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(Schrödinger's parents belong in works of fiction, and there alone, Fareeha believes. There would be much less fuss if her dead-but-not mother were truly in the grave bearing her name.)
(There would certainly be more peace in her own life, Fareeha thinks selfishly.)
*****
The thing from her mother's funeral that Fareeha remembers with the most clarity is Jesse McCree crying into her hair. She has no idea why, but her memories of that day always involve his anchoring weight, heavy and solid against her, and the feeling of hot tears wetting the top of her head.
She didn't mind. All her tears had been used up at the time. Everyone else seemed to be trying a little too hard to hold it together for Fareeha's liking anyway, putting on brave faces and offering her false reassurances.
Fareeha didn't want their pity.
(She wanted to know her mother's last words, wanted to know who her final mission benefitted, how many lives her loss had ensured. The pain slashed across Commander Morrison's face, coloring even his typically sparkling eyes, made Fareeha hold her tongue. There would be other days, years from now, for a silly girl's sentimental questions, for a woman demanding honest answers, for whichever persona won that internal debate.)
(Jesse McCree quitting Blackwatch altogether in the ensuing months surprised a number of people, even coupled with his loss of limb on an op gone sideways. Fareeha was not one of them. She didn't ask a single question from the time she helped him hobble out of the hospital to when she helped him pack his few belongings for a flight back to the States.)
*****
Ana watches them go, watches them leave. There isn’t much else she can do in her position, even if she had wanted to stop them.
It’s too soon for her to be wandering in such a way, to be anywhere in the open air, yet there she is, camped out on the roof of her old apartment’s neighboring complex. Best vantage point in all the city. She was never one for ground floors or basements. She got her fix of lurking around the murky hospital shadows in the past week, literally walking between the living and the dead. Her casket is empty and her spirit is restless, but her body is weak.
So she waits, and keeps her one good eye trained on what matters most.
*****
She’s sitting on the floor of her mother’s living room when Fareeha hears the lockpad whirring to life. She would scramble for composure, for her service weapon, if she didn’t know of only one other person who knows the access code at the moment.
(Two, including ghosts, but she knows better than to hope.)
The beeping sequence gives way to a click, gives way to the jangling of spurs against the fake wood floor. Jesse pauses a few steps in, shutting the door behind him before surveying the place in uncharacteristic silence. Fareeha doesn’t look up from the box in her lap, doesn’t need to. She feels his eyes on her, curls in on herself ever so slightly at the scrutiny, but he says nothing.
Jesse takes a few more steps inside the apartment. It isn’t the one Fareeha grew up in; Ana traveled a lot for work, downsized once her daughter turned 18 and joined the military. She didn’t need much space, didn’t have much use for material possessions. They had that in common, Fareeha supposes. Her fingers clutch reflexively at the box before her.
“Didja start on sortin’ everything out already?” Jesse asks, inclining his head toward the box.
Fareeha doesn’t look up. “No.”
Jesse chuckles, but it isn’t mean like Fareeha’s expecting. “You know me so well, darlin’,” he says, placing his hands on his hips as he looks around again. The motion makes the light catch his ridiculous belt buckle; Fareeha allows herself a small smile at the familiar sight. “You know how much of a sap I can be about these things.”
She finally looks up and is met with a teasing smile. It’s reassuring, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. She knows. It’s true, what Jesse said, but it’s not the truth this time, not the one meant by his presence here. They both know she can’t do this, can’t clean out her mother’s apartment by herself.
“Good, I didn’t want to do it,” Fareeha says, trying to tease back. The words fall flat, too raw, too real. Alone, lingers unspoken, catches in the atmosphere, tense between them. I didn’t want to do it alone. She needs help.
Jesse looks at her, eyes sharp, suddenly somber. “You shouldn’t have to.” He understands; Fareeha relaxes, just a tad.
She nods, then returns her attention to the box. “I believe I have everything I want. You can get rid of the rest.” She shallows thickly. It feels like something is caught in her throat, like it has been for weeks. The sooner they get everything boxed up, the better. “We can discuss selling the furniture, or perhaps leaving it here and including it in the next tenant’s deal.”
“Hold on, missy,” Jesse sighs. “We don’t have to toss everything to the curb.”
Fareeha wants to mock him for being sentimental. Part of her wishes she were more like that, that she had his ability to move forward while holding onto the past in equal balance. Jesse lets things coexist. Fareeha feels like her past will only consume her if she doesn’t let go now, like it will only impede her, and so it has to go. It’s what Ana would have wanted, what she would have done in Fareeha’s position.
