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They weren’t expecting the bomb.
They were expecting some sort of defence, sure. You couldn’t casually stroll up to the house of a would-be governor and politely ask if you could assassinate him and be done with it.
But the French omnic – Marrok, he called himself – lived in a an area that was quite rural, out on the western shores of Lake Annecy. He had chosen to stay outside of the city, in a lone cabin that did not look like it could withstand the next storm, much less a group of trained killers.
There were no guards, no dogs, no clear signs of any surveillance or weaponry. The only obstacle in their way was a stone fence that stood a little over five meters tall, but the gate was not only unlocked – it was open.
“This is gonna be too easy,” Sombra’s voice declares over their connected earpieces, and only later would Widowmaker wish she had told her no, nothing really ever was.
She wasn’t even supposed to be on this mission – it was originally assigned to Reaper. But Reaper hadn’t shown up, going on his own, personal mission – something that seemed to be happening more and more often lately – and Widowmaker didn’t trust a single member of the dispatched team to finish the kill. Not even Sombra. Especially not Sombra.
Besides, she hadn’t gotten to see the light fade out of anyone in some time. She’d missed it.
So she takes her place once the team finishes sweeping the area, balancing on the corner of the fence. Everyone else spreads out, weapons at the ready – there’s no chance of escape.
Widowmaker takes out her rifle and aims it, hands unnaturally steady. Her helmet whirs and then her visor clicks into place, highlighting every single living thing in the area – and giving her the first inclination that something was wrong.
Because she couldn’t see Marrok.
Not a single trace of him in the cabin – but that had to be impossible, because intel had seemed extremely sure that he had entered it less than an hour ago, and no one had seen him come out.
She frowns, pressing down on her earpiece. “No sign of our target in the cabin.”
“What the hell do you mean, no sign?” Allen Kane – a newer recruit, on his first mission – asks her, like she’s supposed to know, then kicks the door down anyways.
She rolls her eyes and takes aim again.
Half of them are in the house, yelling commands and taunts, before the hidden speakers crackle to life.
“Bonne soirèe, my friends,” Marrok’s disembodied voice booms. “I am so very flattered to have the infamous Talon visit me, and so very sorry to have missed you. I knew you could not resist, you see, me living in a place so...solitaire. So I have left you a gift, a very lovely gift, made by a good friend. Enjoy it, please, and adieu. Forever.”
There’s a rush of static before deafening silence, the only sound the crashing of the lake’s waves. It lasts for only mere seconds, but is damning enough to feel like eternity.
And then, the world explodes.
***
It happens so suddenly.
One moment, Widowmaker had been perched on the fence, unmoving and still. The next, she’s flying through the air, graceless and uncontrolled.
She tries to twist around, tries to find her bearings, and instead finds herself hurtling towards the lake’s unforgiving surface. She vaguely recalls something about how landing on water could be as fatal as landing on concrete, if done with enough force.
She doesn’t get to discover how it feels, though, because a piece of debris – possibly stone from the very fence she had been standing on mere moments ago – collides with her head. Something cracks, maybe her helmet, maybe her skull, and she goes under long before reaching the water.
***
Something grabs her shoulder.
(cinq minutes de plus maman)
It lets go for a second, then grabs on again, firmer, and drags her towards it. There’s a muffled noise – a voice – that seems to be coming from someplace far away. Then there’s another heaving drag, and it becomes clearer.
“ – with me, Spider Queen!”
A voice, yes. Annoying. Familiar. Sombra.
Widowmaker tries to open her eyes. Her vision is entirely red,
(blood-red)
so she closes them again.
The second time she opens them, she’s looking at a sky full of stars, and Sombra’s curious face.
“Dios mío, you’re alive,” Sombra says. “It’s impossible to tell, you know. No heartbeat and all.”
Widowmaker sits up – or at least tries to. A pulse of horrible, raging pain goes through her and sends the world spinning. The only reason she doesn’t collapse and hit her head again is because Sombra catches her.
“Woah, easy there buddy,” Sombra says. Her grip is surprisingly strong.
“I am not – ” Widowmaker starts, then stops, struggling to swallow down a sudden bout of nausea.
Once the world stops moving in circles, she yanks her arm out of Sombra’s grip and tries again. “I am not your buddy.”
Sombra stands up, hands on her hips. “Alright, buddy, but I’m the reason you didn’t drink half the lake and drown, so be nice.”
Widowmaker wants to roll her eyes, but everything hurts too much. Slowly, agonizingly slow, she, too, stands up. Sombra doesn’t offer a helping hand, but she doesn’t push her back down either.
When she finally manages to get back on her legs, she’s unsteady – an unusual development.
There’s been a lot of those tonight, she thinks, bitterly amused.
She scans the horizon. They’re standing a good distance away from what had once been a cabin. Now, it was nothing more than a smouldering heap of wood and rock.
“Que...what on Earth even happened?” Widowmaker asks.
Sombra squeezes some lake water off her coat. “Apparently, Marrok is one smart cookie. He knew we would come for him eventually, and was more than ready.” She pauses, then adds, “Whoever built that bomb was also a smart cookie, because it remained completely undetected by every sweep we did.” She shakes her head. “I translocated out as soon as his message finished. You were far enough to only get knocked back. Looks to me like no one else made it. Messy business, if you ask me.”
