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It’s dark when Leon stumbles inside his apartment for the first time in what seems like ages. Still somewhat dazed, he takes in his surroundings. It’s bare and empty, just the way he left it when he was abruptly summoned by H.Q. and unceremoniously dropped in the middle of a B.O.W. crisis halfway across the world, a job that took him a month to get done.
Truthfully, he didn’t even want to be home. At least, not yet. The moment he got off the plane, he’d made a beeline for the office with the intention to get a head start on the paperwork, since God knows those things take forever. But Helena had given him a disapproving once-over, and he really must’ve looked like hell, because she practically kicked him out and told him to go home. So here he is, though this place had never truly felt like home to him. Not a real one, anyway. But it’s all he has, so it is what it is.
Pushing the door closed, he can feel the last traces of adrenaline leave his body as slowly, exhaustion settles in.
Suddenly, like a picture coming into focus, he’s hyper aware of how much it all just hurts. His head is throbbing, like someone is gleefully clubbing it on repeat, and his entire body is aching all over. He tries to mentally run a checklist of potential injuries, but gives up around number ten. At this point it would be easier to identify the parts of his body that aren’t damaged to some extent.
Pain shoots through his right side, a stark reminder of a particularly unfriendly B.O.W. that he had allowed to get too close to him for comfort. His protective gear had taken most of the damage, but judging from the burning pain stretching across his ribs, not quite enough. Leon winces, gritting his teeth and reaching out to grip the door handle to steady himself as his vision swims dangerously. Right. First order of business, that.
With that in mind, he makes his way into the bedroom. One quick glance at the mirror tells the whole story, and honestly, he understands why Helena had insisted on sending him home. Hell does not even begin to cover the state he’s in.
He removes the gun holster, suppressing the pained groan that’s bubbling up in his throat. Not allowing himself to think too much about it, he quickly tosses the gun into a nearby drawer and slams it shut. He’ll clean it later. Right now, he just needs it out of sight.
Then he starts working on his clothes. He doesn’t even have to examine his jacket to know that it’s toast. The smooth leather is marred by three claw marks and caked with dried blood. Damn it, he liked this one. Dryly, he’s wondering if he should start asking the DSO for a clothing allowance when a familiar sharp pain puts his mind back on task.
Gingerly, he peels off the rest of his clothes on his way to the bathroom. Stepping into the shower, he turns the water on and lets it do its work.
As it pours down on him, cold and reinvigorating, he breathes a sigh of relief as he feels his muscles relax even as the various scrapes and cuts on his body react painfully to the water. The wound at his side stings the most, but at least it had stopped bleeding a while ago, so really, it could’ve been worse, all things considered.
He runs a hand through his face, and watches with a sort of blank disinterest as a mixture of blood and grime swirl down the drain. It’s a familiar sight, one that has greeted him after every mission for the last decade and a half. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. This has always been his life, inevitable and inescapable. He should be used to it by now, should be numb to it now, should’ve made peace with it, but for some reason, tonight the sight stirs something uncomfortable and terrifying within him, something he has tried to not think about.
Is this really all there is to his life?
Will he ever see an end to this horror?
He stares blankly as traces of dirt gather around the drain.
Ada can barely contain her surprise when the window to Leon’s bedroom opens easily with just a little push. She didn’t even have to use any tools this time, it was clearly left unlocked. That’s unlike Leon. Normally the man secured every window and door with militaristic precision, arming each of them with strategically positioned monitors and sensors. With how obsessively he fortified his apartment, one could be forgiven for believing it held some priceless treasure or sensitive government secret when in reality, it’s just another bachelor pad, and a rather unremarkable one at that.
Of course, none of Leon’s government-issued toys ever managed to deter her. At most it took her a day or two to hack into his systems and disable the alarms. But he kept putting up new gadgets, so she kept tearing each one down in her visits. At some point she thinks it’s become almost like a game between them, one that Leon would never admit to but willingly participated in regardless.
Climbing inside, she notes the muffled sound of running water coming from the bathroom. As usual, her calculations are spot-on, Leon must’ve just returned from his mission abroad. The timing is perfect, but she still has some time to kill, which she decides to properly utilize by taking a look around, as she always does.