Instead she says, “OK.” Instead, she tells him about the storage unit under Ana’s name on the outskirts of the city, the one she's already working on retitling under her own name. She truly doesn't intend to change much beyond the legal ownership. Maybe go through some boxes there and see about freeing up space for whatever the cowboy decides to keep.
“Alrighty then,” Jesse says, apparently satisfied, stowing that information for future reference before moving toward the bedroom. He stops and looks back when Fareeha makes no move to get up.
She can't block his view from this angle, so she doesn't even try. Fareeha lets him see the box's contents - old, printed photographs and a handful of albums. They're at odds with the tablets and holograms she's used to seeing images on, foreign and fragile. The paper seems so flimsy, easier to destroy, and the album bindings show wear, but everything in the small cache Fareeha found under Ana's bed is intact.
The dark-haired woman appears in nearly all the images, static and smiling.
Her daughter, when she appears, is smiling too.
"You look busy there," Jesse says. His voice doesn't waver, doesn't soften, and Fareeha appreciates the lack of pity more than she can ever hope to express. "Want me to start in on the bedroom?"
"Please."
It’s mean, maybe, to make a recent amputee do the heavy lifting. Jesse is stubborn, though, and that shiny new arm of his – that parting gift and the least Dr. Ziegler could do to repay him for his services – ought to be more than adequate.
Fareeha pretends to ignore him, watches his back as he enters the residence's sole bedroom. She feels frayed, more in need of rest than ever before. She wants to return to her own apartment and curl up on the couch for the rest of the week. Instead, she's here. She'll persevere. She always does.
She hears shuffling and jingling, the dull thunks and gentle thuds of Jesse sorting through items and putting them in the cardboard boxes Fareeha brought over. It's comforting, and Fareeha has almost warmed to it enough to think about joining him in the other room when the noises stop. His spurs clink, but everything else goes silent.
"...You said you didn't start in here earlier, right?" comes Jesse's voice, a note of uncertainty present.
Fareeha wants to mock him, something about his age or attention span. Instead she sits upright, placing the box on the sofa behind her.
"I cleared things out from under the bed to make sure I didn't forget to do it later," she calls back. "Then I moved this box out to the living room. Other than that I haven't, no."
Jesse re-enters the living area with a disoriented look on his face. Fareeha is on alert, standing, looking for her gun.
"There's... stuff," Jesse says, gesturing uselessly. Fareeha arches one eyebrow, snarky comment on hold for the moment.
"There's stuff missin', I think," Jesse explains finally. "I'd expect to find her guns in there somewhere - don't make sense for 'em to be anywhere else in this shoebox - but they ain't turnin' up. The closet sorta looks like it's been rifled through..."
Fareeha crosses the room to join him. "Let's look."
The two of them turn the apartment upside down, combing each area with vicious efficiency. They come up short on a revolver Fareeha knows her mother practically slept with, her personal rifle, and Ana's favorite silk scarf. Fareeha burns at the violation of privacy. Her first thought is that Overwatch mistakenly reclaimed the equipment as their own. They had no right to do so, especially not in this time of mourning.
The scarf she can't explain away. The scarf is as red as a flag can get.
("An' what exactly would this be a warnin' about?" Jesse asks when she voices her thoughts aloud. "What makes you think this isn't your typical home invasion, or that it ain't just plain lost?"
(Fareeha falters. "Are you seriously playing devil's advocate right now?"
(Jesse opens his mouth, intent to defend himself clear on his face. Instead he snaps his jaw shut, runs a hand across his tired face. "I'm sorry, darlin'. I'm... so fucking sorry."
(They stand there, side-by-side in the doorway, uncertainty stirred up then settling around the room like the dust motes in the air.)
*****
Ana realizes her recon relies mainly on Jesse McCree being massively sentimental. The thought amuses her, nearly to the point of smiling. It was a trait that always seemed at odds with his life on the lam, his fondness for tokens and reminders of far-flung places and people, so unlike herself and her daughter.
She also knows she relies on Fareeha being sensible enough to not go through the storage unit, to let sleeping dogs lie. Ana feels worse about that.
She takes from the bedside dresser her personal revolver, and from the closet her rifle and a favorite scarf. A secret test, she thinks, a limit to see what she can scavenge without being caught. A test to see how sharp her daughter's eyes are, and a reminder to not let grief overwhelm her.
(It's a sign as well, Ana admits to herself later. It's the part of herself wanting to reunite with Fareeha as soon as possible, the part hoping her petty thefts trigger a warning in her daughter's mind. Ana will let her know, sooner rather than later. She doesn't want it to be an unpleasant surprise.)
*****
"I'm hopin' you don't mind all too much," Jesse says on the fourth morning, "but I invited a few other hands 'round to help us with what's left o' these boxes."
