Chapter Text
When Lena couldn’t sleep, she sat on the roof. Technically, it was against protocol for agents to access the roof outside of operating hours, but if anyone knew that she spent at least a few nights a week up there, they didn’t say anything.
Lena didn’t sleep well. Not anymore, anyway. She used to - when she was a baby, her mother bragged to all of the other parents with newborns and infants about how easy it was to put baby Lena to bed. “Just goes out like a light soon as she hits the crib,” she’d say, and the other mothers would gasp in envious awe. But 20 years and one time-and-space bending accident later, Lena found sleep harder and harder to achieve. Once she finally fell asleep, the likelihood of that sleep being restful and lasting more than a couple hours was nearly non-existent.
So, more often than not, Lena found herself on the roof of the dormitory at Watchpoint: Gibraltar in the middle of the night, staring up at the stars and remembering what it felt like to fly. She especially loved nights with a breeze. Feeling the wind flutter through her hair, she’d stretch out her arms and let it pass over her, leaning into and away from it, allowing it to push and pull her. The chronal accelerator would sit on the ground beside her and she’d tremble slightly at the weightlessness she felt without it strapped to her chest.
Despite having only had the accelerator for a month, Lena could hardly remember what life had been like without it. She remembered, all too vividly, what life had been like when she’d floated through time and space without it - without anything to tether her to the reality from which she’d been torn. The first week after Winston gave it to her, she wore it every hour of every day. She slept in it, worked in it, and it wasn’t until she’d gone eight days without a shower that Captain Amari was able to sit her down and convince her to take it off and bathe. In the communal showers of the base’s gym, both Captain Amari and Winston sat outside the curtain, Winston holding the accelerator gently in his lap while Lena washed. Occasionally, she’d stick her hand out, and Winston would take it and guide it to the accelerator, so that she could feel it, know that it was definitely, for sure, still there. And so, it turned out, was she.
Communal showers and inescapable waves of panic left Lena with few moments to be alone and enjoy it. The nights she spent on the roof, despite being a result of insomnia and recurring nightmares, were some of the only times she could find solace in solitude. As such, Lena nearly fell off of the roof in surprise when she heard the roof access door creak open behind her one night. Scrambling to stand, she grabbed the accelerator and prepared to blink - until she saw Amélie Lacroix’s face, illuminated softly from the moonlight. “ Désolée , Lena,” Amélie said, “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Lena let out the breath she held with a laugh. “Bloody Christ, you almost sent me off the edge.” She smiled, but Amélie did not return it. “What are you doing up here, Amélie?” Amélie folded her arms over her chest as she walked toward Lena, and said nothing. They both settled, silently, on the edge of the roof, a foot or so of space between them. Lena sat the accelerator back down and tucked it under her leg. “Can’t sleep?” she asked again. Amélie stared down at the ground below them. The silence stretched onward. Lena turned away from Amélie and stared back up at the stars.
Amélie had arrived at the base four days prior. Gérard, Reyes, and the rest of the Blackwatch team had been deployed to an unknown location somewhere in the Netherlands less than an hour after she’d landed. They’d spent that time together in Gérard’s bunk, and after he left, she’d returned there for the rest of the evening. Lena had only gotten a glimpse of her as she was introduced to the team before Gérard whisked her away to his room. Amélie had not been present when the rest of the team saluted the cloaked dropship as it left Gibraltar.
Gérard had spoken of Amélie from time to time, with generic spousal compliments, like how she was an amazing cook, and had an incredible ass, and put up with his “idiotic antics” and still loved him anyway. It occurred to Lena, in that moment, that she knew nothing about Amélie except that Gérard was absolutely crazy for her.
“I used to know the names of every constellation in the sky,” Lena said, breaking the silence. “Even the ones I couldn’t see. I knew where they all were, too. I could tell you exactly where and when in the world you should be if you wanted to see Ursa Minor or Cassiopeia or Perseus.” Looking up into the sky above Gibraltar, she surveyed the stars. She squinted, pursed her lips. “Rubbish at it now, though.”
Amélie’s eyes stayed fixed on the ground, nearly one hundred feet below their dangling legs. She was so still, Lena almost forgot that she was there as she got lost in the expanse of space above their heads. “It’s crazy, how far away they are, but how close to us they look,” Lena continued. “Like you could get up there and touch them if you just hopped in a plane or something.” She chuckled. “Space is weird like that, isn’t it? Should have a disclaimer: ‘Objects in sky are further away than they appear.’” Movement beside her made Lena turn her head. When she glanced at Amélie, the movement stopped. It had been something quick - the jerk of her head or the twitch of a hand or... a hitch of her shoulders. It was gone as soon as it arrived.
“What’s wrong, love?” Lena asked. Amélie remained still. Lena took a chance and slid along the edge, closer to Amélie. She tried a soft smile. “I know it’s hard, sitting here and waiting for him to come back.” Amélie’s head jerked up and turned to Lena. Her eyes were wide and bright, blazing with fire and shimmering with tears. Her mouth twitched, but didn’t open. Then she stood and walked silently back into the compound. Lena waited a few minutes after hearing the door shut before getting up and heading inside herself.
