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With Siebren de Kuiper in their ranks, there were some things they couldn’t avoid anymore.
The Horizon Lunar Colony.
It floated above them, looking down from the moon. Gabriel listened as Winston led the presentation on the base, pointing out the details he remembered. The massacre of the scientists, the uprising of the subjects, the noises, and the chaos that had followed. Winston had been told to run by the scientist who had raised him, the one who had practically become his father. He had been afraid of the others, afraid of what they would do if they got back to Earth. As he’d built his ship, hiding from them and trying to protect himself, keep the door locked against their angry attacks, he’d tried to plan how to keep them from achieving a return to Earth.
Gabe leaned into Jack’s side, clenching their hands together on the tabletop. Jack’s jaw was clenched, set firm as he stared at the screen. When Winston went quiet, Jack nodded. “We’ll put together a team,” he took a deep breath, his eyes closing when Gabriel squeezed his hand. “Winston, figure out transport and equipment.”
“I am going—”
“You’re staying here,” Gabriel interrupted him. “If you go back up there, they’re going to target you exclusively. We need you on the ground, watching our backs.”
The bond had been growing back between them.
It hadn’t been too long since Gabriel had been Reaper, after all. Since the attack that had hurt Athena, since the attack that had threatened all of the Overwatch agents Winston still kept track of. Since Gabriel had been shot with a sedative and dragged back home, revealing his and Jack’s identities. Winston still treated them both a little distantly, though friendly. Like he wasn’t sure he could trust the ground he stood on.
Gabriel grinned when Winston stared at him. “Gabriel.”
“We need you down here,” Gabriel held up his and Jack’s hands. “I’m not going to let him go without me and I don’t think he’d let me go without him—”
“Absolutely not.”
“—So I’m going to ask you to watch over us from down here. Be our tether back home, Winston.” Gabriel looked at the others, studying their faces in turn. Genji was back at the table, sitting next to his brother and his Omnic lover. Jesse sat on Hanzo’s other side, watching Winston and Gabriel talk. Everyone was staring, the range of expressions going from confused to horrified. Hana cleared her throat and Gabriel turned to look at her.
“Lucheng Interstellar, yeah?” Hana stood up, her phone in her hand. “I have a few contacts there. Some of the scientists who work for them are ones who designed my mech. I can get in touch with them, and ask them about borrowing a ship. They’ve been wanting to send up a mission to check on the colony, I think. If I’m remembering correctly.” She looked at them, waiting for the official order. “And…I think…”
“Hana?” Jack frowned. “Go ahead.”
“It’s just that…” Hana chewed on her bottom lip. “The new guy. Sigma? He messes with gravity, yeah?”
“He should not be involved,” Winston whispered. “The memories will be painful for him, he has a vested personal interest and a deep connection – involving Doctor de Kuiper will only harm him, I am afraid. The memories have tethered him back in reality, for now, re-introducing me into his life has brought him back to stability, but,” he shook his head. Tracer moved to stand next to him, a hand on his back. “Doctor de Kuiper has suffered through enough. When Sombra told me of his location, of the risk of Moira turning to him to use him, his research, and his powers against us, I asked to rescue him so that she could not manipulate him any longer.”
“We could ask him if he thinks he can do it,” Hana countered. “I’m just saying. If any of us are going into space, maybe bringing the guy who can control gravity would be a good idea. In case something goes wrong, in case the others still up there try to kill the ones going up.”
“Jack and I,” Gabriel shrugged. “Don’t know about anyone else, but us two. We’re not going to risk your lives for this – The chance that Talon won’t get their hands on the research involved, somehow.”
“I can talk to him,” Sombra spoke up.
She was sitting next to Reinhardt and Ana, both of them flanking her like protective parents. Ever since Angie had done a full examination and found a few things that shouldn’t have been in her mods, Sombra had been fully on their side. Moira had altered her in a couple of ways, violated her sense of safety in a way that had made her actually throw up. Gabriel had watched as the kid had thrown up what was in her stomach, then sobbed until she had a migraine.
He'd held onto her, keeping her safe.
“You can speak with him?” Jack echoed her, turning his gaze on her. There were more times, recently, when Gabriel could see the younger version of him – the hopeful commander, the soldier with a smile, who wanted to save the world. Hope was bright on him, fit him like a glove. The heavy expression Soldier: 76 had worn was gone, replaced with hesitant but warm smiles and encouraging nods. “He trusts you?”
“I protected him from Moira,” Sombra looked down at her hands, cuffed as they were every time a meeting was held. “They always wanted to run tests on him, reproduce what was done to him.”