A quick scan shows that Leon’s apartment hasn’t much changed since the last time she visited. At first glance, it seems minimalistic, sterile, strangely impersonal. She used to wonder if it’s a product of his military training or his lack of a personal life, but has since come to realize that appearances can be deceiving. It didn’t take her long to figure out all the secret places where he stashed his more… sentimental belongings. Trinkets from places he’d visited, small items he’d picked up along the way. Sometimes, it amused her to deduce the stories behind them, to piece together snippets of his life that she never had the chance to witness herself. An old lighter he found in a bar somewhere in Chile. A dented flask he got from a freedom fighter in Eastern Europe. A couple of empty shells from a particularly dicey job in Pittsburgh, likely kept as some kind of reminder. Of what, she doesn’t quite understand yet.
But other times, the objects told stories that she was a part of. Proof that their lives had intertwined at multiple points in their complicated history, testaments of the invisible strings that tied them together, time and time again.
She pulls open a drawer near the mirror. There, nestled neatly among other various knick knacks, is a silver compact with butterflies engraved on them. A hidden treasure, clearly not meant for anyone’s eyes but his own. Despite herself, Ada feels a smile tug at the corner of her lips. Sentiment. Before Leon, she’d thought the whole idea ridiculous, an unnecessary weakness, a distraction from the mission. But with him, it seems almost… convincing. Endearing, even.
“Looking for anything in particular?”
Her hand stills as she straightens up, doing her best to pull herself together. The shower is still running in the bathroom, providing the perfect white noise to lull her into a false sense of security, while also drowning out any sounds his footsteps might make. An amateur’s trick, really, and she’s almost annoyed with herself for letting her guard down and falling for it.
She supposes that’s the effect he’s always had on her. Ever since the day they met. She doesn’t understand why, but it irritates and intrigues her all the same.
“I think I just found him,” she returns without turning around, voice light and teasing.
Leon sighs, and out of the corner of her eye, she can see him run a hand through his face in the mirror. “This really isn’t a good time, Ada.”
“Why not?” she asks, finally turning to face him. Her eyes widen a fraction as she takes him in. “Leon…”
He gives her a dry smile, but it comes off more as a grimace instead. “You too? That bad, huh?”
Even in the dim moonlight, she can see the various cuts and bruises marring his skin. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days, and probably hasn’t. Most alarmingly however, are the three gashes stretching from his ribs to his abdomen. By the looks of it, it hasn’t been cleaned properly. Or at all, if she’s being honest.
A mix of complicated emotions well up in her. Anger, exasperation, worry. She’d always known that Leon was the ‘leap first, ask questions later’ type, always had been, but she’d trusted him to keep himself out of harm’s way, or as far away from harm as someone in his profession could. She’d known that throughout his career, he’d had too many close calls for comfort, but always managed to get out relatively unscathed. It’s unlike him to get so roughed up.
“I take it the mission didn’t go so smoothly,” she says, making an attempt at levity and somehow not quite landing it. Either way, it’s a stupid, obvious thing to say, she knows. But she doesn’t know how else to react. This, at least, is familiar territory to them. To her.
He nods once. “Understatement of the year. Now, forgive me for not being a gracious host, but unless there’s a particular reason that you’re here-”
“So eager to get rid of me already?” she asks, trying to keep her voice light. Trying to not be bothered by his cagey response. It’s not quite working.
Leon opens his mouth as if to retort, but shakes his head instead. He looks thoroughly exhausted. “Please, Ada.”
They stand in silence. It’s a familiar dance between the two of them, always coming back to each other, over and over again, despite their better judgment, despite everything that’s happened between them. Illicit encounters, each one fleeting yet unforgettable, borne out of a passion neither of them wants to admit to but find themselves unable to resist anyway.
And yet somehow, they’ve always kept each other at arm’s length, just barely out of reach. Like many things, it’s become almost like an unspoken agreement between them. Ada doesn’t object. It’s less messy this way. No promises. No strings attached. They owe each other nothing.
But looking at Leon, with his shoulders hunched and his head hung as he steadfastly avoids her gaze, for once, she can’t bear to just walk away.
So she does the only thing she can think of, and strides past him into the bathroom.
“What are you doing?” he calls after her, but otherwise makes no attempt to stop her.
