Work Text:
I am on duty, surveilling cameras, checking mission plans and scrolling through data to catch anything that seems out of the ordinary. I contact a few people – security guards, outposts, informants and take meticulous notes on my findings.
I am not truly in my element here, outside of the battlefield, outside of protecting my squad and my friends and the people I love, but I am fully aware of the importance of every little thing that I, as a member of the recalled Overwatch, get to do for the team. My work should never lack in accuracy and I would never forgive myself, if something important slipped my protective eye.
My mother always taught me to do everything fully when it comes to protecting those I love – in whichever way I love them. I grew up around heroes who lived by those vows and taught me the importance of even the smallest task, the meaning of holding on to every bit of valuable knowledge and keeping an overview over your equipment, your sources and aims. I could find no better place to fulfill this important duty – protecting those I love – than by fulfilling my missions, knowing their success was of imminent importance to making the world a better place for those I cared for.
If I am to keep on her legacy, even if what I am doing is against what she hoped for my future, I need to be at least as dutiful and fully invested as she was. If I am going to revenge myself for how she was taken from me, I cannot rush, I cannot let myself be dragged along by my grief, but I need to be smart, precise, well-planned and I need the help of the team I am part of. And patience.
Every step I am taking, I know, is a step towards those three goals I have set for myself: Protect the innocent and the loved, make the world a better place like she tried to do, and find closure for my grief. No task is meaningless and no mission goal worth being irrational about; not when it comes to the strategy. Mum has taught me so many things she never explicitly said and so have the heroes of Overwatch. I honor these lessons with every day.
I cannot replace her for the team, but if she should be watching, may the gods allow, I will want to make her proud of me.
“Don’t give yourself a headache, Fareeha,” Mercy says as she comes in with a mug of tea and sets it next to the keyboard. I am still staring at the screen, clicking myself through surveillance video shots in different important areas.
Without taking my eyes off the screen, I grab for the mug and nearly burn my fingers on the hot porcelain.
“Relax,” Mercy laughs. “Breaks are important to keep your concentration aloft. And things seem quiet right now.” She leans with her butt on the table, right next to me, and nudges my elbow with her dangerously well-shaped leg. I disengage from the screen as instructed and take the mug by the handle this time.
“Hope you like it. Ana was fond of that one,” Mercy says, indicating to the mug.
“It’s fine,” I say, my nose engulfed in the scented steam from the cup. The sip feels good – I had not realized I was so thirsty.
Angela elicits a cute little giggle and it makes me both happy and nervous. She’s been making me nervous for a good twenty years, and I am still not over it. It seems to be getting worse by the day, especially now when we are around each other so much again. Dammit, how can that woman be so freakishly attractive? I am trying not to think about that Halloween costume of hers…
“What’s so funny?” I ask, sipping my tea.
“Like mother, like daughter. Ana always drank her tea at scalding temperatures. How do you even do that? I would have third degree burns by now.”
I look at my tea and shrug. “It’s good.”
She is still blowing cool air on her tea.
“How’s Miss Zhou?” I ask to make conversation, though my mind is tingling with the idea of going back to the job at hand. The video images are flashing at me so intriguingly.
“Mei? – Oh. She is fine. It looks to me she has taken it upon herself to continue climatology all on her own, that crazy thing,” Mercy replies. “I think she is trying to catch up on the nine years she missed by working nine times as hard.” She shakes her head and her blond ponytail bounces. “Telling her that she is technically just going to live nine years longer somehow does not seem to change her mind.”
“I can’t imagine what that is like,” I reply honestly. For me, the past nine years have been where pretty much everything has happened. I have served Helix and learned my lessons, maybe grown up more than I had before, I have lost my mother and I have joined the recalled Overwatch – and now I am constantly around my former heroes, one of which, of course, is Dr. Angela Ziegler.
“I don’t think anyone can,” she concurs. “And Mei is taking it with such grace.”
I nod and finish my tea, then pointedly set it aside and return my hand to the computer mouse.
“Ah, ja, ja – fine, fine. I am leaving, you workaholic!” Mercy gives me an exaggerated, dramatic sigh, grabs my empty mug and leaves me to my work. I can’t help myself and turn around to watch her behind sway out of the door. Holy crap. She needs a weapon permit for that one.
‘Fareeha, you are acting like a pathetic teenager!!!’ I scold myself - strangely enough in the voice of my mother.
I shake the image of Mercy’s attractive rear and return to my video analysis. I’ve lost track of my assignment and take the rolling chair to the other computer to check my schedule. It’s just a few more videos and then more checks on the outposts. I’ll be pleasantly busy until the evening.
I hit start, pause, check out a shadowy figure that turns out to be a delivery person, and then continue with the material. I do not know how long I am engrossed in this task, but I snap out of the analysis when a computer somewhere behind me starts hissing with the noise of static and disruption.
“What?” I turn around to look at the screens there. One of them is showing static and is, at it seems, trying to build an image through some sort of interference. It’s not a proper way to contact the base and I can only think of a handful of scenarios in which using this route would be necessary – none of them good. It sure alerts me and I grab for the nearest headset to see whether I can pick up any audio.
Kzz… kzz… Overwatch… kzz… requesting… kzz…
I approach the screen and try to locate from where this request is coming in. The caller is clearly trying to contact an organization that technically does not exist anymore. If it is not anyone I know, then this is a security breach.
Kzz… secure connection .. kzz…
Okay, whoever this is, I can offer them a more secure connection at least – there is no danger in that, even if that intruder should be unwanted. Nevertheless, I decide it is wise not to identify myself or that they have actually reached the organization they were looking for.
“I copy,” I say loudly and clearly while I am looking for the right settings to nudge the call into a more secure line, but I can’t quite find the right adjustments yet.
The screen goes blank for a moment, then flashes a static-filled image – barely a silhouette – for a fraction of a second that is then replaced with more static. It was only the most fleeting of moments, but my heart stops. It can’t be. No, it can’t be.
Kzz… contacting Overwatch… requesting a secure connection… kzz..
This time, I hear it loud and clear – and for a moment, I am devoid of all doubt.
“MUM?!” I yell into the microphone, grasping for the earpiece, as if pushing it harder into my ear could make me hear and recognize her better. “MUM, is that you???!!” This is impossible, right?! But it sounds so much like her!
I drop all attempts to secure the connection, I just try to stabilize what I have at all costs. Somewhere inside of me I beg that stupid, static-filled screen to return that image to me one more time and I am so scared I am going to lose this flimsy thread I have to this caller altogether. If the connection breaks, I will never forgive myself.
Kzz… requesting secure connection…
“Mum!”
SOLDIER FAREEHA AMARI, ESTABLISH A SECURE CONNECTION!!
Yes. It’s definitely her.
I am overcome with so many emotions, I can hardly think straight. She is alive! But in what state? Where is she? Why did nobody know this? But she is alive – my mom is alive!
Despite the tears that are threatening to overwhelm me, I enter server addresses, passwords and connections, mistyping four or five times with my shivering hands before I manage to nudge her call over to a shielded line. A window pops up that suggests I contact other members of Overwatch to inform them of the ingoing, important call. But I cannot bring myself to click on it. Not right now.
“Secure connection established,” I push the words out with much effort as I open the channel for the video transmission.
And there she is, in a dark room, illuminated by the screen. Her hair is now fully white and in a braid slung around her shoulder. I still cannot grasp what I am seeing until she moves and I realize that she is real and live, even if I cannot fully process the implications. I just know that in this moment, I have my mother back through some miracle I do not comprehend and all the grief and missing of the past years threaten to choke me.