Gabriel felt his throat go tight, his head shaking without much input from his conscious decisions. “Okay,” he looked over at the corner of the room, where Jamie was scribbling away, frantic, on a design tablet they’d gotten him. With the medication to fix the radiation sickness, to help keep his mental state stable, and a pair of glasses to correct his ruined vision, he was a much different person. If the government had ever bothered to fix Australia and look for promising young minds there, they would have found a brilliant mechanic and engineer. His designs were a little crude, rough around the edges, but smart. “Mako?”
The ever-present shadow, Mako, nodded. “He has been designing since he found out about the problem,” he reported. He put a hand on Jamie’s shoulder, his thumb rubbing across his spine gently.
“Good,” Jack stood up, still holding Gabriel’s hand. “All the help we can get, we will probably need.” He turned to Hana. “If you can get in contact with them, then do it.” He tugged until Gabriel stood up, both of them walking over to Sombra. She stood up, Ana’s hand on her elbow steadying her. “If you think you can speak with Doctor de Kuiper, then you can try. Winston?” he turned to him. “Come with us.”
“I—Yes.” Winston nodded. “I will.”
He wanted to be able to give the new agents of Overwatch their safety. He wanted to be able to give them a better world. Gabriel lifted Sol de Oro’s hand to his mouth, kissing the back of it as they walked out of the room. With the others on a mission or two, the meeting had been sort of small, but big enough to make plans and explain the problem.
If nothing else, they had presented the problem.
Being idle pissed him off but being clueless was worse. Presenting the ideas and the problems meant that all of them could offer their help.
And Gabriel would take that over nothing.
X
Walking into the room that de Kuiper had been given felt like intruding.
Jack took a deep breath, lifting his head up as they entered, having been told to do so. Sigma was floating in the middle of the room, his legs crossed, his hands resting on his knees. With his eyes closed and his face relaxed, Jack could almost see the man he had once been. From the stories Winston had been telling, he’d been an awkward but kind man, with a dry sense of humor until he found an opening for a pun or three. He’d loved the stars and the night sky, Winston had told them. That was what had ruined his life.
His research, his experiment, his love of the stars.
“Commander Reyes,” Sigma opened his eyes slowly. “Commander Morrison.” He pulled off a pair of headphones – from the green color, Lúcio had been the one to give them to him. The young musician had mentioned something about Sigma enjoying music, calling it a delightful distraction. “How can I help you?”
“You can just call us by our names,” Gabe chuckled. “We have some questions for you.”
“Ask away,” Sigma gestured for them to sit down on the two chairs that stood near him. “Please, make yourselves comfortable. No sense in staying standing if you are going to be speaking with me for some time.” His face still seemed calmer than it had been before, even with the music away from his ears. He looked at Winston and Jack saw the fond look in his eyes, like a father would look at his son. From the stories, Jack had figured out, Siebren de Kuiper had been in love.
He'd asked Winston, one night, after they’d rescued the man. Winston had looked back at him, a sad smile in place.
“They were given such limited time together,” he’d answered. “And they never spoke of anything between them. I think they were afraid, in some ways. They wanted to have something, wanted to be able to be something together, but,” he’d shrugged. “Life does not always work out the way we want.”
An understatement, Jack knew.
Sigma watched them now, his eyes sharp and intelligent. Nothing that had happened to him had taken away his brilliance, the genius of his mind. “Winston?”
“We are considering a mission to the Horizon Lunar Colony,” Winston answered him. Sombra stepped forward, nodding.
Gabe squeezed Jack’s hand and Jack squeezed back. He couldn’t imagine living with the knowledge that Gabe was gone forever. Sigma and Harold Winston were a different version of the story of him and Gabe – an alternate version where the end didn’t go nearly so well. Two men, torn apart by their lives being ripped apart and away from them. A group in charge that had looked at the results and washed their hands of the resulting disaster. A nightmare of a scenario that had physically altered one of them beyond full repair, no matter how much Angie worked herself to the bone in the middle of the night.
(Gabe still sometimes had days where he wasn’t fully physical, despite her treatment and attempts to drive out what Moira had done to him.)
“I am going,” Sigma said before anything else could be said. “I failed Harold Winston once. I was not there when everything happened, but I can be there now. If nothing else, I can see to it that his research and his belongings make it home again.”
“We wanted to give you the choice,” Jack met Sigma’s eyes. “Gabe and I are going.”
Sigma gestured to Sombra. “With the safeguards of the colony, you will need her with you as well. It makes the most logical sense of all the options.” He looked at Winston. “I would ask that you stay here, for this mission. With Harold gone, your safety and protection fall directly to me,” he sighed. “Though I have given you a poor showing of such a thing.”
