Widowmaker's POV
Silence.
Not peace—something worse.
The kind of silence that seeps into your bones. The kind that follows annihilation. The kind that makes the air feel thicker, heavier, like the world itself is trying not to wake whatever did this.
Widowmaker gasped awake, choking on ash and smoke. Pain bloomed in her ribs as she dragged herself upright. Her vision swam with static. Her visor was shattered. She tore it off and threw it aside.
No need to aim. Not yet.
The sky was red.
No stars. No sun. Just blood-colored haze hanging over the ruin of the Overwatch compound.
The walls were gone.
The ground was scorched glass and twisted steel.
And across that blackened field…
She saw him.
Lying still.
Not on fire. Not cloaked in wrath.
Just… still.
Gerard.
Her breath caught.
He was curled into himself, breathing shallow, like a man too tired to die. His body was burned in streaks—ashen markings along his skin, veins of fire that still glowed faintly. Around him, a perfect ring of scorched earth.
The place where Jay had risen.
But now… there was no flame.
No howl.
Just the man she used to love.
Widowmaker's eyes drifted across the rubble.
Reaper's corpse lay broken across a pile of slag. His body was fused to his armor, what was left of it. No smoke clung to him. No regeneration. No second life.
He was dead.
And Gerard had done it.
Or… the thing inside him had.
Jay.
The Devil of Vengeance. The one Mercy had sealed. The one Angela died trying to keep buried.
And now he was dormant again—inside the man Widowmaker had once called her husband.
She reached for her rifle.
It was damaged, scorched—but intact.
She lifted it. Aimed.
The crosshairs rested over his temple.
Gerard didn't move.
Why is he still breathing?
Why am I?
She remembered the fire.
The demon in the cloak of blue flame.
Its laugh—inhuman.
The searing finger across her cheek.
He could've killed her.
He didn't.
That was no accident.
And that wasn't Gerard.
That was Jay—grief incarnate. A god made from rage and loss.
Her finger hovered on the trigger.
She should pull it.
End this. End him.
But her hand…
trembled.
What if killing him wakes it up again?
What if this sleep is the only thing holding the world together right now?
She swallowed, jaw clenched.
She had known Gerard.
Before.
Before Talon.
Before the cold.
Before she forgot what it felt like to care.
And now… here he was.
Burned. Empty. Alive.
Would I have done any less, if they had taken him from me?
She lowered the rifle.
Slowly.
The ache in her chest felt foreign. Old. Unwelcome.
She stepped forward, boots crunching over glass and slag. She passed Reaper's remains without looking twice. That monster had made his choice.
So had Gerard.
She stopped beside him. Crouched.
The fire was gone from his skin, but the heat lingered—like a furnace left on low. The seal Mercy had placed on him was fractured now, no longer glowing, but still faintly warm. She hovered her hand over his throat.
A pulse.
Weak. But human.
Her gloved fingers brushed his temple.
No reaction.
He looked like someone who had died and been dragged back—only to find nothing waiting for him.
She sat down beside him. Not guarding. Not stalking.
Just… there.
Ash swirled in the breeze. Smoke curled around their legs like mourning veils.
Widowmaker touched her cheek.
The place Jay's finger had marked her.
No scar.
Just a faint shimmer beneath the skin.
Not a wound.
A brand.
Not of possession.
Of recognition.
He saw her.
Not Talon's assassin.
Not a weapon.
Her.
The woman Gérard once knew.
And maybe, for a heartbeat, she saw him again too.
Jay stirred.
Just a twitch in his brow. A slight hitch in breath.
Widowmaker's hand snapped to her weapon—but she didn't lift it.
Not yet.
"If you wake up," she whispered, voice hoarse and cold, "what will you be?"
"The man I knew…"
Her eyes drifted to the corpse behind them.
"…or the thing that killed him?"
Chapter Four: Ember and Angel
In the quiet dark, Gerard dreamed.
But it wasn't his dream.
It was Jay's.
And it began, as it always did, in flame.
Not destruction—warmth.
Sunlight poured through a vaulted dome above the old Overwatch training yard. A younger Gerard sprinted across scorched tile, flame curling from his heels. But the fire wasn't his.
It belonged to something deeper.
Something ancient.
Something watching through his eyes.
Jay.
In the dream, Angela stood at the edge of the arena, clipboard in hand, sunlight in her hair. Not observing the man.
Observing the thing within.
And he—Jay—watched her too.
Not as prey.
Not as target.
As something divine.
The first to look at him and not flinch.
He remembered the first time she touched him.
The day his body broke mid-mission. The day the mortal skin cracked. When Gerard collapsed, clawing at his chest, screaming.
Jay surged up, howling—fire tearing through arteries and bone.
No one could get close.
Except her.
Angela walked straight into the inferno, robes fluttering like wings of white silk.
She placed her glowing hands on his chest and whispered—
"I see you."
Not Gerard.
Him.
Jay.
And in that moment… he stilled.
Later, in her lab, she sat beside him for hours—monitoring, speaking to the thing inside as if it had a soul.
"You don't scare me," she whispered once, her hand hovering over the seal etched into Gerard's skin.
"I know what you are."
Jay answered, through the crack in Gerard's voice.
"Then you're a fool."
She smiled.
"No. I'm in love."
He didn't understand.
He'd been worshipped. Feared. Sealed.
Never… seen.
Never loved.
And yet she stayed.
She talked to him—not through Gerard, but with him.
Asked him questions.
Listened.
Laughed.
She brought him tea once, late at night. Poured a second cup, even knowing he didn't drink.
She sat in silence and waited anyway.
And eventually… he spoke.
Not of death. Not of flame.
But of what it felt like to be forgotten by the world.
And she nodded.
"Then let me remember you," she said.
And she did.
Again and again.
The dream shimmered.
Now they stood on the balcony, moonlight trailing across Angela's face.
Gerard had gone quiet inside.
This was just them now—Angela and Jay.
She leaned against him, wrapping the blanket tighter around both their forms.
"You're not a curse," she murmured, eyes closed.
Jay said nothing.
"You were just waiting for someone to see past the fire."
He stared at her, not understanding how something so soft could love something so ruined.
"You should've run," he whispered.
"I didn't want to."
"You still can."
"Too late," she smiled. "You're stuck with me."
He didn't say it back.
He couldn't.
But in that moment…
He would have burned Heaven itself if she asked.
Meanwhile, in the real world…
Widowmaker moved through the forest.
Dragging him—what was left of him—on a makeshift sled of metal and wire.
He hadn't woken.
Not since Reaper's death.
Not since the city burned.
But the heat still clung to him—low, dangerous. A beast asleep in a man's skin.
She could feel it when she got too close.
The thing beneath the surface.
Jay.
She didn't know why she kept him alive.
Why she wasn't afraid to be near him.
Only that when she looked at him, she felt something she hadn't in years.
Not fear.
Not vengeance.
But a ghost of memory.
Gérard…
No. Not quite.
She pulled him through the outpost doors, past rusted consoles and shattered glass. Propped his body in the corner beside a broken generator.
He didn't stir.
But his fingers twitched.
His lips moved.
"Stay…"
Not in his voice.
Not Gerard's.
Angela's.
Then—
"Amélie…"
Her heart stopped.
She backed away slowly.
The seal on his chest glowed faintly. Still fractured. Still holding.
She stared at the mark.
And felt heat behind her eyes for the first time in years.
"Who are you now?" she whispered.
"The man I loved… or the devil who loved her?"
No answer.
Just the pulse of flame beneath skin.
Just the weight of knowing that something inside him was still listening.