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After Gérard’s death, Lena manages to stay bubbly and positive for almost a full month. No one needs her being sad and mopey about the Lacroix tragedy; it’s already devastating enough. She takes to reading quietly in the lounge on Fridays, for a lack of anyone to spend her weekends with.
“What are you doing here?” a cadet asks one day, all innocent congeniality, “Isn’t Friday date night with your girlfriend?” He means well, she tells herself. He means well.
She loses all the time between hearing the comment and weeping in Reinhardt’s arms, blood covered hands clutching tight the fabric of his shirt.
-----
After that, she doesn’t leave her room for a week, and when she does it’s only because Jack mandates a meeting with one of the in-house therapists. She doesn’t bother to shower or change, just trudges through the halls to the frustratingly minimalist office to spend most of an hour silent while some lady who thinks a degree makes her better talks endlessly about grief.
She does this four times over two weeks before the woman whose name she never bothered to remember gives up and passes her off to someone else.
-----
Honestly, Lena would probably be dead if it weren’t for whoever has been leaving food outside her door twice a day. She doesn’t always eat it, doesn’t have much of an appetite, but it’s good to have something handy when she wakes from hunger pains, willing to do whatever it takes to shut her stupid body up. At first she thinks it’s Ana, used to being a maternal force for her daughter. Lovely Captain Amari extending her motherly love to her suffering teammate.
It’s only three weeks into her seclusion that she finally catches the mystery benefactor in the act. The view through the peephole in her door shows a cowboy hat and sad eyes and she can’t help the way she falls against the door to weep.
-----
It takes three therapists and several unbearably long months before she finds someone who actually helps.
The fourth is named Caren, an older woman with greying hair and a kind face. She responds to Lena’s silence with her own, calm and patient until Lena squirms under the weight of things unsaid. Their first session is spent staring at each other, not a word spoken past the ten minute mark.
The third session is when Lena can’t handle it anymore, cries horrible and ugly about the people she’s lost, about the look in Amélie’s eyes as she fled the scene, like she didn’t even care, didn’t even recognize Lena. Caren holds her with permission, not allowing her to feel guilty about the soaked sleeve of Caren’s shirt when she leaves.
It gets easier after that. She finds ways to describe her feelings, and the frequent lack thereof. She cries less, manages to change her clothes at least once a week. The first time she showers it feels like a breakthrough, and Caren makes her allow herself the pride that wells up. It feels like a new start.
-----
Only after a month does she leave her room for anything but seeing Caren. When she settles down in the nearly empty lounge in the small hours of the night with the book she hasn’t touched since the incident, Jesse perches next to her with a book of his own. They read quietly for who knows how long before Lena shifts to lean against Jesse’s side. As the sun peeks through the window, she pretends she doesn’t see the way it shines in his watery eyes.
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When she’s cleared for active duty, they keep her on simple transports for almost a full two months. Flying has always calmed her, navigating the open, endless sky soothing. Well. Almost always. There was anxiety after her incident, of course. Being lost in the flow of time for months tends to be a bit traumatic. But she’d gotten over that long ago, and planes have returned to being her second home. The hum of the engine, the sweet song of power under her control.
When she was young, her house never felt like home. Her mother distant, her father reserved and cruel with his words; it was only when she first got behind the column of an ultralight that she felt truly safe. The sky was her first love, the first one who loved her back.
She prefers not to think of love anymore.
-----
Missions are stressful, enthralling, restless, fun. The look on her enemies’ faces the first time they see her blink and recall is enough laugh high and pleased, sometimes giddy enough it unsettles her teammates. The weight of her pulse guns seems heavier after the weight she’d lost not eating, but after a few months she’s back and better than ever. Even Morrison comments on her improvement, a small proud smile aimed just at her. She is proud. She is happy .
