Born into the throes of a global crisis, young Amélie dreams of worlds beyond the one breaking at the seams / a reality that yields more than ruination & death at the door; enarmored with music & fascinated with the roles her mother escapes into she begins to dance before she can even walk. Surrounded & taught by ballerinas of old each tiny step is that of a star in the making. She is lucky, being born looking like her mother; the father isn't in the picture, after all, sharing a fate so many got dealt in post-war Annecy - when the bus to Paris takes relieved mother & daughter with them, Amélie has a hard time not woefully staring at the dark lake rushing by, regardless.

Growing up, Amélie works hard. Harder than most, even when surrounded by fellow, ambitious dreamers at the Paris Opera Ballet School; to them, she is the poor girl, the one with the dead shoes & clothes that don't quite sit. To them, she is the one from the South who steals their food; a petite child with a farmer's dialect, too small for her age. Amélie finds herself ostracized & chastized most of the time; an outsider. That changes whenever she dances. Suddenly she is bedazzling, breathtaking too; she was born for the stage, the instructors say, & push her hard. Harder probably than any; all for the sake of her dream / the stars that are ever in Amélie's periphery.

Standing on top of the roof of the Palais Garnier, A.Guillard oversees the Parisian cityscape. A tad out of breath, having danced for a promo-shoot all day; advertising a new production, never seen before. Due to endless sacrifice, she has been flying through the ranks; insiders consider her the number one candidate for the position of the next étoile come this season. A perfect star at France's nightsky, never to exstinguish. A.Guillard is one of the grandest of her generation, destined to rise higher still; admired, beloved - a lonely, yet loving woman with a dream fulfilled, passionately burning through every perfect minute.

