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"We found you," Cole says and they feel like the first words he's heard in a very long time.
He straightens to cover the shiver that runs down his spine. Anticipation and dread make his hands shake. He balls them beneath his cloak and refuses to turn and look at them.
"And now?" He asks.
He can picture the confused look Cole would give her, the broad brim of his hat dipping to cover his features. She's small enough that she can look up at Cole and see him clearly anyway.
She sees too clearly for her own good, he thinks.
The rustle of fabric tells him one of them is coming closer. He's certain it will be her. Cole still hadn't understand the purpose of physical closeness when he'd left.
He's wrong. Cole tugs at his cloak, just a little, as if to say, "look at us." Solas refuses again to face them.
"It's heavy and hurting but you can still let it go."
He has no response for that. Cole has changed a little in the time he's been gone. For a moment, he wonders wildly why she isn't the one who closed the distance, what changed in her that keeps her away. But he knows the answer to that.
"You just have to say it's okay," Cole says from beside him.
He turns.
Her hair is a little longer, the lines around her eyes a little deeper. She smiles at him, for a moment the time and distance between them dissolves - he sees her as she is and as she was - and he can't stop himself from saying, "Please."
She closes the distance in a handful of hurried strides, slides her arms around him in a crushing hug.
"I missed you," she says.
And like so often before he turned her away, he can't resist her, doesn't want to resist her. He holds her against him, revels in the familiarity of her in his arms, breathes a soft, desperate, "vhenan" into her hair because his voice is failing him otherwise.
"It's okay," she murmurs against the cloth of his chest, "you don't have to say anything right now."
She has always seen too clearly, he thinks, and for the moment he takes all the comfort he can in her embrace and Cole's warm presence beside them.