Chapter Text
Synopsis: Pharah and Mercy have trouble sleeping. A series of chance encounters prove that the solution might be each other.
Pairing: Rocket Angel (Fareeha “Pharah” Amari/Angela “Mercy” Ziegler)
Fareeha had nightmares. It wasn’t unusual. Most of Overwatch did.
She remembered the frantic screams of her mother in the deepest night; Ana Amari thrashing in her bedsheets. On those nights, she would clamber into her mother’s bed and shake her awake. Her mother would gasp, as though recovering from drowning, then hold Fareeha, squeezing tight enough to push the breath from her lungs. Even then, Fareeha never complained. She understood, somehow, that in these moments, Ana Amari needed her to be strong.
“My little soldier,” her mother would say, as Fareeha would reach up to touch the Eye of Horus tattooed on her left cheek, wondering at the profound sadness in eyes that mirrored her own.
Once, Fareeha had asked about her mother’s nightmares. Ana had expected her daughter to ask why the dreams came; not what. Again, the child surprised her with her awareness; her innate understanding of what living her kind of life meant.
Fareeha would forever read the sorrow her mother regarded her with as a sign of disappointment. In reality, it was remorse.
Ana Amari had known, from the day Fareeha had taken her first steps, scrunching her round face and falling over, and over, and over again until she could stand, that she had given birth to a soldier. And, like every mother, and knowing better than perhaps any other what war brought, she feared for her child.
And so, when Fareeha asked what her nightmares were made of, Ana brushed the thick black hair from her daughter’s face and said, “May you never have to know, dear one.”
It was a fool’s wish. Fareeha now knew, all too well, what her mother’s demons had been made of. She had her own. She entered the bathroom she shared with Zaryanova and Oxton, grateful that neither was awake to witness the tremble in her hands, or the sheen of sweat that covered her body. She splashed frigid water on her face, staring at the dark circles beneath her eyes.
Sleep would be elusive tonight.
Fareeha rolled her shoulder as she returned to her room — in the past, Overwatch had been so full of recruits and agents that this particular base had several co-ed bunks. They were now so few that each of them could take a room and still leave some vacant. She opened the trunk at the base of her bed, where Oxton, one dull day, had crossed out the previous owner’s callsign with permanent marker and written in “Pharah.”
They had originally wanted to give Fareeha her mother’s old quarters — private due to Ana Amari’s rank and prestige — and her trunk, but she vehemently refused. She would earn her mother’s legacy.
Fareeha slipped into an HSI tank top, revealing the intricate ink on her arms, and switched her ratty shorts out for sweats. She tugged on socks; whoever had designed the Watchpoints had apparently decided that steel floors were necessary for all common areas, and Fareeha, accustomed to the heat, hated the sensation of cold metal beneath her feet.
She padded out to the common area, intending to fix a cup of tea and perhaps drift off afterward, while fervently hoping that neither Oxton nor Reinhardt were awake. She was too drained to deal with either one’s overtures of friendship, however good-spirited.
Fareeha opened the doors to the common area with a push of a button, then froze.
This… this might actually be worse.
“Fareeha?” The one member of Overwatch she studiously avoided thinking about, though it was an exercise in futility, sat on the couch facing the kitchen, cradling a mug of steaming tea between her hands.
Fareeha willed her jaw to work. She considered turning on her heel and going back to her quarters, but that would lead her to think that Fareeha disliked her, when the opposite was true.
“Doctor,” she said, smoothing a hand over her dark hair and hoping that she didn’t look like too much of a mess.
“Angela,” Doctor Ziegler said, smiling softly, “unless you have an injury…?”
“No,” Fareeha said, taking tentative steps into the common area and closer to the couch, “my apologies Docto — Angela.”
This time, Angela’s smile reached her brilliant blue eyes.
“Can’t sleep either?” She said, and Fareeha unfroze herself enough to walk to the kitchen and begin boiling water.
“No.”
“Occupational hazard, I suppose,” Angela said, having followed into the kitchen, and leaning against the counter.
That made Fareeha’s lips twitch.
“Among many.”
Angela chuckled, and Fareeha’s heart raced at the sound.
“Nightmares?” It was more statement than question.
“You too?”
“That, and I don’t need much sleep these days,” Angela said, Fareeha turning to face her.
She wasn’t sure how she’d missed it earlier, but Angela’s hair was down, and she looked —
Absolutely stunning.
Fareeha licked her lips, and noticed the doctor’s eyes shoot downward momentarily. The water boiled; Fareeha fixed herself tea. She felt Angela’s eyes on her back, and caught her staring when she turned around. Angela snapped her head away, tinge of pink in her cheeks.
“I hope you don’t mind the company,” Fareeha said, unsure what to make of Angela’s attention… or embarrassment.
“No, of course not. You’re… you’re always good company, Fareeha.”
That sent a bloom of warmth into Fareeha’s chest, and she inclined her head in acknowledgment. She met Angela’s eyes; felt herself smiling.
“The feeling is mutual, Doctor Ziegler.” There was a hint of a tease there, and Angela didn’t miss it.
“If you insist on calling me by my title, then I’ll have to return the courtesy, Captain Amari.”
“Ah… that’s not necessary.”
Angela giggled, then brushed her fingertips against Fareeha’s bicep.
“Shall we?”
Angela retreated to her previous position while Fareeha stared after her with wide eyes, before remembering her tea and sitting on the other side of the couch.
“Care to share you troubles, Captain Amari?” Angela waved her teacup through the air, eyes resting on her companion’s face. “I have a PhD in Psychology, too, so I’m technically qualified.”
“Of course you do.” Angela, not expecting the jibe, was momentarily dazed, then recovered with a laugh. “You’re already my doctor; I’m not sure I could handle having you as my therapist, too.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean!”
Fareeha chuckled at the other woman’s affront.
“Only that you’d know too much.”
Mollified, Angela leaned back.
“And you? What’s on your mind… Angela?”
“Nothing. At the moment, I am content.” Angela reached across the small space between them and rested her hand, cool and surprisingly callused, on Fareeha’s. Fareeha’s breath caught in her throat. “You have a way of making people feel safe. I’m not immune to that effect.”
Fareeha stared at the hand on top of hers, then at Angela’s blue eyes, sincere under the white lights of the Watchpoint. She realized she hadn’t thought of her nightmares the moment she had walked into the common area and found Angela. She squeezed the doctor’s hand.
“Anytime, Angela. Anytime.”