Life and Time

Chapter 2

"You know nothing of what happened." The wraith snarled in her face.
A sliver of something she had not tasted in a while blossomed inside her--fear. She now understood what made Reaper so scary. It wasn't his appearance or his abilities. It was the raw emotion that he emanated in close quarters. There was pain in him, a pain that was nearly impossible to heal except by the one who created it. Yet to Reaper, his wounds were inflicted by himself. By becoming what he believed to be a monster. He never would allow for Morrison to take the blame.
His reaction confirmed what she had been suspecting--he was Gabriel Reyes.

"I know that you are a broken ghost of a man. That you don't know what to do with the feelings that you hold for him--ones you never acknowledged, ones that made you push him away. Now you are in an eternal battle with him, Soldier: 76 and The Reaper, soldiers of an unending war of emotions." She stared into the dark pits where Reaper's eyes would have been, unblinking.

They looked at each other for what may have been a minute or an hour, an unspoken conversation flowing between them.

Reaper finally lowered the shotguns and took a step back. Then he exploded into black smoke. Widowmaker moved only after she was certain the shadow walker was gone. She was sure Sombra knew what she had just learned. Amelie just prayed to whatever deity might listen to a monster with an overflow of red in her ledger that the rest of Talon did not learn of Reaper's weakness. Or the fact he was at the very least bisexual; she would never wish what would happen if the Board found out on anyone.
*
"What is this?" A voice said in a way that left what should have been a question, rhetorical.

"I'm not sure. We were reprogramming and we found this picture."

"Scrap the fucking thing. That's disgusting. Unless Doctor O'Deorain can work a miracle." Another voice said, disgust dripping with each word.

"We have no use of a creature that is weakened by attraction to two genders."

Amelie couldn't pay attention to anything else but heard a scream from a source of warmth next to her. She prayed to God that her kidnappers never learned about her own past.
*
Her skin crawled at the memory. To this day she had no idea who the poor soul was and she almost did not want to know. Thank God for some operatives thinking that she was straight because she had married and loved a man.

They had removed her attraction to men to make sure sexual desires would not influence her pulling the trigger; they did not realize she liked women as well as men, leaving her vulnerable to sexual desire towards other women. It was one thing that she never mentioned, something exclusive to her. It was the one remnant of Amelie that she kept close to her and that she would not want to give up; in a twisted way, it was the only thing that kept her human and she hated it but she loved that she was not just a mindless weapon that Talon wanted her to be. It was her own way of protesting against what they had done to her.

She wandered the halls looking for something to distract herself with and smirked when she saw Sombra; maybe today would be fun.

"Hola, amiga," called out the Mexican hacker.

Sombra was perched on the staircase banister in the Talon base, her trademark smug smile plastered on her face.

"Look what we have here; an annoyance. What drives you to pester me today?" Widow asked, faking an exasperated sigh.

"You wound me, Mela." Sombra said, exaggeratingly leaning back, clutching her chest.

Widowmaker walked past her, pretending that she did not want Sombra to follow her. She had a feeling the hacker knew that she was lonely and bugged her in order to give the French woman a social outlet.