“Mum! Are you okay? Do you need help?! Where are you?” I blabber out, my voice shaking more with every word.
"I am fine and safe,” she answers. Her voice is so clear in my ear and her lips move in sync with the words – I cannot possibly doubt this is truly happening. My eyes fill with tears that roll down my cheeks and I just stare at her – at the miracle she is and I cannot say a thing.
My Fareeha…” she says softly, I am so sorry.”
---
After the phone call, I have troubles concentrating on my work. Mom is not nearly as safe as she claimed she was, but she is alive and she is moving toward safety at this very moment. I did not want to hang up – I did not want this to be over and lose my only connection to her, but it had to be.
Now, I need an outlet for everything that she has just stirred up in me, but I had to promise that I would not discuss her whereabouts until she was completely safe. According to her, it will take a while. I do not know why she is coming back or what happened – there was no time to ask.
I literally cannot do anything but wait for her to contact me again in some way or another. I have no track on her, I do not know the routes she is taking, and it makes me scared. I had her for a couple of minutes to establish only what I needed to know and receive her apology, and now she is as unreachable as she was before.
No. No, this is not true. To all of us, my mom was beyond earthly means of communication before today – now she is somewhere out there, alive. Not in my grasp, but part of all the people who can theoretically be reached, talked to, touched and hugged. And I will hug her. I will. Something I never thought possible again - and if seeing her back safely requires me to keep this a secret, then by all means, I will not say a word.
I wipe my cheeks, delete the protocol that indicates there was a call in the first place and put the headset back on. I’m Pharah again, not Fareeha – analyzing videos and scanning through data protocols. I pick up the phone and call a local outpost, identify myself and inquire about the situation at the post. Everything is calm. The storm within me is well-concealed.
“Anything unusual?” Jack Morrison walks in and is shrugging out of his jacket. He’s been out and about for hours and there are patches of sweat around his neck.
“No, nothing,” I lie and send him a gentle smile. “Go ahead and freshen up, I can hold out for a little longer.”
He nods, puts his weapon down and leaves the room. I take a deep breath. Lies are not my strong suit, but mom insisted it will keep her safest, if as few people as possible know - so I will be the most deceptive person this planet has ever known.
After I am officially relieved of my duty, I disappear into the shower where I stay for a long time. I expected that I would be able to let go in there, let my feelings wash off with the shower water, but I find myself surprisingly calm. From there to retiring in my bunk, something grows within me – a small ball of happiness right in the pit of my stomach. I cannot feel hurt that my mother gave me and everyone else such grief – I can only feel happiness that this grief was unnecessary. These are tumbling, unpredictable times. I cannot blame mum for being forced to go the way the tides carried her, even if it caused me pain.
Laying in my bed, I grab her photo off my night stand and I watch it in the dim moonlight. I smile. I will have her back very soon.
---
I was never made to be a sniper like my mother. I cannot stand lingering around and waiting for an opportunity that I do not know will even come. She, however, was made for the role. Frankly, her ability to sneak around drove me insane as a teenager. There was pretty much nothing ‘bad’ I could do without being caught. My sniper-mother had her eyes absolutely everywhere, knew everything and could appear out of nowhere when I least wanted her to.
She was relatively relaxed about most things, but as a child you still don’t want to get caught, even if you do not end up being scolded. You want even your most innocent kisses to be secret, but in my case, I was instead greeted with a knowing smile when I came home. As an adult, I admire her skill - I am sure it has saved many lives, not only hers - but as a teenager it was absolutely annoying.
Me, I need to be confrontational. You want to fight with me – well, here I am! I have adopted some of her skill, as much as the Raptora suit allowed me to. Sometimes it is smarter to surprise the enemy from a hidden position, but it just cannot be all I ever do. It would drive me insane not to seek and engage in conflict directly.
Today, however, this very specific skill of hers – to melt into the shadows and figure out the most hidden routes – is her cloak. That, and my disabling of various detectors and cameras around the base for just a short while. I may not have the technical skill of the likes of Winston, but I sure can grant my mother secret entrance into the base.
Of course the guilt and nervousness is nagging on me. There is no way this is not my mother I am letting sneak into the base, but of course I do not know whether she is truly operating on her own. I discussed with her that she could really just be let in through a more conventional way as an authorized person, but I found it very persuasive that she just wanted to see me first.
Lying to my comrades does not feel well, though… and in the end, I decided to meet her on the grounds outside to ensure we could meet alone without making me guilty of compromising the security of the whole main complex for personal reasons. As time point 1700 approaches, my head is nervously buzzing. Suddenly, all these doubts creep up inside of me. Is she really going to be there? Is she really going to be alone? What is it going to be like and what am I going to do if she is not there?
What am I going to do if she is?
“Pharah, are you alright? You seem really nervous.” Mercy is watching me curiously.
“I’m fine,” I reply, but it sounds a little more snappily than I intended.
Mercy raises her hands, palms towards me and waves them as if to appease me. “Alright. If you say so.” She most obviously does not believe me.
Well, if she is suspicious anyway… “Look, I will take a break for a couple of minutes, outside. If anyone is missing me, tell them I will be back soon, okay?”
Mercy raises an even more suspicious eyebrow at me. “You know, you are allowed to date,” she teases. “I just want to know all the details afterwards, of course.”
I really, really wished she was less excited about the date she is imagining for me and way more jealous. But to her, a huge part of me is still Ana’s little daughter and despite only being five years apart, she might well consider herself a different generation. In her mind, I’m probably somewhere in a category with Lúcio and Hana while she is up there with Winston and Tracer.
To not seem even more suspicious, I try to pick up her teasing style and reflect it back at her. “I have had my mother sneak around after me and any potential girlfriends since I was twelve. I will not tell you anything.”
Mercy starts giggling. “You just did!” she laughs. “So – Pharah is into the ladies…? Tell me more…!”
I blush profusely. I did not mean to tell her that, but I am nervous and my mind is occupied with potentially seeing my mother again in mere moments – of course I did not pay attention to my exact choice of words. I shake my head, roll my eyes and turn, waving a hand over my back. “Whatever, Angela, whatever.”
She is still giggling. I could slap myself. Not only does she apparently think my sexual interests adorable, I am also treating her exactly like I treated my mother when she made similar comments. This means that I am the one treating her like she is in a different category, far out of my league, because she is. She’s been one of my heroes since I was a child, and she has seen me grow up while I always saw her as one of the adults… until I became a grown-up myself and a fancy teenage crush became a permanent, severe condition. And yet, she is a successful surgeon who is on friendly terms with established ex-Overwatch members, all of which I myself still address with due respect and admiration. In other words, I have every reason to address her with the same respect and viewe her as one of the heroes and no reason to treat her like she is equal to me.
I step outside into the warm air, questioning my attire. Should I have worn my Raptora suit or would that have completely overdone it? I have no idea what I am facing, it is only my good hope and my belief that my mother’s free will has not been compromised into manipulating me that makes me come out here in simple clothes. There is some armor under my shirt and a weapon in my belt, but that sure does not protect me from headshots, ambushes and – god forbid – sleep darts.
My mother has suggested a meeting point – she knows the base as well as I do. I walk down the stairs and onto the grass, overlooking the ocean beyond. My watch says 1700, but I am alone. My heart is pounding as I wait and I am not ready to let any doubt creep in just yet. She is going to be here, I tell myself. She is going to come.
I look down at the beach and count the waves crashing against a rock below. Five, six, seven… she is going to be here… eight, nine…
I feel her before I see her, though I don’t know how. It must be the first time she has not managed to sneak up on me. I turn and she is there, on the grass, several steps away from me. Her scarf is loosely draped over her hair so that only a bit of white shines through. Her right eye is covered, but it does not steal anything from the smile on her face.