-----
A year goes by, speeding like a Lockheed YF-12. Training, missions, transports, experimental flights; her Commanders keep her busy. It’s a normal thing now to spend a few hours every Saturday reading with Jesse, sometimes playing video games. Her book collection grows, filling the shelves in her room with fantastical worlds for her to visit whenever she likes. She starts spending time with the scientist that saved her, Winston, who is funny and brilliant and overall a great complement to Lena’s bubbly persona. They become fast friends, and every Sunday they have lunch together so they can both talk excitedly about their latest experiments. Friday nights are game nights with the whole crew, and while Lena’s thumbs are fast, she can never remember the combos and only wins half her matches. But there’s food and alcohol and good company, and that’s more than enough.
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Amélie
The name clears out every rational thought in her mind, repeating over and over in an endless mantra of pain. Her head hurts. She might throw up.
Amélie is a different person. She’s a cold as ice sniper with sickly purple skin, but she’s still Lena’s everything. When she freezes, she sees Amélie lining up a shot on her, staring down her sights like she doesn’t even know who Lena is, like they were never--
Ana’s shot hits Amélie’s rifle, metal shards spraying outwards as Amélie curses. Ana’s voice comes over the comm, asking if Lena’s okay. No, no, no she’s not, she’s not, because Amélie is here, Amélie is alive , Amélie is--
She finds out later that she lost consciousness, Ana’s sleep dart firmly in her arm.
-----
When Ana comes to her door, plates of Victoria sponge cake and zalabia in hand, Lena is wracked with guilt. They had enough to deal with on that mission without having to put her down and protect her. It seems all she does is make other people’s lives harder.
“Sweetheart,” Ana says, fond and understanding, “It will be okay.”
It doesn’t feel like it.
-----
She can feel herself withdrawing after that, goes back to Caren to tell her what happened. She still reads with Jesse and eats with Winston, but game nights are too loud and crowded and much . On missions, her performance suffers. She’s no worse than she was before everything, but any improvement she made when she got back in the field is out the window. Her pulse guns feel heavy in her hands, and she knows it’s not from muscle loss.
-----
Overwatch falls. She’s there to see it.
There are endless meetings, debriefings, court proceedings. She attends every one.
Then, suddenly it’s all over. She has nothing left.
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It’s only by the grace of the Iris that she finds the teachings of Mondatta, the omnic monk making huge strides in human-omnic relations. His words are comforting, helping her stay afloat when she wants to drown. She starts meditating; it’s hard, but she gets the hang of it eventually. Her mind is calm now, not so much a raging storm as the steady movement of the ocean tides.
When she hears the news that he’s visiting England, her world lights up. She has to see him. Maybe she’ll even meet him and be able to tell him how he’s helped her, quite literally saved her life in a time when she didn’t want it anymore.
The speech is a grand affair, even in this place so unaccepting of his message. Mondatta glistens gold and chrome under the lights as he emerges in front of the crowd. There is a glint, but not from his polished form. Sniper, her mind supplies. She sneaks away, intent on figuring out where the attacker is hiding. If Mondatta dies, the movement may well die with him. She can’t let that happen.
It takes everything she has to stay calm when she finds her, hanging upside down like a spider, a beast of prey. She quips some witty one-liner, fires on the shell of her old lover, warns Mondatta’s security team of the danger. This is not Amélie anymore, Lena knows. This is Widowmaker; a creature born of suffering, hell-bent on bringing that pain to others.
Everything comes crashing down around her when Mondatta’s form crumples.
Widowmaker retreats, smug and self-satisfied with her victory as Lena tries not to cry.
She has nothing left.
-----
She’s the first one back to Watchpoint Gibraltar when Winston calls, excited to see her old friend again. He’s the same as ever, still brilliant and kind. They set about cleaning the place up, trying to make it liveable after years of disuse. It’s a hefty job, but as others begin showing up it the work gets easier.
Jesse’s the second to arrive, followed closely by Angela, Reinhardt, Brigitte, and Torbjörn. They help Angela unload the cases of medical supplies from Brigitte’s van and listen while she bemoans the state of the infirmary. Torbjörn sets back up in his old workshop, immediately setting to work on turrets to defend the perimeter.
