Work Text:
To name when Ana fell in love would be impossible; now, looking back, she struggles to imagine what she must have felt, in her happier moments before the Omnic Crisis, relives her own memories as if they were a film, and what she is seeing happened to someone else. What feeling should be there is not, replaced instead with a sort of detachment, the knowledge that she should feel something, but cannot. This she does know: it was a sudden thing. One day, she did not love Sam, and the next—she does not know, now, what she felt then, but they went from lovers, from two people who were going to have a child together, to discussing marriage and forever almost overnight. So she knows she must have loved him, once, even if now she cannot imagine being that woman, so naïve, who thought that she could have a happy ending, that she could ever be content settling down, who thought that domesticity was right for her.
What she does know, is how she fell out of love. It was not a sudden thing at all, was a gradual process—still is one, as she finds herself wanting to message Sam at the end of a long day, to see his face, to know what he would think of the things they are saying in the news, or if he liked the latest book in a series they have both read—was not experienced as a revelation, but as a series of them, little things, a gradual unravelling of their relationship as Ana found herself drifting further and further from the woman she used to be.
On the surface, nothing changed, and so she knows it was hard on Sam, and how could it not have been? One day, to his eyes, they were happily in love, planning to finally have the wedding ceremony the Crisis had postponed, and to maybe have another child—or two, or more—and the next, he got a video call from Switzerland telling him not to come with Fareeha, when she visited for her birthday, and that he need not look into immigrating at the end of their daughter’s school year, after all. Their relationship was, is, perfect, on the surface; they did not fight, they did not harbor grudges, their plans for their lives seemed to dovetail, and yet, and yet he could not see the gradual unbecoming Ana was experiencing, could not feel the ways in which she was not, is not, will not be the woman who would have spent the rest of her life with him.
How hard it must have been, to find out so abruptly, that everything was over, and Ana feels guilty for it, she does, but what can Sam do? There is nothing she would have him change, because it is not he who is at fault.
(She does not think that she his at fault, either, but of the two of them, it is she who is different, and she who ought, therefore, to change, if either of them. Of course, the problem stems from her having changed, so that is not so simple as it sounds.)
When she tells him this, he thinks she is depressed, offers to move immediately, to be with her, even only as a friend, to help her through whatever it is, because he is worried about her.
She is fine. She tells him as much, when he and Fareeha arrive, repeats it as she watches him and Fareeha board their plane home, a week later, and wonders how, in just seven weeks, they reached this point.
Seven weeks before that flight, she loved him, she knows that she did, she loved him and trusted him, and he held her as she drifted off to sleep in his arms, in that three day stop she had in Canada after the Crisis was officially declared ended, and before they needed her to return to Switzerland to help Overwatch become something more permanent.
Or maybe she did not love him, then; maybe this was already beginning—it is hard to say, now what she was thinking in that moment, what she was feeling. She knows she believed that things would work out for the best, made plans with him for their future, told herself that things would be fine, would return to normalcy in time, but maybe she had an inkling then, already, of how much she had changed, maybe she felt the itching under her skin, the need to run.
Worrying about such things is pointless—she knows, now, twelve weeks after their last reunion, that whatever they had is over. When she tries to tell him she loves him, she struggles to form the words, and when she has to smile and tell Fareeha how proud she is, the words feel hollow. Both of those things should be true, are true, were true. Then why do they feel so false? Why does her face no longer feel like her own? Smiles stretch across it like a mask and she knows, she knows she cannot settle down with them, will only be an unwelcome intruder in this happy family life they have built together.
She tells Sam to keep Fareeha with him for another year, to let her spend more time with her friends before uprooting her, to let her adjust to peace before she must adjust, too, to another continent, another parent, another life than the one she has known and grown used to. Asking for such feels wrong, because she wants Fareeha with her, desperately, wants to catch up on all the things she missed, when she spent so many of the first years of Fareeha’s life at war, but she cannot care for her, not yet, not while she still does not know who and what she is, now, following the Crisis.
