EGYPT'S FINEST (ap)

Literally. 

Cathrine O’Connell did not want to have to deal with one of the overwatch legends tied to a chair today. Which is partly why she’s smoking. Sweet jesus why are men so blind stupid. “Irish hospitality, best in the world.” She mutters, stalling for time as she thinks of a way out. “Whats say we call this a cultural misunderstanding and call it a night?”

“Hm.”

It’s contemplative, the way she utters it and builds pressure from palate to just behind her nose, and feels the residual rumble beneath layers of muscle and skin. Again she stares at the glistening dew and listens to unknown songbirds and feels the air pre-warmed as she takes it in. There’s a damp feel to it. Humid. Satya glances at Ana to observe the colors of blue and grey and doesn’t pretend to know what she thinks. How could she, from a woman who lives as a revived specter chasing down the ones who deserve to be. In herself Satya has her own thoughts, riddled with doubts that aches in the spaces between her joints like medical side effects. But never once would she compare herself to Ana; Ana, who knows both sides of life and death and chooses, somehow, for some reason, to dabble in both.

Does she still look at her headstone when she visits the people who actually died?

“Perhaps, then…”

She reaches across herself this time to drag a hand – right – across the dew-stained grass and feel cool beneath her fingertips.

“…You would like to continue this?”

For once she does not proclaim certainty. Ana is enigmatic despite her image. A face once-plastered upon walls of a woman in glory becomes intentionally obscure among death’s pews. Now she’s become an indescribable image, trying all once presumed true, and makes those err more to the sides of non-surety.

Those like Satya, who destine themselves to discover the undiscovered.

“It is quite magnificent.”

She thinks Oasis would be more beautiful. Instead she settles for this – a close second-best, knowing it will never be the same again.

Waves roll and crash against a distant shore and Satya sees foam against white-colored sand. It must have the feel of sifted flour with how it seems to settle so seamlessly. One day, then, she might ask if they could go down there. Or maybe by herself, during the evening, where the sky paints her in pink and orange and makes her look like gold.

A Midas touch to make him envious, she thinks, in a moment of self-righteous glory.

There’s another pause.

“I was…expecting you, actually.”

It hopefully requires no further explanation.

A place of peace has its purpose. Under duress, there is no time to take in the world’s landscapes. The Shrike is too busy to admire the world at large, fearing for her life, and pursuing the lives of other ghosts, all too often beyond the detection of adequate radar.

Here, she is at peace, relaxed and content in good company. it is so rare to simply exist without fear of being hunted, without fear of being found. 

The sun shines down on both women, and brings out the glint in her amber coloured eye - a certain air of youth still lives on, despite wrinkles and white hair, and the years of stress buried in her posture, weighing down on her shoulders.

“I would...” The premise of a promise are laid out; were she a younger woman, she would not guarantee her permanence; as a ghost, she decides. Other obligations are so few. “I think I’ve been in need of a... break.” To put it lightly, a break serves as a place of rest and solitude, to clear the thoughts that haunt her, the thoughts that never leave. 

Through the corner of her eye, Ana studies Satya. A proud profile is framed by long, dark hair. She is sharp but she is supple with plump lips and smooth cheeks. A woman in her prime, she is beautiful. 

 “Ah,” Ever the observer, it has been rather obvious that this is a place of meditation, of peace - one Ana has come to frequent. “Then, I don’t mind your company if it’s just us. Three’s company. Might be a little crowded.”

ah, amélie. 

amélie, amélie, amélie – the name of a different woman, a dead woman, a woman buried beside her husband in what remains of that dreadful commune of lovagny. widowmaker has seen photographs of her, yes, once or twice – she was pretty, with long brown hair, bright blue eyes – always smiling. ballet instructor, wasn’t she?

stupid, she was stupid. wedding photos come to mind, only twenty-one years old. a honeymoon in arles. their home in switzerland, always empty.

( you know that’s not me, ana. you know that’s not me. )

“ do not — “ she raises one finger in warning, advances closer, “ – do not call me that.”

she’ll repeat it one more time, this time, her voice a little bit lower. a little bit softer. perhaps…. more vulnerable.