ACTE I. childhood

.  october 21st, 2043.  .  Amélie Jacqueline Guillard is born in Paris to Danielle Marie Guillard, a ballet dancer (reaching the rank of a coryphée but never endeavoring to rise beyond) & Kostandin Peçi, an Albanian sous chef. Most of her earliest childhood is a blur to Amélie, relying fully on her mother's terse retellings; according to her, Amélie was born in Annecy (Region Rhône-Alpes) not Paris, so Danielle, a while before its ruination, before World War Omnica. Why Danielle would lie is unknown to young Amélie; a habit Mademoiselle Guillard would make a habbit, down the line.When the Omnic Crisis breaks out in late 2043, the small family of three flees Paris & towards the countryside, after the sudden turn of domestic robots against their former friends & family on the first day of the crisis mere 18 hours after the attack on Lagos, renders Paris (& all of France due to simultaneous attacks all over) active participants of the budding global catastrophe. Danielle & Kostandin plan to head toward Turin (North Italy) planning to make a short break in Annecy, where Danielle's estranged family resides, to potentially convince what remains of the Guillards to come along. It seemed naive & dangerous to risk her life for the sake of a father that had disowned her nine years prior & yet Danielle's heart would urge her either way, believing the countryside devoid of valuable infrastructural targets to be safe in addition.Truth be told, there was no real alternative than venturing South anyway, or so the couple would conclude. The passage further West was blocked off (warbots running wild, major cities under siege, the military deliberately destroying infrastructure to halt the everadvancing forces) & staying in Paris was impossible given how the entire metropolis was under fire from the inside out. Evacuation as such took forever; in retrospective, Danielle had no idea how her, Kostandin & three month old Amélie made it out of that chaos alive.The journey towards the French South takes a while; with their journey stopping abruptly in-between - the buss the family boarded is being attacked & needs to be abandoned; cars break down mid-way, stray military groups block & redirect their path. Days pass in a rush of colors compossed out of memories of looking outside the window or walking by the side of the road & seeing the sky on fire, thick smoke, the silhouettes of giant bots at the horizon, distant shouting, death & gunfire.Sometimes they meet refugees from neighbouring countries crossing their group's path; talks about the UN mobilizing their forces spread. Hope spurned by the idea of it all being over soon is being raised multiple times & falls again just as quickly ⸻ it has been nearly three weeks at this point; what radios still work speak of a global war. Most still have no idea what happened & the military personnel they meet is drawn into nearby fights before they can answer; the stronger members of the very group Danille & Kostandin join are given guns & are told not to travel at night. Every time cities come into view, whenever small or not, they stay as far away from them as possible even when food has long been sparse. None of them needs broken down communication to know that metropoli aren't safe; the bodies & broken bots along the way tell them as much.After what feels like an eternity, the mangled group of now eight finds an Annecian farm they stay in for a week ⸻ skirmishes near the city at the lake are still ongoing & they search for cover, sharing their resources with the couple that barricaded themselves there. Evenings huddled around an old radio & refuge taken in the cellar when a rogue squad of robots marches by become common; the farmer couple speaks with a heavy Savoyard dialect - for Danielle it feels like coming home after having been away for a decade, all things considered; she can see the mansion she grew up in towering in the distance whenever she heads outside, sees couples dance across the meadow close by in front of her inner eye. Smells the sea & tastes the chill on her tongue. Paranoia is replaced by a spark of hope; for the first time since the crisis begun she allows herself to feel hopeful ⸻ all will be good, see? They made it this far.On day eight of their involuntary entrenchment, the sound of rockets tears through the air; the group of eight & the farmers couple head into the basement. The airstrike that rains down continues for three hours. Upon resurfacing, Danielle & Kostandin bear witness to the utter destruction of Annecy as a whole & large parts of the Haute Savoie department + most of its surroundings overall. Three members of their group die, Kostandin & the farmer's wife are injured. Desperate, what remains of the group makes it to the nearby burning ruins of Annecy eventually in search for medical aid & is met with absolute devastation.What happened the next few days is a blur, nothing but images rushing by; fires being put out, people shouting, hands on her shoulders, people giving condolences. A family mansion that burnt into a dilapitated husk, a baby that doesn't stop crying, a boyfriend that passes away from his injuries whose hand they yank out of her grip. A severely traumatized Danielle falls into stupor; is forced to stay behind & wait out the end of the conflicts. "World War Omnica" they call it; the omnics rebelled & everything is dying. Switzerland has been turned into a wasteland, Belgium is holding by a thread, Germany collapsed. Spain & Portugal barricaded themselves. There are rumors that her family perished in a bunker somewhere. The whole world is burning & the God Program A.N.U.B.I.S won't stop burying mankind in an endless barrage of bots & war machinery.Months pass; Amélie J. Guillard grows up in a make-shift tent pitched next to the collapsed ruin of a former apartment building. It is dangerous to cross the country even half a year after Overwatch comes into being & eventually manages to secure the fronts. Money is short, France's infrastructure has collapsed in its entirety. Danielle decides to settle in bombed-out Annecy for the sake of her daughter's safety. Poor conditions, lack of proper nourishment, self-made clothes, a mother that sits near a cracked window sill looking outside while her tea grows cold. A.Guillard would grow into a small child, too petite for her age, never quite understanding why people thanked God as much as they did each day & why her mother would not stop crying on her worst of days.Petite Guillard grows up among a broken people; among rubble, playing near a debris-ladden lake. She learns how to plant vegetables & herbs before she can count, dances barefoot alongside her mother across waterlogged floorboards. Bernard, an old friend of Danielle's, carries her on his shoulders whilst she cradles the items Danielle had found in the crater close by; she learns how to trade before she can write her full name. Amélie J. Guillard is raised by a village; by a community hastily stitched together after a global catastrophe left their world in ruins..  2047.  . Danielle & three, almost four, year old Amélie eventually manage to gather enough money to move (back) to Paris alongside other desperate, internally displaced people in hopes of securing a better future there. The plan for most is to make it to the west; infrastructural collapse & shortages on every end have many strand in-between, not unlike during Crisis times, regardless.Due to massive housing demand, own poverty & skyrocketing prizes, the family of two does not find a flat upon arrival in post-war Paris, coaxing mother & daughter to move in with former members of Danielle's corps de ballet. Young & impressionable Amélie spends her childhood in crammed one-room apartments three months at a time, sleeping on couches & pads surrounded by the pre-crisis grace of her mother's colleagues. All dark eyes peering across the edges of cushions & tables, committing their attitude & mannerisms to memory, actively aspiring to become a dancer just like maman & her 'aunts'. A desire that had long taken root ever since mother & daughter took first ballet lesson together in a run down cabin in Annecy - in what feels eons ago, even to a child's young mind.Danielle's overwhelming influence & Amélie's attachment to her mother also meant that A. Guillard would come to have a very strong idea of how a woman [potentially] should be. How could she not, seeing how she had little else to listen or look up to; always moving - very much separated from her peers either by her own choice or due to never attending preschool - she obviously would end up annexing those values, consequently making them her own without much self-reflection, rendering her, especially in the eyes of many of Danielle's co-workers, a girl whose path in life was set the moment she naturally (& with the passion to match) took to the barre first.The truth is Amélie had always been a peculiar child; "other kids shouted in primary colours while [she] spoke in pastel". A sensitive child, utterly uninterested in anything but classical dance & old French music; one of many children left to fend for themselves in the very much overcrowded quarters of Paris; all due to an overload / partial collapse of the system following the Crisis, making it impossible for many children to attain any form of education or guidance of designated caretakers for a while.So, whenever Danielle went to work, Amélie would come to accompany her, "well behaved" as she was in the eyes of others, usually either peaking between curtains during rehearsals, dancing along on the sidelines or dwelling backstage waiting for her mother to finish changing. Not a perfect environment but good enough; it kept her off the streets & safe, after all. During performance week she was not allowed to tag along, however, leaving her instead in the care of an elderly neighbour ironically nicknamed Madame Matilda, prone to watch 7e's children whilst their family members were off committing to their own business. The very same who carried a picture of Captain Ana Amari in her wallet, proclaiming she had saved her life once.Despite her tumultuous childhood, Amélie was always lively & intense in what she loved, exactly as her late father had been, but could be just as quiet, lost in a daydream near the Seine somewhere; whenever with her mother, young Amélie carried her emotions & inquisitiveness on her sleeve, held an avid, near overwhelming love for all things elegant & pretty; stereotypically feminine in what she enjoyed, almost. Not all too surprising given how she grew up constantly surrounded by the casual glamor of pre-crisis times; ballet & all that belonged to it.However, once outside of the comfort of her own home, Amélie tended to shrink. Too overwhelming seemed the presence of anything other than her favourite things, & too lacking was she found in the eyes of educators – the time spent in regular elementary school (2049/50), ere attending the École de danse de l'Opéra national de Paris (Paris Opera Ballet School) come fall 2050, was difficult for her & she would, with each passing day, retreat further & further into her metaphorical shell; become near unrecognizable to a worried Danielle even, who was so used to bright smiles & a flourishing mop of black hair darting to & fro.&& Mademoiselle Guillard, in her well-meant yet tragically misguided attempt to make Amélie enjoy school & their new, better life in Paris more, took it to herself to tell her daughter to see the whole endeavour as a performance, instead. Akin to "one of mamman’s ballets"; to see life outside their shared four walls as a play & herself as a glamourous actress, a prima ballerina, aiming to excel. "All the world’s a stage" after all, "& all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances, & one man in his time plays many parts."So little Amélie began practicing her roles; clumsily at first given how she was just a child engaging in play pretend ⸻ watching mother & aunts Céline, Valérie & Geneviève with tiny brows knit, eager to commit what she saw to memory - more successfully down the line the older she got. With every change of environment she added new facets, new roles to play ⸻ bubbly at home, quiet & well-mannered at school, with an air to her that had surprised teachers consider her such an agreeable student. Always politely smiling, always brimming, walking as if up on the highest cloud somewhere.Danielle believed her daughter to be happier that way, her friends found petite Guillard to be adorable. Nevermind that her classmates found her odd, their approval never mattered; nevermind that sometimes she would misstep & find herself dealing with pangs of shame worming their way into her heart. Nevermind that she would misread situations, read more into friendly gestures of shared sour drops & talk about girls being her friends that merely had handed her candy out of pity. No, being alone mattered little; what mattered was that the adults in Amélie's world would come to deem her agreeable, that she performed well in their eyes; a mature child, perhaps a tad too mature, even. Sensitive still, maybe, smothered - a daydreamer occasionally in moments when Amélie was convinced no one would watch & yet…

