( open ) there's a road that follows to a home

[cadeuces]

Who: Angela & you!
When: The month of February and onward
Where: Region 2 farmlands, at her cottage
What: A permanent downtime log for house shenanigans!
Warnings: None, but I will update if anything comes along!

[ Angela's work schedule is a fairly clear-cut thing on the best of days. Three days working in Kauto's hospital, three days up on Chioni, and then two days off. Around the time of planet discovery and the initial burst of travels, she hovers around the Ingress Complex to assist any who may return injured, and she's otherwise on call across all three if emergencies required her skills. To say she isn't home terribly often is a fair enough assessment, but she still had plenty of downtime every evening, considering the longer days.

There's a key in the base of the lantern beside her front door, but not everyone knows about it— not even a handful from her own world. Those who do, however, know they have a free pass to her home whether she's there or no. A spare bed to crawl into, a couch to wait on, access to her stash of medical supplies (but seriously just call her for help). A kitchen to rummage through, now often with fresh-baked bread and a steady offering of apples off her trees on hand, as well as any leftovers in the fridge.

Eiger still accompanies her to work as a resident therapy dog, but he could be found around the property when she works her shifts on Chioni, access out the back door through the flap when he no longer feels like awaiting her return at the front. The cottage itself is on a hill and the back extends out on a bridge as an elongated sunroom, stretching out over the creek running through her property. The back door itself leads one to a winding path down through the copse of trees preceding her quaint little orchard of apple and walnut trees, surrounding a gazebo set up with a fire pit and the basics for cooking in warmer weather, hammock piled high in furs leftover from the Midway Hub's game— if anyone chose to visit and didn't have access to her house, this would be the ideal place to camp. (Just make sure to message her so she knows you're there! She'll come around once she's home to let you in.)

If she's home and not in the house, one would undoubtedly find her in that hammock with her work, fire crackling at hand and her cup of coffee long-since cold, Eiger curled up behind her legs. It's not the largest of places, but it's home, and there's blankets on near every surface— even the chairs in the kitchen. The creek is a relaxing babble, the creak of the water wheel partially powering her home, and if she's home, there's always a fire going if it's cold out and coffee going. ]



( ooc: This will be a permanent post for house stuff! I'll be posting monthly headers and any prompts relating to events or going-ons within to link from my toplevels, but I am 100% open to casual plotting or visits; just hit me up at clegane or on discord (gauche#5968) and we can work something out! ♥ )


february ● march ● april ● may ● june ● july ● august

Comments

[cadeuces]

[ Reinhardt would never owe him anything but his mere presence; because much as she had remained, so too had he. The crusader had always been there for them all, kept them safe behind his shield and ensured everyone returned home, even if it was upon his back or in his arms. Always offering cover even if his shield gave out by hunching over them, bodily blocking any threat coming their way. ]

If ever there were a better man for the job, I'd like to meet them. I doubt they exist. [ Yet Reinhardt's laugh lightens her in increments, in seconds to the hour as she tries to relax, remain natural, calm. She can imagine how this entire conversation will go and there are no paths where it ends "well". Only "just short of catastrophic". Talking about David is, in that regard, far easier. Though she reminds herself to be mindful even here. The remark on his skittish behavior leaves her smiling into her coffee all too fondly. ] You have, have you. Mm, he is rather skittish; people grow on him slowly, but once they take root, they leave him sturdier for it. He's a good man who has fought many tough battles, as we all have.

He's been a dear friend to me, here. We saw each other every day aboard the Moira and he's helped me train Eiger, here. And he saw me safely through the crash, camped with me to ensure things remained safe. I'm glad you found him agreeable. He's a very skilled soldier. And Jaegar's been a gentleman from the start.

[ Amongst everything else, of course, but that is a decent enough summary to convey her fondness of the man. The quiet request for Reinhardt to continue to be his friend and think well of him. There's a sip of coffee, another bite of streusel, then another sip to wash it down— but her fork is twirling in slender fingers and she has never been prone to nervous fidgeting. She doesn't want to drag this out as if she'd brought him here under some other pretense, so... ]

The next farm over, you know, is where Ana has taken up residence. I don't see her terribly often at all, but I've been wondering for quite some time who it was she was living with.

[ It's a hop skip and a jump over from the previous line of conversation, but she clearly intends to go somewhere with this, fishing for whatever information Reinhardt may have before continuing. Did he know? About 76 living there as well, and their correlation? Or will simply stating that he's her housemate be enough to incriminate him? She wonders. ]

[grandpaladin]

[He's got his chin propped up on his hand, listening to her talk about the mysterious new arrival in her life. His expression creasing into a slow, broad grin.]

[You can't hide from him, Angela. Not in terms of your new buddy. But he doesn't respond, not right away. Just looking her up and down, slowly.]

Seen each other every day, eh? [Girl he got your number.] Camped with you?

Ahhh... I see.

