(closed)

[nanamari]

Who: Soldier 76 (personalwar), Gabriel Reyes (gravemistake), and Ana Amari (nanamari)
What: Ana and Jack sit Gabe down to have The Talk
When: Late October
Where: Wyver
Warning(s): None probably

[ Gabriel takes off for a while. That's not really unusual for him. He's like a cat; he comes and goes as he pleases, and instead of bringing home dead birds sometimes he'll just appear in the kitchen at 2am to make her grilled cheese. Despite her talk with Jack, she doesn't just send Gabriel a message and wait for him to come to her. With Gabriel, every possible advantage counts. She used to enjoy the way their conversations sometimes felt like a sparring match between friends, but now she's overly aware of the distance that's grown beyond their control, and the bruises they leave on each other these days. She hopes that this will work out the way they need it to.

It takes her a while, but she finds him eventually. If she had to guess, she'd say that he was on his way back anyway. She moves into the space beside him, matching his pace. ]

We've missed you at home. [ Every word she uses is deliberate. ] Either you're in trouble, or you're getting there. Which is it?

Comments

[personalwar]

[ This is an argument that they've had already, so Jack isn't going to retread it. It isn't the point of this discussion, and so while his mouth twists and he shakes his head, he holds back on his urge to pick a fight. ]

Either way, after ignoring the UN and going in, Overwatch was under even more of a microscope. I'm sure you already had an idea of where things were going, but it only got worse.

[ He pauses for a moment, memories of this part of his life never easy to revisit. He lets out a low breath, then continues. ]

Talon wasn't done with us, not even close. They took some Overwatch scientists hostage, and both Ana and I were on the ground on that op to get them back.

[ It's still up there as one of the worst days of his life, and he can't keep the weariness completely off his face as he turns to look at Ana. She has to take it from here. ]

[nanamari]

[ Ana keeps out of it. It's an old argument, and it matters less to her than it does to them, these days. Laying blame won't change the outcome or the future, but maybe it makes them feel like someone had control, and there were choices they could have made to change things.

When Jack looks at her, she nods, and then turns to Gabriel. ]

We got the scientists clear of the building, but Talon had a sniper in their pocket. She started to pick off our people: Singh, Kimiko, Adams, Rivera...

[ Ana could continue. She remembers all of their names. ]

Jack ordered me to disengage. I refused. [ Though she's speaking to Gabriel, it's a reminder to Jack too. The choice was hers. ] I cut off our comms. I knew that I could take her, and if I let her go, she would take more of ours instead.

[ She doesn't think she needs to detail this part for Gabriel. Jack had done the sensible thing and left with the scientists; it was too hot for them to stay, and Ana had always been able to take care of herself. ]

I pursued her. When I took my shot, it broke her helmet, and I saw her face for the first time. It was Amélie Lacroix. [ She gives him a moment, to make all of the connections she did. It was Amélie who had killed her husband, and escaped after his death. ] Needless to say, I hesitated.

[gravemistake]

[As argumentative as he can be with Jack, Gabriel falls silent again when Ana starts talking, letting her continued uninterrupted. The careful framing gets his attention--because he can easily see himself blaming Jack for a mission failure of that scale. Ana makes it clear it was her choice, to try and cut off his accusations at the pass.

This is a piece of the puzzle that he hasn't guessed at, and it throws him off. None of that shows on his face, of course, save for the increased furrow of his eyebrows. It's not difficult to piece together what happened--Ana is not exactly known for hesitating. What's equally as troubling is the reappearance of Gérard's wife.]

Sleeper agent.

[Talon must have gotten to her between her first disappearance and Overwatch's rescue, or maybe she'd been a plant the whole time. What's certain is that Amélie likely killed Gérard herself. Gabriel lets out a long breath. This is as much his failure as Ana's. As Jack's.]

I should've known.

[personalwar]

[ Even with all the time in between then and now, Jack still doesn't enjoy having to hear the story again. He'd lived it, and memories of that day had been part of his nightmares for far too long. He and Ana have talked about it, but it's still strange to hear her side of it now, when he'd spent so many days wondering what had happened to her.

Watching Gabriel's reaction is equally interesting, and Jack's actually a little surprised that there isn't blame immediately thrown his way. That'll likely come with time. ]

None of us saw it coming.

[ So all of them were to blame in one way or another. Does that mean this will get glossed over? Probably not. Jack lets out a heavy breath and closes his eyes as he speaks. ]

I had no idea what happened to Ana after that. She was MIA, we never found a body, and Overwatch had so much heat coming its way at that point that we didn't have the resources to properly search, either.

[ He forces his eyes open then, to turn toward Gabriel with a calm steadiness. It feels necessary, to avoid this turning into yet another fight. They'd had too many, back then. ]

As you can probably guess, things just got worse and worse between us after that.

[nanamari]

[ Gabriel understands almost immediately, and Ana agrees with him; not that he should have seen it, but that they all should have known. The mistakes are so much more obvious in hindsight. But at the time, none of them had seen it. ]

It wouldn't have mattered. [ Ana adds. ] After she took out my eye, I was as good as dead, and the resources you had left were better spent where they were.

[ She falls silent after that; this part, she doesn't know about in any particular detail. Gabriel probably blamed Jack, and Jack probably blamed himself, but this is all on her. At least this time around, she's here to remind them of it. ]

[gravemistake]

[Gabriel finally takes a seat, and this time he doesn't purposefully infringe on Jack's space to ruffle him. For the moment, he seems a little lost in thought, eyebrows furrowed. He drags a hand down his beard. This is the course of events that was easy enough for him to chart, but the details are a little more painful than he thought they would be.

Or, perhaps, he's just surprised that it hurts.]

Guess Overwatch didn't hold together long after that.

[That much is obvious. Given how he'd been feeling about Jack at the time he was taken by the Orbiters, he can't imagine Ana's presumed death helped anything.]

[personalwar]

[ The way that Gabriel reacts now, it's the way that he always reacts when he receives a blow that he hadn't been expecting. When news would come through about an op gone wrong, an agent down. He'd never been one for outbursts of emotion, and it's when he does reach that breaking point that they're well and truly fucked.

Like back at Swiss HQ. Jack had never heard Gabriel yell like he had during that confrontation. ]

Less than a year.

[ Jack exhales and lifts a hand to rub slowly at his eyes. This isn't going to get any easier, and he won't have Ana's help with filling in the blanks now. ]

Someone had it out for us. They wanted Overwatch put into the ground, once and for all -- and you and me with it. [ His hand drops and he stares across the apartment at nothing at all, rather than having to look at either of the other people in the room. ] It was a set-up, or that's my theory anyway. You and I, stuck in HQ when it was rigged to blow...

[ Probably Reyes can guess at the rest. ]

[gravemistake]

[Gabriel grunts and nods. He's clearly putting it all together, but it doesn't take very long when all the puzzle pieces fall into place neatly--a little too neatly.]

Then we all let everyone think we were dead. I know that part.

[The problems is that it's all too simple. Ana's presumed death explains a neat, orderly sequence of events from his actions in Venice to the ultimate collapse of Overwatch. This is nothing he wouldn't have been able to figure out for himself, and it's not anything that particularly surprises him, either.

So theoretically, this is not the knowledge they thought he needed protecting from, and Gabriel isn't going to let them get away with this kind of answer.]

Doesn't explain why you act like I'm a threat.

[That's directed to Jack more than anything. Time to own up.]

[gravemistake]

[continued]