#formerlyrunephoenix6769 shattered | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

formerlyrunephoenix6769 · 6 years ago

Text

Shattered: Chapter 9

(AMELIE)

High up in the French Alps, Amelie carefully eased the light sports car round the airpin bend, navigating the twisting and turning roads that often gave way to sudden steep drops offering her breath taking views of the sweeping countryside of Annecy. As she eased the car down a sudden incline that looped back on itself, descending to the lush valley below, she tapped a perfectly manicured finger nail against the screen of her scroll,

“Angela, can you hear me?”

A voice like one of earlier Omnic models replied, accompanied by the tell-tale crackle of static feedback. As she continued to descend, the doctor’s voice began to come through clearer,

“… ould have come wit.. busy here.. accident..”

Crinkling her brow, the ballerina tapped the screen again in frustration,

“I cant hear you. The reception has always been crap up here. One second.”

Placing both hands on the wheel, she concentrated as a smaller car began to approach from the opposite direction. Normally this mountain pass would be backed up, a sluggish snail snaking down the mountainside but thankfully the busy season was beginning to wind down and the ‘pearl of the French Alps’ would return to its quiet and peaceful existence.

It had only been a few months since Overwatch’s great technological triumph had resulted in disaster, the highly specialised aircraft had phased out of existence and fallout around the accident was astronomical. Every newspaper and TV pundit speculated to the exact nature of the ‘Slipstream Incident’.

Was it an accident, or was it sabotage?

One publication had gone so far as to have a small tally, counting the number of days the pilot had been MIA. Others had reported every minute detail of the young woman’s stellar career in the RAF, hailing her an Omnic Crisis Hero cut down in her prime. A King’s Row street rat done good.

Nobody had known where the leak to the press had sprung from, but the speed and the intimate details of it fueled paranoia in the ranks of Overwatch.

In a bid to plug it, all none personal had been asked to leave the bases and all Senior Members had been recalled for the unforeseeable future in an attempt to enact damage control and not allow other agendas to fall by the way side.

All the while, no matter what they tried, Overwatch’s best and brightest couldn’t find the answers to the most burning question.

What had happened to Lena Oxton?

At the news that the higher ups were winding down the search and allocating resources elsewhere, Gerard had been beside himself. He had parted that Lena had told him that something hadn’t felt right but he had pushed her, brushing it off with bravado and schnapps. He talked of personnel claiming to have seen his protégé’s ghost on the base and the Gorilla had taken to cloistering himself in the hanger where the accident had occurred, not surfacing for days at a time.

In a bid to get to the bottom of it, Gerard had taken on yet another away mission that only served to drive the wedge further between him and his wife.

Amelie had admonished that she understood, but she felt that he was pushing himself, and Gerard had snapped uncharacteristically, demanding,

“What could you possibly know? You’re a dancer for christ’s sake! - ” He had taken to pacing, his eyes taking on a wild look, “- So you took a few classes. You have no fucking clue what this entails, that someone could have done this deliberately, snuck in and took one of our own, from right under our noses! -” In a rising rage, he had thrown his clothes in his mission bag, “- If it was me, I’d want my mates to get to the bottom of it and bring those fuckers responsible, to heel!-” He had poured himself a lavish dram of expensive whiskey as he continued on his angry tirade, “- If it happened to me, is that what you’d want, me to be left behind, forgotten? Why don’t you stick to what you know, Amelie, and let me get on with my job?”

Gerard’s dismissal had felt like a slap in the face. That he deemed her attempt at improving herself and taking an interest as nothing more than a flight of fancy that he indulged. Placating her rather than listening to her grievances or realizing that she was becoming increasingly unhappy.

That she did in fact know what it felt like to be constantly reminded that in a blink of an eye a loved one could be gone forever. That she lived it every time he walked out of that door without a backward glance, instantly forgotten.

He had spent the next few nights in his study on the chesterfield, whilst she had made arrangements to begin renovating her families ancestral home. With an appointment to keep with a surveyor, she had risen with the sun, leaving him a note before setting off on the long drive towards Chateau Guillard in the South of France.

Hitting the valley floor, her scroll crackled back to life,

“Amelie? Are you still there?”

Coming to a T junction in the valley floor, Amelie leaned forward checking both left and right,

“Oui, Angela, I’m still here.”

Her best friend continued,

“I was saying that I would have joined you, leibling, but everything is up in the air right now.” There came a pause of indecision, “-How long are you planning on staying for?”

Satisfied there was no on coming traffic, Amelie took the left turn that would gently snake along the lake side, away from the nearby village, and up through some trees towards the driveway that led the boathouse and only point of access to the grandiose Chateau,

“As long as it takes to make good headway on the renovations,” She gunned the engine, her beloved sports car purring as it began to eat up the tarmac with ease, “ It is far easier for me to co-ordinate from here than back in Paris.” In the distance she could make out the tip of the north bell tower, the rest of the property obscured by the hillside and heavy forest, adding sourly, “-I am ‘sticking to what I know’ and being a dutiful housewife.”