She rifles through his medicine cabinet until she finds some clean bandages and a washcloth that she soaks in a bowl of lukewarm water. One of the perks of knowing his apartment so intimately, she can easily locate whatever she needs fairly quickly. It helps that Leon is a creature of habit, and old habits die hard.
“Anyone ever told you it’s rude to be snooping around other people’s apartments?” he asks, though she thinks she can detect a hint of amusement in his voice, despite his disapproving tone.
“Wouldn’t know, never really stuck around long enough to find out,” she replies easily, gesturing at the bed behind him. “Sit down.”
Leon shakes his head. “You know I can do it myself, right? It’s hardly my first rodeo.”
Ada suppresses the urge to roll her eyes. “Oh, get over yourself. Just do as I say.”
He looks at her for a long moment, seemingly debating whether he should keep fighting her. In the end, he complies, slowly and gingerly lowering himself on the edge of the bed with perhaps more effort than is strictly necessary, doing his best not to wince in the process and failing at it. The moment he’s settled, Ada starts assessing the wound in his side, trying to get an idea of what she’s dealing with.
“Well, the good news is, I don’t think you’ll be needing stitches,” she says after a round of examination.
“Told you I could take care of it myself,” Leon looks like he wants to say more, but wisely decides against it when she shoots him a glare. Good.
Not wasting a moment, she begins cleaning his wound with the damp washcloth. His shower had washed away most of the dirt and caked blood, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t need tending to. Leon hardly flinches throughout the whole thing, though she thinks the wound must still sting like hell. He braves it valiantly, like he does so many things in his life. He’d never been one to draw attention to his own pain, of that she knows. There’s always something bigger, something more important. Some great cause that needed fulfilling. And he’d done so dutifully, time and time again, only to return to an empty, cold apartment at the end of the day.
When she’s finished with the washcloth, she starts working on bandaging him up. Leon’s shoulders relax a fraction as she secures the gauze on the wound, and she thinks she sees some of the pressure leave his body as he lets out a soft, almost relieved sigh. And only then, when she feels the faintest ghost of his warm breath tickling her face does she realize how close they are.
Which is a ridiculous thing to be self-conscious about, if she’s being honest. They’re not blushing teenagers anymore. Hell, they’re not even the same two young, inexperienced people who crossed paths in a city headed for destruction so many years ago. So much has happened since then, so many secret nights when they’ve reveled in the pleasure of discovering each other’s bodies, inside and out. There are no secrets between them anymore.
Her racing heart, however, seems determined to prove her wrong.
After a moment that feels so impossibly long, Leon turns away, and Ada allows herself to let out a breath she hates to admit that she’d been holding.
“There,” she says when she’s done, gently patting him on the shoulder. “Good as new.”
For the first time since they saw each other that night, Leon’s gaze finds her own. She expected one of his classic quips, some witty retort, but instead he looks at her with those all too earnest eyes and simply says, “Thank you.”
This time, it’s her turn to look away. “You should be more careful.”
“I’m always careful.”
“That wound would beg to differ,” she points out. It comes off a bit too worried for her liking, so she hastily adds, “Don’t tell me you’re losing your touch.”
He smiles, though there’s no mirth in it. His gaze momentarily flicks toward a drawer near the mirror, next to the one where she found his stashed mementos. “Maybe I’m just getting old.”
She opens her mouth, a sarcastic comment already on the tip of her tongue, but his words are so strangely wistful that she can’t bring herself to resume their usual verbal repartee. Instead, she stands up and gathers the bowl into her arms. “You should rest.”
Leon nods. “I suppose I should.”
She walks back into his bathroom to dump the contents of the bowl into the sink, then, in a gesture that surprises even herself, decides to turn off the water running in his shower for good measure. She doubts his government job pays enough to cover the undoubtedly hefty water bill that he’ll run up if he keeps neglecting to turn it off, on top of all his other expenses. Especially if he keeps being a reckless idiot.
When she returns to his bedroom, Leon is still in the process of slowly settling himself in bed. He doesn’t look at her, doesn’t seem to acknowledge her presence at all even, and she recognizes the tactic: It’s one he’d used countless times every time she was about to leave. To this day, she still can’t quite figure out if he’s doing it for her benefit or his, or for a different reason entirely.