[Let's see how she takes that one. But, let's be real, this is about as sly as Reinhardt is capable of being. And even then, it's for a good reason.]

[In contrast to her, delicately eating, he's already finished. There's a reason he'd waited for her to go first, beyond just being a gentleman. At the topic change, though, he raises his eyebrows.]

Oh? She did not tell me where she was staying... [A tilt of his head.] Living with someone?

[Yeah he has no idea.]

[cadeuces]

[ 'Mysterious new arrival', Reinhardt please. She's known him from their first week here. Though she hasn't much had the chance to speak of those she's met here, has she? There are certainly a few who stick out, David and Ahab chief among them. She realizes he's watching her with a soft fondness, his grin spreading.

Her shoulders tense defensively, but try as she might to deny his suspicions, he... isn't wrong, either. The next best thing: ]

With others, on both fronts. I have made friends here, Reinhardt. I promise.

[ David doesn't need her fellow agents trying to vet him by any means. It would get out of hand quickly, knowing some of them. If Reinhardt so chose to give him a slap on the back in congratulations, he could be sent right through a wall. An easier, if stickier, topic though it may be— it's one she needs to end prematurely. She won't drag this out.

She will, however, reach to cover his hand with her own, slender fingers curling into his palm to brace her arm along his, thumbing along strong knuckles. That alone should be a hint to sober him for what's to come, plate left half-empty and ignored. It takes her a moment to gather her words, ensuring she has his attention before she speaks. ]

Mm, her housemate is 76. They've remained largely off the grid.

[ God, she hopes he can make the connection. That she doesn't have to say the words aloud, make them such a stark reality— and bend Jack's trust further when he'd asked her to keep quiet on it. Yet Jesse had found out as well and showed up at her door like a storm ready to howl, and she knows it's quickly crumbling. Best he could hear it from her if not the man himself. ]

[grandpaladin]

Good. If you had not, I would be very concerned for you!

[But the good humor of the statement, the teasing, fades out as her expression sobers. And she moves on. Her sudden change in expression and the pressure of her small hand on his is more than enough.]

[Something is wrong.]

[This isn't just a friendly social visit. He looks at her, quietly. Listening to that simple statement and hearing more behind it. It isn't like Ana to simply live with a stranger. Especially one as prickly and hard to read as that one. Which says she knows him, somehow.]

[But Ana has been gone a long time. This 76 could easily be someone she'd met along the way.]

Angela... what has happened? They are all right, aren't they?

[cadeuces]

[ His sobering in response to her shift already hurts, having to do this to him. He had come in such high spirits, settling into their easy back and forth as if they didn't often spend such spans of time apart, as if they weren't hurtling through space, crashing, and trying to find their way on an alien planet. As if they were home and it was just another day, an extended vacation.

It isn't just a friendly social visit, no, and she feels him scrutinizing both her and her words, picking apart each syllable for everything she doesn't say. For a glimpse of the truth she held like a bird between her palms, the cage of her fingers only offering so much light through.

She has to mind her words in this, how she approaches it. The last thing she wants is for Reinhardt to storm off to action without hearing her out. ]

It is... a bit of a story, admittedly. I want to know you'll hear it to the end. Everyone's all right, however. Perhaps better than. [ 'Not dead' usually qualifies as 'better than'. Usually. ]

[grandpaladin]

Angela...

[There's a chiding tone to his voice. Even as serious as the situation is. As somber as it is. He can tell she's trying to choose her words carefully. Trying to say this the right way.]

[But that tells him something is wrong. Even if she's assuring him otherwise.]

Dancing on the issue does not suit you. What is it?

[cadeuces]

[ Something is wrong, yes, but it isn't nearly what he thinks. That chiding doesn't sit well with her either, steel in her spine in its wake as she sits a little straighter, bracing, because... well. For as easily as Reinhardt could leave her feeling young when he swept her up in a warm embrace and his booming laugh shook her teeth, she's still nearly 40. She's led her own life independently, made life-altering decisions time and again, lost good people in her very hands no matter her breakthroughs or her efforts in surgery.

Angela is not a woman easily chided. She knows what her decisions will be, why she's made them, and she won't regret her actions if at all possible. ]

Give me a moment, please. [ Now, where has she heard that before? She's picking up bad habits from her friends.

One more breath. That's all she'll spare before settling in. ]

I find it difficult to believe you haven't held misgivings to 76's character even with his general demeanor, so I'll try to be brief. I've held such idle suspicions all these months and they've felt foolish, as if I were being hopelessly propitious for my thoughts, butting heads from the start but slowly growing to know him. Looking for meaning where it hadn't made its bed, latching onto so many little things that I should have had more faith in— I saw the signs in his actions, the good intentions he couldn't help but follow through on, the chagrin left after doing so. The way he's called me "doc" time and again, how I kept running into him, how he trusted me enough to contact me and allow me the chance to assist injured slaves trying to escape that colony we'd visited.

