After a few hours of flight, they landed back at the base. It was almost 4 a.m. by the time they arrived so most of the people were already sleeping. Jack and Ana were the ones who stayed up late to wait for them. The four of them were exhausted and they took a nap while they made their way back. Once they landed, the pilot woke everyone up and they all stood up, half-asleep, and they climbed down the ship. The two elders waited patiently for all of them to get out of the plane before asking anything. Angela was the last one to climb down. She was still holding onto Moira's paperwork which intrigued Jack so he could not help himself but ask what they found. Angela faced him with a clear frown on her face and handed him the papers without a word. Ana congratulated everyone for their hard work and they all thanked them except for the doctor who just headed inside the base. They all stared at her, a bit surprised, but no one tried to stop her.
After they talked briefly about what happened, they all dismissed and went to their respective room but not Genji, he was too worried about his friend. He decided to look for her. He knocked on her room's door and waited for her to answer. As she did not answer, he knocked a second time, and then he heard her mumble something before opening the door. When she opened it, she was already dressed in her pajamas. Genji looked at her for a minute and noticed how cute and sexy at the time she was in this outfit. She wore a plain white shirt that was too large for her and some blue shorts that were quite short in fact. It was the first time in a very long time that he saw her in anything else but her armor or medicine clothes and he could not help but stare. She looked so vulnerable in this compared to her usual outfits. She had a cup of hot chocolate in her right hand while she was holding the door knot with the other. They stood like this for quite a long time as Genji's blush grew wider and wider as time went on. He was so relieved that he wore his mask right at this moment. At some point, Angela cleared her throat loudly as the ninja was still not hearing her call his name. He came back to his thought as he realized she called him a million times already.
"Y-yes Angela?" he asked, a bit panicked. He was afraid she noticed he was staring at her. "Do you need anything?"
"Well, I should be asking that," she said. "Do you need anything?"
"O-oh," he cleared his throat and composed himself. "Yes, I was worried as you looked very upset when we landed. Is everything alright?"
She went silent and looked at the ground for a second. "Do you want to talk a minute then?" She gestured for him to enter as she moved out of the way. He nodded and made his way inside her room. He never went to her room in Gibraltar. He was often in her room when he was visiting her in Switzerland but he rarely came here. "It's not that big but you can go sit at the counter over there if you want."
He turned to look at the small kitchen. "So you have your own kitchen here?"
"Well, I don't really use it but they made me one as I barely ever went to the cafeteria as I was so focus in my work. But when I was here I usually used it to make coffee or chocolate. Do you want one?"
Genji smiled and nodded. Angela walked back in the kitchen and Genji followed her to sit at the counter. He took off his mask and made himself comfortable. He looked around the small studio while he waited. It was very simple, he noticed some flowers here and there and some movies next to the television. It was very like her, he thought. Suddenly, he felt some warm air next to his face and looked down to see the cup of hot chocolate. "Thank, Doctor Ziegler."
"Look with this name. How many times do I need to tell you this?" It made Genji chuckled as he took the cup and brought it to his mouth.
"It tastes really good. You're very talented in everything you make, Doctor Ziegler."
She frowned at him as he called her again 'Doctor Ziegler' but shrugged it off. "It's just hot chocolate, it's not that hard to make."
"Still, I'm sure it tastes better because you made it."
"Are you flirting with me?" she asked as she leaned on in front of him from the other side of the counter.
"Maybe," he teased and leaned on as well. Their faces were only as inch apart and they stayed like this for a few second before Genji spoke again. "So, what's on your mind?"
She straightened and looked back at her cup. A sigh escaped her lips and she rested her chin in her hand. "I can't... forgive them. Ana and Jack, I mean. They abandoned us when we needed them the most. They saw Overwatch crumbles, falling apart." She tightened her grip around her cup and frowned as these thoughts enraged her. "But I could have forgiven that if they at least had told me they were okay. And you as well Genji. You haven't said anything in years. But you still wrote me a few months ago but I know you needed it to break apart from everything. But for Jack and Ana, they... I thought they were dead. I feel betrayed. I know I'm just being selfish but I just can't help it."
Genji stayed silent for a while and looked at his friend. He laid a hand on top of her head and stroked gently her hair to soothe her. "I know it must be hard. I know how it feels to be betrayed by people you love. But you must learn to forgive them. It'll take time but you have all the time you need. Just don't feel bad for thinking that, it's just natural, alright?"
She smiled and looked back up at him. "Thanks Genji. You're the best."
