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When she joined the Recalled Overwatch, Mei knew that she would, again, be among familiar faces, that this would be her only opportunity to return to a semblance of normalcy, to something like the life she knew before her time in cryostasis. All her other colleagues are scattered to the winds, or dead, or worse, are people who have not dealt with death, with grieving, not since the Crisis, who do not know what it is to say in the face of something so senseless as her own loss, rather than in a war, and who do not know what to say to her in the face of what has happened. She does not think she can live with sympathy, with pity. Why should they pity her? She survived. She survived, and she is still surviving, fought her way out of Antarctica and back to the rest of the world, is still fighting in her way, every day, clawing back to the happy optimistic person she once was.
No, Overwatch is the only place she can go, and it was their message she first received when she contacted the outside world again, so it is a natural thing, for her to rejoin them, is the most normal thing in the world, is a return to whom and what she knows.
Always, she has sought to save the world, in her own way. No, she is not curing diseases, and she never held a gun until recently, but saving the planet is saving all life on it. Mei is and has always been a hero at heart, has always fought for people and for ideals. Becoming an active duty agent in Overwatch is hardly any different, except for the fact that it is now a violation of international law.
How that all went down Mei still does not entirely know, could only catch up on so much before the details overwhelmed her, and she does not want to ask. Is she afraid of the potential answers? No, Mei is no coward, has always faced the many challenges in her life head on, has done what she must, and never flinched, but she is afraid of hurting her colleagues, her friends, by asking the wrong questions. All of them have memories which they would rather not see dredged up, and it is difficult for Mei to ascertain where those weak parts are, not knowing quite enough, yet, to guess at what is painful. So she will not press, and hopes people do her the same courtesy—she is still discovering in herself what is too difficult to discuss, what leaves her heart open, and raw, what sends panic down her spine, and what weighs her down with a sadness so heavy she can hardly rise from bed for the next week, would not be able to, were it not for the fact that she knows she must, for she has that opportunity, and the others who went into cryostasis with her did not, and she will not squander what was given to her. Not now, not ever again.
Not prying works well for her, it does, seems to result in an equal amount of respect being granted her, no one asking too many questions about what it was like, about what she felt, when she woke up, about if she dreamed—she did, dark and terrible, a years long dream from which she could never wake, no matter how much she tried to, which she was all alone in the cold vastness of space, a premonition, of sorts. Even now, she feels like she is still there, some days, falling endlessly and trying to move towards the light of a dying star, grasping hopelessly towards it, even as it fades from view, and knowing that it, that hope of warmth, died long before she spotted it.
No, it is a good thing no one asks. She is meant to be bright, and warm, because that is who she was before all of this, and if she were as cold and sad as she felt it would only hurt the people around her, would do no one any good. Perhaps the others feel the same, and that is why none of them ever have questions for each other going too far beyond the superficial.
Or, rather, most people do not ask beyond that level.
Mei can, she supposes, forgive Angela for prying. After all, it is her job to look after everyone’s health, and she takes her role very seriously, wants for them all to be as well as is possible, even if, Mei privately thinks, she would do well to follow her own advice.
“How are you sleeping?” asks she, time and again, and “Are you too cold? I can turn up the thermostat” or, “Have you eaten, yet?” All of these could be professional questions, Mei knows, and some of them undoubtedly are, but there is something different in the way Angela treats her that Mei cannot quite place, some minute change in her tone, her expression.
It is not pity, Mei thinks, not quite—surely Angela has known people who have been in worse situations—but she resents the difference, nonetheless, is always just this side of snapping, of saying something unkind. But she does not. Life is short, she knows, far too short for anger and grudges, and she knows that Angela means well, is never anything but earnest, in her concern for Mei and for others. This is a kindness she is showing, if an exasperating one.
Still, even someone as patient, as polite, as Mei has a breaking point.
It comes, one afternoon, on the transport back from Volskaya, the two of them the only ones awake, after a long day and half spent in the field. Why Angela is awake, Mei does not know, but she herself avoids sleep, when she can, and the dreams that come with it.
“Are you alright, Mei?” Angela asks her, voice the same as ever, caring in a way that Mei cannot quite place.
“I’m fine,” Mei says, nicely as she can, “And glad we’re all headed back to base in one piece.”
“As am I,” as she says this Angela leans forward towards Mei, inches past professional distance and into personal space, “But I’m just asking because you look rather pale.”
“I didn’t have many chances to get a tan in cryostasis,” Mei says, and it comes off as a joke, she hopes, because she does mean it as one, even if she also hopes that it will distract Angela from staring at her.
At least partially, it works, for Angela sits back, frowns, straightens a bit in her seat, says, “No, I suppose you wouldn’t have. I’m sorry. I only…” A long pause, and her hands twist in her lap, “I’m concerned about you, Mei.”
“You shouldn’t be,” and she means it to come off as cheery, You shouldn’t be, because nothing is wrong! but instead sounds very much different, sounds cold. Really Mei thinks that other people should not worry about her because she is afraid it will hurt them, if they do, afraid that if something happens, again, she will come back to more tears, more I mourned you, more relatives, loved ones who died thinking her gone forever, and never will know the truth. She does not want anyone to feel that way because of her again.
“I worry about everyone,” Angela tells her, “It’s what I’m paid for.”
While Mei knows that Angela does, in fact, worry about everyone, she knows, too, that it is not, in fact, part of her job description, and in any case it does not change the fact that “You worry about me more. I can tell.”