.  spring 2050.  . after years of circling through various of her aunts' flats, mother & daughter finally find a place of their own. What follows are a few weeks of stability; of her own bed, her own little corner. Mother & daughter make the most of what they can now call theirs, spent afternoons on apartment complex' flat roof watching the Parisian cityscape unfurl in the evening haze, pantile by pantile. To young Amélie, it feels like heaven for the longest time - memories she would treasure in the years to come.At the age of seven, Danielle manages to secure her daughter the chance to participate in a training period + entrance examination at the prestigious Paris Opera Ballet School (École de danse de l'Opéra national de Paris) in Nanterre, a commune on the outskirts of Paris. Amélie is among the handful of candidates that make it to the final audition, impresses the choreographers with trained skill & natural poise despite her too small + scraggly build, & gets in as one of its last successful candidates. A close call due to her statue, quiet nature & background, but it does not matter; six months later she is attending the (boarding) school as a proper student.Danielle's reasoning for hereby desiring the pricey (& near impossible to pay), "full border" status for her daughter, which separates the duo fully for the first time ever since the girl was born, is hereby kept a secret from her. As many other survivors of the earlier raids, Danielle suffers from health complications; to cover up doctor's appointments, & her waning ability to actively take care of her daughter, she would sent her away. It's a circumstance covered up through a promise; of stability, of proper food meant to help petite Guillard outgrow her post-war issues, & a chance to form social ties. Find like-minded peers, blossom into the beautiful & gifted dancer she was meant to be. Amélie does not take the seperation well; bites her tongue bloody more oft than not ⸻ it doesn't matter, she moves away, eventually; self-soothes with dreams of dance & glimmer; comes to see her mother at holidays only..  fall 2050 - summer 2060.  . Amélie's time at the Paris Opera Ballet School is one of emotional turmoil, physical distress & stellar successes in equal measure. From the very start, Ami realizes that she is not truly welcome here / seeming as if displaced & struggling to connect with her peers, even if this was a school dedicated to the very thing she loves the most. It starts as a feeling, the very same one experiences when walking into a upper-scale jewelry store as a member of the working-class; side-glances from her roommate & most of her classmates at first, whispers & backhanded-talk after. && it escalates from there; she is different, somehow. The odd one out, once again. Never once during her stay in Nanterre does she feel truly comfortable or as if she truly "belongs here" as a person. The lights are too bright, the hallways too sterile; there is a coldness, a sentiment of forever loneliness here that seeps into her very bones & never leaves.Ability wise, despite a slow start, Amélie more than naturally belongs; she excels over time where others do not, no matter how often she is singled out by her classmates or educators ⸻ her instructors realise her potential & push her harder than most, emotionally & physically. Tough love becomes all she knows & each tear shed is quickly dried by herself & herself only.Indeed, Amélie's ten year stay at the École de danse de l'Opéra national de Paris has vast consequences on her as a person; shapes & molds her into a future, excellent & accomplished dancer who even won competitions beyond French borders (& financed parts of her education through a scholarship & prize money won) while, in the same vein, significantly stunting her emotional growth. Having enrolled as a vivid child at first, her classmates' disdain, ballet instructors' unparalleled (on cruelty bordering) harshness & demand for utter perfection, her own far too high standards she put on herself & urge to push herself further & further to compete with those around her, Amélie grows into an outwardely aloof teenager whose disciplined & polished, work-driven demeanor has her appear more adult than adolescent even when barely 13. It's one of many, many sacrifices Ami would come to willingly make; no matter how unbearable the gaze into manifold mirrors becomes - throughout the years, she learns to bear it : the pain, the discomfort, the way her body breaks; every petite, little agony. "There's no easy way", she is being told, "there's only study, blood & toil."During the Fall term, shortly before Amélie turns 14 (2057), her [now recovered] mother changes her daughter's status from full- to half-boarder to save money & counter having her hours cut, leading to her daughter moving back home during the weekends. In-between her work as a ballroom dance teacher in Pigalle each Saturday (a job in a small dance school she gets by lying about her age) & her classes, Amélie becomes more & more tightly-wound & worried, desperate to make ends meet each term & keep up with those so much more wealthier than her ⸻ truthfully told, excelling is all she can think of, having long given up on making friends.In order to help her mother make rent & further cover the cost of her education, she dances on dead pointe shoes, burrows expensive clothes, make-up & perfume from Danielle's friends, sews her own gear out of cheaper cloth, perfects the art of economizing & sticking to a budget mercilessly. She offers "under-the-hand" tutoring classes for kids in the neighbourhood at what little time she has left on sundays & pays necessary private ballet lessons with it; for Amélie, her childhood & teenage days consist of work & ballet, ballet & work. She has no hobbies outside of dance &, in her stress & one-track mind thinking, a hard time noting those around her; growing up in Nanterre renders her mature, her success in ballet class allegedly too "above them all", as if "walking on clouds high above everyone's head" regardless of her inherent modesty, & drive to render herself a reliable yet notably flawless achiever; the epitome of a rising star.What started as a child's harmless play pretend has developed into a tendency to become whatever her ballet masters & mistresses wish to see; Amélie masks to the point of reinvention, transmutes into a social chameleon in an metamorphosis that goes on far too fluidly whilst growing to resent whoever she truly is deep down. Curls are mercilessly straightened, every physical flaw prodded at. She strikes at any chance given, pushes herself into the forefront in most clever & opportune of manners. Being successful in a toxic & competitive environment means having to play by its rules, after all, & whilst her classmates had long stopped haggling her, the wounds their behavior, the pressures of everyday life & the deeply instilled obligation to bleed for her art had torn are persistent. Amélie's life becomes a forever trick-section : an endless string of 32 fouetté - an arguably small prize to pay for successfully doing what she loves more than life, or so she thinks, smiling through it all, as she was taught; as she usually does, nowadays.