It’s strange, really. They’ve said goodbye too many times to count, on various battlefields of varying degrees of intensity, but when it comes to the privacy of a bedroom, in the silence of the night, it’s suddenly too much, too hard and they’re scrambling for any excuse to avoid it.
Her instincts tell her to just go. She’s already lingered long enough, Leon doesn’t look like he’s in any shape to offer her what she wants, and he’s giving her the opportunity for a quick getaway. Leaving is what makes the most sense.
But Ada has never been one to play by the rules, and tonight, something compels her to stay. Just a little while longer.
So before she can stop herself or think better of it, she’s taking off her dress and slipping underneath the covers next to him. Leon, for his part, looks like a UFO just landed in his bed, and she tries not to be too offended when he asks, once again, “What are you doing?”
“Don’t make me state the obvious,” she says, trying to keep her voice casual. “Move over.”
After a moment, he blinks and shakes his head, suppressing a smile. “Yes, ma’am.”
It takes them a bit of maneuvering to find a position that is both comfortable for her and not painful for him. Eventually she settles on his good side, absent-mindedly rubbing circles on his bare skin, admiring the way it seems to almost glow in the moonlight.
“So, do you want to talk about it?” she asks.
Leon grimaces. “It was nothing.”
“Didn’t seem like nothing to me.”
He turns to her then, something akin to amusement in his eyes. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you?”
“Says the man who’s been stubbornly chasing zombies for… how long has it been? Sixteen years?”
“I’d consider it a compliment, coming from the woman who’s been doing the exact same thing, for just as long as I have.”
“I don’t chase zombies,” she corrects him, somewhat indignant. “Chasing implies I’m actively seeking them out, which I’m not.”
He smirks. “No, of course not. You just happened to be in the middle of an outbreak, every single time.”
“Maybe I just wanted to see you again,” she means for it to be a joke, but somehow it comes off a bit too genuine, and Leon falls silent.
“Sixteen years,” he mutters. “God, has it really been that long?”
She doesn’t say anything, instead busying herself with counting the scars on his chest. He’s gained a few new ones since the last time she saw him, windows into the parts of his life that she will never know, the pieces of him that will forever remain a mystery to her. Sixteen years, and they’ve wasted so much of it, dancing around each other in circles, over and over again. Too afraid to step out of the rhythm that they’ve built for themselves, never moving forward or backward, forever suspended in the in-between.
“Sometimes it feels like yesterday,” Leon continues wistfully. “But sometimes it seems so long ago that I can hardly remember the person I was when it happened.”
She gazes up at him, at the stubble on his well-defined jaw, at the lines at the corner of his eyes. He looks older and more weary now, like the weight of the world is finally taking its toll on him after so many years. But then he turns to her again, with those same blue eyes that insisted on following her straight into hell, that burned with the intensity of a thousand suns when he adamantly refused to leave her, and she feels herself yanked back in time to a different lifetime, when they were younger and just a bit more wide-eyed and not yet marred by pain and betrayal.
When she looks at him, really looks at him, he hasn’t changed at all. Somewhere underneath the rough, snarky exterior that he has constructed for himself over the years, he is still the same selfless, idealistic man she met that fateful September night. Still fighting, still giving, but never expecting anything in return. Never wanting anything for himself.
As for her, she hasn’t changed either, has she? When it comes to him, she’s still the same woman who had thought her heart too hardened to love and been proven wrong. Time and time again, she builds walls around herself, only to find him tearing them down with little effort. Other times, she would feel him slowly creep up just a bit too close to a part of herself she’d thought no longer existed, and it scares her.
So she keeps pushing, keeps running. Because it’s easier than stopping and having to contemplate what it all means.
But every single time, like a compass pointing north, she finds herself coming back.
“I suppose it was a long time ago,” she hums in agreement, because she doesn’t know what else to say. “You were much less sardonic back then.”
That gets a chuckle out of him, before he remembers that laughing in his state is painful and clutches his side. Ada places a hand on top of his, concerned. “Hey, just relax now. You’ll be all better once you sleep it off.”
He looks at her with that earnest look again, and God, she can’t stand the way it makes her feel. “I always knew you cared.”
