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[b]𝙻𝙾𝙲𝙰𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽:[/b] 𝚆𝚊𝚜𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚝𝚘𝚗 𝙳.𝙲.
[b]𝙸𝙽𝚃𝙴𝚁𝙰𝙲𝚃𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝚆𝙸𝚃𝙷:[/b] 𝚂𝚑𝚛𝚒𝚔𝚎 (𝙰𝚗𝚊 𝙰𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚒) [@Jacobite]
[[@Jacobite] + [@Solo] Collab]
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[indent][indent]— [color=cccccc]“Here's my advice to you: don't marry until you can tell yourself that you've done all you could, and until you've stopped loving the women you've chosen, until you see her clearly, otherwise you'll be cruelly and irremediably mistaken. Marry when you're old and good for nothing... Otherwise all that's good and lofty in you will be lost.”[/color][/indent][/indent]

Glasses pressed firmly against the bridge of his nose and a ball cap hung low. Johnathon "Jack" Morrison, with his nose stuck to the pages of a book, read the same sentences over and over and over again. His mind itched with the insatiable need to keep moving. Paranoia, over the years, had become as much a good friend as the woman he waited on. It kept him alive more times than he could count, though less than the amount of needles Amari stuck him with.

His hand pressed the crumbling book closed, sliding Tolstoy back in his spot on the bookshelf before him. Wrong place, but he couldn’t be concerned with bookstore etiquette now. Jack had to organize his thoughts before he cared about anything else. They could fuss over antiques some other time.

Without sparing a glance, Jack slid another of the dilapidated books into his hands, letting his eyes linger on the cafe across the street. He could catch the purple of a hijab floating among the patrons in the window, stark only to his eyes. The flutter of the fabric in the air conditioned room, it reminded him of something. Or, perhaps the absence of something.

Years spent alone, Jack wouldn’t have thought he’d end up like this, with someone from his past, nonetheless. It felt surreal, though he couldn’t quite complain, much less bring it up to her. They’d both died, Captain Amari the first to go, and then Jack and Gabriel. The words felt bitter on his tongue, even speaking his own. Even though Ana sat right there, not a few hundred feet away, it still tore at his heart. Perhaps not Ana’s name, but rather [i]his[/i].

Jack ground his teeth, shutting the book the moment Ana stood. Her voice rang in his ear, relaying information on their next target. Jesse McCree. [color=#98A6A7]“Been years, kid,”[/color] he mumbled, not bothering to mute his side of the transmission.

Taking the finality in her words, Jack moved toward the bookshop's lone exit, taking care to slide the book on the nearest surface before leaving - he ignored the cry from the decked out, hipster, cashier. It always took a year for him to do much of anything these days. Old age didn’t slow him as much as his own instincts did. It never hurt to tread cautiously these days.

Once he’d finally matched pace with Ana, Jack opened their secured channel, once more. [color=#98A6A7]”Details on the bounty? Location. Urgency.”[/color] he asked, barely moving his lips while he parsed through the crowded sidewalk. The less he thought, the more rigid his steps were, more deliberate, and more spartan. He had to actively calm himself to fall back into a relaxed gait. He needed to come off as less military and more civilian, to keep attention off of him.

[color=8a83ce]“He has some big spenders out after him––sixty million if he’s taken alive,”[/color] Ana said. She was several yards away, hands clasped behind her back. Some people were naturals at appearing discrete, and she was one of them, or so her own mentors in the military said way back when. Though she swore she could [i]feel[/i] Jack’s laser stare focusing on her as he tailed her, she didn’t so much as peek over to the other side of the road, instead staring in the display windows of the stores with feigned interest. [color=8a83ce]“Location… I’ll have to make a few calls to check on his whereabouts. I have a few trustworthy trackers. But I think he’ll need our help soon; it’s [i]sixty million[/i].”[/color]

She stopped at the end of the block to briefly wait for traffic. Her eyes caught Jack’s from across the street, and she gestured for him with a quick jerk of her head for him to come and join her. [color=8a83ce]“I don’t think it’s the UN whose upped his price. It’s someone else, and I don’t want to point fingers, but we do happen to know of a murderous organisation with the funding for it.”[/color]

Not much in the way of expression filtered across Jack’s face, even in dire times. But, the slight nudge of his jaw as his teeth ground against each other was enough to denote the shock to himself. Filtered anger. While he talked, Jack walked toward the nearest stoplight to cross, taking care to keep his pace unhurried. 

