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Angela had not complained about the cold since waking up, that was the first thing Moira noted down in the records she had been carefully building for herself. It should have been reassuring, but the laboratory had always been, even when they had to share back in their time as colleagues, too cold by Angela’s standards, despite Moira’s repeated insistence regarding the temperature being perfectly reasonable for the work. Though possibly partly because she was simply used to the cold of Ireland, too, and the lab’s was barely worth notice. Angela then every once in a while, especially in winter, would arrive wrapped in one of her large coats, ridiculously draped over her lab coat even at times, rubbing her hands together and complaining that Moira had the environmental preferences of a corpse.
This time, she had not complained. In fact, she had yet to say a word. Moira could understand though, recovery after such a complex surgery would take time. Angela’s body had been in such a bad state some nerves had been severely damaged. She fixed it, all she could.
Now she sat quietly on the edge of the examination table, hands folded loosely on her lap, and said nothing. Moira glanced at her over the pad in her hands where she had been noting down any improvements.
“You could at least pretend to be uncomfortable. It would make this considerably easier to tolerate.”
Angela’s blue eyes settled on Moira’s face after a rather slow blink.
“I am comfortable.”
Moira’s lips quirked slightly before she sighed.
“You should be freezing, despite how you’ve been trying to convince me otherwise the past hour. Look at your hands, so pale.”
The last part almost muttered as she put down the pad, reaching for the blonde’s fingers only to pause mid-way through and return to the monitor on the left side of the table.
“Make sure to wear that blanket I brought, you’re impossible.”
“You like me that way.” There was almost the hint of a smile on Angela’s words. Moira’s fingers stopped moving only for a second and then she resumed typing.
“Do not flatter yourself.”
She was sure Angela was smiling, as bright and amused as always despite the situation.
That, at least, was familiar.
Moira had found her three days earlier. There had been… very little left to recover.
The fight between Talon and the remnants that were slowly building Overwatch back to form had broken out faster than anyone anticipated, a brief and vicious exchange in a ruined industrial district where Talon had been mobilizing weaponry and Overwatch had stumbled upon by chance, and Moira who had been there for reasons she no longer cared to remember. She remembered the smoke, the sound of gunfire becoming distant, the ringing in her ears.
She had stepped on something that made a faint metallic crack, and when her foot lifted, she remembered the broken figure of a mechanical wing. A body in the debris, not too far from it.
Blonde hair.
After that, her memories were fuzzy. Only Angela’s face was clear as day, only the blood, the terrifying stillness. Moira had to convince herself that there was enough, there had to be enough to save her.
She dragged Angela back herself, to the apartment building she had been hoarding herself at for the past months reluctantly as Talon had plans for the areas near and she had been given no choice but to leave her lab and reside there temporarily, supervise, they said. More like an excuse to remind her of her place after a few words back and forth. She worked until her hands shook, scavenging whatever equipment she had left there and Angela’s caduceus that was nearly shattered as well, something she had no business touching.
Reconstructed damaged systems, replaced burnt tissue, repaired what she could and insisted on what she couldn’t. Angela had spent her career pushing the boundaries of medicine just as she (although within ethical means), albeit her own progress had been rather stagnated because of Talon’s demands on the soldier enhancement serum. Moira knew Angela’s work almost as well as her own, from when they were colleagues, from after when she’d still check into the forums telling herself knowledge is power and not because she cared to know how Angela was welling after Overwatch’s fall.
It had seemed almost insulting that something as crude as death should be allowed to interrupt Angela’s career. So… she had refused.
The first time Angela moved, Moira had nearly laughed. It had been an ugly sound, breathless and disbelieving, and she had immediately bit down on her tongue as though someone might hear. Angela’s eyes had opened, she had stared at the ceiling and then at Moira. Her lips parted, but no sound came out.
“It’s alright,” Moira had whispered as she leaned over her, brushing the blood-stiffened dirty blonde locks away from her forehead. “It’s alright. I have you, Angel. You’re safe. You’re safe.”
The woman’s fingers had twitched, barely at all but enough. Moira’s own had been trembling, yet she would deny it later. She would deny it even to herself.
