You awake on Sunday morning feeling rested. It's a feeling you haven't felt in awhile, but it's nice. It dawns on you that you've finally adjusted to life with Gold Team. It's been about six months since your return from Santa Fe. The thought still makes you sick to your stomach, but you push the anger down as you get ready for the day.

You realize that you'd woken up about an hour and a half before schedule, so you take the time to go explore. You haven't seen everything within the Overwatch headquarters, so you just take the time to walk around. It's eerily silent around the building, Madison gets everyone up and around early, so being early by Madison's standards means most people are still sleeping.

You eventually find yourself wandering out of the platinum halls and out though an exit. The sun hasn't come up yet, though you normally don't see it until breakfast time anyway. The stars are still out. You take some time to reflect. You sit in the slightly wet grass and just stare up at the expanse above you. The world seems vast and open.

It's odd how it took you so long to come into your own. For the longest time you identified yourself with your family. You moved away of course, but not far. When Jo went off to college it was the farthest away you'd ever been from him. Your dad became your support system, you'd spend long Sundays with him while Jo was gone. He'd guide you through the confusion. You weren't sure what you wanted to do, you felt directionless. Especially next to Jo, who seemed to know what he liked and wanted to do the minute he left the womb. Your dad would just sit, listen and nod. He'd offer advice, but only if you asked for it.

Then you found Overwatch. Of course you thought about your family, but now your old life felt small in comparison to the vast stretch of opportunity ahead of you. You have a whole life ahead of you to live. You don't really identify yourself with a person or people anymore. You're you. And as you take a deep breath, you find the thought refreshing. You're you, and you're okay.

_____________________

The day is long and grueling. You find yourself later that day dreading the morning coming. Already exhausted and sore, you head to lunch to find everyone already sitting around the table. You're greeted by various hellos as you sit down to eat.

"How are you feeling, (Y/N)? You look tired." Aden says, sitting further down the table, but leaning in to talk to you.

"I'm exhausted, but alright. I guess I'm starting to get nervous." This causes Madison to chuckle. "Trust me," she says, "It never stops being nerve wracking." She pauses for a moment before looking around at the group.

"I just want to say to everyone how lucky I am to have all of you." She says, looking down the long table as if to address you each individually. "I know I've only been with Gold three cycles, and I've only been Primary for two, but I just wanted to tell you that you've easily been the best team to work with, and if by chance, I get to become an Upper Agent, I will always miss you."

This speech brings out a jumbled mess of "thank you"s "aw"s and general exclamations that you swear she turns a bit red.

"A toast!" Hunter declares, hitting his fork against his glass, "To our wonderful Primary, who hopefully won't be our Primary anymore. To Madison!" You all raise your glasses and in unison say, "To Madison!"

You get a few odd stares from the rest of the room, and actually hear someone from another table say, "To Madison!" before you hear a, "Shut up-" and the conversation around the room rise again.

Soon enough lunch is over, and everyone files out. However, Madison catches you before you leave. "(Y/N)," she calls after you, "Do you have a minute to talk?"

"Sure, what's up?"

"I know you're tired, but I was wondering if you'd want to use your half hour of down time to train with me? Pick your poison."

"Oh, sure." This throws you off. Madison never offers to train with anyone- she actually prefers to work alone. "Out of curiosity, why now?"

"To put it plainly, you're the underdog. Don't take this wrong- but you're not the most qualified person to be here. But you have more drive than a lot of people with twice your experience. I guess I just want to help you get better. I think that if you became an Upper Agent right now it would eat you alive, but I don't want to hold you back. I know you didn't challenge, but I don't want you to pass up an opportunity, you know?"

"Yeah. Guess so. Thanks Madison."

"No problem. So, what do you think you need work on?"

"Not sure. Honestly, I've improved a lot in my weaker areas."

"Hm. Bit of everything?"

"Sure."

You spend the half hour in the interactive shooting range. You work with Madison on accuracy and speed along with taking random orders from Madison and just doing them. After the half hour is complete and your watches beep, she gives you a small smile and says, "Nice work. Get back at it."

________________________

The evening comes quickly after your session with Madison. You find yourself staring at the ceiling that night while you hear everyone sleeping soundly. You toss and turn before walking out to the commons. It's empty and silent, and you gaze out the window into the open air of night. You swear you see someone out there, leaning on the wall by the entrance. The figure seems to notice you through the window, gazing up towards you. You quickly turn and walk away, willing yourself to not think too hard about who would be up at this hour. You sit on one of the couches, facing a blank wall where the hologram tv would normally be, now turned off. You hear the ticking of an analog clock amidst the silence. Then you hear the snores coming from the men's quarters and chuckle. Probably Hunter.

You sit like this for an hour, in nervous thought. You watch the clock move from one, to one thirty, to two in the morning before your eyelids begin to get heavy. This is your chance. Everyone's been telling you how good this will be. You just have to ignore... him. You've succeeded this far. You tell yourself as you move off to bed. You just have to ignore him. That's all. Forever. Simple.

You wake up the next morning, groggy, to find that your alarm didn't wake you as early. You see Hera and Madison still asleep, but everyone else is gone. It's almost 7 in the morning, 30-60 minutes later than you'd normally have to get up. As the clock strikes 7:00 your alarms beep and the others stir. Madison is first, then Hera. The two of them don't speak- to you or each other, so as you get ready you keep to yourself.

Everything is empty, and as you all file into the common room you find that the only people awoken late are those testing. Everyone else has gone.

"Where is everyone?" you ask quietly.

"Their days continue as normal." Madison responds. "Now we wait."

You all sit in the common room until you hear the familiar ding of an incoming announcement. Athena's voice rings out, "Would all of the Upper Agent considerations please make their way to the Sparring Arena?"

The room becomes silent from anticipation as Madison opens the door and looks at all of you.

"Here we go."

You arrive at the Sparring Arena where Gold Team held their sparring day, all those weeks ago, and arrive to see groups of three or four from each group huddled on different ends of the bleachers. A few Upper Agents stand with Commander Morrison in the middle of the arena. As you take your seats towards the middle of the bleachers, you wait a few minutes for the stragglers to arrive before Morrison speaks into a microphone.

"Welcome all. You have all done well to be where you are today, and I know you are all anxious to get started." He looks around at all of the groups with a stern, yet kind expression. "There will be a few sections of today's test. You will have randomly paired sparring between any of you here, you will find the Upper Agent whose position you correlate with and run drills with them, team and solo, and finally, you'll have an interview with me, in my office."

A list of names lights up on a holographic board above Morrison and the other Agents. It separates you from your teams, and into categories: Attack, Defense, Support, and Tank. You find your name, and next to it flashes three things: (L/N) and Adams | Drills with Amari | Meeting with Morrison at 16:30. 

You take a deep breath, and look over to make eye contact with your Primary. Madison smiles at you and says, "Go get 'em." 

You smile back and head down from the bleachers to the area where you will soon spar with an agent. Calming yourself, you think of the moment you arrived here. This is the test, and you can't fail.

Just don't think about him.