He chuckled at her comment. "I'm not the best. But my master surely is. I bet he would give better advise than I did."
"I would love to meet him one day."
"I'm sure you will pretty soon. I want you to meet him anyway."
They smiled at each other and continued to talk for a moment. It felt good for the two of them to be so comfortable with each other even though a lot of time had passed since they last saw each other. They finished their hot chocolate and Angela started to feel really tired. After escorting the cyborg back to the door, they waved goodbye but right as Genji was ready to leave, Angela called for him. He turned back and was surprised as he felt something warm and soft pressing on his cheek. He soon realized it was Angela's lips on his cheek. She waved him goodbye one last time then close the door of her place. Genji extended a hand to his cheek, frozen in place. Not long after, a smile formed on his lips. Oh, how happy he was to have not put back his helmet immediately after leaving. He walked back to his room, smiling all the way.
By the time, the Swiss doctor woke up, it was already past noon. What woke her up was loud knock on the door. She reluctantly got up from her bed, her head hurting a bit. The knocking would not stop and it was starting to get on her nerves. She opened her door with a frown, ready to scold whoever it was.
"Can you not knock on the door so loudly, Reinhardt?"
"Oh, sorry Angela but we have so great news!"
"Great news?"
"Dress up and come see for yourself! We'll be in the living room! I still need to wake Jesse so I'll get going!"
The German soldier flew out into the corridor towards McCree's room. Angela, still in a daze by all that just happened, walked back to her bedroom to change and ran towards the living room to see what it going on. And the first thing she saw was two people in the center of the room, one she knew very well and the other one who was a complete stranger. On the left, was a short woman with brown hair with glasses. The woman was an ex Overwatch agent as well as a scientist. She worked in Antarctica with some other colleagues who did not seem to be here. This woman is know as Mei-Ling Zhou. She originally worked at the Xi'an base in China but was sent on Overwatch's ecopoint in Antarctica. Not far from her was an omnic which surprised Angela deeply. Not that she did not want see an omnic but the only omnic that was tolerated at the base for the moment was Bastion because Torbjörn said he was friendly. But another thing that stroke the doctor was that he was floating. Based on his outfit, he seemed to be some sort of monk. Was it... Genji's mater, Zenyatta? While Angela wasw deep in thought, Mei took notice of her and came running towards her to hug her. The two of them hugged for a minute before saying how much they missed each other.
"Mei, you haven't age a bit! What's your secret?"
"Cryotasis. But I would not recommend it. You haven't age yourself Doctor Ziegler!" They laughed together and parted from the hug. Shortly after, the omnic approached the two woman and extended a hand towards the doctor.
"Greetings. I am Zenyatta. I have come from Nepal to join the organization after my pupil told me I could come here."
"So you are Genji's master!" she exclaimed as she took his hand. "I am Angela Ziegler, the head doc- well was the head doctor at Overwatch. Please to meet you."
"And I am very happy to make your acquaintance as well. I heard a lot about you from Genji so I'm very thrill to finally meet you."
"Oh, did you?" Angela wondered as she raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, yes. Whenever we came to talk about this organization or anything related to medicine, he always ended up talking about you. It was quite entertaining to say the least. I felt like I knew all about you before I even met you. Oh, and there was that one time-"
"Alright, alright, Master! I think we all understood!" Genji cut off Zenyatta as he gently pushed him out of the way to stop him from saying anything more embarrassing.
"But I'm sure Doctor Ziegler would love to hear stories of your time in Nepal."
"I'm sure of it but it'll be stories for another time, alright?"
Angela laughed seeing how close they both were. "I would love to hear them. We could take some times to talk later on."
"It would be a pleasure," the omnic said.
They all continued to talk to one another for a moment then, Angela stepped back to go talk to Winston as a question had been bothering her ever since she arrived here. The monkey noticed her and smiled gently to her before he greeted her. "Greetings, Doctor Ziegler. How did yesterday mission go?"
"It went fine, but we will talk about it at the meeting. I had a question."
"Of course. What do you want to talk about?"
"How's that," she paused as she felt hesitant to ask such a question. She looked around to see if anyone was listening their conversation and decided to whisper to her scientist friend. "How's that omnics like Bastion and Zenyatta were allowed to come here? I mean, I don't have anything against them, they seem very nice but it's more about Torbjörn, Reinhardt or even Jack. How did they allow not only Bastion but Genji's master as well?"
