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Chapter Text

Delicate fingers went to push away frazzled golden bangs from Angela’s eyes as she looked down at desk with a whirlwind of medical records of various Overwatch agents, memos from Jack, aid requests from those affected by the Omnic Crisis. It was probably one in the morning, maybe two, but the doctor’s worries and stress couldn’t bring her to care. As much as she pestered others to take care of themselves and get plenty of rest, Angela, like the hypocrite she is, was pretty sure she had conditioned herself to function at max capacity on as little rest as possible. The cost of being acclaimed a world renowned surgeon, she supposed. 

But as the turmoil in the world heightened, and tensions between Overwatch and Talon rose, Angela couldn’t help but feel the need to go unconscious for some hours, days…weeks. The war has truly pushed Angela to her limits and caused her to question her own morality. She liked to think of herself as a good samaritan, a lover not a fighter. Angela joined Overwatch to help people, she herself has felt the effects of war when her own parents died as a result of the Omnic Crisis. Which consequently pushed her to learn and work as hard as she could to the point where she was a medical prodigy and became the head of surgery at one of the biggest hospitals in Switzerland. Her expertise allowed her to make a breakthrough where she could literally…bring people back to life.

This caused a huge debacle in the medical community. While resurrection was viewed as absolutely fascinating, it was also seen as cruel and immoral. Bringing the dead back to life messes with the natural order of the world, it diminishes the value of life, it’s an abuse of power, it is…. inherently unethical and a threat to the world as we know it. That’s what the medical board stated before they unequivocally decided to revoke Angela’s medical license.

However, when one door closes, another one opens.

That’s when Overwatch came in. Angela was approached by two young gentlemen while she was out for a pity drink one night at a bar, grieving her medical career that was gone all too soon. They introduced themselves as Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes, once participants in the Soldier Enhancement Program issued by the government, but now commanders in Overwatch; a strike program formed by the United Nations as a response to the ongoing Omnic Crisis. Morrison had seen her research on nanobiotics. As he was absolutely fascinated, he decided that Angela was someone Overwatch needed .

Gabriel handed Angela a holographic business card with a gentle smile. Her eyes narrowed at him in suspicion.

OVERWATCH: A future worth fighting for.  

“Listen,” Jack said to her, voice deep, ragged, but alluring at the same time. “I have more than enough soldiers. What I need are thinkers. Dreamers. People who want to make the world a better place. You are on the cusp of a breakthrough that could change the lives of every living person on the planet. I want to make that a reality and take away all the roadblocks so you can focus on revolutionizing your field.* It would be a shame to have such talent go to waste… Dr. Ziegler. ” 

The recognition of her talent and the support of a powerful organization to back it up, her efforts would be contributions to ending a war and restoring peace in the world. It was much too good of an offer for Angela to stand up. The decision was even easier for her since the recent downfall of her career and shunning by the medical community. Angela enlisted as an Overwatch agent without a second thought.

Her accomplishments during her time with Overwatch were nothing to be scoffed at. The doctor’s innovation of the Valkyrie suit, armor equipped with biometrics and wings that allowed her to fly. The Caduceus Staff that provided healing properties and damage enhancements to her allies. Her resurrection of a young man named Genji Shimada, who had been nearly killed by his own brother during a dispute with their clan. Angela was quite literally, as the world regarded her, an angel. Well…at least by most.

"Dr. Angela Ziegler’s reckless engagement in necromancy is absolutely abysmal and a gross violation of ethical medical practice. Her methods, which defy the fundamental principles of life and death, are not only an affront to the natural order but a dangerous precedent for scientific abuse. More disturbingly, her so-called ‘miracles’ serve not to preserve life, but to perpetuate warfare. Soldiers die during battle and are only brought back to continue fighting. It’s selfish. Horrendous. Cruel.

Why would Overwatch, whose mission is to bring peace among crises, employ such an obscene tactic? The notion that a humanitarian organization would sanction such an egregious breach of medical ethics is deeply troubling. To manipulate life and death in this manner is not an act of salvation, but of exploitation. Such actions cannot be justified under any ethical framework accepted by the global medical community. Perhaps these people at Overwatch who we deem as heroes, are just as power hungry and evil as our enemies who we view as Omnics.

Dr. Ziegler presents herself as a savior, an angel of mercy, yet her work aligns far closer with the unchecked ambitions of an occultist—one who sees herself above the very ethical standards that govern our profession. We, the medical board, unequivocally condemn her experimentation, as it represents not medical advancement, but a profound corruption of the principles we are sworn to uphold."

Angela’s eyes welled up watching the representative of the medical board speak at a press conference on her computer screen. She had been doing a routine checkup on Genji in her clinic at the Watchpoint Gibraltar base when the conference went live. As much animosity she felt towards the medical community for shunning her, she couldn’t help but keep up with it.

“Selfish…cruel…” She said in a quiet, hushed tone. Genji stepped towards her and placed a comforting, but now cold robotic hand on her shoulder as if to soothe her. The doctor's blue eyes went up to meet his red ones, her vision glazing over his part human, part metal body, the deep, red, scars on his exposed bicep from violent slashings that had intent to kill. His metal mask that covered all his face but his piercing eyes, hiding the pain he endured. 

“But I saved you. I helped you… didn’t I?” Angela asked the ninja, tears beginning to paint her flushed cheeks. 

Genji gave a single nod as he swiped his thumb over her skin where she had cried. “ Yes , you did. And for that, I will forever be in your debt.”

He barely even sounded human anymore.

Of course, that was before the initial disbandment of Overwatch. Now with the resurgence of the Omnic Crisis came the Overwatch recall, which Angela answered quickly. If people needed her aid, she wanted to be there. Although this time around, things were different. A robust woman named Sojourn was now the head commander, as her old friend Jack Morrison had gone rogue following the explosion of Overwatch's Swiss base during a quarrel with Reyes that had gone south. Speaking of Reyes, him and Angela were also not on the best of terms due to…reasons. Reasons that make Angela sick to her stomach to think about. Reasons that Angela questioned herself and her own morality. Reasons that she would run from for the rest of her life.

She only wanted to help. Angela let out a sigh that seemingly came from the depths of her soul. The doctor was so tired. Thinking about the past, all the moments she was overwhelmingly grateful for, but also those moments that would haunt her forever. This wasn’t the time for that. A hand went to scatter papers, folders, pens, until she found her cellphone. What she needed was a sweet escape. 

Angela pushed up her glasses on the bridge of her nose as she unlocked her phone and immediately began navigating to a faceless contact, there wasn’t even a name. All she had put was an inconspicuous rose emoticon. With how frazzled Angela felt, she didn’t feel like texting. She hesitated before pressing the call button, her eyes scanning across the dimly lit clinic. It was late at night, surely nobody on the base thought of barging in and bothering her at this hour? 

Please Lena, no surprises right now. Angela thought to herself as she hit the green call button. The phone rang. And rang again. Again.

The anticipation was killing Angela and she grew antsy, nervous, as she usually did when trying to get in touch with her secret contact. Then finally, a silky voice answered. 

“What did I tell you about calling me? ”

Angela’s mouth suddenly went dry. Her fingers went to fiddle with the hems of her white coat as her gaze drifted down to her lap, suddenly feeling guilt for putting her needs first without considering the circumstances of someone else.

“I..” She began. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”

A soft scoff came from the other end. “Of course you did.”

“I want to see you.”

“Of course you do.”

“Amelie…please.” 

Angela pinched the bridge of her nose, eyebrows furrowing together out of frustration. Honestly, despite being seemingly “emotionless” she was still smug, sarcastic and aloof altogether. It drove the doctor absolutely insane. Dare she might say that she misses the old Amelie, charismatic, bright and absolutely endearing. Maybe even a bit of a ditz, as she obliviously stood by Gerald’s side, unaware of the danger that awaited her.

How Angela missed sitting with the crowd in a packed theater full of tourists and French natives, watching in awe as Amelie performed a dance recital on stage. Being as she was a renowned dancer in Paris, the demand and anticipation for her shows was high. The doctor couldn’t make it to every show of course, but when she did they would meet backstage after where they would greet each other with a kiss on the cheek, right before a flushed Angela started gushing about how beautiful and talented Amelie is. The ballet dancer would call her a cute fangirl , before dragging her out of the theater waving bye to colleagues, friends and fans as they left to a nearby high end cocktail bar.

It was there where the two women would catch up and vent about each other's lives. Angela would ramble about the disrespect of the medical board, the state of Overwatch (primarily…Morrison’s & Reyes constant fussing at each other), her latest shitty attempts at brewing coffee, Genji’s charming flirtatious endeavors, and a pilot floating through time… 

Amelie would complain how Gerald was always off on some mission. At some Overwatch meeting. Always at a different base some hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away. How she wished he could just come to one recital, have one date night, spend one night in bed together and how she was always there whenever Gerald needed her at the drop of a dime. Then she would question if this marriage was something she could handle. If being married to an integral Overwatch agent was for her. If Gerald was someone she truly wanted. How lonely she was. 

Angela would listen to her intently, their hands intertwined on the table and she would let out a strained sigh when tears began to glaze over Amelie’s amber eyes. One of the doctor’s hands would go to cup her beloved friend’s cheek in an attempt to comfort her. Amelie would relax into her friend’s palm with closed eyes, before fluttering them open to meet the other’s gaze. It was at that moment the dancer’s teeth nipped at her lower lip before asking Angela if she wanted to sleep at her place tonight instead of whatever hotel she had initially booked, just so they could spend more time together before the doctor inevitably had to leave the next morning for whatever Overwatch affairs they had her tending to. 

The sleepovers started off innocently enough. Wine. More venting. Gossip. Horrible romcoms. There was even a moment where Amelie tried to teach Angela how to dance once late at night in her kitchen while they were putting together a charcuterie board. Amelie had noticed the untimely sway of Angela’s hips to the jazz music that echoed from the radio. She could help but giggle and tease Angela for how absolutely arrhythmic she was. Which consequently led to a bashful blonde who grew even more red when the dancer of the two placed their hands on her hips after guiding her hands to slip around their neck. It was from there they both slowly waltzed with each other, Amelie taking the lead, as the two giggled softly below their breath. Angela couldn’t bring herself to meet Amelie’s eyes, shyly keeping her own locked on their synchronized feet, until Amelie guided her gaze up with a hand under her chin to meet their own. It was an intimate gesture that brought a spark of revelation to the both of them. Maybe the validation of Amelie was what Angela was looking for all along. Maybe Gerald wasn’t what Amelie needed or desired after all. That’s when they shared their first kiss. 

Shortly after, the affairs began as well.

“I suppose… since you asked so nicely."

Amelie’s statement that came out with a sigh snapped Angela out of her brief trance. 

“Where are you right now? When can I see you?” Angela way too eagerly shot back.

“You know I’m not telling you that.” Amelie seethed. “Two nights. Cheval Blanc.”

Then the call came to an abrupt end.

Angela brought her phone down to hold tightly to her chest and she chewed at her bottom lip, swiveling gently from side to side in her office chair. She had two nights to meet her lover in Paris, the anticipation that grew within her was almost too overwhelming.

