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When Angela walks into the kitchen at 04:00, she is not thinking. Due to jetlag, she feels as if it is 10:00, which would not be a problem, might even be nice, getting her out of bed earlier than usual, were it not for the fact that Fareeha drank the last of their coffee while she was away on a mission, and she now has to raid the communal kitchen in attempt to get some caffeine. Even that might not be such a problem, were it not for the figure already perched at the counter.
When Angela sees her, sitting with a cup of tea in hand, she immediately turns to leave, thinks to make a swift retreat before she can be seen, and maybe, just maybe get some more sleep, rather than deal with the mess she knows will follow this encounter. Before she can walk through the door, however, a voice stops her.
"Don't leave on my account, Angela," Ana says, and it could almost be polite, were it not so clearly an order. She will have to take her coffee with Ana, whether she wants to or not. Five months spent successfully avoiding her former Captain, over in an instant.
Not feeling she has much of a choice, Angela makes her coffee (instant, unfortunately), and waits for Ana to speak. She waits as the water heats, she waits as she hears the slow steady drip of the machine into her mug, she waits as she mixes in cream and three sugars, she waits, and she waits, and she waits. Until, finally, after her coffee has cooled to a reasonable temperature and she takes the first sip, Ana speaks again.
"Do sit down. It's terribly rude to eat standing up."
Reluctantly, Angela obeys, takes a seat one away from Ana. Far enough that she does not feel quite so trapped as she might otherwise, but still close enough so as not to be rude.
"Much better," Ana says, and once, Angela preened under her praise—hard won, in most cases—but now, it chafes, feels like she is being talked down to. "Now we can speak to each other like adults. No more skulking about like teenagers."
"You're one to talk," she says, because damn it, she cannot help herself. Ana left to sneak around playing vigilante for seven years and now five months of avoiding her makes Angela the sulking teenager? But this is precisely why Angela is avoiding Ana—because she is angry, and because she does not want to fight Ana, does not want to make Fareeha's life any harder than it already is by forcing her to mediate between her mother and her girlfriend. Yet here she is, not even one sentence into she and Ana's first private conversation since her return and already picking a fight.
"Is that what this is about, then?" Ana asks, "Are you punishing me for leaving?"
"What?" Jet lag or not, coffee or not, it is too early in the morning to be having this conversation. In fact, Angela would rather not have this conversation at all. "No! Choosing not to talk to you is hardly punishing you. I'm just making an informed decision."
"An informed decision to avoid me," Ana's voice is always dry, always a bit sharp, but this is undoubtedly disappointment Angela hears, and she bristles.
"No, a decision to do what's best for Fareeha—" she barely avoids tacking on not something you're familiar with, "—and to not make things difficult for her by fighting with you, which I knew would happen if we did speak."
"Must we fight?" Ana asks her, and Angela knows it is not a question, not really, is a strong suggestion disguised as one. Thirteen years spent serving under Captain Amari taught her that much. "I didn't think you ever let a little thing like inevitability stop you before."
Angela is going to interject, to defend herself against the not-so-thinly veiled reference to her work on resurrection, work Ana always disapproved of, but she is mid-sip, and by the time she is finished swallowing, Ana has moved on to something else, as if thirteen years’ worth of moral disputes were nothing.
"It used to be," Ana tells her, "We could set these petty professional disagreements aside. Both of us want the same thing, we always have—for the people in our care to be well, and safe. I don't see how one little biotic rifle could be the thing that changes that."
Somehow, the fact that Ana is so calm only makes Angela angrier. Fundamental differences in their belief systems are not—have never been—'petty professional disagreements,' even if Angela was once willing to look past them, in order to be close to Ana, in order to gain her approval, in order to pretend, for a moment, that what Ana told her was true, and that their team was a family. Admittedly, Angela does not know much about having a family, but she is certain they tolerate each other's differences, and so she would have accepted almost any justification for Ana's actions, but Ana is not her family. Ana left.
"This isn't about your damn rifle!" She sets down her mug with more force than strictly necessary, spilling a bit of coffee on her hand in the process, and swears again as the hot liquid hits her hands.
And Ana, damn her, moves to help, already has a napkin on hand and is wiping her off before Angela can manage to object. The movement is all too familiar, and all too maternal, and the warmth where Ana's skin touches hers burns more than the coffee.
"Stop!" she yells in earnest this time, jerks her hand back so sharply that she barely keeps balance on her stool. A deep breath and then, "Just stop." It sounds almost like a plea, and she hates that—she has to be forceful, to be angry, because if not she might cry.
But now Ana looks hurt, for the first time, truly looks like Angela has wounded her, which is not at all something she is used to. In years past, it was easy to forget that Ana was smaller than she is, given the way Captain Amari carries herself, the easy confidence and the decisiveness with which she does everything, as if she knows she is in the right, as if she always will be. Once, Angela modeled her own bearing after that, tried to pick up the grace and aura of command Ana exuded, so to see her now without it is more than disconcerting.
The silence continues as Angela finishes cleaning the counter and rinses off her hand, and for a moment she thinks that this is the way things are now, that this is the way they will be, whatever warmth existed between them now divided into cold silence and hot anger. For a moment...
But Ana is capable of surprising her yet.
"Do you want an apology?"
The question catches Angela off-guard, does she? Would an apology make anything better? Furthermore, it is hardly usual for Ana to apologize for anything, under any circumstances; she finds she does not trust the offer.
"Would you mean it?" she asks, "Forgive me for doubting but—it's not like you to admit you've done something wrong."
The skin around Ana's visible eye crinkles in the way Angela knows by now means I know something you do not, "There are plenty of things I regret." She pauses, takes a sip of her tea, seems lost, for a second, in those unnamed regrets, before abruptly refocusing her attention on Angela and continuing, "But no, to answer your question, I don't feel sorry about them." The words are pointed, as if to say surely you understand, and Angela thinks she does not want to understand the Ana before her today, not like she wanted to understand the enigmatic Captain Amari of years past.