ACTE II. a part of the paris opera ballet

.  summer 2060.  . Amélie Jacqueline Guillard graduates top of her class with grand recommendations. She is among a handful of young dancers who join the corps de ballet at the Paris Opera Ballet (Ballet de l'Opéra national de Paris) as a quadrille at the age of 17. Declared full of potential & outstanding compared to many her age & around her, always the first to come & the last to leave, Amélie is promoted into the rank of a coryphée (demi-soloist) after suceeding at the concours de promotion almost immediately in the very same year. Roles of note are in various ballets & contemporary productions detailing the population's experiences throughout the Omnic Crisis.Upon fully moving back home into the tiny flat in the North of the 9th arrondissement, however, to her shock Ami is confronted with a [once again] sick mother, who is unable to continue her work as a dancer, & does not have enough strength to continuing her work as an instructor either, making Amélie the sole "bread winner" of their little family; Danielle was dependent on her again, clinging to her hand as daughter once did eons past. It is an awakening, even if only in part. A quick yet merciless plummet back to earth after graduation & early, undeniable successes left her over the moon for a while.Danielle's health would decline over the months to former dancer's absolute chagrin & Amélie, naturally, takes care of her to the best of her ability in-between company class, rehearsals, & parts as understudy, once again spreading herself thin between the two goalposts of her life. Danielle would constantly ensure her daughter that all would be fine; that the doctors know what they are doing & that the issue would be fixed in no time, as ever, adamant to protect her child even if it does more harm than good.Between her work & her mother, Amélie's already meager, social -, & dating life are nonexistent safe for a few dinners that lead nowhere, café dates with the corps or an occasional outing in Cabaret Luna. Once again, albeit being (this time) more than welcomed into the POB's ranks, she finds it extremely hard to connect with her fellow dancers & people in general despite her charisma; there is a severe disconnect she tries to bridge through upholding acts even around those she considers interesting candidates, may it be for a friendship or as a romantic interest, believing the key to interpersonal success to be the same as it had been in ballet school.However, if she manages to get somewhat close through shedding at least some of her layers, the underlying emotional reservedness & inability to be genuine, near obsessive ambition, one-track mind dedication to her job & perfectionism are what render her apparently impossible to further approach. She aspires awe in ways that have her seem intimidating in equal measure, or so she starts to believe, rendered forever distinctly self-aware of her personal inauthenticity & believing she is probably just destined to be alone. As usually at this point, Ami fully throws herself into work instead then, deciding she should prioritize her career first & handling everything else later..  2062.  . Amélie tries to properly establish herself outside the multitude of the corps when raised into the rank of a petite sujet (soloist) at a break-neck-pace [& a year later, 2063, into the rank of a grand sujet] after impressing the POB with parts in numerous prestigious productions & beating her competition. She is being told she will make it to première danseuse in no time if she keeps up.After having sworn of love just a year prior, she eventually meets Gérard Lacroix on a gala in the same year & they begin dating; albeit clashing at first with Ami believing him to be a pushover, either eventually bond over their love for the arts & decide to give it a try. In the course of establishing themselves as a couple, Amélie is slowly introduced to his "family" (Gabriel Reyes, Angela Ziegler, Cole Cassidy, Ana Amari, Jack Morrison & other agents of Overwatch) after either considers their relationship "serious". She befriends Angela Ziegler who would come to be her first, genuine friend she has ever had, & gets close to Gabriel Reyes & Cole Cassidy in particular..  late fall 2063.  . after a year & a half of going out, Amélie accepts Gérard's spontaneous marriage proposal. Much is to be said about her reasoning for agreeing to a rather premature marriage other than riding on the heights of her latest promotion; Gérard & her are genuinely happy, she reckons. A match made in heaven it seems predestined to meet that evening, with either understanding each other's passions, & the desire to make it far in life, to live for a dream & give everything to achieve it; he is capable of witty commentary matching own charm, a well-groomed man with a love for last century music & a genuine, rare appreciation for the arts, cooking & quiet afternoons spend in the company of one another. Someone she, to her own surprise, has begun to open up to; more than she has to anyone so far. Amélie avidly believes she loves him & he hopelessly loves her; there is nothing else to say.&& yet the thought of the security he offers her too enters her mind; inevitably so having spent all of her life working herself to the bone for a winning chance; sole breadwinner with a mother bedridden most of all, & a career that could end abruptly with a nasty fall. As someone driven by perfection & a deeply seated need for control she fears the unknown, being utterly alone, the uncertain future, all that she cannot regulate..  spring 2064.  . so she establishes control, perhaps a little brashly, & marries Blackwatch Agent Gérard Lacroix in spring that year. Out of security concerns on Overwatch's end, the ceremony is kept private & Amélie's surname is not officially changed. The fact that A.Guillard & him are dating, however, is semi-public knowledge.The rush of happiness Amélie had been able to experience for a while now abruptly ends when three days after the ceremony, Danielle M. Guillard ultimately succumbs to her illness. Her leukemia had spread to the bones & even while Amélie had been subconsciously prepared to lose her eventually following her graduation, the loss itself hits her incredibly hard. Any festivity planned is cancelled; both, Gérard & her refuse to go on their honeymoon (they would never come to have one; in the following four years their schedules would never properly align outside of a mini-vacation done in Gibraltar). Ami takes leave from the company for two weeks to handle the funeral where her mother's former corps members & friends show up to express their condolences, then returns almost immediately to her routine, determined to channel all of her anguish into her work (to her tantes' chagrin who would eventually break off contact after that).Gérard is with her during the onset of this terrible time, on a temporary leave from work even, until an emergency calls him away. With a heavy heart he leaves Paris, begging Angela to be with his grieving wife instead, to make sure she would not be alone during the grieving process, believing Dr. Ziegler to be perfectly suited to handle a visibly struck Amélie. After some bartering with Morrison & Rosenberg, Angela is granted a leave for a month & she momentarily moves in with Amélie. The two of them grow incredibly close throughout the following four weeks, rendering Angela the only person to have ever seen Ami at her absolute lowest.