Lena slept horribly that night. She passed into and out of a series of short naps plagued by nightmares of falling helplessly from the sky, staring down the barrel of a Talon rifle, and, worst of them all, paralyzed within the endless expanse of a black void.
It was always after that last particular nightmare that Lena decided sleep was over for the night. On bad nights, it was the first dream she had, and she would spend the rest of her time idly searching the internet or playing games on the little handheld console she brought with her. On good nights, it was the fourth or fifth dream, which meant that she could get in at least a few hours before sitting up until her alarms went off. On great nights, that dream never came at all.
She hadn’t had a great night yet, but she knew she would one day.
When Lena stepped onto the roof the next night, Amélie was already there, sitting on the edge where they’d been the night before. She’d wrapped a dark shawl around her shoulders and with her dark hair spilling over her head and down her back, the moon turned her into a dark silhouette against its bright backdrop. Lena approached carefully, as though she was coming up behind a feral animal, and took a seat beside her.
“Didn’t think I’d see you up here again,” Lena said. “Thought for sure I’d offended you last night.” Amélie might have laughed - or scoffed.
“It will take more than that to offend me,” Amélie replied. “But yes, I was... annoyed.” Lena smiled. It wasn’t the first time in her life someone had called her an annoyance, and Lena was sure it wouldn’t be the last.
“Sorry,” Lena said, managing to convey a modicum of humility. “Didn’t mean to stick my nose where it ain’t welcome.” Amélie hummed - in agreement? Disagreement? Ambivalence? Lena had no idea. So she continued, “You came back, though, so you can’t be too mad.”
“Maybe I was hoping you wouldn’t come back?” Amélie said. Lena turned and saw the corners of Amélie’s lip curve upward. She responded with a mocked gasp.
“Savage!” she cried, her voice a harsh whisper. She was certain that nobody could hear them, but she felt the need to be cautious nonetheless. “Bad luck for you, though,” she said, “I’m out here almost every night.”
“I noticed.”
“You noticed?” Amélie finally turned toward Lena and gave her the full frontal view of her wicked smirk.
“You are not as sneaky as you think you are, Tracer .” Hearing her callsign in Amélie’s voice, low and quiet and laced with playful malice, sent a shiver up Lena’s spine. She felt, undeniably, a hot spark of arousal - but also an underlying chill of something akin to fear. As if she knew, in that moment, that Amélie could have her flat on her back, staring straight into the face of her own death, and Lena would have begged her for more.
“Maybe I wasn’t trying to be sneaky,” Lena retorted, lifting her chin. “Maybe this was exactly what I was trying to do.” Amélie’s eyebrow piqued. “Lure you out of hiding and up here, with me.” Lena’s voice trembled, just slightly.
“And why would you do that?” Amélie asked, voice smooth as silk. Again, the image of Amélie leaning over her prone body flashed in Lena’s mind. In its midst, Lena found within herself the audacity to wink.
“You’ll have to stick around to find out.”
They sat for a short while in silence - comfortable, solid silence, interrupted only by the swish of the breeze. After almost a half hour, Amélie stood and walked back toward the door.
“Same time, same place, love?” Lena called as Amélie continued to walk. There was no reply before she heard the sound of the door clicking shut.
“Why don’t you know the stars anymore?” Amélie asked. The question broke the fifteen minutes of silence they had been sitting in, sharing the edge of the roof and the breeze and the night sky for the third night in a row. It startled Lena almost as strongly as the first time Amélie had walked onto the roof.
“Come again, love?”
“The stars. You said you used to know all of their names, but now you don’t.” Lena looked up at the stars in question.
“I can remember some of them,” she said. “But it was just one of those things I did as a kid, you know?” She concentrated on the string of stars above them. Connect one, this one here to that one over there, and maybe...
“You lost interest?” Amélie asked. Lena shook her head.
“Not really,” she said. “I just got caught up with other things.” She glanced down at her accelerator. “And my memory’s not quite what it used to be.” Amélie made a noise, a low hum in her throat. She didn’t follow up with another question. Lena took the silence as an invitation.
“The accident did some funny things to my head,” she continued. “Took out spots of memory, and gave me some that I didn’t have before. I guess all that bouncing around timelines got a couple wires crossed.” She chuckled, but her throat was tight. “There’s whole years of my life I don’t remember anymore. And sometimes it’s hard for my brain to make new ones, so I can walk into a room, have a conversation, walk away, then walk back in and have the same conversation again, like it never happened the first time.” She smiled down at the ground. “For all I know, I’ve had this conversation with you a hundred times before.”
“No,” Amélie responded. “You have not.” Then, Lena felt Amélie’s hand on her arm. When she turned, Amélie had leaned closer to her, her face inches away from Lena’s, and their eyes locked. “I promise,” Amélie said, keeping her eyes on Lena’s, “this has never happened before.”