Fareeha scowls at him from the kitchen table.
Jesse moves slightly further into the kitchen at her expression, switching from leaning against the counter separating the cooking and dining areas to standing behind it like the barrier will protect him.
“You’re going soft,” Fareeha says, more barbed than she intended. “We’re doing fine on our own. We can manage this alone.”
“I know we can,” Jesse agrees, “but these guys offered their services, and I’m thinkin’ they had an ulterior motive for wantin’ to see ya.”
Before Fareeha can ask what that means, there’s pounding on the door and a booming, “Hello? Anybody home?” followed by a laugh. Fareeha can think of exactly one person capable of making that kind of racket (however unintentional) at 7:00 A.M.
Reluctantly, she gets up and opens the door. Craning her neck up, Fareeha sees Reinhardt. Craning her neck down, she sees Torbjörn.
“Guten morgen!” says the former.
“Hullo,” says the latter.
Fareeha sighs and ushers them inside. It isn’t that she’s not happy to see them. She is, truly.
She’s also numb from the past three days spent sifting through her mother’s life. It’s weird, seeing these men in the flesh again, these leftovers from her former, Ana-included life. They dredge up new grievances and memories, making Fareeha feel awkward, like there isn’t enough space for them all in this apartment.
It’s the last full day she has McCree, so Fareeha and Jesse had planned to spend the day transporting the boxes of items they decided not to donate to Ana’s former storage unit. All four of them are off, personalities dulled and actions akin to a weird puppet show full of tangled strings, awkward movements and half gestures, but they suffice.
Fareeha wonders, looking at the walls of cardboard boxes and odd assorted ammunition holder, if she should offer Reinhardt and Torbjörn mementos, some piece of Ana's life for safekeeping. It would certainly free up some space in the garage.
She decides against it - that can be a conversation for another day.
("Strange that you have so much extra ammo in here," Torbjörn notes at one point in the afternoon, lugging a box about the size of his body past a crate of spare rifle parts. An unattached barrel is even leaning against the metal wall. " s'at even legal?"
(Fareeha shrugs. "My mother was... my mother."
(All three men pause, then nod in apparent understanding.
("D'ya want us to move it, get rid of it?" Torbjörn continues. "Gonna be of more use to you someplace it's more accessible."
("Just leave it," Fareeha sighs, drained by the day. "Who knows when it will come in handy, but I have no use for it at my place.")
The four of them stand around awkwardly once they're finished, at a loss now that their purpose is served. Jesse kicks at a scuff he made on the floor earlier, only serving to make it worse. Fareeha is so tired she's starting to feel slightly hysterical.
The silence is broken by Torbjörn clearing his throat. He puts out a hand toward McCree, palm up, and wiggles his fingers.
Jesse barks out a laugh. "I already said, we ain't tippin' you!" Reinhardt roars, and Fareeha smiles in spite of herself, hiding it behind her hand.
"So you told me," Torbjörn counters, "but what says you and me discuss some other arrangement outside? Anyplace 'round here good for a beer?"
The two of them start toward the exit, voices echoing around the empty hallway. They leave Fareeha and Reinhardt (and Ana's belongings) to linger.
Fareeha looks up at the older man; he seems lost in thought, surveying the storage unit with a sterner expression than she's seen him wear all day. He looks tired, Fareeha thinks, before he turns to look at her. He smiles.
"So!" Reinhardt's tone is excited, but softer than earlier. "Where to now, Vögelchen? Are you set to be redeployed again soon?"
Fareeha shakes her head. "Reserves now," is all she can muster up in response. Reinhardt must understand, though. "I don't know. Back to looking for work, I suppose. Thank you," she adds, before either of them can mention Overwatch and its latest vacancy. "For helping today."
Reinhardt holds up a broad hand, waves off her words. "Consider it nothing." He exhales, his shoulders lowering enough for Fareeha to notice. "Gods know I have enough free time now..."
Two memories float to the surface of Fareeha's memory, one sharper than the other. The more recent of the two coalesces immediately - Reinhardt at her mother's funeral, his hulking form clad in a black suit. He had looked so defeated, seemed like half the man he was when lacking his custom cheer. Grief isn't something he wears well, Fareeha thinks, and she feels a pang of guilt as if his discomfort is her fault.
He seems more natural here and now, but the crease of his brow tells Fareeha the sadness is ever-present, about to seep into their conversation again.
"I am most sorry," Reinhardt says, refusing to break eye contact with Fareeha, "for your loss."
She almost laughs. It's such a rote thing to say, such bland words from the mouth of someone so imaginative. It seems impossible to Fareeha that Reinhardt can't find more colorful words, can't express his personality in this instant.
