Amelie Guillard stared down the scope of her rifle, waiting to see the face of her target cross the snowy field. She wasn't sure why her mark would be in such a remote, isolated location, nor did she care. She didn't want to think. She didn't want to understand. Amelie wanted to kill. Amelie needed to kill.

The cold bite of winter sliced at her flesh, but she ignored it. The last thing Amelie was concerned with was the cold. There was nothing that could distract her from her task. No amount of cold or hunger could pull her from her perch. Not a muscle twitched, not one blink. Nothing but the slow, deep pounding of Amelie's heart in her chest.

She heard movement, and she quickly whipped her sights to the right. Sure enough, a man trudged across the snow, bundled in a thick coat, hat, and scarf. Amelie was certain that this was her target. It could be no one else. But still, she held her finger from the trigger. She needed to see his face, for confirmation. It wasn't so much a decision of Amelie's as it was an impulse. Her training, her conditioning, it was all scorched into her psyche, to the point that she couldn't ignore it if she tried.

Amelie watched the man stroll across the field. He didn't seem to be in much of a hurry. All that Amelie needed was for him to turn around. Show his face. Then, she could finally complete her task. She would finally be able to feel again.

Her target began to whistle, his little tune somehow floating all the way up to Amelie's post. The song wriggled its way into her head, threatening to topple her focus. Unacceptable. Amelie's focus was meant to be unshakeable. Why was this simple little tune threatening to undo her?

"What's the matter, cherie? Don't you remember this song?"

Amelie whipped around, aiming her rifle at the sudden appearance of the man next to her. Amelie had seen her target's face before, in her dossiers, but seeing his face in person was much different. She knew this man. She had known him for yours. She had fought and argued with him more times than she could count.

She loved him more than life itself.

"Gerard…" Amelie slowly lowered her rifle, completely taken off guard by his sudden appearance. Gerard flashed his bright, charming grin, offering his hand to Amelie, who cautiously grabbed it. Gerard helped her to her feet, looking her up and down for a moment before kissing the back of her hand.

"You remember this song, don't you, cherie?" he asked, whistling the tune once again. "This was our song, once upon a time."

"I… I danced. Performed to this." Amelie clutched her chest gently, a strange twang in her heart shaking her core. What was this feeling? She wasn't cold anymore. She could feel a fire in her, spreading slowly throughout her body. "How…?"

"That was the night we met. The night I decided that I would somehow convince you to allow me to take you to dinner." Gerard pulled Amelie in, wrapping his arm around her waist and slowly leading her in a dance. Amelie could almost hear the song, could feel it in her heart and soul. "You're as striking tonight as you were then. Perhaps even more."

"Gerard… why are you here? How?" Amelie almost didn't care. She couldn't understand why she felt this way. She knew Gerard, but she couldn't possibly. She didn't remember anything. Nothing except her training and her mark. "I don't…"

"Isn't it obvious? I came her to see you, cherie. It's been far too long since I was last able to see beauty like yours." Gerard gently grabbed Amelie's hands, guiding them up to his shoulders. By some reflex, she embraced him as they swayed on the spot. "I've missed you, my love."

"I've missed you too, Gerard. More than you can ever know."

"Then why did you kill me?"

Amelie froze, her blood turning to ice in her veins. She slowly looked up, her slow, steady heartbeat thumping in her chest like a drum when she met Gerard's eyes. His smile was ever present, but his eyes were bloodshot, vacant, lacking any light or life behind them.

"I… What…?" Amelie tried to pull away, but her body was like stone. Gerard grabbed her hands again, pulling them up and placing them around his own neck. Amelie felt her hands squeeze, constricting around Gerard's throat. "No… No, no, please…"

"You killed me, cherie. I loved you, and you killed me."

"I didn't mean it. Please, you have to believe me, I—"

"It's all your fault, Amelie. You're why I am dead. It's all your fault." Gerard slowly lowered to the ground, collapsing beneath Amelie. Try as she might, she just couldn't stop herself. Her hands squeezed, tighter and tighter around Gerard's throat, her fingernails digging into his flesh. His pulse slowed to a stop, his body going limp in Amelie's grasp.

"Gerard!" Finally, Amelie recoiled, her hands covering her mouth to keep in the screams. It all came flooding back to her. The fear. The pain. The loss. She wasn't supposed to feel this anymore. She wasn't supposed to feel anything anymore. Amelie Lacroix was long dead. That wasn't who she was anymore. The Widowmaker didn't feel. The Widowmaker didn't mourn.

Then why was she crying?

"Gerard… I'm sorry…" she sobbed. She felt something hard and cold against the back of her head. Slowly, shakily, Amelie turned, finding herself staring down the glistening ivory barrel of Gerard's favorite revolver.

"Don't be sorry, cherie. It's not your fault that you're a monster."

Before Amelie could respond, she saw the flash at the end of the barrel, heard the bang of the revolver firing, and everything went white.