Winston nodded and scratched the back of his head. "Well, where to start?" The two of them walked towards one of the couch after Winston's suggestion then, he started his small speech. "Torbjörn arrived about three weeks before you and Bastion was with him. At first, Reinhardt was ready to take his hammer and crash it on the poor omnic. Torbjörn stopped him saying he was not dangerous. But you know that it was Bastion's kind that attacked Eichenwald during the omnic crisis."
Angela nodded to confirm what he just said. "That's why it surprised me even more."
"He believed in his friend. If Torbjörn had accepted an omnic then it meant he could believe his friend's words."
"I guess, it makes sense."
"As for the monk," he turned his look to Zenyatta who was talking with Bastion. "Genji came to ask us about him. He said Zenyatta wanted to come here to learn about our doings as well as he wanted to travel in Europe. We had a meeting about this but after a good two hours, we finally decided to allow him to come. I'm not sure he will help in mission, at least in fight, as he is not one to follow the path of violence but we will see what the outcomes are."
"I see. It's good to see that they decided to allow omnics to be part of the team. It's a good beginning towards a new Overwatch," she sighed while smiling. She looked at the people in the room and felt like, maybe, it would work well this time.
After the little "retrouvaille" were finished, a few of the members reunited themselves to talk about yesterday mission. Only Ana, Jack and Winston who were not present for the mission came along. They sat at the round table, and Jack put down the files that the team gave him after the mission. "I looked into it. Thanks to you, we got very useful information about Talon and their different headquarters."
Ana continued. "We will have to take down all their headquarters, one after the other, to reduce their forces. The thing is, it will take a lot of time and efforts with the small team that we have now."
"And we'll have to face old allies," Jack added.
Winston sighed and took one of the papers that were on the table and looked at it before projecting the page so everyone could see it. "It was a DNA test of one of the most powerful Talon agent, the Reaper. Thanks to that, we discovered his real identity," he paused, hesitant. He took a deep breath, eyes closed as he told them the truth. "Gabriel Reyes."
The group that went in mission were all shocked by this news while Ana and Jack just looked down, a bit of sadness could be seen in their eyes. "How... It's not Gabriel... He could never do such a thing!" Mercy raised her voice, searching for an answer to this founding in her head. She could not believe that. Him, of all the people could not have turned to be such a monster.
McCree clicked his tongue while turning his gaze at the ground in disgust. "I told ya that people could change."
Genji did not say anything and was just deep in thought, wondering who else of their old allies were part of this organization. "To tell the truth," Ana spoke up and everyone's attention turn to her. "Jack and I fought him not so long ago."
"What?! Why didn't you tell us anything?!" Angela cried out in anger.
"Because we knew how you would have all reacted," Jack admitted. "He's... an old friend. Or was. When we fought him back in Anubis, we discovered his true identity and ever since we arrived here, we were debating on whether to tell you all about it or not."
No one added anything more to it and just stayed silent. Angela was deep in thought as she tried to process everything that was going on. Suddenly, they heard a knock on the door and, after Winston's agreement to enter the room, the person opened the door and Mei revealed herself. "I'm sorry to disturb you. But I have important things to tell you all about Antartica and the team that was there. But, you must need to finish this up first maybe, I'll just wait outside, it's fine."
"No, please, you can stay," said Ana with a smile on her face. "You can sit if you want, we'll listen to you." Mei nodded and went to sit next to Angela. She timidly looked at her hands and started to talk about all the events that occurred all the way to Antarctica.
She talked about the disaster that fell on the ecobase in Antarctica. All communication was shut down because of a snowstorm. The team agreed to enter in cryostasis as they had to other choice as their provisions kept diminishing. They built the room together, and once finished, they all entered their container.
"I was the only survivor," she finished up her story with this sentence. Everyone around her wore a sad look upon hearing her tragic story. Angela took her hand in hers and smiled to reassure her that she was not alone anymore. Mei smiled back and continued her story. "But I did not give up, with the help of Snowball, I was able to repair the antenna and I was able to get Winston's message which gave me enough courage to continue my work throughout the world while making my way back to here."
"You did well out there Mei," Winston congratulated her with a smile. "Happy to see you again and in great spirit. It must have been hard."
"Everyone had their own complicated story here," she continued. "And that's what maked us grow from it and what made us join force together. We were meant to fight for greater good together."
Angela smiled at her friend. Her words grew hope inside of her heart. She thought she had lost it a long time ago when Overwatch collapsed, but it was still there.