At like 11:00PM I felt like writing and decided I'd go to sleep when I was done. It's now 4AM and I somehow went through every youtube video I had saved to watch later instead of writing. Whoops (blame insomnia).
Genji had only managed to spend about an hour after Angela had given him the information regarding his potential new enhancements before he dozed off again. This time when he awoke there were two people sitting next to his bedside. He recognized Angela immediately, but he didn't recognize the person next to her, who was looking less and less like a person as the blurriness of his vision faded away. Surely he had to be dreaming; there was no way that a massive gorilla was sitting next to his bed, having a pleasant chat with his doctor in what he assumed was German.
Once the initial shock of what he was seeing faded, he took a moment to listen to Angela's German; her voice was entirely different in her native language, almost astoundingly so. She sounded cool, mature, and confident, quiet a contrast to her worried and unnatural Japanese. The words themselves had a harshness to them that contrasted the soft nature of her voice interestingly, and he found that didn't mind listening, despite not understand a thing the two said.
Angela and her companion ceased speaking the moment they realized that he was awake. Within an instant Angela transitioned into the semi-fluent Japanese that he had become used to. "Ah, Genji, you're awake! How are you feeling?"
"Sore as all hell." He muttered unhappily. His limbs ached, even though they were practically just useless stumps at this point. Angela nodded and gave him an understanding smile, patting his hand affectionately as she did so.
"That's to be expected. But is it better than when we spoke last?" He thought back to right before he had fallen asleep, and considering the pain then, this was much better in comparison. He nodded mutely at her. "Wonderful. I tried a fresh batch of healing compounds on you that was supposed to be of the newest and strongest variety. I'm glad our research department can do at least something useful in my absence. Now I suppose you're wondering who it is next to me; this is my dear friend Winston. Yes, he is a gorilla, and I know that might come as a surprise, but he is actually extremely intelligent and undeniably the best scientist we have here. I could tell you why all that is, but I'm sure he'd rather explain it to you himself, and now is not the time nor place to do such a thing. However, he is here to talk about what a mechanical body for you might be like."
Winston adjusted his glasses for a moment before picking up where Angela left off, looking Genji directly in the eye as he did so. Genji was surprised at how flawless his Japanese was, considerably better than Angela's. "So where to begin, hm? As Mercy said, my name is Winston, and I am the leading scientist here at Overwatch. She and I came here on a trip to deal with some legal business and a few odd patients; you're lucky that she ended up coming. I doubt that anyone in the world would be as capable of helping you, not to mention as dedicated to your restoration." A light blush graced Angela's face under the praise, causing Winston to chuckle and address her directly. "Well it's true. They hired you for a reason."
"Anyway, back to the subject at hand. As Mercy has explained to you, we would probably need to give you a full cybernetic suit to stabilize you and give you a full range of motion again. That would mean that it would be something you could never take off, at least in the stages of design we are currently in. I'm sure much down the road we'll have figured out a way to allow removal, but as of right now it just isn't in the realm of possibility. That means you'll always have a metal shell around your body; if we do this, it's unlikely you'll ever see your arms, legs, or torso again without modifications to the suit. They'll still be there, we won't need to amputate them, and they'll still have feeling, but that feelings would be extremely dull. That also means that we're going to need to replace a lot of regular human functions with robotic ones. I'll probably have to take away your need to eat; you still could, theoretically, but it would be a massive inconvenience to you instead of a help. And by that I mean you could digest whatever your body could potentially use, but you would need to throw up the excess. It's not a pretty image, I know, but it would be what we'd need to do. Aside from that, we could do our best to make things normal for you. Obviously no digestion system so also no using the restroom, and your new body wouldn't require sleep, but I know that I could program a sleep-like state that you could go into if you want. I'll be programming your suit and any added features, and Angela will be working on the design and the health aspects of it. Essentially, I'll be making sure the mechanical parts of your body will run properly while Angela will make sure the physical parts of your body work properly. The two of us have put a lot of time and thought into this, and I hope you make the correct choice."
Angela fumed at the end of the sentence, immediately turning to chide Winston. "I told you not to try to influence his decision! He should make whatever choice is right for him, not the one that he thinks we want him to make! Honestly I…"
"Doctor Ziegler, it's okay." Genji inserted, stopping her rant immediately. "I already made my choice. I don't want to live like this for the rest of my life, so I'll accept this mechanical body and the consequences that might come from it."