“Amelie, “ On the end of the line there came another pregnant pause, as if Angela was carefully choosing her words, “- I’m … I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that.”

Amelie sighed, maybe she was over reacting and choosing to quite literally run for the hills was petty, but she had no intentions of rattling round their Parisian home with Gerard’s words echoing off the walls, mocking her and calling out her already felt inadequacies, for however long his chosen mission took. And neither could she ignore the anger that during the long drive had fashioned itself into a dull rage sitting in the pit of her stomach. No, she would be much better off throwing herself into a project and far away from the continuous press cycle that didn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon.

“I don’t care what he meant, it’s the fact he said it in the first place.” Either side of the road the trees were struggling with their Spring plumage allowing shafts of morning sunlight to break through the branches dappling the road ahead, as Amelie pressed on, the speed of the car matching her mounting frustration, “-I’m sick and tired of being side lined, Angela. All I have ever done is support him and now I just feel like …. Like I’m being taken for granted.”

The ballerina slammed on the brakes so as not to over shoot her turn off. Peering through the rearview mirror, Amelie slowly reversed back before carefully easing the low sports car in between two beautifully sculptured gateposts with her family crest intricately engraved into their surface.

“I know he’s stressed and I might sound like a spoiled bitch but…. I need some time alone… I need time to figure out what I’m going to do with myself.”

As the car slid down along the smooth driveway, a break in the trees offered an unadulterated view of the sweeping turrets and stone verandas that made up her idyllic childhood home in the centre of the lake, Amelie pressed a button to roll down the window and let in the fresh spring mountain air. Far off in Switzerland, Angela’s voice full of concern filled the small sports car.

“What are you saying? …. Are you thinking about getting a divorce?”

“What? NO! God no… I’m furious, but I’m not ‘that’ furious…-” She continued to leisurely cruise along the driveway taking in the way the sunlight twinkled off the waters of the gargantuan lake that skirted her lands and the village that hugged its shoreline on the other side. “- I meant, what I’m going to do with my career, continue with ballet, or quit and find something else?”

The doctor asked, perplexed

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.. No.. Maybe? ..-” Gripping the steering wheel tight, Amelie took in a huge lung full of air, “-I need to clear my head.”

“How about this?” Another pause, “How about… I finish up here. Twist Jack’s arm into making an exception, and I come down an join you? End of this week, beginning of next week or when ever I can?”

Approaching the boat house, the French woman spied an unfamiliar green car parked to one side of the closed gate that would lead into the boatyard, and a white workman’s van on the other.

“Oui, that sounds perfect!” Slowing the car to a crawl, she peered out of the driver’s side window, as a man dressed in a suit, a hard hat and high vise jacket alighted from the car. Distractedly, she added, “Angela, I think the surveyors here early. I’ve got to go.”

“Alright leibling, I’ll call you as soon as I have news. Love you.”

Her scroll let out a high pitched whine,

“Love you too, cherie.”

Canceling the call, Amelie pulled the sports car up along side the man who waited patiently on the side of the drive way, clipboard in hand.

He broke into an easy smile,

“Ah, Mrs Lacroix, I presume?”

Leaning slightly out of the window, Amelie looked up returning his smile,

“Oui, oui, am I late?”

“No,-” He laughed, “I am early.”

Using her scroll, she typed in a code and waited for the gate to begin to painstakingly slowly slide back.

“Oh thankgod, traffic was a nightmare coming out of Paris.”

He gestured with the clipboard,

“Quite a difficult place to reach and surrounded by a lake no less. I can see why you asked for a surveyor.”

The gate slid back fully and Amelie carefully slid the sports car into the wide boatyard and into one of the waiting garages. In the rearview mirror, she watched as from the white workman’s van, two men got out wearing navy blue boiler suits and carrying work bags.

Unclipping her scroll from its snug on the dash board, she stashed it in her hand bag before pressing her thumbprint to the ignition starter and alighting from the car. In the early morning sun, the three men waited taking in their surroundings. Approaching her as she exited the garage, the surveyor asked,

“Would you have your I.d?” He pulled out a device from the depths of his pocket, “It’s so I can scan it and start the clock.”

The french woman blinked,

“Yes, of course.” Pulling out her purse she teased her national identity card from its snug, “There you go.”

Gently taking it from her outreached hand, the surveyor gave it the once over, inspecting the card and looking back at her, before swiping it along the device.

“It’s policy,-” He kindly offered, “Stops people like this lot,-” Tipping his head towards the workmen, “-Fudging the numbers.”

One of the workmen came to casually lean against the wall to the left of her,

“It’s a grand place you got here…” He slowly began to roll up his sleeves, “- Boats the only way to get there, right?”

Taking back her i.d card and slipping it back into her purse, Amelie nodded,

“Oui, I’ve been coming here since I was a child, so I handle the boat usually.” Turning her back, she leaned up to activate the garage doors and the locking mechanism. “- If you are worried about access, the village on the other side has a much wider marina and much larger boats for hire. The cost is of no object. I’ll get a good deal.”