ACTE III. rise to stardom

.  2065.  . Amélie's decision to funnel all of her grief into her work pays off, or so her choreographer would say; following the outstanding, if not morbidly melancholic performances taking place after the death of her mother, she earns herself the second highest rank in her company at the annual concours de promotion. Done are her days tied to the corps; she is a première danseuse (principle dancer) now, beating her competition & reaching wide-spread renown based on her parts as Queen Myrtha in Giselle & her starring role as Kitri in Don Quixote; roles she danced to perfection on each evening. Personal achievements in other productions further put her on the international map; fans of hers proclaim she will make it to étoile soon, lovingly calling her "rising star" in most media.As stated, at this point in her career, Amélie has already reached true renown within ballet circles, earning an incredible [yet far too low] pay & becoming a French socialite in the process. It's not just her fans that frequently talk about her as a potential candidate for the position of the next étoile in the future anymore either; experts laud renditions such as Odette / Odile in particular, the very first part danced after being promoted to the rank of a première danseuse, describing them as "having a pure line, a melting plasticity and a smooth legato quality. Her Odette is lyrical and sorrowful; her Odile steely and tormented", both twin parts danced with a confidence that "came from years of being at the top of her class". Glowing reviews similar to these follow more frequently, making her a "darling choice" for promotional galas & interviews thanks to her "heartwarming & inspirational 'rags-to-riches' story of success" & appearance alongside actual star dancers of the company.In 2066 she even gained international prestige outside of her niche; a wide-spanning magazine article titled "The Women of the Crisis" hereby puts her in the spotlight beyond French borders & the confines of the field of ballet, alongside famous female scientists, artists & entrepreneurs. As any other woman featured in the reportage, her interview & pictures span an entire double page; it is the first of a handful of projects of the same nature she would be included in.Out of the perspective of a career driven person, Amélie is obviously doing amazing. Her earned wealth allows her to finally live a lifestyle removed from extreme budgeting & penny-pinching; she starts [rather reluctantly at first] buying more expensive care products & cigarettes, visits the opera as a pastime, spends off-seasons collabing in- & outside of Europe even. Suddenly, she lives a life full of promotional photoshoots & advertisements gigs; already considered to rank among the greatest ballet dancers, waiting for a spot in the ranks of an étoile to clear.In private, however, Amélie's life has long taken a turn for the negative ever since her mother's death from which she still has not truly recovered. Personal tragedies & successes on her own end & her husband's have rendered her lonely despite blossoming friendships with her dear Angela Ziegler & the emotional support of a certain Cole Cassidy. It is her marriage with Gérard that tears a hole into her heart with how it seems more show than anything; either are extremely accomplished in their respective fields & as a result incredibly busy, seemingly living in utterly different worlds. When their schedules manage to align, they are beyond exhilarated; heartfelt & happy, but it never, ever lasts. Spurs of bliss are timed & sparse; what is worse, Ami feels horribly trapped, tightly-wound & unbalanced. The stress of her work, regardless of how much she loves the art, the attention & admiration; as much as she cherishes the success & changes in lifestyle earned through passion & dedication upheld throughout almost two decades, is starting to gnaw on her.There is no emotional nor physical outlet for her to indulge in, meaning love really is not the issue; no, she loves him dearly & earnestly, quite madly so, but she feels as if married to a ghost. An ideal that cannot keep her company, that she does not know & vice versa. Not truly; after all, how can you genuinely know a man who is gone for sometimes months on end, with little information left on his whereabouts because "it is confidential". She hears those words on the weekly, sometimes daily, again & again said with the same apologetic smile. && while Amélie knew what she was getting into, adamant on not having it effect herself given her own obligations, naught could have prepared her for the emptiness felt whenever coming home to a vacant & cold apartment.Telephone calls become sparse & while he tries to be present as often as possible during her off-seasons, his effort do not seem enough. She becomes embittered internally, hellbent on not letting others see; yet her private, usually homely gatherings with Cole become cynical & sour, daily dates with Angela turn into complaint upon complaint muttered in her native tongue, eyes oft cast aside to conceal whatever longing for the closeness of another the other would find within, quite certain dearest friends would be able to read her like a book.Frustrations with the situation at hand & spurs of anger her still grief-addled mind inflicts upon her, peak when Gérard promises to attend the première of a Swan Lake production in which Amélie is meant to dance both Odette & Odile in the Palais Garnier for a third time this season, having missed the first & second, only to cancel last minute. Instead, he calls Angela, as he usually does, asking her to "substitute for him", anxiously stating that Amélie would be beyond furious if not one of her dearest showed up to see her dance her most renowed role as one of POB's principle dancers.Indeed, Amélie's pain pays off, or so her choreographer would often say, even if only temporary, even if the sentiment is a high at first ere turning bitter & fleeting; on that evening when dancing Odile & Odette to perfection while blinking against the spotlight for a second, searching the audience for her husband's grinning face & seeing Angela's somewhat shy smile instead with a way too over the top bouquet of red roses on the seat near by (unmistakably Gérard's, the rest of the opera house is fully booked after all) something clicks. On that evening something Amélie has been denying for months seethes underneath her skin & bursts to the surface; a telltale pang in her chest & a rapidly spreading flush at the neck. The kind she had oft felt in other's presence; the kind she had explained away in a bout of thinly veiled denial alongside other sentiments so strong they occupied her thoughts off stage almost on the daily. On that evening, when Angela comes to her dressing room to pick her up & walk her home as it had been tradition so many a time, she would take her hand in front of the corps & leave the theater with her, spurring rumors for days to come; rumors she would shrug off uncaring about opinions as she has always been.On that special evening, they would get drunk on one of Lacroix's wines in her lonely apartment & Amélie would cry in front of the other for the second time in her life, too wound up over what grief & other repressed feelings she had been internalizing in the last few months alone; confessing how being alone was killing her, how she could not bear it a second longer. && Amélie would lean in a little too close, prompted by Angela's ever so attentive touches against her forearm, against her shoulder, against her side, or whatever else. && Amélie would kiss her & gain a stir, longed for reciprocation, ere ⸻ being rejected.It takes a few days of agonizing wait, the five stages of grief & shame lived through then & again, before a tired Angela picks up the phone after semi-ghosting her out of shock, eventually; before the other stops avoiding her & they meet again on a rainy afternoon, either drained from their work & tense after days spent in conflict & absence. They are best friends after all; have been for over two years. && despite the indignation felt over being rejected, Amélie offers an apology for her behavior. The first she has ever muttered in other's presence, handing her red wine, an expensive one, too. The first thing she has bought of her principle dancer salary a few months ago, she says, saved for a special occasion & therefore something to be shared with her "dearest" on a special day only. Too tired to argue & aware how little Ami would usually opt to drink, Angela agrees, chooses not to refrain this time horrible how she still feels about freezing the other out as she had done. They are best friends after all; knowing each other better than anyone else. && Angela is exhausted enough, morally & mentally, really, to shrug away many a thing that afternoon. ⸻ they talk, they drink, they kiss & the night they eventually spend together becomes one of many.