When she thinks of the plans they made together, her and Sam, her and Fareeha, all three of them together, she sees another woman with her same face, someone younger and softer, someone who was more capable of gentleness, who could hear the sound of distant thunder without scanning for cover, who felt anything besides smothered in a crowd. What kind of wife could she be? She cannot go ice fishing with the two of them, now, as suffocating as she finds such open spaces, as vulnerable as they are. She cannot teach herself to bake, like she thought she would, because learning new things is so much harder, now, after her seventh concussion. She cannot even speak with them easily, her knowledge of sign having decayed when it went unused for so long.
Furthermore, how could she rest easily, knowing that the people she swore to protect in the field still go out? How could she live a happy, domestic life, knowing that her friends, her comrades, her second family will die without her to watch their backs? She would hate it, would resent it, would be surrounded by the feeling of failure and the inability to help those whom she swore to protect.
This is what is so difficult to explain to Sam: although nothing is wrong with their relationship, she no longer fits where once she felt at home. The woman he would have married has died, and no amount of patience, of therapy or medication or whatever he wants her to try, will bring that woman back. She is changed, she knows it, and the way she experiences the world has changed with her; no matter what she does, she cannot unlive the Crisis, undo what she was made to, cannot unmake herself and shrink back down to whatever she was before. If he got her back—it would be a lie.
So she does not try to go back. To do so would be impossible, would only hurt all of them, would offer false hope, lull them into a false sense of security, until, inevitably, her mask would fall and they would realize that the woman living with the two of them was not the Ana, the ummi, the dearest they knew, but a stranger standing in her place. And then what? Where could they go from there?
By divorcing Sam now, she spares him that pain. To stay married would make neither of them happy, would be a farce—and whatever happiness he might think he was experiencing, in the meantime, would only make that realization all the more painful.
Yes, it hurts her, to divorce him—hurts him, to be left—but it would hurt her all the more to try and stay, to force herself to be a woman she is not, and a little pain now is worth sparing them both that suffering. This, she tells herself, when she sends him the divorce papers, is the right decision. To do so does not make her happy now, but it will, one day, will help both of them to begin to move on, and to find a better life, one which fits each of their needs.
Still, it hurts.
It hurts to be apart from him, and even more so to be away from Fareeha, hurts to know that she is ending their collective dream of a future together, in a better time and place. But to be with them hurts more, because all she can see, all she can feel, is that she can no longer become the woman she wanted to be, can no longer do the things she wanted to do, can no longer want the things she used to want and feel the things she used to feel. When she is with them, she is fragmented, caught between past and present and oh so very aware of how far from whole she is, now.
Leaving does not fix her, but it is easier, in Overwatch, to be among people who understand what it is she has seen, who have themselves been so changed by the Crisis. Leaving does not fix her, for nothing could, but it hides all the ways in which she is not whole, because Ana might not belong anywhere anymore, but Captain Amari has a place, with them, has a role. Here, they need what she can give, and will never ask more of her than that, and she tells herself that if she is, at least, not failing them, then that is almost as good as having a family—they can be her place to be wanted, to be needed, if only she lets them.
But they cannot see her hurting, they cannot know that she is torn, lest they think her weak, or undedicated, or reluctant, somehow, to serve with them. For her decisiveness, she was chosen, and so they cannot see her seem to waver now.
It is hard, though, to mask her pain.
She tries to be subtle about it, not to show that she is troubled by anything, tries to go about her day as usual, if she can, so as not to worry the people she works with, not to lead them to question her competence, to think that she cannot make the adjustment to whatever Overwatch is now becoming. That she has adjusted to far better than her attempt at reintegrating into family life. Here, people have changed in the same way that she has, have found themselves transformed, know what it is to leave some part of yourself behind, and to gain something else in the process, to be so transformed that no amount of shrinking oneself down, or cutting parts of oneself away, will allow one to once again fit where one used to.