“You had no options,” Winston put a hand on Sigma’s arm, shaking his head. “Everything that could have been done was taken away from you.”
There was something like a smile on Sigma’s mouth, a twitch of his lips that hinted at the man he’d once been in the stories Jack had been told. “I will bring his memory back to you,” he whispered. “I will collect his belongings and his memories, and I will bring them back down to Earth for you, young Winston.” He hummed something quietly, his eyes slipping closed again. “Tell me when the time arrives, Commanders. Tell me when we are needed,” he gestured at Sombra. “Because you will need the both of us.”
“We will,” Jack looked at Sombra, then stood up and offered her the seat. “How about you three talk for a little while?” he looked at Winston.
Gabe nodded and Jack wanted to kiss him for how quickly he’d picked up on the action Jack wanted to take – Let Winston talk with the one person he still had who knew about how he’d grown up. Let him talk to the man who’d been around him when he was young. Let Sombra talk to the man she’d been protective of when Moira had wanted to examine him and run experiments on him. Let the three of them talk using Sigma as a bridge between the two parts of his life. Give the man something like normality to cling to, something to tether him back down mentally.
Jack moved towards the door,
When Gabe followed him, Jack kept his hands to himself until they were out of Sigma’s room. Until the door closed behind them.
The moment they had walked away and turned a corner, Jack almost threw himself against Gabe’s chest. “Fuck,” he hissed. “Gabe—”
“I know, Sol de Oro,” Gabe shoved his face into Jack’s neck, hiding in the curve of where it met his shoulder. “I know. That could have been us, if things had been different. No reconciliation, no recovered memories, no changed mental states, no stripped-away reconditioning. Sigma loved Harold Winston, I’m pretty fucking sure.”
“He did,” Jack whispered, a sob catching in his throat as he pulled Gabe with him, fumbling along the wall for his own room’s door. When it clicked open behind them, Gabe curled an arm around Jack’s waist and caught him before he could fall. “Sigma and Harold were split apart, their lives shifted away from each other – and Sigma loved him. Loves him.” He put his hands on Gabe’s cheeks, moving his face so that he could see it, meet his eyes and study the color of them. He’d spent so long memorizing the color, when they were younger. Age had changed it a little, the changes in Gabe’s physiology adding in different changes, but he still knew those eyes. He couldn’t imagine never having had the chance to see him again, to never speak with him again.
Even when his memories had been locked out of reach, he had known something was wrong. Had known that Gabe had been in his head somewhere.
Even out of his reach, Gabe had been written in the core of him, scored in so deeply that he couldn’t be overwritten.
With his arms around Jack’s waist, Gabe picked him up and tossed him onto the bed, following after just a second later. He toed his shoes off, using the heel of one of his boots to kick Jack’s off too. “I just need to hold you for a little bit,” he whispered, sliding his hand up Jack’s spine. “Let me just…Please.”
“Yes,” Jack breathed the word out.
The realization had hit both of them, he knew. The terror at the idea of them being like Sigma and Harold.
Out of reach and unable to fix what was broken.
Gabe’s hair was finally growing back in a healthy way, his curls developing slowly. His skin was patchy and sometimes too dry, but he looked almost like he had before the Swiss headquarters had blown up in their faces. Angie did good work, especially once Moira wasn’t fucking around with it. There were times when he was angry, ready to scream, when his skin would turn ash-colored, and his eyes would go dark. Times when the nanites tried to heal to the standard that Moira had programmed them with.
Jack slung his leg across Gabe’s thigh, let him tuck one between Jack’s legs.
They were finally starting to heal from what had been done to them. The idea of never having gotten that, of never having been able to reach out again and find each other? It was eating at both of them, and Jack knew it.
Jack buried his face in Gabe’s chest, his hands buried in Gabe’s hair and pressed firmly against his spine.
X
Hana had gotten them a ship and a schedule.
Gabriel looked over the papers as they loaded into the ship, listening to the Lucheng employees as they did. “Of course, this is unofficial,” the woman added. “Due to safety concerns.”
“Yeah,” Gabriel nodded, sighing. “Understood.”
Secrets again.
Sigma floated past him, headphones firmly in place. Lúcio had told them he’d given the man a couple of playlists of his music, adjusted for blocking out whatever it was that Sigma heard. His feet drifted a foot and a half off the floor, his already-tall frame seeming even more so with the added height. Jack followed him, speaking quietly with Sombra. When they passed Gabriel, Jack paused to nod to him, smiling for a moment.
He was older, now, grey instead of gold, but Gabriel couldn’t stop being thankful his Sol de Oro was back with him.