ACTE IV. fulfillment of a dream

.  spring 2068.  . it takes two years & a few months for a spot to finally free & mark a new height in Amélie's career; the fulfillment of a dream first spoken into existence 21 years prior. She is nominated as a danseuse étoile (star dancer) after another grandiose performance of Odette / Odile in Swan Lake, far topping the ones danced three years prior; she is truly at the top of the world, publicly breaking into tears post-production on stage even. She has long been famous at this point, soaring high & constantly improving; a socialite & known public figure in France & far beyond. One of her country's most darling representatives at cultural gatherings, traveling outside of European borders almost seasonally. Young dancers aspire to be like her, countless ballet companies request her to tour & collab; her smile on numerous dance magazine covers, her soft hazel eyes glancing past stage lights or other scenaries in countless elegant photoshoots. More galas, documentaries & public appearances than she could have ever imagined, more money than she could hope to ever spend & more stress & pressure to excel weighting down on her very shoulders.Gérard expresses his adoration over her nomination that year mostly over the telephone, over a faulty line that oft cuts off, leaving her to stare at a blackened screen, a familiar bitter twist searing heart & insides in equal measure; his success mirrors her own, after all, increasing his work load as a parallel to her own stuffed schedule. Not that he isn't trying hard; he tries harder than anyone, really, but remains out of reach nevertheless. && it aches because she loves him dearly, dearer than anyone really, but their worlds never align. Not anymore. There is a disconnect between them; one that is familiar & frightening to behold, something terrible felt before. Maybe Amélie just isn't meant to find long-term fullfillment in that matter; maybe she is meant to be alone. Maybe you cannot end up living your dream & not also pay direly for it outside of daily sacrifices, too.So she turns to darling Angela, as she always does, deeply emotionally entrenched in an affair that had grown to be a fix-point in the last three years for either, having reached the point where either cannot deny the feelings that have crept up on each other anymore. What has started as "friends with benefits" has derailed into an odd Frankenstein of a situationship; Christmas, Easter, Birthdays & New Year spend together whenever Gérard once again announces a longer absence with this common gentle smile; a smile that makes her weep internally, fingers curling into a unnoticeable fist. Amélie curses the void in her chest & the selfishness that keeps stubborn muscle nourished; how she craves another person to be near & delicately clasp her hand, to hold her night & day, starved & greedy as she is, & how what she wants, what she truly wants, she would never get. In another lifetime, Amélie would ponder one evening, curled against Angela whilst falling asleep in the apartment in Geneva she had rented during one of prima ballerina's off-season collabs & star doctor's numerous hospital tours. In another lifetime [she] would have chosen differently, maybe, with other's surname secretly completting hers instead of his.Nobody knows of the long-time affair, or so A.Guillard keeps telling herself. Even when tabloids speak of étoile's prestigious blonde companion, even when Gérard questions why she has grown so distant lately. Guilt has her confess to her confidante Cole a year prior, in 2067; it doesn't count, mind you, she did so in dialected French, after all. No harm done, non? Dear Cole does not understand her when she wistfully stares into the dying
Gibraltarian sun, cigarette alight in the penumbra, hm? When she speaks fast, face turned away from him. She is genuinely convinced of such when he tips his hat & follows her gaze ⸻ deep down Amélie knows a decision has to be made; Cole does not need to say it out loud. He never does; it is what they do. Understand each other, wordlessly. Get each other's pain & anxiety without mumbling a single syllable. Par de dos, mon ami, he would say & she would laugh quietly in return, always, swallowing whatever tears would otherwise threaten to run.Cole drives her to the airport, bids her goodbye with that irresistible smile of his & a brisk wave of goodbye; as if to say 'things are going to work out, mon Ami, for both of us. You just need to take a stand.' He is heading into the unspecified North for a while, or so he says in a whisper, Amélie is going South. To Turin, Italy, for four weeks. A lasting collab; an exchange between France & Italy, a token of good faith & artistic solidarity. Unbeknownst to any but her, Angela will be there too; the weeks they spend together are wild & akin to something out of some odd fairy tale. For a handful of days, Amélie allows herself to pretend to live a life clandestinely dreamt of prior; how things could have been had she grown up in Italy, if she danced on Italian stages predominately instead. A dangerous little game with a rude awakening following two weeks after.The Overwatch Base in Rome explodes when Amélie returns to France at the beginning of the POB's Sleeping Beauty rehearsal; it is a monumental act of terrorism, Talon again they say, that kills various agents & lethally wounds too many to count. Among them is Gérard Lacroix, their original target, who is put into the ICU, fighting for his life while, left oblivious to it all as it usually is the case, Amélie is back in Paris & rehearses the part of Aurora in Sleeping Beauty to grand acclaim.She is notified roughly three days later; after surgeries & the anxious waiting, back & forth pacing Gabriel Reyes did in her name instead. When called, Amélie nearly collapses, manages to book a flight for the next day, nevertheless, in some form of shock-paralysis induced fugue state before breaking into tears & not stopping until the sun has long gone down; the rude awakening that follows has her emotionally spiral brutally for the first time since her mother's death. Questions plague her; how things could have ended up this way, why they did not tell her, how often in total he had nearly died? She would not know the answer to anything, really; his life & hers as mysterious as it is a mess. Scars randomly showing up, usually explained away with a wave of the hand whilst she fled into the arms of someone else, burning away whatever agony she feels. God! How many times had he fought for his life in some hospital somewhere whilst Morrison lied to her face? She cannot do this anymore ⸻ Amélie boards the flight the next day, being greeted by Angela & Dr. Rosenberg, in a military hospital in Rome, upon arrival, who inform her of Gérard's comatose state right away.Once with him in his room, Amélie does not leave Gérard's side. She is mostly unresponsive, lost in thoughts, barely moving, really. && when Angela asks her, out of worry, to join her in the cafeteria, a lethargic & shell-shocked Ami harshly mumbles that she should better leave her alone. As a matter of fact, Angela & her 'break up' the following day. Amélie, utterly torn apart by guilt, the weight of their actions & misery, tells her twice that "he would need her now" to which Angela agrees, only to hear a reproachful "this, between us, has to end" immediately after; as if Amélie has not been the driving force, as if she has not been the one taking a dozen first steps, & a million more to keep them together. The ensuing argument done entirely in angry, aggressive, curse-word laden French, happens in an downtrodden hospital waiting room. && Angela, near tears with hands thrown up & lips bitten bloody would call Amélie a "selfish bitch" while shouldering her way out, followed by Amélie telling her, just as furiously with eyes glazed & reddened, usually perfect make-up ruined & immaculate hair in a messy bun, that Dr. Ziegler should go "the fuck to hell".Two days later, Gérard wakes up. The first thing he sees is his wife, curled into herself on a chair, in a way only a ballet dancer of her caliber could find any comfort in; Cole arrives an hour later, makes an attempt to get a wholly exhausted & disheveled Amélie to take a nap only to be met with frantic, livid French & a mild shake of the head on Gérard's end. She stays & Cassidy relies details regarding the "pseudo witness protection program" they would put both under for roughly six months with the heaviest of hearts. They would be living in a small cottage at the outskirts of Toulouse, South of France; Amélie would work as an instructor under a different name in a local dance school & Gérard would be able to recover in peace. There is not much said after either agrees. There is not much to say, really; Cole leaves, not before tossing Amélie a long, meaningful look ere heading out. He is the one that bids either farewell before they board an Overwatch provided plane back to France too; when he pulls Ami into a long & tight embrace for the last time, there is no smile on his face. Both of them forgot how to. Despite the circumstances, Gérard & Ami would come to rekindle their relationship in these apparent six months; would be happier than they have been in a while, find cofort in one another again, just how Amélie always wanted to ⸻ even if either seemed determined to not address the elephant in the room.