“ do not call me that. “

her fingers are so close now, ahh – ! and she wants to touch her. dig her nails into her throat, end the life she is so ungrateful to have. the urge lingers for a moment, to do something more – to do so violently, to tear her apart, piece by piece —

“ i knew the consequences of your injury, ana. to ‘ruin everything’, as you like to put it, was not a simple coincidence. and for that, chérie, mm……. je suis désolée.”

Such a name feels cut and quartered on her tongue. Out with the old, in with the new. Whatever she has become - and it is fearsome creature - it isn’t the woman Ana once knew, once liked. 

The Captain was once a woman of her pride, born and bred for greatness in the military, pushed to succession by that of her mother. Here she stands, half-blind and old - she wonders what dear old mama would think of her now, standing here with the very individual who buried her six feet deep.

“Then what, exactly, should I call you? A call sign is so... so impersonal.”

Her own voice drops in volume, a low, raspy tone from years of cigarettes burned and alcohol consumed. Tension in the space between them is palpable yet so volatile, it may explode at the gentlest of touches.  

“Death would have been easier,” She says, dares to even whisper it over the breeze, the distance sound of cars down the street. She flicks the ashes of the lit cigarette between her fingers, and offers it back - a peace offering, at best. 

“Are you sorry? I find that hard to believe, habibti.” 

It was a stab in the heart – Reinhardt had always seemed so old to her, Torbjorn as well but Ana. Ana was… dead gone while still in her prime and somehow in that absence she’d become shrunken and old. No, no that wasn’t quite right. She’d become human. A harder fall than mere age for someone who’d been a paragon.

“Winston said he was trying to hack Athena, the information he wanted specifically was the location of all former Overwatch agents.” Ire in blue eyes at that. Though Angela was herself a public figure, there’d been no reason for the scientist and tethered AI to keep tabs on every former agent. It was dangerous and it frankly no one’s business. Let them rebuild their lives in peace. Hadn’t the investigations and pariah the world made of them been enough? “They didn’t get it, but… we have to assume they wanted it for a reason.”

It had to be connected. Reaper was part of a larger entity. His moved dictated by Talon – at least as Ana implied for the present time. The connection of Overwatch agents, the attack on Volskaya Industries, the rumors in Los Angeles. It was like they were looking at a puzzle with only half the pieces.

“No he hasn’t.” A strange thought in itself. She would be easily picked off. A stray shot in a warzone. A collapsed building in a natural disaster. But no, there’d been nothing. “And knowing now he’s alive… I don’t know why he didn’t.”

Unless he didn’t remember what had happened during the Zurich explosion? Unless he knew she couldn’t help him? Unless Talon had a doctor on staff that was studying him? Unless, unless… more questions and little to no answers for them.

Angela sighed, an idle wonder if it was worth asking Jesse for one of his stinky cigars. Doubtful, she’d be better off walking into Gibraltar and for something rolled and sold alongside the newspapers. Perhaps the walk alone would clear her mind and unknot stress before she got there.

“Are you done Captain Amari? Convinced I’m not some mad scientist yet?”            

  “Of course - it would be his easiest method of tracking us down.”

This information doesn’t feel new - it only fills in the missing gaps that she and Jack (oh, Jack - she dare not mention his name here) had yet to procure. A part of her had wished they could track him so easily as he tracked them. Wherever they went, he found them first (and often, left his painful mark with Death’s chill against their skin). 

Ana sighs; her voice is raspier, quieter than it once was as Overwatch’s established and decorated second-in-command. A military woman from a long line of Amari servicemen and women had pushed herself to the top at her mother’s behest. That life was not to be for Fareeha, though even here, she knows that stubborn streak has persisted anyway.

Like mother, like daughter.

Her stubborn streak has kept Ana alive in her seven years of absence, having a few close calls in due time. Her career now is no less dangerous than it was before, if not more so.

A wrinkled hand rubs her face; she’s exhausted. Travel has never been easy for her, despite the number of flights and drop ins to missions she has done. In her age, she cannot fight what her body cannot handle any longer. Her anger is a quick flair - it isn’t entirely Angela’s fault. 

It’s all of them.

“I’m done, Dr. Ziegler. I want answers where I cannot find them. At least, you’ve clarified your part in this.”