Widowmaker sat up sharply in her bed, her throat raw from screaming. Her chest heaved as she breathed heavy, labored breaths. She pressed her hand to her chest, feeling the foreign sensation of her own rapid heartbeat. She was drenched in a cold sweat, her typically cool, dry skin wet and clammy. Widow held her hand in front of her face, watching her fingers tremble for a bit before clenching into a fist.

"So… We gonna talk about that?" Widow glanced up, infuriated beyond belief to see Sombra standing in the doorway. She was so shaken that she didn't notice her fellow ex-terrorist's stiff, somber demeanor. Sombra was without her usual sharp wit, her sense of humor. She seemed genuinely concerned for a change.

"Why are you here?" snarled Widow. "Get out of my room."

"Hana told me to help myself to some of her games while she's away. Was just going to slip in and grab them, but then…" Sombra crossed the room, dropping down onto Widow's bed. "I heard you screaming on my way. Figured you'd want to talk about it."

"You figured wrong. Go away."

"Yeah, no. Trust me, I'd much rather be in my room, making kids rage quit online, but I kinda can't leave after that." Sombra shimmied a little closer, stopping when Widow brought her foot up and using it to keep the distance between them. "Is that really necessary? I know you've got those slim, sexy ballerina legs you like to flaunt, but—"

"I will not ask you again," said Widow. "Get out of my room.

"Calm down, hermana. I'm just trying to lighten the mood." Sombra pushed Widow's leg away, looking into her eyes in search of emotion. Although Widowmaker didn't display much, Sombra could almost feel the fear radiating off of her. "But down to business. Bad dream?"

"Leave. Me. Alone. I have no desire to talk to the likes of you, Sombra." Sombra frowned, letting out an angry huff before standing up.

"You know, between you and Gabriel, this whole 'I'm too evil and edgy to talk about my problems' schtick is really starting to get old," said Sombra sharply. "I get it, Talon messed you up bad, and I get that you hate literally everyone. Whatever. You don't have to see me as your friend, because I see you as mine. As my sister. So whatever, be however you want to me, just… Just let me help you."

"S-sister…" Widowmaker was taken aback. She, of course, knew the meaning of Sombra's little pet name for her, but she always assumed it was just the hacker's way of annoying her. This was more than that. This was genuine.

"I know I'm a screw-up, Amelie, but I can do something good for a change if you just let me." Widow didn't respond, earning a sigh from Sombra. After a moment of tert, stagnant silence, Sombra finally stood up, shaking her head and headed for the door. "Fine. I'll leave you be."

"It was Gerard." Widow was almost as surprised as Sombra to hear the words come out. Sombra turned back to the bed, once again taking a seat beside her teammate. This time, Widow didn't make an attempt to push her away. Instead, she brought her knees up to her chest, refusing to look Sombra in the eye. "It's always Gerard…"

"Your… husband, right?" asked Sombra. Widow nodded. "Damn. What happened? In the dream, I mean."

"I was working. Waiting for another mark. It was… him. He was there. He swept me up and charmed me, like nothing had changed. We danced, and he put my hands to his neck and…"

"Yeah, I get the picture." Sombra let out a sigh, wishing things could be smoother for Widow. "I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, mija, that's probably the worst thing ever. I don't know what to say, really, besides I'm sorry."

"Some days, I can't even remember what Gerard looked like," said Widow, her voice going hollow. "And some… I can feel my hands around his throat. His heartbeat slowing to a stop. I do not know which I prefer."

"Would it help to talk about him?" asked Sombra. "You could tell me about him, how you two met, all that jazz. If you want."

"I know you dug through my files, Sombra. You already know everything there is to know about me."

"Actually… I said I would, but I didn't. I never looked into your past, or Papi's." Sombra shrugged. "Turns out, I actually ended up kinda liking you two, so I didn't pry."

"That was… uncharacteristically respectful of you,"

"Well, I still have your internet search history, so don't give me too much credit." Sombra smirked at Widow's glare, noting that she seemed a bit more relaxed. "So? Mind telling me about the guy?"

"Gerard Lacroix… He was smooth. Charming. Good looking, and he knew it." Widow allowed herself a small smile at the memory. "And once he decided on something, there was no stopping him. The first time he hit on me, I threw champagne in his face for thinking he was in my league."

"Wow, you were a bitch back then, huh?" said Sombra. "I guess marriage changes you."

"Don't be ridiculous. I was a bitch after I got married, too." Sombra genuinely cackled, taken entirely off guard by Widowmaker cracking a joke. "He would sing for me. Every night, we'd dance and sing as we relaxed for the night."

"He had a good voice?"

"I believe the Americans have a phrase for this," said Widow, chuckling to herself. "Gerard couldn't carry a tune with a bucket. But it didn't matter. It made me happy, and Gerard did everything he could to make me happy." Widow's tone dropped a bit, her voice going cold. "And the last memory he has of me… He died thinking I hated him. That I wanted him dead."

"Amelie. You know it's not your fault, right?" Sombra looked up, locking eyes with her cohort, trying to read Widow's expression. For once, the assassin seemed to have her guard lowered enough to show just how cold and miserable she felt. "You gotta know that you can't blame yourself. You didn't have control of yourself. It wasn't you, it was those putos we worked for."