It confuses her, the abruptness of that statement, but before she can react, Leon leans over and plants a soft kiss somewhere between her forehead and temple, and that silences any thoughts that might’ve been bubbling inside her head.
He settles back down on his pillow and closes his eyes. It doesn’t take long for his breathing to even out.
Ada lies still, listening to the silence of the night, only broken by the sound of Leon breathing. Tentatively, she places her hand on his chest, tries to absorb the way it rises and falls with each breath he takes. He’s always been quite a heavy sleeper, which is uncharacteristic for his profession, so she assumes, with a tingle of pleasure, that he must be this way only when around her. The thought sends a jolt of something indescribable straight to her chest, where it blooms with warmth.
Slowly, her hand comes to rest over an all too familiar scar on his left shoulder. A memory flashes through her mind, so fast and so vivid that it almost makes her flinch. Leon diving in front of her, the sound of gunshot, blood staining his blue uniform, seeping into the filthy floor below. She tries to shake it off her mind as she screws her eyes shut. It was a long time ago. It was a long time ago.
For the rest of his life, he will bear the mark of their first meeting, forever engraved on his skin, just above his heart. And she bore it too, didn’t she, when she knelt down next to his prone body, her mind whirring with a thousand questions, all spelling why why why over and over as panic rose in her throat, threatening to choke her out.
Ever since then, she’d wanted to protect him. She’d tried to rationalize it at first. Helping him wasn’t inconvenient to her own mission and of course, she was a lot of things but she wasn’t a horrible person, she wasn’t going to let him die if she could help it. But the excuses grew less convincing as time went by until she could no longer deny the real reason she was always going out of her way to keep him alive.
I always knew you cared.
She hates it. She hates that no matter how much she’d evaded his questioning gaze, his attempts at probing, and sometimes even his demands for answers, there are moments when he can still see straight through her. She hates it even more that she doesn’t hate it at all. Not even a little bit.
Ada sighs softly, listening to his steady heartbeats, reveling in the way his chest feels warm beneath her fingers. How many times has she risked everything to keep that heart beating and those lungs breathing? How many times had she worried for his safety, been struck with the sheer terror of never being able to touch him again?
He is the one thing she had allowed herself to keep, the one human connection she had permitted herself to retain, and God help her, she will do whatever it takes to keep him.
And she has. Despite everything, he is here with her. Despite everything, he is alive and real, and she takes comfort in it.
Slowly but surely, like the tide going out, she falls asleep to the sound of his beating heart.
She wakes before sunrise.
It’s an old habit, and old habits die hard.
It takes her a few moments to reorient herself. Ada doesn’t exactly have a stable home and a bed that she sleeps in for more than two nights in a row, and though she has long grown used to this rootless lifestyle, there are still times when it takes her brain a while to remember where she ended up the previous night.
Her senses relax almost immediately when they register Leon’s warm presence, still next to her, still sleeping soundly. She can hardly blame him, the man probably hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in God knows how long. Looking at him now, so bare and vulnerable before her, she feels something within her constrict and swell with a strange, but all too familiar feeling she doesn’t feel like defining, but one that soothes her nonetheless.
Silently, carefully, she sits up and swings her feet out of bed, where they touch the cold floor below, suppressing a shiver in the quiet night. She fishes for her discarded clothes, and makes to get dressed.
She never stays too long, always makes sure to leave before the first rays of sunlight start to signal an oncoming dawn. Ada Wong has always been a creature of the night, and perhaps she’ll only ever be comfortable when shrouded in the cover of darkness. Maybe that’s the way their relationship will always remain, brief, furtive encounters in the night, a secret shared only between the two of them, held tight in their hands and close to their chests, never to be revealed, never to be shared with the world.
Behind her, she hears the rustling of bed sheets, and though Leon’s breathing remains even, she knows he’s awake without even having to turn around, but she does anyway, and finds him watching her. His gaze is soft, somewhat sad, but there is a certain resignation and acceptance in it, too.
Somehow, in all the years they’ve known each other, she’s never been able to leave unnoticed.
He never asks her to stay, and she’s thankful for it. Every time they are together, she can feel him chipping away at her resolve, slowly but surely, like water eroding stone. Every time she comes to him, she finds it harder to leave, and she’s afraid of what she might say if he verbalizes the desire that is so painfully written on his face.