"Then no," Angela says, not so calmly as Ana by half, "I don't want an apology." To even her own ears, it sounds a bit petulant, because Ana has this way of making her feel like a child, and she hates it—Ana is not her mother, Angela does not need a mother.
Despite Angela's tone, Ana only hums in reply, and now Angela is left to think about what she said, about regrets she does not feel the need to apologize for, and she knows, she knows what it is to do a thing because it is necessary, and to regret the outcome. She knows what it is to act in the best interests of someone, and to have them hate her for it—she thinks about what Ana told her, years before, after one of their many fights, some lecture about how, despite their differences in opinion, the two of them are much the same; the both would give anything to do what must be done, even that which is not theirs to give.
Even after so many years apart, Ana gets so easily under her skin, finds her weak points and pokes at them, without ever seeming to care. How, Angela finds herself wondering, were they ever friends? How did they ever get along, all those years ago? Their fights were always like this, and Angela wonders what ever made her tolerate it.
(She knows. She knows but she cannot—will not—say. Ana offered her something impossible, and she was fool enough to believe that her captain would deliver.)
"We are not the same," she says, words clipped. "I would never abandon my family."
"Did I say we were the same?" Ana asks her, completely avoiding the second half of the accusation.
It seems Angela, too, can hit nerves.
"You did," she asserts, "Fifteen years ago. Do you remember what we talked about then? Do you remember what you promised me, if only I would stay? Or was it nothing to you, was it as easy a lie as when Morrison would send you in to placate UN officials for him? Was I just another asset to be reined in?"
The widening of Ana's eye betrays that she does remember, and for the first time in this conversation, Angela doubts herself—if Ana remembers, did she mean what it was she said? But how could she? How could she have meant what it was she said, and still have done what she did?
(The truth is, Angela desperately wants for it to have meant something, even if that being the case makes Ana's betrayal all the worse. Time and distance have not changed her, not when it comes to what it is she truly desires, and what Ana offered her—it is still her greatest desire, it always will be. Perhaps, if Ana meant it, they could mend things; perhaps, if Ana meant it, she could have that wish fulfilled still. After all, the impossible has never stopped her before.)
"Angela," Ana says gently—too gently, as if she never left, never broke every promise she ever made, as if she has the right to speak to Angela as if she cares, when clearly, she does not.
"No!" Angela cuts her off. "You don't get to speak to me like—like you care! Or like I'm some child! You have one daughter, and you are lucky she took you back."
For that is the crux of things: when, after she first took a life in the field, Angela wanted to quit, when she wanted to leave Overwatch and to do something which would truly help people, not to stay with the organization which would have her betray every principle she ever had, when Angela was ready to do what was best for herself, Ana came to her and offered her a family. When all Angela wanted was to leave, to do what was best for herself, and for the world, Ana walked into her quarters, unannounced, and handed her back her letter of resignation, telling her that Overwatch had become her family, that the people here accepted her for who she was, that she would be alone, again, if she left, so why would she not stay, why would she leave the only family she had left? Stay with us, Angela, we're your family.
And Angela wanted that that—wants it still—a family. So she stayed, no matter how many people left, or died, no matter what it was she was forced to do, no matter what ideals she was made to betray, she stayed, through everything, because Overwatch was—is—her family, and no matter how much she wanted to, wants to still, she could never, can never leave them.
But Ana? Ana left.
All her talk about families, and she left them all without so much as a look back and Angela—Angela wishes that she had been the one to leave, instead, wishes she had never let Ana trick her into caring, because now she cannot leave, now she will see Overwatch through to the end, no matter the incarnation, no matter the personal cost.
They are not alike. She would never leave her family behind.
If Ana leaving taught her anything, it is this: Ana has more sense than she does, Ana knows when to cut her losses, and to not fight a losing battle.
Why, then, does she object?
"I do care, Angela," she says, "You are a part of my family—everyone here is. My leaving couldn't change that." A pause as Angela waits for Ana to continue—she will hear her out, if only because it is better to have this argument once, and only once, is better to leave no loose ends.
"I thought it would," Ana adds, and it is a surreal thing, to hear her admit she is wrong, "But it didn't. That's why I came back, Angela. I still care, I always will, and I will never leave you—any of you—again."
"You still left," Angela says, as if it were not obvious.
"Yes," agrees Ana, "I did, and I'm not sorry for it. At the time, I thought it was what was best for all of us, if I left like that, with all of you thinking I had died, rather than staying only to be destroyed by the UN later. There were things I did... they would not have let me off as lightly as they did you. I thought I was giving all of you a clean break, thought I was saving Fareeha having to live with the repercussions of my actions. It was, at the time what seemed best. I would not do the same now, but it is done, and I am trying to make amends, am trying to fix things, not only with Fareeha, but with everyone."
"What if I don't want things fixed? What if they can't be?" If there is anything Angela has learned, working with Overwatch, is that there are some decisions which, once made, cannot be turned back from.
"If you don't want to try, that's entirely your choice, and if we can't patch things up... well, I, at least, would like to be free of the guilt of not having tried, if nothing else."
Ana's now empty teacup settles so gently on the plate below it Angela cannot hear it clink.
A part of her does not want to try, does not want to risk the pain of things not working out—again—but is she not already risking such by returning to Overwatch? Is she not already risking loss by loving Fareeha? Is she not already attempting to do the impossible every day?
"Alright," she agrees, and, before Ana can give her the cocky grin she hates so much, adds, "But only for Fareeha."
It is not a resolution, is not even near to one, but it is a start, and sometimes, that is as much as one can hope for.