Explaining that to Sam would be impossible; he has known tragedy, yes, has known grief, has known what it is to grow and to change in response to such events, but he does not know what it is to see something, to do something, to survive something that alters even the most fundamental parts of oneself, and to emerge utterly disconnected from the person one once was. He thinks things can go back to the way they were, with patience, with time, with medication and therapy and care, but there is nothing for Ana to go back to. That past does not belong to her, not anymore.
When she tries—it does her no good, attempting to be someone she is not, someone she no longer feels as if she ever was, serves only as a painful reminder that is will never have, now, what once she dreamed of.
Maybe it is selfish, divorcing him. Maybe she is doing this for herself, to minimize her pain. Maybe he would prefer she lied to him, would be happier if she were to pretend that everything was fine, and maybe the deception would be good for him, but she is not so selfless as she would like to claim. That is not a pain she can endure, even if it would make the two people she loves most happiest.
(Or—one person? She loves Fareeha, certainly, but the woman who loved Sam, that is not her. He is her friend, her partner, but she cannot feel love for him, not anymore, not without it being so tinged with pain as to be inaccessible to her. Love is not pain, should not be. Yet it pains Ana.)
Maybe it is selfish, but she does it anyway, hurts all of them in the process to spare herself. She hates herself for it, but what else can she do? What better path is there? Better for her to be unhappy, but have a chance at saving the world, than to try and be happy, again, and to know all the while that there are people who need her far more than Fareeha and Sam. From the Crisis, she knows that they can be enough for each other, that they do not need her, like the world does, that they are happy without her. What good would it do them, for her to interject herself, and to take all of the scars of the war with her?
Many things are more important than what would make Ana happy. More important is this: that Fareeha and Sam are able to continue living the life they have built without her, and to do so without her own state threatening them. More important is this: that she be able to save the world again, if need be, so that Fareeha will have the chance to grow up, to find love for herself, to live a happier life than Ana has and not be wounded by constant warfare, warped into a shadow of herself. More important is this: that Ana’s friends, her comrades, think her well, so that they need not worry that their trust in her is misplaced.
So she does not let her grief consume her—for she is morning, in her own way, the life she lost—does not let it interrupt her work, or show on her face. In another, gentler life, she might have been an actress, because no one ever questions what it is she is really thinking and feeling.
Or, almost no one.
Inside her working hours, she is fine, but she has to cancel on Jack, one morning, fifteen weeks after she left Canada and Sam behind forever, lies and tells him that she is ill when she is going, instead, to meet with a lawyer, so that they might witness her signing her divorce papers. It is a white lie, and not one she feels badly about; telling anyone that she is divorcing would only worry them, and people get sick. There is nothing to question there, surely.
It almost works.
On anyone else, it would work. Most people take Ana at her word. Usually, Jack does, too, but he is her best friend—him and Gabriel, but Gabriel is busy, in Turin, helping to establish a secondary base for his new organization, so it is only Jack, with her now.
(Having just one of them there feels wrong, because to Ana, Jack and Gabriel have always felt like two halves to a whole. But they are not talking, now, having some petty fight over Jack’s promotion to Strike Commander. It feels foolish, particularly when Ana, too, applied for that position, but neither of them seem to blame her for what happened—and neither is angry, either, at the reason for her rejection, although it was perhaps more egregious. Instead, they leave her in the middle, to play messenger, to pass notes between the two of them while they stew, and to soothe their egos in the hopes that they will reconcile, soon, and everything can go back to—whatever normal is now.)
In the mornings, they run together, not in any official capacity, not as a part of the workouts they are mandated to do and not to discuss the work that faces them, the problems of the day—just to be together, to be normal, to pretend, for the duration of their workout, that they are only two friends. They gossip, and they tell tales, and they tease one another, and pretend that things are fine, that they are two ordinary people without the weight of the world resting on their shoulders. A reprieve, is what it is, and a nice one at that.
Normally.
The morning after Ana signs her divorce papers, Jack stops short when they are just outside of view of base, in a small patch of trees which are soon to be bulldozed, as construction continues.