After all these years, Leon still wears his heart on his sleeve, still cares so much, so intensely that it terrifies and fascinates her all at once.
“I have to go,” she says before she can stop herself. She doesn’t know why she’s explaining herself to him. It feels unnecessary, redundant. But it would feel wrong to just leave him without a word.
She wants to shake herself. Since when does she care about these sort of things? Sentiment. But hasn’t he always had this effect on her? At this point, she might as well be fighting a battle she’s lost a long time ago.
He smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I know.”
They fall back into silence, but it’s not the usual companionable silence that fills the space between them. It’s the kind of silence where they’re holding their breath, waiting for the dreaded inevitable, willing for it to be over with.
With a final touch, she straps her gun back into its holster, and makes her way to his window, the same one she came in earlier. As she opens it, she throws one last look at Leon, who she notices is no longer looking at her, his gaze now fixed on a single spot on the opposite wall like it might hold all the answers in the universe.
“Take care, Leon.”
She leaps out the window before he has a chance to say anything.
Barely a month later, she’s in the middle of a particularly tricky job when she receives a message from one of her usual informants. A government operation in Tibet has gone south.
She rereads the message, takes a moment to compose herself, and cocks her gun.
Looks like this tricky job is about to turn into a speedy job, to accommodate her change of plans.
The first thing he’s aware of is pain.
Which is nothing new, really, half of his job involves pain in some form (the other half involves endless paperwork, Lord, the paperwork). Somewhere at the back of his mind, some last vestige of rational thought tells him that shouldn’t be a normal thing and that he should probably take Claire’s advice and look into a different profession before it kills him.
Right now though, the only thing that needs killing is his pain.
As he drifts through the void, occasionally, there would be voices. Talking in hushed tones, speaking words he feels like he should understand but isn’t quite able to process. His mind is foggy and too full, with what he’s not sure, but he wants to reach into his head and take some of it out, relieve the pressure.
Slowly, his vision adjusts and he starts seeing, just barely, the faintest hints of life. Or at least, something that isn’t the endless darkness. Someone tumbling into his peripheral vision, with the subtlety of a wrecking ball smashing into a brick wall, talking far too loudly and clapping him just a bit too hard on the shoulder. A smaller figure, voice lilting and hair swinging wildly behind her as she rushes in. A woman, brown hair falling over her face, squeezing his hand and talking in a soothing, but somewhat reproachful tone. Figures watching him closely, talking to each other in that same language that he knows but somehow doesn’t understand.
It’s all too much, and he just wants to rest. The darkness looms over him again, and this time, he lets it overtake him.
When he wakes again, it’s early morning, judging by the position of the sun, and he’s in a room he doesn’t recognize. He’s in a hospital, that much is obvious. The faint smell of antiseptic almost makes him gag, and the steady beeping of the heart monitor provides the only noise, save for the faint bustle of activity in the hallway outside his door.
He tries to remember how he might’ve gotten here, but the bits and pieces he does manage to recall don’t quite paint a complete picture. It was a difficult job, and he was getting desperate. He remembers chucking something explosive at a monster at least five stories tall before it all went dark.
Pain shoots through his skull, sudden and sharp, so he gives up on trying to rack his brain any further. That’ll have to do, for now. At least he’s still alive and - he does a quick check - in one piece. Small victories.
“Two broken ribs, a concussion, and a dislocated shoulder. That’s not including all the minor injuries.”
He whips his head in the direction of the voice, only to regret it almost instantly as his surroundings dip and sway, and in the middle of it all, a familiar figure clad in red.
“Always careful, huh?”
Somehow, he’s not surprised to hear her voice.
“Ada,” he says by way of greeting. “Nice of you to drop by.”
She’s standing in the far corner of his room, the window next to her slightly ajar. Come to think of it, the room does feel just a tad chillier than your usual hospital variety, but he supposes he could be forgiven for not spotting the signs earlier, in his current state.
“It’s not like you to land yourself in a place like this,” Ada says, taking in her surroundings like one might examine a particularly moldy piece of cheese.
“Nobody’s perfect,” he remarks casually. It’s meant to be a joke, but Ada shoots him a look that indicates she is anything but amused.
