two quick notes: 1) izzah is my pm fanchild and SHH u cant make me give her up. im v attached. shes mentioned a lot even if she never appears on-screen here 2) shes deaf (like sam is in ph verse) from birth, and no angela has no interest in "fixing" this or some other dumb shit bc... sam is involved in Deaf culture and fareeha grew up around it and long story short... deafness isnt something that needs to be fixed so just jot that down

Chapter Text

There was a time in her life when Angela was a heavy sleeper, when nothing short of the sound of an emergency notification from her comm, shrill and insistent, would rouse her before she was ready; it was not—is not—a good trait for one who routinely travels to warzones, who sleeps scarcely more than a kilometer or two from battlefields, but despite attempts by her superior officers to break her of it for her own safety, Angela never could quite shake it, could not find within herself the wherewithal to do so.

Now, she sleeps not at all.

It might have been a bad thing, once, insomnia, but she can hardly complain given the cause. There are no nightmares which keep her awake—or, rather, they are few and far enough between, and easily soothed by the woman at her side—is nothing but silence.

She should be thankful for the silence; usually it is not so. She should take advantage, and sleep while she can—alone, in the dark, no wife hogging the covers or baby crying—but it is lonely now, the silence.

Strange to think that once, this was all she had, herself in nearly empty quarters, and work the next day, stranger still to think that she was ever content in those days.

(But she was—there is no sense in saying she was not, in acting as if she was lonely then, or discontented, longing for something greater. She was not, for one cannot miss what one has never had.)

Strange—but true.

Ten years ago, Angela could not have imagined herself here, unable to sleep without her wife at her side, could not have imagined herself with a wife at all. She was content, then, with her research and her fieldwork and her friends, and she is content, too, now, with a wife, a daughter, and a dog.

Marriage has not completed Angela Ziegler, for she was not incomplete before—but it has, perhaps, expanded her life.

It has not completed her but now, alone, she feels lonely, misses having those she loves near to her, even if they are gone only for a short while.

Fareeha is away on a mission, and has been for two weeks, her first long assignment since the birth of their daughter eight months before. Having become used to having Fareeha by her every night, during the pregnancy and afterwards, Angela has missed her sorely, and has been grateful to Izzah for providing a distraction; it is hard to be lonely when one’s infant cries the instant she is set down, and harder still when one’s dog is always underfoot, trying to help with the baby, but not accomplishing much of anything, other than tripping Angela up.

(Truthfully, Angela cannot fault her—Nenet was a service dog, before she was Fareeha’s, before she was theirs, and her instinct will always be to work. Still, she is not always needed, and sometimes that instinct causes more problems than it solves.)

Tonight, however, Izzah is not here. Fareeha was meant to arrive home hours ago, and so Ana volunteered to take their daughter for the night—an offer supposedly to help Angela and Fareeha have some uninterrupted time alone, but Angela rather suspects it is as much for Ana’s benefit as anything else, for she dotes on Izzah.

In the beginning, Fareeha was not certain that she wanted her mother to be too involved with their daughter, their relationship still complicated as it is, and the fear of leaving always there. Now, however, things have calmed somewhat, and although at times their interactions are bittersweet, she and her mother have reached an understanding about Izzah, about each other, about themselves. Angela understands better, now, why Fareeha wanted so badly to be a mother, to carry a child, and is grateful once again that she let herself be talked into agreeing to motherhood. She has enjoyed it, just as she has enjoyed the other things Fareeha convinced her to do—getting married, adopting a pet.

She has enjoyed it but—she reminds herself—she would not be wanting without it, would still be a whole person.

Perhaps if she reminds herself of that often enough, then she will stop feeling so lonely, and will finally be able to sleep.

But how can she? How can she when the bed is cold beside her, and the baby monitor is completely silent, no quiet babbling or grunting on the other end, when the only sound is Nenet whining—

—Why is Nenet whining?

Normally, Nenet is quiet and well-behaved, so much so that their success in caring for her was one of Fareeha’s arguments as evidence that the two of them were qualified to look after a child, ridiculous as the comparison was. Normally, she whines only when distressed—which is to say almost never, except for when there is a party on base, and someone purchases balloons. Normally, she would not act like this, unless something was wrong.

Angela abandons her attempt at sleep, and is out of bed in an instant, comm ready to call in an emergency in one hand and Fareeha’s hockey stick, hastily pulled out of their closet in the other.