Reinhardt, he built me a shelter once. And gave me his own while he did so, continuing to stick with me whenever we had the chance to hunker down during the recent trek, camping near enough to share a fire. You don't do that for a stranger. With a stranger.

[ She has to nurse her coffee for a moment, take another sip and roll the porcelain between her palms, warming her hands. When she looks back up at him, she searches for revelation in his eye, that moment where it all clicks, waiting to see when he'll connect the dots as she'd failed to done, now that it's laid out. But even if he doesn't: ]

He returned from a mission on Eosoros injured— quite badly, really. No one could get near him and he was bleeding out, so I requested the room cleared and I went in. I've had experience with wounded soldiers still twisted up from battle, more like wounded animals than anything rational or human, but this went even further. Then 76 called me by my name and the tone was so familiar it ached. Heart down in my toes and all. [ And she clearly doesn't enjoy speaking of him this way, but it's important to know— the state he was in, the state he's been in, the isolation and the paranoia. Her eyes glass, tears threatening to breach her lashline, but another steadying (trembling) breath in and she centers herself, still as a pond once more.

Then quietly, still with a touch of wonder, barely a breath: ] It was Jack.

[ Her eyes close for a long moment, with that. Lashes damp, fingertips forced to steadiness where they itch to drum about her cup. She doesn't think she can face his reaction head-on, as much as she can feel it radiating off of him already. ]

[grandpaladin]

It's all right. I was not so serious.

[He won't push her. Not until she's ready. He'll wait. He's worried, but he'll wait. Not completely patiently, but oh well. It'll come. He trusts her to bring it to him. Whatever it is.]

[Has he been suspicious of the man? The stranger who styled himself as mercenary. The stranger who struck him as familiar. Too familiar. He shouldn't feel this way about someone he's never met. And their conversation at the hub, the way he'd gotten so angry down in the place with all the recordings. Maybe there is something too familiar about him.]

[Something he hasn't quite grasped until now.]

[He reaches out across the table to rest his hand on her arm again, consoling, supporting. This is far more difficult a conversation than he ever expected, coming out here.]

[But he nods, yes he knows that place. He knows the planet -- not as well as some, but that makes sense. All of it makes sense, up until...]

[Up until the floor drops out from under him. His chest feels as if someone has wedged a block of ice in there. Something thick and cold that won't move. He just stares at her. Uncomprehending. Like she started speaking nonsense. Gibberish.]

[Like she didn't just tell him the last person he swore he buried was lying to him. Just like they all had been.]

Angela... you cannot. You have to be mistaken...

[But he knows she's not. It's in the way his face has gone pale, the way it's like bleached bone. Good eye staring at her as if she's just socked him in the jaw.]

[No.]

[cadeuces]

[ Reinhardt waits for her to gather her words yet the wait did nothing to ease the dread that settles in. She can see it there, the way he weighs her words and awaits more, letting it sink in.

Then that cold hunk up between his ribs, freezing his lungs and slowing his heart. Her hand is over his in a gentle reach, small and slender as her fingers settle along the tendons standing out along the back. ]

I'm not mistaken. I saw his body. His scars. He knew me; he's known me all along, Reinhardt. But you have to realize how much has happened to him and how he's changed as well. He's still fighting to find out what happened to Overwatch. What he's done is what he felt was right, even if we don't agree. Because he knew we wouldn't agree. There's a bigger picture he's always seen, and he's hurting for it as he always has.

[ Near the end when he was so tied up in political red tape it was choking him, cutting off his circulation. He's still their commander in some aspects and in others he isn't. He's been hurt by the very thing he'd dedicated his life and blood to. This slow to fester dish served to him on a silver platter that had slowly killed him and those important to him. She knows how hard it is to hear that he's hidden his identity from him but she also realizes why he'd done so.

He loved them all and respected them, and he didn't want anyone else to go down as he and Gabriel and Ana had. It was as simple (and yet deeply complicated) as that.

Reinhardt's staring at her in disbelief but all she can offer him is her hand over his and her understanding, as well as an explanation of Jack. Her pain is just as visible having to speak of him this way, in damp lashes and pinched brows and the fine tremble in her fingertips, because a paranoid and scared man on the verge of hyperventilating was not who Jack had been. But it's who he was now. It's something she's still grappling with herself, but he had considerably calmed once he'd been treated and once he'd shown up at her door, taking her up (belatedly) on her offer for a place to recuperate from his injury.

Angela's sure just watching him through that week that he'd never had a better chance to sleep in years. He'd slowly unwound and was comfortable there, and he wore it about as well as an old suit from his younger years, tight at the shoulders and ill-fitting. He'd been able to sleep hours at a time. And with good food and Eiger's presence as a guard when she wasn't around, he was back on his feet and better for it, no matter how he'd been wary with the situation.

He'd grown too used to being alone and paranoid. ]

Do you understand? That we need to be patient with him? He's been alone for six years. Nowhere to go and no one to have his back.