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Steadily, midnight was approaching on the twenty fourth of december. This time of the year, and this close to the arctic circle a giant blanket of white covered the earth. The trees were naked or packed with snow, and speaking of snow, she was sure that without the snow chains she’d have no way to drive.
It was much too dark outside the window, and the only lights were the scant twinkling christmas decorations at some gas station far up the hill, or the cheap chinese LEDs draped over a fir tree in someone’s yard.
That must have taken some serious work.
Amélie would much prefer, because Widowmaker was resting for the day and she was back to being Amélie for the 48 hours she got every year, that she were spending Christmas Day and the day before at a Salon in Paris, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
And after last month, she wasn’t sure if they’d ever let Talon’s most decorated publicity stunt step foot within three kilometres of the capital. This tiny little village on the edge of the world would do just fine, as long as she didn’t have to hurt more people.
The problem wasn’t that she was being forced to hurt people
The problem was that for the longest time all she felt was enjoyment when she hurt people.
But brainwashing someone is crude and hamfisted It isn’t subtle, and obviously the mind sometime recoils. She was left wearing a broken mask for a long time now. Finally she had decided she couldn’t take it anymore and shot Doomfist in the face. Reaper was off on another assignment, and Sombra, ever the opportunist, had gone off the grid almost immediately.
But that was Widowmaker’s problem, not Amélie’s. Since she wasn’t in any immediate danger Amélie had decided to squeeze whatever happiness she could .
Or maybe she’d be shot and killed, or be buried under rubble when something exploded in the distance, then she’d stop being anybody’s problem.
She glanced impatiently at her watch, the shining green of the hands indicated a time between late and very late, but the dial was too small for her to tell properly. It was a silly ornamental watch with more form than function, but Amélie liked clinging to those things. It made her think of better times.
Hopefully she’d make it before midnight, her feet had the invisible nerves firing again and she didn’t have any painkillers on hand. Phantom pain was a bitch especially in the cold.
Strange, this trip usually made her feel relaxed, why did she have that weird sense of foreboding.
A few metres away McCree had to make the annoying choice between nicotine patches and a real cigarette. In this darkness, a cigarette would likely give him away, and no matter how tempting it was, he had been on his clean streak for a year now; he wouldn’t ruin it just yet.
The jig was up for Widowmaker. There was a contract out, and he’d taken it. She was as good as dead. The condition: she had to be killed from a distance and not up close. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about the contract. He was here because Gérard needed some justice.
The weird and funny thing about the contract was, it was sent directly to him by Talon. And they had included a video in it. A video of his dear old buddy Gérard getting killed by his own wife. By ‘Widowmaker.’
He reckoned those snakes knew how to get his attention. Especially when they gave her the tools to kill Gérard. He’d drop everything and go after them, but they were too well hidden to strike now.
He could see the headlights in the distance, winding down the roads. He mentally kicked himself for not having set up landmines on the road. But that would’ve been too much attention drawn to himself.
He pulled the charging handle of his rifle back, checking and rechecking if it was reloaded. He had nothing better to do and his nerves needed to be worked out, or he’d botch the shot. Besides, the spring tension wouldn’t break if he pulled it a little. Damn he missed his revolver. And damn did he miss warmer weather. But he’d make do, he was a resourceful person. He always made do.
He ejected a round from the rifle, made sure it was still cycling, then winced internally when he realised he’d have to bend down and touch the snow to pick the bullet back up. It was still too biting cold through the snow.
He didn’t know he had another rifle trained at him from a quite far away.
Tracer fumbled around with Widowmaker’s rifle in the dark. She had chosen the best position she could to observe him, but she wasn’t feeling too confident in her ability with what looked to be that weird science fiction rifle put on a healthy diet of steroids.
But as long as it had a grip and a trigger, Lena Oxton could fire it, though she wished she didn’t have to.
The optic on it was strange and foreign to her. Actually it was unfair to optics to call that thing an optic. It was a computer screen. For the life of her she couldn’t figure out how to zoom it. If only she had a manual for it. And if only, wherever that manual was, it wasn’t written in whatever strange cipher Talon liked to use.
She’d just put a Leupold on it and call it a day, but she wasn’t exactly running around with magnified optics in her back pocket and the Starship Troopers prop she was brandishing didn’t even seem to have proper rails.
