"No, Ana!"

The denial is fierce and tempered like hot glass. The woman being addressed sighs—long and heavy.

"Angela." There is not a word for the kind of weariness she feels. Anything more would be death by sheer exhaustion. Crushed by the weight of the lives she couldn't protect, strung across her shoulders like fairy lights, little lives, twinkling in the Egyptian sky like stars. "Please, leave me be."

Her words—laced with a coldness that comes from fatigue and a warmth that she couldn't shake from her tone if she tried. She is a mother. First, always, last. Mothers find warmth even on the worst nights. Even on nights like tonight.

"You are a traitor!" the other woman shouts. Ana keeps her steady pace as Angela storms after her. The former allows herself a small smile, despite everything. Angela was always that way—a whirlwind in her own right, capacious and overwhelming—desperately altruistic and demurely poised. She is an angel in every sense of the word.

She has to be, Ana muses, adjusting her rifle as she walks. A temper like that could only come from some wrathful, higher power.

"I am a solider, Angela," Ana replies calmly. She is a mother. A rock in the storm. An anchor to all who need it. She will not sink—not even under the weight she has tethered herself with. She will keep everyone afloat. Even if it kills her. "I will do my duty."

But Angela does not know this—Angela does not understand. A woman with a heart bursting to help others, who casts her own well-being aside so carelessly. She balances out Ana's sharp maternity with gentle mothering. Ana is discipline where Angela is healing. Two sides of the same coin.

"Leave me be, Angela," Ana repeats. The wind tugs at her scarf, and she can hear Angela still pursuing her. Another smile. When will this child learn you cannot unnerve a sniper? When will she learn a mother's self-control runs bone-deep, and couldn't be shaken if you stripped her limb from limb?

"Great," Gabe had announced upon their first meeting—loudly and uncaring, such a cold boy, but who could fault him?—"I ask for a sharpshooter and they send me a grandmother."

Ana had smiled—oh, how much she had to teach this boy. To give him. Love and warmth and protection and respect and kindness. But first, she would teach him the senselessness of trying to rattle that which cannot be rattled. Her feathers too old and worn to be ruffled.

"Apologies, alqayid," she'd replied smoothly. His dark eyes had darted back to hers, distrusting of the foreign word. "If you can outshoot this grandmother, I will happily take my leave."

Angela and Jack had been there too—what a trio they made. Angela with her mouth open ready to scold the Commander for his rudeness, Jack already rolling his eyes heaven-ward, as if asking for assistance from some god—but both froze at Ana's remark.

Gabe had just grunted noncommittally, and Ana smiled pleasantly.

"Excellent. Why don't I make us some tea?"

"Ana, stop!"

The sniper is forcibly ripped from her memory as Angela finally seizes the older woman by the arm, digging her heels in and tugging her back. Ana calmly moves along, spinning lightly to face the doctor.

They stare at each other—Angela's chest heaves from her sprint, Ana's silent breathing clouds before her.

"You cannot do this." Everything is so intense where Angela is concerned. There is no gray area—no calm in the storm. Ana frowns slightly. It is a shame for such a brilliant girl to live her life chained to black-and-white. Some things are not good or bad, some things are not certain or uncertain. Some things simply are. It is a concept that bewilders and terrifies the young doctor, and it pains Ana to watch, for she is learning this lesson in the most agonizing way possible.

"Commander Reyes gave the order, Angela, I cannot—"

"Er kann in die Hölle gehen!"

Ana pauses. Blinks. Assess the girl calmly. The words claw their way out of her throat and hang there—ugly and untrue. She chokes on a sob. Ana longs to wipe her tears away, but her hands are full with weaponry.

"You do not mean that, Angela," Ana whispers. Those two have been inseparable since they stumbled into each other's lives. They are so stubbornly bound to each other, Ana wonders if even death could keep them apart.

But Reyes is a leader. A livewire. He makes the calls no one else will make, and he never goes back on them.

It is the kind of black-and-white starkness that drew Angela to him in the first place, but in this instance, has driven them dangerously far apart.

Ana thinks of Jack—her honest, righteous, hopelessly optimistic soldier—and sighs. What a mess he is in, playing mediator for two of the most explosive personalities in Overwatch. What a mess they are all in. What a messy, messy life.

