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Here’s the thing: Sombra knows better.
She does. She really, really does. It’s not like this is the first time she’s found herself sinking. Her experience with trauma is almost as old as she is. Sombra knows better.
Apparently, knowing better isn’t enough.
Because she still loses herself. She still sinks in walls of code, in numbers and letters that blur together, in ones and zeroes, in the very pixels that illuminate her holograms. She still goes without sleep and food and water for far too long, knowing that if she steps away from her hacking, even for a second, she will break down. She will fall to the floor and scream until she can’t anymore, because what else is she supposed to do?
How to deal with her emotions was one thing that Sombra never did learn.
But she had thought, however foolishly, that she was beginning to. That she was starting to learn how to cope without the need to do… this. To bury herself in her hacking, so deep that she’s crushed under the weight of it. She’d thought… she’d thought she was on the way to being okay, for the first time since she was so, very young.
Apparently not. Apparently, she’d only been futilely pushing back against the inevitable. Apparently, not even her strongest efforts could prevent this.
Maybe this is so ingrained in her that, no matter how hard she fights, she cannot break the cycle.
It’s a bleak thought, one Sombra doesn’t like entertaining. She hates being helpless. Fears it, even. After all, where she’s from, helplessness was practically a synonym for death. No matter how far she gets from her childhood spent on the street, it seems she can never truly abandon the lessons she learned.
Nor can she abandon her habits. Namely, her near-obsessive hacking, which was always there for her when things got bad.
So she hacks, because it’s all she’s ever known.
She stays at her desk, eyes burning with the need for sleep, stomach aching with the need to eat, body thirsting with the need to drink, everything in her begging for her to just stop.
She doesn’t.
Sombra’s so caught up, so consumed, that she doesn’t hear the door open, nor the call of her name. Even the presence settling in behind her doesn’t pull her out of her hacking. The warm hand on her shoulder is what finally catches her attention.
Instinct kicks in, panic rendering her incapable of thinking logically enough to consider her actions. She whirls around, hands reaching out blindly to fight whoever touched her, to protect herself however she can.
Right before her fist makes contact, Sombra freezes. Because it’s not some random assailant. It’s not an assailant at all.
It’s Cole.
Cole, looking at her with a mix of concern and confusion. Cole, hovering his hand over her shoulder. Cole, frowning as his eyes scan her. “Sombra?” he asks hesitantly.
“Cole,” she breathes, lowering her trembling fists. “I thought… you’re not supposed to be back yet.”
The concern in his eyes only grows with her statement. “It’s Wednesday, Darlin’.”
Sombra frowns. “Oh,” she says, for lack of a better word. Sure enough, when she glances to her screens, she sees the date in the bottom corner. Wednesday, the day he was supposed to get home. “I lost track of time.”
Cole’s gaze leaves her for the first time, glancing at the desk, which is covered in energy drinks and protein bar wrappers. “How long have you been here?” he asks, eyes flickering back to her.
“A while,” she admits, fighting the instinct telling her to lie, to say it’s only been a few hours. Cole deserves the truth, no matter how ugly it might be. When his face falls further, Sombra looks away. “I’m sorry.” Her voice is smaller than it had ever been.
She had told Cole about her trauma, about her bad habits, about her addictions. Him knowing, though, was very different from him seeing.
A small sigh falls from his lips. “Hey, you don’t gotta be sorry, Darlin’. It’s okay,” he soothes, keeping his voice gentle.
“It’s not,” she murmurs, reaching up to bury her face in her hands. “I should be stronger than this.”
“We both know that ain’t how it works,” Cole says. “Everyone has bad days.” As he speaks, he approaches her chair, kneeling in front of her so they’re around the same height.
A scoff tears itself out of Sombra’s throat before she can stop it. “Not many people lock themselves up for days on end during their bad days.”
A hint of a sardonic smile tugs at Cole’s lips. “I did.”
That makes Sombra look up. “What?”
“Back in Blackwatch. There’d be days, sometimes weeks where I wouldn’t leave my room,” he admits. “It got real bad a couple of times. I even tried to run, once.”
Sombra doesn’t know what to make of this. It made sense, now that she thought of it. She knew he had trauma back in his Blackwatch days, but she thought… well, she’d thought he just suppressed it. “That wasn’t on your file,” Sombra mutters. A surge of guilt passes through her, just like every time she remembers how she read his records. It was before their relationship even started, before they were even informants.