(The second of the two memories drifts in and out of focus, fragmented, taking its time to fully form, but part of it is always nipping at Fareeha's heels. She had been young, had been awake in the middle of the night, too excited at the prospect of seeing her mother again to sleep.
(She remembers faint voices, remembers sneaking out of her bedroom on soft feet, careful in case Ana is trying to surprise her. She doesn't want to steal her mother's thunder. Fareeha's heart feels five times brighter at the thought of that smile, the one her mother wears every time she first sees her daughter after a mission.
(She freezes as a muffled sob reaches her ears.
(She must have moved, managed to sneak to the living room, but Fareeha doesn't remember that bit. Her next vision is of peering around the corner, back pressed flat against the wall. She doesn't want to be seen. She's scared, but she wants to know, has to know if that sound that made her blood run cold came from her incredible, indestructible mother.
(She isn't alone, Fareeha remembers now. Her mother is sitting on the couch, curled in on herself, but she isn't alone. There's a man with her, big as the sky, skin covered in scars. He's resting a hand on Ana's back, rubbing in circles the way Fareeha knows her mother does for her when she's feeling sick.
(She isn't sure how to acknowledge the moment here and now, as an adult. She knows her eyes weren't playing tricks on her, but that moment wasn't hers to observe. It isn't hers to talk about now.
(But this man acknowledged that Ana wasn't doing OK when nobody else did, she thinks with startling lucidity. He's the last person Fareeha should be directing her bitterness toward right now.)
"And yours, also," Fareeha replies quietly after a pause that seemed to stretch past its breaking point.
Reinhardt claps her on the shoulder once, hard, and leaves.
*****
Ana watches them go, watches them leave.
Reinhardt was the first domino. The discord must have been there from the organization's inception, but it truly seems from Ana's perspective that his departure fractured everything. With his firm conscious out of the equation, all hell seemed to break loose.
From this vantage point, Ana wonders why she didn't see it, didn't say or do something to impede Gabe's jealousy or Jack's ignorance. Too insulated by her own neuroses and problems, she supposes, emotions in the workplace that clouded judgments and prevented her from taking necessary shots in their downtime.
Ana watches her teammates leave for greener pastures, for less corrupt pursuits. She watches as Gabriel Reyes and John Morrison are laid to rest and allows herself to cry for her former family.
*****
(She's almost relieved they're dead, Jack and Gabriel. Fareeha loved them fiercely, will mourn them certainly, but it's two fewer people she has to lie to now.)
Jesse doesn't cry at the ceremony, surprisingly. When Fareeha asks him about it later, he talks about how he already mourned for his former mentor, and for the commander who had started to crumble alongside the organization he represented. Fareeha grips his metal hand a little tighter and thanks whoever is listening for the common sense that saved this idiot cowboy's hide.
She still supports him literally, however, walking side-by-side through the sea of mourners. He laughs, honest and clear, when Fareeha pretends to butt him with her head, the gold beads in her hair smacking his chin and open mouth.
“What happened to the good ol’ days of you bein’ short enough to hassle?” Jesse teases, making as if to put Fareeha in a headlock. She twists his arm back with a vicious smirk as he barks and leaps away from her. “I’m just sayin’,” he continues, still smiling fondly, “sometimes, I miss ya’ bein’ small enough fer me to lean on.”
He doesn't mean it like that, but the phrase irks Fareeha nonetheless. Sometimes she can't help feeling like a crutch for these people, these leftovers from her former, Ana-included life. She keeps silent, though, as McCree wraps an arm around her shoulders and draws her closer.
(Whose luck is it the letter arrived when it did? Fareeha could have been spared months of mourning, could have skipped the mourning, period. Every new perusal of the note wrings a new emotion out of her. She's come close to crumpling the parchment, burning it on one particularly bad night. She holds back, though. The paper sits atop her dresser as smooth and unwrinkled as the day she received it.)
*****
Ana knows where to begin, what needs to be said. 'I am here.' 'I am alive.' 'I love you and don't want to see you in pain.'
It all sounds so clinical, though, like a mission checklist, items to be printed in neat rows.
She puts ink to the paper, though, and lets her heart guide her hand. Even if the amount of affection she's aiming for seems insufficient to her, Ana trusts Fareeha to read between the lines.
*****
(How dare she, Fareeha thinks, once in a blue moon, though more often than she would like to admit. How dare Ana put her in this position, where half her interactions are based on lies. Where she has to constantly be on guard, be acting to ensure no one else notices this charade. What emotion is she supposed to portray when they come at her with casual hero worship? What emotion is she supposed to portray when they come with sincere condolences? Does anyone believe her? Does anyone listen when she speaks, or are they mentally rearranging her, molding her into what they think Ana would be today?)
