Work Text:
Angela stared blearily at the holoscreen projected from her desk. The words seemed like an entirely different language, and she couldn’t quite make them out in her head.
She rubbed her eyes under her glasses and clicked over to the next page, hoping she would have more luck there.
What was it that people said? That she might as well be reading Chinese? Yeah, that one didn’t work, she knew how to read Mandarin just fine.
She wondered distantly if it was really her present self who couldn’t make out the words, or if it was her past self who hadn’t written something comprehensive enough to be read in the first place. No, no it had to be her present self who was having the difficulties. She still had coffee back when she wrote this report, where she now was running off of the five minutes of rest she got an hour before when she had been waiting for some samples to process.
Maybe she could get more coffee. She didn’t have the energy to put effort into a full new pot, but she could use the grounds from her last brew that were still in her coffee maker. It wouldn’t be as strong as she might have liked, but it was still something.
She just had to finish these reports. If she could finish these reports, she could get up to bed and sleep until her alarm went off in-
She looked up to the clock at the corner of her desk.
2:34.
-one hour and twenty six minutes. That’s alright. She had worked on less and been perfectly fine. She had a higher constitution than most people, a result of the Valkyrie suit on her body. She could last longer, with a higher quality of work. No matter how little she slept or ate, her patients would still receive the best care in the world.
She remembered her Vati complaining greatly about this detail. He tried to get Commander Morrison to impose some kind of bedtime for her since she was older than eighteen and therefore he didn’t hold that authority anymore. Morrison had sided with him at first, but pretty quickly saw the error of his ways when she was just grumpier than usual.
She hated getting too much sleep. If she entered into deep enough sleep for dreaming, she saw them. It was always them, though who they were always changed. It was always the red, and the glowing yellow only she could see, and the white bone peaking out from torn flesh-
No. She couldn’t sleep. Not for that long. She just had to get in the amount she usually did and take short naps on her breaks. She had to keep going. She couldn’t see them, she didn’t want to.
She looked back to the screen and focused all of her attention on each and every word until she could understand them. She made it through the entire file, her head pounding, screaming by the end, but she still made it. She realized belatedly that she hadn’t brewed that pot of coffee.
There was a sigh, but she just assumed it came from herself and continued making notes in the margin of the file. It took her halfway through the sentence to realize the sigh had come from someone else in her office, and they were speaking to her.
“How did I know I would find you here?” they asked, and she knew that voice. Of course she knew that voice. It was the only thing that could make them stay away, and it had been gone for the past few days.
Angela looked up from the holoscreen to the door of her room, and sure enough, he was there. She wondered at first if he might be an illusion created by sleep deprivation, but knew she wasn’t quite that tired. She had gotten half an hour of rest a couple hours ago, hallucinations wouldn’t happen until days after that.
Genji pushed off the doorway and walked over to her, his arms crossed over his chest. He stopped by her desk, leaning against it as he looked down at her with open worry on his face. He didn’t have his mask on, but it was in one of his hands. They must have just gotten back from their mission.
“When was the last time you were up to the apartment?” he asked.
Red eyes looked into her soul, and she could never lie to him, “I haven’t been.”
“Then where have you been sleeping and eating?” Genji asked, even though they both knew he knew.
“I got some rest here and there in the on-call room,” she said, her voice sounding scratchy and distant. She really hadn’t wanted to be in this state when he got back. “I ate in the cafeteria.”
“And when was the last time you did either of those?”
Angela hesitated, then settled on keeping her mouth shut. She honestly didn’t know, and she didn’t think that was what Genji wanted to hear.
Genji sighed again, and a sad look came to his eyes that had her bowing her head.
“You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”
‘There are people who need me,” Angela argued, though her voice was weak. “A doctor’s job is never finished.”
“That’s what we have other doctors for,” Genji said. “You running yourself into the ground isn’t going to help anyone, don’t you get that? Those people who need you need you alive.”
Angela kept her head down. Her chest hurt, and something was stinging her eyes.
“It’s not just the work, is it?” Genji asked.
Angela hesitated, but shook her head lightly.
“You know they only get worse when you don’t sleep,” Genji said. “You have to face them, just like the rest of us.”
“I don’t want to,” she shook her head again. “I just want to work, what's wrong with that? The quality of my work-”
“-stays the same no matter how much food or rest you’ve gotten,” Genji finished for her. “I know. You think I can’t say the same? All I need is to charge every forty eight hours and I’m good to go until I run out of battery again. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.”
“I don’t want anyone to worry about me,” Angela said in her last efforts.
“Then take care of yourself.”
They stayed in silence for a little longer before Angela jolted. Her chair had moved under her and she startled, scrambling to gain balance so she didn’t fall over.
“Careful,” Genji said, one hand landing on her shoulder. “I have you. Don’t worry.”
So she didn’t. She was done fighting for the night, she decided as he lifted her from her chair.
“I can walk,” she said, though she didn’t put much into it.
“No, you can’t,” he said. “I don’t trust you to make it two feet without collapsing.”
She didn’t say anything else. She just clung to him, knowing he would never drop her but still feeling nervous despite it.
Genji stepped into the elevator and hit the button for the commanding officer's residential floor. Their apartment was there, right next to her Vati and Ana’s, with Torbjörn’s on the other side. It was empty that night, as it was most nights he wasn’t required to stay on base.
Genji scanned his wrist and the door easily opened for him, welcoming them both home. He walked in, but didn’t bother turning on any lights. He went straight for their bedroom, depositing her on the bed.
He stared down at her for a moment, a mixture of annoyance and care in his expression. She just stared back up at him, unmoving.
“Please don’t leave me alone,” she whispered. She almost hoped he didn’t hear, but the way his eyes shifted told her everything she needed to know.
“I won’t,” he promised.
She watched him as he moved around the room, getting ready for bed. He cleaned and oiled the mechanical parts of his body exactly as she had taught him, then pulled on a hoodie and sweatpants as his usual protective layer. When he approached the bed again, she was about to move to make room for him, but he caught her leg and gently removed her shoes, followed by her socks. He pressed a kiss to the inner side of each ankle, and she relaxed against the bed, for once in her life allowing herself to be cared for.
He quickly changed her into her pajamas, allowing her minimal movement even when she tried to help. Along the way he pressed kisses to her skin and hair every chance he got. When he was finished, finally one of those kisses found its way to her lips as he lifted her from the bed.
He laid down with her in his arms, easily connecting up to his charging port.
As the darkness overcame her vision, she heard him whisper into her hair.
“You need to learn to practice what you preach, my love.”
Then she slipped off into the safe nothingness