Chapter Text

EPILOGUE

Uncertainty

INFINITAM.

What happens after?  What becomes of a world which has seen each one of its intractable truths, its fundamental constants, violated and disproven?

Does it change?  Does it reform?  Does it reconsider the limits of the possible?  What does it do, given the magnitude of this transgression?

Nothing.

Nothing is changed by what happens between Angela and Fareeha, not in the greater world—for their lives are not so important as all that, or not to anyone else, at least.

No one will know what Fareeha did that morning, no one will know that she fought fate, changed it, for love and for herself, for the hope of a better future.  That day will not be remembered as one in which everything changed, in which the rules that govern all life were not only bent, but broken; indeed it will not be remembered at all, not for much of anything, not even for the deaths of the people Fareeha might have saved, in sacrificing herself.

In the wake of this revelation, this violation, nothing will change, and the world will be no better for it—and no worse.

Why should it have been?

In the end, Fareeha and Angela are just women, and nothing more—sometimes selfless, sometimes selfish, always human.  They are no more significant than anyone else, and no less, save for in the eyes of one another.

i.

What happens to Angela is this—

—she overcomes her fear of loss, and realizes that Fareeha has loved her all along, that she does not need fate to tell her such.

—she still fears losing Fareeha, still fears dying alone, on her worst days, and perhaps she always will, but she makes peace with that fear, and in the end, it is proven unfounded, for Fareeha loves her to the last.

—she never restores her Asclepius work, for she thinks she has challenged fate more than enough for one lifetime, and she is happy with that decision.

—she never restores her Asclepius work, but she sometimes wishes she had, when she sees the deaths she could not prevent without it.

—saying I love you becomes easy, like breathing, and she says it over and over again until the words cease to sound like words at all, to her ears, ten thousand reminders for Fareeha that her decision was the right one.

—saying I love you is remains a struggle, for it comes with the acknowledgement that to lose Fareeha would hurt her greatly, comes with a vulnerability she does not want to open herself up to, but she says it anyway, every day.

—she finds her place with the Recall, and all is well with the world.

—she never quite makes peace with Overwatch, and gradually transitions to doing more and more relief work, and her lover, her friends, and her comrades respect her decision, even if they do not always understand it.

ii.

What happens to Fareeha is this—

—she is glad she did not die, that day, and does her best to put it out of her mind, when she can.

—she is grateful to be alive, but still the guilt follows her, that others died so she might live; Angela is helpful, when she confides in her lover, has been through much the same as a doctor, and they work through the guilt together, and are happy nonetheless.

—she makes peace with her mother, and the two of them have a stronger relationship than they ever did when she was a child.

—she is always somewhat at odds with her mother, but it is not a terrible thing; both of them love one another deeply, and they know their conflict is born of concern.

—she tells Angela she loves her, every day, and one day their love for one another becomes big enough for a family, and it takes time, but she convinces Angela that the two of them should have a child together.

—she tells Angela she loves her, every day, and when one day her wife treats an orphan who is much like a young Swiss girl decades before, almost too much so, she bends to her wife’s desire and they take the child in, even though they had no plans to have children.

—she finds her place in the Recall, and achieves her childhood dreams.

—she realizes that Overwatch is not right for her, and one day decides that she can fight no longer, laying down her weapons and trading them in instead for a pen; she wins awards for her poetry, and still her words change and shape the world.