"My hands. My actions. Shifting blame onto Talon doesn't change the fact that he's dead, and he is dead because of me." Sombra reached forward, gently squeezing Widow's hand. "You know, Talon's conditioning was meant to remove large chunks of my mind. My independence. My identity. My guilt." Widow shook her head, chuckling darkly, a bittersweet smile crawling to her lips. "I do not think it worked."

"Good. No one should be a slave like that," said Sombra. She grinned slightly. "Unless you're into that, I mean. No judgement, whatever gets you there. Granted, I always saw you as more of a dom…"

"Funny."

"I know, that's what I've been telling people for years! They just don't get it. So misunderstood…" Sombra swooned on the spot, as if her genius comedic mind was a burden she carried. For the second time, Sombra revelled at her ability to earn even a slight chuckle from the stoic, cold-blooded assassin. "I mean it, though. I'm glad that you're not… Well, you're not whatever it is they tried to make you into. It's shitty, yeah, but better than being some mindless drone who kills cause someone told her to."

"You literally just described my current job. Morrison points at something and I shoot it. It's very simple."

"Nah. Cause now you're shooting the bad guys." Sombra patted Widow's hand before standing up and stretching. "Well, I've kept you up late enough, I think. I'll get out of your hair extensions."

"Don't be ridiculous. This is au naturale." Sombra chuckled, giving a wave as she headed for the door. "Wait, Sombra."

"Hm?" Sombra paused, hand on the door. "What's up?"

"Why are you here?"

"You don't listen for jack, do ya? I already told you, mija, I just wanted some of Hana's games."

"No. I mean, why did you come with us," asked Widow. Sombra tilted her head in confusion. "When Morrison invited Reyes and I to live here, we knew that this was very possibly a trap. For all we knew, we would have been arrested on the spot. But Morrison didn't know about you. No one does. You could have vanished, gone into hiding. Yet you risked it to come with us. Why?"

Sombra didn't say anything for a while, and Widowmaker began to believe that her question may have crossed some unforeseen line. But she couldn't help but ask. All this time of working together, and she knew so little about the mercurial Sombra. After a moment of thought, Sombra sighed, and slowly gave her answer.

"A long time ago, there was a dirty little orphan girl, running around the streets of Dorado," said Sombra. "She passed the time by getting into fights with the neighborhood kids and learning all she could about computers. Eventually, she found her way into a bad crowd, and did their dirty work while she tried to figure out how and why her life had gone to such shit.

"And, wouldn't you know it, she found out. But everything has a price. The price for that understanding was the reality that she could never rest. She could never relax. She had to hide, or bad things would happen. So, the dirty little orphan girl wiped herself from the internet. All record of her, every picture, description, and conversation about her vanished. The dirty little orphan was gone, dead. All she ever left behind was a shadow. La Sombra." The hacker did a little curtsy. "And I joined with Talon. Met you and Papi and Ak and Baptiste. I had been running for so long that I forgot what it was like to have, y'know. Friends. People who at least pretended to care about you. And then I lost some of you, and Abuelo called you two in, so I had a decision. Do I take a risk for mi familia, or do I do the only thing I've ever been good at and run? For once, I think I did the right thing. I'm tired of running away, Amelie. I'm ready to fight for something worth fighting for. And you're part of that."

"I… I don't know what to say," said Widow quietly. "Sombra—"

"Olivia." Widow's eyes widened, part of her not daring to believe it. "You told me something personal, it's only fair that I return the favor. Just don't let Lena know that I told you, she's been trying to get it out of me for ages."

"Olivia… Do you remember what I said to you when we first met? After that first mission?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure you called me a whore in french," mused Olivia. "But, after that… you mentioned that it was unfortunate that I did my job well, because it meant that you couldn't shoot me. Why?"

"Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps I'm relieved that I didn't shoot you," said Amelie.

"Not like it matters. You couldn't have hit me if you tried." Olivia grinned, giving Amelie a wink. "Too fast, y'now? But still… thanks. For everything."

"All I've done is not try to kill you."

"That's better than what I got in Mexico."

Amelie pondered things for a bit, before slowly rising out of bed, grabbing a nearby robe and draping it around her body. Olivia watched as she stood up, checked her schedule on her tablet, then turned back to face her.

"Would you like some company?" offered Amelie. "I may have been studying Hana and her games ever since she showed me that cute monster catching one."

"Aren't you tired?" asked Olivia. Amelie shook her head.

"The last thing I want right now is sleep."

"Well, I'm a night owl myself. I'll make some coffee, then."

And, with that, the two terrorists turned defenders of humanity turned out of Widowmaker's lair, reminiscing and sharing stories of their pasts. Things few others knew about them. Things they hardly knew about themselves. For once, there were no Talon agents. No Widowmaker, no Sombra. Just Amelie and Olivia, and some strong black coffee.

For the first time in ages, Amelie didn't feel cold.