ACTE V. the dying swan

.  late october 2068.  . on her way home from the ballet school OW had her instruct in during her forced vacation in the rural South of France, Amélie is kidnapped by Talon forces without leaving a proper trace other than her sports bag at the roadside & some of her blood scattered around; brought to a remote secret location unknown to even most Talon agents, Amélie's torment begins.For days she is kept without anyone coming near; no sleep, no questions asked, no demands posted, no names spilled. Nothing. Then Moira O'Deorain enters the picture; over the course of the following weeks, Amélie is subjected to mental torment; intense neural reconditioning which corrodes &, eventually, breaks her mind. Then, through intricate surgery, an implant is inserted into her addled brain, which transforms her into a sleeper agent molded after Dr. O'Deorain's design. Said implant holds the, for now passive, consciousness later known as "Widowmaker"; a genius bout of technology crafted, according to Dr. O'Deorain's blueprints, partially brought to life by the newly recruited Talon agent Sombra (against the latter's knowledge).A mind-broken & traumatized Amélie is then left in a mildly guarded warehouse a few days later, & Overwatch is given an anonymous tip; after an absence of near two months, Amélie J. Lacroix is found & freed by field agents shortly before being put into a ward for direly necessary medical observation..  december 8th, 2068.  . there is nothing to be found; scans fail to detect the implant, Ami's horrid state of mind & unreceptive, catatonic nature are considered an expected reaction to the high degree of post-traumatic-stress she is suffering from. Gérard is highly suspicious, having been rendered paranoid from the attempts on his life & the mental anguish of having his wife abducted & taken away; he claims something is off & is backed by the likes of Cole Cassidy & Angela Ziegler. Strike Commander Morrison argues against it, asking G.Lacroix to just 'take the rare win'. Most in Overwatch celebrate the happy ending to a story that usually ends in tears, in fact.When therapy starts to help & Amélie talks again the second week in, Jack & Gabe eventually push for Angela to sign the forms to free precious space & let Gérard take care of his wife. Yes, Angela; Dr. Ziegler who was the first to medically examine the victim, after Rosenberg called in sick that day. Final tests are again negative; no signs of surgery or physial harm. Jack tells her Amélie will come around again while Angela feels something is wrong, while she mulls nights over what to do but eventually yields & signs the papers anyway; let her go to her husband, she tells herself, she will recover, surely. Gabe had stated Talon victims had a high recovery chance with enough care; & imagination paints the worst pictures, after all, she assumes. Yet nothing can be as gruesome as the most dreadful of realities.

.  december 22nd, 2068.  . a few hours after release, Dr. Ziegler receives a call in the middle of the night; she is awake because work has her in a vice grip & so does the voice on the other end. It is Amélie, muttering a single, unsettlingly anguished utterance of other's name ere falling silent forevermore. Amélie J. Lacroix slits her husband's throat in his sleep two weeks after being found by Overwatch, while under the influence of Talon's brainwashing, having being "awoken" through a called-in trigger phrase prior. While "on autopilot" (read: subconsciously steered by Widowmaker's consciousness, which at this point, is no longer dormant) Ami then returns to the Talon HQ in Venice, Italy, & is promptly put under Dr. O'Deorain's "care".

You were created for a single purpose : to be the perfect living weapon; TALON's supersoldier that never misses. A statement that is false / more myth describing your inability to not pursue a tagged target until it is dead. Sleep, wake up, train, nourish, terminate, debrief, sleep. Repeat. You are their most effective assassin; requiring little rest, little food, plain quarters only. You do not complain like others do; you barely talk at all. What you do is you bring in results; near half a thousand confirmed kills in ten years of service. The pendelum swings & it is caught in TALON's favor. Because of what you do. Because of how you do it. Conditioned hand, conditioned mind. TALON sends you a name & you pull the trigger.

You exist on the margin; between utter awareness of your situation & being conscious of how little it matters how it all came to be. What matters is that killing in their name is your status quo. It is made clear to you early on, after all : you cannot escape; MOIRA won't let you no matter how much the voice inside your head / the woman in white ever in your periphery begs you to; put a bullet in your skull, leap off the ledge without grappling hook there to break your fall. Freedom, she calls it; vexing, irritating. When she is not howling her agonies into your ear she dances in the mind you share, reminding you : this is the civilian whose body & life Odile stole. && Odette never leaves. She cannot leave; forever stuck in the figurative well both of you are caught in.

You are incapable of most emotions; you do not feel, you do not regret. Therefore you do not care that OVERWATCH looks at you & sees the embodiment of one of their grandest mistakes. It doesn't bother you that Angela Ziegler one day crosses your path & breaks down crying, looking at you in ways that denounce familiarity & other feelings you cannot pinpoint. Odette remembers her & despairs because of it; through shared memoires you learn they had history. && that this too is something you steal; Angela agrees to your 'situationship' out of guilt. You agree out of convenience. Odette hates you for it / maybe loathes Angela as well. It doesn't matter, in the end. All that matters is that when Angela calls you 'Amélie' one night something in you twists beyond repair.