The workman let out a whistle through his teeth,

“Lucky for some, eh?”

Amelie attempted to humbly wave him off,

“No, no. My relatives left me .. shall we say.. comfortable.”

He gave her a lopsided grin,

“Is it true you’re a Countess?”

Amelie crinkled her brow in confusion, stammering,

“What.. what ever gave you that idea?”

His workmate gave a mirthful shake of his head,

“What he means to say is. . When we heard of the job.. we.” He gestured with his hands, “- researched the place. It’s got a rich history.”

Rudely butting in, the first workman continued,

“So are you?”

She opened her mouth, gawping like a fish for a few moments taking in both their eager expressions, before laughing,

“I ,” She gestured to herself, “- am not a Countess per se. But… there is an old defunct title attached to the property , that would, if such things were important in this modern era…, make me a Countess.”

The first workman turned to his colleague,

“You owe me 5 bucks!”

“God damnit!”

With a small shake of her head at their antics, she finished checking that the security was locked down on her beloved car.

As she made her way across the courtyard, the three men followed close behind, nearly bumping into her when she stopped at the door that led into the boat house. Her fingers tapped danced lightly across the keypad, with a click the door opened and four entered the gloom. With a brittle bark of laughter, the surveyor patted his pockets,

“One sec, I forgot something. Be right back.”

The other began to rummage in his work bag. On the side wall, Amelie flipped open the electric box to activate the winch that would slowly lower the sleek looking speed boat into the murky water. She turned round, surprised to find the first workman so close. He shot her a grin as she sidled past him to the safe box where the speedboats ignition key was kept. The remaining workman flanked her on the other side, so close she could almost feel the breath on her skin, the tiny baby hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle as she hesitantly reached up a finger. Trying to keep the shake out of her voice, she shouted over the screeching of the winch,

“A little room gents.”

The second workman grinned at her wolfishly,

“Oh Amelie, where you’re going there is gonna be no room at all.”

He made a lunge at her. Instinctivly, she thrust up the heel of her palm connecting with his nose, as she has been taught to do in her self defense classes. He staggered back, gargling and cursing as the other workman grabbed her in a choke hold from behind. She tried to scrabble into her hand bag in an attempt wrap her fingers round the pepper spray she kept there. As she struggled to breath she remembered Ana Amari’s words, if ever grabbed by a bigger opponent relax into it and throw them off. Amelie dropped her hand bag, pushing back into him, using her strong legs from years of ballet throwing them both off balance. He staggered back, the sudden loss of opposing force adding to his momentum, crying out as he collided with one of many winch handles that aligned the wall. The loss of grip on her windpipe gave her much needed inches to turn her head and sink her teeth into his muscular arm, causing him to scream in agony. She kicked out with her feet at the nose busted workman, who dodged to one side, his feet knocking her handbag into the water.

“Get the fuck hold of her!” He yelled.

Trying to shake her off only caused Amelie to grind her teeth down, filling her mouth with flesh and the metallic taste of blood. He let go shoving her away from him. The surveyor came through the boathouse door for a split second distracting her. She didn’t see the south paw closed fist that collided with her jaw causing her to reel and her vision to blur.

“Go down, you fucking whore!”

A second swift punch hit hard in her gut knocking the wind out of her and caused her to collapse onto the wet stone floor.

She thought she heard the surveyor say,

“Dont break the merchandise!”

“Cunt broke my nose!”

“Yeah well the fucking bitch took a chunk out of my arm.”

Amelie spat the contents out of her mouth, trying to suck in huge lungfuls of air. If she could just get into the water maybe she could swim to the castle like she had plenty of times as a teenager or when the boat was out of gas. She made as if to crawl.

Someone caught her by the hair,

“No, you don’t.”

She felt a sharp prick in the back of her neck and she was left to flop on the slick flagstones. Someone turned off the winch, and the only sounds was the water lapping against the stone work.

“She’s a god damn wild cat. Thought you said she was a dancer?”

Her vision began to swim with black and purple dots and her tongue felt flaccid and swollen in her mouth. She attempted to move but her limbs refused to her obey her. The surveyor rolled her over onto her back, crouching down to inspect her.

“Ballerina, to be exact.”

Wiping his bloody nose on his sleeve, the workman with the broken nose peered over his shoulder,

“She’s a fucking ballerina??”

With soft, gentle fingers, the surveyor examined her jaw, turning her head this way and that, regarding her thoughtfully. As Amelie slipped into unconsciousness, she heard him say,

“She’s the wife of THE target, what else did you expect?”

https://formerlyrunephoenix6769.tumblr.com/post/182608876761/ithought-it-would-be-much-easier-to-make-a-post

Link to the whole “Shattered” universe and full story.

#overwatch #overwatch fanfiction #widowtracer fanfiction #widowmaker #widowtracer #tracemaker #amelie lacroix #tracer #lena oxton #pharmercy #pharah #fareeha amari #mercy #angela ziegler #formerlyrunephoenix6769 shattered #formerlyrunephoenix6769 overwatch fanfiction

8 notes · View notes