I stand there and I stare and I realize that I don’t know what to do. I am full of longing – I want to cry out like a kid and fall around her neck – and yet, I feel so awkward. I should be angry, maybe, or wonder whether we still even know each other.
Mum, however, just pushes the rifle to her back and holds out both her arms. “Come here already,” she says with a smile in her voice. And at that moment, nothing can hold me back – I run over and I fly into her arms like the child I am – her child. Her arms wrap around me and mine around her and I just hold her clutched to myself. It is unbelievable - I have her back. I never thought it was possible!
She caresses my head as she used to do and I sniffle and hide my face against her neck like I used to do. Her scent is unbelievable – something I had been unable to hold on to in my memories, even though I always loved it so much. I feel her kissing my hair and mumbling her apologies – but I don’t need apologies, if her welcome gift is her return to me.
Once I have calmed down, I pull away to kiss her salty cheek. I wanted to ask her so many questions, tell her so many things, but it all seems so insignificant right now. The only thing that matters to me is that she is here with me – in a way I never thought she would.
“You have become such a beautiful young woman,” she says.
“Mum, I have barely changed,” I protest, a little embarrassed. Really now, she might have missed my 30th birthday, but I was a woman a long time before she went… missing. “But you are very gray,” I tease.
“White,” she protests. “And we both saw that change coming.”
I tug on her white bangs and she does not find that funny at all.
“I see you adopted Mercy’s kind of insolence,” she comments.
I grin because while her hair has gone white, her personality has not changed at all.
“Still fond of her?” she asks bluntly and I blush.
Yes, she really has not changed. “I should have been gone longer. Maybe then you’d finally have asked her out,” she grumbles at me. “Now, can an old lady get some tea around here?”
I am grateful for the change of subject. “Of course!” I don’t let go of her, keep myself attached to her arm, as I lead her up the stairs and into the base. She assures me she can walk stairs all on her own – she is not that old – but I just ignore her and she just chuckles at me. In that moment, I wouldn't have let her go for the world.
---
The first thing I see as we walk in is that criminally precious butt – Mercy is grouped around the computer with Jack, Lena and Winston. She apparently did not bother to sit down. She is just leaning over Jack’s shoulder, pointing at the screen, while he is sitting and typing at the keyboard and it flashes her butt just perfectly.
“It could just be a glitch,” she muses.
“Five cameras and two motion detectors shorty after each other?” Jack frowns.
Winston scratches his chin. “There is no indication that anyone tempered with the settings, though.”
My mother does not lose a beat. “Winston, I knew one day my daughter would outsmart your technology!”
The whole group spins around, but Mercy is fastest at grasping what she is seeing. “Ana!!” she yells out joyfully, not even questioning her appearance here. She dashes over and just clasps my poor mom in a hug, effectively throwing me off to the side.
“Careful child!” mom laughs, since Mercy is about to topple her right over.
Tracer blinks herself over. “Is that really you? Risen from the dead, have ye?” She waits until Mercy has disengaged and then throws her arms around mom’s neck. “Don’t you scare us like that again!”
“I take the guilt,” my mother replies. Now Jack and Winston have also made it over and this time it is my mother, who reaches up and initiates a hug with Jack. It lasts for quite a moment until Jack, not letting go of her, tells her: “We all thought she had killed you. It’s so good to see you well.” I could swear that his voice is at the edge of breaking apart. My heart is both warm and heavy.
As mom exchanges greetings and explanations with him and Winston and they are all absorbed in her words. Mercy is the only one who notices me there in the corner, cast out of the picture because now other people have so much to catch up on with Ana Amari. She joins me, disengaging from the group.
“Did you know?” she asks, but it is not an accusation.
“Not until recently,” I reply honestly. “I helped her get here safely. We … just met outside a moment ago since... well....”
“Are you okay?” she continues and puts an arm around my shoulders.
I nod. “Yes. I think I am,” I reply and I accidentally sound really surprised about that. I have my eyes firmly on mom because it still feels so unreal, I think she might disappear if I look away for just a moment. Of course I am somewhat shaken. The rush of excitement is washing away, leaving me strangely weak. Or maybe I am just beginning to grasp that my supposedly dead mother is not only alive, but here to hug and touch and hear.
“Let’s go make her some tea, hm?” Mercy suggests. “She is all safe here and Jack won’t let her run away." She gives me a critical look. "I think you might need to sit down for a moment, too.” She shoves me towards the kitchen and I reluctantly follow her. I can still hear them talking and that means mom is still there and I am okay with that.
I boil some water and Mercy gets the tea bags while she asks me whether I knew what happened. We both sit down while the water is heating up and I explain what I know – which is not much. I know how mom lost her eye instead of getting killed and how she tried to cope with the grief of losing her team mates because she hesitated for just a moment. She knew she would be pulled into battle again if she reappeared. She was also scared that by not being dead officially, she would make the world a more dangerous place for me, for everyone who was left that she cared for, so she decided not to be alive anymore. But why she decided to return now, I cannot say. Why she was too worried to even contact me to relieve me of my grief, I do not understand.
“It does not matter,” I assure Mercy. “She is back. She is alive. That is all that counts, right?”
Mercy pats my arm, and I know I should not feel so damn excited about this in this situation, but I really am. “You say that now, Pharah,” she tells me. “But I think the anger will come. You two need to have a long talk… and if it upsets you too much, you can come to me, okay?”
I don't understand why she would say that. Why would I get angry when I am so happy she is still alive?
---
However, Mercy is right. The anger does come. I honeymoon over mom being back for a while, but then it starts to dawn on me that she did not come back because of me or any other guilt or moral concerns – at least it does not sound like that to me. She came back because she is not able to stay behind and just watch the conflicts of the world unfold without her. Yes, she means to mingle for the greater good – for making a better world – I get that. But she means to go back into the fray with only one eye, over 60 years on her back, and this is why she went out of hiding. I did not call her back, her sense of duty did. Her love for me is not the reason she is here.
I toss and turn in bed, my heart shattered. That she contacted me first was an accident – because I happened to be on duty at just that moment. Would we have met like this if it had been Jack in the control room? Winston? Lúcio, whom she did not even know? I could grieve over her when she was ‘dead’, but now I have to face that my mother hurt me so, knowing that she would. She took the price of my pain even though it was in her hand to relieve it.
When all these thoughts first crush down on me, I am unable to sleep much. I am getting angry and jealous when mom and Mercy discuss the biotic rifle and disagree about the way mom uses it. I get jealous when she and Jack and Reinhardt share old stories and laugh and I can barely follow and certainly not contribute. I get jealous for every moment she is not with me, she is not apologizing to me, she is not assuring me that it hurt her to be separated from me.
I feel so irritated. I don’t want the tea she offers, I work harder and sleep even less. I am starting to feel like I want to show her that I am a member here now and that I don’t need her and never have. With every time she dismisses my behavior and acts like I am being childish, I get even more irritated. I know she is not mine to hog, but nobody can argue that I haven’t gone through a lot losing her and then finding her again. And here she is, making everything more important than me.
Things finally blow up when mom is assigned for a mission – and I am not. Jack flatout tells me: “Not until you have become more reliable.”
“Sorry, but what is that supposed to mean?” I bark.
“Lately, you keep going off on your own and you don’t look behind you.”
“Give me a squad of members in Raptora suits and we will fly for you in a nice formation together!” I snap back. This is ridiculous – I am the only one in that sky – of course my tactical advantage is to get behind or above enemy lines or surprise them from some other angle. Reprimanding me for ‘going off on my own’ is nonsense.