With the flipped version of their story playing out in front of them, he was fucking glad he’d gotten Jack back. It had taken a lot of pain, a lot of anger, but he’d gotten him back. He’d gotten himself back in the process, pieced together despite everything that had been done to him. Angie was working on fixing what Talon had done to him, to Amélie, to Sombra.
A year ago, everything that was happening would have been impossible.
Gabriel looked at Jack, who was running through a list of items with one of the Lucheng employees. The people who had made Lucheng back away from their own project and the people who had ordered Gabriel to be made into a monster were the same. Talon’s rot had grown unchecked for decades, but they were going to cut it down, rip it apart, burn it all. Jack was at his side, and they were back on the same page.
Jamie rushed into the room, holding something to his chest with care. Mako was behind him, a contractual guarantee if the younger of the two was present. “Here,” Jamie huffed, cackling a little. “Designed ‘em during the meetin’, put ‘em together last night. Ain’t perfect, prolly, but should keep damage from touchin’ ya completely. Short-range shieldin’, attach it to your suits, turn on – You’re gonna need protection, if what Winston said is the case.”
“Huh,” Gabriel took one of the units, turning it over in his hands. “Protection?”
“Hoggy couldn’t make contact with the target when I had him test!” Jamie grinned, a flash of mania in his eyes. He was getting so much better, but his personality would probably always be wild and hyper. “It sent the tester flyin’ back, but not enough to damage. No damage from him attackin’, either.”
“Thank you,” Jack’s voice came from over Gabriel’s shoulder. He accepted one when Jamie held it out to him, clipping it to his belt. “Like this?”
“Yeah,” Jamie inspected the unit, tugging on it gently to make sure it wouldn’t be going anywhere. “She’s apples.” He glanced over when Gabriel did the same, tugging on it as well. “Gotcha,” he muttered, nodding. He shuffled past them, heading for Sigma and Sombra. Gabriel watched as the two of them listened, nodding when Jamie held out the units he had for them. They both accepted, clipping them on. They would sit underneath the suits the Lucheng employees were giving them for the mission, a layer of protection.
Mako grunted, his much smaller and redesigned mask covering the proud smile Gabriel was pretty sure he wore when watching his partner. “He worked with Winston to develop them,” he spoke quietly. “He didn’t want to send you into the situation without them.”
“I’m certain they’ll work, then,” Jack nodded. “Not if he wants them to work so badly he’d take help from Winston and his ‘crazy Omnic tech’.”
With another grunt, Mako stepped back from them. He’d never been particularly talkative, spoke when he needed to get a point across. He stood at the door, waiting, until Jamie moved back over to him. With a glance back at the crew going on the mission, Jamie took a deep breath. He’d been pretty quick to care about the fate of the people he was working with now, Gabriel knew. Something about having a team at his back, people to lean on when something was going wrong.
He could empathize with that. He’d felt the same when he’d rejoined Overwatch.
Eventually, the prep was done. The four of them boarded the ship and sat down, clipping into the harnesses. The Lucheng employees had programmed a flight path for them, keeping transparency about the process the whole way through. Sigma sat at the front of the ship, not floating for once, his eyes closed as he listened to the music Lúcio had given him. Lúcio had called it musical therapy, a playlist of tracks that were meant to relax and soothe. With everything that had happened to the man, Sigma listened to it almost religiously, like he was trying to block out everything he was hearing when he was left alone.
Gabriel reached out and took Jack’s hand, squeezing it a few times.
Three squeezes.
I love you.
A system they had decided on when around others, just something to ease both of their minds. Their core strength was rebuilding, the supports and foundation wrecked after the fall of the Swiss headquarters. The damage was cleared away, now it was time to rebuild and make it stronger. They’d fallen back together because they’d never been able to stay apart. Even before, when Gabriel had started malfunctioning because of what had been done to him, he’d never been able to stay mad at Jack.
He'd beat Cionaodh’s face in if the man was still alive.
He and his sister.
Moira was still out there somewhere, as a known fact. Her brother was less of a certainty, having taken three dragon spirits directly attacking him.
“I should go in first,” Sombra spoke up. “From the plans and the layout Winston gave me,” she lifted her hands, scrolling through something on the tablet she was holding. A compromise for Gabriel’s peace of mind. “The rest of the subjects of the Horizon project should be pretty easy to lure into one location, if they’re not already there, and then I can just make some doors not open.”
“Go ahead,” Jack nodded. “It makes sense. Sigma?” he looked at the man. Despite the music playing in his ears, he could still hear them. “If you could go with her?”
