.

The bottle is knocked from Giselle's hand with disorienting speed. Before she can regain her bearings, the butt of the rifle jabs into her gut. She falls backwards with a yelp, pain further increased by the sudden foot pinning down her arm. She is immobilized, unable to think past the wrenching agony.

Switching to French, Widowmaker glowers, "I will ask again. Where is Hanzo?"

"I'm right here!" Hanzo bellows, bursting into the kitchen.

Widowmaker takes aim, only to be tackled instantly by Coppélia from the left. Her rifle clatters to the ground, letting out a stray shot. A tranquilizing dart, not a bullet, flies out and sticks into a cupboard. As Coppélia pins the assassin back against the counter, Hanzo takes advantage of the distraction and secures Giselle from the floor. With her, he clears out of the room, Widowmaker howling furiously behind him as he escapes.

"Don't you ever dare think you're safe! We'll be dragging you back to Talon by your hair someday, I swear it!"

As the door slams shut behind him, he looks down at Giselle in his arms as he runs. With a groan, she barely stirs.

"Giselle, are you alright?"

She only responds, "Co…Coppélia."

"She will be fine," he reassures, "now quiet."

His words reach her like fog, and she slips back into unconsciousness. Hanzo cringes when he thinks he hears an explosion half a block away.

"If that style is Shotokan, you seem like you could use a sparring partner."

Hanzo looks away from his punching bag stand, not expecting a stranger at a French gym of all places to recognize his style of martial arts. He sees his challenger, a woman with wrapped feet and strong legs. She holds two collapsible headgear helmets under one arm, and has the eyes of an upstart.

Sending her a scowl, he replies, "Are you meaning to imply I have bad form?" She shakes her head.

"I'm only meaning to say I want to see such excellent technique in practice," She holds out a helmet. "Shall we?"

Taking the gear, he smiles wearily, "Your name, first."

"Giselle." She bows, "And yours?"

"If you get me on the ground," He mirrors her gesture, "I will tell you."

Hanzo remembers how they first met, how he'd been thrown off his guard by a flash of Jiyeong in her eyes, and how she relented immediately after he had fallen. Granted, it wasn't solely his weakness that secured her victory. Rematch after rematch and every moment he spent working with her had shown him the profundity of her strength: a force that existed in her spirit as well as her body.

Now there are no words to express how frail Giselle looks, passed out on the motel bed. She is undeniably human. Every human heart breaks. But he thinks this is the first time he has seen someone other than himself with a broken spirit.

He wonders what to say to her when she comes to, how to tell her she and Coppélia need to relocate now that Talon has found him, how to admit that perhaps Coppélia may not even return, how to properly apologize for all the damage he has done to her life. Again, he berates himself for disappearing in New York, like he should have. Because of his selfishness for companionship, there will be no recovery for this company… only ruin. But this is nothing new. Every place, every person he makes a home with, only ever ends with destruction. Today has only further proven that for him…

The sound of his phone buzzing against the wooden nightstand fills him with an indescribable relief.

As he replies to Coppélia, Giselle groans, attempting to sit up. Her abdominal muscles protest to the strain, and she finds herself easily falling onto her back again, aching.

"You're injured, significantly on your left arm as far as I'm aware." He informs, beginning to delete all of his texts from his phone. "Don't strain yourself."

She sighs, looking to the ceiling, "Where are we?"

"A Swiss motel room." As the phone erases his message history, he stares off into the corner, "Do not expect to stay long. Coppélia will arrive to pick you up in about forty-five minutes." He hangs his head, murmuring, "From there, you two should decide together where to head next."

"Wh…what do you mean by that?"

"The two of you… can't stay in Annecy anymore." He begins, heaving a sigh, "There are people hunting for me, and so…"

He loses his words, feeling powerless. How can he stand there and confirm for her that all her hard work, all her years of struggling, had gone to waste? How can he tell her in detail that he has irreparably ruined this company by accepting her employment? Words cannot begin to convey his regret, the remorse that he had death in his very grasp and still lived to continue ruining lives the way he has been ever since his accursed wrongdoing. He tries to hold onto the words of the broken woman before him, how mistakes are never undone and how death doesn't rectify. But they elude him, hardly anywhere to be found under the shame burning through his veins.

"You're leaving," she utters, more of a realization than finishing his statement.

I never planned to stay, he wants to confess. But he doesn't think he can bear it.

Instead, he bows at the waist, his voice steady but soft, "I'm sorry. Giselle."

Without another word, he begins to walk away.

She calls, voice rising, "Hanzo, wait—"

The door shuts behind him, for good this time. He moves forward, past the sounds of her sobs beginning behind the room window, stomping over the growing ache in his own heart. He does not get to see Giselle responding to the texts Coppélia continues to send on his phone. He does not get to see Giselle's weeping eventually die on Coppélia's shoulder. He does not get to see them take a cab out to the nearest airport, using Hanzo's painting money to fund their journey to safety.

Only once he is in an airplane back to Japan does he look back, fingers curled against the window as if trying to cling to Annecy somehow. Irrationally, he keeps his other fist balled up in his coat pocket, waiting for the phone he left behind to go off, for Coppélia to update him, tell him she and Giselle are safe. He sits fidgeting until he manages to convince himself that they are both dead, as a temporary delusion for sanity's sake. If he retreats inward to his memories for comfort, he can still clearly hear Coppélia's mantra reaching for him.

But all of it escapes. Spring comes at last, bringing life to everything except him. Once again, he is alone, paying respects on his knees in Hanamura. And in that, he finds both bitterness and belonging.

A/N:

Original characters introduced: omnic civilians, hot air balloon pilot.

References: The London Eye is the tallest Ferris wheel in Europe. An ushanka is a type of Russian fur hat. Shotokan karate is a style of karate that prioritizes constant personal self-improvement and fostering a sense of respect for other people; in sparring, practitioners of this martial art form bow before and after each match to indicate non-hostility; modern training requires practitioners to use protective gear to prevent/minimize injury during training.

-Reddie