“Pharah –“ Mercy tries to address me with a calm voice. “This terrain is not advantageous for either of us. It makes sense that Ana and Genji take our places.”
She, too? I release an angry groan and get up from the table to walk off. This is ridiculous.
“She will calm down,” mom chuckles. It makes me even more irritated. What does she know - she hasn't been here for years! She hasn't known me for years, yet presumes she knows how I will act.
Once outside, I lean against a wall, looking out at the sea and crossing my arms. Not my terrain. What nonsense. Everything that has air space is my terrain – and there is no terrain in the world that is unsuited for Mercy.
The door to the base slides open and the Swiss queen herself steps out, evidently in order to follow the pissy Fareeha – oh, excuse me – ‘child’ and see whether she can save the day. I choose to ignore her as she stands next to me.
“She is not treating you very kindly,” Mercy says after a while.
“No, she is not,” I concur with a sarcastic laugh.
“You are not treating her very kindly, either.”
I choose not to reply. What kind of treatment am I supposed to give her, anyway? I listen to the crashing of the waves and the call of the seagulls.
“You have to do something, Pharah,” Mercy insists. Now even she is irritating me.
“Why?” I snap.
“Because you are the one losing sleep over this, not she. That does not mean she is not hurting, but it’s obviously much worse for you. You need to talk to her for your own sake. …” She pauses and when I don’t reply she continues: “Jack did not bring you on this mission because you are sleep-deprived, irritable and angry – and therefore unpredictable. That does not work in a team and you know that.” I still do not answer. “He is also kind enough to give you time to sort it out.”
“If there are things to be sorted out between me and her, why does he take mom with him?” I retort.
“Can you blame him? Honestly? They were a good team, she is reliable and even under the duress your relationship puts her through right now, she is extremely concentrated. And he missed her, too, you know? He missed working with her. They are grasping for the good old times and we should let them until they realize and accept that it's not the same anymore.”
She has to be so damn right all the time – it’s not enough for her to be beautiful, hyper-intelligent and successful, no, she has to see right through everyone and present it to you on a silver platter.
“I missed her, too!” I protest, my frown darkening. “How could she do this to me? I thought I would never see her again and out of nowhere--- I mean, fine, she did not want any Overwatch members to know because she worried the news might get out, but I am her daughter!” It all bursts out of me and I am talking myself into a hurt rage. “Really? Not even a note? A sign? A call? Or a stupid carrier pigeon, for all I care? Does she even know how much—“
Mercy gives me a pitiful smile, wraps her arms around me and pulls me against herself. I am shocked for a moment - I had no idea how much I needed that. The words get stuck in my throat and I let out a shuddering breath, just short of a sob. Mercy, though she is smaller than me, caresses my back and holds me tightly, keeping me there, even when I initially try to pull away.
After a moment, I relax and just hold on to her. She waits until I have stopped being all tense before she loosens her grip on me. I linger, suddenly aware how good it feels to have Mercy in my arms. I wish I could bottle up this feeling and keep it forever.
“I have an idea how I can veer a few people away tonight and leave Ana to you,” Mercy tells me conspiratorially. “Use the chance. Have some tea and a talk – I am sure you two can sort it out, even when you are both really stubborn.” Then she lets go and that precious hug is over.
---
“Have you come here to glare at me, child?”
That greeting is so harsh and saying it in Arabic makes it even worse. I just want to turn around, slam the door shut and behave like exactly the child she thinks I am. I promised Mercy I would try to talk to mom, though… and I am so tired of feeling irritated all the time.
“I haven’t.” My Arabic is pretty bad for someone who grew up with the language. I put the tea pot and the two mugs down and sit. She pours the tea for both of us, quietly and I see her tensed lips relax a little. I think she knows what’s coming – she always does.
“Well?” she asks, as if challenging me to a fight. But I don’t want to fight. I used to, when I was younger. I challenged her on everything, complained and spoke my mind in harsher tones than she did. But I am not that kid anymore.
“Mum. I have missed you so much,” I say, keeping to the language she is most familiar with. “I am so happy you are back, but…” I swallow. “You make me feel like… like seeing me again is so unimportant. Like you don’t understand how much it hurt me to lose you and how much I ---“ I fish for the right words while mom is watching me quietly, her smart eyes studying my face as she has done so often before. “—I need your… your---” Well, what? Her attention?
She looks at me sadly. “Are you sure you want my love, Fareeha? After all I have done to you? You sure don’t need me, I can see that.” She does not seem angry, but her words are straight forward. But when I look at her, for once, it is her who looks like she just got caught or scolded. She is the child, I am the adult in a weirdly twisted, reversed world. I have never seen mom look so guilty before. "You shouldn't care so much for someone who has let you down like I did," she concludes.
“Mum… I always need you,” I tell her almost pleadingly. “And I want to understand – why you never contacted me, why you let me think I had lost you forever. I missed you so much, mum,” I rub over my cheek with my sleeve. "It feels so hard to comprehend that you knew you could take this pain away from me and you never did."
She shakes her head slowly, her amber eyes guilt-stricken. “I am sure at the time I thought it was better for everyone. It was the most foolish thing that ever came into my mind, but it was what I thought.” She reaches out and caresses my cheek. “And now I see how much I have hurt you – the one person I always wanted to protect from as much pain and hardship as I could. It was so easy to ignore your pain when I was too far away to witness it. I realize now that I have failed at the most important mission in my life. And yet, you were so willing to forgive me when I returned. I did not deserve that. So when you finally began getting irritated with me… it felt like that was how it should be. Your hate was what I deserved, so I accepted it.”
I lean into her hand – and on top of my own pain, I can now feel her guilt, too. She did not ignore me when she spent more time with other people – she just could not face me because she, of course, was hurting as well. She punished herself by letting me be angry at her without stopping it.
“You don’t deserve to be hated, mum,” I cry. I scoot closer and wrap my arm around her, leaning over. She in turn, hugs me tightly around the shoulders.
“I haven’t made the world a better place for you yet. Instead… you are out on the battlefield now and all this time I was not there to help you, even though I always wanted to protect you. I thought I wanted to turn away from all of that, but I cannot. I know what a difference one skilled soldier can make in combat and I can no longer live with myself not being that soldier.”
I frown. “I understand that. It’s the sentiment which made me choose a path you did not want for me, after all. But… nobody would blame you for retiring, mum. You'd be safer...”
“I would blame myself, do you understand? I have been hiding away for too long.”
“I’ve lost you before,” I remind her. “I just finally want you safe.”
“And I sure want you to be safe – but we have both met our calling and I cannot deter you from that path – and you cannot deter me from mine.”
I reply with a heavy nod – there is no way anyone can argue with that. I'd be such a hypocrite asking her to abstain from combat when I have not done so when she asked it of me. And I do know where she is coming from - if we can help the innocent and the world, we'd be irresponsible not doing so.
“But I can have your back and you can have mine,” she concludes with a little smile. "Now, at least." Then she kisses me on top of the head. “And I will always love you, my Fareeha, and always blame myself for hurting you so much, while you were always my light. I have thought of you often in the past years, and my love for you has carried me through much doubt and difficult moments. I hope that maybe one day, you can forgive you foolish old mother.”
I hold her tightly. “Of course I can.”
---
Mum is mulling over her next move in our shesh besh game. Mercy pokes her head in and gives me a questioning look. I mouth a short ‘thank you’ to her, but she looks at me confusedly. It takes me a moment to realize that I have mouthed that in Arabic and she can’t possibly understand. I try again and she returns a smile and a thumbs up gesture.