Chapter Text

The Cheval Blanc was no stranger to Amélie’s presence. Being a Guillard had some perks after all. It was the hotel their family would stay at whenever they were in Paris, away from their mansion in the countryside. The establishment truly exuded Parisian elegance. Gilded chandeliers cast a warm glow over marble floors, velvet drapes framed sweeping views of the Seine. The air carried a faint hint of jasmine and finely aged wine, mingling with the quiet murmur of well-heeled guests as a pianist played something slow and soothing.

Yet, for all its splendor, the hotel never truly felt like an escape. It was just another stage for the same carefully rehearsed performance that Amélie had been forced to put on her whole life. Here, just as at home, she was expected to be perfect - poised, graceful, an exemplary representation of the Guillard name. Her mother’s sharp gaze lingered in every polished surface, her father’s expectations settling as heavily as the antique chandeliers overhead. It seems no matter how grand the setting, Amélie felt as if she was always being watched, always being controlled somehow.

However, behind every actress is their true self. When there were no obligations for her to fill and no need to be in the presence of her controlling parents, a young Amélie would sneak out late at night to rendezvous with some other girls from private school out in the countryside. They would dance in the streets of a small town, sneak their way into pubs, laugh and banter with the locals before scurrying out with linked arms to go skinny dip in a lake concealed by foliage. It was a close knit group, where they comforted each other about their struggles of girlhood but also had fun and let loose while they were at it. Those nights were the breaks Amélie needed from her ongoing everyday enactment.

There was one particular girl Amélie resonated with the most. Her name was Camille. There was something about her that drew Amélie to her. Her sun kissed skin which was dusted with freckles, she had her own personal constellation sitting right atop her cheeks. Deep brown eyes, and atop of her head was wild, untamed auburn curls that draped down to her shoulders that framed her face in a way that seemed to be most chaotic and beautiful. Whenever she tied it back, Amélie found herself wanting to let down Camille’s hair herself, to admire her tresses and run her fingers through.

Camille was a poor demoiselle, unfortunate enough to have lost her father during the initial Omnic Crisis, when London was attacked by a titan. She had been just a toddler, too young to fully grasp the weight of what she had lost, yet old enough that her mother’s screams were burned into her memory. Their once comfortable life shattered in an instant. With nothing but grief and the clothes on their backs, she and her mother fled to France out of desperation. What had once been their home country now felt like foreign soil, a place of refuge rather than return. They had lost everything—their security, their home, the warmth of a household that would never feel whole again which was replaced with an unspoken weight of mourning. And yet, the world did not stop for their grief; it moved on, indifferent, as if their suffering had been just another casualty of war.

Upon learning this, Amélie immediately felt guilty. Yes, they were both no older than the age of 5 during the initial Omnic attack on London. Yes, she knew it was out of her control. But something about her being fed from a golden spoon, adorned in fine silks and cared for by an au pair, while people like Camille’s family were faced with catastrophe and despair…made her feel reprehensible. How badly Amélie wanted to pull Camille into her arms as they sat in the courtyard of their school where she had told her the story and promise to protect her from the world. However, surrounded by peers and worried about perception, Amélie opted to not break character. Instead she muttered a weak “I’m so sorry…” as she peered down at her lap, letting the sadness of the story and guilt wash over her. To which Camille took Amélie by the hand, shrugged her shoulders with a lighthearted giggle and said,

“It’s not your fault. Life…sometimes it just happens. We don’t get to choose the things that shape us, the pain we inherit, or the tragedies that happen to us without warning. There are things that we can’t control, no matter how hard we try. That’s just what fate is.

Now c’mon, I hear they have mille-feuilles for dessert today in the cafeteria and if there's one thing we can control, it's getting a sweet treat.”

Amélie felt as if she learned so much from Camille. How to be resilient, thankful for the smallest of things and to find strength in stuff beyond what seemed broken. Camille spoke simply, but yet it was so profound and carried more of a weight than anything Amélie had ever been taught in her own gilded world. The young girl had a grace that didn’t come from wealth or privilege but from something far deeper - an understanding that despite the chaos of life, joy was never too far away in the distance. 

In many ways, Amélie envied Camille. Not only was she bright and intelligent, she was everything Amélie wasn’t, or perhaps, everything Amélie had been taught not to be. Camille was sweet, yet a force of nature— she never put on a show or suppressed who she was for anyone. She was always authentically herself and so outspoken, never to shrink in the presence of others, nor did she feel the need to bend or mold herself into what was expected of her. 

Unlike Amélie, who had been conditioned by her parents to be her usual quiet, poise and proper self. The ideology drilled into her head by her parents; to be seen, but not heard, to speak only when spoken to and to look perfect at all times. Her upbringing was in a world where expectations were a heavy mantle, one she was forced to wear constantly, even when it felt suffocating. Once again, she was always performing.

But it wasn’t just Camille’s carefree and resilient nature Amélie envied, it was the bond she had with her mother. Camille’s mother worked as an au pair to fund her tuition to the private school they both attended. While it was far from a glamorous life, the love and respect between them was unmistakable. The family Camille’s mother worked for was the family of another girl they went to school with and all three of them were friends. Some days after school when they would go back to their friend’s manor where she and Camille resided, Amélie couldn’t help but watch Camille and her mother interact with each other. Talking freely, sharing warmth and laughter with one another…Camille’s mother always gave her daughter her full attention and unconditional support. It was a connection Amélie had never known.

Her own mother had always been distant. She was more of a figure to admire from afar than a person to confide in. Amélie was often left with nannies and tutors, her mother too busy or too occupied with herself to offer Amélie the warmth Camille seemed to get in abundance. The contrast left Amélie feeling small, longing for something she wasn’t sure she would ever have— simple, unspoken love.

Camille had a way of filling that void for Amélie. Amélie could fully let down her walls around her when they were alone. Camille never belittled or ridiculed Amélie’s anxieties or concerns, but instead acknowledged them and validated her. They would make each other break into a fit of laughter until their stomachs ached and when their eyes met, the love was there. It sent a warmth through Amélie that lingered maybe a bit longer than it should have. Camille chased away the ache that loitered in the back of Amélie’s mind. Camille made the world around Amélie feel a little less heavy. Being with Camille was like an intermission from her usual life which she considered to be theatrical. 

Amélie couldn’t pinpoint when it started, but there were moments when she’d catch herself staring a little too long, wondering if Camille could feel the shift in the air between them. There was a quiet tenderness in their friendship, a certain softness to their exchanges, as if they were both slowly inching towards something unspoken. 

Being the more observant and bolder of the two— Camille was the first to say something. It happened one day after school and instead of taking her usual chauffeur home, Amélie decided to detour with Camille and take a walk through the countryside. The air was crisp, and the sound of their footsteps against the gravel path was the only thing breaking the silence between them. It wasn’t until they reached the end of a small grove, the fading light of the afternoon casting long shadows around them, when Camille said something. Amélie was taken aback by the confrontation, a sudden accusation that the feelings and friendship the two girls shared were growing to be more than just platonic. 

Although staggered, she didn’t feel awkward or nervous about the confrontation. The tension between them wasn’t uncomfortable, but a natural factor of what was blooming between them. In fact, Amélie had never felt more safe. That was the thing she loved most about Camille— the ability to make Amélie feel like she could simply be . That she could exist fully without the pressure of being anything but herself.

Amélie had her first kiss that day, with her first love, Camille.

The kisses and love they exchanged with each other were shared in privacy. In the confines of Amélie’s bedroom when her parents allowed Camille to spend the night. Stealing kisses from each other in the school bathroom. Makeout sessions and hand holding out in the isolation of the French countryside. Camille was eager to show off her girlfriend. Meanwhile Amélie, she always had a show to put on and kissing a girl on the main stage…wasn’t in the script. It was something that needed to happen behind the scenes after the curtains close, to maintain an act that pleased the crowd that surrounded her. 

Eventually, it became too much. Camille was someone who wasn’t afraid to be herself. She was never the one to hide or be silenced. She began to grow sick of always being in the shadows, being an understudy in Amélie’s performance. It was so painful, to only be loved within the parameters that her partner allowed. When Camille inevitably broke up with Amélie, it was heart shattering. Amélie pleaded, assuring Camille that one day things would be different…only to be met with that the two were only meant to be chapters in each other's stories, and that fate had run its course. Camille wished Amélie the best and hoped that she would come to terms with who she really was soon enough. After graduation, the two never spoke again.

Amélie had never despised anything more than fate so much.

In the coming years, Amélie did her best to focus on herself and immerse herself in her lifelong passion, ballet. Being a Guillard, she attended one of the more prestigious French universities majoring in Dance and Theatrical Arts. Her career quickly flourished, as she was deemed a prodigy from the moment she started as a child. Amélie loved to dance. Although it was just another performance, it provided her the same emotions that Camille once gave her and allowed her to express herself in a way she couldn't. When Amélie was dancing she was carefree, resilient, outspoken and felt as light as a feather. She was commended in the ballet community. She began to perform at high scale theaters, mentor lessons and became a standard in the dance community that young ballerinas aspired to be.

Her accomplishments were well received by her parents. It was probably the first time in her life she received any sort of praise from them. But despite all this, they still insisted that her main focus should be on maintaining the aristocracy of their family. Soon enough, she was introduced to Gerald Lacroix, a high-ranking agent in Overwatch who often worked in tandem with the United Nations and other international organizations.  By this point, it has been a little over a decade since the conclusion of the initial Omnic Crisis. But there were still occasional outbursts of conflicts around the world, making Overwatch still a high profile and important organization. Amélie’s parents believed that by marrying someone like Gerald, it would give their family important connections and paint their family name in a good light.

 Gerald was nothing less than a gentleman towards Amélie. He got her nice gifts, took her out on romantic dates, complimented her, made her feel nice. The simple things. Which yes she adored, but a part of her still felt empty. Was it because he wasn’t Camille? She was sure of it. But that was so long ago and those bridges were now burned. Not only was Gerald sweet and benevolent, but being with him made her parents happy . So, feeling once again the restraints of her parents' conservatism, of course she agreed to marry him.

Being the fiancée of an Overwatch agent, Amélie found herself attending lots of conferences. Visiting bases and volunteering to do some Overwatch humanitarian events on the side, such as fundraising and various charity work. It felt good to be able to finally give back. She would sometimes think of a young Camille, and take that with her in her heart when she went. 

Amélie was bound to cross paths with Angela eventually. It was one day at Overwatch’s Swiss base, about eight years before the explosion. Amélie usually stuck by Gerald’s side, however she had to run off to use the restroom. Upon her exit, she found herself wandering aimlessly around the large base clearly unaware of where to go, as her gaze was continuously circling her the base, in awe at her surroundings and the advanced technology that Overwatch acquired.

“Lost?” A voice echoed from behind her which startled Amélie a bit and caused her to whip around to be met with the golden-haired doctor, who has come to call herself Mercy to the public. She was definitely a couple inches shorter than Amélie, but being taller than most women was something she was used to. Her white coat hugged around her black sweater that she wore with her brown pants and clunky grey boots. Amélie noted to herself that Angela looked particularly cute in her glasses.

“Oh, uh…” Amélie sheepishly stammered out, “Y-Yes. I was just trying to find my way back to my fiancé, Gerald.”

“ Oh! ” Angela exclaimed, her demeanor immediately brightening as she clasped her hands together out of excitement, immediately striding over to be closer. “ You’re Amélie?! Why, it is so nice to finally meet you. And might I say, Gerald has good taste! You’re beautiful!”  

