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Dripping wet, Ana had to pick the lock to the back door of the complex. Curfew had the place on lockdown, even though the sun had only just begun to set. Out front, there was some security to admit any authorised stragglers, but as she and Jack were not exactly legal residents, the back route was safest; Ana wasn't sure she was charismatic enough to talk her way past the doorman in Russian.
Luckily the interior of the complex didn't seem to have any regular patrol so far, and she had already taken stock of the hallways' security cameras, making sure to note their blind spots. Ana strategically hugged near to the walls as she made her way to the fifth floor, where their contact had secured a vacant unit for them to stay.
Once at their door, she knocked in her designated pattern. Today, that was two sharp knocks, followed by two softer, slower knocks. After a short pause, a pattern of one soft knock, three sharp knocks, then two slower ones followed. The door opened for her twenty seconds later.
"Welcome back," Jack said solemnly, looking her over. Even though they'd reunited months ago, he still seemed to look at her as if she were a ghost at times. That was fair, she supposed.
Ana began stripping off her soaked through jacket and boots, dumping them on the floor near the door. She could almost feel Jack disapproving, but she would tidy them up in a bit. Besides, it wasn't like they had a chest of drawers to neatly pack away their clothing.
"Don't frown at me," she said as she unzipped her bag. "I brought you a present."
She produced a package of cheap candles, to which Jack grunted, but readily took from Ana. Jack began to unwrap the flimsy plastic. The unit had almost no furnishing and no electricity, and due to the deluge of rain since their arrival, they'd been unable to charge their solar lamps. A little light overnight would be welcome, whether Jack was outwardly grateful for it or not. Jack set two of the candles down on the small crate they'd scavenged earlier that afternoon to use as a makeshift table.
"I hope that's not all," Jack said, digging around in his rucksack for a lighter.
"Tch, Have some faith in me," Ana chided. She had stripped down to leggings and an undershirt, but she rummaged through the pockets of her discarded pants to eventually pull out a wallet. It seemed that in Russia, their identification cards were, marvelously, still made of paper! It was a wonder she had been able to get it back to their unit without it falling apart out there.
"I checked it already at a public terminal. The code works." Ana knelt down next to the crate, and set the ID card out in the candlelight. "It's this number here, on the right side. Now, what about your end of the bargain?"
Jack gestured toward a paper sack on the windowsill, looking particularly soggy in the night's last remnants of sunlight, before he picked it up to deliver to her at the 'table'.
"What's this?" she asked, watching him pull out something wrapped in foil.
"Food," he said simply.
Suspicious, she took it from him and peeled back the wrapping, revealing something like a crepe, wrapped in a self-contained cylinderical shape. Well, at least it was convenient. It was cold, but she was hungry and had never been picky. Ana bit into the wrap and scrunched up her nose, unable to really determine its content.
"Mushrooms?"
"Dunno," Jack admitted. "Couldn't read the menu."
Well, there was some kind of sauce layered in between. It wasn't so bad. Wasn't great, but wasn't so bad. "Thanks," she said simply.
After a few bites, she shifted over to grab the tiny travel stove from their baggage and used Jack's lighter to get it going. "Tea, Jack?"
Jack was busy logging into his datapad with her stolen credentials. Internet access had apparently been greatly restricted in Russia due to the Second Crisis, and it was impossible to get connected without a national ID, so this was their first opportunity to get online since they landed early that morning. He didn't answer right away, preoccupied, but he slid the jug of drinking water toward her, so she took that as a 'yes'.
They were here to chase after Gabriel, so of course he was preoccupied. Well, he was here to chase after Gabriel. Ana was here simply to help her friend.
The water was just starting to heat up as Ana heard Jack murmur, "Huh, Father's Day."
"Today is?" Thinking about it, it was always around this time of year, wasn't it? It wasn't a holiday she had any particular attachment to. Briefly, Ana wondered if Fareeha made a habit of calling Sam to send her well wishes. Did they even have that holiday in Canada?
"Seems so," Jack said, distracted eyes scanning the lit screen.
"Feeling nostalgic, Jack?" Ana asked softly. It likely sounded as if she was teasing him, but the old fool did have more sentimentality than sense so much of the time. It was part of his charm. So, if he wanted to talk, she wouldn't stop him.
"Hm..." Jack pondered.
"What kind of man is your father?" Ana offered. She should be thinking of her own, surely? He had passed away while Overwatch was still at its height, but Ana had mourned him and moved on already. She had good memories of her father, although as she had gotten older, she had realised that perhaps he wasn't as perfect a man as he'd seemed when she was a young girl.
"A hard-working man," Jack said. "He lived a simple but busy life. His job was... harder than I appreciated, when I was young."
Ana knew that Jack had grown up on a farm, but she couldn't really imagine what that lifestyle was like. She had a hazy image in her mind comprising pictures of farmland along the Nile Valley, but she wasn't sure how similar farming was in the United States. Despite decades of frequent international travel, she couldn't say that much of it had been to such rural locales.
Jack had grown quiet after his initial statement, so Ana let the silence stretch out between them as she heard the water in the little tin kettle start to heat.
"I think I can say the same about mine," Ana eventually said, though her upbringing had been much, much different than Jack's, from what she could tell, and she was far less willing to indulge in sentimental memories. "Is he...?"
