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Fareeha did not know if she was allowed to feel the way she felt about Zürich. About Switzerland. As if… as if it was home . Not in the same sense that had been her “home” once upon a time. The infamous Watchpoint.
It felt right to be here now though. She hadn't even really been to much of Switzerland beyond the tourist parts, having only been about the place as a child and young teen. It was enrapturing.
Angela had promised her a vacation trip as an anniversary gift, and Fareeha had chosen her wife’s home country for them explore. It felt like a betrayal to… something... to say that she loved the place more than she had before. She didn't betray anyone so it didn't make sense for her to feel guilty, but she did .
Walking along, she didn't care so deeply about the monument for the fallen Watchpoint behind her. She was no longer devastated by it but still the landscape she had seen glimpses of even despite her careful mental distraction now taunted her.
The green earth and blue pond and jagged concrete piece mutedly repeating something along the lines of “Don’t you remember what happened here? Am I not the thing you hated?”
The single old Overwatch flag faded and billowing in the wind at half mast, lighter blue than the sky itself. It said “Why bother trying again?”
The crumbs Angela accidentally let fall off of her scone lead in a trail right back to Fareeha's shock of years past, to feeling so small, young, and furious at a stupid concrete building.
She was mortified when it all fell.
But Angela had been there that day.
She'd seen Reyes the morning when it all went down, had given him a wide berth and not even so much as a hello. She and Fareeha talked about how Angela could have followed him down the hall to make him sign the piece of paper she needed for authorization on something. They only mentioned once that if she had, she likely wouldn't have made it out. The result of the comment did not need to be repeated, it helped and hurt all at once.
Fareeha clenched her jaw. For as much as the story seemed to be over, their own relationship having made a more healthy chapter in their lives, there was still Justice still to be had.
Angela smiled at her in a way that looked genuine to a passive observer, but pain was so present in her blue eyes, going through her own tortuous thoughts. Fareeha reached out to curl one finger around one of her belt loops of her jeans, a silent sign of safety and affection.
A promise to her that they would make it through just walking the campus of the destroyed watchpoint. A reminder that it was good for them. A plea for Angela to be brave just until they could get back to a private location.
Just until they could talk about it a little, kiss and just rest in each others arms. Just until they could soothe the odd and jagged pieces down until they were right again.
Somehow. Someway.
When Fareeha brought the point up to Jesse, that she now felt far more attached to Switzerland after having married Angela, his brow crinkled in confusion before he smiled, slow and lazy.
“I reckon I might know a little what's going on in that skull of yours, rocket queen,” he said, knowledgeable but humble in a way that she appreciated. “It’s emotional transfer.”
“What do you mean?” she asked cooly over her cup of coffee.
He bowed his head as if thinking, but she knew he already had something, even pretending to mull it over. “Even though it's a big sore spot, a raw string of memories, it was important to Angela, right?”
“It was important to you too, but it was her home for longer than you, all year round for a long time.” He added quickly, rambling a bit from lack of sleep and a finger or two of whiskey drank too quickly. “And y'know…”
She nodded her head, not quite completely following, but wanting to stay away from the somber thoughts. “It is a location from all our pasts, mostly Angela's, yes, but that does not explain the odd occurrence of feeling.”
He sighed. “I ain't explaining myself proper, Zürich feels like home to you because...”
He trailed off, expectantly waiting for her to finish his sentence, before looking at Fareeha like she was dumb.
She felt dumb under his incredulous look.
“It’s because she is…” He tried again, his voice lifting in a way that asked a question and was trying to pull her into figuring it out.
She hummed, then her eyes widened.“It’s home because she is my home!”
She laughed, a little too long and a little too strung out. "That makes so much more sense than a misplaced internal compass.”
Jesse chuckled. “Go home, Fareeha, you're drunk.”
She smiled.
That night, when she tucked her head under Angela's chin, and listened to her pulse, strong and steady and pulling her in, she smiled again.
The lines around Angela's eyes were beginning to grow more profound. The laugh lines too. As much as her wife hated it, she would simply smile in response to her complaints about her increasing age and say “it is the evidence of a life well lived, my love.”
There was no greater joy to Fareeha, no greater feeling of belonging than with her. Love was not a chore, was not something earned, simply something given and given and given and given and given and given in return.
For every five frantic nights in the med bay there were three peaceful moments. For every two nightmares there were four hands between them to hold each other and themselves up at the same time.
For every “I love you” there was an “I love you too,” or a look similar in meaning.
(Or a jab of “You are just saying that because you want something,” and a laugh. Those moments were just as treasured.)
Fareeha was home.
Because she is.