Amélie couldn’t have helped the blood that rushed to her cheeks, even if she had tried. Being complimented isn’t something she was sure she was ever going to get used to, especially if it was from a girl. 

“Thank you.” She replied earnestly with a nod of her head, pushing one of her long strands of dark hair behind her ear, “I think I’m quite lucky myself.”

“Well…” Angela trailed off and she flashed a warm grin at Amélie. “No need to be shy. How about I give you a tour of the base?”

“That would be…lovely.”

From then on, the pair would grow closer. Whenever they bumped into each other at a conference, press meeting, in the base, they would greet each other with a smile and a hug, and if time allowed, they would have a lovely conversation. Amélie invited Angela to the wedding ceremony where she was bestowed the honor of being one of her bridesmaids. Angela would always remember how happy and vibrant Amélie looked that day. It truly warmed her heart that she had met someone who has grown to mean so much to her, in such a short timespan. Already, it felt like the two were inseparable friends who were always there for one another.

As their friendship blossomed, cracks began to form in Amélie’s marriage. She didn’t always agree with the way Gerald handled things with Overwatch. Blackwatch was shady, unstable and seemed to do more harm than good. That Dr. O'Deorain gave her the creeps. It was hard to distance herself from the seemingly perniciousness and depravity of Overwatch when she was practically married to it. Amélie got to see up close and personal how this line of work could really bring out the worst in someone. Gerald got more secretive, started to exclude her more and was gone for longer periods of time. The lack of communication carved an emptiness inside her. She understood that she wasn’t an agent or a professional, but would it kill him to at least let her know where he is? She was his wife after all.

Angela sympathized with Amélie while berating Gerald behind the scenes to be authentic and forthcoming with his wife. It seems the only thing to have been comforting Amélie back then, was the long lustful nights she shared with Angela.

It was around this time where Blackwatch was becoming victim to corruption and Talon was resurging with a newfound venom under a new leader, Akande Ogundimu, who had a hit set out on Gerald. He had purposefully distanced himself to focus on combating the terrorist organization while also keeping his wife safe.

However, those attempts would prove to be futile upon Amélie’s kidnapping. 

Angela was absolutely distraught. Amélie simply being taken in the middle of the night was too much for her to handle. The doctor was so upset that she cursed out a storm at Gerald and Jack, saying that they better get Amélie back or God help them . What scared Angela even more was that she knew Amélie would be in the presence of Dr. O'Deorain, someone Angela found to be absolutely immoral and despicable. The two had butted heads at previous medical conferences which, ironically enough, they have both been excluded from as ordered by the board for more similar reasons than the two of them, well at least Angela, think.

Gerald went into a frenzy that week. Using every technological advancement and resource they had to track down and get his wife back. Meanwhile Amélie…went through the worst pain she had ever felt in her life.

Dr. O'Deorain stripped her down to something less than human, less than a mind, less than a soul. Her own identity was slowly unraveled and torn away from her. The process was meticulous, methodical and monstrous. Electrodes latched to her scalp like a hungry parasite while she was restrained to her chair, her body convulsing against the straps with each jolt of electricity. The warmth of emotion that she felt from her memories was dissected from her scalpel-like, severing any kind of happiness or comfort she may have felt from them. Love was extracted from her body and the concept of grief that she should’ve felt from being broken down was overwritten with something more colder, more obedient.

Making use of her agony, her mind was made pliable. Her neurons were dulled by a torrent of chemical injections that were replacing them with something hollow. When Amélie wasn’t being put through sessions of neural reconditioning, she was left alone, suffocating in darkness with nothing but her own heartbeat to listen to, but even that part of her was fleeting.

The words Dr. O'Deorain said to her during their sessions echoed through her mind… 

“Pain is an excellent teacher. Every shock, every pulse, is shaping you into someone better. Someone stronger.”

“The mind…is nothing more than a complex web of impulses and chemistry. With just a few adjustments, your consciousness will soon yield.”

“You were always meant for this. You were wasted as a wife. I’m giving you purpose.”

“Gerald. Overwatch. They failed you. They abandoned you to this fate. Now, I’m offering you a future.”

Amélie desperately tried to cling onto whatever comfort she had left within her. The memories of nights out with her friends, twirling in golden lights and champagne haze. The electric thrill of dancing for thousands at the Palais Garnier, where she felt truly alive, her movements weaving stories without words. Mornings wrapped in warmth—Angela’s steady breath against her skin. Camille, and how her laughter sounds echoing in her mind like a ghost of something soft, something real.

But it was no use. Those emotions, those comforts, were forcefully ripped away from her without consent. It only took two weeks for Amélie to succumb to the results of Moira’s neural reconditioning. It only took two weeks for Amélie to be rescued by Morrison’s task force. It only took two weeks for Amélie to be forcibly changed for the worse and murder her husband in her sleep.

Before she fled the scene, she took one look in a nearby mirror where she lingered for a moment. The woman staring back at her was someone else, something else. Her skin, once warm and full of life, was now an unnatural shade of blue, stretched over sharp bones. Her once vibrant eyes, now a sickly yellow, stared back at her, vacant and hollow, devoid of anything human. Blood speckled her face, a piece of her husband clinging to her skin. She was incapable of smiling, crying, screaming. Her soul was numb. But damn, did putting that bullet in her husband’s skull feel nothing short of absolutely euphoric. This was her fate.

Chapter Text

“Does Gerald touch you like this? Is he able to make you feel as good as I do?” 

Angela flipped, tossed and turned in bed, throwing off the sheets only to pull them back over her body again. Sleep was impossible as her mind flooded itself with past memories with what seemed like every intimate moment she and Amelie had ever shared. They played on a cruel, endless loop, taunting her with flashes of Amelie’s bare skin beneath her fingertips, the way her breath would hitch at just the right touch. 

There was only one more night until she would be at the Cheval Blanc and she couldn’t have been more impatient. It was only a two hour plane ride to Paris from Spain, where the Watchpoint Gibraltar base was located and she had already booked her ticket, planned her outfit, and picked out a bottle of wine (Of course, Amelie’s favorite Château Latour, which had a price that made Angela want to sob) . Now it was just a waiting game and hoping nothing big happened at base or anywhere else in the world where Overwatch might be needed, between now and her departure.

Amélie shuddered as the doctor intricately glided her fingers up and down the wetness between her folds. Teardrops pricked at the corners of Amélie’s squeezed shut eyes as she became desperate for release, her fingernails digging into Angela’s shoulder blades as the older woman hovered over her. 

“No..” Amélie, pathetically, whimpered out. 

“Mm… I need you to look at me when you say it, schätzelein.”

The dancer’s eyes fluttered open compliantly to meet the doctor’s own blue ones. Both of their gazes are intense, dark and filled with lust. Yet, there was still so much love between them.

“No. God, no. He doesn’t touch me like you do, chérie.”

Angela groaned, grabbing her other pillow to aggressively bury her face into. The frustration was clearly becoming unbearable as it kept her awake, which was a big no-no as she had some last minute duties to attend to the next day before she needed to leave. Rest was imperative at this moment! 

But how was she supposed to sleep when every time she closed her eyes, she was back there– back in Amélie’s arms, back in the heat of stolen nights and whispered promises. Where the weight of Amélie’s body pressed against hers, the scent of her perfume lingering on Angela’s skin long after they had parted. Her mind cycled through every touch, every sigh, every moan…every desperate plea that had passed between them.

Angela remembered how absolutely irresistible Amélie looked beneath her. The soft glow of dim lighting casting delicate shadows across her body. Her porcelain skin, usually so cool and composed, became flushed under Angela’s touch, blooming with color in the most sensitive places– her cheeks, her chest, the tops of her thighs. She could still envision the way Amélie’s lips parted, swollen and kiss-bruised, as she gasped Angela’s name in that sultry, breathless voice of hers.

One thing in particular that Angela absolutely adored was how much Amélie trusted her. How she was so willing in letting Angela take the lead, allowing her to be the one in control. The ever-poised and graceful Amélie Lacroix, the untouchable ballerina, a well regarded Gaillard, melted in Angela’s hands. It was nothing short of adoration that Angela felt for her. She reveled in the unspoken surrender, in the way Amélie’s long delicate fingers clenched the sheets or tangled in her hair– small, involuntary reactions that Angela observed with fascination, as if studying the limits of sensation itself.

It was no secret that the doctor loved to experiment, to study the intricate responses of the body and mind when pushed to the heights of sensation. The same relentless curiosity that drove her hands across Amélie’s skin, had once guided her scalpel, her research, her ambition. It was this hunger for understanding—whether of life, death, or the fragile moments in between—that had made her a pioneer in the field of medicine. She had never been one to accept limits, whether imposed by nature or morality. Just as she had spent years defying the permanence of death, unlocking the secrets of resurrection with cold precision, she now sought to map every trembling reaction, every delicate shift in breath and pulse, as if Amélie were another mystery waiting to be unraveled.

“Oh, fuck Angela!”

Angela clenched her thighs together as the remembrance of how Amélie sounded when she climaxed rang through her head. She squeezed her thighs, trying to will away the throbbing need between them, but it only made things worse. The more she resisted, the more intrusive her thoughts became, dragging her deeper into a haze of lust and longing. 

Gradually, she began to relax into her mattress, her facial expression softening. The low hum of the Overwatch base’s ventilation system was a distant murmur, drowned out by the sound of her own heartbeat. Her fingers began to lazily trail around her own torso until she guided them downward, slipping them beneath the waistband of her underwear. If she had to soothe herself to sleep, so be it. 

Her mind drifted from the distant past to the stark contrast of the present. Things were different now—irreversibly so. Amélie was no longer the woman who once laid herself bare before Angela, no longer the lover who met her with soft surrender and whispered confessions in the dead of night. That quiet vulnerability Angela had once been privileged to was long gone, locked away behind glacial walls. Now, Amélie was the one taking from her, wielding her presence like a blade that cut deep into Angela’s resolve.

Angela remembered the first time she had seen Amélie after that night—after Gerald’s murder. And what disturbed her the most wasn’t the horror of the crime itself, nor the brutality of it, nor the fact that a man she had once fought beside had met such a tragic end. No, what unsettled Angela to her core was Amélie’s choice. That after everything—after all the pain, the suffering, the forced transformation—Amélie had fled back to Talon, abandoning her past life completely. She had chosen them.

Their paths converged once more in London, in the heated aftermath of Mondatta’s assassination. The city boomed in an uproar as conflict proceeded between humans and omnics, trust completely broken, discriminatory ideologies once again being brought back to light. London was an open wound, torn apart by fury and fear. Human-omnic relations, already fragile, had collapsed into outright violence.  Overwatch task forces were sent out to mediate the hostilities, Angela being part of one, in response to the violent protests led by Null Sector. Null Sector, seizing the moment, led aggressive demonstrations that swiftly turned into riots. They abducted their own kind in the name of liberation, tore families apart under the guise of salvation. 

London burned. The Underworld fell into chaos. And where there was chaos, there was Talon.

Angela remembers the horror– the deafening roar of gunfire, the acrid scent of smoke and burning metal. The cries of men, women, and children, their voices strangled by panic as they sprinted frantically down the streets from shooting Nulltroopers and artilleries. The doctor did her best, directing and aiding the civilians that she could. While also supporting her team made up of Lena, Winston and Sojourn when combating the Null Sector units. The warfare went on for days, nights. Angela was exhausted, but that feeling was negated by her own fears and anxiety.