[color=#98A6A7]“It’s my fault for not wiping his slate entirely clean,”[/color] Jack said. He stopped a small distance from Ana, side to side and facing opposite directions. The com-link died with a small press, though his voice remained small, distant. He had to choose his words carefully here. Just uttering the world felt like ash, as if the name would summon a pair of black clad mooks around the corner. [color=#98A6A7]“If what you’re suggesting is true, then all the more reason to get our hands on him first.”[/color]

Jack tapped the side of Ana’s jacket, tugging at the fabric just slightly before beginning to trot casually in front of her. [color=#98A6A7]“We’ll have a short window of time. How fast can your trackers spot him?”[/color]

[color=8a83ce]“If he’s stationary, lying low, it’s hard to say. But when has that ever been Jesse?”[/color] There was something akin to pride in her voice. If anyone took Ana Amari’s teachings to heart before her death, it was the gunslinger––if he had even the slightest inkling that he was being hunted, and hell, maybe even if he was completely unaware of the danger he was in, she was sure that her words would still echo like bullets in a train carriage in his thick skull. [i]Don’t stop moving.[/i] [color=8a83ce]“If he’s heading somewhere, anywhere in particular, they can find him within thirty-six hours. My… friends, shall we say, have their fingers on the pulse of public and private transport all over the country. They can find him.”[/color]

They were closer now, but there was still an insurmountable distance between them. Ana felt it in her bones, an emptiness where there was once companionship. Jack, Gabriel, Reinhardt, Torbjorn, Ana. Now they were scattered and dead and “dead”, and since meeting the elusive Soldier: 76, she couldn’t help but to cling to him as a reminder of the past. To bog it all down in [i]protocol[/i] was so typically Morrison, but neither was it a particularly helpful reminder of what they had lost.

[color=8a83ce]“Jack, we should be careful not to show our faces to him. It’s too much of a temptation just to take off my mask, hang it up and wrangle him back to Overwatch, if he’s not with them already.”[/color] Ana brushed the old soldier’s elbow as she took a position at his side, guided by the movement of the sparse crowds. [color=8a83ce]“He was never one of yours, always mine and Gabriel’s––”[/color] She winced, slightly, at the accidental but no less touchy reminder of the intense rivalry turned sour, but continued on. [color=8a83ce]“I just want to make sure he’s okay from afar.”[/color]

Those words reminded Jack plenty of his own memories with Jesse. They’d always been terse, with politeness verging on exasperated sarcasm. But the kid grew on him, it just took a lot longer than his companionship with the others. The only thing Jack hadn’t shared, that Ana and Gabriel did, was just how close their relationships had been. Jesse was a soldier to him, but he might as well have been Ana and Gabriel’s own son - shared custody, likely.

Jack pressed his shoulder against Ana’s, looking down at her beyond the tint of his glasses. He hummed, contemplating for a moment before nodding. [color=#98A6A7]“You’ll head this one, then,”[/color] he started, tearing his gaze from her, [color=#98A6A7]“I’ll follow your lead. You understand stealth and reconnaissance better than I do.”[/color] Jack stopped the both of them abruptly, pulling Ana to the side, caged in an alley and away from strangers.

[color=#98A6A7]“However,”[/color] Jack said, [color=#98A6A7]“I’m entrusting you to make the right decision should things end up southbound. I’m assuming your tactics haven’t changed much.”[/color] He brushed passed her, sliding back into the thrum of the crowds walking past them. [color=#98A6A7]“Still act like a hard ass, [i]Ana[/i]?”[/color]

Ana damn near cackled in the middle of the street, which would have certainly sold the ‘mad old lady’ impression. [color=8a83ce]“You know it’s not an act, Commander. Or do I need to beat you six ways to Sunday in a training scenario again?”[/color] A bus rattled down the road beside them, slow enough so that it was beginning to become hard to hear with their purposeful distancing from each other. [color=8a83ce]“I can lead a strike team of two. It’s been a long time, but I can do it. The old Omnic skirmishing tactics, me on the high ground calling shots and keeping you… in one piece. Something like that.”[/color]

The further away she was from McCree, the better it would be. [color=8a83ce]“Of course, we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves here. For all we know he could be safe as can be, and our mutual enemy isn’t even gunning full force for him.”[/color]

A tinge of something twitched at Jack's lips. Fondness? Nostalgia? He couldn't pinpoint the feeling; he was just glad to have something again, however flimsy it may have seemed. Or perhaps that was his own perception of his and Ana's current relationship. That distance he put himself at, the one that could be seen physically portrayed between them, was his own fault. But, Jack never dwelt on his own introspection. He had to keep moving; safety laid in unpredictability.

Who knew how long this would last between them. [color=#98A6A7]“Taking chances like that could get him killed,”[/color] Jack put it blunt, though he respected her need to tell herself otherwise. A mother needed hope when her cub's safety was a concern. He didn't want her complacency to slow her down. [color=#98A6A7]“Let's get geared up. I'll meet you at the nearest airport. I assume you'll handle the ticket fair.”[/color]

Jack left with his words, sliding into the crowds and the corners, until he disappeared completely from view. Ana knew where he'd be when she called for him. Jack was nothing if not reliable.