(Once, her service weapon would have been on hand, in her dresser at Fareeha’s insistence, as much as she hated to have it there. Now, with a small child, her blaster stays where it belongs, stowed with her other equipment, safely out of a baby’s reach. It may be time to find a middle ground.)

Stealthily as she can, she moves from she and Fareeha’s bedroom to the main room of their quarters, and from there towards the nursery, following the sound of the whining all the while.

For a moment, panic grips her—the nursery—before she remembers that Izzah is safely two halls away, asleep in a portable cot in Ana’s room, and not here. Still, the spike of adrenaline from that worry compels her to move faster, to burst into the room and catch—

—Only Nenet, whining by an empty crib.

“Oh, you poor girl,” she croons at Nenet, hockey stick falling from her hand as she reaches instead to tug comfortingly on her dog’s ears, “Are you worried about Izzah?”

This is, after all, Izzah’s first night not spent in their quarters—or, the first since she was released from the medbay after a tumultuous first 72 hours of life. Hard as it is for Angela to be away from her for the night, to not be able to check on her if she is quiet for too long, and to be alone here without her wife, or her baby, barely fighting the urge to call Ana just to be sure everything is alright, at least she understands what is happening, and why. Poor Nenet has no frame of reference for such an event, has no idea where or why Izzah has gone.

It makes sense, then, that Nenet would worry, that she would notice the baby’s absence and be concerned.

Really, Angela should do something about that, she thinks to herself as she rubs at Nenet’s side in a way she hopes is soothing. What kind of responsible pet owner would she be if she did not?

(Never mind that, when they took in Nenet, she insisted to Fareeha that the dog was her wife’s and her wife’s alone, and she would take no responsibility for her wellbeing—Nenet has grown on her, and quickly so.)

“Athena?” Angela asks, “Is Ana awake?”

Nenet stands up as Athena replies in the affirmative—Angela rather suspects that, while Nenet is now used to Athena, she will never fully accept or understand the existence of the AI—and Angela tells herself that it is for the sake of the dog that she messages Ana immediately after receiving confirmation that she will not be waking her.

How is Izzah? she types, and then quickly adds, so as to clarify her intent in asking, Nenet has been worrying about her.

Because this is, of course, about and for Nenet, or so Angela tells herself. It would be ridiculous if she were worried, because she knows Ana is more than capable for caring for Izzah for a single night, and she is not the type to be so anxious a mother, surely. After so many years spent alone, both during the first Overwatch and after, when she was travelling near constantly, there is no reason why Angela ought to be the sort of mother who cannot stand to be away from her child for one night.

And yet—

No, this is for Nenet.

(Angela is afraid of what it would mean otherwise, if she were the one who needed reassurance already, afraid that maybe she is too attached, afraid that if she loses Izzah, or Fareeha—well, best not to dwell on either of those things. And what of her career? Will she grow used to this separation? Once Izzah turns a year old, Angela is slated to return to doing relief work, flying across the world for days, weeks at a time. Will she still be able to?)

This is for Nenet, and Angela worries not at all.

Still, when Ana responds not with a call, but a message, Angela cannot deny that she is disappointed. She just went back to sleep, Ana writes, I’m also going back to sleep, and you should too. The dog will be fine, and so will Izzah. If I didn’t already know how to take care of a baby you wouldn’t have one.

Please, Angela writes, and tells herself that this is only for the sake of Nenet, Could we call just for a moment, so Nenet could hear her and calm down? Calling could not possibly wake Izzah, who inherited Fareeha’s father’s deafness, so there is no risk of disturbing her sleep by doing so, is no drawback to Angela—to Nenet—hearing that she is well, even when Angela is not there to watch over her.

No, Ana’s response is quicker this time. Goodnight, Angela.

“I’m sorry, girl,” says Angela, not quite managing to keep her own very real disappointment from her voice, “The baby’s sleeping.”

Nenet does not understand, of course, and Angela is not the type to pretend that animals truly comprehend what their owners tell them, but when she huffs out a sigh and lays her head in Angela’s lap, it seems as if Nenet is as disappointed as she, as if the dog, too, just wanted to hear Izzah breathing, to know the baby was well.

