REBAR | FANFIC

Downpour | Chapter 1

Joel stared down at the bag in her lap. Rain fell heavy against the metal roof of the bus stop, and she looked hopefully at the blinking sign showing the time until the next bus. ...Still stuck on 10:57, unfortunately. As it had been for... she checked her phone, biting her lip. 

23 minutes. She briefly wondered if this bus stop was defunct, leaning back against the bench.  Lightning flashed across the sky. 

Was this really how the week would start? If any week had to be junked... did it have to be this one? She stood up, pacing, eyes flashing to her bag on the bench as she remembered the events of the day. 

A crappy morning, to start off. She didn't have anything for breakfast and barely got out the door before realizing her shirt was inside out, and stained with... blood? Chocolate? Could have been either. She ended up late to her grief counseling, earning some disappointment from the therapist, who already knew she wasn't taking it very seriously. Well, if she needed counseling, she would have signed up for it herself! 

At least it was the last day with her. Now all she had to do was get home... somehow, anyway, and make sure she was packed. 

Then prepare for stress like she's never seen it before. 

She was snapped out of her thoughts by a pair of headlights, but it turned out to just be a car. Joel sighed again.

About a month ago, her school was completely decimated by an omnic attack. There was at least 200 casualities... 150 deaths. Two of her best friends had been in the library when the ceiling, and upper rooms, fell on top of it. She saw their bodies carried out. She herself...had a scar on her cheek, from a window shattering near her. It was a miracle she survived, she thought. 

What was more a miracle was what happened within the following week, however. She had lost her binder, her most precious artefact, of research. Her own personal research, on using a substance like electricity to heal and destroy fatal diseases. She had never been able to experiment with it, they didn't have the technology, but it was a good hypothesis...

Well, she may have been book smart, but she lacked common sense. All of her research was hand written. She never typed it out, because, well, she was lazy. And when she lost it in the wreckage, well... that was years of work gone. Equations, ideas, breakthroughs... gone. 

She had mourned that loss along with her friends. Her friends moreso, of course, but... well, that research was her third best friend. She had poured more work into it than her actual schoolwork. 

Joel had heard her parents on the phone a few days after it had happened. She wasn't sure what it was about, but they seemed excited. The next day, an agent of Overwatch had shown up at her door, asking for her. She just stared dumbly at them while they explained someone had recovered her work in the wreckage, and most of it was salvageable. It took some time for them to track her down, they weren't sure if she was one of... the deceased, or not. And her phone was off. They didn't mean to come too soon, or interrupt anything or... well, she didn't remember. 

They had come to invite her to finish her studies under the top scientists of Overwatch, granted she continued her research with the technology they would allow her. Evidently, she had stared at them for a full half a minute before nodding, wordlessly. She didn't know it was that long. 

Now here she stood, in a bus stop in the pounding rain, the day before she had to leave. 

Joel had never expected much from life. She had never expected much from herself, or from anyone else. So this offer... well, she still felt it was a prank. Maybe she was actually being kidnapped. That would be her luck... 

Another pair of headlights brought her back, and slowed this time. She cheered audibly as a bus seemed to materialize from the gray downpour. She nearly forgot her bag in the rush to get on, running back to get it before nearly tripping up the steps. She dropped a full twenty in the fee box and sat down in one of the front seats. The only other two passengers were a... kind of cute brunette, with short hair, and an old man clutching two soaked bags of groceries in the back. She turned her face toward the window. 

Joel always minded her business.

It wasn't long before they reached the stop right before her apartment, and she nearly tripped down the steps this time. She waved a thank you at the driver before bolting to her building. She went to pull the door and-

Conked her face directly into the door. Why did she try to pull it? She cussed at herself and her frazzled mind, pushing this time. Ok, that did it. She dried her feet the best she could on the mat before going to her apartment, right across the hall. 

She dug in her bag for her keys, finally finding them and digging them out. ...Then she remembered she didn't lock the door, and groaned, just hoping nobody took anything. She opened the door unceremoniously.

The only light was coming from her fish tank, nestled against the wall in the living room/kitchen/mostly everything. She sighed, sinking to her knees in front of it and watching her fish swim. Since the incident, well... they were her only friends. She watched a gourami chase one of the catfish, waving its feelers menacingly. She snorted, getting up, and turning a light on. 

Joel didn't know if she would miss this apartment. The water was always cold, and the stove took three years to heat up to ramen suitable levels. But... it was a comfort. It was just big enough for her. When her parents came to visit, she felt... squished. It was good for thinking, too... 

Boring and hard to get distracted by. 

She flopped face down into the couch, which would not be coming with her. For that, she was glad. She had too many hangovers on this couch to enjoy it. But, for now... it would work for a nap... 

Or, as she would find out in the morning, scurrying to finish her packing, it would work for sleep. Lots of sleep. 

God, she hated herself, she muttered as there was a knocking on the door, and she still had a box of clothes to pack.

Well... did she really need the jean jacket? 

... Yeah. Yeah, she did. She slammed the pile in the box. 

 " Coming! " She yelled. Okay... time to begin a new chapter, Joel.

Don't screw this one up, too.