Angela gulps down another sob. Ana smiles kindly at her.

"It is time for me to go, Angela," she tells the younger woman. "We will talk when I return."

She turns to leave—she is strong and steady, but there is no reason to needlessly torture herself by staring into the doctor's hateful blue eyes—when Angela's voice hisses behind her like some great cobra:

"You promised. You promised to protect us—all of us."

Ana freezes. Her world wobbles precariously. A tremor runs through her foundation.

"Amélie is not one of us, Angela," she murmurs back. Her tone hard. The solider and mother warring inside her.

Angela is merciless in her reply.

"Naturally. Whatever helps you sleep at night."

Her words are cold—even colder than her declaration of where Reyes could spend an eternity rotting. It makes sense, Ana muses. She will forgive Reyes. She will not forgive Ana.

The sniper heaves a sigh. It is one of the golden rules of parenting—you are not intended to be your child's friend.

Angela may never forgive her, but Angela will never lose Ana's protection.

She continues walking. She is done speaking. Truthfully, she should have never started, but denying those three—that tiring, troublesome trio that Ana would kill and die for—has never been easy.

Angela does not follow her. The world is quiet again. Ana allows herself a small sigh of relief.

"When will I no longer be considered one of us, Ana?"

Ana nearly drops her rifle.

"When will it be by turn to die? When will you see me at the end of your scope?"

Oh, Mercy could be cruel. The others—those outside of Reyes and Morrison—never quite understood just how ugly the beautiful doctor could become.

"Amélie is my best friend, Ana."

Ana steels herself, squares her shoulders, lifts her chin.

She thinks of Reyes and Jack. Of Lena. Of foolhardy McCree and rock-steady Reinhardt. Of Fareeha.

She thinks of the promises she has made.

"Mama," Fareeha had asked her one day. "Why are you so sad?"

Ana had given her daughter a watery smile. "Because I had to break a promise today."

Fareeha cocked her head, the beads in her hair glinting in the Egyptian sun. "But why?"

"Because sometimes we must break one promise to keep another," Ana explains. "Not because we want to, but because we must."

"Amélie is dead, Angela," Ana replies. "I was ordered to kill Widowmaker, and that is what I will do."

But of course, she cannot. The mother in her wins—overpowers the solider. She sees cold ivory skin and a flash of ocher eyes and her heart breaks. She sees a beautiful woman with a bright future. She sees a promise she couldn't keep.

The bullet shatters her scope, and she sees nothing.

It is Angela who treats her—Angela who rushes to the scene after Widowmaker has made her escape and Ana's pride lies tattered and worn—Angela who whispers apology after apology, words tangled in English and German and Arabic all drenched with sadness and regret and Ana please I didn't mean it I didn't mean any of it Ana 'ahabak I love you bitte ich liebe dich—

Ana says nothing. She lies there, old and useless and so so tired.

Reyes comes to see her much after. He notes her eye patch with an arched eyebrow.

"Trying to look cooler, Amari? Fit in with the younger kids?" he jokes. His voice isn't warm or humored. His hands clutch the bars around her infirmary bed with a white-knuckle grip.

"I am sorry, Commander," Ana whispers. "I thought I could—"

"I should never have sent you," he mutters back. His words are rotten with regret. "It's too soon, it's only been a few—"

Ana closes her eye. "Do not blame yourself, Gabriel, I—"

"We'll get her, Ana, I promise." The voice of a Commander rumbles out of his chest. Ana would swell with pride if her breathing were not regulated by a machine.

All a mother wants is for her children's lives to be better than her own.

Ana sits, and watches—with her one good eye—as her children dissolve into chaos and violence and broken promises.

hi my name is Duchess please take my laptop away from me

I wrote this in thirty fuckin minutes. I don't even know what it says but it's there. I'm on vacation working with shitty wi-fi but had to write something so here you go. I'm sure I'll be back later with an extensive rant.

Thank you all for reading. You're all beautiful people. Shoot me an ask if you wanna chat. I'm gonna go sleep for roughly seventy years. Wake me up when there's an Overwatch movie.

Ana is older than Reyes and Angela and Jack okay she was sent to Overwatch to babysit those nerds this is my headcanon I've already argued about ages and timelines enough today okay please let me live