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[Five years. It almost seems like no time at all, but also an entire lifetime ago. The last time Genji had been to Switzerland, he'd been someone.. completely different. He remembers those nights more than the days, the cold bite of the wind instead of the warmth of the sun. There had been pain instead of peace. And yet, there had remained a singular constant through it all, removed from his memories of suffering; untouchable. Dr. Ziegler. Angela.

For one night, the day before he abandoned Overwatch, and only a handful of months before the explosion that had leveled the same building, he'd been offered a glimpse of her heart. So close, her light had burned, but he'd carried that feeling with him in the years after. The closest he had gotten to feeling anything like it again had been much later, half frozen in some remote Himalayan village. He'd lashed out at Zenyatta's kindness in the same way, too angry see the difference. Maybe the process of breaking had started with Angela, or maybe he'd just been too tired to keep fighting, but either way, the omnic had been there to help him pick up the pieces in the aftermath.

He'd never blamed Angela for not being able to do the same and with time, he'd learned to understand what he felt for her. Looking back, he could see now that what happened had been the only possible course for them, regardless of how painful it had been. Anything else would have surely destroyed them both. These days, he's honestly amazed that it hadn't anyway.

But now, so many years later, he finally feels strong enough to dig through the ruins he'd left in his wake, searching for what might be left.

The late afternoon sun is bright in the cloudless sky over Zurich, creeping its way towards evening. Long shadows are already been cast across the streets in a quaint apartment block. Inside one building, several stories up, a note waits on the door of Dr. Ziegler apartment, attached to the wood by what looks like a child's sticker of a flower. The note has only one word written on it: Konnichiwa :)

Inside, a shadow drags out across Angela's floor that doesn't come from the buildings outside, but rather the shape of a man sitting in her window, dressed in street clothes, a hoodie pulled loosely up over his head. The last time Genji had come to Angela's window, it had been in the dead of night, a red and black phantom desperate for some last chance at happiness before the end. This time, he sits casually, patiently waiting, one foot propped up on the sill. An outward calm that hides the way his heart feels like it's trying to pound its way out of his chest.]

idk number whatever

[Leading up to the Shimada Clan's final days as a cohesive and respectable organization, Genji had thought that finally bringing low the family that had caused him so much pain would make him feel... better. The weight would lift and he would find some sort of respite from his emotions. Anyone outside looking in would have been able to quite simply tell him that such an idea was a load of shit, but it had driven him. Instead, when the deed was done and he's torn the last leg out from under the clan, he'd only been left with a feeling of aching emptiness.

Perhaps it had seemed strange then for that to be the time he finally agreed to the cybernetic streamlining that Dr. Ziegler had been quietly trying to convince him of for far too long. Her gentle approach had been rebuffed, if not outright ignored, every time. There was a part of him that preferred the hellish appearance Blackwatch had gifted him with, whether he thought he deserved it or it simply made his job easier.

But there was no job anymore. Certainly Commander Reyes could continue to send him on operations, but he's seen enough to know that even that isn't going to last forever. Overwatch, Blackwatch... it was all spiraling out of hand and eventually nothing was going to be able to sustain it. He couldn't stay, Reyes' wishes be damned, but he wasn't going to leave like this either.

He knows Dr. Ziegler worries about him- he fights her on it whenever he has his appointments. The rest of the time, when he's not in her office because he has to be, when they pass in the hall, or cross ways during mealtimes... it scares him. But he owes her this and he can't leave without her knowing.

So the night before the operation- the night before he makes his decision final- he sneaks out. The window to her personal quarters is on the tenth floor and certainly not an entrance any sane person would expect, which makes it all the better for clandestine arrivals. Bare metal feet make the softest of clicking noises when they touch down on the sill, the dark shape of his body nearly hidden against the backdrop of the night sky, save for the dim red glow of his cybernetics.

He shouldn't be here.]

Dr. Ziegler... [A pause, then softer, as if he's said something he shouldn't.] Angela.

Co-op mode

['The world is changing'; Genji had said it to his brother in Hanamura almost a month ago before leaving and traveling west again. He'd known before arriving back in Europe that he was going to answer Winston's call, unable to remain secluded in the mountains and pretending that innocent people weren't dying while he did nothing. He'd also known that Angela would be resistant, but... what choice did they have? After the attack in Iran it had become apparent that the turmoil wasn't going to just ignore them. Whether they liked it or not, they were tied to Overwatch's current and they could either struggle alone against its pull or follow where ever the course might lead.

Of course, that meant fighting, and not everyone was suited to being in the thick of a battle. Such as medics, regardless of how insistent Angela is about helping. He and the other do their best to watch out for her- that she's their only medic at current is added incentive- but sometimes things just happen. Like a dislocated knee from a hard fall.

The doctor's skills were impressive and her staff seemed to work miracles at times, but there was only so much a person could do before they needed to let their body heal on its own. Angela had been out of commission for almost a week, her leg in wraps, and Genji did his best to make sure she followed her own directions and didn't stress it too often. It was difficult for someone who was used to be busy.

