Fareeha woke to a faint pricking on her arm, her mind sluggish and unable to really parse what was going on. Slowly, oh so slowly, the events came back to her. The mission in Rome. The engagement with surprisingly organized anti-Omnic terrorists. Her failure. Her not spotting the very obvious anti-aircraft gun that had been trained on her. Her rocket launcher positively disintegrating in her very hands after being hit by a 20mm round. The searing pain.

She opened her eyes to be greeted by the dimmed lights and muted off-white ceiling of the watchpoint's med bay. Her other senses returned to her, one by one. The leaden weight of her tongue, resting uncomfortably in her parched mouth. The faint whirring and beeping of medical equipment surrounding her.

The pricking on her arm became more insistent, like an itch that sneaks up on you while you're unable to scratch it. Harmless in the beginning, but turning more and more annoying the longer it persists. Starting to border on painful. She looked down to her right hand and saw – nothing. She furrowed her eyebrows and tried to understand, and it took her longer than she'd like to admit to recognize the bandages on the stump that used to be her wrist.

Her first though was to quietly wonder about the truly amazing amount of painkillers she had to be on. How that explained her sluggishness. The implications of that stump didn't register with her, for now. It was too much for her addled brain.

„You're awake." someone said from her left side, and sent her thoughts for a spin. That voice was painfully familiar, even though she hadn't heard it in almost a decade.

„Ami?" she asked as she slowly turned her head.

There she sat, Ana Amari, holding her hand while looking at her with concern in her eyes. Eye. Her face had changed so much, even aside from the eye-patch that begged for attention. Wrinkles were congregating around her eyes (eye, again) and mouth. Her hair had turned a snowy white. Her voice sounded just a tad more hoarse and aged. And yet, it was her. Her mother. There wasn't even a hint of doubt about that, painkiller-induced haze be damned. Fareeha closed her hand around Ana's with as fierce a grip as she could muster in this state.

„I've missed you, mother." she rasped, only belatedly realizing how naturally she had slipped back into arabic.

„I've missed you too, sweetheart." Ana replied, not even bothering to conceal the raw emotion in her voice. „I'm sorry, Fareeha. I'm so sorry I didn't come back sooner."

Fareeha recognized the pleading in her mother's tone, the unspoken request for forgiveness for years of abandonment. For absolutely no communication after the one, brief letter. After the funeral. Something ugly reared its head within her, a decade's worth of anger, contempt, of whys and what ifs; but she fought it down. She was in no state to have this conversation right now, neither mentally nor physically, so she contended herself with enjoying the feeling of rough, calloused hands around her own. Hands she had given up all hope on feeling again.

Their moment was interrupted when the doors to the med bay flew open, and a veritable force of nature stormed in.

"You! How dare you?! Did you think I wouldn't notice you coming back, sneaking in?"

Angela stood there, eyes blazing with a righteous fury.

Ana's posture slumped, and she briefly closed her eyes (her eye, just one) and took a deep breath.

"I understand your anger, Angela, and we will talk about everything that happened. But please, let me have this moment with my daughter."

Every trace of indignation left Angela's face when she looked at Fareeha, saw her eyes open, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"You're awake?" she mumbled before rushing to the bed, laying a tender hand on Fareeha's cheek and gazing into her eyes with worry and concern.

"How are you feeling? Are you in any pain?"

"No pain, habibti." Fareeha replied, trying to smile. "I feel weird. Everything is...weird." She trailed off, embarrassed that her usual eloquence eluded her.

"Just the pain meds, Spätzli." Angela replied with a tender smile that bordered on tremulous. "I'll be right back."

She disappeared behind the privacy screen and returned not a minute later with a glass of water. She helped Fareeha into a slightly more upright position so she could drink, and then eased her back down again.

"Sleep some more, Liebling, you'll feel better in the morning. I'll be there for you."

Fareeha nodded and closed her eyes, giving Ana's hand a brief squeeze before letting go. I'll be alright, ami.

"She needs to rest, Ana. And you and I need to have a talk." Angela said, all the warmth in her voice gone. It hadn't been a request.

Fareeha only heard her mother's sigh and the rustle of clothes as she got up before was out again.

Angela strode through the abandoned hallways of the watchpoint, her low heels aggressively clicking against the floor with her rapid pace. She didn't care if she woke anyone up. All that mattered right now were answers. Answers she would get tonight, right now. The days when she would defer to Ana out of respect, or because of her rank, were long gone. Any respect she'd had for the woman had evaporated when she had realized how deeply she had been betrayed.