The world begins to tilt again. Widowmaker didn’t much care about her co-workers, but no mission of hers had been botched this badly before.
And nothing had hurt this badly before, either. She usually felt no physical ailment, so feeling this much of it all at once...it unbalanced her.
“I hate to make your headache worse, Spider Queen,” Sombra says, not sounding particularly sorry. “But we’ve gotta move. Problem is, I don’t have a clue where we could lie low, and Marrok’s smart little bomb must have jammed some signals, too, because I haven’t been able to send out a distress call to our friends.”
Widowmaker’s head throbs. This was a disaster, a complete and utter disaster.
Damn you, Reaper.
Ignoring the pain, she tries to think. She closes her eyes in hopes that it would alleviate her headache a little, and envisions a map. It comes to her easily and clearly, but then again, she’d always been good at geography.
(i have?)
She opens her eyes and winces. “There’s a place. I think.”
“What do you mean, a place?”
“To lie low. Are the boats still functional?”
Sombra frowns, but answers. “Mostly, yeah. Why? What is this place?”
“It’s...” The answer lies on the tip of her tongue, but it remains frustratingly out of reach. “It’s near. I do not know how I know but...do you have any other suggestions?”
Sombra seems to actually think for a moment, then shrugs. “All the local authorities are probably on their way right now. If you’re sure of this ‘place’, then we don’t have much of a choice.” She cocks her head slightly, studying Widowmaker. “Though to be honest with you, chica, you don’t look like you can go very far.”
Widowmaker glares at her. “Just do as you’re told, Sombra.”
Sombra shrugs again, turning on her heels and walking towards the boats. Widowmaker follows.
Their now-mostly-eradicated team had arrived using three different speedboats. One of them had its bow crushed in, a result of stray debris – Widowmaker would’ve sympathized, if she could – and the other had somehow managed to drift away, but the third stood still and whole.
The two of them step into the shallow waters, its coldness biting, and Widowmaker frowns. The cold, like pain, usually didn’t bother her, but now it felt like a dozen tiny pinpricks on her skin. She shudders once, then clenches her fists, resolute in not letting it bother her, and continues splashing to the boat’s side.
Placing one hand on the port for balance, she pulls herself over and onto the boat’s deck. She lands with a thud that sends a jolt of pain through her head, bad enough that her legs simply give out and she sits where she stands.
There’s another thud as Sombra jumps in beside her. “Jeez, Queen, you sure you don’t wanna pass by some hospital first?”
Widowmaker cradles her head in her hands, and is unsurprised to feel there’s drying blood on her forehead. “This is no time for jokes.” She closes her eyes and again sees the map behind them. “Do you know how to set a course on this boat?”
Sombra scoffs. “Everything can be hacked.”
She holds a hand over the boat’s control panel and begins typing away, focused, but both their heads snap up at the sound of distant sirens.
Sombra swears softly, clicks a few more things, then looks at Widowmaker. “Where to, Captain?”
Widowmaker looks out towards the lake, something stirring at the back of her bleeding mind. “Southeast. Straight ahead.”
***
They ride in, miraculously, relative silence.
Sombra only breaks it by humming occasionally – one time something that sounded worryingly close to what Sigma hummed to himself – and pretends to be focused on keeping the boat on its course, but Widowmaker feels her gaze flitting back to her every now and then. She’s too tired to tell her to stop.
Tired...how am I tired? I did not even remember what that was.
(i do)
Widowmaker raises her head off her knees, half-expecting to find her heart racing, but of course, it’s as dormant as ever.
The night air felt different, tonight – it felt good against her skin. Comforting, almost.
Familiar.
Yes, familiar was the word for it. The splash of mist and icy air, the smell of the lake, the whirring of the boat, even the area itself – they felt familiar. Like she had been here before.
A sharp pain pulses behind Widowmaker’s eyes. She frowns.
She didn’t remember being here before, but what else would make sense? How else could she have known – been so sure – that they were headed somewhere, despite there still being no sight of it?
Almost as if she had been reading her thoughts, Sombra asks, “Hey, Spider Queen, we still going the right way?”
Widowmaker squints. In the distance, she can just make out a rocky outcropping, rising out of the lake.
(like a sea god’s hand)
“Yes,” she says. “Just past that cliff.”
“You better be right.” Sombra taps the fuel gauge, which was running dangerously low. “Otherwise we’ll be stranded in the middle of this lake.”
Widowmaker keeps her gaze fixed on the cliff, wondering why the shape of it made her feel uneasy. The closer they got to their destination, the worse she was beginning to feel.
And yet, the more sure.
“We won’t be,” she tells Sombra, and the silence falls again.
The cliff looms, dark and foreboding. A mark of no return.
Soon enough, they’re crossing it.
***
The instant their little boat makes it past the cliffs, Sombra’s first comment is a baffled, “Santa mierda.”
Widowmaker guesses she can’t really blame her.
Hidden away behind the cliffs and standing on its own rocky island, a giant estate looks down at them. Widowmaker stands up. She knows it’s simply because of its closed shutters and hulking size, but the place seems like it’s angry to be disturbed.
Sombra takes to manually steering the boat, turning it towards the shore. When they’re close enough, she kills the engine and turns to Widowmaker.
“This is your place?”
Widowmaker looks at her, disinterested. “Oui.”