She knows that doesn’t make it okay. After all, she robbed him of his chance to tell her about his history on his own terms. For that, she would be forever mad at herself.
Cole, on the other hand, isn’t phased. From the first day they met, Sombra had made it clear she knew a fair portion of his past. He had long since forgiven her for it. “Yeah, Gabe agreed to keep it off my record. But it still happened. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens again sometime.”
For all her talk of always being on top of any given situation, Sombra is left without a single idea of what to say. All she can manage to do is blink a few times, trying desperately to process the new information. “I don’t…” the words seem to shrivel up on her lips.
Cole reaches out to take her hand in his, keeping his movements slow enough that Sombra has plenty of time to object. She doesn’t, letting him hold her hand, staring down at their interlocked fingers. His skin is calloused and rough, but the way he touches her, so gentle and careful with every movement, makes her feel completely safe. “That’s how it goes sometimes, Darlin’. Things get bad. And I can’t…” he presses his mouth closed for a few seconds, scrunching up his face as he tries to find the right words. Sombra feels like she can’t breathe, like something is about to break within her. “I can’t promise that it’s ever gonna completely get better. But I can promise I’ll be there. When it gets worse.”
And then, then he looks at her, really looks at her, and says. “You’re not alone, Sombra. Not anymore.”
That’s what finally does her in. Those six words cause everything she’s been holding to come crashing down.
She doesn’t cry, exactly. She can’t, not really, not with her cybernetic eyes. But that doesn’t stop the ugly sobs exploding from her lips. Cole doesn’t waste a second, pulling her off her chair and into his arms, holding her securely in place. “I’ve got you, Honey,” he murmurs, stroking her hair slowly.
With both hands, Sombra fists the material of Cole’s cotton shirt, and she feels how soft it is under her fingers, and for some reason, that little detail makes her sob even harder. “I can’t,” she manages to choke out through her gasping breaths. “I can’t do this.”
“You can,” Cole encourages, beginning to press quick, gentle kisses to her cheek, her temple, her forehead, anywhere he can reach. “You can.”
Sombra tries to respond, but the words come out a jumbled mess, partly because she can’t breathe, and partly because she doesn’t know what to say in the first place. Cole doesn’t seem to mind the nonsense spewing from her lips, his only reaction to slightly tighten his hold on her.
Sombra’s eyes are still open, and she hates the lack of tears. Hates that her sobs don’t leave anything behind. All they are is a noise that shrivels up and dies so quickly, too quickly. Like they were never there. Like they don’t matter.
But they do, they do. They matter because she needs this, has needed this for years. They matter because she hates being vulnerable in front of people, but Cole is right here and she doesn’t mind. They matter because she hasn’t cried since she became Sombra.
So she doesn’t try to stop herself, doesn’t try to regain composure. Instead, she lets go, allowing Cole to hold her as she falls apart into what feels like a million pieces. And Cole doesn’t try to put her back together, doesn’t try to fix her, but rather cradles every one of her broken parts, and tells her I’m here, I’m not leaving, I’ve got you.
Time passes, and slowly, so slowly, Sombra’s sobs die down into whimpers, and then to just heavy breathing. Cole stays through it all, keeping his arms securely around her. Even after her sobs have stopped, he doesn’t move, just holds her as she relaxes.
“You feelin’ better, Darlin’?” he asks when her breathing has slowed. Sombra pulls back just far enough to look into his eyes.
“I… I don’t know,” she admits, trying to sort through the jumble of emotions in her.
Nodding, he says, “That’s okay. I love you.”
“I love you. So much,” Sombra replies, pulling him down to press their lips together softly.
When she lets him up for air, he stretches, and Sombra can’t help but let out a breathless laugh when his bones crack loudly. “We should probably get off the floor.”
“Probably,” Cole agrees. “I dunno about you, but I’m gettin’ mighty hungry. How do you feel about ordering takeout?”
Looking up into his eyes, Sombra smiles. “I feel pretty great. Pizza?”
Cole nods eagerly. “You read my mind, Darlin’.”
And Sombra knows. She knows her problems aren’t magically solved. She knows this will most likely happen again and again. She knows it will take a long time for things to be okay.
But she also knows that she’s going to keep trying until things get better. She knows that she won’t give up. She knows, most of all, that Cole will be there with her every step of the way.
And that’s enough for now.