Mercy nodded, immediately calming down. "If that's what you want, Genji, then it's my honor and duty as your doctor to try to help in every way I can. It should only be a few more days until we reach a breakthrough; until then, try to rest as much as you can, and if you have any doubts, please let one of us know." At that, she pulled a small remote out of her pocket and rested in next to his hand. "I know you don't have fine motor skills, but you should be able to move your hand over slightly. If you ever need help or want to discuss something with Winston in particular, he's just a press of the button away. I should be here almost always, but if I'm gone for some reason and you need me specifically, you can still press it. We'll both come in that case." She gave him one last smile before turning back and sitting down on her sofa, picking up her laptop and staring intently at the screen.
Winston shook his head. "I swear she'll kill herself on accident one of these days. She's refusing to sleep, and I had to force her to agree to have a cot brought in the room so that she could rest if she needed to. She's always terrible, but I've never quite seen her this bad."
"I can hear you, you know!" Angela called from across the room without bothering to look up from her laptop, irritation clearly evident through her tone.
"I know, and it's nothing I haven't said to you before. Now go back to your work, you insane fool." She scoffed and turned back to her laptop, allowing Winston to continue addressing Genji. "But in all seriousness, if you need me for anything, I'm right there." Winston tapped the remote lightly. "It doesn't matter how trivial, I'm here for you. We both are."
Genji smiled at the kindness he was being shown. He hardly knew these people, and all they had done so far was help him. "I don't think I could ever repay you or Angela for everything you've done for me."
Winston smiled back at him. "I don't think Angela considers you to be in her debt." With a curt nod, the gorilla dismissed himself from the room. This left Genji to think on what the gorilla had spoken. How in the world could Angela not consider him in her debt? He owed her his life, if not more, and he'd be sure to repay her in every way he could, when he finally could. However, it slightly unnerved him that the scientist had specifically only mentioned not owing any debt to Angela, but maybe he was just reading too far into things. He did know that he was exhausted once again, and he found himself falling asleep to the gentle hum of the machines and the quiet tapping of Angela's keyboard from the other side of the room.
When Genji woke up, the sounds of machines were still whirring in his ears; what was notable absent, however, was any noise from his doctor's side of the room. His expectation was that she had left, which was why he was notably surprised at what he saw when he turned his head. Angela's form was slumped over her desk, cheek squished against the hard wood. Her silvery blonde hair had created a halo of fuzz around her head, completely fallen from the ponytail that it had once been in. Her face was relaxed and completely peaceful, an expression he had yet to see. To be perfectly honest, it suited her quite nicely. A pencil was still loosely grasped in her hand and her cheek seemed to be plastered to the pages of a journal she had been writing in.
He studied her quietly for a few minutes, taking in how human she looked in that position. Up until that point she had just looked like the angelic Doctor Ziegler, able to work miracles for him that he suddenly felt convicted of taking for granted. But right now, looking like that, she just seemed like a normal, beautiful girl. It shamed him to think that she was exactly the type of girl that he would have called after on the streets. She was certainly pretty enough to be one of the girls he continuously chased after.
He sighed and looked down at the button near his hand. Winston had said he would be there to help him, and Genji couldn't think of a better opportunity to test that theory out. He rolled his hand over so that it was on top of the remote and pressed with as much force as could be manage. It didn't take long for the gorilla to be in the room, thirty seconds at tops.
As Winston began to speak, Genji shushed him, and the gorilla seemed taken aback for a moment. That was until Genji nodded towards the back of the room. Realization dawned in Winston's eyes, and he sighed in frustration, though it was impossible to miss his lips curling upward slightly. He clearly admired Angela's dedication, even if it did annoy the crap out of him.
It wasn't long before Angela was safely curled up against Winston's chest, breathing gently. Genji wasn't surprised she had slept through being picked up; with the lack of sleep she had likely seen in the past few days, he would be shocked if a foghorn could wake the woman up. If at some point in his life he had tried to stay up like that he would probably be out cold for an entire day afterwards. Winston shot him a grateful smile before exiting and lightly closing the door behind him. Genji figured the gorilla would probably bring Angela to her own sleeping quarters, where she belonged at the moment. He was glad that she was finally getting some sleep, but it felt oddly like there was something missing from the room. Over the past couple days he had unconsciously grown accustomed to the constant human presence with him, whether it was the tapping of her pencil, the clicking of keys, or the humming and sometimes soft singing in German. The room without the presence of another person felt much more mechanical and lifeless. He had enjoyed her company, even if he hadn't meant to enjoy it.
He shook his head in disapproval. There was no use in thinking about it now. And besides that, all he needed to do was fall back asleep, and he wouldn't notice a thing. Considering the constant state of physical and mental exhaustion he had been in since he had arrived at Overwatch, falling asleep was no problem at all, and he quickly dozed off once again.