Sombra laughs, shaking her head. “And here I was, thinking we were gonna have to lie low in some shitty hole. But obviously your standards are too high for that! We get an entire castle!” She glances back at said castle. “Wonder who it belongs to.”
The answer comes immediately to Widowmaker, though she has no clue why.
“Me. It belongs to me.”
Sombra turns back to her, eyebrows raised. “You?”
Widowmaker doesn’t answer her. She jumps out of the boat, landing with a quiet splash, and makes her way towards dry land. The pain and the cold are still there, but they fade away to nearly nothing as she climbs up the steps that lead to a vast courtyard, an imposing marble statue standing at the heart of it. She looks up at this monster of a house, as it looks back.
Yours, yes, I am yours, it seems to say. But are you not just as much mine? We share the same name after all, Little Dancer.
“Château Guillard,” Widowmaker murmurs.
Welcome home, the château whispers. Little Guillard.
***
They walk towards the château with, unfortunately, absolutely not a moment of silence.
Sombra is extremely curious about the estate and its name and why Widowmaker knew about it, but Widowmaker, on the other hand, is not. She didn’t like the half-formed answers and thoughts trickling into her brain like some kind of poison, nor did she like how it felt like the rug had been pulled from under her feet, throwing everything into chaos.
“Sombra,” she snaps half-way through another one of her questions. “Enough. I do not know, I do not care to know, and I absolutely do not care for you to know.”
Sombra huffs. “You’re no fun. This is, like, a mystery! Complete with the spooky, scary castle.”
“And the annoying, amateur investigator.”
“Exactly!”
Widowmaker shakes her head – which turns out to be a mistake. Dizziness takes over in a heartbeat, and she feels herself losing balance.
But, once again, Sombra is there. She gets an arm around Widowmaker’s waist, managing to keep her up.
“Woah, that’s not good,” Sombra says, and for the first time that night, the humour in her voice feels forced.
“It’s fine,” Widowmaker protests, but, despite that, she loops an arm around Sombra’s shoulders. She didn’t trust herself to remain upright. “We just have to make it inside.”
“Okay,” Sombra agrees, unusually compliant. “But how are we gonna get in?”
“How about we just make it to the door first?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
They continue their trek with Widowmaker leaning on Sombra the rest of the way. By the time they’re standing in front of what was better described as a ‘gate’ and not a ‘door’, the dizziness had subsided enough for her to let go.
“We made it to the door,” Sombra notes. “I was hoping we would be able to just kick it down, but, uh.” She taps a nail against the engraved steel. “This is one tough door.”
(sous les fleurs)
“Under the flowers,” Widowmaker says.
“...What?”
Widowmaker closes her eyes. Under the flowers – what did it mean?
The hyacinths, something in her head answers. The ones you planted.
She opens her eyes – and looks down. On either side of the door was a pot, cracked with time and neglect. Whatever had once been growing in them had withered and dried into husks.
Under the flowers.
Widowmaker kneels down. She hesitates for a moment. Left, or right?
(à droite, petite danseuse)
She reaches for the right pot and moves it aside.
Under it, is a key.
With hands that feel like they should be trembling but aren’t, Widowmaker picks it up and stands.
Sombra is looking at her curiously.
“I do not know,” Widowmaker says, in a voice smaller than usual.
Sombra shrugs. “I didn’t ask.”
But you want to, Widowmaker thinks, but she doesn’t want to dwell on whatever was going on, so she stays quiet and inserts the old, rusted key into the lock, twisting it.
It remains stubbornly stuck for a moment, then budges with a click. The door immediately opens, letting out a gust of dusty-smelling air from the inside like a sigh. The two of them peer into the darkness.
Sombra gestures ahead of herself. “You seem to know this place best, so. Be my guest.”
Widowmaker rolls her eyes. “You're my guest.”
But she does step ahead of Sombra, pushing the doors all the way open. The smell of dust is even stronger inside, accompanied by scents that could only emerge from a place long-abandoned. There is not a single source of light in the house, but it doesn’t bother Widowmaker. She could, after all, see perfectly well in the dark – an enhanced ability that allowed her to kill more efficiently, the same way her steady hands did.
Sombra walks in behind her. She raises her palm, and a purple cube flickers to life on it, casting an eerie purple glow over their surroundings.
The hallway is vast, the size of a large room, yet oppressive, muffling their steps as they pass it. The paint on its walls was peeling.
They make their way through the doorway on the left, into an even bigger hallway. It was surrounded by railing that overlooked what seemed to be a basement. What little furniture there was in the room could best be described as decaying, but upon the hall’s walls hung dozens upon dozens of paintings, all of them of different scenery of the natural world.
Sombra sweeps her light over the room. “Whoever was in charge of decoration really liked their trees and waterfalls.”
It’s not an exaggeration – there were enough paintings on the wall that some of them had been placed all the way on the top, near the ceiling. Something about them unnerved Widowmaker – not how numerous they were, but something else.
How familiar they were.
Even more than the lake and the boat and the château. There was a familiarity in them that was so intense, it drove a wedge of pain in her chest, cutting off the breath she didn’t really need. And the longer she looked at them, the bigger the pain grew – a kind of pain worse than the one in her head and cold fingers.