“So, what about her?” mom mumbles in Arabic. "Going to ask her out?"
“Stop it…!”
“No really. That’s how many years now? Eighteen?”
I sigh. “Twenty.”
“And there I thought you had no patience, Fareeha.” She single-handedly knocks two of my stones out of the game and hands me the dices.
“She would not think of me that way. She saw me grow up and I have never been anything to her but your daughter…!” I roll the dices and move two of my stones, but it is evident that mom is going to win this round.
“Now that is a sad excuse.” She rolls the dices and then returns to that thoughtful face she has when she thinks about her next move, but is still fully aware of everything around her.
“She really does not think of me that way, okay?” She doesn’t. If she did, she would not have encouraged me for the date she thought I was having, when I was actually sneaking out to meet mom.
“Are you so sure? Have you asked her?”
“What? No!” Mom is seriously heartless at times. “She does not think of me as even a potential partner and who knows who she is actually interested in – I have never seen who she is dating.”
Mom kicks out another one of my stones with hers, picks it up and weighs the little black piece in her hand. “She likes women and men,” she informs me nonchalantly. “And I think you might be the one thinking yourself a child. I don't see it from her side. But that's of course something that can be clarified.”
I stare at her. “No, no! Don’t you dare!” I yelp. “Mom! What- what mother would do that?!”
“Only yours,” she smirks.
“Mom, really, no!” I will die of shame and embarrassment, run away from Overwatch and hide in a cave someplace in Greenland. My mind works frantically on how to get that idea out of mom’s head, but I think I know I have lost already. “Please- please don’t tell her how I feel about her… at least.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I won’t. She can come up with that all on her own.”
---
I am glad that Ana and Pharah are on good terms again. Watching them both get more and more gloomy was quite a pain. Whatever happened during their talk must have worked like magic – within days they have become the best mother-daughter battle team I have ever seen. Okay. So I haven’t seen any other mother-daughter battle team, but I am sure nobody beats them. In any case, it is incredibly nice to see them work so harmonically with each other - and both so very happy.
The only drawback is that I don’t get to fly around the skies as much anymore. Somehow Pharah is always neatly healed up when Ana is around and I concentrate on the people on the ground. Tactically it makes a lot of sense, though, but I really liked soaring through the skies, so I am a little dismayed.
I am just replacing a damaged shoulder on the Valkyrie suit when Ana walks in. “Ah, how fortunate!” I greet her. “Come here and hold this, please.”
She obediently walks over and holds the new shoulder piece in place with one hand while I fix it to the suit. This makes it much easier.
“I am getting so skilled at this. Pharah has me hold pieces all the time.”
I chuckle. “Maybe there would be less replacing if the biotic rifle did not poke so many holes into the Raptora suit,” I muse.
“My rifle does not poke holes into my allies’ suits, ever!” Ana protests. “You should know that – you made it.”
I frown. “Not with those modifications, and you are very aware of that. And it does leave holes, but tiny ones. They only become a problem, if there are too many. Pharah knows that, that's why she keeps replacing parts.”
“So, you want me to leave healing Pharah to you, huh?” Ana laughs. “Can I trust you to do a good job?”
I laugh. “Whenever have I not done a good job?”
Ana ponders this. “Usually when you are not around,” she grins. We both laugh at this as I make sure the shoulder piece is sitting tight and won’t fall off or be uncomfortable.
“Dr. Ziegler, if you are so adamant about healing my daughter, I might get suspicious you just want to check out her firm butt.”
I look at her, amused – only Ana would so blatantly describe her own daughter’s attractiveness to another person. “So, do you? And why-ever would I do that?”
Ana shrugs. “Oh, no reason. Just thought since you are nearly the same age, share the same preferences and I’ve seen you with more than one woman of her type…” She shrugs nonchalantly. “Anyway. Just came to bring you some tea.” She sets a mug on my examination table and silently leaves the room.
I stare after her. Fareeha. And me. Wherever does she get these ideas?
---
Of course Ana’s words do not leave my head as easily as I anticipated. She was always really good at saying very little and having a huge impact – just as good as she was at sneaking around. What makes me think about this so much is that she is right that Pharah and I are nearly the same age. Five years seemed like such a gap when she was only eighteen, but now in our thirties, it really makes no difference.
I guess I never really noticed how that seemingly huge gap shrunk so gradually. I admired Ana when I was younger because – just as she indicated – that dark hair and skin is indeed my type. It was not like I wanted to go out with her, but I did notice she was rather attractive and I enjoyed a little girl crush on her. But the age gap between Ana and me is far larger than the one between Pharah and me, that much is definitely true. These days, I would do much better crushing on Pharah than on Ana.
I turn around in my bed and look at the window and can’t help but think how I am nearly forty, still single, and how dire anyone’s perspective in this post-war era is when it comes to finding a lasting relationship. That is, of course, absolutely no reason to go chasing after your close colleagues and your friends’ children. It is just a thought that comes up in the contemplations.
I shake my head. Why am I engaging this idea? It is ridiculous. Poor Pharah – Ana made her a playball of a jab at me. And she has probably has no idea how much that made me think. I sit up in bed, sure that I cannot sleep right now because I am pondering what Ana really intended with these words. Would she really use her daughter’s (admittedly nice) behind to make a joke on my expense? But what could her point have been otherwise?
I pull my hair into a ponytail and decide to clear my head by getting a glass of water. I’m in shorts and a thin night shirt, but nobody is going to be out and I have had to change into the Valkyrie suit with lots of people around tons of times, anyway. My body is no secret at this base and my night ware is decent enough to be seen.
I switch on a small light and pour myself a glass of orange juice. I lean against the counter as I drink it and nibble on the glass, contemplating the wall opposite of me. A cool breeze makes my legs’ skin curl into goosebumps and I notice that the window to the small balcony is open. I walk over to close it, but just before I do, I notice that the reason it is open is because Genji is crouched on the banister, relaxing under the moonlit sky.
“Oh, sorry!” I whisper. “I did not see you there.” I nearly locked him out.
“Angela,” he replies with an obvious smile in his voice and turns towards me. “I did not think anyone else was awake.”
“Same.”
“I could not sleep,” he explains. “The moon tonight is especially big. It’s a good time to turn your mind inward and contemplate yourself.”
I could use some of that contemplation. I hug my arms around myself because it’s a little too cold for me to be dressed like this.
“What about you, Angela?”
“I don’t know,” I say with a sigh. “I was just stuck on something that Ana said… so I decided to just get something to drink.”
“She has caused quite a stir, but ultimately, she has brought happiness,” Genji muses. I rub my shoulders against the cold and he finally notices that standing here might be less comfortable for me than it is for him. He leads us inside and we sit on the sofa, both looking far from being tired.
“The more I think about it, the more it seems she suggested I should be more interested in Pharah,” I conclude.
“But you already are. You are always concerned about her well-being.”
I put a pillow on my lap to keep myself warm. “I don’t think that is what she meant. But --- well, I don’t know why she would say that. I probably misunderstood her and she was just teasing me. I don't know why it kept me awake.”
Genji crosses his legs as if to meditate and he looks a lot like Zenyatta sitting like that. I sit up, tuck the pillow behind myself and try to imitate his posture. “Well, how do you do this?” I ask. I might as well – a little calm and quiet can only be helpful if I want to go back to sleep.
Genji looks over and gently leads me into an easy meditation.
---
“I am not sick!” I protest.
“Doctors always make the worst patients,” Ana sighs and pushes me back into my bed. “I’ll send Fareeha over with some soup and another box of tissues.”