Then came the silence.

It was an eerie quiet, unnatural after the ceaseless chaos. The disputes in London settled down, though the city still smoldered in the distance. Angela found herself wandering the desolate streets, looking for any more survivors and refugees hiding out in the city to provide aid to. Pistol in one hand, flashlight in the other-– she roamed the wet, gloomy alleyways of the city that once stood tall, but found itself a victim once again to war.

There was something so serene about the silence that night. For weeks, she has been surrounded by yelling, explosions, sobbing. Now, she heard nothing. No gunfire. No screams. Just the faint drip of water from a fractured pipe and the distant hum of the city struggling to breathe beneath the weight of devastation. The doctor couldn’t help but stop in her tracks to soak it all in, letting her guard down and she turned to lean back against a wet, cold brick wall. Mental fatigue pricked at Angela’s mind from how much her worries had occupied her overtime and she dropped her pistol and flashlight to free her hands so that they could cradle her face. 

Her face buried in her hands, Angela wept softly, shoulders trembling with the weight of it all. She had never imagined she would find herself in the middle of yet another war. Perhaps she had been too hopeful, too naïve, to believe the Omnic Crisis had truly ended the first time around. The world had simply found a new way to tear itself apart, and here she was again—patching wounds, saving lives, fighting for something that felt increasingly futile.

She was so lost in her exhaustion, in the quiet devastation curling around her like smoke, that she didn’t notice the faint footsteps approaching.

"Oh, you poor thing."

The voice sliced through the night—mocking, familiar. Low and smooth, drenched in that effortless sultriness that had once set her alight.

Angela’s breath hitched, her instincts taking hold as she fumbled for the pistol at her feet. In one swift motion, she grabbed it and aimed toward the darkness, her pulse hammering in her throat.

"Who's there?"

"Don’t act stupid."

The words came through sharp, laced with slight annoyance, and then—out from the shadows—emerged a silhouette draped in moonlight. Long, poised strides. The glint of a rifle resting lazily on a shoulder. The sheen of indigo skin catching the dim light like polished stone.

Amélie.

Angela let out a shaky breath, fingers taut around the trigger. Her heartbeat pounded against her ribs, an erratic drumbeat of disbelief and fear. The woman before her was a ghost, a nightmare made flesh—one she had failed to save, one who had slipped through her fingers and disappeared into the abyss of Talon.

And now, she had returned.

Angela had tried to bring her back once during her initial rescue… she tried to be her salvation. But all she had been met with was silence, ice-blue stares so hollow and devoid of the warmth she once knew. Even now, standing under the dim glow of the ruined city, Angela felt the coldness radiating from her like an unforgiving winter. It sent a chill up her spine, made the air feel thinner. She suddenly found herself struggling to breathe.

Amélie, however, seemed entirely at ease, gazing at her with that distant, impassive expression—as if she were looking at something fragile, something laughable. Her lips curled, and then came a soft, unsettling chuckle.

"Cute."

She took a step forward. Then another. Her long legs made quick work of the distance between them, and before Angela had a chance to react, her back was already pressed against the damp brick wall at her own demise.

There was nowhere to run.

Amélie’s fingers, cool and precise, reached for the pistol still trembling in Angela’s grip. She barely had to apply pressure as she pushed the barrel down, lowering Angela’s aim to the pavement. The movement was unhurried, almost patronizing. A second later, she plucked the gun from Angela’s hands and tossed it aside with a careless flick of her wrist.

Angela swallowed hard, frozen in place.

Had Amélie come to kill her?

The silence between them was deafening.

Until at last—their eyes met.

Two women standing on opposite sides of fate, seeing each other for the first time… all over again.

Amélie’s presence was now so domineering and Angela felt herself melt under it. Her teeth gnawed at her lip out of nervousness. She wasn’t sure what came over her, but she reached a hand out to press Amélie’s shoulder, only to be met with her wrist to be slammed above her onto the brick wall. Angela yelped out at the sudden sting of pain and found herself having the waterworks once more. The twinge of hurt that was inflicted upon her was another cruel reminder that the woman before her is not the woman she had known before.

“Amélie, please…” Angela choked out as she began to sob again. “Whatever you came to do…just make it quick. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you. I’m sorry I could save you. I just-please… please.”  

A scoff came from the taller woman and her grip tightened around Angela’s wrist. “Save me?”  

Amélie’s eyes narrowed down at the doctor, seemingly in disgust that she would make such a statement. 

“You really are more pathetic than I thought.”

Angela shuddered, her breath coming out in short, uneven gasps. The pressure on her wrist was bruising, sharp enough to keep her pinned, to remind her of just how powerless she was beneath Amélie’s grasp.

"Amélie, please…" she whimpered again, voice breaking. "If there's still a part of you that remembers—"

"Remember?" Amélie cut in, her voice like sharpened glass. She tilted her head, her gaze sweeping over Angela as though she were something small, insignificant. "You think I have forgotten?"

Her fingers flexed, nails digging into Angela’s wrist just enough to make her wince.

"I remember everything, cherie," she purred, but there was no tenderness behind it—only venom. "I remember your hands on me. I remember your voice in my ear, telling me I was yours. I remember how you used to look at me like I was something delicate, something to be fixed."

She leaned in, her breath ghosting against Angela’s cheek, sickeningly slow.

"But tell me, ma chère docteur... Did you ever stop to think that maybe I never wanted your help?”

Angela shook her head, struggling against the iron grip that held her. Her vision blurred with tears, her throat tight.

"That’s not true," she whispered, voice trembling. "You— You weren't yourself, Amélie. What she did to you—"

"What she did to me?" Amélie repeated mockingly, her lips curling into something cruel, humorless. "You still don’t get it, do you?"

She suddenly released Angela’s wrist, only to seize her chin instead, forcing her to look up, to drown in the eerie, golden voids that had replaced the warmth of her once-human gaze.

"London– the city of my first true love. And here I am, contributing to the very war that killed her father.

I am exactly who I was always meant to be."

The words sent an unbearable shiver down Angela’s spine.

Amélie smirked at the reaction, her fingers lingering, her touch deceptively light now—almost caressing, almost gentle, but the threat in her posture remained.

"Tell me, Angela," she mused, almost thoughtful. "Do I still make your heart race?"

She lowered her head, lips dangerously close to the curve of Angela’s throat.

"Does it kill you," she murmured, "knowing that you failed?"

What came after was not Angela’s protest, but instead Amelie’s teeth sinking into the tender spot just beneath the doctor’s ear, sharp and deliberate. The sudden pressure made Angela gasp, a strangled whine escaping past her lips as her body involuntarily tensed against the sniper’s grip. The bite was a searing sting– she was sure there was blood and a mark would be left, but Angela couldn’t will herself to pull away. Despite how cold to the touch Amélie was now, she became fevered with desire for her. 

“Amélie, wait–”

A part of her wanted to scream, to run, to resist. But the rest of her—the part she couldn’t ignore—ached for this, for her, for the woman who held her in a vice-like grip of control and desire. Even in this broken, cruel form, Angela could not deny that Amelie had a pull over her that was far stronger than anything she had ever known.

Amélie’s lips trailed a path of fire against Angela’s skin, her grip remaining on her jaw to keep the doctor’s head angled upward, providing the sniper with unequivocal access to her neck as she licked, bit, sucked and kissed.

This memory – how electric Amélie made Angela feel in a dark alleyway in London, is what pushed her to start circling her fingers sensitive, now pulsing clit. Her back arched off the mattress at the sudden jolt of pleasure that rushed through her, making her spread open her legs even wider to give her more access to the area.

Amélie’s mouth eventually found her way to Angela’s. The kiss they had shared that night was intense, feverish…unlike the past kisses they had together. Gone was the tenderness, the quiet comfort, the unspoken longing that once defined them. This was something else entirely— intense, feverish, a clash of dominance and surrender laced with raw, unrestrained desire.

When Amélie finally pulled back, her lips were just barely parted, a breath away from Angela’s.

“You’re not going to run off on me now, are you, docteur?” Her voice was subdued…a low, predatory purr. The way she looked at Angela— sharp, unreadable, commanding— sent a shiver down the doctor’s spine. Amélie was absolutely domineering like this. She had her caged against the wall, every possible escape route cut off as Amelie wedged a thigh between Angela’s legs. With slow, deliberate ease, she set her rifle down against the damp brink beside them, as if to wordlessly promise the doctor she wouldn’t need it for what came next.

Oh, what came next… Angela’s mind continued to race with the recollections of that night, meanwhile the fingers she had on her clit became more fevered with desperation as she picked up the speed and the pressure.

Angela remembered being oh so compliant with Amélie, ready to do whatever the sniper may have asked of her. The doctor thought to herself that she was absolutely deranged and wrong, for allowing a Talon agent, the one who sparked disaster in this very city she was trying to aid, take her right in this alleyway. Guilt churned in her stomach, knowing that here she was making out with Overwatch’s Most Wanted , while her comrades were still out fighting for their cause.

If they were to suddenly be caught, it would truly be over for Angela and everything she had built for herself.

However, she allowed the events to transpire anyway.

Amélie’s hands roamed over Angela’s body, possessive and unrelenting, and Angela had found herself arching willingly into her touch, simultaneously sinking down onto Amélie’s latex-clothed thigh. The doctor’s arms went to wrap around the other woman’s neck, desperate to anchor herself as the world spun around her.

She should have pushed Amélie away. Every instinct in her screamed that this was wrong, that she was betraying everything she had worked for. But when Amélie’s lips found hers again— demanding, punishing— Angela melted. She had always melted for her

“Amélie,” Angela moaned into the kiss. “I’ve missed you so much.”  

This seemed to ignite something in the sniper as she promptly bit down on Angela’s lower lip and pressed her thigh more upwards into the doctor’s crotch. 

“Shut up.”

Yet another shudder came from Angela, the friction from Amelie’s thigh against her own clothed heat causing a pool of wetness to form. Suddenly, Angela had found herself grinding down against Amélie’s thigh as they kissed, powerless to stop herself. One of Amélie’s hands went back to wrap itself around Angela’s neck, the other planted on the doctor’s hip to help guide her movements on her leg as Angela became more eager and desperate.

In the present, Angela was now grinding down against her own fingers as they continued to work her clit, trying her best to emulate her movements against Amélie’s thigh that night. 

“Amélie, Amélie, Amélie…” She whined her lover's name softly to herself, her breath coming in short, uneven gasps, her release near in the horizon.

“You’re so pitiful, I didn’t know you were so weak.” Amélie’s words during their smoldering make out session echoed through Angela’s mind. It might just be true, Angela thought.

“Please, I’m so close.”   Angela had never felt like this before, like she was unraveling at the seams, wholly at Amélie’s mercy. She was no longer the one in control—no longer the guiding hand, the careful scientist, the healer. Here, she was reduced to nothing but raw need, a body responding instinctively to Amélie’s hands, to the unrelenting press of her thigh between her legs.

“Look at you,” Amélie murmured between kisses, her voice a decadent hum of amusement. “Grinding against me like some desperate little thing. Have you really missed me that much, docteur?”