(chagrin)
Abruptly, Widowmaker continues forth, away from the paintings. She doesn’t really look where she’s going, walking through yet more vast hallways with several doorways. A handful of them seem to lead outside again, but another opens up to the biggest room yet. Except for a few rotting chairs in the corner and an unused fireplace in the middle of it all, it’s completely empty. A set of stairs seem to descend to what Widowmaker assumed
(knew)
was a basement.
There’s only one painting in the room, one of a winding river surrounded by trees, but it’s enough to root her in place, the pain at the back of her head growing worse than ever. Her breath begins to come in shorter and shorter bursts, and her heart does not feel very still anymore. Her heart...hurts.
“Would you slow down?” Sombra demands, barging in, and Widowmaker nearly flinches. “Not all of us have legs as long as yours, you know.”
Sombra peers around the room. “Cheery.” She walks over to the stairs and leans down, sniffing. “Ugh. Smells like a party down there. Think we should have a look?”
“No, thank you,” Widowmaker says. There had been no sign of rats so far, and maybe there weren’t any at all considering they were on an island, but Widowmaker wasn’t taking any chances and heading to where they were more likely to be. Besides, she didn’t want to venture any deeper into the heart of this house. She was beginning to dread what she might find – and how it was affecting her.
“But the basement is where all the juicy stuff is!” Sombra protests.
Exactly, Widowmaker thinks. What she says is, “Then go ahead. Make yourself at home in the damp and the dark.”
Sombra gives her an unimpressed look. “And what if you end up passing out and crack your head open – again?”
“Then maybe my headache would go away,” Widowmaker answers sarcastically. “It would certainly go away if you did.”
Sombra doesn’t appear too insulted. “Suit yourself.”
She goes down the stairs two at a time, purple light dimming until it completely fades from sight as she takes a left turn. Widowmaker looks after her for a moment, then lets out a sigh.
Without Sombra, and in the sudden silence, the noises the house was making were much easier to hear. They were subtle and distant, but constant. Creaks and moans and the shifting of old foundations as the waves crashed against them.
Widowmaker’s heels, on the other hand, are almost unbearably loud against the marble floor, but she’s desperate to be out of the painting’s sight. She takes the stairs on the opposite side of the basement, going up instead of down, then pauses when she reaches the top. To her left was a glass door that opened up to the porches overlooking the courtyard, the ugly marble statue visible even from the inside. To her right, the hallway sprawled out into more rooms.
Left, or right?
À droite, Amèlie.
Widowmaker whirls around. It had sounded like the thought had come from someone else, but of course, there was no one else.
No one else but her, and whatever ghosts that haunted this house.
“There is no such thing as ghosts,” she mutters to herself, and hearing her own voice steadies her again. But she does glance back over her shoulder once more, before heading to the right.
The room directly facing her didn’t have a door – it appeared to have been ripped off its hinges. Widowmaker understood why people would have taken away the furniture and family heirlooms, but she could not fathom what someone would want with a door.
She steps past the empty doorframe and scans the area. The door must have been the only thing that had been taken, because no other room was as cluttered as this one.
Bookshelves covered two out of the room’s three wall, and there were heaps of what looked like papers and strips of canvas littering the floor. An old wooden desk had been shoved to the side, with even more objects cluttered on it.
Widowmaker grimaces. If any room was going to have rats in it, it would be this one.
But as she listens carefully, she hears no squeaks or sharp pitter-patters. She does catch sight of something scuttling in the far corner of the wall, but it’s only a few spiders.
She smiles. “Salut, mes amis. Have you been looking after the place?”
The spiders don’t answer her, but one of them crawls over to the top of the desk, stilling for a moment, before disappearing again.
Feeling reassured by the presence of her favourite creatures in the world, Widowmaker ventures further into the room. She heads over to the desk, curious about what had drawn the little spider to it.
There’s nothing particularly eye-catching, just more paper and things that had had their identity lost to time, but tucked away in the corner, covered in a thick layer of dust, is a tablet.
Widowmaker brushes away the dust and picks it up. She had no interest in technology at all, but even she could tell that this was an old, old model. One that no one used anymore.
But it was the only thing in this entire house that did not fill her with dread – and as much as she wanted to get out of here, part of her was...curious. About the house. About its connection to her.
Even about those paintings.
So she takes a deep breath and holds it, then presses the power button.
Nothing happens.
“Oh, merde,” she scoffs. “Of course it is not that easy.”
She glares at the tablet, but it doesn’t get intimidated into working. With a long-suffering sigh, she presses down on her earpiece.
“Sombra.”
“Spider Queen!” Sombra instantly responds. “Miss me already?”
“No,” Widowmaker deadpans. “But come up for a moment. The floor above the one we were in.”
“Is there trouble, or have you just found a dead body?”
“Just come up, Sombra.”
“Alright, alright.”
It’s not long before she hears Sombra coming up the stairs – also two at a time – and then sees the floating purple cube, followed by Sombra, heading towards her.
“Hey,” Sombra says. “What’s up?”
Widowmaker hesitates for a moment, then holds out the tablet. “Can you activate this?”
Sombra takes it; the purple cube remains floating on its own. “Woah, this baby’s ancient. Where’d you find it?”
“Can you, or can you not?”
“Pfft, of course I can. Watch and learn, Queen.”
Widowmaker rolls her eyes, but she watches as Sombra flips the tablet and opens it up. Widowmaker isn’t entirely too sure what she does next, but a few sparks fly off the tablet, making it smell like smoke.