(She's glad to know, though, Fareeha thinks, once in a blue moon, whenever she feels herself getting too worked up. She supposes she would rather live like this than feel shocked and betrayed if or when her mother reappears in the land of the living. Secretly, she's waiting for the day they can meet again in person, waiting like a little girl for her mother to return from war. The situation could be worse.
(That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, though.)
*****
It's trickier to navigate now, Ana thinks. Her entire right side is a blindspot now, and though the sight in her left eye is near perfect (impressive considering her age), it isn't infallible. She gets vertigo every now and then. She has to tread carefully in crowds and listen with her right ear more to properly 'scan' the area.
It would be easier if she asked for help, Ana knows, if there were someone she trusted enough to protect and guide her. But she's already asking too much of Fareeha, already a different breed of burden on her.
She isn't sure where she would even begin to explain if she showed up on Angela's or Torbjörn's doorstep. She isn't sure where Jesse and Reinhardt even are anymore. Anyone else Ana would consider trusting with her secret is six feet under.
*****
"Oh! Fareeha."
Fareeha startles, glancing over her shoulder. For a minute she considers pocketing the brooch she had placed on her mother's headstone, embarrassed at being caught. Her hand wavers; she decides to leave it. Angela won't take it, won't question her motives.
Rising from where she had been kneeling by the grave, Fareeha turns to face Dr. Ziegler.
Angela laughs nervously. "For a second I thought..." The words die on her lips. Her expression turns to one of regret, of embarrassment, even though the words went unspoken.
She doesn't have to say it. Fareeha knows exactly what she was going to say. That's all Fareeha will ever be, a living ghost of her mother. (She can't even be that, not while Ana is still alive.)
She hopes the short burst of anger isn't evident on her face.
"How are you?"
It takes Fareeha minute to realize Angela spoke, asked her a question. "Good," she replies, then considers her answer. "I mean..." Fareeha gestures awkwardly at the grave behind her. "Good, I guess. I had the day off work." She always has this particular day off work.
Angela nods. "Good, that's good." She shuffles in place, then a bit to the left. She's inching closer to the gravesite, Fareeha thinks, inching around Fareeha like she is around the actual subject matter. Fareeha stands her ground.
"And you?" Fareeha asks after it becomes clear Angela is done talking. "How are you faring?"
Angela shrugs. She smiles a bit, but not much, and it's self-deprecating. "The same as ever, I suppose," she replies. "I'm doing medical work back in Switzerland now, back to the usual hospital routine."
"So what brings you here?" Fareeha asks before she can stop herself. She knows the reason (the anniversary), but she doesn't know Angela's reason (Do you miss her? How much do you miss her? What would you do if I told you you didn't have to miss her?).
Angela's face falls, like she's been slapped. Her eyes start to water; Fareeha can't believe they weren't watering before, that she didn't realize how composed the medic was up to now.
"I just..." Angela sounds twenty years younger, voice wavering but not yet broken. "Fareeha, I'm so sorry. If there was just something I could have done back then. If I had been the doctor to recover her, or if I had taken my Valkyrie suit and gone with on the mission... I just. There was more that I could have done. That I should have done. But I failed her." A few tears finally spill from her blue eyes. "I failed you."
They're the right words at the wrong time, Fareeha thinks bitterly. She would be fine hearing this from Angela any other day, but not here, not now. Or maybe that's a lie. Maybe this is never a conversation she wants to have with her mother's former co-worker. They can commiserate all she wants about Morrison and Reyes, but maybe Ana will never be common ground. Maybe Fareeha will only ever think about how Angela must see her as a shadow of this Amari family legacy, of her former friend and ally. Maybe Fareeha will only ever think about how her mother is alive and Dr. Ziegler is here mourning for nothing.
"Some other time, perhaps, Dr. Ziegler," she says. Then Fareeha turns and walks back the way she had come.
*****
Ana didn't know where the poster came from, still isn't sure to this day. A gift from one of Fareeha's usual babysitters, perhaps, or Torbjörn playing a joke. She remembers the first time she noticed it, jetlagged and coming off a grueling mission (though weren't they all starting to seem that way?).
She had wanted to surprise Fareeha that night, showing up at their apartment in time to treat her daughter to supper. Instead their return flight got delayed by a passing storm, and Fareeha had been fast asleep for hours by the time Ana arrived.
Still, Ana couldn't find it in herself to be too disappointed, not when she came home to this, not when she got one more night of sitting beside her daughter's delicate, sleeping form. Ana watched her breathing, calm and even, and felt at peace for once, the post-mission buzz gently fading.
