Trail of Breadcrumbs [George]

Ansell fidgetted a little as he looked from Kathryn to her father; they did look a lot a like didn't they? Huh, maybe they were really related. Seemed strange, George never said a lot when he mentioned them, always seemed to hurt too much. He'd go off to the pub when it was particularly bad. "Oh, Friend!" He offered. Friends, the crew, the gang, the family without blood.

George considered that. "Yeah sure, show us your friends, any little videos...I mean, well everything;" he offered. "Show me your life, what your passions are like. I want to you know, see what they mean to you, so I can pat you on the back for it." He chuckled. "Doesn't need to be polished, just show me what you do." He scratched the back of his neck with a bit of a laugh, he didn't know how else to explain it. Where did you even start?

"Maybe we could go back and forth, see where it goes," he offered, he'd lived something of a life after everything had gone down. Ansell clapped.

"Mmm." he hummed with approval and nodded again.

"Friends, I can do friends!" She smiled. "And back and forth is good...I mean, I want to know all the stuff about you too!"

She took the remote and started doing things on the screen, pulling up her page on a social media account that she seemed fairly active on, given the barrage of pictures that started to load up. She pulled up one picture of several other girls who seemed about her age and similar tastes and lifestyle. "These are my girls! There's Jessica...we were roommates in college, and like the other girl in our dorm...legit crazy person. Like we got to be good friends just as like...survival against this other girl." She laughed a little. "And Tiffany, she was a lead in one of my films, super funny, just the stuff she comes up with...and her friend Sandy who does like this crazy industrial car-part Art...really cool. This was when we went to the Carribean not too long ago..."

More pictures. "Me and her were friends in high school, she got married and lives in Canada now...she breeds puppies, she's promised me one whenever I'm ready for one!"

One of her with a dark haired boy with a serious expression but eyes that seemed like he knew something funny no one else did. "This is Danny, y'know, the one I'm kind of dating, but not like it's serious...yet..." She flushed bright red and was quick to go onto the next pictures. "Hey, these are from when I went to Sundance last year!"

She seemed someone who kept busy and loved it, parties, events, bad karaoke videos, more pictures with her friends and her brother that she eagerly shared with her audience.

George beamed as she went through her pictures, they were all so full of live and happiness; busy yet never with the wrong things. No pictures of meals or sites without people in them. He always preferred pictures that caught a moment with someone else. "Haha, your friends look great; you look happy, I'm glad," he said as he patted her knee with a chuckle. "I know how crazy bunkmates can be, bunked up with a guy who said he could hear the mother mary when he slept sometimes. He uh ended up stuck in a tree by his parachute and he swore up and down that she'd said to him "you will fall a great deal and be caught," as if that proved he was telling the truth." He shook his head.

"He's uh, cute?" He said humming, as if he could manage to tell the worthiness of this suitor from his picture alone. "Sundance...isn't that the big one? I remember going to it once, but that was three decades ago. Only film I remember was this really terrible one about clowns."

George had to smile at the pictures of Tom as they flashed by. He sniffed a bit. What a wonderful life, he was sad to have missed it but proud of the fact that he'd at least had some part in making someone so vibrant. "You know I never figured someone so brilliant would be related to an old frump like me..." he said as he rubbed his neck.

Ansell had been quiet till he finally sort of finessed the remote from her, he glanced at George and gave him a weird sort of look. "Mmm!" He announced wordlessly before pulling up Overwatch profiles, and pictures along with videos. "Overwatch! Hephaestus! George!" Sorting through it, there were pictures of George as a younger man in Overwatch uniform, shaking hands with Jack Morrison, candids of him with a few other recruits who'd come in later, on the deck of battle cruisers, and carriers. To pictures of some other man with incredibly orangey-yellow hair. Videos of training exercises, and drills, testing of gear and the like. George seemed in these days a wry, bemused sort of man...whenever no one was looking apart from the camera he'd pull ridiculous faces.

Embarrassing to see those come back, though the other man who dominated some of the videos seemed a bit mental. Things just erupted in front of him. Sometimes the camera would break right when the action would start. He had an almost cruel sort of a grin; new real footage of the omnic crisis, robots shattering. Ansell quickly skipped away from the crisis stuff to medal ceremonies. George had earned a few, well...Hephaestus had, though it was him accepting those on his uniform anyway.

