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Sombra walked into the bright room, uncloaking herself as the door shut behind her. She saw the bed in the middle of the room and smiled.
“I heard you were sick.”
Widowmaker turned her head at the words. She opened her heavy eyes slowly, blinking a few times to clear her vision. “Get out.” Her words were muffled by the oxygen mask on her face.
Backing up a little, Sombra laughed. She waved her hand over the door sensor, grinning as it blinked red, denying her access. “Seems like I can’t leave.”
Widowmaker squeezed her eyes in frustration. A muted sigh filled her mask. “We both know you can open it.”
“Hmm.” Sombra brought up a screen and tapped the purple holograph for a few moments. Gabriel’s face popped up a second later.
“What is it?” asked Gabriel.
A wave. “Hey, Gabe.” She turned around to show him Widowmaker in the back. “Guess where I am?”
He sighed, dragging his hand down his face. “Sombra.”
She smiled at the weary tone. “Yeah, Gabe?”
“You can’t leave.”
Her face lit up with faux exasperation. “What? I can’t leave?” She saw his eye twitch with every sarcastic word.
Gabriel stayed quiet for a moment. “We don’t know if it’s contagious and you knew that.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Guess it slipped my mind.”
He sighed again. “Just… Don’t get too close.”
Sombra bit her bottom lip and peered over her shoulder to Widowmaker behind her. “Mmhm.”
Gabriel shook his head and the screen went blank.
Spinning around, Sombra gave Widowmaker a satisfied grin. “Boss says I can’t leave.”
Widowmaker turned around in bed to face away from Sombra. “Stay over there.”
Ignoring Widowmaker’s words, Sombra stepped closer.
“Don’t.”
She closed the distance and rested her hand on the bed. “I’m not scared.” Sombra reached out, touching Widowmaker’s shoulder. At the touch, Widowmaker turned her head back. “What’s it going to take to see you smile?”
Sombra tucked a stray hair behind Widowmaker’s ear and watched the glare in her golden eyes soften. She leaned in closer and pressed a kiss to Widowmaker’s forehead. She felt Widowmaker reach for her arm when she pulled away. The soft smile that shone beneath the oxygen mask made her heart stop. She felt herself smile in return. “There it is.”
Widowmaker pulled Sombra into her arms and buried her face in Sombra’s neck. “Stupid.”
“I know.”
“So stupid.” Widowmaker held Sombra tighter, her chest heaving in exertion as she tried to breathe.
Sombra climbed all the way onto the bed and slid under the blankets. With some effort, she managed to take off her jacket, tossing it to the floor.
Widowmaker ran her hand along Sombra’s arm, her fingers sliding over the material of her cloaking suit. “Can you take this off?”
The suit joined the jacket on the floor and Widowmaker took the opportunity to tangle their limbs together. She smiled into Sombra’s shoulder when warm fingers took to running through her hair, massaging her scalp.
“How are you feeling?”
Widowmaker took a deep breath, speaking a single, exhausted word, “Cold.”
Sombra held her and kept the rest of her thoughts to herself as Widowmaker went to sleep in her arms.
-
She woke up early the next morning, the room still dark. Sombra carefully extracted herself from Widowmaker’s grasp and slipped out of bed. She winced when her bare feet touched the cold floor. Careful not to make a sound, Sombra tiptoed to the bathroom and closed the door softly behind her.
Sombra hovered over the sink after washing up. Her eyes stared at her reflection, searching for something. She leaned in closer and pulled down on her lower eyelid. Nothing out of the ordinary, not as far as she could tell.
She laughed, clutching the sink tight with both hands. “Would it even matter if I got it too?” No matter how long she looked in the mirror, the room stayed silent. Sombra’s smile dropped the longer her reflection refused to give an answer.
Golden eyes locking with hers made Sombra stop in her tracks as she left the bathroom. The darkness outlining Widowmaker’s eyes made a stark contrast with her pale, blue skin. In the span of a night, she seemed a different person.