The golden light seeping in from the hallway is suddenly blocked out. Ana stiffens slightly before remembering who she invited along for the evening. She shifts, remaining seated on Fareeha's bed but adjusting so she can also look toward the door.
Reinhardt smiles down at mother and daughter fondly, before his grin morphs into something cheekier. He inclines his head, nodding at something behind Ana. "I must say, I'm glad they chose that photo," he says, amusement evident in his tone. Ana isn't sure she's ever heard his voice this soft before. "It is a good one."
Ana turns back to Fareeha, then looks up. On the wall above her bed hangs a poster, some kind of propaganda piece she muses, of the man in her doorway. He's younger in the glossy photographs - one of him in the familiar steel armor superimposed over his impressively muscled form, enthusiasm for his job evident in both shots - but equally attractive, even if his blond hair is slowly edging closer to white now.
Ana grins back. "I agree."
He chuckles, the sound both comforting and confusing Ana. Something about it makes her feel odd, offset. She's considered herself too old for these butterflies in her stomach for several years now, yet there they are once more. She blushes, hidden in the dark.
"Familie von Schmeichlern," Reinhardt mutters with a shake of his head before fixing his smile on her again. "Clearly she inherited such good taste from her mother."
Ana looks back at Fareeha fondly, then sighs. "You'll have to say 'hello' in the morning," she says, smoothing her daughter's hair off her face and pulling the blanket further over her shoulders before rising. She joins him in the hallway, closing the door to Fareeha's bedroom behind her softly.
*****
Jesse visits her on his 34th birthday, his cowboy getup finally completed by a ridiculous red serape. For the first time in ages Fareeha laughs, delighted tears rolling down her face as he saunters toward her. She almost has to literally hold her sides to stop; instead she wraps her arms around him, letting Jesse swoop her into a hug in the middle of some shabby, Costa Rican taqueria.
They can't meet for long, both traveling for work. Besides, it seems like the price on Jesse's head rises every time he breathes.
Whatever doubts Fareeha had about his current profession dissipate once they get to talking like old times. Of course he's still committed to doing right. Of course. How could she have ever thought otherwise?
At least the small things don't change, Fareeha thinks selfishly. It's nice to count on some things staying the same despite distance and shoddy communication. She's glad McCree is still the same McCree she last saw.
She catches Jesse looking her funny a few times, his brow furrowed in thought, his mouth opening and shutting. He wants to say something but is continually thinking better of it. Maybe he wants to ask about the damn scarf. Maybe he heard about her gravesite offering, caught wind of her secret test.
Fareeha wonders if maybe he got a letter, too, if he's figured out Ana is watching out for them both. She figures it isn't her place to ask, lest she raise any more questions she doesn't have answers for yet.
(She wants to tell him outright. She wants to ask him to stay. She does neither.)
"It isn't fair," Fareeha says instead as they embrace in farewell, her voice muffled against the serape.
Jesse sighs, beard brushing against her cheek, chest rising and falling heavily against hers. His heartbeat is a solid, steady comfort. "Ain't much in life that is, my fair Fareeha," he says before he's whistling out the door, waltzing out into the night.
*****
He isn't Fareeha's father. No one has ever thought or pretended otherwise.
(Maybe, Ana thought once in a blue moon, it would be easier if he were, if she could pretend he was.)
Ana misses Fareed, misses his kind eyes and understanding nature every day she outlives him. It had been an accident; he had been tending to injured protesters at the wrong rally at the wrong time and paid with it for his life five months into Ana's pregnancy.
Ana persevered. She always did, always had that determination (even when she'd prefer that she didn't). She raised their beautiful, incredible child without Fareeha's beautiful, incredible father.
That didn't mean it didn't hurt, though.
She had help, however. Overwatch became family, Jack and Gabriel and Jesse. She was never completely alone, and for that she was grateful.
Reinhardt was, as always, a rock. Ana was always tentative about that, feeling like it wasn't her place to impose her personal life on him, but he barreled in with his typical zeal, and that was that. She never asked it of him, but he stayed, supportive of Fareeha and Ana through greying hair and deepening wrinkles, through more scars and mental breakdowns.
Ana never asked it of him. That made it all the harder for her to let him go.
*****
For however small her own apartment feels to her, it must be hell for Reinhardt Wilhelm. He doesn't show it, smiling as always, but Fareeha can assume and ensures that he can be seated whenever possible, can straighten up without his head brushing the ceiling.
The image ought to make her smile. It doesn't. She feels as on edge as ever. She doesn't know how to accommodate him. She used to, she thinks. She used to know this man and how to be comfortable around him. Or maybe that was just her mother.