George frowned a bit, damnit Ansell.

Eventually the wildman looked at George and Kathryn with a pleased expression. "Hero! Overwatch, fight bad. Do good. Yes?" he said with a sigh.

She nodded. "It's one of the big festivals, it's in Utah...it's just all this stuff everywhere and you meet so many cool people.." She brightened suddenly. "Next time I go, you should come with me!" She said excitedly. "I can show you all the cool spots and everything!"

She grew more serious as she watched the footage Ansell put up, she found herself giggling when he'd look all serious, only to turn around and make faces at the camera. Mostly though, she was enthralled with what she was watching, she'd heard the stories, grown up on them...but to actually watch them was another thing entirely.

The other man though....no, not other man, but some...other version of her father...was that a thing? She'd done a film once about someone with a powerful alter ego of sorts...but...was that a thing in the real world? And Ansell had said that name again, that her dad had said was someone he'd known.

As the footage came to an end she looked up at him. Not angry or afraid...but curious, giving him a look that asked for...no...demanded more information.

George sighed as it came to an end. He shot Ansell a betrayed sort of look, why'd he have to show her that? He could have left Hephaestus out of it. "...Well I suppose.." he started and stopped, looking forlornly at his metal arm, everything had gone wrong after that day. He closed his eyes and rubbed his face. "I suppose I ought to correct what I said before. Hephaestus isn't someone I know, he's someone I become...sometimes..." He cleared his throat.

Ansell looked apologetic, he'd not been aware the subject was offlimits. "Sorry..." he mumbled and the big man gave a shrug.

"It's alright, it's probably important I talk about him anyway..." George replied. "Hephaestus, or the intelligence that goes by that name is made up of a bunch of nano machines, and they're whirling away inside me, they keep me from getting sick, and fix up injuries quickly." He explained it trying to keep it simple. "But more than that Hephaestus was created to be a countermeasure to Omnics, a super soldier that could disable them easily and effectively. I wasn't actually the candidate, there was a mix up, I got shot up instead. No one else from the program survived but me." He shrugged. "Far as I know it was cancelled after all the others burned out." He crossed his arms.

"He's a plan B usually. He's out of control, reckless, and doesn't really care much for people getting hurt," he said. "I don't have any will over him when he's out. So...I never let him out after Overwatch, well not very often, been trying to find a way to permanently get rid of him that won't kill me." George furrowed his brow. "He was the one they actually recruited, I was basically just his handler."

She sat back and listened as he explained. "Wow." She finally said quietly.

She was an open-minded and imaginative young woman, she didn't doubt what he was saying nor was she frightened or anything by it...but this was something else. And to have happened to her dad? This wasn't something the stories talked about...it probably wasn't something anyone...really talked about.

"Wow." She repeated, then shook her head a little, looking up at him, a little concerned now. "Does he just...happen? Like...randomly? I mean...that's gotta be hard..." She said quietly, still processing what he'd just told her.

George shook his head. "No he...he doesn't just happen, not anymore, he did in the past when I was a weaker man; and if I'm in danger, possibly facing down death then he appears," he said as he scratched his neck. Ansell dragged himself by his arms, till he was behind George, and he wrapped his arms around his shoulders. The old soldier sighed and pat Ansell's head. "Don't worry about it, honestly I would have had to tell her anyway, it's not exactly like having a weird birthmark."

He looked back to Kathryn. "Don't worry about it Kat, It's not like I'm particularly thrilled, but he's useful for now..." he said as he rolled his shoulders. "The people we're up against well they need to be shown they don't just get away with what they do. Hephaestus can make that very clear. He's mostly an ally, so long as he's pointed in the right direction." He smiled at her.

"And you'll never have to meet him, he's like a gun, keep them in a safe till you use him for the right reasons," George compared.

She considered what he was telling her, drawing her legs up under her onto the bed as she did, watching the two of them together.

"I trust you." She nodded after a moment. She trusted him when he said the other wasn't a threat - at least not to her, and that it was not something she'd ever have to deal with. "I mean...it is kinda cool...even if it's a little messed up..." Her smile started to return. "And so was seeing the rest of that...Grandma always told me stories, but y'know....actually getting to see it is different then just being told about it."

