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There is a knock on the door.
“Fareeha?”
She looks to the door, watching it open and greeting the peeking doctor with a smile. “Come in, please,” she gestures with her hand, motioning towards the empty chair at her desk while she herself remained on the bed just façade to it.
Angela, nevertheless, was nervous. Judged from the way her eyes never really seemed to meet with hers, and the way her hands looked to be twisting at her pants once she sat. Not a regular habit Fareeha has come to observe at any given point in time. Angela almost never publically expresses sentiments related to anxiousness or worrisome. It was a factor Fareeha admired about her, always able to keep her cool through the many chaotic situations that occur during missions.
“So?” Fareeha let on, picking up the cloth she had set aside and going back to shining at a piece of her metal armor. “What can I help you with doctor?”
“Well, it isn’t exactly something you can help me if we’re being specific here.”
“Not really a first Angela. I’m just starting the conversation.”
Fareeha heard her huff, keeping her eyes to the blue metal as she rubbed at it and waited patiently for the doctor to gather her thoughts. Whatever was to be said was obviously something that had been bugging her mind for at the least of more twenty four hours.
Not a very predictable topic if Fareeha was to be honest.
“I’m being transferred Fareeha.”
The metal in her hand was dented abruptly, a stiff breath leaving its way through smiling lips.
“I’m sorry?”
“Winston’s reported bombings all throughout the cities surrounding our headquarters back home. He’s having me sent back while Zenyata remains with you all here.”
“Can he not have Zenyatta leave instead?”
“People are dying Fareeha.”
“People can die here too, can’t they?”
“This battle has already been won with the combined forces of Zarya and you.”
“Then let me come with-”
“Zarya and you.”
“Do you doubt your team Angela? They will be fine with me gone. You need someone to watch your back out there.”
“Yes Fareeha, I do doubt them. I doubt them and I strategize there every move. Remember while you fight, I watch.”
“So you are saying they will lose if I leave?”
“I’m saying there will be a much more detrimental impact on the battlefield towards them if you leave.”
Fareeha scoffed lightly, putting the cloth and metal aside once more and finally catching that flittering gaze. She was still smiling lightly, outside remaining calm if not somewhat uncomfortable while inside was all but fire and tumbling chaos.
“I won’t allow it.”
Angela sighed, rubbing the bridge to her nose before drawing her thumb just along the bottom of her eyes. “I knew you’d be aggravated about this.”
“Is there no way to postpone this a second day?” she tried, choosing to ignore her previous comment. “Just until after the mission has been completed?”
“The longer I’m away, the more people meet there death Fareeha. Think about this.”
Fareeha is a naturally quiet person to begin with. Introverted as some would tag her to be, typically silent when it came to spending time with the team and yet loud enough to give orders. So when her voice nearly spit out a snapped--“I am thinking about this you little sh”--
“Okay,” she tossed the metal beside her, holding her hands up in a surrender gesture. “Alright. Thank you for informing me of this doctor.”
“I -”she looked as though there was more to say, closing her mouth and opening it once more. Of course there was more to say, the question was whether or not it would be wise to say it. “Okay,” she finally decided. “I’ll see you in about a week.”
“Yes. Do be careful.”
Angela stood then, maybe even looking a bit bewildered as she turned towards the door. Fareeha watched her go just as she watched her enter, not making a movement or noise.
“Good bye Fareeha.”
“Good bye Angela.”
When the door was closed, carefully as if trying not to wake a sleeping baby, Fareeha stood. Head strong, shoulders broad, she made her way into the bathroom. Once inside, the water was turned on; hot and beginning to steam as her shirt was yanked off. Shorts soon followed, underwear, bra, hair bands releasing the flow of black across her shoulders. She slid open the curtain and stepped in, closing her eyes as the warm droplets crossed along her skin.
You see, Fareeha rigged it.
There has never been a mission where Fareeha wasn’t there with Angela. They were the power duo, a combination of vigor and alleviation. Assignment reports sent in and out, she never failed in making sure the tags Mercy and Pharah were always seen on the same column. It was never “luck” as Angela said with a smile or “fate” as Lena often put out. No, it was Fareeha and her vigilant demeanor. It was Pharah who blocks the shots and Fareeha who takes the entailed time to go and stretch out a hand to the fallen angel from above.
She had held it off for so long. Maybe it was just bound to happen one day where they would go a separate way.
There was so much that could happen though. It only takes a split second. Could anyone really blame her?
So it didn’t really come to surprise her when she felt hands encircle around her waist, resting on both sides of her hips. Not ecstatic as they usually are, or teasing in the amusing way that never fails to bring her a smile. No, they were slow. Poignant and deliberate fingers massaging at her hips while a warm body pressed up against her back.
“You know I have to go.”
“I have a bad feeling Angela.”
“They need me over there.”
“I am aware.”