Everyone wanders in steadily over the next few months, both old faces and new. Mei, Genji (dragging along his mentor Zenyatta and brother Hanzo, who Lena spends a week glaring at before Genji convinces her to give him a chance), Hana Song, Lúcio Correia dos Santos, even little Fareeha, all grown up into a strong, proud young woman. Ana comes almost two months after Fareeha, bringing a palpable tension with her. It culminates in a screaming match that leaves both her and Fareeha crying. After that, the tension dissipates, and everything slowly goes back to normal.
The base is up and running by time Soldier: 76 gets there, and they pretend not to know he’s Jack Morrison until he’s ready to tell them. He’s older, greyer, more skeptic, but he’s still their Strike Commander at heart. His visor stays firmly in place most of the time, concealing scars and his milky white eyes.
Everything is good, great even. They get a few missions a month, with enough pay to sustain them. The UN hasn’t come after them yet either, which is either a blessing or an omen. Then Winston calls a meeting to introduce new team member, and Lena makes it two steps into the door before turning and walking out. Standing at the head of the table are Reaper and Widowmaker, defecting back to the right side.
-----
She spends an inordinate amount of time and effort avoiding Widowmaker; taking alternate routes, leaving rooms when Widowmaker enters, requesting not to be put on missions with her. They gain a member from Vishkar named Satya Vaswani, who sneers at Lúcio when they first meet, but sits next to him on the couch by the end of the month. Last is Aleksandra Zaryanova, the legendary Russian weightlifter-turned-soldier. She and Mei hit it off immediately, and their quickly budding relationship makes Lena’s stomach churn as she thinks of Amélie.
It’s only three months after joining that Lena comes home from a mission to find Widowmaker in her room, sitting on her bed. She looks anxious and out of place, a kid sitting on the playground waiting for someone to ask them to skip rope. Lena is tired, dirty, irritated, and she turns to leave, fully intending to crash in Winston’s room for the night.
“Please,” Widowmaker, says, voice small, “Lena.” Her fingertips press so hard into the doorframe that it hurts, but she turns to face Widowmaker anyway. Deep breaths , she reminds herself, Calm your mind.
“I--” for a moment Widowmaker looks lost on what to say, but regains herself, “--I know who you are.” Lena can’t, she can’t handle this right now. She can’t handle this ever . She needs to leave, leave now, to run, escape the suddenly too-small room, filled with feelings she doesn’t want.
Amélie’s hand on her shoulder surprises them both, wide eyes meeting. Her skin is cold to the touch and it chills Lena to her core, despite already knowing what was done to her. But she doesn’t pull away.
“I know who you are,” Amélie repeats, “I know what you are. To me.” a quick clearing of her throat, “What you were to me. What we were. Together.” Lena’s breath stutters in her lungs, catches in her throat. The tears rise unbidden, welling up and spilling over in a way that would be humiliating if she could feel anything but love and heartbreak.
“That was the first thing they took from me,” Amélie continues, cupping Lena’s face and using a thumb to wipe away some of the tears, “Love. For Gérard, for you.” her eyes are glistening now, breath hiccuping as she moves close, so close, “They never succeeded.” As much as Lena knows this could be a trick, that something similar probably happened to Gérard, she can’t help the sob of relief that tears out of her.
They kiss, hard and desperate crashes of lips that slowly morph into something soft and sweet. Something they had once, long ago.
Lena doesn’t let her stay the night, just in case.
-----
They retire when Lena’s knees give out from arthritis, too soon for her liking. Amélie’s skin is a paler purple than it used to be, almost blue now, creased with wrinkles and laugh lines. The city was nice, the hustle and bustle of people surrounding the watchpoint, but they’re far too old for all that now. Amélie has long spoken about her home in France, the trees that blossom in spring like new beginnings.
Their place is small, just a one floor cottage made cozy by mementos and love. They make a home together to match the ones they made in each other, warm and serene. In the winter they close the windows on the patio and watch the snow fall. Springs are spent underneath the tree that blooms white and covers them in pure petals. Summers aggravate Lena’s arthritis, even though she’s in a wheelchair most of the time now. They still go to their neighbors’ picnics and set off fireworks in their backyard on Bastille day anyway. Fall is cold winds and warm scarves, crunchy leaves that Lena gets out of her chair just to step on.
It’s a peace they’ve never had before.
Lena has everything.