The bar was quiet. The dented digital jukebox hanging off a pillar had finally run out of dull piano ballads. The few regulars still left were sat dozing in a corner like piles of old coats. The barman's sole real customer was slumped on the counter, blonde hair scraped back away from her face. The peach schnapps was running low. There wasn't much call for it in rural Indiana.

"This seat taken?"

The blonde gave the speaker a quick look, a soldier's look or something like it. Then she looked away.

The speaker sat down. Rake thin, long-limbed like a teenager or an underfed German Shepherd. Short brown hair, the fringe flicked away with a twist of the neck. "You know, we've met."

That got a response. "We have?" The blonde's English was accented. German, maybe.

A nod. "A while ago."

"It would have to have been." A slim smile that tasted of bad spirits. "A long, long while."

"Why's that?"

"I was worth knowing. A long, long while ago. Now?" The blonde's gaze fixed on the new arrival like a stooping hawk. "Now people have that Irish maniac, or the Lindholm girl. Now I have an empty glass."

"There's still a place for you."

One sharp laugh, a bark of a thing. The blonde looked away. "I brought my whole team back from the dead once. Time after time after time. I helped so many people and now? What's left from those days? A bird with broken wings. Flight for a moment and crashing back down. A gun."

"I didn't mean there."

The blonde's head snapped around. The brunet was just sat there, all angles and legs and battered green jacket, pointing at their heart.

"I still main you," they continued. "I never stopped. You have the best healing and you're the best pure support. So you can't rez a whole team any more. So what? You're you. And I want to help you remember that. Any way I can."

"Any way?"

"Name it."

The blonde smiled, softer, quieter, more felt. "Then buy me another drink and call me Angela."

"Ix," said Iximaz.

After an hour, they left together, and didn't look back.