She looked over to Ansell, answering his earlier comments. "She always told me he was a hero...one of the good guys. I liked getting to actually see it."

George glanced to Ansell as he put his chin on his shoulder. He supposed he should clarify something about this. Seemed a bit too obvious to play off as just a friendship. Ansell would probably spill anyway. He wondered how he'd word it so as not to sound awkward.

"Thanks, I'm happy you do, I'd never do anything to hurt you or your brother," he said firmly, he'd move mountains and swim oceans to keep that from happening if he had to. "He'd be happy to hear you say that, they didn't just give them godly names, they gave them godly egos to go with it. Yeah I liked to tell my Mom everything, well everything that wasn't classified, I sent her pictures of friends, a few even out on mission. I got in a bit of trouble with ol' Morrison over one where I snapped a picture of me shaking hands with a severed omnic arm. He uh didn't appreciate me giving myself a pat on the back." That was bad, and he gave a brief chuckle.

"Hero," Ansell agreed and sort of nuzzled George's neck. "Save me too."

"I uh...we...uh, so I said I was legally responsible for him...yeah? Ansell here, well," George started, looking just a little flustered. "I guess...we're also sort of...involved? I've been trying to think of a way to say that, which doesn't sound awkward, I don't think I managed it."

She laughed at the description of the one picture he took. She'd always wondered in the back of her mind if she was quite a bit like her dad...the more she saw and talked to him, even just in the course of a couple hours, there was little question left in her mind...she was absolutely her father's daughter.

As he explained about Ansell she looked between them with a suddenly new understanding in her eyes. They'd seemed friendly, she probably would have figured that out sooner rather than later...but yeah, she could see it looking at them now.

"Oh." She did sound a little surprised. "Okay..." She looked between them again. "I mean, I don't think it's awkward." Just maybe not what she'd expected he'd say...had that played any part in why he hadn't been around? She was a little afraid to ask though.

Ansell looked from daughter to father, he didn't think it was awkward, but then he'd not been around people for long periods 20 or so years, give or take. "Like George!" he seemed to agree. "Liebe ihn ziemlich viel..." His German was certainly more fluid than his English.

George shrugged. "It's a pretty new development, honestly I uhm...hadn't really considered it myself," he said with a hum. "I've only had girlfriends in the past." Though he didn't really think much about them, they seemed to come and go. Maybe he just didn't try hard enough, maybe he was afraid to get too involved. Eh they weren't amazing people anyway, no one he'd really consider settling down with. "Oh well I'm pretty satisfied with it I guess."

"Telling your Daughter about your...I dunno...boyfriend? There has to be a better word for it when you get older, partner I guess, is a little awkward," he said. "It'd be awkwarder if I was introducing you to a new woman I think honestly. I'm just not very good at it either way."

"Okay, maybe it is a little weird..." She admitted. "But I mean, it could be way weirder." She looked between the two of them "And I mean, you're happy, right? That's the important part."

Maybe it wasn't something she'd ever really thought about either, in thinking about her dad. But it wasn't like it was a big deal or something that changed how she thought about him or anything, somewhat awkward or not. People cared about who they cared about, and as long as no one was getting hurt she of all people wasn't about to tell other people how to live their lives.

"So yeah...I don't really care. But like...not in a bad way." She was quick to add, as she realized how that might sound. "Just...it doesn't change anything or anything." She smiled at them both.

George shook his head. "I'm sure after a while it won't be weird," he replied as he tried not to be too touchy with Ansell while she was sitting with them. "Yeah I guess? I don't entirely know what happiness is like these days, but you finding me, and me finding Ansell...well I guess those are happy things." He scratched the back of his neck. "Maybe I'll finally quit smoking."

Maybe not, he was finding this place a bit stressful. George smiled then as he looked over Kathryn again. Things were looking up, maybe more miracles would happen like him finally getting rid of his unwanted guest. He chuckled.

"No I get what you mean, it's not a big deal; I just felt you should probably know, you are my daughter and he's my partner. Wouldn't be right not to let you know," he said as Ansell finally scooched away, almost faceplanting into the wall as George grabbed his shirt. "Oiy, we need to get your legs fixed up sooner rather than later, or you're gonna end up smashing your teeth in."

"Mm," came a noise of agreement as Ansell righted himself and pulled his legs off the side of the bed. "It nice meet you. Kathryn."