“Jack?” Ana is worried for him, assumes immediately that he has rolled an ankle, or sprained it, or worse—he senses some sort of trap ahead. They have been in that position before. “What—”
“Is everything okay?” he asks her, interrupting her question and leaving her with new ones. His face, as he turns to look at her, is full of concern.
“I’m fine,” says she, perhaps a bit too stiffly. “Are you?” It is not like him, to ambush her like this.
“Don’t turn this around on me,” he frowns, a bit, but looks more worried than frustrated, “I’m not Reinhardt—it won’t work. Something’s bothering you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Even to her own ears, she sounds clipped.
“Yesterday was the second time in a month you were ‘sick’ for our run, but on time to work. Something’s going on.” She does not answer him, only stares back, as if she could read in his expression what he thinks is happening, and then respond accordingly. “If you just would rather we not do this, that’s fine,” he continues, “But last minute cancellations aren’t like you and if you’re hiding something from me, I need to know.”
“Hiding something?”
“Yes, hiding something. What else am I supposed to think, Ana? You’ve been distant, distracted, and now you’re breaking routine. Any good commander would notice that.”
“You’re pulling rank on me now?” She manages to keep the hurt out of her voice, just barely, replaces it with indignation and accusation. How dare he? In headquarters, it is his right, even if she does not necessarily agree with the UN’s decision to choose him as commander, but here? Off base, as friends? How dare he try to leverage his command against her.
(When she was younger, before she was trained as a sniper, she would shake, when she was angry, her whole body, and now—now she is still, because she knows better, knows the danger of losing control, but she feels it, that energy she used to, and it is hard for her to remain steady, as she knows she should.)
“I—” Jack starts, flounders, “No I’m… Do I have to, Ana?” He gives her that look, then, the one he is so good at, as if he were some lost little boy looking to her for guidance. This time, it does not work on her.
“I don’t know,” she asks him, arms crossing, chin tilting upwards stubbornly, “Do you?”
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” he says, “Please. I’m worried about you as a friend, first.”
“And second?” His eyes slide away from hers, then, uneasily.
To his credit, his voice is more certain than his expression, “I need to be able to trust my second-in-command, Ana. You can’t keep secrets from me. If you’re compromised, or—”
“Compromised, Jack?” That makes her laugh, angry and unsteady, “Because I missed our run twice?”
“No,” he says, perhaps a touch more forcefully than he intended, because he immediately quiets, “Because I can tell there’s something else behind it, and you’re being evasive. And I’m worried about you.”
“Accusing someone of being a double agent is an awfully funny way of showing that,” it is absurd, actually, but this whole conversation has been, and Ana knows, rationally, that both of them are stressed, are angry for other reasons, and there is no need to take it out on each other now, like this but—well, what else can she do? How else can she react? The very implication has her seeing red, and she knows he must know it from her face, from the way her cybernetic eye reacts to the change in her blood pressure, mechanical parts lighting up as, subconsciously, her body prepares for a fight, a kill.
(This is the real reason she cannot go back to Sam and Fareeha. The woman they knew would never be this tetchy, this quick to fall into anger, this dangerous, and it would not be fair to subject them to this.)
“I didn’t mean—Jesus, Ana, I meant your health.”
Oh. Well, that makes a little more sense, at least. But when he says compromised, he must know how that sounds, as a commander, must realize that the implication—
“Is it nightmares?” he asks her, “Flashbacks? Drinking?”
“I’m Muslim, you know I wouldn’t—” Oh, she might have a tattoo, might have conceived her daughter out of wedlock, but she is married, now, and anyway, she needs to draw the line somewhere, and Jack knows that, has never questioned her selective adherence to her faith before, just as she does not question his.
“I don’t know anything,” he interrupts her, “Because you won’t tell me.” A step forward, into her space, careful with his posture in no way aggressive, “And that worries me—you’re always honest, Ana. So if you’re hiding something, it has to be big.”