So maybe meditating in skimpy clothes by the open balcony door was not the smartest of things to do. I also forgot what it is like to have Ana around in situations that require motherly care. Ana will give that motherly care in her usual, rough, no-nonsense way. In short, I will not get out of this bed until I am fever-free and can breathe normally again. Splendid. No work, no preparations, no curing anyone of anything. And as a doctor, I of course know that whatever I do, my cold will not go away for a couple of days.
I sit up and cough and groan with frustration before slumping back down. I hate being sick.
It takes another half an hour before Pharah walks in with a bowl full of chicken soup and that promised box of tissues. I tell her she’d better get outside so she won’t get my cold, but she assures me her mother said just the opposite and that at this time, Ana is way more intimidating than I am, so she prefers to follow her instructions.
While I eat, she updates me on Overwatch things I missed earlier that day and fills me in on whatever else is new out in the world.
“You should really not linger. I am highly contagious!” I protest.
“But this is a perfect excuse… mom and Tracer decided today is ‘scrub-the-base’ day. I don’t mind hiding away forever.”
I laugh, but it turns into a mean cough. I really appreciate having company – I am exhausted, but I am not really able to sleep – every time I lay down I start coughing or my nose clogs up. I must be looking so darn attractive – red-nosed, puffy-eyed and sweaty with fever.
“I guess they can go and have an extra trash bag for peanut butter jars,” I joke between coughs.
“That and tea bags. The consumption of tea has tripled since mom arrived.”
I laugh, cough and point at the screen. “How about a movie or something? I fear I am going to lose my voice if I talk too much today.”
It turns out Pharah and I have a hard time agreeing on a movie. Our tastes are so incredibly mismatched, our movie discussion starts really awkward and gets more and more funny because almost everything I like is something she cannot stand and vice versa. Pharah is looking for action, tension, amusement and light, spectacular entertainment while I am looking for drama, romance and a mysterious or complicated plot. We eventually decide just to watch any movie that has Hana in it because at least that is going to be amusing.
We do have a blast – it’s just too funny to see Hana look herself but no be herself. We also both agree that she is doing a nice job, even though the plot of the movie is silly at best. The movie has a bit of everything in it and so serves both our interests.
When the credits are rolling, I am both feeling a little better and very amused. “How have I never asked her for an autograph?” I muse.
Pharah laughs and asks me what I would do with it because it would really look odd to have an autographed poster of her here at the base. I honestly have no idea, but we launch into a conversation about our idols and heroes and who or what we did have photos and autographs from when we were younger and we are having a good time. I tease Pharah because she had a poster of Reinhardt, but here she was reprimanding me about having a poster of Hana.
Pharah stays until the medication I prescribed for myself to sleep through the night makes me all drowsy. I scold her for teasing me in my drunk-seeming state. She leaves me to get some rest and I wave my goodbyes as she tiptoes out of the room. I’m feeling more at ease than I should be as sick as I am. For once, being really annoyingly sick is not so annoying after all.
Fareeha is pretty nice.
---
Something has changed. I cannot pinpoint what has, but since I stayed with Mercy while she was sick, we are more at ease with each other. I think it is more me than her, actually – she has always been friendly and kind, but now it feels like I don’t have to be worried about teasing her a little. It’s difficult to describe. I used to still look up to her and thought she made a difference between my generation and hers, but now we are meeting a little more at eye-level. Maybe mom was right and it was always me who made that distinction.
I invite her to try out new maneuvers in which her boost could help me and we end up not only developing a new idea on how to sneak up safely behind enemy lines together, but also end up just flying out afterwards, abusing our suit to travel some ways away and enjoy nature.
We come back way later than intended, but we have nowhere to be, so it is fine. Mercy has plucked some flowers and puts them in a vase in the kitchen. We speculate that Mei will be the only one who will even notice them there, but we also both don’t mind.
When I am done downloading data from my suit and changing, I return to the kitchen – and there it is again – that mum-smile. I have barely taken two steps in to where she is making tea, and she sends me that grin that I have so despised as a teenager.
“Had a good time?” She has said that before, too.
I roll my eyes. “We were testing maneuvers.”
“At the beach. I see,” she grins and dips her teabag into the tea repeatedly, coloring it a nice dark amber.
Without another word, she walks off, humming deeply to herself. I realize at this point, finally that she might long since have realized her threat of putting ideas in Mercy’s head. But that is not what has changed anything… or is it?
---
Things do not get any better, even though I am throwing all my blame onto Ana having instilled ideas in my head. Every time I see Fareeha, I can’t stop myself from feeling confused and nervous. I am not complicated – I never have been. If I like someone, I ask them out and see what becomes of it, but this is different because I don’t understand why I like her differently now after knowing her for so many years.
Is it because Ana put ideas into my head or is it because Ana pointed out something that was there all along? Or has something else changed? I can’t place this and it is making me so insecure. I cannot ask Pharah out just to find out whether or not I am just confused because of this or that – that would not be nice and would potentially disrupt the whole work environment.
And in my whole life, I have never been in a situation where I was so worried about rejection. Somehow, I would always just fancied someone enough to ask them out and, if they said yes, develop deeper feelings from there. And if they said no, I would get over this quickly. In more military terms, I never threw my heart in before I had secured the objective.
Now here I am and suddenly all my happiness hinges on Pharah. Whenever have I gotten this dependent? And how does anyone go about this – is there any way to ensure that she will say yes because everything else will shatter my heart to pieces no world class surgeon can mend? Of course there isn’t and I know it. In the worst case scenario my world and hers could fall apart and take the whole dynamic of the team with it. I can't let that happen... I have responsibilities!
This time, Pharah is in the kitchen, stirring around in a pot that I saw Mei set up earlier. “Mei made you her kitchen maid?” I ask, trying to sound less nervous and more amused.
“She said she’d be back in a moment, but I have been here for a while,” Pharah laughs. She shifts her weight from one leg to the other and brushes a strand of hair out of her eyes. I have seen her make that gesture so many times before but now it is beautiful and significant - and that is so ridiculous of me.
“Well... at least it is looking good. And has a nice smell.”
Pharah nods. She opens a drawer and fishes out a spoon. “Let’s see whether we should keep Mei as a cook,” she grins and dips the spoon in to load a little of Mei’s cooking onto it. Because she knows I can’t take so much heat, she blows on it for a few seconds before holding it out for me to try. I let her feed me and inform her that the food is delicious. She takes an uncooled bite herself and agrees.
“Want me to take over for a moment?” I offer. “You could go look for our absentee cook.”
“I am fine stirring, you can go search for her,” she offers, when the soup-like thing gives a little boiling -blubb- and catapults some sauce out of the top and onto Pharah’s cheek.
“Oh! Are you okay?” That had to be quite hot!
She laughs and wipes it off. “Luckily it was just my cheek, not my new shirt,” she replies. "And you know I don't mind the temperature."
“Hold on a second,” I say and grab an apron from the hook on the wall. I decide to be bold, reach around her and put the loop over her head, then, standing behind her, I cross the strings of the apron over her back, reach around her waist and blindly tie it in front. Unable to resist because I am still so confused by everything that’s going on in my head, my hands linger for a moment, elbows on Pharah’s waist.
“Thanks….” she mumbles. Her cheeks are a little red, but it may well be from the hot steam of the pot. I pull back and quickly leave in search for Mei. I cold myself because I had just recently decided that doing anything about this situation might jeopardize the whole team's ability to work together, but then I do silly things with an apron?!
I do find Mei down the hallway, trapped by Ana who is extracting the whole recipe from her, while the poor woman keeps edging further towards the kitchen, knowing she needs to get back. But Ana always has yet another question.