Like a dam had been broken, hot, wet tears spilled onto Lena’s cheeks. She took a breath and it caught in her throat, tightening as she clenched her jaw to hold back a sob. Amélie pulled Lena to her, and Lena felt Amélie’s arms firm around her as she let loose a hiccuping cry, burying her face into Amélie’s shoulder. She wept into Amélie until her eyes were bone dry and her lungs began to ache. When she could breathe again, Lena sat up and wiped her face with the sleeve of her shirt. “Sorry, love,” she said. “I don’t know what came over me.” Amélie said nothing, but took off her shawl and folded it neatly in her lap. The sleeve of her nightshirt, where Lena’s face had been on the shawl, was visibly damp.
“No need to apologise,” Amélie replied. Then, she leaned over and pressed her lips briefly to Lena’s cheek. “ Bonne nuit, chérie ,” she whispered, before standing and heading back to the door. It clicked shut before Lena could catch her bearings and say anything back.
When Lena went to bed that night, she slept for four hours without any dreams. When she woke up, at five o’clock and an hour before her alarm, she stayed awake, afraid that going back to sleep would bring the dreams back. It was the best night of sleep she’d had in months.
With Gérard gone, the team was taking turns on overnight security detail. It was the simplest job any of them could have, as Athena did a majority of the work. “Zero imminent threats detected,” Athena would announce every eight minutes. Lena’s role was to acknowledge Athena’s report and stay alert for any change in activity.
She was four hours into the nine hour shift when Athena announced, “Zero imminent threats detected, Tracer. But there is someone outside the office door for you.” Lena, who had been sitting with her feet on the security console, quickly scrambled to sit in an upright and respectable position.
“Ah, let them in, Athena,” she said, pushing a hand through her hair to put it back into place. She anticipated the heavy footsteps of Commander Morrison, or the quick short steps of Captain Amari. Instead, she didn’t hear any footsteps at all before a voice was over her shoulder.
“ Bonsoir. ” Lena whirled around in the chair and burst into a laugh.
“Amélie!” she cried. “What the bloody hell are you doing in here? I didn’t think they’d let you come in while I was on duty.” She thought for a moment, then continued,
“Actually, I didn’t think you were allowed to come in here at all.” Amélie quirked her brow and shrugged, taking a seat beside Lena in the console’s second chair.
“Technically, no,” Athena said from the speakers mounted in the ceiling, “Mrs. Lacroix does not have clearance to enter the security office.” Both Lena’s and Amélie’s eyebrows rose as they glanced at one another. “However, I’ve noticed a correlation between the amount of time you spend with Mrs. Lacroix and your vital signs, Tracer.” Lena felt her cheeks begin to burn red hot. “An increase in the former has yielded a decrease in blood pressure and fatigue, and a significant increase in not only dopamine and endorphins but also phero--”
“Well, Athena, that’s just great!” Lena shouted, leaning forward to glare into the camera she knew was embedded in the security console, which Athena used for facial recognition and visual processing. “Thank you very much!” Glancing at Amélie, Lena noticed that tight-lipped smirk. “What’s brought you over here, love?”
“You, of course,” Amélie replied. Even if she’d closed her eyes, Lena could have heard the smirk in her voice. “I knew we would not have our usual rendez-vous on the roof tonight, and when I asked Athena, she was very keen to help me find you.” It was Amélie’s turn to look into the camera and she sent Athena a wink that Lena swore she was watching in slow motion. It sent her heart into overdrive and she prayed that Athena wouldn’t say anything about it outloud.
“Be careful, Athena,” Lena said, “If Winston finds out, he’ll have half a mind to deprogram you.”
“If I show him my aforementioned statistical analysis, I think he will reconsider.” Sometimes, Lena was unsure if snarky comments had been written directly into Athena’s coding or if she'd picked it up from surveying human communication over the years.
“Sodding computers,” Lena mumbled. She looked back at Amélie and smiled. “I’m real glad to see you, love,” she said, “but I think Morrison would deactivate my accelerator if he knew I was distracted during my security detail.” The smirk still hadn’t left Amélie’s face and, for a moment, seemed to deepen.
“Well, I would hate to be a distraction,” Amélie said. With Lena’s eyes on her, she rose from her seat and walked to Lena, placing both hands on the chair’s armrests and leaning forward. “I just wanted to stop by and say ‘good night.’” Brushing Lena’s cheek with her own, Amélie kissed Lena’s temple. Lena’s nose pressed into the base of Amélie’s throat and with every breath she smelled Amélie’s perfume, subtle and sweet. Lena’s entire body felt like fire. “ Bonne nuit, Lena,” Amélie whispered into Lena’s ear. “ Ne t'amusez pas trop sans moi .” After she pulled away, Amélie glanced up at the ceiling speakers. “Thank you for your help, Athena.”
“My pleasure, Mrs. Lacroix,” Athena responded.
“Please, call me Amélie.”
“Then, you’re welcome, Amélie,” Athena repeated. “Zero imminent threats detected, Tracer.” Lena said nothing, staring with her jaw hanging open as Amélie positively sauntered to the door and left the room. “May I add that your dopamine levels are--”
“No,” Lena said, “no, you may not. Just... let me have this, Athena.”
“Of course, Lena.”