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Freja is grateful that when Emre isn't himself, whatever's controlling him at least recognizes her as an ally. It helps make being out with him on his missions easier, knowing she won't be part of its indiscriminate targets. It would usually acknowledge her presence and go on to continue its underlying objective, an unspoken trust that she wouldn't get in the way.
It has never addressed her – not directly. Not until today.
"Don't think I don't know what you're doing, Freja Skov." The voice that comes from Emre's throat doesn't sound right – too metallic, no familiar warmth, so unhuman. As much as she wants to say that it doesn’t unnerve her, hearing it never fails to get under her skin.
"I'm only making sure your host is safe,” she says, carefully measuring her words so as to not trigger any adverse reaction. “It's a common goal, isn't it?"
"I see you, Freja Skov.” The eye at the center of Emre’s chest locks in on her with its intimidating gaze. “I see you've been trying to take on my targets. Stealing them for yourself."
"Aren't you happy for the help?"
"Killing in his place will not absolve him."
She tightens her hold on her crossbow. She had thought she wasn’t so obvious. That it was just a little thing she could do for him, to help assuage his guilt and share the burden: that the carnage wasn't always fully his, even if he didn’t know it.
"Freja Skov. Gefn. Former Overwatch Search and Rescue operative turned notorious bounty hunter for hire. How far you have fallen, how stained are your hands."
She has to remind herself that it’s not really Emre speaking. That he doesn’t think of her that way. That he’s never once faulted her for how the world hardened her in the decade they’ve been apart.
"I chose to become what I am," she says through grit teeth. "You didn't give Emre a choice."
"And you think selling the little left of your soul will help get his back?"
The eye on his chest stares at her blankly, awaiting a response.
As thick as her skin had gotten, this… thing still somehow manages to make digs that sting with its taunting. Freja admits that she used to be sleepless over it, her moral quandaries, knowing she was selling her beliefs just to make it through a new world that had no need for her. She had buried the old Freja, the one who used to believe in the good in the world, who believed that she could be the good the world needed.
The one Emre told to keep fighting the good fight. The one who eventually stopped believing it was worth it.
But finding Emre again after all these years, changed not by choice, and by something that he doesn’t even understand – it sparks an outrage in Freja. It’s not fair. The world could ruin her, it already has; but she couldn’t accept the same for him. Not her Emre.
"Emre was the best of us. He still is, underneath whatever you've turned him into," she answers simply, calmly. "If there's a chance that he can rid himself of you, that the world can have the old Emre back, then selling my soul for it isn't just the price I would pay over and over again for him. It's a bargain."
She hears the mechanical hum reverberate through Emre’s chest. An acknowledgment. And then – silence.
Freja knows by now that it means the system that's overriding Emre is finally withdrawing. She quickly reattaches her crossbow to the sling on her back to free up her hands and catches Emre just as he falls to his knees.
“Ngh…” Emre grunts, fighting through the initial lack of lucidity.
“I’m here,” Freja tells him softly, letting her voice float through the fog of his mind. She has both hands cradling his face, ensuring she’s the first thing he sees. “I’m here. Find me.”
“Frej…?” Emre looks at her, his eyes seeking hers.
"There you are, Emre," Freja whispers with a small smile once she has his focus. One hand stays on his cheek while she pulls back the other, raising one finger first to a count, starting their agreed protocol for grounding him as he regains his senses.
“One thing you can taste.”
“The blood in my mouth.”
She puts up another finger.
“Two things you can smell.”
“Smoke and gunpowder.”
Freja puts up a third finger.
“Three things you can hear.”
“The ringing. Alarms? Rain. It’s raining outside. And…” He pauses to think. “My heart.”
“Good.” She adds another finger to the count. “Four things you can feel.”
“Your hand,” he says, bringing up his hand to cover hers over his face. “I can feel the armor over my skin. The air is humid; there’s sweat in my hair. The ground beneath my knees.”
“Last. Five things you can see.” She brings her hand down as he looks at her and around her. This is the one that’s always the hardest because it’s when he sees the wreckage, the handiwork of his not-self. It’s when the weight of the death and destruction he had caused settles in.
“Your eyes,” he starts, breathing out a deep shuddering sigh. “My favorite green. Soot on your collar. Gray.”
“Three more. You’re almost there.”
“Broken boxes. That hole in the ceiling. Six bodies in the corner.” Emre finally finishes as something catches in his throat and he tightens his hold on her hand, shaking with uncertainty.
“It’s alright. I’m here. And you’re here now, too.” Freja knows when he’s sinking into himself, when despair starts taking root. She can’t imagine how much worse it must have been when he had to go through this alone. “Look at me. Only me. This wasn’t you, Emre.”
“Frej…”
“This wasn’t you,” she repeats firmly. She knows it as a fact. She had already taken her arrows out of the bodies left behind them. “We're leaving now."
She rises first, pulling him up with her, and he doesn’t let go of her even as she leads him out of the razed warehouse, to their extraction point, and onto the jet leading them back to Talon.
Eventually, he’s able to calm down long enough to stop crushing her hand.
“I’m sorry, Frej,” he mutters, mumbling other phrases to himself in his native language under his breath.
She shakes her head. She’s told him multiple times to stop apologizing for something he doesn’t have any control over.
“I’m not hurt, Emre. We both made it out alive in one piece. We did what Vendetta asked us to do. There’s nothing to be sorry for.”
“Still,” he insists, frowning. And she knows what he means. He doesn’t need to expound on his list of sins. She’s seen all the hurt he continuously carries, and she just wants to help him.
“We’ll figure this out together,” she reassures him. “I won’t leave you, even if you keep trying to get me to leave. You’re not getting rid of me as easily as you did last time.”
“Freja,” he says her name with an even deeper frown. “I didn’t…”
“I know, I’m just kidding.” She lets out a long exhale, letting her head fall and rest on his shoulder. “It’s been a long day, Emre. Do you mind if I just sleep until we get back?”
She feels him relax his posture as he moves to accommodate her, his good arm wrapping behind her and holding her closer to him.
“Of course, Frej,” he whispers, planting a chaste kiss on her forehead, the rough hairs of his beard tickling her skin. “Whatever you need.”
She thinks: all I need is you. And Freja’s grateful for many things – that she had found him, that his touch is real, that his warmth is enough to let her know he's alive, that his steady heartbeat can still lull her to sleep. That Emre makes her want to believe in something again – in him.
And if they’re both one day able to wake up from this nightmare, maybe it would all be worth it.