“A defensive line of protection,” Sigma nodded. “It makes sense, as you say. I will accompany her to be certain of her safety.” He was directing an unseen orchestra with one hand, his eyes closing after a few seconds. “I will be able to keep an attack from reaching her, although the protective units young Jamieson gave us should suffice.”
“Thank you. For coming with us and for protecting her.”
“I will admit, a part of my accompanying you is a selfish desire,” Sigma took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I wish to lay my old friend to rest, both in my mind and in the world. For my sake and for Winston’s sake,” he hummed for a second, his hand falling still slowly, like a music box unwinding. “He deserves to rest.”
“He does,” Gabriel watched as the man opened his eyes again, the harsh lines of his face as soft as they would ever get. He hadn’t interacted with him much, when Talon had a hold on him. He’d known about him, known he’d existed, but he hadn’t known anything on a personal level. He’d known Sigma was insane, his mind scattered across reality until he could barely focus on one aspect of everything at once. Sombra had been the one to watch over him, keep him company when he needed it. Her abilities were enough to counter his, if necessary. As long as she stayed out of reach of some of his nastier abilities, she could help keep him in one place long enough for his personality to settle down.
He didn’t know she had done so by simply talking to the man, protecting him from Moira’s experiments.
The flight felt longer than it was, no outside noise reaching them – or even really existing outside their shuttle. Reaching an escape velocity was a new experience, Gabriel decided. Seeing the stars around them, an endless expanse of darkness and flares of light, was also a new thing for him. Something hit him in his chest, something that made him almost want to cry from the sight of it all. “Holy shit,” he muttered.
“Dios Mio,” Sombra whispered, staring out the heavily shielded screen. Her hands tightened on the tablet she still held, her jaw dropping. “It’s…Beautiful.”
“It always is,” Sigma glanced out the screen. “Ever since I was a boy, I have loved the stars. I wanted to understand them. I became an Astrophysicist so I could study them, study the way they moved and changed. Others I knew, Harold – A friend of mine,” he clenched his jaw for a moment and Gabriel understood. Make it anonymous and it would hurt less to talk about. “Was a Geneticist and, later, an Astrobiologist.”
Jack was almost breathless when Gabriel turned to look at his reaction to the stars. His eyes were wide, his lips parted in surprise.
For a second, Gabriel could see the years they had lost on his face. Excitement had always made Jack seem younger than he was, even before everything that had happened. Seeing the stars up close had to be an experience for him – He’d always talked about seeing them over his family’s farm, bright and endless, away from the lights of the cities.
They spent the rest of the flight entranced, watching space around them. When they landed, it jolted Gabriel back to reality. Docking on the Lunar base was a quick task, Sombra up and working the moment their ship touched down. Sigma followed after her, prepared to help her clear the way.
“Gabriel? Jack?
Their comms were still working, up here. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, given everything, but it still felt like one. “Angie?” Jack answered. “Anything happening we should know about?”
“Sombra connected the systems of the base with ours. We now have access to the data and the recordings stored within.”
“Good,” Gabriel grunted the word out, sighing. “It’ll help us destroy the cover-up, make it so they can’t hide what happened anymore. There weren’t any funerals, the deaths happened without any recovery. It’ll just be another nail in the fucking coffin. Just memorials and a bullshit apology to the families.”
He could hear someone talking in the background. The soft tone of the voice cleared up after a second, Mei speaking quietly to Angela. “Mei is telling me about the cryopods being used,” Angela filled in. Another line beeped in his ear and Gabriel switched over, listening.
“We’ve got a way in cleared, boss!” Sombra reported. “You’re clear to come in.”
Gabriel nodded, holding out a hand to Jack. “C’mon, boy scout, time to go make our entrance.” They walked in together, wandering through the empty hallways of the base. Everything was wrecked – pieces of metal strewn everywhere, fabric ripped up and scattered. It looked like the specimens had attacked everything out of anger and frustration. If Winston at his angriest was any indication, Gabriel could believe it. Hyper intelligent gorillas with a deep-burning rage?
They were all just lucky that only Winston had gotten free.
He and Jack wandered a bit, finding an airlock. Outside, still clearly in view, were the bodies of the scientists who had met their ends. If he could get closer to them, he’d even be able to identify them – bodies didn’t decompose in places like this. The moon’s gravity kept them close and there wasn’t enough heat nearby to burn them away. They stared for a minute, silently apologizing to the people who’d lost their lives.
Jack was the one who urged Gabriel away, taking his hand and leading him down another hallway. “There’s a blood trail,” he whispered. “I think we should…”
“Follow it?” Gabriel snorted. “I knew you were white, Jack, but horror movie white is a new thing for you.”