For the next several days, Angela had been sluggish and quiet. It was to be expected, and Moira had already assumed so. There had been a lot of neurological trauma, oxygen deprivation, damaged tissue. Then the prolonged cardiac arrest once or twice. There were any number of reasons for her to be slower than before, she needed time. She needed food.
She needed Moira.
That last thought, Moira had noted down in the medical report meant only to herself.
“You need to eat,” Moira tapped her index on the table as she leaned over, raising an eyebrow at Angela who kept staring at the food.
“I’m not hungry.” The blonde mumbled.
“You haven’t eaten in two days, intravenous supplements and hydration can only do so much for your body. You need to eat.”
They stared at each other for a long moment, and Moira had to contain a look of relief on her face at the stubbornness Angela was displaying. That was her, Angela. Always stubborn, even half-dead, apparently.
Moira pushed the plate closer, taping her nails over the wood once more.
“Three bites.”
Angela looked almost offended, her nose scrunching. “Three?”
“Four.”
“Moira…”
“If you insist, we will make it five, and remember to drink some water. You are hardly a child anymore for me to remind you.”
There was an almost triumphant smirk on the Irish woman’s face when the blonde finally picked the fork with a huff, and watched her eat. Slow, but surely.
“See?” Moira murmured. “Not so difficult. Must you always fight me even for your health’s sake, Dr. Ziegler?”
Angela swallowed before responding.
“You sound pleased with yourself.”
“I am.” Moira stated, moving to push the glass of water closer to her. “I brought you back from the dead.”
Angela looked her way and, for some reason, Moira found herself unable to meet her eyes. She walked away from the table, busying herself with the files in her pad.
“Don’t look at me like that.” She said quietly enough for it to be a whisper.
She heard the scrape of the fork against the plate, over and over. Despite her satisfaction, she failed to notice that Angela had stopped eating several minutes earlier.
Days became weeks. Moira had stopped counting as it was easier that way. Angela became more responsive, or… at least, Moira thought she did.
She would wander around the place, her make-shift lab and home of sorts, although Moira had to repeatedly remind her to not touch anything. She would stand beside the windows for long stretches of time, watching the city. Sometimes, Moira found her asleep in the chair.
Angela would nudge her shoulder, at times, after Moira would find herself immersed in her work for too long.
“You’ve been awake for nearly twenty hours.” She would say, and Moira would roll her eyes exasperated as it wouldn’t be the first reminder.
“So you have been keeping track, is that it, Dr. Ziegler? Afraid I might crack my head on the table?” Moira would retort.
Angela’s expression was soft, affectionate almost. Familiar.
“Someone has to.”
Moira kept failing to meet her blue eyes whenever she would do that, suddenly finding the table very interesting to stare at. Maybe cracking her head against it wasn't such a bad idea, after all.
“...Alright.”
Angela would rest her head against her shoulder and the Irish woman would still, as it had been so long. Too long. It was those moments when she would remember the exact weight of Angela against her, like back then. The warmth of her body, her beating heart. The way she would sigh when tired, the tiny movement of her fingers whenever she’d pretend to fix Moira’s hair away from her face when she just wanted to run her fingers through it.
Moira would close her eyes, and for several minutes, she’d let herself pretend.
Angela would smile and trace her finger over Moira’s hand, the one she had experimented on, making her twitch every time.
“You’ve been staring a lot.”
“I am permitted to look at my own partner, as far as I am aware. Unless it is now prohibited by some national law?”
“Partner?” The blue eyes pierced through her, making Moira’s expression falter.
“You know what I mean.”
Angela hummed.
“Do I?”
Moira reached out and touched her cheek, tracing her fingers over the delicate skin. Cold, still. She ignored it.
“You should sleep.”
“It is not me who has spent near a day working.” Angela retorted.
“Still, you need to rest so you can recover appropriately and stop lingering here, staring at the window.”
“I was thinking.”
“About?”
Angela smiled.
“You.”
It was such a simple answer, the sort only Angela could muster. Except– except Angela had never been particularly good at saying things like that, not without finding some practical excuse to disguise what she meant. Not without them finding some ethical difference in their thoughts moments later that would have them keeping each other at arm’s length to avoid getting hurt, as neither enjoyed letting themselves in such a vulnerable position (albeit Moira tended to be faster at it, at saying some cruel word whose consequences she would later swallow bitterly).