Angela whimpered as Amélie’s grip on her neck tightened, not enough to choke, just enough to remind her of who was in control. The sniper was watching her every reaction, reveling in the way Angela clung to her, in the way her hips stuttered against the friction she provided. Her moan was swallowed by Amélie’s mouth as the sniper kissed her again, deep and commanding, her tongue sliding past Angela’s lips as she pressed her harder against the wall. The bite on her neck throbbed with a dull ache, but Angela barely registered it, too consumed by the way Amélie’s thigh rocked against her aching core.

Angela gasped sharply as Amélie angled her thigh just right, dragging it against the spot that made her cry out. The sniper smirked, slow and cruel, and guided Angela’s movements more forcefully, holding her in place like a puppet on invisible strings.

“Take what you need,” Amélie whispered, her lips brushing against the shell of Angela’s ear. “Since you’re so eager to ruin yourself for me.”

Angela’s back arched against the sheets, her free hand fisting the fabric beneath her as she gasped, panting, teetering on the bring of release. She could still feel Amélie’s grips on her hips, still feel the possessive way she had been held, the way she had been used. It should have made her feel sick and full of regret.

But it didn’t.

Suddenly, with a cry of Amélie's name, her body tensed as pleasure from her intense orgasm coursed through her, hot and consuming. Her mind went black except for the memory of Amélie– her voice, her touch, the way she had controlled Angela so effortlessly and guided her through her climax.

As the aftershocks pulsed through her, Angela exhaled shakily, her body sinking back into her bed. Her fingers trembled against her overstimulated clit as she slowly came down from the high. 

Thankfully, her plan of soothing herself to sleep worked as her desires were temporarily satiated for the night, as her eyes instantly became heavy with exhaustion and bliss. Of course, she knew nothing she did could ever replicate Amélie’s touch, the way she unraveled under her control. The high she had just come down from was temporary. The ache of longing, of surrender, was not. There was just one more night she had to make it through. Just one more night until she could be in her forbidden lover’s arms once more.

Chapter Text

Perched high above the Seine upon a limestone cliff, Château Gaillard stood like a specter of former glory, a sentinel caught between eras – part monument, part wound in the earth. From a distance, its broken towers and jagged ramparts still struck a noble silhouette against the gray sky, but up close, its decay was undeniable. Ivy choked the cracks in its masonry, birds nested in hollows once meant for archers, and rainwater collected in the forgotten crevices of its battlements. Time had eroded its grandeur, leaving behind only fragments of what had once been a proud display of power and vigilance.

The chateau had once been Richard the Lionheart’s pride– built out of a fever for control, a statement of dominance to keep France at bay. Bold, angular,and daring in its design, it was considered nearly impenetrable, a military marvel made to intimidate, to command and conquer. However, only a decade had passed before it was sieged; breached by cunning and patience rather than brute force. The French army, under Philip the II, exploited overlooked vulnerabilities: a poorly defended latrine chute, the complacency of its defenders, the weariness of prolonged resistance. Its collapse had not been dramatic, but slow, inevitable, haunting. 

Perhaps that’s what drew Amélie back to the castle time and time again. There was something familiar in the way the fortress had been designed to be a fortified citadel, and yet still succumbed. She wouldn’t admit it aloud but she recognized that kind of failure. As a woman that was once driven by empathy, purpose, and love, she had been reshaped into something colder. Her downfall, much like the chateau’s, had not been immediate– but relentless. Beginning in childhood, bound by the strict expectations of a conservative household; continued through adolescence, where her queerness had to be silenced and hidden… resulting in the loss of true love; and ended, perhaps, the moment Talon took her. Not all at once, but piece by piece.

The air in the fortress always felt heavier, the kind of stillness that hummed with the past. Amélie often stood alone on the highest ride, eyes cast over the valley, unaffected by the breeze pressing against her skintight suit like ghostly fingers. The scent of damp stone and distant woodsmoke curled in the air, and the silence was so complete it made her thoughts all the more deafening. There was no hiding here. Not from the past, nor the hollowness that lived just beneath her skin. Chateau Gaillard did not ask questions or offer comfort. It simply existed, like she herself did now, stripped of its original purpose, filled with echoes instead of life.

Even now, she sometimes wondered if her neural reconditioning had truly rewritten her soul, or if it had merely unearthed what the world had already started chiseling away. She told herself that it didn’t matter anymore. The woman she once was, Amélie, was gone. Smothered by years of expectation, shame, and weaponization. But everytime she stood among the ruins of Chateau Gaillard, something in her stirred. It was more than a memory…it was mourning. Not just for the castle, or the woman she had been, but for the possibility that she had once believed she could be something other than this.

Maybe that’s why she returned. Not for sentimentality…Talon had no patience for that. But for recognition. The chateau mirrored her in ways nothing else could: once noble, now feared; once meant to protect, now isolated and ruined by what had been done to it. The memories of the softness that her old life provided now only came to her in glimpses – warm hands, laughter, her own voice when it used to be sweet and filled with genuine compassion. All of it now locked behind a thousand walls. Even the strongest fortress could be breached. The castle proved that. She proved that.

But was she ever strong at all? Or just well-fortified?

The legacy of Château Gaillard wove itself into Amélie’s identity long before she ever stood before its crumbling walls. As a child, the stories had been recited like scripture, not just about the castle, but what it meant to bear the Gaillard name. The fortress wasn’t simply a relic; it was a standard. When she had first heard of the chateau, she was nestled in her father’s lap in his worn, creaking leather armchair while the Normandy rain wept softly against the windows of their countryside estate. The fire popped in the hearth, casting flickering gold across the heavy bookshelves and oil portraits. Her father always chose nights like this to speak of bloodlines and empires, as though the storm outside demanded history be remembered.

"It was ours, once,” he would murmur, unfurling a map so old it smelled of dust and parchment. His long fingers, marked with ink stains and aristocratic rings, traced the lines of the Seine with reverence, landing on the name like a benediction. “Château Gaillard. The jewel of Normandy. Built by kings, claimed by Gaillards. Our name, carved into stone and story.”

Her father had spoken of it with reverence, his voice weighted with expectation, describing it as a monument of cunning and resilience—an outpost built by Richard the Lionheart himself to defy the French crown, only to be taken by those clever enough to break it. To him, the Gaillards claiming the ruins generations later had been a sign of destiny. “ We are heirs to what outlasts kings,” he once said. “ Even broken, the chateau is proof that strength is not always loud. Sometimes, it’s the fact that you remain standing at all.”

Her mother, always nearby, would lift her eyes from her needlework with a faint sigh, her expression caught somewhere between fondness and fatigue. “Claimed, yes,” she’d say, voice clipped with that sharp pragmatism she wielded like a knife. “But claiming isn’t keeping. It fell, as all grand things do.” 

She had painted the picture differently. To her, the château was a ruin, a cautionary tale of ambition and violence. “You can’t live inside a monument,” she would say when Amélie romanticized the idea of restoring it. “And a name isn’t armor. Pride won’t save you when the walls fall.” But even that, her mother’s realism, had a weight to it, an unspoken warning about the cost of becoming something that others revered but did not understand. Together, her parents gave her two visions of the chateau: one as legacy, the other as grave.

"It fell,” her father agreed, but there was never regret in his voice—only a kind of stubborn reverence. “It didn’t fall because it was weak,” he said, eyes lingering on the map with quiet intensity. “It was surrounded, cut off, and starved into submission. No fortress is unbreakable when the world decides to turn against it.”

Amélie would sit wide-eyed, legs curled beneath her, absorbing every word like gospel. Her father’s voice had weight, his stories gravity. She imagined the castle as he spoke: its pale walls blazing in sunlight, archers standing vigilant atop towers, banners snapping in the wind. It became mythic in her mind—half-fortress, half-ghost. He told her it had once represented French defiance, that the Gaillards had laid claim to its legacy when others turned to dust. “The blood of survivors,” he said. “That’s what flows in your veins,Amélie.”

She remembered asking why the Gaillards hadn’t rebuilt it—if they were still noble, still proud, why let it rot?

Her mother had answered first, setting aside her embroidery with the faintest tremble of restraint. “Because it’s a ruin,” she said. “A reminder that even the grandest things can be hollowed out. You don’t rebuild what’s already become something else.”

Her father had smiled then, not with hope, but with a quiet melancholy. “Or maybe,” he said, “it was never meant to be whole again. Some legacies aren't restored—they're carried.”

Some legacies aren’t restored– they’re carried. 

Those words echoed in Amélie’s mind with the rhythm of a heartbeat, steady and inescapable. They had once seemed poetic, even noble—a balm her father offered when the world felt too uncertain, when her future felt unwritten. But now, they tasted bitter. Had she become Widowmaker by destiny, or by design? It was easy to blame fate—it made her choices feel less like failures, more like inevitabilities. Maybe this was always how the Gaillard name was meant to rise again—not through diplomacy or elegance, but through the cold precision of a rifle scope and blood left behind in foreign cities. Maybe she was fated to be remembered—not as a savior, but as a shadow.

Or maybe she told herself these things to make the weight easier to bear. To justify the unthinkable. To give shape and meaning to the hollowness that clawed at her in the quiet. Was she honoring a legacy—or hiding behind one? Had she inherited strength… or simply learned how to disappear behind it?

Even now, standing amidst the ruins, Amélie could still hear the echo of her parent’s voices—her father’s fervent declarations of legacy and survival, her mother’s keen pragmatism. They were two halves of the same story: one clinging to the grandeur of what had been, the other already mourning what was lost. And Amélie, caught between them, had spent her life trying to be both…dutiful and exceptional, gentle and unyielding. But after the reconditioning, after Gérard, after Talon, she no longer knew which voice to follow. The one that told her she could still be reclaimed, or the one that whispered it was too late. She had become the ruin. And like the chateau, she wasn't sure if she was waiting to be restored, or merely enduring, weathering each day like stone under rain.

The chateau had always been a symbol, even before she’d come to see it for what it was. 

She remembered the first time she ran off after school to find it—barely fifteen, her uniform untidy, her shoes soaked from a detour through the overgrown paths of Normandy. She’d grown up on the stories, after all. Her father’s dramatic retellings of the Gaillard lineage, her mother’s wry reminders of what had been lost. Eventually, the castle felt less like a myth and more like a question that needed answering. So she took the train, lied to her tutors, and found her way there alone.

And when she finally saw it—weather-beaten, skeletal, bleeding history from every stone—she felt something tighten in her chest. Not fear, not awe, but recognition. It was like standing before an older version of herself. Grand, yes, but forgotten. Damaged. Dignified, even in ruin.

It was supposed to be a single visit. Just a glimpse. But it became more than that.

She began to return regularly…on weekends, on holidays, sometimes even skipping school. The chateau became her own little safe haven. A place where she could lower her voice and her guard. Where she could cry without being asked to explain herself, or spin barefoot in empty halls, imagining the echo of music and candlelight that once filled the space. Here, she didn’t have to be perfect, or poised, or palatable. She could simply exist. It was the only place in the world that asked nothing of her, and in return, she gave it her trust.

She always meant to show it to Camille. She would imagine leading her through the moss-lined corridors, letting her feel the hush that had always welcomed her, as if unveiling something precious and private.. But that dream died the same night their relationship did.

In the aftermath of their breakup, Amélie returned to the chateau in a storm of grief. She tore through the rooms like a tempest, splintering old wood, shattering mirrors, collapsing beneath the weight of her heartbreak. The castle bore witness to it all. It held her rage without judgment, cradled her sobs in silence. It became the only place she allowed herself to feel everything all at once.