Jack shoved at his shoulder, laughing quietly. “Come on, Gabe,” he muttered. “Let’s go investigate the horror movie that this place became.” They walked together, following the blood until the trail came to an end at a door. “Sombra?” Jack asked across the comms. “Little help?”
“Yeah,” She answered. “Here.” The door opened, letting them both in. It slammed shut behind them, like Sombra had panicked about something. “Boss, we’re missing one of them! Can’t find one of the specimens, I think it’s heading your way!”
She’d barely gotten the words out when something slammed against the door. “Yeah,” Gabriel called back to her, eyeing the door with worry building. “Whichever one it is, they’re here.”
Jack turned away from the door, searching the room for something.
“Reyes!” Mei’s voice was a harsh shriek across the comms. “There are life signs in one of the cryopods!”
He stopped, a hand going up to his ear as he waited. “Are you sure?” he looked over at Jack, wrapped up in a space suit as tightly as he could be, staring into the dark of the room like he was being called. “Zhou, are you certain?”
“Absolutely!” her breathing was harsh, her voice panicked. “They are the same ones my team used – I know the systems backward and forward, sir, I know someone is alive on that base.” the sound of keys tapping followed her words, Angela’s voice in the background. “It looks like…It looks like it’s coming from the room you’re in,” she whispered. “Whoever it is, their health is not looking good. Cryopods freeze everything – including healing. Whatever state they went into cryostasis in, they are going to come out the same way!”
“Got it,” Jack spoke up, gesturing at something in the dark. “Gabriel, look.”
Gabriel turned, finally seeing what Jack was seeing. There was a box-like shape in the corner, looking like it had been pulled out from the bed that took most of the room. He and Jack moved towards it together, putting faith in the door that had shut behind them with Sombra’s coaxing. The slamming noises had stopped, but he wasn’t going to try to open it, just yet. Lights were flashing softly at the base of the box, a small glow lighting up the room at short intervals. When he saw a pane of frosted-over glass, Gabriel lifted a hand back to his comm, opening up the line. “Sombra, I need you to—”
“Got it, got it!” Sombra spoke almost over the top of him, the cryopod hissing as it moved and shifted, following her commands. “It will be open, soon, boss,” she sounded stressed out. “All quiet out here, I got them quarantined in one hallway, the one that attacked your door is shut off from you now. You should not need to go out by them, just follow your original path back to the ship.”
“Understood,” Jack met Gabriel’s eyes, his own wide.
They waited together, pressed against each other as the cryopod defrosted, finally popping open to reveal a man in a torn lab coat. His short hair was greying at the edges, his face bruised, and his clothing bloodied. “He’s alive,” Gabriel whispered. “Jack, look, he’s breathing.” He winced when he saw the state of the man’s arm, ripped apart and barely holding together. There was something under the skin, something that looked like metal.
With a nod, Jack pulled out his emergency oxygen supply, pressing it over the man’s face, sliding a hand under his head, and pulling the straps down the back of his skull. “Shit, come on,” he muttered. “We need you to wake up.”
“Do you need any help?” Sombra’s voice filtered through the comms again. “Sigma and I can come in.”
“We might,” Jack spoke up first. “He’s injured. Badly. It looks like there may be a couple of broken ribs, possibly one pushing into his lungs. Can’t tell without a scan, I don’t think I’ll be able to carry him out of here. Gabe?”
“Me either,” Gabriel sighed, putting a hand up to rub across his face, snorting in surprise when he touched the face of his helmet instead. “If nothing else, we’ll be able to get information from the poor bastard. He also needs to see Angie; I don’t think he’ll make it too far if he doesn’t. He’s one of the scientists from the Horizon project, I believe. The lab coat, the injuries – it tracks.”
“We are coming in,” Sigma’s voice was a heavy sound, echoing into itself with every word. “We will assist in retrieving the man.”
“You’re doing okay?” Jack asked.
The door opened behind them, Sombra’s hands held up as Sigma floated behind her. “I am well,” Sigma inclined his head, eyes closing for a moment. “We will retrieve Doctor Ziegler’s newest patient, then we shall return to the ship.” He lifted a hand, moving closer. “It is for the best if you—” his breath caught in his throat, his eyes flying wide open, the moment he saw the man in the cryopod.
“Sigma?” Sombra leaned into his space, a hand laid gently on his wrist. “Hey, Sigma, look at me!”