She could feel every breath of air Angela let out. It hit against the blades to her shoulder, sliding against the jagged scarred skin and ravishing chills across her spine. The fingers at her stomach were rubbing in circles, soon closing into a fist as if trying to grab at her skin. Grab at her skin and never let it go, never leave her side.
Moaning a name burdened with the weights of her requisites.
…
…
…
Just give me her hand.
And her eyes, her arms, her light. Let the beat of her moonlight song drive myself through every course in every action my body makes and provides. I see them and hear them and let them concur the shadows of my mind, but it’s fine. It’s fine if her laugh echoes while I’m in the middle of slitting through the life of a being and it’s okay if her voice rings into random existence while I sleep. I’m the knight while she’s the sprite, fantastical during the midnight and able to reflect vibes of a common erudite. Whilst she’s in flight, I thrive off the daylight of a calendar being spun through the benighted fingers of her pastel hands.
“You alright love? Seem a bit distracted there.”
“I’m fine.”
It will always be fine. That’s all, really. Never “great” or “amazing”. Only fine. Life is acceptable at the moment, a teetering balancing block of sentiments kept at bay while the waves of happiness, sadness, anger –simply being alive battle to overtake the entire shore. It’s fine, I’m fine, life will be fine.
As long as if she’s here, and as long as though I’m there.
…
…
…
Because, who heals the healer?
The druid of the village. The practitioner of a group of individuals all focused on the dead point target of the fight. She as the devilish oriented motives that keep us alive and encourage us into overdrive, but it’s what facilitates us to survive. Without her is a dive, headfirst into a barrel filled with preserving acid where we sink and wait until she returns and revives both our body and core.
M.I.A.
Missing in Action.
“We noticed her absence about three days ago.”
“You can’t just tell me she disappeared!” she yelled, frenetic in the cracks of her voice. “She couldn’t have just disappeared! That doesn’t –what’s the status with the investigators? Surely they have found some sort of trace.”
Upon first receiving the news, the battle had already been won –Angela being correct. Without her rocket barrages, there was no way the fight could have been victorious.
Never had she flown as fast as she did. A 48 hour travel time turned into 26.
“None –so far. We’re working on it.”
“You mean to tell me,” blood levels all but rising to the point where she was now towering over the sweating young man, “that not only have you and your team managed to lose one of the most esteemed scientists in this world, but also have absolutely no trail as to where she may be?”
“She –she told us she preferred to be alone when-”
“Imbecile.” Fucking imbeciles. With that, her suit was activated abruptly, gone in the blink of an eye and leaving the young cadet clutching at his heart. Her sights were magnified in the sky, radar stimulated and heat sensors turned on.
She would find her.
…
…
…
As it turns out, Angela wasn’t abducted.
Much to Fareeha’s original assumption and therefore driving herself to the brink of insanity, literally tearing apart bricks and large pieces of concrete from crumbled buildings –but of course Mercy is intellectual and quick. She would never get herself kidnapped.
Luck, as it plays out, was on both Pharah and Mercy’s side.
Second day on the search and Fareeha decided to switch tactics, changing from flight to ground work. Instead of soaring through the air, she was now sprinting across the barren city; high boosting through the shambles of piled bricks and abandoned cars. Though despite her excessive speed, her sights were wide open and clear, taking in every aspect of the setting as it blurred by.
Funny how it played out. Her foot, while sprinting at an approximated speed of 40 miles per hour, happened to trip on a wing. Down she went, tripping and stumbling face first onto the unkept asphalt. Coughing through the swept up dust, she weakly waved her hand around and sat to her knees, glancing around before standing to her feet.
(?)
She walked further back, crossing over the lines indented into the ground from her suit and observed the spot. It was a wing. And not just any wing at all. It was a mechanical wing that happened to be painted a bright shade of white –white that is, now stained black with dirt and grime.
“Angela!” she yelled, at once without missing a single heart beat. Snapping her head up, she took into her sights of the area once more. Heat sensory activated while doing a full scale 360 degree circle, Fareeha strained through her helmet to find her desired target.
“Fareeha--”
--is what she thought she heard. It was faint, enough to be assumed an echo in the wind if it weren’t for the obvious form of a human being spotted in Fareeha’s sights.
“Oh god Angela –hang on!”
When the bombs were set into place, they were set in a specified location in order to have a further damaging result in the buildings. In the basements or cellars of the structure they were at first assumed have been placed, but additional examination showed for them to have been dug deeper into the ground from chinks made within the lower floors. The product of this strategy was when the bomb ignites, it would have the entire building collapse and be engulfed into the ground below.
A second effect to this were cracks made in the ground surrounding the bombed area. Some small enough to step over, some large enough to swallow cars.
As it turns out, Angela wasn’t fast enough when scourging around the area for potential survivors during a designated break time. One moment she was searching through and under a building’s interior, the next the gap is concaving in and she’s running towards the slowly deteriorating opening.