So it made sense that this was where she came after escaping Overwatch custody—after murdering Gérard, after witnessing Angela’s pleas, after the last shreds of the woman she used to be had finally slipped through her fingers.

Dark, rainy, drenched from head to toe, she stood there, cold but strangely unshaken, her rifle treading in the mud. Fear gripped her, yet she didn’t flinch. She stood there, still as the fortress around her, letting the cold settle into her bones. For a fleeting moment, she wondered what might happen if she stayed—if she let the wind and time have her, the way they had claimed the chateau. Maybe she would erode slowly, piece by piece, as the moss grew over her until nothing of her remained but memory. Maybe that would be kinder than continuing to wear the face of a woman she no longer recognized.

But the world had no room for stillness. Not for people like her.

There was nowhere else to go. Overwatch had tried to pull her back. Angela tried to force her into the mold of the person she used to be—but it didn’t fit. She’d slipped from their grasp not because she was clever, but because she was already lost. Whatever fragments of Amélie Lacroix had been left were too scattered to recover. They saw her as a broken asset, a wounded thing to be fixed. But she wasn’t broken. She was changed. Irrevocably.

Talon had made her this way—and Talon would know what to do with her.

That’s what drove her back to them. This damn castle.

As she wandered aimlessly through the remains of the château today, the echo of her heels rang out against the cracked stone floors, sharp and rhythmic like a clock counting down something inevitable. Her rifle dragged at her side, the barrel scraping lazily against the ground, while the fingers of her free hand traced the cool, weathered stone—nails catching on the imperfections like thoughts she couldn't shake.

Sometimes, in moments like these, Amélie would wonder how far gone she truly was. If her parents were to appear before her now—flesh and blood, older but unchanged—would she feel anything at all? Would she search their faces for comfort, for pride, for some recognition of the girl they once raised? Or would she meet their gaze without flinching, lift her rifle, and pull the trigger before either of them could speak?

She still carried the bitterness like it was embedded in her bones; the impossible expectations, the cold distance masked as discipline, the way they treated her feelings as fragile distractions rather than truths. There was resentment…yes. Enough, maybe, to justify hate. But was there enough left of her to feel remorse? Enough to care if she was forgiven?

What about Camille?

The thought alone made her pause. Would she hesitate if they crossed paths again—if fate dragged that girl into the crosshairs of her scope? Would the grief, the rejection, the heartbreak, the abandonment, she never fully processed twist itself into something cruel? Would she pull the trigger not out of rage, but out of some warped sense of closure? A bullet for a broken heart. A wound for a wound. Could watching Camille bleed be enough to quiet the ache that had followed her through every life she had lived since? Would making her yet another victim in the same war that took her father soothe her soul?

She wasn’t sure what terrified her more. The thought of doing it… or the thought that she might not feel anything if she did.

Amélie’s footsteps came to a halt, the echo of her heels fading into silence. A low, weary sigh slipped from her lips as she let herself sink into the stillness of the chateau’s cold, stale air. Her eyes fluttered closed. The reminiscing, the mourning, the endless questions clawing at her skull… it was all beginning to drain her. Grief and memory were heavier than any weapon she’d ever carried.

When her eyes opened again, they fell upon the wall before her, blank at first, until the flicker of movement caught her attention. An old mirror, warped with age and fogged at the edges, stared back at her from between the stones. She stepped closer. Her reflection emerged slowly, piece by piece, until she was face to face with herself. Amber eyes dulled to gold. Expression empty. Lifeless. 

Amélie walked through the automatic doors of the Talon base, rifle slung over one shoulder, her expression as cold and unreadable as ever. The low hum of machinery barely registered—she was already slipping back into routine. Waiting for her, hands clasped neatly behind her back, stood Dr. O’Deorain, eyes narrowing with quiet scrutiny.

“I trust the assignment was handled, Lacroix?”

It took a great deal of restraint not to roll her eyes. But maintaining a mask was second nature by now—perhaps the only thing that still felt natural.

Her target had been a former Talon operative turned defector, now hiding under the illusion of Overwatch protection. Or so he thought. One anonymous tip from Sombra was all Amélie needed. Fear made people sloppy, and he had made just enough mistakes to give himself away.

She’d cornered him in a damp alleyway after a late-night run to a convenience store—routine made fatal. He’d fallen beneath her, heel driven into his chest, begging for mercy with trembling hands. A wife. A child. Promises. Regrets. He was a man who had once believed in something, now reduced to pleading beneath the femme fatale.

Amélie had looked down at him, head tilted. There was no contempt in her gaze—only apathy. He was a son. A husband. A father. That much was true. But above all, he was a traitor. And she had orders.

One shot. Point blank. Clean. Efficient.

The job had taken less time than expected. So she’d made a detour—her chateau, the only place left where the walls didn’t expect her to be anything.

Returning to Talon always ached in its own way. Especially when the first face she saw was Moira O’Deorain's, all precision and power and no warmth whatsoever. A woman who didn't believe in superstition—only results.

“As ordered by the council,” Amélie replied, voice cold and mechanical.

Moira gave a short hum of approval, her eyes narrowing with clinical interest as she began to circle her, studying her, like a manufacturer searching for any defects on its product.

“On time. Efficient,” she noted, tone unreadable. “Not a moment wasted.”

“The target didn’t make it difficult,” Amélie said. “He panicked. Panicked people are predictable.”

Moira nodded faintly, though her gaze lingered as she came to a stop just behind her. “Still, your work remains... elegant. Lethal, but clean. There’s an art to it.” A pause. Then, the doctor asked casually, “I assume the process was... uneventful?”

Amélie didn’t move. “It was a mission. Nothing more.”

Moira’s voice dipped, still soft, still pleasant—too pleasant. “And no residual... dissonance? Emotion? You haven’t found yourself ruminating again?”

Amélie turned her head slightly, enough to meet the doctor’s gaze.

“By your design.”

Moira smiled, a brittle thing edged in satisfaction. “Of course, of course…”

She glanced at the rifle resting neatly onAmélie’s shoulder. “Still, we’ll run standard post-mission checks. Neural stability. Reflex consistency. You understand.”

Widowmaker gave a small nod. “Understood.” But her amber eyes were already turning away, unreadable.

As Moira turned, satisfied for now, her shoes clicking toward the medbay, Amélie remained still, exhaling only when the doctor was out of sight.

But she wasn’t alone.

She felt it before she saw him—a weight in the air, colder than the sterile corridors, heavier than any words Moira had left behind. A shadow leaned against the far wall, half-shrouded in dim light. Silent. Watching.

Gabriel.

Or at least, what was left of him.

His arms were crossed, face hidden beneath the skull mask, but she didn’t need to see his expression to know what it said. He’d been standing there the whole time. Listening. Measuring. Waiting.

“She’s still poking around your head,” he said at last, his voice gravelly, quiet. “Looking for cracks.”

Amélie didn’t respond immediately. She adjusted the strap of her rifle. “It’s her favorite pastime.”

He pushed off the wall with a slow, deliberate motion. “You’ve got them,” he added, not accusing—just stating. “We all do. Don’t let her find them.”

She turned her head toward him, just slightly. “Do you think I would?”

He took a short moment, then, “No. But she does.”

They lingered in silence, two remnants of a past life, suspended in a place that had long since moved on without them.

Finally, Gabriel said, “You did what you were sent to do. That’s what matters.”

“Is that all that matters?” Amélie asked.

“Careful. Don’t want O’Deorian catching onto those dangerous feelings of yours.”

Amélie scoffed before she decided to trail alongside Gabriel, heels clicking down the hallway along with the heavy steps of the Reaper’s boots. 

“I’m just saying.” Reyes added on.

The two wandered into the surveillance room where Sombra was already posted, reclining in a swivel chair like she owned the place. The purple glow from the monitors painted her face in shifting hues, making her look more mischievous than usual—not that she ever wasn’t.

“Well, well,” she said, without turning, fingers dancing across the holographic interface. “Look who decided to grace us with her icy presence.”

Amélie didn’t reply. She simply crossed the threshold with that signature air of indifference, her eyes sweeping across the data streams and live feeds without pause.

Sombra finally glanced over her shoulder. “Didn’t expect you back so soon, but hey—dead men don’t check clocks.”

Gabriel gave a low grunt that might’ve been amusement—or a warning.

“She returned within the projected window,” he said flatly. “No anomalies.”

“Doesn’t mean she didn’t take a scenic route.” Sombra smirked. “Maybe a detour for some old ghosts, hm?”

Amélie’s expression didn’t shift, but her silence was enough of an answer.

“I completed the mission,” she said coolly, stepping further into the room, her reflection caught and fractured in the glossy screens. “Nothing more. Nothing less.”

Sombra’s fingers paused mid-type, her eyes narrowing slightly. “Relax. I’m not Moira. Just making conversation.”

Gabriel loomed behind them both, arms crossed. 

“It’s not conversation,” he said, voice gravel-deep, “when you're looking for cracks.”

“Cracks are where the interesting things live,” Sombra shot back, giving him a wink. “But fine. I’ll behave—for now.”

The surveillance feeds flickered, showing chaos in Cairo, stillness in Rio, the glint of a drone’s lens above London. All the while, the room pulsed with quiet tension, unspoken suspicions slipping between them like shadows under the door.

“I don’t break,” Amélie said softly, almost to herself.

Gabriel turned toward the screen, his reflection hovering beside hers.

“No,” he said. “You just become someone else.”

“Don’t we all…” Sombra muttered, her voice softer now, losing that sharp edge she always carried.

The hum of the surveillance equipment filled the brief silence that followed. For once, no one rushed to fill it. It stretched between them—three phantoms standing in the glow of a world that never stopped watching, never stopped moving on.

“I used to dream about places like this,” Sombra finally spoke up, gaze fixed on the flickering screens. “Not the base, I mean—control. Knowing everything, seeing everyone. I thought if I could get close enough, learn enough… I’d stop being the kid who was left behind.”

She chuckled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

“Turns out, ghosts don’t get closure. We just get better at pretending we don’t care.”

Amélie said nothing, but her gaze dropped—just for a moment. She leaned her rifle gently against the wall.

“I used to have a name,” she said. “Not a codename. Not a moniker. A name someone whispered like a promise. Then it became a eulogy.”

Gabriel shifted beside her, the sound of his armor groaning with the motion. He didn’t look at them when he spoke.

“Funny thing about ghosts,” he murmured. “People think we’re trapped in the past. But really, we’re just… leftovers. Not alive enough to belong anywhere. Not dead enough to let go.”

He let out a breath, more like a growl.

“They burned my body. Told the world I died a hero. But I kept waking up. Over and over. In pain. In rage. Until that’s all I had left.”

Sombra finally turned in her chair to face them fully, her usual mischief stripped away. “And now look at us. The sniper, the hacker, the reaper. All trying to haunt the world in our own way.”

Amélie’s eyes flicked between them. For once, there was no need for performance. No masks, no programming.

“Maybe we were meant to be ghosts,” she said. “Maybe that’s all Talon ever wanted from us.”

“Maybe,” Gabriel replied. “But ghosts still have teeth.”

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward—it was understanding. Heavy, but mutual. In this cold metal room, beneath the low hum of electricity and shadows of surveillance, they were no longer operatives. No longer weapons.

