Prompt! Fareeha/Angela: Spring
Pharah lost her mind at the close of March and into April, and this would be true so long as she lived. The transition from dead to alive was a messy one, sticky mud clinging to shoes and tracking in every possible place, dripping water fouling up recently-cleaned windows, random spurts of bright-yellow pollen wafting into bedrooms. Winter was cold, and this might not be to Pharah's liking, but there was an orderly cleanliness to the frozen earth of which she approved.
Mercy loved the messy, slow crawl of winter into spring. She sipped her coffee at the back of the house just outside the reaches of Calgary's tentacles, looking over toward the mountains. There would be a twinge of longing for home, looking at Canada's Alps, if she weren't so aware that her home had not been a place, but a time.
There was no need for memory to love the tentative chirps of the birds who believed, as they clustered in the branches of the bare trees. It was a cathedral to the promise of renewal, those trees, their thick branches black against the sky, the framing of stained glass windows that had been blown out. But the choir sang, because they knew the windows would return, and the flowers would bring forth their sweet incense, and everything that had died would live again.
That was the beauty of spring, and she basked in it even as the cool breeze wove through her hair. There was birdsong, but little else, out here, and she could nearly hear the grass yearning and stretching through the--
"Tracer!" her wife sounded as if she were disciplining a naughty dog. "Your pant leg is dragging the wet all across the floor. I mopped, only yesterday."
"Right, well, if you'd like to advise the men's trouser companies of the world to make more 28 shorts, problem solved."
The dog was unimpressed.
"Have you never heard of tailoring? Or simply rolling the hem of your--"
"Falls down, right?"
The birds stopped, in rapt attention to the drama.
Mercy took a deep breath, and gazed up at the clear of the sky. Pharah and Tracer were both certain personalities, and she loved them both, and was convinced, in time, they would come to love each other.
"Just one bloody spot! Planning on eating off the floor, are we?"
Eventually.
Mercy turned around, ignoring the din of whatever they were saying to each other now, and walked over to the siding glass door, where she tapped softly and smiled at Pharah. Of all the things she could trust, it was that Pharah loved Mercy more than Tracer annoyed her, despite Tracer's best efforts. Pharah shot a look to Tracer, who shook her head and turned away, pant leg leaving a second spot on the bright cream floor.
Pharah frowned at it a moment, but instead took the coffee pot off the warmer and opened the sliding glass door, pouring Mercy a fresh cup.
"It is becoming a beautiful day." Mercy rested her hand on Pharah's arm.
Pharah looked outside. "Deck needs to be scrubbed."
"Fareeha."
She shook her head and smiled at Mercy, taking a thick, puffy jacket off the hook by the door and slipping it on. Pharah would, in her later years, tease herself about being a true desert dog who came to rest in London against her will and better judgement, but for now, in the place she had decided they would begin again, it was better to ignore her need to don a down jacket for a mild spring chill.
It was enough to Mercy that she was willing to come outside with her, whatever the coverage required.
Even more so that she was willing to ignore the deck that needed scrubbing, the bistro set with small mounds of snow still on, the flowerbeds that would need raking and planting soon. These were her thousand small fixations, how a thing could be made more perfect, more orderly, and more beautiful for that. But she said nothing. Of her Pharah's many oaths, she took her oath to love Mercy as best she was able the most seriously.
They stood together, side by side, looking at the mountains, the gently wavering branches, and the birds began to sing again as Pharah relaxed, allowing the ease of being with her wife to allay the need to seek improvement. For one moment, anyhow.
"d.Va will be saying yes. To you." Mercy did not realize she was going to say it until she did.
She would be their first true recruit. Pharah had been up nights, putting together a comprehensive presentation to the young soldier and talented mech pilot. How Overwatch had changed, how they had plans for the future, how they had been working to create a unified network designed to help all of humanity. The dental plan. Tracer had merely said she intended to be charming and a legend, both of which came to her easily.
They left for South Korea in a week.
Pharah looked down at the horribly disordered flowerbeds, her eyebrows giving a quick shrug she could not allow her body.
"That is the hope."
Mercy touched her hand. "That dirt, it had thornbushes in, do you remember? Lena, you and her were tearing it out this summer."
"I certainly remember Tracer drinking beer, leaning on a shovel, and chattering, yes."
Mercy chuckled. "She was helping. More than you know. The same dirt, but there are lilies now. Ready."
Pharah clasped her hand around Mercy's "If they grow. The winter could have killed them."
Mercy shook her head. "They are living. I know. They will be blooming, with time."
Pharah looked at her, at her messy bun and her unadorned face, her lightly stained sweater and her beautiful, powerful belief that love mattered, and justice was real, and life continued. Mercy had a faith more precious than gold, something Pharah could look at in wonder and reverence but never possess. In the light of that faith, Pharah could not believe in the despair of winter, nor enjoy the cleanliness of failure.
She said the only thing she could say.
"Yes."
With that, she leaned forward and kissed Mercy, as a pilgrim might kiss the statue of a saint, each only made real by the other, no reason for either of them to exist otherwise.
Mercy whispered into her ear.
"Spring. Time for a new start."
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