Gabriel stared at the man, watching the way his entire body started trembling. “He’s alive,” he met Sigma’s eyes. “He’s breathing. He’s really injured. But that’s not why you’re staring, is it?” He looked back at the man in the cryopod. “We saw a bloody trail on our way into this room, old blood. Back before Overwatch fell, the Horizon project fell into catastrophic failure. You’re staring,” he looked up at Jack. “You’re staring because you know him.”
Jack tapped his comm. “Mei? Do you know which room we’re standing in?”
Her answer was quick. “The personal quarters assigned to Doctor Harold…” she hesitated, then cleared her throat. “Doctor Harold Winston.”
Sigma floated closer, both hands extended. The man in the cryopod lifted upward, gravity shifting around him. With his hands shaking, Sigma continued to stare at him, one lifted like he wanted to lay it against the man’s cheek.
There was a look in his eyes that Gabriel could recognize.
A look he had felt.
When he had broken free of Talon’s programming, pulled back to safety and mental stability by seeing Jack again. Not that the love of his life was what had made him sane again, exactly, but that Jack had been a stable place in the middle of a chaotic storm. Jack had called him home again, reached out for him, their hands grasping as they saved each other. Sigma looked like that, now, like everything that could bring him back to solid ground was in front of him. Re-introducing Winston into his life had brought a measure of stability to him, and brought him back into reality.
“This is Doctor Harold Winston,” Jack whispered. “Isn’t he?”
Sigma’s sharp intake of breath might have been a sob, his pale face unreadable as he floated backwards, Sombra staying at his side. “Yes,” he hissed.
Gabriel nodded. “We’re out,” he announced on his comm. “We’re heading back to the ship; we’re coming back home.” He paused. “Tell Jamieson his units haven’t malfunctioned, tell the Lucheng people that we’re on our way back.” He followed after Jack, their hands slipping together as they fell in step with each other. Sigma was just ahead of them, waiting with very little patience for them to catch up. Sombra stood at his side, glancing back at them.
Siebren de Kuiper had been in love, Gabriel realized. Before his accident, before everything had gone wrong. Like a twisted version of him and Jack, best friends, working in the same field, a day where everything went wrong – Except Siebren de Kuiper and Harold Winston had never been together. Not according to Siebren himself, not with the way he insisted they were just friends.
Not according to Winston, who’d been able to catch the scent of them. The two of them had never even gotten to spend what little time they’d had together.
He tightened his grip on Jack’s hand, walking as close to him as he could.
X
Jack watched as Angela met them on the landing pad.
She had a gurney with her, Mei following with a panicked expression on her face. The moment Sigma moved to meet her, she helped him lay Harold Winston down, already attaching monitors and IV lines. “What caused this state?” she looked at Jack, eyes wide. “I know of the uprising, Winston gave details, but…”
“There’s a magnet in his wrist,” Gabe spoke up. “The theory we worked out, on the way back, was that he’d gotten it implanted in case of something like being accidentally pushed through an airlock. Something he could activate when he realized everything was going wrong – He probably got it as a just-in-case sort of thing. We think it’s what saved his life. He clung to the inside of the airlock as his coworkers got forced outside. The airlock closed just in time for him to stay alive. He dragged himself back to his room, locked himself inside,” he took a deep breath and Jack took his hand again. “Every bed had a cryopod installed under it. Just in case. Solar powered, with a battery back-up.”
Mei nodded. “Ours were not – solar power works less efficiently on Earth.” She was checking over Harold Winston’s arms, frowning at the damage. “I think your theory is correct,” she whispered. “Look at the damage to his joints,” she pointed out to Angie, frowning.
“We can fix that,” Angie assured, looking up at Sigma. “You will need to wait outside as I operate,” she told him, her words leaving no room to argue.
She took off at a run, pushing the gurney back towards the medical wing.
With a small noise, Sigma watched her go, his hands lifted like he wanted to reach for the man she had taken into her care. “I am here,” Mei spoke up again, smiling when Sigma looked at her. “So I can explain to you what you can expect from his time spent in cryostasis. I was asleep for ten years.” She nodded when his mouth opened. “I can give you any information you need to know about cryopods.”
He nodded back, swallowing roughly. “May we speak somewhere quieter?”
“There is a waiting room outside the medical wing,” Mei answered quickly. “It will be quiet and close by.” Sigma followed after her, apparently full of panicked energy as he listened. His hands were shaking, his entire posture shifting as he floated. Jack watched them leave, leaning into Gabe.
