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There had been no warning.
One second it was business as usual at the Overwatch Swiss headquarters. It had been a normal day, or as normal as it could be recently with the outcry from the public to abolish the organization. The most they had expected for that day was protests outside the building.
Instead the alarms went off at exactly 6:45 p.m. for an emergency evacuation. No one knew what the evacuation was for, and even if they did, there was too much chaos for any information to matter in the moment. People were rushing for the exits, and the few calm in the building were really just commanding officers putting up a front to try and help.
Jesse McCree and Genji Shimada had been in the Blackwatch sector of the home base. McCree had been planning to leave Overwatch for a month by that point but hadn’t found the right way to tell his commander Gabriel Reyes of his resignation. Genji had been helping him pack with plans of his own to leave before things could truly fall apart.
Jesse found himself wishing they had started packing just a day earlier. Missed the crisis by even one day to be as far from it as they could be. They were the last remaining members of the Blackwatch still active, if they had gone Jesse had no doubt Commander Reyes wouldn’t be too far behind them with his whole team disband.
When the alarms went off and the emergency evacuation announcement was given to them by Athena, the two snapped into action. Genji left to aid the evacuation in the main headquarters with no one in the Blackwatch sector to really evacuate, and Jesse rushed deeper into the Blackwatch sector to find Commander Reyes. Reyes had recently been injured and if he was taking any of the docs orders he would be in his quarters and would require assistance in the evacuation.
Commander Reyes was not in his quarters when McCree got to them at the very top level of the Blackwatch sector.
McCree called for Athena but she didn’t respond. He tried two more times as he searched the room, the bathroom, and the living area for any sign of his commander.
He was heading for the stairs, not trusting the elevator, when the emergency alarms suddenly cut out. everything past that deadly silent second was just darkness to him. He didn’t remember closing his eyes, or anything happening, just a sudden unexplained cut off in his memories.
When his mind came to in the darkness it was his hearing that first returned to him. Angie had tried to teach him about auditory functions in medically induced comas a while back but it had all gone right over his head, but it popped into the back of his mind when he heard something not unlike how it would sound to be stuck deep underwater in a crowd.
He carefully peeled his eyes open but blinked them shut right away. The light was blinding above him even though he had no doubt it was dim to the other occupants of the area.
“Jesse,” Genji’s voice broke through the muddled sounds, the only thing he could truly hear clearly in the moment. His voice was raspy as though he had been crying for a while, and Jesse wanted nothing more than to reach out his hand and offer some kind of comfort while his voice was refusing to work.
But… no, there was something wrong.
Genjin was sitting on his left side, but McCree’s arm on that side didn’t seem to be responding. He tried and tried to move it, but could feel nothing. He tried to move his right arm and found he could wiggle those fingers and feel them, could even rotate his wrist without causing too much pain to the numerous injuries he couldn’t remember sustaining. He could do the same with his toes and ankles, but moving his legs too much sent a shooting pain that even the wall of pain killers Angie no doubt had him under couldn’t protect him from.
He cringed and grimaced at the pain, gritting his teeth. He tried to reopen his eyes, but it took about five attempts before he could bear the light.
And sure enough, just as he predicted the light was nothing more than ancient looking oil lamps and candles that illuminate the hastily assembled medical tent. He wondered briefly how many barriers had been used to keep out the cold of the Swiss winter. The curiosity lasted barely a second before he remembered what his objective was. Comfort his friend.
“Gen-” he only got out the first syllable before breaking out into coughs. His throat was so dry and felt like it had been coated in dirt not long ago. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling, living in Santa Fe in the spring time prepared him for any damage dirt could try to do, but this wasn’t quite it. There was a slight burning taste on his tongue that even water they may have forced him to drink in his sleep wouldn’t wash away.
“Don’t try to speak,”: Genji said, near urgently.
McCree shook his head to the best of his abilities. He had never been good about taking orders, Genji should know that better than most.
“How long have I been out?’ McCree managed to ask after a few tries.
“A week,” Genji answered.
“A week,” Jesse repeated, giving a bitter laugh before going into yet another coughing fit. “What happened?”
Jesse stared at Genji in silence for a moment, waiting for an answer. He watched with a critical eyes as Genji slowly reached up and removed the mask over his eyes, the emotion in said eyes crashing over him like a dust devil. It caught him off guard, choked him, sent needles dancing over his skin as his eyes burned.
“What happened?” Jessie tried again in a voice closer to a whisper.
“Talon had people on the inside,” Genji started. He hesitated again, struggling to collect his thoughts, then went on, “They set charges. We didn’t have enough warning. Twenty people were critically injured, yourself included, and there were two casualties. The worst everyone else got was a lung full of smoke, dust or ash.”
“How are the other nineteen?” Jesse asked.
“They’re recovering, just like you. Angela said you got the worst of it out of the survivors.”
“The worst of it?” Jesse let out a sigh of relief. “That’s good. Don’t really feel too bad, if everyone else is in better shape we’ll be alright.”
“Jesse,” Genji’s voice got choked around the start of what might have become a sob. Jesse looked at him with his brows furrowed, but before he could say anything, Genji gently pulled back the blanket that had been laying over him. Genji’s eyes were shut tight, unable to look down at whatever he had uncovered. Jesse watched him for a moment before looking down.
The regret was instantaneous. Jesse wished immediately he had never looked down, had kept this discovery undiscovered and gone on uncovering different information from Genji until Angie walked over and scolded him for talking so much when he should be resting.
He couldn’t move his left arm. The fingers wouldn’t wiggle, the wrist wouldn’t turn, no pain shot up it when he even tried. Because it wasn’t there. His left arm wasn't lying where it should be by his side. His eyes traced where it should be until he got to the flopped over edges of the t-shirt he had been changed into.
Genji still didn’t open his eyes, though Jesse wasn’t looking at him to know it, when he reached up with a slightly shaking hand a folded back the flopped over sleeve to reveal white bandage that covered a stump where his arm should have been. A stump covered in bandages where his arm should have been… there was no feeling there… where was his arm, it was supposed to be right there?
Angela must have approached when he was so lost in the fog and confusion, because it was the doc who spoke next, “Genji and I recovered your body from the stairwell in the Blackwatch sector an hour after the charges went off. You had nearly bleed out completely, we were lucky we found you when we did.”
All Jesse could seem to manage to ask was, “Who were the casualties.”
“Jesse, I don’t think you want-”
“Genji,” Angie gently stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “He deserves to know.”
There was silence for a moment before Genji broke it, his even thicker than it had been before when he spoke, “The Strike-Commander and Commander Reyes. Their bodies were never recovered, but the majority of the Strike-Commander’s blood was, and they are certain that Commander Reyes died in one of the fires caused by the changes or was caught too close to one when it went off.”
The world went dark again, and Jesse willed it to never come back.