Just the remnants of people who once were.

“Do you think you’ll ever connect with your wife and son?” Widowmaker asked Gabriel without looking at him.

It wasn’t a taunt. Not cold. Just quiet. Honest.

Gabriel didn’t answer right away. The question settled over him like ash, heavy and slow. He stared ahead, unmoving, as if bracing against the thought.

“I see them,” he finally said, voice low and raw. “Sometimes…from afar. His laugh sounds nothing like mine. That used to hurt more than it does now.”

He paused, something unreadable tightening his jaw.

“They’re better off thinking I died a long time ago. I don’t know what I’d even say to them now. ‘Sorry I turned into a monster’? That I burned everything down just to feel something again?”

There was no pity in the room. No judgment. Only sympathy from the other two agents.

Amélie nodded faintly, eyes once fixed on the surveillance screens, now trailing down to her own feet.

“We all left someone behind,” she said. “I think sometimes we mourn ourselves through them.”

Sombra leaned back in her chair, arms crossed tightly over her chest, her voice becoming softer. “For what it’s worth… I think they’d still be proud of who you were. Who you tried to be.”

She glanced over at Gabriel, eyes doing a quick scan of him up and down. “Even if you don’t believe it anymore.”

Gabriel didn’t respond, but his exhale came slower, heavier. Not quite relief—but something close.

“ Fucking Angela. ” Gabriel finally muttered after a moment of silence. 

His voice was low, rough– like the words tasted bitter on his tongue. “After the base explosion, she tried to help me. She was so insistent on it too, even though I told her you can’t fix what was never meant to survive. I was fine with dying. I did it to myself.”  

Sombra let out a short, mirthless laugh, brushing a loose strand of violet hair from her face. “That woman is brilliant, sure. But dios mio , she’s delusional. Got that savior complex so bad she doesn’t even notice when she’s drowning in it.”

Gabriel shook his head, a bitter laugh catching in his throat. “She didn’t understand. Still doesn’t. Thought she could save the man and ignore the monster that stirred beneath. Turns out she just made both worse.”

The hacker tilted her head backwards to face the ceiling, eyes fluttering shut as she sighed out. “One day she’s gonna drown someone else with her, and she won’t even see it coming.”

Amélie said nothing.

Her gaze was fixed on the monitors, expression unreadable—but her silence said more than words could. The sting of recognition sat low in her chest, heavy and unrelenting. They were talking about Angela like she was something to fear, something toxic—and they weren’t wrong. But they didn’t know what she knew. What their history was together. What she felt. What they’ve done.

What they’re still doing.

Gabriel glanced at her but didn’t push. He exhaled, calmer now, a little more grounded.

“Moira, as wicked as she is, at least didn’t pretend. No false promises. No talk of healing. Just results. Painful as hell, but... she stabilized me. I can’t deny that.”

“Credit where it’s due,” Sombra shrugged. “She’s terrifying, but she gets the job done.”

Amélie remained quiet, the weight of Angela’s name pressing down on her shoulders much like the chilling presence of a phantom. The other two didn’t notice. Or if they did, they chose not to say anything.

It was easier that way.

Gabriel shifted his weight and turned toward the door.

“Keep eyes on the Seoul asset. If they move, I want to know before they breathe.”

Sombra gave a short, mocking salute, but her tone stayed level. “Sí, jefe.”

He didn’t bother looking back as he left, shadows swallowing him whole.

“I’m taking leave for a few days.” Amélie suddenly admitted, her voice low and unreadable, only after she was sure Gabriel’s presence had faded.

The statement made Sombra’s eyes flare open, a devilish grin creeping across her face as she sat up straighter in her chair. “Oh really?” she purred, watching as Amélie strolled over to the surveillance desk, casually leaning her thighs against its edge. Her strong arms braced on either side of her, planting down like anchors, as if daring Sombra to push further.

“So you’re telling me this because… you want me to cover for you, right?” Sombra leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table and cupping her chin in her hands. She was sneering up at Amélie now, who stared back down with an aloof expression tinged with irritation. She didn’t dignify it with a response but instead just rolled her eyes. She knew Sombra wasn’t done.

“Y’know, mija, I’d be more than happy to do that for you.” Sombra said with saccharine sweetness, though the glint in her eyes hinted otherwise. “I’d hate to keep you from a holiday. A little birdie tells me you’ve been running off to see a certain blondie…ring any bells?”

Amélie’s jaw tightened. Of course she knew. Of course she would.

Annoyance grew within the sniper. It was like Sombra to overstep boundaries where she wasn’t invited, just for the sake of satiating her desire to be a little shit. Even though it wasn’t surprising to her in the slightest that she had been keeping tabs on her whereabouts.

“ Olivia. ” Amélie said sharply, her voice edged with warning. She dropped the name like a blade, hoping the weight of it would halt Sombra in her tracks. But it landed with a shrug, as if it had bounced off armor that had long since learned how not to care.

Sombra’s smirk only widened. “Do you realize what you have access to?” she said, choosing not to acknowledge the use of her real name. “I’ve been trying to get back on Akande’s good side ever since that Echo extraction blew up in our faces. Him and Reyes won’t let me hear the end of it.”

She tutted mockingly, then leaned back into her chair with a stretch.

“However…I bet bringing them a certain doctor’s head on a stick would put me back in their good graces, seeing as they’ve had their target set on her for a while. Earning me—and you of course, a spot on the council.”

“You don’t even want that.” Amélie replied quickly.

She knew Sombra too well. Knew that she didn’t crave power the way the others did. Not really. Not deep down. Her motives were tangled in personal gain, autonomy, leverage—but not control. And certainly not murder for its own sake. Sombra pretended to be cold, detached, butAmélie had seen glimpses of something else—something warmer, buried underneath the bravado and mischief. She tried not to think too hard about the fact that she saw something similar in herself.

“What’s one small sacrifice for a lifetime of power?” Sombra said with a shrug, though her tone lacked conviction now. She sat with her arms crossed, voice softer. “C’mon… she’s enamored with you. It shouldn’t be that hard to lure her in for a quick kill. Might be your easiest one yet—”

“Shut up, before I make you.” Amélie cut in. Her eyes were like gunmetal now, cold and dangerous.

Yes, she knew the hacker was most likely joking, just pushing buttons for sport. But the idea of killing Angela was something Amélie couldn’t even entertain. That was a line she hadn’t crossed. She knew if she had, then she was far too gone. And maybe, in some twisted way, that meant there was still something human in her.

Sombra raised both hands in surrender. “Fine, fine. How about we call a truce, eh?” she said sweetly.

Amélie gave her a look—one of disbelief more than anything—as she pushed off the table and stepped closer to where Sombra was seated. The sniper leaned down, bracing her hands on the arms of Sombra’s chair, trapping her like prey beneath a predator.

Sombra’s breath caught slightly.

“Ooh,” Amélie breathed out, voice a sultry whisper in the space between them.

“How about I call a mortician?”

For a moment, Sombra said nothing.

Just stared up at Amélie, frozen beneath her, amusement flickering behind her widened eyes—an instinctive reaction, half-flirt, half-defense. The hacker's eyes, just for the briefest moment, flicked to the opposing sniper’s lips before meeting her gaze again. The sharpness in Amélie’s tone hadn’t gone unnoticed, but neither had the closeness of her breath or the glint of something unspoken in her eyes.

Then, like a wire snapping under pressure, the tension dissolved.

Sombra huffed out a laugh, brushing an invisible speck off Amélie’s wrist as if to dispel the charged air between them. “Damn, chica,” she muttered, tilting her head with a crooked grin. “You really know how to kill the mood.”

Amélie rolled her eyes and straightened up, pushing away from the chair with a graceful shift of her weight. The lines of her body shifted back into something cool and composed, like a mask sliding into place.

“If you’re going to cover for me,” she said, smoothing her gloves without looking at Sombra, “just don’t be sloppy about it.”

“Please.” Sombra rolled her eyes, spinning lazily back to her terminal. “I practically invented the art of slipping off the radar. You’re lucky I’m feeling generous.”

Amélie didn’t respond. She was already walking away, heels clicking lightly against the floor. As she reached the door, she paused, just for a second, and glanced over her shoulder.

“Try not to let them catch you snooping again,” she said, her voice cool and effortless, with just the faintest hint of warning. “I’d hate to come back and find your head on a stick instead.”

Sombra chuckled, fingers flying across her keyboard again. “Aw, so you do care.”

Amélie didn’t reply, just shook her head as she made her departure.

The door shut with a soft hiss behind her, leaving Sombra alone with the hum of monitors and the echo of footsteps that were already fading into shadow.

The day before her departure to the Cheval Blanc, Angela found herself in her lab again.

She’d treated herself to a rare night of self-care; tea, a warm bath, and the kind of release she only ever allowed herself when she was truly alone. But rest only gave her more room to reflect. About Amélie. About what could’ve been. About what might still be, if only she gave her a real chance, if she just let Angela help her.

Angela could admit it to herself now: the night Overwatch finally captured Amélie, the image of her had never left her mind. Two weeks after her kidnapping, what arrived at Angela’s lab wasn’t a woman—it was a phantom in pieces.

She remembered it vividly. Through the walls of a containment cell lined with reinforced glass, Angela had seen her. Strapped to a chair. Soaked to the bone. Her long, dark hair hung in wet ropes around her face, her head limp, chin resting on her chest. Her skin, the unnatural violet hue it had become, was streaked with dried blood. Her clothing torn. Whatever had been done to her, Angela hadn’t been prepared for the reality of it.

She felt the chill then, just as she did now.

Angela had to see her up close. Genji had come with her that night, clearly uneasy. He warned her not to step inside, to observe only from a distance. But Angela was resolute.

Like approaching a frightened animal, she moved slowly—cautiously. Deliberate steps across the cold floor. Amélie didn’t react, didn’t stir. Still, Angela pressed on.

“Amélie?” she whispered.

No response.

Still, she knelt before her. Up close, the damage was worse than what could be seen from afar. Scratches and bruises littered her skin, likely from the electric pulses Moira was inflicted. Amélie had always been lean, but now she looked hollowed out. Malnourished and sleep-deprived. Her body bore the signatures of violence, of being remade.

Angela reached out, her hand trembling slightly as she placed it on Amélie’s shoulder. She dropped to one knee, leveling their faces.

“It’s okay,” she murmured, the pad of her thumb gently tracing comfort into the bruised flesh. “You’re with me now.”

And then, a promise…quiet, certain, dangerous.

“I’m going to make everything better.”

But that never came. Amélie was only able to be held in Overwatch captivity for just about a week until she managed to escape. In that short time, Angela was only able to get a handful of diagnostics and testing done. How do you bring back the person someone was previously before they were neurologically altered? The Swiss doctor had never dealt with a case like that. Mind you, she has brought people back to life. So it would take awhile before she could develop a cure. She knew she could do it, she just needed more time.

So the devastation she felt when she walked into the medbay one morning to find Amélie was missing, once more, was indescribable. Did Talon take her back, or did she choose to go back to them? Where else was there for her to go after all? She was a wanted woman, not only by Overwatch, but by government agencies that were associated with Overwatch as well. There was a manhunt out for Amélie and the safest place she could’ve been was by Angela’s side where she could advocate for her and treat her. But instead…she chose to leave?