She strode through the doors of Torbjörn's workshop, not bothering to hold them open for Ana, and walked to the lone workbench that was still illuminated. She heard Ana close the doors behind her just as she reached her destination, the embodiment of the promise Overwatch had broken. The only promise she had demanded of them when she'd joined.

She stood there, her back to Ana, and looked at the rifle. Taking in every worn detail. Just the sight of it made her anger and hurt flare up again, but she didn't talk. Not yet. She was content to let Ana stew for a few more moments.

"I think we should wait until the morning." Ana said, quietly. "When our tempers have settled."

Angela whipped around, the weapon in hand, and glared daggers at the woman.

"No, we won't wait. This is a talk that is long overdue, and you won't worm your way out of it."

She noticed with grim satisfaction how Ana seemed to wilt, how she knew she had wronged the doctor.

"Do you remember what you promised me when you came to the hospital in Zürich, to take me away to 'the greatest opportunity of my life'? What both you and Jack reassured me of, over and over again?"

Ana remained silent, but Angela would have none of it.

"Do you?!" she shouted, and her angry voice echoed in the empty room.

There was a moment of silence while Ana regarded the doctor with a shocked expression. Never, in all the years during the original Overwatch, had she seen the blonde this livid, this aggressive. She hung her head and took a deep breath.

"That you would have absolute authority and the last word regarding the direction of your research, and the implementation and use of any and all technology you created before and during your time with Overwatch."

It was an almost verbatim quote of the contract Angela had signed.

"Then explain this!" she hissed, and threw the rifle at Ana with so much force the older woman staggered back a step.

"It was just a prototype, Angela." she said, slight desperation in her voice. "A proof of concept that your healing Biotics could be applied at great range."

Angela let loose a sardonic laugh, and Ana recoiled at how much bitterness there was in it.

"'Healing Biotics', yes?" she ground out before grabbing the bandoleer behind her and also throwing it at Ana. She almost dropped the rifle trying to catch it.

"Healing Biotics, that is what you call it?" she shouted, eyes fixed on the darts filled with purple liquid.

"Tell me, how many people have you healed with those? How many lives have you saved with this, this...this perversion?!"

"Angela, please, you need to understand..." Ana started, but the doctor cut her off.

"No, I don't need to understand. I can't understand." she yelled, her fury turning her face into an ugly grimace.

"It was the one thing I was worried about, the one thing I had been told would never, ever happen. Turning my tech into a weapon. Taking my life's work and twisting it, perverting it, into this!"

She slumped from her rigid posture, leaning heavily against the workbench and bringing her hand up to tiredly rub her nose between the eyes. A coping mechanism Ana had seen her do many times over the years.

"I couldn't believe it at first." Angela said, much quieter, and all her anger had seemingly evaporated. It had only left the hurt behind. "I didn't want to believe it. When I got the first reports about people dying to some unknown chemical agent. How all the symptoms sounded so eerily familiar. I tried to justify it. 'There has to be some other explanation', I thought. Only there wasn't."

She finally looked up, and the betrayal Ana could see in her eyes was like a kick to the gut. A part of her wanted nothing more than to go back in time, to stop herself from going through with it. Another part, however, a bigger part, became defensive.

"So you just ignore all the good I have done with this?" she said. "All the hundreds of lives I have indeed saved, by ending a select few?"

Angela's head snapped up, eyes ablaze once again, but a shout never came. Instead, Angela fixed her with a withering glare, measuring her up.

"That is all you have to say for yourself, Ana? That is your explanation? The end justifies the means?" She shook her head and righted herself, steely resolve evident.

"Very well. Keep your fucking rifle, then, if it means so much to you. But don't you ever dare to ask anything of me again. Ever! For all intents and purposes you are dead to me. Again. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and mourn a woman I once knew, one with integrity and compassion, who could tell right from wrong."

She walked past a stunned Ana towards the exit, but paused briefly before opening the door.

"One more thing. If you ever abandon Fareeha again, hurt her this much again..."

She looked like she wanted to finish the sentence, but thought better of it and left it hanging in the air. The slam of the door echoed through the workshop and left Ana alone, trying to comprehend what had just happened. She hadn't imagined her return to Overwatch looking like this.

so, this is kinda my headcanon for how ana's return to overwatch would go down. yikes. i think that, despite being the caring and gentle doctor we all know and love, angela can be an absolute force of nature when she perceives an injustice to herself or her loved ones.
tell me what you think about this, whether you agree or disagree, or how your version of ana's return would look like

cheers :)