She felt with her fingers along the side of the scope once, an odd idea coming to her head and then she felt the protrusion. She pressed hard on it and the rifle optics and its onboard computer flared to life.
‘MODE:AUTOMATIC’, it said.
Well, as long as it worked, Lena didn’t care if the gun fired like an old brown bess.
The sight immediately adjusted to the lack of light and she canned around for Lena’s car, The angle was horrible but in the high contrast of the world’s most detailed thermal image, she noticed a familiar back and almost dropped the rifle in shock. She had heard of the contract, and that was why she was out here, trying to look out for Amélie, but she had no idea why McCree of all people would take a contract from Talon of all groups.
She knew and liked McCree. They still talked to each other all the time. He hadn’t answered the recall but he had made himself known. That he was still out there, still fighting the good fight.
She knew the rifle wasn’t zeroed. If she took a shot she’d miss. McCree would be gone, and he’d dog Amélie’s steps for a long time. She should just call for help. She couldn’t just gun down a friend to save another. But if push came to shove? Who would she choose between Amélie and McCree?
Lena decided to call Amélie, but her phone was switched off.
Lena Oxton pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
The rifle had angry red lettering in her face. ERROR: Biometric Identification failed. Please retry.
And so Lena was left with one option.
The car had suddenly disappeared. Either that or Widowmaker had realised he was coming and shut the headlights off.
He tried to concentrate but couldn’t hear the engines either, and certainly not over the sound of a safety being disengaged just behind his head.
It couldn’t be Widowmaker, because he’d have no problems noticing her, must be an associate then.
Having a gun pointed at him was bad for business. Having a gun pointed from the back in pitch darkness was terrible. He slowly let go of the rifle.
“Hey now, let’s not do anything hasty here.”
Of course not, get his guard down then punch him in the throat, that was the plan. As long as he could keep talking-
“I could say the same to you, bruv.”
Wait. Lena? Lena of all people was pointing a gun at him? How was she mixed up with Widowmaker? She should be helping him..
He turned around, Lena flinched but didn’t press the trigger. Lena couldn’t see feeling of betrayal and dismay written on his face, and he couldn’t spot the tears at the corners of her eyes, but they were there.
“Why are you of all people, here? ”
He could barely make out her silhouette in the dark, if he could see her face he’d see the disgust on it.
“You took Talon money?”
“Well, I got a video in the mail of our dear old friend Widowmaker killing Gérard. I wasn’t gonna let her get away with that. And as for the money, you’re one to talk. What happened to fighting the good fight Lena?”
Lena huffed, quite defeated. “They brainwashed her. Neural reconditioning. She has been fighting it for so long.”
Oh.
Well, he didn’t have anything to say to that. He lowered his arms slowly. A few things made more sense now. Like why Talon’s best operative would shoot her boss in the face. But maybe he should get the answer straight from the Horse’s mouth, so to speak. In ten years or so. Brainwashing or no he just couldn’t bring himself to face her. He needed time.
He sighed. “You can put the gun down now. I’m going to find whoever sent me that message. Merry Christmas and all that.”
~
By the time Amélie got to the cottage it was around one in the morning. Her car had conveniently broken down because of the ice and she had to stand outside fumbling around trying to fix it. Why she hadn’t caught pneumonia yet, she didn’t know.
The moment she opened the door a blur of brown hair and a bright yellow sweater tackled her almost to the ground.
“Hi,” She greeted tiredly. “Can I get inside properly?”
Lena nodded.
~
They didn’t talk that night. Just cuddled each other and went to sleep. Lena didn’t tell her about McCree. The next morning they fell into an awkward sort of silence. Neither had anything to say to the other.
Amélie made breakfast, they ate in silence and Lena just couldn’t figure out which topic to broach first.
She could tell her about McCree later.
“Love, I got something I’d like to ask.”
Amélie knew what was coming. She gripped a chair, took a deep breath.
“I know what you are about to ask me.”
Lena raised a single eyebrow. “You do?”
“Hm. And answer is. You know how we spend the holidays together and then you go back to being Tracer and I go back to being Widowmaker and we spend the rest of the year shooting at each other? I just didn’t want to go back this time. I just wanted to stay with you forever.”
Lena moved silently, tears in her eyes. She closed her eyes and buried her face in Amélie’s chest.
Amélie never had to go back. Widowmaker became a distant memory with time. But that is another story.