“Do you really know what you are doing?” Widowmaker asks.
“Spider Queen, imagine if someone asked you that while you were halfway through sticking your knife in some guy’s throat. Wouldn’t you be offended?”
“I would just stab them, next.”
Sombra laughs, and the tablet flickers on at the exact same moment.
“Ha! See?” Sombra turns it over to the screen, smug. “Up and running.”
The tablet had opened up to what appeared to be a list of some sort, written in French.
“It’s moments like these that I regret not learning French,” Sombra says. “All I speak is Spanish, English – oh, yeah, and binary.”
She holds her hand over the tablet, preparing to hack it, but Widowmaker snatches it back before she can.
“This is personal property, Sombra. Your assistance is appreciated, but you can go back to...whatever it was you were doing.”
Sombra seems surprised for a second, then shrugs, hands raised up. “Alright. Was probably just filled with some French grocery lists, anyways.”
Sombra turns and walks away, most likely returning to the basement. Widowmaker keeps an eye on her until she disappears out of view, then returns her attention to the tablet.
The corner of the screen is cracked but she can make out the list – it is one of supplies, though instead of groceries, it’s art materials.
Perhaps, Widowmaker thinks, whoever owned this tablet was the painter.
Her head throbs. She ignores it and sits down, crossing her legs.
She exits the list of art supplies, scrolling through what appeared to be an electronic notebook. There were countless other entries, all disorganized and without any titles. Some were incoherent thoughts, most were sketches. And like the paintings, they were all of nature.
Deciding that she wouldn’t find anything in the owner’s virtual notes, she goes through the other files on the tablet. Many of them seemed to be for art, but Widowmaker manages to spot one that was simply titled ‘Photos’. She opens it.
“You have to be joking,” she mutters.
Because, like the paintings and sketches, it seems there were only photos of nature here – most of them clearly taken from the château’s balconies. They’re just as beautiful, but they frustrated Widowmaker.
“Was there nothing else in your life except these trees?”
She scrolls through the pictures, growing more annoyed. Just when she considers tossing the tablet aside and actually beginning to think about how they were going to get out of here, she sees it.
It’s the first photograph that contained any people in it. An old man, with greying hair and laugh lines, sitting on a stone bench with an arm around a teenage girl’s shoulders. The girl’s hair is long but tied back neatly, and she’s smiling in a way that made it clear she was with a person she trusted. They both have the same, dark brown eyes.
Widowmaker stares at the pictures. It feels like all the blood is rushing to her head, the edges of her vision going dark.
Stay awake, she tells herself. Stay. Awake.
Without much thinking, she digs her nails into the soft flesh of her palms. The pain is instant and grounding, clearing the cloud that had taken over her mind
She looks at the photograph again. At the young, smiling girl. Looking at her was the worst, because it wasn’t just familiar.
It was like looking in a mirror, years ago.
“No,” Widowmaker whispers. “Non.”
But there’s no use denying it; the girl’s skin wasn’t a pale blue and her eyes were not an unnatural gold that glowed in the dark, but the features of her face are unmistakably –
Familiar.
“C’est moi,” Widowmaker murmurs through numb lips. “That’s...”
And really, didn’t it make sense? She could’ve gone on pretending like the château’s familiarity – its name – were nothing more than creepy coincidences, but she would be lying to herself. Because she didn’t just know this place – she’d grown up in it. She knew its many halls, knew that the basement wasn’t just a basement but actually a wine cellar, knew that she had always hated that marble statue –
And when she had started feeling uncomfortable, scared? When she’d just wanted to get away from it all? She’d walked without thought, but instinct – born from memories she had not recalled before tonight, before now – had lead her to the same place she had always sought comfort from as a child.
Her father’s office.
Which meant that the painter, owner of the tablet, and the man in the picture were one and the same –
Her father.
For the first time in her life – as long as she could remember, at least – a tremor goes through Widowmaker’s hands. She holds the tablet closer, studying the details of faces she had...
Forgotten?
No. Not forgotten. A single glance had brought it all rushing back. But before then, she hadn’t recalled them. Like they had been placed out of reach.
I remember now. I remember, but they’ll make me forget again.
And that was true, too, wasn’t it? The long hours in the labs, the way everything in her life felt like it was behind glass doors – visible, but shut out – they did that to her.
She – she does that to me.
She winces as the pain in her head returns with a vengeance – it feels like its about to split itself in half. Like it’s fighting – fighting against what was happening, the remembering and feeling and realizing.
Two can play that game, Widowmaker thinks. She closes her eyes and pushes a hand against her forehead, breathing deeply and steadily and consistently, until the pain retreats into a dull throb.
She opens her eyes again, expecting tears, but there aren’t any. Maybe she couldn’t cry. Maybe that had been taken away from her as well.
Dry-eyed, she looks at the photograph. She doesn’t want to continue digging – is afraid, afraid of what it would do to her, but a bigger part of her is desperate to remember it all.
She swipes to the next picture.
This time, it’s only her, kneeling in front of several pots and squinting up at the camera, wearing a sunhat and gardening gloves. She holds a spade in one hand, a batch of flowers in the other.
Under the flowers.
The flowers she’d planted – they'd planted, her and her father, because he’d loved gardening, loved nature, and though she had found it dirty and exhausting work, it had made him happy to share that hobby with her – and he had been the only one she could make happy.