“Angela --,” she’s breathing hard, heat vision switched off and raising her helm to get a better look at the gaping hole. “Angela can you hear me?”
So close, Angela had been so close to being home free. It was a feeling to dread, the sense that literally forced her to stop in her movements. Almost in slow motion as a piece of the ceiling had fallen onto a section of her wings, pulling her back and bringing her to her knees. Fumbling with the functions to her suit, she had barely managed to eject herself before a second rock crushed the entire ensemble. Now running blindly, it ended with her stepping headlong into a fracture of the ground and plunging into the smooth darkness.
“I’m coming down! I’m coming down right now just -” she cut her own self off, hastily sending out a distress signal and egress from her bulky suit. Immediately she began her decent downwards. Half sliding half climbing further into the crack, her heavy boots pulling on her legs while the sweat dripped droplets off her nose. Quickly- hurry-- I must---
Once her feet hit the ground, she was crying out her name. A slit of sunlight was the only mean of lighting, scarcely providing Fareeha the luminosity needed to walk a step without stumbling. But it was enough –enough to help her spot the limp body sitting up against the wall.
“Fareeha.”
With no smile and only just a voice. It was a whisper whispered from parched lips and a destitute throat.
Fareeha felt her chest drop, swallowing up the light of the world and pulling the rug from under her feet as she ran.
“Angela.” With gentle hands, shaking, but gentle, she carefully kneeled in front of the sitting body and placed both hands across her oiled face. “Angela, I’m getting you out of here.”
Chilled at the sight of her eyes, boring a second skeleton into her. Sunken in and gaunt. They had said she was noticed to have gone missing three days ago. How long has she been in here though? A person can only go three days without water before perishing. Fareeha also noticed her back, tank top hardly covering the metal spine jutting out. Wingless, a painful process as Angela had once described.
That was all it took. Surged with adrenaline and dread, Fareeha had an arm under her knees and just behind her back. A strangled gurgle came from her, having her look down and find a frail hand reaching to thump at her chest. Fareeha knew, of course, this would be a painful climb for her.
“Yoo hoo~!”
Good thing cavalry happened to drop by just in time.
…
…
…
When Angela woke, she was warm.
When she woke, she was being watched.
When she woke, she had coughed –reaching instinctively to her side and groping for her designated bottle of water usually resting on her bedside. What she got was not her bottled water, but a tall glass of water.
“Thanks,” hoarse as ever, she noticed. She took deep gulps, the cold liquid swishing its way down into her empty gullet and she suddenly realized how ravished she was.
She then also noticed the watchful hawk looming above her, and when had her room looked so white? And why did her pajamas feel like she was in a hospital gown or somethi- oh.
“Oh.”
Oh, because the past days suddenly flashed to mind. Now it made sense as to why there was a seething captain just next to her, and the hospital room had never felt so small under that glare.
What she was expecting was a lecture, not a kiss. Definitely not a kiss.
Or the salt tasted on her lips when a stifled choke broke the rigid grip between them.
“Don’t you ever –please don’t ever-”
“Okay,” the IV fluids followed her movements as her hands coursed their way through black hair. “Hush now, I know. Come here.”
Fareeha did, following Angela’s gesture as she scooted over in the small hospital bed and made room for her. She climbed up, laying onto the warmth of where Angela once was and instantly latching onto her side. Something about this could have had the potential to make Angela laugh. Fearless Pharah, valiant and bold as she was coddled by Mercy now. But the dismal in the way Fareeha clung was more than enough to hold her tongue.
“How long was I out?”
It was quiet, seconds before a muffled reply was heard.
“Nearly two weeks.”
“Yikes.”
“Doctors were sure you wouldn’t wake up.” Angela felt her hesitate before watching as her head was lifted, red eyes and a sniffle. “They were so sure Angela.”
“Not sure enough though huh? Looks like Mercy’s back in the game.”
Another sniffle before she ducked back down, burying her head back into her Angela’s side. “You’re an idiot,” being the last response.
A total of five minutes had passed before Angela spoke up once more.
“I was scared you know. I have never really been a fan of the dark.”
“I searched day and night for you.”
“I knew you would.”
Sighing, Fareeha shifted slowly upwards, settling for having her head tucked just under Angela’s arm and resting on the side of her chest. She felt the fingers in her hair, idly stroking through them and having her smile fondly for the first time in days.
“And when I saw you, my savior my knight in shining armor...” Angela exhaled. “I was so happy.”
“Happy while I was panicking. Nice to know.”
“Thank you Fareeha.” She leaned down, planting a small peck atop her hair before sinking tiredly back into the pillows. “Let’s never do that again.”
Fareeha tightened her hold on Angela’s waist, smiling.
“I completely agree.”