“Morning beautiful.” Sombra crossed the room to the bed and sat down. She pushed aside the dark hair covering Widowmaker’s face and smiled at her.
Widowmaker opened her mouth but no words came. Instead, she closed her eyes and breathed in deep. When she opened her eyes again she focused her gaze on the bathroom door. “I need help.”
“Yeah, okay.” Sombra stood up from the bed and helped Widowmaker to her feet. She walked her to the bathroom, letting go when Widowmaker held on to the sink.
Using the sink as leverage, Widowmaker lowered herself to the ground and leaned over the toilet. She vomited. She coughed between each desperate breath of air, vomiting again before her breathing could even out. It was miserable to watch but Sombra stayed, holding the long strands of hair away from Widowmaker’s face and keeping a reassuring touch on her back.
When the coughing stopped and there was nothing left in her stomach to throw-up, Sombra pulled Widowmaker up to her feet and helped her clean up. She walked Widowmaker back to the bed when they were finished in the bathroom.
They laid down and Sombra helped Widowmaker put the oxygen mask back on. Widowmaker curled up into Sombra, clutching her shirt tight. She fell asleep a short time afterward. Sombra kept her close and stared up at the ceiling while Widowmaker slept.
Hours later the door opened, grabbing Sombra’s attention. A medical assistant came in holding a tray. They wore gloves, a disposable gown, and a face mask.
“Breakfast.” They brought Sombra’s attention to the bag on the side. “When you’re done eating, please make sure to keep all the waste on the tray.” After she acknowledged them with a nod they left.
Sombra turned around in bed and shook Widowmaker with a gentle hand. Tired eyes fluttered open at her efforts. “Breakfast’s here.”
Widowmaker closed her eyes again. “Not hungry.”
A frown. Sombra sat up and shook Widowmaker again. “You have to eat.”
A huff of breath clouded the mask. Widowmaker sat up as well.
Sombra reached out for the tray and pulled it closer to the bed. She picked up the plastic containers and set them on the blankets. Opening one up she smiled at its contents. “Ooh, pancakes.” She opened Widowmaker’s meal and put it on her lap.
Taking the little cup of syrup that came with her meal, she poured it over her pancakes. Sombra cut out a piece and took a bite. She felt Widowmaker lean against her shoulder as she chewed. One look at the untouched food on Widowmaker’s lap made Sombra put her fork down.
“Please,” Sombra picked up Widowmaker’s fork for her to take, “eat.” She got a groan in response. Ignoring it, she reached for Widowmaker’s syrup and dumped it onto her pancakes. She cut out a piece and held it up for Widowmaker to eat. “Half a pancake at least.”
Widowmaker stared at the offered food and sighed. She pulled down the mask and ate the offered bite. A loud rumble sounded from her stomach. Sombra handed her the fork and she took it, spurred on by her sudden hunger to eat more.
After they finished eating, two people entered the room. A doctor and an assistant. Both wore the same thing as the person that brought their food. The assistant took the tray away while the doctor got to work collecting data and samples.
“You’re running a fever.” The man labeled the blood and saliva samples and put them in a case. “Are you experiencing any new symptoms?” He handed Widowmaker back her oxygen mask.
Widowmaker slid the mask back on and inhaled deeply. “I vomited. Feeling more tired.”
The doctor recorded her statement on his tablet. He shifted his focus to Sombra. “We’ll need samples from you as well.”
Sombra held her arm out for him. “Go for it.”
The doctor left fifteen minutes later, saying that Sombra had no outward symptoms.
A cough caught Sombra’s attention. Sombra turned to Widowmaker and watched how she pressed the oxygen mask tight against her face, desperately sucking in air.
Widowmaker let go of the mask, hands shaking as they hovered in the air. Short, stuttered breaths escaped from clenched teeth. She coughed.
Sombra panicked at the sight of blood filling the mask. Fear paralyzed her. It forced her to helplessly watch her girlfriend struggle with breathing as the coughing intensified, blood spilling from blue lips.