“Mei, I think the food is ready,” I finally cut in.
“Oh my gosh! I am so sorry! I’ll get back immediately!” she hurries off, sending me a grateful look because apparently I have done well saving her from Ana’s odd curiosity about cooking. I, too, return to the kitchen where Pharah is relieved of her duty.
We stand there, awkward for a moment, because that apron situation that I so boldly initiated is lingering in the air. That was a bit much, wasn’t it? I scold myself again for trying to test the waters and not really knowing what I was doing.
“You should…probably take that off…” I say, indicating towards the apron.
Pharah undoes the knot. Mei is busy spicing her soup, and I just stand there and stare stupidly. What am I going to do with this? I have stopped being able to act normally around Pharah like some stupid school child with a crush. This has never happened to me before. Even my little girl crush on Ana way back when hasn’t taken this kind of dimension. I am worried that I am actually destroying the friendship we just built – and just at a time when Pharah finally stopped looking up to me as a hero and accepted herself as an equal member over the recalled Overwatch.
Pharah hangs up the apron and walks towards me making me feel queasy. I realize that I am simply between her and the door and I retreat, getting out of the kitchen first. I stumble because I forget to turn around.
“Mercy?” she addresses me, once we are away from the kitchen noise. “Is everything okay with you?”
Well that had to happen with how uncoordinated and confused I am lately. The gears in my head run a mile a second. I already put our friendship on dangerous ground, I can’t function normally around her anymore and as scared as I am of being heartbroken, I can’t stand this situation anymore, either. Screw not jeopardizing the team - I am already jeopardizing a lot with my uncontrollable behavior.
“Can we talk?” I ask her.
“Sure.” She looks concerned. “Should we go someplace quiet?”
----
I am glad she decided to talk to me. She’s been a bit out of it lately and I think something is up. I hope she is not sick, because if she was, she’d be the best judge of it and as nervous and distracted as she has been all week, it would not be something good.
Mercy asks me to follow her outside, to the grassy little patch where I once reunited with my mother. She sits down on the grass and I sit next to her. If it makes her feel relaxed to sit down, that’s good. For a while we are listening to the crashing of the waves against the rocks again. Mercy does not say anything, but seems far off with her thoughts.
I am not particularly good at this – at finding the right words to make someone feel comfortable or at ease. There are people much better suited for this than I am, but I am the one here now because it looks like Mercy has begun to really trust me. I’d be an idiot for throwing that away.
“Sorry. If you don’t want to talk after all, that is okay. I just thought you were a bit distracted lately and maybe I could help,” I try.
“No, I am sorry,” Mercy says hesitantly. “You are right. I’m a bit new to what is happening to me.”
Happening to her? I cannot imagine what she means by this. Is she having a medical condition or is she – heavens forbid – pregnant or something? That would for one thing be heart-crushing for me, but if such a thing is unintended, it must be terrifying for her. I keep my own feelings on the down low and get ready to listen.
“Can I help?”
Mercy laughs a short, little, half-sarcastic laugh. “If anyone can, you can.”
Oh, good. …I guess? I nod earnestly and wait for her to gather her thoughts. Patience is not my strong suit at all, but if it’s for Mercy, I can certainly take my time and bear it. The wind blows some of her blond hair into her face and she brushes it aside. I see that her hand is shivering as she does so. I don’t know how to make clear to her that she really can tell me anything. I won’t judge her – I would never. And I feel for her. She is upset for whatever reason.
“Pharah… I think- I just realized that until now, I have never truly been in love. You know – not just finding someone attractive or having a crush and turning it into a relationship… but that mind-numbing… nervous…uncontrollable… feeling. I thought I had loved before, but maybe I was wrong.”
My heart stings. I’ve barely seen her in relationships in the past twenty years, but I knew they were there. She was never making it too obvious, but when you watch someone, you can tell. She likes to keep her love life separate from her work and does not cross the two, but she also does not hide her feelings. Her behavior changes when she is in a relationship - and every time such an arrangement ended, I could tell as well. However… because of her separation of work and love life, I could always keep my fantasies aloft and keep admiring her. I did not have to be nearly as jealous as I would have been if she had been flaunting her partners in front of our noses. But… now she is speaking of being deeply in love and she is truly acting in a way that I have never seen on her before and I fear that she is right. She has lost her heart to someone.
But she needs to be happy, not I. I have always tried to make it that way and it looks like today, I am going to have my hardest test on that subject.
“I guess… being in love is… different for everyone, I think,” I say hesitantly. “But if this scares you, I know for a fact that while the feelings stay the same, they get more controllable over time.” I am the master of the art, after all. "I know you've been nervous and out of it lately - it won't stay that way, whatever happens."
Mercy frowns. “No… no, I don’t want advice…” she says with a strain to her voice.
“Oh, sorry.” I did not mean to cross any boundaries there. She falls into silence again, picking at the grass by her side, collecting her thoughts. I wonder what she does want from me, if not advice.
“I don’t quite understand yet,” I try when she still does not speak, “but if you are concerned about who it is or so – that’s nobody’s business. And anyone who would reject you, if you asked them out would be a fool to do so.”
She runs her hand through her hair again. “You would not say that if it was you,” she says quietly.
“Me?” I ask. I think about this. “I suppose. If you were to tell me anyone who does not go out with me is a fool, I would not believe you, either.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she replies, her hand quivering where it is holding on to the grass.
It takes me a beat or two before I can even begin to puzzle together what she is saying. “You mean-“ I say hesitantly, “-if you said you loved me?” This is now making me really nervous because while she is being hypothetical, she has no idea how much I would want this.
She nods.
I push myself to reply. “I would not turn you down.” I am a terrible liar - what other choice do I have than to be honest?
Mercy’s look turns from struggling to complete confusion. “Why not…?” she blurts out as if I had offended her.
I realize that I have either been baited into a corner, or boxed myself there. It’s like her little question is a pistol aimed at my chest. I scold myself internally. This was supposed to be about Mercy - not me. And my feelings will just place another burden on her – will turn her situation into some sort of love-triangle that is even harder to handle.
But it is too late, isn’t it? I could try to lie to her after all. Say that she is attractive and I would definitely give a relationship with her a shot. Maybe that is exactly what she needs to hear. But lying at her is neither right, nor am I usually very convincing. And Mercy is really good at seeing through people on top of that.
“Because…” I take a deep breath. “I have loved you for twenty years. Why would I ever turn you down?” My chest feels tight. There, I said it. Twenty years of fantasizing, longing and pining, and in the end it’s just ‘I hypothetically wouldn’t reject you because I have already loved you for twenty years.’ It is sad and pathetic and utterly unspectacular for the heartbreak it will cause me. I kindly welcome myself to the world of the heartbroken.
Yet, Mercy's reaction is not anything I could possibly have expected. She stares at me, digesting my words, and after a moment, her beautiful face turns from shock into a surprised little smile. It is so beautiful, I would be content dieing right here with that image in mind.
"Are you serious?" Mercy asks me, her voice almost choked.
My heart is pounding so much, I am not sure I can speak. I try anyway. "Yes," I manage with a bit of a struggle.
Before I know it, I have been tackled onto the grass, with Mercy on top of me. There is a fine layer of tears in her blue eyes – all her tension seems to unleash itself in an even brighter smile, though, regardless of the wetness in her eyes.
Some part of me registers what the only conclusion can be in this moment, but I am so full of shock and wonder, I just want to confirm and reconfirm what I am seeing. I can’t grasp it – but there is technically no room for doubt.