He's not in Egypt for business, or as official as any business the former warrior has these days. He's in better spirits than the last time she saw him, she thinks. He's been traveling the world and doing good. Fareeha senses a pattern in her mother's surviving co-workers. Reinhardt promised his companion, Brigitte, a break from adventuring and gang fights and rebuilding war-torn armor from scrap metal. She's out in the city, soaking in the sun and sights. "Let us see if you can keep me out of trouble in the meantime," Reinhardt had said to Fareeha with a wink.
She's doing well so far, Fareeha thinks. Or at least, she was. He seems at ease, back ramrod straight but not tense. A soldier's natural resting posture. She can't believe she still has to look up to meet his gaze.
"You really should consider taking it easy more often," Fareeha chides once Reinhardt has finished regaling her with his most recent exploits.
Reinhardt scoffs. "Nein," he says breezily. "No rest for me until I am in the ground."
It's casual, matter-of-fact (he will die one day, everyone will), but it makes the room tilt for Fareeha. Of course. Of course one day he'll be gone for good. Of course one day Jesse and Torbjörn and Angela and all these reminders of her former life will be gone. Of course.
(She wonders if he's ever disappointed he wasn't killed by the job like his friends, if he's ever disgusted that he of all people got to walk away from Overwatch when so many others that he cared about were crushed by it.)
"... we head west next, for Numbani," Reinhardt is saying. "See what Brigitte and I scare up along the way before we investigate Doomfist's influence over there. It's a good plan, yes?"
Reinhardt smiles at her, scar crinkling. The action is small, simple, involuntary, but it floods Fareeha's memory. She remembers tracing the line of tissue down his face with small, careful fingers, each time ending near the corner of his upturned mouth. She remembers her childish nature, curiosity encouraged by Reinhardt's gentle patience and equally fervent approach to life.
She sees his hopeful expression and wants to smile in kind, tell him yes, it is a good plan. She wants to tell him sixty isn't nearly that old.
Fareeha sees his milky, blinded eye and thinks of her mother's letter. She wonders what Ana looks like now. Fareeha sees his eye and thinks they must be a matched set now.
It's too much. There isn't enough space for the two of them here.
(There's too much space for the two of them here, a void where Ana Amari should be.)
Fareeha breaks. She feels improbably, embarrassingly loud in the tiny living area, like she's taking up all the room, how could she be so selfish, but she can't stop. She can't stop crying, curling in on herself.
Reinhardt is on his feet, wordlessly crossing the room in an instant. Fareeha sees his expression shift through her veil of tears, from excitement to alarm, and now to comfort. She's sorry to cause him worry, wants to apologize, but the words keep catching in her throat, keep coming up as sobs instead.
The hug Reinhardt catches her up in is crushing, steals whatever breath was still struggling to leave Fareeha's lungs. She finds herself clutching at his arms like a frightened child. Even as a grown woman, her arms don't wrap all the way around his chest. She didn't know she could feel this small again, like she did as a girl being enveloped in her mother's embrace.
Fareeha knows it isn't her place to ask him to stay. Reinhardt doesn’t owe her anything, doesn't owe Ana this favor. He isn't family. He isn't beholden to anyone in this equation. Fareeha doesn't need him here; what would the old adventurer even do in Egypt?
"Please, don't go," she babbles instead, tears soaking the worn fabric of his shirtfront, "not you too."
She expects her mother's old friend to shush her, to at least let go of her, maybe even ask her to stop politely. Instead Reinhardt says nothing, pushing her damp hair away from her face and letting her continue to cry. Fareeha could almost swear she feels a few errant tears wetting the top of her head.
Fareeha cries until she feels hollow, until there's nothing left, and Reinhardt doesn't ask her to stop once.
(Reinhardt sends his assistant on ahead without him and spends the next seven days in Cairo, never too far from Fareeha's apartment. She feels guilty, telling him at least once per night that she's fine, really, it was a moment of weakness and he doesn't need to stick around when he could be out helping those in harm's way. He only books a flight after asking her permission, asking that Fareeha is sincerely fine with him leaving. When she says yes, she means it. She drives him to the airport and waits until she sees his plane leave the runway to leave the terminal herself, heading home alone.)
*****
If she closes her eye, Ana can almost pretend she's home.
Almost.
The heat is different in the Outback, not lighter or heavier, simply different from Egypt. The ground seems uneven, the sand too coarse. The winds feel strange against her skin, not as inviting.
Ana sighs. She never was that imaginative.
At least the sun glints off her favorite pin in a familiar way. The wind rustles her favorite scarf in its usual manner, and the matching brooch keeps it anchored, keeps her hidden and able to blend in to this noonday crowd.