She nearly fell from the bed as she leaned over Widowmaker to grab the call light. She pressed the button desperately and waited for the crackle of a nurse answering her. “She’s coughing up blood. She can’t breathe.”
There was a response but Sombra couldn’t hear it. She was too focused on Widowmaker, on her inability to do anything but watch. Widowmaker sat on the edge of the bed clinging to the mask as drops of blood escaped from it and there was nothing she could do to help her.
A team of doctors rushed in. A splatter of blood hit the floor when they removed the mask. Sombra closed her eyes and backed up from the bed into a corner to get out of the way. She slid to the ground, listening to Widowmaker’s gurgled wheezing and the stern commands bouncing across the room.
Hours after the doctors left, Sombra stayed curled up in the corner, eyes red and face tear stained. She spotted her discarded glove on the ground and reached for it. A purple screen came up a moment later, Gabriel’s face staring back at her.
“What happened to her?” She kept her voice low, too afraid to wake up Widowmaker.
“Proximity mine. They were expecting us. You left before I could tell you.”
A tear fell down her cheek. “I think…” she bowed her head, trying her best to hold back more tears as her choked sobbing spilled into the air, “I think she’s going to die.”
“You already knew that might happen but you walked in there anyway. You want to die too? Is that it?”
She shook her head, feeling some of the tears splatter on her legs. “No.”
Gabriel gritted his teeth. “Then why? I told you they found an engineered strain of the plague in the sample they took from her. I told you there’s no treatment for it.”
Burning eyes drifted to Widowmaker, to the peaceful expression on her sleeping face. “I didn’t want her to be alone.”
Gabriel was silent. He looked away from the camera for a bit, giving Sombra the opportunity to cry out all her frustrations. “They’re trying you know.”
Sombra nodded as she wiped at her irritated eyes.
“I can’t promise anything but they’re trying.” He sighed. “Get some sleep.”
The screen went blank. Sombra waved it away and tossed her glove off. She got up from the floor and crossed the room to the bed.
The blood was gone.
Sombra climbed into the bed and felt her heart beat faster when Widowmaker adjusted to lie against her. As she lied there, images from hours prior kept coming up. All she could see was the blood. Sombra squeezed her eyes shut and tried to chase away the images from her mind.
She kept her eyes closed when she felt Widowmaker move. Sombra only opened them when soft lips pressed against her temple in a kiss. She was greeted by the sight of Widowmaker giving her a small smile. Her lips tugged up at the gesture.
“There it is,” said Widowmaker.
Sombra broke. She buried her head in Widowmaker’s shoulder, ragged breathing and unrestrained sobbing muffled by Widowmaker’s shirt.
-
Cold. Sombra opened her eyes and gently took hold of the icy fingers tracing her face. Her heart stopped at the gentle smile hidden behind a splatter of blood coating the oxygen mask. It sent a shock of ice down her throat to see.
Widowmaker coughed, keeping her lips closed. A drop of blood spilled out when she sucked in a breath. She continued to smile, endearment shining through her eyes.
Her chest ached. Sombra kissed the cold fingers she still held, trying her best to ignore the dread spreading through her veins. “How are you feeling?” A stupid question. She could see the answer plain as day. Sombra asked anyway because she didn’t have anything else to say, nothing that would fix the issue staring her in the face.
“Colder.”
Sombra shifted closer to Widowmaker and rested her head on an icy shoulder. She could feel goosebumps covering blue skin and the slight trembling of Widowmaker’s body. “I’m warm enough for us both.”
They stayed huddled for hours. Exhaustion settled over Sombra. She needed to take deeper breaths to get enough air, but she kept it to herself. Not when Widowmaker was right there, her chest barely moving from the shallow breaths.
She didn’t know when she fell asleep but Sombra found herself being shaken awake. She blinked her eyes open to see Widowmaker propped up on her elbow. She was wearing a new oxygen mask. A non-rebreather. She eyed the saline drip that accompanied the new mask. They must have done it while she was asleep.
“Can you help me again?”