This weighed heavily on Angela’s mind for much longer than anticipated.

There was a time when Genji’s presence had grounded her. When she thought that maybe, just maybe, he understood the weight she carried better than anyone else could. After all, he had been reconstructed too. Brought back from the brink by machines and science and mercy. He used to joke that they shared a soul between them, that hers had kept him alive.

Angela had once believed their relationship had been inevitable. They were both broken people seeking solace in each other’s survival. Genji had become a symbol of her success—a living, breathing testament to what Mercy could accomplish when wielded with the right intention. And in turn, she had become his harbor, a place where the pain of his past could rest quietly for a while. It worked. For a time.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, things began to fray.

At first, it was small. Angela began spending more and more time in her lab again—not out of duty, but out of compulsion. She stopped joining him on walks through the watchpoint gardens. Skipped dinners. Missed the moments he reached for her hand. She was always distracted. Preoccupied. Her thoughts too often wandered to a pair of cold blue eyes and the phantom feel of Amélie’s fingertips against her jaw.

She just couldn’t tell him.

Not just because of the guilt, but because he would look at her differently. And she didn’t think she could bear that—not from him.

Their connection, once born from shared trauma and gentle healing, became strained—frayed at the edges by things left unsaid. Genji noticed, of course. He always noticed. The long hours she spent in the lab again. The silence over breakfast. The way she stared a little too long at classified mission reports involving Talon. The way she always tensed when the name Widowmaker came up.

He didn’t confront her, not at first. He gave her space. The kind of space you give someone when you hope they'll come back to you willingly. But Angela had begun to retreat too far inside herself for that.

One evening, after a mission in Istanbul, they returned to her quarters together. The air smelled faintly of tea and lavender oil, a habit Angela had formed recently to help her sleep. Genji sat on the edge of her bed while she stood by the sink, rinsing her teacup, watching the steam swirl upward.

“I don’t even know if you still love me,” he said, finally.

The words didn’t sound angry. Just tired. A soft confession that floated into the space between them and lingered there.

Angela turned slowly, fingers still damp, towel forgotten at her side.

“You still think about her,” he added, gentler this time. “And not the way a doctor thinks about a patient.”

The doctor didn’t speak, she couldn’t bring herself to. Instead she just stood there awkwardly, letting a wave of shame wash over her, fingers tightening around her coffee cup. The silence had said enough.

Genji stood and looked over at her, giving her a moment to respond. When she didn’t, he crossed the room and touched her shoulder, almost hesitantly.

“I’m not angry,” he whispered. “I just want you to be honest with me, with yourself.”

“I am,” Angela managed to stammer out, clearly still shaken up by the sudden confrontation. “I do love you.” She always hated how she sounded when she lied.

But Genji chose not to call her out. He only nodded, and for a moment, she wished she would have. Maybe if he yelled, maybe if he accused her, she could have justified it all in her head. But he didn’t. He just left her with the quiet dignity of someone who had been hurt before and had learned not to chase ghosts.

They didn’t end things with a fight. No slammed doors. No bitter goodbyes.

What they had didn’t shatter, it simply eroded until there was nothing left to hold on to.

From then on, Angela didn’t rush to fill the space that Genji left behind. She buried herself in work, in silence, and in everything she could control. Even with the secret meetings she had with Amélie now turned Widowmaker, the emptiness still lingered. It was sharper at night and even crueler in the mornings.

It wasn’t long before a new recruit began to linger around her too post-recall. In corridors, in casual conversations, in her office. Fareeha Amari managed to hold Angela’s gaze a second longer than necessary. At first, the doctor thought nothing of it. But Fareeha had a way of noticing things without pressing, offering steadiness without demand. Slowly but surely, without even meaning to, Angela found herself leaning towards that steadiness, but being drawn into the quiet strength of someone who reminded her less of the past, and more of what it might feel like to have a future. 

Fareeha entered Angela’s life quietly, like an old song she hadn’t realized she missed until it was playing again.

At first, it was just small things. Fareeha would stop by the lab late at night, bringing leftover takeout or a fresh cup of coffee. She didn’t ask invasive questions, didn’t try to drag Angela out of her brooding. She simply existed beside her, steady and unshaken, like the ground beneath her feet.

And for a woman who felt like she was always falling, that meant everything.

Angela didn’t expect to fall for her. She didn’t think she could fall for anyone again—not after what happened with Genji, not with Amélie’s ghost still breathing down her neck. But Fareeha didn’t demand anything from her. She just stayed.

She never asked about Widowmaker.

She never questioned why Angela spent long hours pouring over old Talon intel, or why her eyes looked a little more haunted each time a new mission report came through.

Fareeha offered safety, and Angela let herself believe it was love.

It started with dinner in the rec hall, long after most had retired for the evening. The lights were dimmed, the hum of the base softened by the late hour. Angela hadn’t planned on staying—she rarely did anymore. But Fareeha had intercepted her on the way back to the lab, a quiet invitation in her voice.

“Come eat something. You’ve been surviving on caffeine and guilt all week.”

Angela wanted to deflect, to offer some excuse about tests or samples. But the concern in Fareeha’s eyes wasn’t something she could brush off. So she followed.

They sat at a table in the corner, two trays of reheated food between them, and talked about everything but what mattered. About their favorite cities. About old mission stories. About things that made Angela laugh in spite of herself.

And Fareeha watched her like she was learning a language.

Later, they walked the halls together in comfortable silence. Their steps were slow, unhurried. Angela wasn’t sure who reached for whose hand first, but she didn’t pull away.

When they kissed for the first time, it was outside the medbay—under flickering overhead lights, and with the smell of antiseptic still clinging to Angela’s coat. Fareeha’s touch was steady, respectful. Her hand cradled Angela’s cheek like it was something fragile.

Their relationship grew in quiet moments. In post-mission coffees shared in the mess hall. In nights spent on the Watchpoint balcony, shoulder to shoulder, watching the stars blink quietly over the sea. Fareeha made her laugh, made her feel wanted without demanding too much in return. She was safe. Safe in a way Angela hadn’t felt in a long time.

And yet, the guilt never left her.

It sat on her chest like a heavy weight. Every time Fareeha touched her hand, every time she kissed her with such gentle certainty, Angela felt the lie between them pulse like a bruise. Because Fareeha didn’t know. She didn’t know about the late-night meetings. About the repressed sighs and lingering touches Angela shared with a ghost wearing Amélie Lacroix’s face. About the vials of experimental treatment tucked away in her lab, made for a woman who is supposed to be her enemy, and is something far more dangerous now.

One night, they sat on the balcony of the watchpoint, wrapped in thick blankets and took in the moonlight. The air was cool and dry, and from up here, the world felt impossibly far away. Fareeha nursed a mug of tea in her hands while Angela sat beside her, legs drawn up to her chest, head leaning gently against the back of her chair.

“It’s strange,” Fareeha began softly, “how grief can sneak up on you after all this time. I’ll go days without thinking about her and then– something will remind me. Her voice, a scent…a damn sunrise.”

Angela said nothing, she only listened.

“She probably would’ve hated how I wear my hair now,” Fareeha added with a dry laugh. “Too... ‘western.’ Too rebellious. But she was always like that. Strong opinions, yeah, but she was always so fair.”

Angela forced herself to speak, with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “She was a legend.”

“She was my mother,” Fareeha said, turning to look at her. “And she didn’t deserve to die alone.”

Angela’s chest constricted. The silence following Fareeha’s words was suffocating.

Fareeha looked back toward the stars. “Sometimes I imagine what I would say to her if she were still alive. I think I’d just tell her I’m trying. That I’m still fighting for something better.”

Angela swallowed hard, heart knocking painfully against her ribs. She wanted to reach out, to offer comfort, but her limbs felt too heavy, her guilt consuming her.

She had no answers. Only secrets.

She knew the classified report. Knew how the mission had failed. Knew that Widowmaker had been the one to pull the trigger. And she also knew, with unbearable clarity, whose arms she had been tangled in only nights before. Angela lowered her gaze, shame roiling in her stomach. She could still feel Amélie’s breath against her neck, still see the blue light of her eyes cutting through the dark. She could still hear herself say: Stay. Just a little longer.

She should have told Fareeha the truth. She should have ended it long ago. But “should” had become a word Angela hated, bitter and useless, a flimsy barrier between her and what she kept choosing.

Fareeha’s voice pulled her back.

“I don’t expect you to understand,” she murmured, “but sometimes it helps, just talking, y’know. You don’t have to say anything.”

Angela nodded, afraid her voice would crack if she spoke.

And as Fareeha leaned her head on her shoulder, trusting and warm, Angela blinked hard against the sting in her eyes.

She didn’t deserve this. Didn’t deserve her.

Not while the ghost of Ana Amari stood silently between them. Not while Angela still longed for the hands that killed her.

Back to the present, the hum of the lab was the only sound as Angela worked late into the afternoon, her hands moving with practiced precision. Vials clinked gently against the countertop. The soft blue glow of the monitors cast stark shadows under her eyes. In front of her sat the final version of the treatment; refined, stabilized, and ready.

All she had to do now was convince Amélie to take it.

Her hands paused over the syringe, fingers trembling just slightly. It had taken months of study, speculation, and blind hope. But Angela had never believed in the impossible. Just that things could be difficult and require a bit more time.

The doors to her lab slid open with a soft hiss, and Angela nearly dropped the syringe.

“Angela?” Fareeha’s voice broke the silence.

Angela turned, instinctively shielding her work with her body. “You scared me,” she said, too quickly. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Fareeha replied, stepping inside. Her arms were crossed, but there was no suspicion in her tone—just curiosity. “It’s almost dinner time. Do you wanna grab some dinner with me?”

Angela gave a tight smile. “I’m sorry, my love. I really need to finish this development I’ve got going on. ”

Fareeha’s eyes wandered to the scattered notes, the compound structures glowing on the monitor behind her. “Another project?”

“Yes. Something I’ve been meaning to finish for a while.” Her voice softened, gentler now, trying to temper the edge in her own nerves. “I won’t be around for a couple days.”

That got Fareeha’s full attention. “You’re leaving?”

Angela nodded, carefully sealing the vial and slipping it into a sterile case. “I’ve been invited to attend a medical symposium. Off-grid, private research circle. Very hush-hush, you understand.”

Fareeha stepped closer, her gaze narrowing ever so slightly. “You didn’t mention this before.”

“I wasn’t sure I was going to go,” Angela replied, turning to her and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “But I think it’ll be good for me….professionally.”

There was a beat of silence between them before Fareeha broke it, smiling a little. “Well… when you get back, maybe we can go out. A real date this time. No interruptions. Just you and me.”

Angela’s chest tightened, the guilt blooming again like frost under her ribs. Still, she smiled, reached for Fareeha’s hand, and nodded. “I’d like that… very much.”

Fareeha leaned in and kissed her, soft and unguarded, and Angela let herself be held in it, if only for a moment.

When she pulled away, Fareeha gave her one last look, something warm and searching. “Don’t work too hard, Doctor Ziegler.”

“I won’t,” Angela promised.

The door shut behind Fareeha with a gentle hiss, and Angela exhaled, finally alone again.

She turned back to the syringe on the table, eyes distant, jaw clenched. 

“You don’t get to be lost forever, Amélie. Not if I can help it.” she whispered into the stillness. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do it sooner.”