Sombra stepped closer, her eyes wide. “He’s talked about Harold Winston before,” she whispered. “I never…Reported it. It felt like the sort of thing no one needed to know,” she looked at Gabriel, taking a deep breath. “He needed privacy about him.” She shifted, her hands curling around her elbows. “He loves him so much; he didn’t need anyone getting into his head about him. Especially not once I found out about what they did to you,” she jerked her chin at them, shaking her head. “Not after I found out about how much of you they ripped apart to make Reaper in the first place. We didn’t need to make two of you and we didn’t need Sigma to be broken even more.”
“He’s in enough pieces as it is,” Gabriel muttered. “You did good, kid.” He reached out and ruffled her hair.
With a smile, she lifted her head. Jack smiled back, nodding. “Good job,” he assured her. “Gabe, we need to go talk to Winston. Before he hears about this from everyone talking about it.” He started to head inside, Gabriel following after a second, Sombra at his side.
In another world, in another life, they could have had children. They could have been celebrating some big number of years together, watching their children grow up. Jesse and Sombra were the closest Gabe had ever gotten to being a father, Jack knew, and they were good kids. Despite everything, they were good kids. Gabe would have been an amazing dad, Jack knew. He cared about every accomplishment, every bad day, every single moment that could be shared. Jack would probably have been average, all said, but he’d have tried his best.
Sombra turned off at the doors, walking down a hall to meet up with Reinhardt and Ana again. Part of the conditions of her being on their base was going everywhere with a guard.
Jack and Gabriel walked a different way, meeting up with the Lucheng scientists. Gabe held up an external drive, sighing. “Their bodies are still up there,” he told them. “Outside the airlock they were forced out of. If you can get close enough to collect them, you’ll be able to identify them, get them funerals.” Gabriel made no mention of Harold Winston, no mention of Sombra removing the data of his survival from the data being handed over.
Jack wasn’t going to say anything either.
“Thank you,” one of them spoke up, her voice quiet. “We’ve been trying to get them home again since it happened. Doctor Chao will be pleased with this result – they were her coworkers and friends. She has wanted to lay them to rest since she recovered.”
“That should do it,” Jack nodded. “The data of the day everything went into failure.”
“Thank you,” she said again, bowing. “We will tear everything down and get our equipment out of your way.”
Gabriel sighed, nodding. “Thank you for letting us borrow it.”
Jack waited until the group of them had wandered away, then took Gabe’s hand and started jogging towards Winston’s room. “Come on,” he muttered when they got there. “Come on, Winston, let us in,” he knocked, waiting impatiently. He needed their friend to know, needed to be the one to tell him. Winston hearing from the others gossiping wouldn’t be good. They were temporarily in another base, just enough of them to make it function and carry out the mission. Winston had come with them out of a sense of duty, grief pushing him forward.
The door opened, Winston on the other side.
“We found him,” Jack got the words out first. “Winston, we found him.” He sighed, pushing a hand back through his hair.
“…Found him?”
“Harold Winston,” Gabriel added, nodding. “We found him on the base. Angie has him, now, she’s doing what she does best.”
“Wait, wait,” Winston shook his head, a confused sound tearing out of him. “Wait. What are you saying?” he looked at Jack, then at Gabe. “You’re saying he’s alive?” he breathed heavily, adjusting his glasses absentmindedly. “You’re saying he’s back on base, alive, and currently being seen to by Angela?”
“I’m saying we brought him back down with us,” Gabe grinned, and Jack wanted to do the same. “I’m saying we brought him home with us. I’m saying Angie currently has him on a table, trying to undo the damage done to him. Also,” he met Jack’s eyes. “Apparently there was a missing specimen. Something about a hamster. Couldn’t find a record of him, couldn’t find him. The logs we found said stuff about him being an escape artist.”
“Subject eight, yes,” Winston looked a little dazed. Jack couldn’t blame him. “Is he – Why do you think he escaped and simply wasn’t destroyed by the others?”
“Because we found signs of a smaller ship built in the same place as yours was,” Jack laughed a little. “Working theory is that he hitched a ride on you when you got out.” Shrugging, Jack patted Winston on the shoulder. “Once Angie gives the all-clear for Harold Winston, we’re going to head back to Gibraltar.”
“He’ll be alright?” Winston looked as much like a worried son as anyone Jack had ever seen. “Really?”
“From the answers Angie was giving us as we came back home,” Gabe shrugged. “Absolutely.”
Jack watched as the two of them continued to talk, occasionally interjecting his opinions or ideas. They were going to be okay; things were going to be okay. Two parent and child relationships were getting fixed – Harold and Winston would get to see each other again, and Gabriel and Sombra were getting closer again. With every moment she helped them, Gabe was letting himself forgive her a little more.
There was nothing he wanted more, really, than for Gabriel to be happy. It even rated, personally, above taking down the people who had hurt them in the first place.