She had known her for years, and yet when Angela leaned closer she smiled as for a brief moment, she could almost feel warmth.
She kissed her, carefully. Angela did not move.
Moira pulled back and turned away before she could see the blonde’s expression on her way to the opposite room.
“Godnight, Angel.”
“...Goodnight.”
It was the smell that finally did it. Not the blood, nor the antiseptic that had been there since the beginning. No, it was something subtler and yet horrifying. Something she had been ignoring.
“You didn’t eat.” Moira said as she looked at the full dish on the table and then the woman’s figure laying over the examination table. Her mismatched eyes moved over her, her skin was pale. Far too pale for comfort. The bruising over the side of her head hadn’t changed, nor the discoloration along her abdomen around the edges of the bandages.
When her fingers touched Angela’s neck, there was nothing to be felt. She pressed harder, feeling her mouth going dry. But still nothing, no pulse.
She didn’t want to, but her eyes finally settled on the monitors she had been using to check on her. The screen displayed numbers she had stopped reading days ago. Oxygen, neurological activity, heart rate, all of them were frozen in time.
Moira couldn’t help but stare intently, until her vision blurred. When she looked at Angela again, the woman was smiling.
“You look tired.”
Moira swallowed, pressing both hands against her face. Her nails scratched against the skin and dug. The voice sounded distant, almost like something from a memory rather than spoken.
It was silent, actually. Because Angela had not replied a single time ever since her eyes opened the first time. Because Angela’s heart never beat again, and her body was still cold, still decaying, because her body moved yet it was but a shell of the former woman.
And Moira had refused to see it all along.
Moira laughed. It was a horrible sound, choked, as she dug her nails deeper into the skin.
“What am I doing?” Moira said, her hands trembling. “I fed you. I’ve been speaking to you. I—”
The Irish woman stopped, lowering her hands as her eyes fell onto Angela’s hands. They were motionless. She remembered those hands alive, warm. Always moving, as the blonde was rarely so still. Even asleep, a hand searching for a blanket, fingers curling around Moira’s wrist, a restless shift beneath the sheets.
A breath, a sigh, a furious retort, a click of the tongue, a heartbeat. Something, anything.
Moira’s face crumpled and she covered her mouth feeling the nausea raising. She stared for a long time.
“You would hate this.” She then whispered, the words came out rough and broken. “You would hate me for this… you’d tell me I had no right.”
Angela said nothing.
“You’d tell me your body wasn’t mine to keep.” Moira’s knees nearly gave, and she caught herself against the table while her eyes remained fixed on Angela listlessly.
Had she been too slow, too sluggish, then? She wondered. She had tried so hard, she had been so convinced there had been at least some slow pulse when she had carried Angela’s limp body to the table and scrambled so desperately to keep her warm. Where had she lost her head? When?
“I’m sorry.” She touched Angela’s cheek. If she tried hard enough, would she hear her voice again? “I am so sorry.” Her forehead rested against Angela’s, but there was no reciprocating touch. No breath against her skin, no whispered reassurance or scolding.
Maybe if she had focused on her research instead of the stupid serum, if she knew Angela’s technology just a little deeper. The caduceus had brought her back, but clearly it had been long enough past the decease time that the only thing back had been a semblance of movement with nothing else to follow.
Moira stayed anyway, for some very long minutes. Then, eventually, she pulled away.
“I know, you would want me to let go.” Her voice was barely audible.
Her hands knew what to do. Her mind… did not. That was perhaps the cruelest part. For all her brilliance, for all her knowledge and the years she had spent insisting death was merely another biological problem waiting to be solved, there was no machine for this. No procedure, no loophole. Only an ending she had delayed because she could not bear to accept that it had already happened, that when she had found Angela Ziegler among debris, she had already been gone irreparably.
Moira stood besides the table, one hand moving to gently rest against Angela’s hair. Her throat felt tight, but she pushed it down.
“Goodnight, Angel.”
For once, she did not wait for an answer. And when she finally turned the machine off, she did not imagine the smile on the blonde’s lips.