Sombra nodded and sat up. Dizziness spread through her body as soon as she was standing but she ignored it. Using a gentle touch and careful not to move fast, Sombra helped Widowmaker to the edge of the bed. She pulled off the mask and felt a pang in her heart when Widowmaker winced in pain. The skin beneath the mask was dry, cracked lips standing out the most.
She thought she was helping Widowmaker to the bathroom again but Widowmaker just pointed to the basin sitting on the raised table by the bed. Sombra handed it to her. Widowmaker vomited as soon as it was in her hands.
Sombra took shaking steps to the bathroom and found a hand towel. She wet it with warm water and made her way back to the bed. Widowmaker held onto the basin in a white-knuckled grip while she focused on sucking in air with the short, rapid movements of her chest. Sombra reached for the basin and gently pulled it away. She placed it on the raised table and got to work cleaning up around Widowmaker’s mouth with the damp cloth.
“You’re sick.”
The towel fell in a heap on the floor. Sombra stared down at it, surprised she let go of it in the first place. She tried to come up with something to say. Her first instinct was to deny it but when she looked up into knowing eyes no lies came. “A little bit.”
Widowmaker laughed and a bit of blood spilled down the corner of her mouth. “You just have a little bit of a genetically engineered strain of the plague.”
A shrug. “No biggie.”
A tray of food was brought in. Sombra eyed the time on the wall. Lunch.
Sombra reached for the plastic containers and placed them on the bed. She opened one and saw that it had a bowl of cut up fruit and a cup of yogurt.
Widowmaker put her oxygen mask back on.
“Not eating?”
Widowmaker shook her head no.
Suddenly the food seemed unappealing. Sombra stared down at it in disdain. “I’m not feeling hungry either.”
“You should eat.” Widowmaker grabbed Sombra’s yogurt, shaking hands dipping the spoon in to scoop some out. She held it out for Sombra.
Her eyes burned with unshed tears. Sombra leaned forward and ate the offered bite of food. She grabbed the spoon and yogurt, crying as her hunger picked up. Her teeth clattered against the spoon when cold, trembling fingers wiped away the tears. She cried harder.
Eventually, Widowmaker let her hand drop. She lied down and smiled at Sombra. Closing her eyes, she exhaled deeply.
Sombra put the empty cup of yogurt and the containers back on the tray. She lied down as well, resting her head on Widowmaker’s chest. She sought out the soft heartbeat and focused on its slow rhythm.
“I love you.” Sombra’s lips trembled and she felt herself losing focus as dizziness took over her body. “I love you so much.”
A light hand inched its way to Sombra waist. “I always feel warm,” Widowmaker clutched Sombra’s shirt with a weak grip, “when you say that.”
The hand on her waist fell away and the soft breathing tapered off. Sombra heard the intrusive alarm of the heart monitor and that was all that repeated in her mind.
She didn’t hear the doors open.
She didn’t hear the doctors rush in.
She barely noticed that she was moving, someone pulling her away from the bed. They put an oxygen mask on her. It might have been because of the screaming, how it took all the breath she had to give.
-
Sombra woke up in another room. Gabriel was sitting in a chair. He sat up when he noticed she was awake.
“You’re up.”
Sombra heard him, giving a noncommittal sound in response.
“They did it.” He stood up and stepped closer to the bed. “They found a treatment.”
That got her attention. “Is she…” Her eyes flitted to the door as the rest of the question died on her lips.
Gabriel seemed to understand. “She’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”
Sombra shifted her gaze to her blanket and yanked it off. She stood up from the bed and pulled off the oxygen mask, letting it fall to the floor.
“You need to rest.”
She was already halfway to the door. “I’m not leaving her by herself.” Sombra left him there and followed her hazy memory back to Widowmaker’s room. She pressed the touchpad, surprised it let her in.
The door opened and Sombra found golden eyes staring at her from the bed. She smiled in the doorway. “I heard you were going to be alright.”
Widowmaker’s lips twitched up. “Come here.”