Always honest? She could not count, if she tried, the number of little lies she has told to keep him and Gabriel on an even keel, the number of times she has been fine or thinks they couldn’t have done anything differently or believes that we did all we could, it doesn’t make us bad people. But those lies are convenient to Jack, to Gabriel, to all the men around her, and so they do not question them, do not question her.
This one, however, is not, and so he has caught her at last.
Is she hiding something? Not exactly, no—no more than the rest of them are, in any case. Yes, she is not as fine as she claims, but is he? She has noticed the dark circles under his eyes, knows that his question about drinking was little more than projection. But none of them speak up for a reason; they are fit for the field, they have to be, cannot be weak or waver else they will find themselves discharged, rendered impotent by bureaucracy and made to go home, as if they belonged there any more than they do here.
(The only place any of them belong anymore is the battlefield.)
He knows that, he must, and it cannot be what he wants to hear from her—is not something she is willing to risk revealing. Without Overwatch, she is nothing, has nothing. To be turned away now would kill her.
But what else can she tell him? What happened a month ago, she cannot speak about. Maybe, if she had mentioned it before, it would be easier, but it was always a secret and now—now there is no secret left to keep. It is gone, was only ever a possibility in the first place, and one that by mentioning she would only invite more questions. She has no right to cry over it, to be comforted, and if she mentioned it, that is what would happen.
(Even naming it is impossible, for she does not know if she has the right to put to words what happened. Other people have suffered such losses, too, but they at least—well, can she even be said to have lost that which she never wanted? Best, then, not to linger on that knot of wordless emotions, formless feelings which threaten to swallow her up and drag her down.)
Which leaves only one thing, the thing that is least relevant to her work, but has, admittedly, been weighing on her, something large enough that Jack will leave her alone, and they can forget about this, about her mood, about what she has lost and whom she is becoming.
“Sam and I are getting a divorce,” she tells him, and he must mistake the resignation in her voice, the feeling of failure that it carries, because his reply is one of sympathy.
“I’m sorry,” he tells her, voice conveying, at once, that he regrets having pressed and that he feels very sorry for—as if she were something to be pitied. “I know you were looking forward to—”
“No,” she tells him, before he can continue down that path, voice a touch sharp because how can he pity her, when it is she who did this. She is not deserving of sympathy, and pity? It rankles. “No, I filed for divorce.”
“Oh,” says Jack, taken aback, for a moment, “Why?”
Of course he would not understand. This is why she never mentioned it to him in the first place. He, who is a romantic, who still holds a candle for the man who got tired of waiting for him, back home, who believes that love is, in some way, eternal, and whose innocence in such is unsullied by reality, having never had to return home, to know what it was to realize that somewhere, along the way, he and his partner’s steps fell out of sync and now they have moved so far from one another they cannot possibly find their way back to the point at which they diverged—he could never understand this, and she would not ask him to.
“I wasn’t happy,” says she, and nothing more, because it is impossible to put to words what it is to have your world shift, just slightly, and to realize that that one small difference was all it took to forever be out of reach of one’s partner, to realize that there is a stranger in your marriage bed, and that the stranger is you.
“And you’re happy now?” He asks, cautiously, but with a heavy hint of doubt.
“No,” she tells him honestly, because she is not happy, “But I will be.”
That is what matters, is it not? Not that she is hurting, in the moment, but that she has done the right thing for herself and her future, has put herself down the right path, now. Overwatch is where she belongs, is where she is needed, is where she can feel at home. To be here, it will not save her, because she does not need saving, not truly, but it will set her to rights, again. When all is said and done, she knows she will have made the right choice, in staying. Where else has she to go?
“If you’re sure,” says Jack, voice still showing some concern.
“I am,” says she, and she is. Home is not home anymore, but here—here could be, with time, and these people could be her family, in their own way.
There is a moment of silence between them, then, before Jack seems to accept what she has said, and she knows he will press no further, will leave her to care for herself, as is her wont. “Alright,” he says, “Let’s finish our run, then. We don’t want to be late.”
Ana nods her assent, and follows him deeper into the still-standing forest. There is no trail, but she knows he will guide her out of it, and back home safely.
He always does.