.  december 23rd, 2068 - winter 2070.  .  once more in Talon's fangs, Amélie further undergoes more extensive & intense neural conditioning through which the now active consciousnesses known as Widowmaker is properly anchored. She takes control over their shared body & the first few directives are conditioned into her brain (numerous physical & mental alterations are done before the impending heart surgery set to be done next winter). Inside their mind, Amélie's now suppressed personality fights back vehemently. Widowmaker & her violently struggle for control on the daily - this goes on for two torturous years, which would be referred as "THE CRITICAL YEARS" in Talon's database from thereon..  late 2070.  . after a sheer endless string of surgeries, agonizing tests & strenuous physical + mental training & reconditioning Talon put her through against her will, the woman formerly known as Amélie J. Lacroix is ultimately transformed into "The Widowmaker" through the final heart-slowing surgery. Her physiology, at this point, has already been heavily & irreversibly altered, with the change of complexion, clinical death & warping of former ballet dancer's body being the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back; upon realizing how far Talon had gone, weary & knowing herself to be beyond saving now, Amélie loses the will to further resist; her consciousness surrenders after two years of constant, desperate battling, creating the, from thereon present, unique union between the two twin-consciousnesses, Widowmaker (ODILE) & Amélie (ODETTE). ⸻ Widowmaker officially begins her duty as Talon Agent under Dr. O'Deorain's supervision shortly after..  2071.  . Widowmaker is sent on her first official mission under the aforementioned callsign; her targets are a handful of high-ranked Overwatch agents convoying a group of scientists to Poland. She has hereby already been active on the field before as "LA GRIFFE", participating in covert missions under the cloak of other common Talon ops not to be distinguished. Moving in a squad, dressed in infrantery uniform; not yet allowed to make her face distinctly known. During these test missions, "LA GRIFFE" eliminates her first few inofficial targets & instills fear. Network chatter speaks of a new TALON sniper, callsign unknown; fast as lightning & ruthless too.Widowmaker successfully eliminates four of the targets before OVERWATCH'S Captain ANA AMARI interferes. A firefight between the rivaling shooters ensues in which Widowmaker executes the fifth & final target ere having her position pinpointed. AMARI misses the killing shot & blows off Widowmaker's visor - abrupt shock paralyzes her; through the zoom of her scope she recognizes the very face of the sniper before hear, realising instantly who she is fighting against. This hesitation costs AMARI her life; Widowmaker takes the killing shot through the other's scope & right eye. AMARI 'dies' without being able to relay a truly godawful revelation : AMÉLIE J. LACROIX, considered dead for two years at this point, has come back to haunt them.Now established & proven to 'function' as intended, Widowmaker is sent onto [predominately solo] missions regularily & starts raking up confirmed kills. Her role is hereby that of an instigator; someone who tips the scales on TALON's command just enough to cause a chain-reaction usually holding global ripple effects - a local politician refuses to yield to the demands of a [secretly] TALON associated mega corp? They are found dead a week later, preceded by someone who seems way more willing to fulfill that corporation's every wish.The aforementioned LA GRIFFE, CAUCHEMAR & THE WIDOW or WIDOWMAKER are hereby only a few names muttered under people's breath; when Overwatch eventually falls a year later, TALON rises - whatever kills the assassin commits during her active service can hardly be tracked or linked together; many remain unsolved, many are referred to as 'accidents' in closed files. TALON has their hands & eyes everywhere - in the aftermath of the PETRAS Act, reality becomes what the shadow organisation desires.. The following is a list of SPECIAL MISSIONS & NOTEWORTHY OCCURRANCES Widowmaker engaged in alongside her usual duty as an active assassin / hitwoman taking out targets given to her by TALON, pushing her [un]official confirmed kill-count up to 406 over the span of eight years. ..  2072.  . being one of the agents sent on a mission to retrieve weapon & research data in addition to funneling lists of former OVERWATCH agents, Widowmaker travels to the half-way decommissioned OW Watchpoint: Xining (South Korea) where especially societal data on Omnic integration was stored [important data stolen here would lead to the TALON OLIGARCHY ordering the hit on the Shambali monk MONDATTA later]. REAPER & SOMBRA mount simultaneous attacks on Watchpoint: Grand Mesa & Kerguelen respectively. Due to Widowmaker's modus operandi, the amount of data she managed to steal was not registered until sigificantly later.During her infiltration, Widowmaker encounters former OW agent MERCY [alias Dr. Angela Ziegler] after the assassin's liaison (the very same who was supposed to get her into the base) is compromised at the hands of local authorities & ends their life to avoid interrogation / Talon being detected. Widow has to find an alternative way in midst the mounting battle between stationed guards & a covert TALON cell masquerading as anti-OW protesters [to further mask the point that Widow was ever there]. MERCY, who had long resigned her duties at OVERWATCH in exchange for a neutral position two years prior the organisation's fall, attempts to interfere in an effort to help the alleged civilians.Not given the greenlight to kill Angela on TALON's end, Widowmaker shoots her down & takes her hostage to gain access into the Watchpoint instead - the ensuing interaction marks their first encounter after Amélie J. Lacroix' "death". Angela recognizes her former 'friend' right away but does not communicate this to anyone; neither the authorities nor what remains of the collapsed OVERWATCH. Throughout the fire-fight, Widow wrecks Angela's Valkyrie suit (shot through the wing + fall & altercations afterwards) leading to A.Ziegler not needing to hand it to the authorities when the UN eventually demanded such. This would become an important detail in the future.A week after the successful retrieval of rosters, observation data, weapon - & biological research [which would additionally allow TALON to track down various scientists & agents whose involvement with OW had been kept a secret, among other things, further making it possible to track down the whereabouts of a certain Dr. De Kuiper], Widowmaker is tasked to track down who leaked the information re: her liaison & TALON's general presence in the respective areas [it turns out REAPER & SOMBRA's operations had been similarily difficult for the very same reason].After exhausting what could be figured out about the liasion through SOMBRA's help, Widow continues her 'investigation' by pursuing her only true lead : MERCY. Finding former Combat Medic's current residence in Poland does not prove difficult for someone with TALON backing; when confronted, Angela has little choice but to agree helping Widow with finding the culprit or risk being dragged further into business she has no intention of being dragged into; it's an attempt to not further compromise herself [her activity in South Korea was not legal after all & her use of the suit was an offense against the Petras Act], to be left alone in the grand scheme of things while trying to understand what happened to that beloved friend of hers.Widowmaker manages to locate the traitor in Gdańsk & moves to execute them; in a turn of events the leak is revealed to be a part of an operation spearheaded by former OW agents turned vigilantes [similar to SOLDIER 76 & SHRIKE]. A firefight in an abandoned apartment complex ensues. While successful in executing every member of the cell, Widow gets wounded before finishing the last of her opposition; with no means to make it to the HQ in Venice, Widowmaker agrees to Angela's offer to patch her up, consequently winning a shred of the assassin's trust. Widow would from thereon return to Angie's place whenever hurt in an effort to avoid MOIRA's scrutiny; their unlikely allyship is rooted in convenience for either, or so it's settled at first. Their situationship begins several months later..  2073.  .  through the help of the aforementioned stolen data, REAPER, SOMBRA & Widowmaker are sent to New Mexico to break the located Dr. de Kuiper, alias 'Subject Sigma', out of his prison. As usual, Widowmaker would serve as a back-up with most of the participating grunts & higher ranked officers not even Knowing she was there, entering the facility to dispose off reinforcements & buy her 'allies' time ⸻ SIGMA joins Talon as an "official" member shortly after.

.  2074.  .  successes lead to Widowmaker being sent further & further away on solo-missions, trusted to fulfill her tasks without hick-ups utterly independently, sometimes staying away for near a full week without returning to base. Seven days are hereby the hard-limit, strictly enforced to prevent Widow's body from collapsng [needing medical care to survive, after all]. Widow never once has given TALON a cause to assume her anything but loyal, even if her own personal loyalty lies with no one - that said, no one truly understands what is going on in the assassins head, whether she is capable of lying or not. One event in the midst of the year 2074 would put MOIRA's blind faith in Widow's conditioning to the test.under maintenance / to be continued soon.