She swallows against the dryness in her throat, and swipes.
The next handful of photos are of natural views again – mostly sunsets – but like before, she finds another memory after scrolling through them.
Her again, a little bit younger, standing in between two other, older girls who did not look a lot like her but looked identical to each other. Twins.
Sisters.
The picture doesn’t hit her as hard, but she feels a faint distaste stirring at the back of her mind. Her smile, here, is not a comfortable one, nor is it genuine. She isn’t with people she trusts.
She doesn’t feel like lingering on this picture. She swipes it away.
Clouds. Birds on a water fountain. A dog lying on the stairs. And then –
Her father. His hands are raised in a half-hearted attempt to block the camera, but he’s smiling, and it had caught the image of him anyways. He had braided what little hair he had into a side-braid that stuck out. It had made her laugh until her stomach hurt – she was the one who had taken the picture. He had made her laugh, after she had come crying into his office, asking why, why did her mother make her feel so awful but treated her sisters so well, why did they have to be so cruel and mock her lanky build, why could she never be good enough –
And without a word, he had opened his arms and let her sob into his chest. And when she had quietened down enough, he had started brushing and braiding her hair. And he had told her...
I love your sisters, but they will always be your mother’s daughters. They’re hers. But you’re mine, no? You’re an artist, Little Dancer. Like me. And you are not good enough – you’re better.
Widowmaker’s eyes sting. Her vision blurs for a moment, then the tears fall.
It seemed she could still cry, after all.
She wipes her face roughly. She was feeling drained beyond words – she didn’t know how many more things she could remember tonight. Didn’t know if she could live through it.
Tentatively, she closes the folder of pictures and opens up the virtual notebook again. Maybe, now that she knew who’s thoughts she was looking at, she could better understand it. And if she didn’t, then at least it wouldn’t hurt the way looking at his pictures did.
She goes through the notebook for the second time, now with more care. She recognizes some of the sketches as certain flowers, some of those half-formed thoughts as lines from poems her father used to read aloud. She even catches sight of a drawing she had missed – a rough sketch of a young girl, one that looked a lot like her, though it had been hastily scribbled over.
Had she ever asked her father why he had only ever painted things from nature? She couldn’t remember. She wishes she did.
As she swipes through the pages, she begins to be lulled into a sense of...comfort. The fear is still there, the sorrow feels like it's growing with every minute, and it’s getting harder to keep her head up, but there was comfort. In holding something so precious, there was comfort.
A drawing of a dog wearing a flower crown even manages to make her smile. The movement causes her face to hurt, but she can’t find it in herself to care.
Widowmaker loses track of time, forgetting the direness of the situation she was in. The pain and horror that had been slowly consuming her start to recede until she almost feels normal again – or as normal as her state allows her to be.
Then, she reaches the last page of the notebook, and her blood runs cold.
Its the first page that has any semblance of organized thought, and the only one with a title, written in the top left in looping, messy handwriting.
Pour Amèlie.
Below it is a note. Widowmaker, suddenly, does not want to know what it says.
Curiosity, however, killed the cat – and so, she reads it.
Little Dancer, I do not even know if you are going to find this – if your mother, that is, will let you find it. I do not know if I want you to. What is an apology, in the face of what I will do? But I hope you will forgive me. I know you are stronger than I am, than I ever was, than I will ever be. I love you, Amèlie.
Always, your adoring father, Nicholas.
There is nothing more after it. Widowmaker traces the words with a trembling finger.
What is an apology, in the face of what I will do?
What had he done, that warranted forgiveness?
He left me, a voice, bitter with hurt, reminds Widowmaker. He left me behind.
Widowmaker frowns. That wasn’t quite right.
She gets up, cradling the tablet close to her chest, metal digging into her collarbone. Her heart is no longer beating along to the slow pace it had been set to; it was lurching erratically, irregularly, and it hurt almost as badly as her head did.
Like a ghost, she walks out of her father’s office. She keeps walking until she’s out in the hall, until she’s facing the balcony door that stood opposite to the office. She opens it, and steps out into the night.
The wind is slight, but cold enough that it stings. She relishes it, because it was not something she got to feel.
What am I doing here?, Widowmaker wonders.
She walks to the very edge of the balcony. She places a hand on the railing to steady herself, and looks out into the distance.
On the horizon, barely visible due to low-hanging clouds, was a small town. She couldn’t make too much of it out, just its twinkling lights and tallest buildings, and she couldn’t remember its name or if she had known it at all – but she had a feeling it was a town they had once frequented often, buying groceries and furniture and all the art supplies they needed from it. A town filled with stray dogs that looked for scraps and good people who didn’t have too much to worry about and the most perfect views to paint.
That town, the voice tells her, was the last thing he saw.
Widowmaker looks upon it, then down at the lake below, its water deep and hungry.
No, she realizes. That was the last thing he saw.
Because as kind and as loving as her father had been, he had not been happy. Not with the life he had born into, with a name that had been influential for generations, nor with the marriage he had been forced into, not with his art – and least of all with himself. He’d always had a smile saved for Amèlie, but even that would fade, sometimes, when he thought she wasn’t looking.
She’d been too young to know how deep that sadness ran.