"Still alive? No, no," Jack was typing on the datapad now. Ana wondered what else he had found. If he'd gotten any other intel about Talon's-- about Gabriel's-- supposed whereabouts, he hadn't shared it yet. She trusted him, of course, but coming to St. Petersburg had really been a stretch. The tip had been reliable, so Jack had seen it as worthwhile. "He passed a few years back. Heart attack."
Ana pressed her lips together, avoiding an immediate response. As Jack's friend, she couldn't help but feel guilt. Things had gone so, so wrong since she had vanished on them-- on all of them, her family, those who were blood and those who weren't. Her thoughts turned once again to Fareeha... but no, it was difficult to think of her daughter too often, knowing what she had done.
Jack had been through so much, and his support network had dwindled to nearly nothing while she had been gone. Ana had to live with her decisions as much as anyone else, but that didn't make it any easier to face the constant reminders that she had abandoned so many who she loved.
Still, Jack was no stranger to death and loss. No more than Ana was.
When the water was finally boiling, she unstacked the travel-sized cups and prepared their tea. This was one of the few luxuries they allowed themselves in their nomadic state. Jack saw it as a luxury, anyway-- Ana saw it as necessity.
Ana passed Jack his tea, and blew gently over the surface of her own, letting the mint drift into her senses. Jack stared into the shadows of his cup as the steam curled into wisps before his face. She couldn't help but notice he looked older in the candlelight. All the scars certainly didn't help.
"You know what it's like," Jack said after he took a long sip.
"Losing my father?" Ana asked, raising an eyebrow. She did, but she wasn't sure she would be any help if Jack was struggling with it. Sometimes she wondered if something was wrong with her, with her sense of attachment to people. She never seemed to be able to do relationships the right way.
"Being a parent."
"Oh."
Ana considered that. It was true that she was, well, a parent. In the strictest definition of the term, it was true. However, she had no illusions about the quality of her parenting skills.
"Hardly," she decided to say after taking a sip herself and wincing. Too hot. Jack's super-soldier tongue could withstand more than hers. Unfair.
Jack left the datapad on the crate for a moment as he pondered his tea. Tch, he was wasting the charge on that thing. They'd have to find some source of power tomorrow.
"You did your best for Fareeha."
"Words of comfort don't suit you, Jack," Ana said with a wry smile.
"It was praise, Ana," he grumbled. "You're not perfect, but you did do your best."
Hm. So it was... and so she had. Hadn't she?
Ana returned to her cold food, then glanced at the screen of Jack's datapad, her eye quickly scanning for valuable data. It all seemed to be such benign local news. Yes, a lot was about the Second Crisis, and they weren't sure yet Talon's level of involvement in that... But frankly, Ana was content tonight to wait for more intel. They were supposed to check in with their contact again tomorrow, and she wasn't in any rush for Jack to complete his mission of self-destruction.
"Did you want to be a father?" Ana ventured directly. It wasn't something Jack had ever spoken of, but she could easily imagine it.
Jack started, caught inexplicably off-guard by the question. "Me?"
"No, the guy snoring next door."
He looked a bit embarrassed, and took an unreserved gulp of his scalding tea. "Mm. There was a time," he said at length, "where Vincent and I talked about it. You know, planned for the future."
Ah, yes. A bright, shining future together that had never come. A pity.
He would have been be a good father, she thought. He always cared far too much about everyone. He'd certainly make more time for his child than she had, despite supposedly 'doing her best'.
"But instead of him, you married your work."
Jack didn't need to respond to that. They knew it was true.
"With Gabe..." Jack said, "Well. I think we both always knew. It wasn't meant to be, for us."
Ana tried to imagine the two of them with a little brat of their own, and the thought brought a smirk to her lips. "I can just see the two of you, taking your boy out fishing, or going for ice cream."
To Ana, it was such an amusing, yet strangely peaceful image, but Jack didn't seem to share her mirth; he stared at his hands, made of stone. Perhaps if things had gone differently for them, perhaps if those two had simply retired from the Army without getting involved with Overwatch...
Well, life would have been staggeringly different for all of them if the Omnic Crisis had never happened.
She finished chewing the last of her mysteriously filled crepe and crumpled the foil wrapper into a greasy ball. Ana wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She then tried to meet Jack's eye.
"Jack," she said gently. "You've been a remarkable father."
His eyebrows furrowed as he finally looked at her. "What are you getting at?"
"To everyone in Overwatch," she said levelly. "They looked up to you, came to you for guidance. For approval."
"That's hardly the same--"
"You were a father-figure to many of them," Ana insisted. Many of the younger members especially, who had joined up after losing families in the Omnic Crisis-- many of them no longer had fathers, sisters, spouses. Many of them had nobody else left. They had come together, had supported each other. Together, they had created a new family.
And... well, Ana had failed her Overwatch family, just as she'd failed Fareeha. But Jack hadn't. Jack had stuck around until the very end, had consistently been a hard-working man, living a busy and anything but simple life.
"I guess I can't argue," he reluctantly agreed.
"No, you can't," Ana said firmly.
"A few of them said as much, from time to time." Suddenly, a bubble of a laugh spilled from Jack's mouth. "I remember one time, Cadet Flores accidentally calling me 'dad' during training. I don't think he ever lived it down."
"You see?" Ana allowed herself to share his smile. There was no way to turn back time, no way for her to go back and be a better mother to Fareeha, no way for Jack to go back and choose himself over Overwatch. That was no reason not to give thanks for all the blessings life had given them.
"So, happy Father's Day, Jack."