Which is why when he slides into the room she's claimed as her own (and by extension, his on occasion), he has a small portable game console tucked under his arm. Whenever he'd gotten himself laid up in his earlier years, it was how he'd passed his time. Often times regardless of whether his father had decided he was allowed to or not. It had driven Hanzo up a wall.]

Angela? How are you feeling?

003

[A light snow drifts gently down from the grey sky, sticking in fluffy clumps to the trees and rocks surrounding a secluded grotto in the mountains, steam cloaking the clear pool of warm water and the small, wooden hut perched on its bank. Strings of prayer flags tied to posts mark a path through the fog, a lonely trail of color winding through an otherwise muted landscape.

It had been several days since Genji and Angela had finally arrived at the Shambali monastery. Zenyatta had, as expected, been delighted to finally meet 'the Dr. Zeigler who had done so much for his student' and had welcomed them both with open arms. Quite literally. The omnic's presence never failed to put Genji's mind at ease, even more so now knowing that they were safe here. That Angela was safe. He'd shown her about the temple and the village below, introducing her as needed to those he'd come to know in his time on the mountain. They had become his family, and the significance isn't lost on him.

However, it also meant that the time he could spend with Angela was cut shorter than he would have liked. Returning home meant returning to certain responsibilities and duties, and she hadn't been permitted to stay in the temple itself. Genji knew better than to think his master would be blind to his newfound distraction, but he'd done his best to be dutiful. And even still, he must have worn it like a brand across his forehead when Zenyatta had suggested, in that gentle, half-subtle way of his, that he take Angela to enjoy the hot springs down in the valley. It was very dry in the mountains, he said; the villagers claimed that the steam did wonders for the skin. Genji had agreed and done his best not to immediately forget he'd had the conversation.

But now, standing in the hut with Angela, the two of them bundled up in the thick, colorful wool of the local village fashion, looking out at the springs... he's glad he followed through.]

...No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place. [He murmurs it almost to himself, a simple mantra, almost childlike in its simplicity, and he feels the peace of the moment washing over him as the words leave his lips.]

What do you think, Angela? [He glances over her as he tugs his mittens off, one hand flesh and blood, the other bare cybernetics. There's little need for armor in a place like this.]

002

[The sun was still at least an hour away from even starting to creep over the horizon when Genji slips out of bed, awoken by a sound that no one else would have been able to hear while alert, much less from a dead sleep. Leaving the comfort of Angela's embrace so early wasn't how he wanted to spend his morning, but in the wake of her news the other night on the encroaching turmoil of the region, he can't risk not being on guard. He collects his swords and disappears into the pre-dawn gloom.

When he returns, it's with a new black singe mark on his chest that surrounds two points of contact for a taser lead and a newfound urgency.]

Angela, get up. [He grips her shoulder and gives her a gentle shake.] The camp is in danger.

001

[The alert had come on a quiet, snowy evening, on a channel that Genji barely remembered he even still had access to. It was little more than a ping, a simple query that required no immediate answer should he decide to ignore it; which, he thinks, would be a mistake. It had been years since Overwatch 'disbanded' in rather spectacular fashion and the remains of the once renowned organization left to the whims of a dispassionate bureaucracy. His memories of those times are... conflicted, tainted by a haze of self-loathing that had nearly consumed him, and even now he struggles to recall them with any real objectivity.

Zenyatta had, of course, so effortlessly sensed his troubled state, and they had talked into the evening on the matter. Afterwards, Genji himself had sat alone through the night reflecting on his course of action. The signal itself isn't what concerns him, but rather who else it would have reached. He finds his thoughts continually drifting to the letter he'd sent not more than a few days ago, addressed to a humanitarian aid outpost in the middle east: Dr. Ziegler would have received the call as well. Hers is one of the few memories he can recall with any amount of genuine fondness, part of the reason he'd made an effort to stay in touch with her even after the shutdown. But now...

He left the next day, with his master's blessing. Peace could not always be maintained by standing still and the omnic had understood Genji's decision to leave in pursuit of it. It was time to move forward and he knew where the first step would take him.

The heat of the Iranian desert is a far cry from the snow of the Tibetan mountains, and far more so the war torn streets that necessitated the need for aid workers like Angela. Genji suspects that this turmoil plays no small part in the recall request and he understands the need, but for the time being, his focus is.. slightly narrower.

She isn't difficult to find and he waits until her tent has emptied of both staff and patients before letting himself in: a corner that had previously been unoccupied quietly taken up now by a figure wrapped in an old nomad's cloak. He doesn't announce his presence immediately, taking a moment to watch her. It's been years since he'd seen her last and it almost doesn't feel real now.]

...Good evening, Dr. Ziegler. [He pushes back his hood and with any luck she won't immediately call security. Or attempt to put him down on her own.] I hope I'm not intruding.