“Is that such a bad thing?” Apparently she will not deny it, and Mei—she might have appreciated it, in another time, in another life, but now, now she does not want to be worried over, be the object of anyone’s pity.
“No,” Mei says, “We all care about each other in our own ways. But you don’t have to look after me. I can take care of myself.”
An understatement. She is the only person who took care of her. The last Overwatch left her to die, and she crawled back to life all on her own. There is no need for anyone to look after her. Not now, not ever.
“You can,” Angela agrees, “We all can.”
“Then why ask me?” says she, veneer of cheeriness, friendliness chipping, “Why not ask Fareeha, or Hana, or Jesse.”
“They’ve all killed people before,” Angela tells her, and Mei feels it then, the ice in her veins again, the sudden instinct to survive, to do whatever it takes to ensure that she is still breathing at the end of the day. A ringing, in her ears, but still, Angela speaks, “You haven’t. Hadn’t.”
A touch too defensive, “I didn’t try to kill anyone.”
She did not. She did not.
“I saw them, Mei,” Angela says, and her voice is just as gentle as before, despite its insistence. “All three of them. And unless someone else is shooting icicles…”
“They didn’t give me a choice!” It is loud, too loud, and Fareeha, seated on Angela’s other side, stirs, so Mei has to quiet herself. “I was cornered. I didn’t want to—”
“I know,” Angela tells her, and it is easy to see, now, why they call her Mercy, her voice so gentle, so soothing, so calm. This is a side of her Mei has never seen, has never needed to. “I know. None of us ever want to—but it has to be done, sometimes.” One of her hands covers Mei’s a comforting gesture, but her eyes are very far away. “Far better that they died than you.”
“Is it?” Mei asks, and she is thinking not of the three frozen bodies in Volskaya but the others, back in Antarctica, who might have survived were it not for the fact that she was assigned the lucky pod that functioned. Better her than them? How could anyone say that, how could anyone know? There is no proof that any of them could not have gone on to live a better life than she, and maybe—maybe if they had lived, they would have woken up sooner, could have rescued the others from their malfunctioning pods before it was too late. Not Mei, trapped as she was in dreams.
Now, Angela looks away from her, and down, “I don’t know,” says she, “It’s what Ana told me, after my first kill. I thought it might be helpful to hear, but… I suppose I shouldn’t have. It didn’t help me, either.”
Strange, to think of Angela killing anyone, when she is like this. On the battlefield, oh, then Mei can believe it, because as Mercy Angela is so much sharper, deadlier, wants nothing other than to survive, but here—here is different. She is softer, smaller, all the energy and fight gone out of her. Mei wonders: was she the same? Did she shift, in that moment, to someone stronger, braver, deadlier?
No, no. Mei is always a fighter, always. That brought her here. Who she was in that moment was the same person she is now, who will do what it takes to live, every time, and that is the hardest part. It was her that pulled the trigger, her who is the killer. If she had died, she would only ever have been a victim, but she could not accept that, accept death, decided in that moment that her life weighted heavier than three others.
It does not, cannot.
“Mei?” Angela asks, again.
“Sorry,” says she, “Sorry, sorry. I was…” What was she doing? “How did you cope with it?” How does she?
A little laugh from Angela, small and sad. “I don’t know that I do, Mei. After you kill someone you can’t—there’s no way to atone for it. You can’t earn forgiveness from the dead. And there’s no way to forget it, either, you’ll always know just how easy it was, in that moment, to put yourself first, and that you’ll do it again, if you have to. It doesn’t ever go away—but you make of it what you can. They died, and you lived, so now you should just do the best you can, for the rest of your life, not waste it, ensure enough is done that—well, that you can sleep at night, and try to think that the universe did not lose too much.”
Distinctly, Mei gets the feeling that Angela is not talking only about the people she has killed, but the ones she has survived, too, and it makes sense, it does, resonates with Mei’s own experiences with surviving those whom she cares about, but it is so terribly sad. If anyone is a good person, it is Angela, who has given her whole life to saving others, to doing what she can to better the world.
As best she can, she tries to tell Angela as much, says, “I’m trying. To atone, that is, for surviving. But if you can’t… You’re a doctor. You heal people. If that isn’t enough, what can I do?”
“Oh Mei,” says Angela, with a tenderness in her voice that is not pitying, at all, somehow, is instead one borne of caring, and respect, “I could say the same of you.”
What can Mei say to that? When Angela says it, it sounds so true, and she has always worked to save the world, in her own way, if by focusing on the planet and not on humanity. That has been a conscious choice, one she has made every day, and she never knew that it would lead her here, to having survived, having killed, but she supposes that, no, she cannot regret it, cannot regret choosing to do what is right, even if it has hurt her so. Even if it has felt, in the moment, that the only options available to her were terrible ones. Still, she has always done her best to do what is right, for everyone. If people like Angela respect her, then maybe she is doing what is good, after all.
Tonight, she still will not sleep easily, still will fear the darkness, and the cold, will fear it swallowing her yet again, and still she will wonder why it was she who survived, why it was she who was lucky, but she will make the most of it, and she will feel just a little less alone, as she does so, know that she knows that Angela thinks the same of herself.
All along, she has been wrong, it is not pity, in Angela’s eyes, when she looks at Mei, it has been understanding, has been the knowledge that they are in the same boat, the two of them.
In her nightmares tonight, she will not reach out alone towards that cold, distant star, will be able to see, if she looks, another figure in the distance, searching for the same warmth.
There is someone beside her, after all.