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“Do you…well…I mean…I could give you a massage?”
That’s how it had started out. And to Angela’s credit, she’d been able to at least get Fareeha’s shirt and bra off. The soldier sat in front of her, breathing deep and even, waiting for her to start.
Angela wanted to. She desperately felt like she needed to. But even after she’d dimmed the lights, oiled her hands, the only thing that passed between them was a tense, anticipatory silence broken only by the artificial sound of ocean waves playing from the speaker.
Fareeha shifted in front of her, muscles in her back rippling. She said nothing. Angela did not move.
She couldn’t.
There was a tender looking scar right in the center of Fareeha’s back. The flesh was tender, raw, and it’d remain that way for a few days yet. Angela stared at it, her eyes unable to move anywhere else. That scar was all that remained of the wound that had killed Fareeha twelve hours earlier.
A firefight with a Talon sect--thankfully unmanned by any of its far more competent superiors, not a Doomfist or Reaper to be found--turned deadly. An objective that needed capturing. Bodies weakened from fighting.
A tactic used more than Angela was ever comfortable with, relying on the perfecting resuscitation technology that Angela had injected in all of them pre-mission, as was procedure.
I figure if we all throw ourselves at the point an’ let Angie bring us back all fit and everything, it’ll take’em by surprise! Lena, eyes sparkling, fearless, suggesting mass death. Everyone else nodding along with it. All of them trusting her, depending on her.
And herself, hiding in a corner as instructed, watching the bodies pile up in her mind’s eye, heartbeats failing one by one on the scanners. Fareeha had been the last to fall, a pulse shot ripping through the armor of her Raptora suit straight through her heart. Angela had soared through the air toward her the moment she hit the ground.
Heroes never die! How often had she roared that phrase until her voice was hoarse? However often it had worked.
She was not humbled by their faith in her. She was no honored by how highly they thought of her technology, her skill. How keen they were to forget that Gabriel had been twisted by the very same, unperfected technology; the same emotional, traumatized woman behind it.
It could happen again, to any one of them. They were not right to trust her. She was not right to hold their lives in her hands.
“Angela,” Fareeha whispered. Angela noticed then that she had put her hands, flat, against Fareeha’s shoulder blades. Her fingers framed the damning scar. “Let me turn around.”
“No.” The word tumbled out of her mouth with the wet accompaniment of a sob. Angela rested her forehead against Fareeha’s back, pressed her lips against the scar. She sobbed, bitterly, felt each one shake her whole body. “No, no, no.”
Fareeha’s muscles were tense beneath her. “Please. Please let me turn around.”
“No.” Her breathing grew sharper, quicker. Fareeha, dead. Laid out on her back in that split second before Resurrection, eyes hidden beneath the helmet but her mouth open, gaping, blood rolling down the corners of her lips.
Lena, eviscerated in the corner. Zarya, face mashed beyond recognition. Morrison, drowning in it. The wet, meaty thuds of bodies hitting the door of the closet, trapping her in there, blood pooling through the crack in the floor, hitting her feet, soaking her pajamas. She was hiding, hands over her mouth to hold back her screams because if she didn’t the robots would find her, find her and gut her, kill her, find her in the dark--
She hadn’t wanted to go back to that dark place on the battlefield, and had instructed the Valkyrie suit to flood her own system with dopamine and adrenaline to keep her mind focused on the present, and hardwired for action.
The crash, then, was inevitable. She hadn’t wanted it to happen in front of Fareeha, had never wanted it to happen in front of anyone else ever. Rationally, she knew she was in the medibay. She knew she had her hands on Fareeha Amari. She knew that she was safe.
Angela’s body and imagination, on the other hand, did not receive the memo. She was seven years old again and losing her parents as she hid from the Omnics like a coward. Didn’t have the decency to go out and fight for them, help them. You were a child--no excuse. I should have helped. They would be alive if it wasn’t for me.
She was only aware of Fareeha’s arms around her, their bodies slowly rocking back and forth, fifteen minutes later. Her face and Fareeha’s chest were covered in a mix of tears, snot, spittle, and mascara; the humiliating mess still trickled off of her face to land against the paper covering of the examination table.
“I can’t,” Angela managed to whisper as Fareeha held her. “I cannot do this again. I can’t do that again. No more. No more, no more, no more.”
“Okay,” Fareeha breathed, and clutched her closer.
“I can-cannot watch you die. Not again. I cannot. I will not.” Her mind was exhausted, her body close to follow. “Modifications to the suit...”
“Shhh, shhh, Angie. Shh.” Fareeha’s strong palm stroked against the back of her head. “Let’s get cleaned up first. We’ll rest. Then you can talk me through your ideas, okay?”
“Okay.” Her voice was dull. Angela felt dull, empty and numb. “I’m sorry. I was supposed to give you a massage.”
“We’ll have a raincheck on that, then,” Fareeha decided. “I’ll collect on it later.”