Finally, my heart catches up with my brain. “You mean that love… is for me?” I ask stupidly.
“Yes!” She exclaims and pecks me on the lips. She is still crying with happiness – but I can’t. I am too overwhelmed, too happy, having my arms around Mercy and being pinned onto the grass by her insanely beautiful body. Part of me insists I must be dreaming, but another part is very aware of the reality around me, from the cool grass to the salty breeze.
I caress her face, her hair and kiss her salty cheek, still trying to grasp that this is true. My beautiful, wonderful Mercy want this as much as I do? I have made her this nervous and scatter-brained lately? Me? She pecks my lips again, a little longer, a little softer than before. I am just about to completely throw myself into that kiss when she pulls back.
“Wait… twenty years?” she asks, wiping her cheek. “You were twelve!”
I give a guilty shrug. “That would be correct.”
Mercy stares at me incredulously. “Are you serious?”
I nod. “Yeah. I guess... I was so confused about how I felt about way back then, mom had to explain it to me.”
She scrambles up, allowing me to sit again and stares into my face. “Ana knew that?” I see her eyebrows curl into a frown as she processes this information.
---
Ana knew. She instilled that idea in my head for a reason. She knew her daughter wanted me and now I struggle with my feelings again. Has Ana manipulated me for Pharah’s sake? But even if so, does it really matter – does it make my feelings less genuine or strong?
“Mercy, is everything alright?”
“Yeah… just… Ana said some things and I can’t help but feel… weirdly manipulated.” I have always been honest with the person I am with because I find that any good relationship depends on it. Now I am not sure this is the right way to go about it. But I also don't have the mind right now to evade what is occupying my thoughts so strongly all of a sudden. Ana has mingled with my head. Not for a joke, not for me, but for Pharah.
Pharah sighs. “She threatened she would do that if I didn’t ask you out.” She bites her lower lip. “So… does that mean you don’t actually--“
There is a thud and the grass next to shoots up in the air like the soup from Mei’s pot did earlier. A sleep dart sticks there in the earth, neatly placed. The angle and position indicates that it was shot from a high angle, passed under my elbow and over Pharah’s belly to end up where it is now.
If Ana had wanted to hit either one of us, she would have.
“Speak of the devil herself,” I realize, scrambling away from Pharah since I am still partially on top of her.
She sits up, grass in her hair. “No joke. Goodness, does she really have to spy on everything?”
She is coming down the stairs, shouldering her rifle to join us on our patch of grass, grabbing her sleep dart and sitting next to Pharah. I stare at her still trying to process what Ana knew and how she acted. She manipulated me. I went through all the emotions myself, of course, but she has sown a seed there and I don’t know what to make of it or why it bothers me so much.
“You have to excuse Dr. Ziegler,” Ana says to Pharah, “sometimes, she is a little on the blind side of her own feelings and needs a nudge in the right direction.”
“Wait? What?” I protest.
“You have to admit that my daughter is a far better woman to have a crush on than I was.”
My eyes widen and I blush. “You knew that, too…?!”
“Of course.”
Pharah’s eye sweep from her mother to me. “Knew what exactly? What’s going on here?” she says with a suspiciously raised eyebrow.
“You are not the only one who has girl crushes, Pharah,” Ana explains, and I want to just get up and jump off that cliff. I had no idea she was aware of my admiration for her. She looks at me directly now. “Luckily, she got over that - we really were no match for each other," she says, chuckling. "But apparently it has screwed you up for life, given that you have since only ever gone out with dark-skinned, dark-eyed and dark-haired people."
"How would you even know?!" I protest.
"Someone had to keep an eye on you, after all, lest someone might turn out to be a bad apple.”
I gape. “This is unbelievable!” I exclaim. “You were sneaking after me!”
“Welcome to my world,” Pharah comments with an air of sarcasm.
“And you!” Ana turns to Pharah with a reprimanding tone. “Twenty years you watch this woman and when she finally starts focusing on you and always being the first to be there for you, it takes me raising from the dead to get things rolling! I thought you had your eye on her! It was annoying enough that she did not notice it herself.” She lightly whacks the back of Pharah’s head. “But you, as my daughter, should have figured her out!”
Pharah looks at me incredulously. “Are we just getting reprimanded for not asking each other out?”
“I think so,” I confirm to her.
“You know, mum, you always get entangled in my love life somehow. You called the mother of the boy with whom I had my first kiss…“
“That was because you punched him for it,” Ana defends herself.
“And you stuck unspeakable things into my bag when I was staying over at my first girlfriend’s house!”
Damn, do I even want to know? Ana just shrugs with not even a hint of guilt.
“Now you mess with Mercy to get her to confess to me - and you know what?”
Ana looks at her with a curiously raised eyebrow over her one functioning eye, expecting whatever Pharah is going to throw at her next.
“I don’t even care.” She grabs me and kisses me right on the lips - with a decisive harshness in full view of her mother. I giggle and kiss her back. Next to us, I can feel Ana get up, leaning on her rifle to push herself into a standing position.
“You are welcome, children,” she says and happily walks off.
---
I always cherish the first time I crawl into a bed with someone I have just started something with. I can be very pushy about getting that moment and it took me a while to learn that my pushiness could be misinterpreted as being hot and horny, when all I want is that moment in each other's arms. This night, I manage to invite Pharah to my bed and we lay there, facing each other and cuddling in our pajamas, just as I like it.
I kiss her chin and let the eventful day run through my memories. I am trying to wrap my mind around how a twelve-year-old Pharah was already crushing on my seventeen-year-old self. We could only just have met. And meanwhile, I was adoring Ana in nearly the same way, only that that crush wore off over time. Hers apparently never did.
“Twenty years…?” I whisper. “You have felt like I have the past week for twenty years?!”
Pharah chuckles. “Not quite. I told you it’s different for everyone. It was a crush for the longest time. But when I started working closer with you, things changed. I have felt like this for long time, but I told you that it gets easier to control after a while.”
“Great. I have tortured you for twenty years.”
She kisses my forehead. “In the best way.” She caresses my hair and contemplates me. Her face becomes more serious before she asks me: “Mercy… if I had asked you out a year ago or earlier… you’d have said no, right?”
I want to tease her and remind her that technically, I have asked her out, but this is obviously important to her. I bite my lower lip. “Probably. I don’t know what would have happened then… whether it would have caused me to think about it as well. Or whether you’d have moved on by the time I would have caught up with the possibility.”
She nods and kisses my forehead again. “So it all worked out just fine,” she concludes.
“Those years of waiting may have been the only way,” I agree, still feeling guilty for being blind, for not considering how perfect she could be for me and for causing her twenty years of longing. For letting my brain get in the way of my heart until someone tore down those barriers. How could I, in all these years, never come up with that idea myself?
“What… does that feel like… I mean, so many years of hoping, so when it finally happens…?” I ask her. I should maybe be more queasy about someone secretly watching me for such a long time. It should be creepy, but it is Pharah we are talking about.
“Totally unbelievable…” She grins. “I still haven’t quite grasped it, honestly… I’ll let you know when I do.”
I curl up against her and wrap my arm around her waist, pulling her close. She feels soft and warm and smells like summer rain. Her arm keeps me warm around the shoulders, her chin rests against my head. I don’t want to be anywhere else right now.
---
“Mum, what’s this?”
“Brochures.”
“I can tell they are brochures…” I hand some of them to Mercy.
“Adoption. Artificial insemination,” she reads. “Hm… egg-to-egg fusion, fascinating!”
I throw a raised eyebrow-look at my mother. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, I can’t make a better world for my grandchildren, if I don’t have any!”
THE END