And losing him had been the final straw. She’d had nothing to stay for anymore, no one who saw her as not just good enough but better, so she’d left home, just a few months shy of turning eighteen, and become a dancer, living up to the name her father had given her. She’d left home, and that had been hard but it was made a little easier because she hadn’t been alone. Because she had someone by her side, someone she’d known since she had been a child. She had Gerard –
Gerard, whom she had loved. Gerard, who she had killed.
The tablet slips through her fingers. Something cracks when it hits the balcony floor – cracks like her helmet. Like her skull.
Widowmaker doesn’t notice. The world begins to tilt and she sways with it. She stumbles against the railing and thinks, for a moment, that she might fall over it and into the lake. The thought doesn’t scare her at all.
She manages to find her footing again, but she does not back away from the edge. Her stomach clenches, but there’s nothing in it for her to throw up.
Her father. Her mother and sisters. Gerard. Angela.
She’d lost them all.
No, she corrects herself. They lost me.
Her legs give out. Miraculously – or perhaps cruelly – she doesn’t fall over, but simply onto her knees, though her head slams against the stone railing, causing her helmet to fall off of her head and into the icy depths below.
She cradles her head, dizzy – her hair is sticky with blood. Her vision begins to go dark. The waves crash against the rock, calling her name.
Amèlie. Amèlie. Amèlie.
“Hey – Amèlie! Wake up!”
She’s being shaken back to consciousness, but it’s a lost fight. She didn’t want to stay awake any longer, even if could.
She blearily opens her eyes one last time to see Sombra, her face the most serious it’s ever been. She wants to ask her How do you know my name? She wants to beg her not to take her back to them. She wants to ask her if her father’s tablet is broken.
All she manages to do is cry out in pain, before the darkness takes over completely.
***
When she drifts back into waking, there’s a clawed hand in her hair, pressing against her scalp. Her head lay on something soft. Her breath was coming in short, harsh rasps. Soft beeping noises come from somewhere above her.
“Whatever’s been jamming the signal is gone,” Sombra says, and Amèlie realizes it’s her lap she’s laying in. “I really don’t wanna take you back to them, amiga, but I don’t know where else to find someone who could save you.” She sighs, unusually solemn. “Even Bap would never know how to get around what that witch has done to your brain.”
Don’t save me then, Amèlie thinks, and a wave of calmness washes over her. Yes. Yes. Let me die. Let it end. Please.
Sombra gently retracts her hand. “I’m sorry. But we’ll get you out someday.”
Amèlie wants to beg her to not to. She simply drifts away again.
***
She can’t open her eyes anymore, but she hears the unbearably loud whirr of a helicopter’s blades. Sombra yells something, arguing with someone.
She goes away again.
***
She comes to with a gasp, strapped to an operating table and with a dozen wires going into her skin.
She opens her eyes. Instead of darkness, the room that greets her is too brightly lit, and it takes her a moment to adjust.
When she does, she sees Moira O’Deorain standing over her, curious.
“You...you...espèce de salope!” Amèlie spits.
“Ah, awake and kicking a fuss,” Moira says. “My French is rusty, but I don’t think that’s how you thank the person that just saved your life.”
Amèlie hurls another insult at her, straining against the restraints. Her head no longer hurts, but she still remembers.
Moira shakes her head. “Well, we can’t have that.” She flicks on a switch, and a monotonous hum starts up. “Down you go again.”
Amèlie begins to sob, but she knows begging and pleading will get her nowhere, so she utters one final insult that would have had her mother horrified, right before her veins are flooded, and she goes under.
***
Widowmaker opens her eyes.
She’s lying down on a cot, wearing a hospital gown. For the slightest second, there’s a flash of pain in her temples, then it goes away.
“Status, Lacroix?” Moira asks, standing to her left.
“Steady. Slight dryness in mouth and throat.”
“Can you sit up?”
Widowmaker sits up.
“Any pain?”
“No.”
“Anything...unusual?”
“No.”
“Do you remember how you ended up here?”
Widowmaker takes a moment to recall. “The assassination of Marrok went wrong. He knew we were coming and incapacitated our team. I was injured and forced to hide from authorities with Sombra, who later contacted the base for rescue.”
“And do you remember where you and Sombra were hiding?”
The answer came to her immediately. “Château Guillard – my ancestral home. It has belonged to the Guillard family for generations, though it has been abandoned for quite some time.”
“Hm,” Moira notes something on her clipboard. “And what reminded you of the house?”
Widowmaker frowns. “I had grown up there. Of course I would remember it.”
“Of course,” Moira agrees. “Did you enjoy revisiting it?”
Again, the briefest flashes of pain. “I did not care for it, but it did its job and kept us hidden.”
“That, it did.” Moira puts her clipboard down and crosses her arms. “You’ve had some internal bleeding and brain trauma, but I’ve cleared it all up. Still, you’re off-duty for the next twenty four hours, just to make sure there are no...lingering side effects. Do be sure to report any.”
Widowmaker sighs. “Fine. Can I leave now?”
Moira gestures towards the door. “Go ahead. Oh, and, Akande wants a mission report done. I’d like a copy as well.”
“Fine,” Widowmaker says again. She gets off the cot, straightening her gown and avoiding Moira’s gaze, which remains on her as she walks out of the labs without another word.
Her relief at finally being alone is short-lived, because she finds Sombra leaning on the wall just outside the lab. She catches sight of Widowmaker and quickly closes whatever she’d been scrolling through.
“Spider Queen!” she greets. “In one piece!”