“I thought people are supposed to get less reckless as they grow older, not more,” she muses as she approaches his hospital bed.
“Believe it or not, I didn’t exactly plan on almost dying,” he rolls his eyes. “But it’s always a risk. You of all people should know-”
“You didn’t plan on dying, but you wouldn’t mind if you had, is that what you’re saying?”
Her words strike him like a flash of lightning, and it takes him a few seconds to recover. “What’s gotten into you today?”
She lets out a breathy laugh. “I should be the one asking you that. Except it’s not just today, is it?”
He wants to avert his gaze, but finds himself unable to. Her dark brown eyes pin him in place, forcing him to face his reality. He’s not surprised she saw through his bullshit. He’d always known that she could see a part of him that no one else could, the part that he keeps hidden from the rest of the world. And it felt nice, it did, to be known so intimately by someone, much less the woman he’s been in love with for a decade and a half.
No, what surprises him is the part where she decided she had something to say about it. Because there were certain invisible lines they did not cross. They would flirt and fight and dance around each other, but this? This is the danger zone. This is the point of no return.
“How long has this been going on?” Ada asks, and her voice is so soft that it catches him off-guard.
He smiles bitterly. “Really can’t get anything past you, huh?”
“To be fair, you’re about as mysterious as an open book,” she says, taking another step and resting her hand on the footboard.
“Ouch.”
Ada cracks the faintest of smiles, one of her rare genuine ones, and he feels his chest swell with warmth.
“But that doesn’t answer my question, Mr. Kennedy.”
He looks at her. “Come a little closer.”
For a few moments, she remains where she is. Hovering. Invisible lines, he reminds himself. Just when he’s about to brush off his request with a joke, she takes another step, her hands gripping the siderail of his bed like she might stumble any second.
“Sixteen years,” he says. “Sometimes it feels like one endless dark tunnel that might never end.”
“Well,” she reaches out to brush his hair away from his face. His skin tingles where her fingertips ghosted over it. “It hasn’t been all bad, has it?”
He suppresses a laugh, because he knows if he laughs now, his ribs might puncture his lung. “No, I suppose not.”
Ada quirks one eyebrow. “You suppose? I feel like I should take offense to that.”
She takes another step closer, and bends down, planting a soft kiss on his forehead. “Keep the faith, Leon. One day I’ll meet you on the other side of that tunnel.”
His breath hitches in his throat as he tries to keep his heartbeat from racing. After all, he’s still hooked up to that damn heart monitor, and he doesn’t need it to broadcast the intensity of his emotions for her to hear. Though he supposes, she probably knows already.
Her warm breath is washing over him, and on impulse, he reaches up to pull her lips to his. She’s surprisingly gentle, so unlike their usual kisses, filled with hunger and desperation. In this moment, as he savors the sweetness of her lips and her soft sighs in his ear, the rest of the world seems to melt away, and nothing matters except him and her and this too empty, too white hospital room. In this moment, nothing exists but this.
Leon hasn’t known much peace in his life, not since the tragedy in his childhood, and especially not since Raccoon City. But moments like this, he thinks as he breathes her in, as he revels in her presence and the choices that led them here today, come pretty close to it.
Their lips break apart, but his hand stay tracing soft lines on the side of her face. “Do you really believe that?”
She smirks. “Stay alive, and you might just find out.”
He hums in agreement. “You make a compelling case.”
He wants them to stay like this forever, or at least a bit longer, but Ada soon straightens up. There is a void where her warmth used to be, and he finds his body instinctively trying to chase after it. “I’ll see you around, Leon.”
It’s an achingly familiar sight, he knows. That’s the way things are meant to be. Their lives intersect here and there, but they never stay converged for too long, always separating before they’ve gotten a chance to grow roots, some semblance of permanence. On paper, he understands why, accepts it, even. Incompatible lifestyles, clashing ideals, that sort of thing. But deep down, in places he wouldn’t admit aloud, he wonders if they’re really just scared. Scared of taking another step, to cross that invisible line and demolish the comfortable bubble that they’ve surrounded themselves with.
But sometimes, he wonders if it’s worth trying. Not to cross the line entirely, but to inch just a bit closer. To not be so careful, so guarded all the time.