At least the small things remain the same.
*****
"Your mother would've been proud of you."
Fareeha bristles at the comment. If she had any doubts of the soldier's former identity, that certainly played his hand.
On one hand, she can understand Strike Commander Morrison's dilemma (one he probably didn't even know about, one he's probably all but forgotten). She's been in those shoes, uncertain of what to prioritize - the mission or the men. It can be confusing, get muddied up in basic training, in rules long memorized and the immediacy of battle.
On the other hand...
On the other hand, this was her mother, his right hand, Overwatch's eyes. How could he have been so blind? Was it only so obvious to Fareeha, attuned as she was to her only parent's wellbeing, or should he have known better?
(She remembers again the fuzzy image of Reinhardt sitting with Ana on their living room couch, staying to listen to her worries in the dead of night.)
"You didn't know my mother very well, then."
*****
She knows it isn't fair to ask this of her daughter.
Ana wonders sometimes about how she affected Fareeha, growing up. She wonders if she listened enough, if she maintained the best balance of traveling for work and being home. She wonders if her own clear mental health concerns ever made Fareeha feel like she couldn't come to Ana with her own problems. She wonders if she ever made her daughter feel insignificant in the face of national security. How would it feel, to be a child and be aware of all those uprisings and what was being done to combat them?
Ana wonders if Fareeha ever felt as small and unhelpful as Ana feels now.
*****
"I killed her," the sniper whispers against Fareeha's ear, tone as icy as her skin. Fareeha sees fireworks, blackness fraying the edges of her vision.
She has no idea who this woman is, what she's working toward, why her complexion is unnaturally blue. One minute Fareeha had been attending a public press conference held by some big-name omnic, the one rumored to be running for Prime Minister, the next shots had been fired from the balcony.
Fareeha had acted without thinking. She had run in, metaphorical guns blazing, wearing not her Raptora suit but jeans, a T-shirt, and a leather jacket. She didn't even bring a knife to a gunfight, mapping the angle of attack while charging up the stairs and tackling the woman with the rifle from behind. The gun clatters across the room, swept further from their reach by the still-fleeing masses.
She's sturdier, more muscular, but the other woman fights dirty, pulling on Fareeha's hair while jabbing a stiletto into her ribs. Fareeha feels blood dripping down her side, hot and thick. She blocks a blow to the face only to find her attacker kicking her kneecaps, sweeping her legs out from underneath her. The woman follows up with a punch to the face. Fareeha hears her own skull crack against the floor, grimacing as hands wind around her windpipe and squeeze.
Fareeha fights to open her eyes. The assassin straddles her, pins Fareeha down, staring at her like her next meal.
There's a head tilt, then, a murky expression that might be recognition before the other woman is closing the gap between them.
"I killed her," the sniper whispers, voice like venom, cold as her hands clasped tightly around Fareeha's neck. "Your mother."
Fareeha tries not to protest, not to panic. Even if, after all these years, she gives in and refutes the lie for a split second, it will be the truth. If she lets it show on her face, her mother gets made. Ana will be dead again, for good, and it will be on Fareeha's own head this time.
Her heart sinks as her head spins. She can't win this. Even if her mother isn't really dead, Fareeha can't pretend otherwise. She can't run, or bury her head in the sand. It's always and forever something people will hold against her, something people will hold above her, even if it isn't true.
The Widowmaker grins down at her, serpentine, lips curled in mockery.
...
... Even if it isn't true.
Fareeha digs her nails into the soft skin of the assassin's inner arms, then wraps both her legs around her attacker's thighs and jerks, using her weight to roll the woman off her.
Fareeha has power over the narrative, too. She knows more than anyone else about her mother, about her mother's death. She gets to decide how it defines her.
When the Widowmaker turns back to face her, Fareeha is ready, palm open and waiting to jab up into her assailant's nose with a harsh crack.
*****
A scrap of paper rests at the base of her headstone, all but one white edge hidden by the stone weighting it in place. Better eyes would miss it, probably have.
Ana unfolds the note, expecting but warmed by the sight of her daughter's handwriting on one side.
It's the briefest of news articles, the barest mention of a potential vigilante stopping crime in the streets of Shubrā al-Khaymah. Hypothetically, of course. No physical sign of said hero has been spotted yet. The passage is still circled in red ink, the same as Fareeha's message on the back.
See you soon, her daughter has written. It's accompanied by a neatly drawn Eye of Horus.
Ana smiles, feels lighter than she has in years.
She's had enough watching and waiting, she thinks, enough hiding in the shadows. Her vision has returned.
(Her vision is good as it will ever be again.)