Too, because Angela can no longer pretend, even to herself, that it was not she who longed to hear her daughter, that it is not she who is so anxious at a night’s separation that she cannot sleep, even exhausted as she is by work and new motherhood. Her sadness at Ana’s refusal was too definite, deep, and sudden to be denied. She told herself that she would not be this sort of mother, and yet—at least for tonight—she is.

Before Izzah was born, she worried that she would be the opposite kind of mother than the one she finds herself becoming, worried that because Fareeha conceived her, carried her, birthed her, that Izzah would feel more like her wife’s daughter than their daughter, worried that because she could not remember her own parents she would not know how to be a mother, worried that her trauma would impede her ability to bond with her child.

She need not have.

Instead, now, she finds herself almost too attached, finds herself worrying about things she was certain that she would not, finds herself becoming an entirely different sort of mother than the one she imagined that she would be. Angela does not forget her daughter, too busy with her research to spend time with her child, and instead finds herself always prepared to return to her quarters in the early evening, everything carefully placed away. She does not find herself afraid to touch Izzah, worrying that her own bad luck will doom her child; she is close to her daughter, as close as one can be to a baby, and does not hesitate to hold her, to console her, to keep her close. She does not flounder, unable to guess her baby's needs, left staring at her child and wondering what it is she could possibly want while Izzah struggles for her inexperience—she is not a perfect mother, it is true, but she is no worse than any other first time parent, her abilities do not suffer for her own lack of experience, of memory of what it was to be part of a family.

(This all worries her. In her life, little enough goes well. Surely, this means that eventually, something will go terribly wrong, it cannot be an if but a when. Fareeha would tell her that this is not true, that not everything must go wrong and Angela tries her best to believe it. Losing Izzah would not break her, for nothing yet has, and she has lost everything before, more than once, but she does not want to entertain the notion of a life without her daughter. For all the joy and goodness Izzah has brought to her life, there is also this, a new fear, another nightmare to wake her in the night, or—like now—to keep her from sleeping entirely.)

Perhaps sensing her distress—or, perhaps, just wanting Angela to resume petting her—Nenet pulls Angela from her thoughts by pressing her nose, cold and wet, against her owner's face.

If people are like their animals, then it is true that animals are also like the people who own them. In this instance, Nenet is much like Fareeha: an empathetic, soothing presence in Angela's life. It is true that her dog is not her wife, cannot hold her, cannot lull her to sleep simply by being in the same bed, deep and even breaths calming her and allowing her, yet again, to dream, but she is good nonetheless, sweet and gentle, and Angela finds herself almost, almost relaxing.

Angela yawns, then, and has a thought, one Fareeha would certainly chide her for, were she there, and one she herself would not allow her wife to entertain, if it were not she who thought of it.

“Are you tired, Nenet?” Angela asks, as if her dog could answer her. Nenet wags and Angela pretends that it is in response to her question. “Come on,” says she, “Let's go to bed.”

When she stands, Nenet does also, and when she beckons, Nenet follows, as if she understands what is asked of her.

Perhaps she does—she was a service animal, before she was theirs, and she is smarter than most.

Certainly, she is smart enough to know, when Angela pats the bed beside her, that she is not meant to climb up, that usually this is something which is forbidden to her. As if Fareeha might walk in at any moment she whines, and looks to the door. Angela laughs, and then pleads, and when that does not work she finally orders Nenet up.

Then, Nenet comes, and digs at the mattress as if she might shape it, making a mess of the blankets before settling down, somewhat uncertainly.

(Angela makes a note to herself to wash everything before Fareeha returns tomorrow afternoon, lest the smell of dog on her pillow give this away.)

Despite her uncertainty, Nenet falls asleep quickly enough, and Angela finds herself soothed by the sound of her breathing, almost as well as if Fareeha were here instead.

She is not lonely, now, and she was not before. Her life was not empty without her daughter, without her dog, without her wife, but it is fuller now, is larger, and it scares her, at times like this, to be alone, not because she is not enough for herself, not because she cannot be content alone, if she needs to be, not because she is lonely but because she has something worth losing, and it scares her to think of a life apart from it.

(Angela is still herself, is still self-sufficient, but she does not need to be, any longer, does not want to be, and she is choosing not to be. She is not lonely, she is frightened, because she has lost the people she cherishes before. Somehow, this realization is almost comforting.)

The fear is worth it, she decides, before her eyes drift shut and she thinks nothing more.