His hand shoots up to grab her wrist, stopping her in her tracks. “Wait.”
She looks at him, her gaze equal parts questioning and amused. “What is it this time?”
He’s never asked her to stay. He doesn’t want to, because he knows the answer, can see it so clearly in her eyes without her having to say a word. He doesn’t ask because he knows who she is and he respects her too much to even make the attempt. He knows they’ve still got a long way to go to get to the end of that tunnel.
But just this once, maybe it’s worth taking that step. Just one, tiny step.
“Stay,” he says. “Just for a little while.”
On the surface, it might seem like Ada’s expression is one of complete nonchalance. But he knows her better than that, has seen the cracks in her façade more times than she’s probably comfortable with. He can read it all on her face, the storm of emotions all jockeying for control, the shock, the fear, the urge to just tear herself from his grip and make a break for it. But she doesn’t act on it, simply stands there, and time seems to slow to a crawl.
“Ada,” he whispers, giving her hand a tiny squeeze.
Eventually she sighs, and when she looks at him again, her gaze is soft in a way that he only ever sees when they’re alone. Warmth blooms in his chest once more.
She shakes her head. “Fine. But only for a while.”
He holds up his hands in a placating gesture. “That’s all I ask.”
To his surprise, she slowly climbs onto his tiny hospital bed, carefully avoiding the network of wires connecting him to the monitor, and his various bandaged wounds, to settle at his less-injured side.
“Making yourself awfully comfortable there,” he remarks dryly.
She shrugs. “You wouldn’t force a lady to stand there all by herself in the cold, now would you?”
“Well, you could’ve closed the window when you came in.”
“Hmm,” she hums noncommittally. “I could’ve. Or you could’ve been more careful, we wouldn’t have been here to begin with. Let this be a lesson to you, next time you’re thinking of doing something reckless.”
He shakes his head, even as affection swells within him. Women.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were worried about me.”
She scoffs. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
He notices that she’s fallen back into her usual habit of tracing light circles on his chest, before her hand stops over the scar on his shoulder. Every single time without fail.
“You’ve always known I was reckless,” he suddenly says. “Since the night we met.”
She makes a face that’s something between a grimace and a smile. “That’s true. Come to think of it, I’ve had to save your ass more times than I can count.”
He chuckles. “After all these years, and you’re still keeping score.”
“You’re right, I don’t know why I bother anymore. You’ll never be able to return all of those favors.”
“Then you wouldn’t mind me adding one more,” he points out matter-of-factly. “Because that’s how we can prevent a next time.”
Ada makes a face, as if deep in thought. “I’ll consider it. Then again, I wouldn’t want you to get too complacent.”
“Around you? Never.”
They fall silent then. Leon feels his eyelids growing oh so impossibly heavy, though he fights to stay awake. Just a little while longer…
Ada is still tracing her fingers over his scar in a soothing rhythm. He has often wondered the reason for her almost bizarre fixation on it. Maybe one day he’ll ask her about it. One day.
The important thing is, there will be a one day, and that in itself gives him hope, enough to go on for just a little while longer.
There will never be a magic fix to all of their problems. The wounds might not heal instantly, or even completely, but they might learn to live with the scars, and maybe, one day, they might not hurt anymore.
The invisible lines might not be conquered in one fell swoop, with one dramatic declaration of love or a grandiose romantic gesture, the stuff of daydreams and fairytales. But maybe they can inch closer, with every passing day, until they’re so close that they can reach their hands out and take hold of each other and never let go.
Until then, they’ll keep living, and doing the best they can. For the hope that one day, they will see an end to this darkness.
But all of that can wait until tomorrow. Right now, her breath is warm on his neck and her hand is reaching over to squeeze his bandaged one and she’s sighing contentedly as he runs his fingers through her soft hair, and everything feels right.
Her fingers lightly trace along the lines of his jaw as she guides his lips to hers once more. He kisses her like she’s something sacred, like he wants to spend the rest of his life worshiping her and exploring every molecule of her very being, because he does. Like he wants them to melt into one.
He holds her just a bit closer to him.
No matter what happens, in this very moment, they are alive, and for now, that is enough.
No matter what has happened, they have found each other, and that counts for something.
There will be time later, to figure out the rest.
fin