“Yes.”
“How are you feeling? Head still funny?”
Widowmaker glares at her. “I feel fine. Nothing funny.”
For a moment as brief as the strange pains in her head, Sombra looks disappointed. It’s gone before Widowmaker can be sure it’s real.
“Alright, then. Glad to see you’re okay, Widowmaker.”
Widowmaker quirks an eyebrow. For reasons beyond her, she asks, “Not Spider Queen?”
Sombra winks. “You’ll always be Queen to me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting with Doctor Frankenstein – I mean, O’Deorain.”
She walks past Widowmaker and into the labs. Widowmaker almost wants to smile at her joke, but the pain appears again, and when it’s gone, so too is her urge to smile.
***
Sombra did a good job of acting like Moira didn’t faze her.
She wasn’t really scared of the Bad Doctor and even found her dry humour funny sometimes, but anyone who could do the things that had been done – were being done – to Amèlie, Gabriel, and Siebren, and even themselves – and then just go on about their day...
She unnerved Sombra, at least.
“Sombra,” Moira greets her.
“Doc,” Sombra greets back, knowing the nickname got on Moira’s nerves.
“Let’s get right into it, shall we? I’ve received the mission brief from Widowmaker, but of course, her recollection was altered. So why don’t you fill me in?”
Sombra shrugs. “Don’t know what I can tell you that she hasn’t. The house was a trap, the two of us got out, and she knew a place where we could lie low.”
Moira rolls her eyes. “Yes, I know that, but Widowmaker’s helmet had not just been broken – it was lost. That helmet is what keeps her in check for the most part. Not to mention how the Nano-bots lining her brain malfunctioned due to the external shocks. She must've acted erratically. Emotionally. That’s what I wanted to know.”
Sombra frowns, acting confused. “Seriously? Huh, I couldn’t tell. I mean, she did seem kinda uncomfortable – physically, I mean, like she was actually feeling her injuries but, uh – not much else. Same creepy calmness the whole time.”
Moira looks at her doubtfully. “Being in a place that must’ve been so familiar to her...she wasn’t distressed in the slightest?”
Sombra remembers finding Amèlie hunched over on the balcony, clutching her bleeding head and screaming, and shrugs again. “Like I said, just a bit uncomfortable. Maybe confused too, like she didn’t know why she knew that place. Also, there was nothing on the property that was even remotely personal.”
Except for the tablet and its content – which was now all stored in Sombra’s brain.
“It’s true that the Guillards have always had a reputation of being a very formal family,” Moira muses.
“And maybe you work your magic too well,” Sombra adds.
Moira chuckles, satisfied. “Perhaps. Either ways, I’ve ensured accidents like this will not be likely to happen again.”
Dread courses through Sombra. Her personal mission was never about rescuing Amèlie and she would never squander it for that reason, but it was horrible to see someone innocent be doomed to such an awful fate – just like Siebren was.
She wasn’t too sure about Gabriel.
Keeping a straight face, she says, “Well, that’s a relief. Anything else you need from me?”
Moira considers it for a moment. “Just a copy of your mission report. For comparison’s sake.”
“Right, got it.” Sombra gives her a clawed wave. “See ya, Doc.”
“It’s Doctor,” Moira corrects her.
Sombra smirks as she walks out. “Whatever you say, Doc.”
***
Widowmaker stared out her window.
It overlooked Talon’s training grounds – a grim sight on any day – but she wasn’t really seeing it. Now that she was off-duty, there was nothing to do but sit and wait in what passed off as her room – and think about how horribly wrong the mission had gone.
But it wasn’t all bad news. Stumbling across Château Guillard had been a stroke of good fortune. It was still too soon after a failure for her to ask, but she was considering taking permission to pursue her own personal mission – reclaiming her old home. After all, what if Talon fell one day? She’d need a base of operations. A place of her own to lie low in.
And she had once loved the views it offered.
A heavy knock on her door snaps her out of her thinking.
“Come in,” she says, turning towards it.
The door opens, and Reaper walks in.
She crosses her arms. “Now you show up? The party is over.”
He silently moves until he’s standing next to her, crossing his arms as well. “Who do you think tipped him off on it?”
Widowmaker rolls her eyes. This was what she liked – and disliked – about Reaper. He had no time for conversation.
“I don’t know,” she says. “And no, I don’t think it is Sombra. She had no plans about what to do after the bomb went off. Besides, she was genuinely excited about hacking Marrok.”
Reaper makes a noise of acknowledgement. “So it’s someone beyond our reach.”
Widowmaker shrugs. “Maybe. Talon has many enemies.”
“Isn’t that exciting?” he says, sarcastic. Then, slightly less sarcastic, “How are your injuries?”
“Oh.” Widowmaker hadn’t expected him to ask. “Fine. Moira took care of it.”
“As she always does,” he remarks bitterly. He moves as if he means to touch her shoulder, like they were actually comrades or friends or anything other than two doomed bastards with nowhere else to go and nothing else to live for but pain – but his arm just slightly twitches.
“Never seen you with your hair down before,” is his only comment, before he walks away, shutting the door behind him.
Widowmaker stares after him. It was true – she had changed back into uniform, but had left her hair loose.
She runs a hand through it. After a moment’s thought, she begins to braid it over her shoulder, movements practiced and graceful, like she'd done it a hundred times before.