Chapter Text
February 18, 2003
The windows here at the training facility never open. Sometimes, Leon would find himself staring at them, realizing the air was always exactly the same: filtered, sterile, utterly impersonal. There were no times of day here. Time wasn’t measured by sunrise or sunset, but by never-ending drills and bureaucratic reports.
Leon had learned the rules quickly: you don’t ask unnecessary questions. And most importantly, nobody cares about the past.
But letting go was hard for him. He just wasn't built for it.
The images of Raccoon City refused to fade. Not the way the psychologists or his superiors said they would. It didn’t get "easier with time." Instead, things had just… rearranged themselves in his head. Certain details had worn away, while others became terrifyingly sharp.
And there was one face stubbornly burned into his mind.
Ada Wong.
At first, he didn’t even try to explain to himself why he thought about her so much. Too much had happened there, in too short a time. When you're trying to survive, you latch onto anything you can—it’s only natural. At least, that was how he comforted himself.
During the first few weeks, it was just pure instinct. Whenever he gained access to a new database, whenever a classified file crossed his desk, or a list of names scrolled down his monitor, his eyes would automatically search for her. Not openly. Not conspicuously. It was just there, in the corner of his eye, like a constant, silent command:
Ada Wong.
But there was never a match. Or what did come up was too old, too incomplete, or completely irrelevant. It was as if she had never even existed in reality.
That was what infuriated him the most. Because he had seen her. He had heard her voice. He had touched her skin. She couldn’t just be nothing.
As the months bled into one another, the search stopped being an instinct and became a conscious choice. He learned how to bypass different systems, which intelligence reports were worth digging into, and where information managed to slip through the strict filters. He spent nights sitting in front of the monitor, the blue glow of the screen casting sharp angles across his face in the dark, silent room.
Images, reports, names. And a whole lot of nothing.
Sometimes he would stop. His hands would hover helplessly over the keyboard as a question pierced through him: What if she really is dead?
The thought wasn’t new, he just hadn’t allowed it to get close enough until now. After all, he had seen her fall. He had heard the laboratory explode. And yet… there was something about the puzzle that didn't fit. Ada wasn't the kind of woman who would just let herself die. But facts are stubborn things, and according to official records, she didn't exist.
One evening, months later, he finally called off the search. It wasn’t a grand gesture, and there was no dramatic flair to the moment. He was just… tired.
Another empty results list blinked on the screen, the cursor flashing impatiently in the corner. He leaned back in his chair and just stared into the darkness for a long time. Then he closed his eyes, and the toxic thoughts crept in.
What if…? What if she hadn’t fallen? What if none of it had ever happened? What if I had stayed with her?
They were dangerous thoughts, and he knew it. Because there were no answers to them, only the image of a world that never came to be. Slowly, he exhaled, leaned forward, and closed the search window.
"That’s it, then," he said softly into the silence, mostly to himself.
He didn’t make a rigid declaration; he didn’t make any promises. He just… let it go. At least, in that exact moment, it felt that way.
Time moved on. Mission after mission. He learned how to shut off his brain and stop thinking. How to act, how to survive. And somewhere along the way, he changed too. The look in his eyes grew harder, his movements more precise, his decisions much sharper.
The past retreated into the background.
Then one day, after a long, brutally exhausting mission, he returned to headquarters. The office noise was standard: the monotonous clatter of keyboards, hushed conversations, ringing phones. A sort of constant white noise that you stop noticing after a while.
He was right in the middle of typing his report when a single sentence suddenly cut through the background noise from behind him.
"I'm telling you, that woman isn't wrapped tight."
His hands froze on the keyboard for a fraction of a second. He didn’t look up. He didn’t move.
"She slipped right through our fingers again yesterday," his colleague continued nearby. "It's like she knew exactly where we’d be beforehand."
"Who is she?" the other asked.
"We have no idea. No name. No proper profile. The only thing for sure is that she’s after bio-weapons. And she always works alone."
Leon’s heart hammered in his throat, but he slowly, mechanically resumed typing, acting as if nothing had happened.
"Did you at least catch a glimpse of her?"
"Just for a second. Black hair. A red dress. Then she was gone."
It was a simple sentence. But everything inside Leon tightened. On the screen, the words blurred before his eyes.
A red dress.
He took a deep breath and swallowed the thought down. No. It doesn't mean anything. The world is full of black-haired women. The world is full of mercenaries. The world is full of damn coincidences.
He stayed late that night. His report had been finished hours ago, the office had cleared out, and the lights had been dimmed. Yet, he still sat there. Doing nothing, just thinking.
It couldn’t be her. And yet… the description was too accurate. Not even because of the physical traits, but because of her methodology. She works alone. Always one step ahead. Leaves no trace behind.
She was exactly like…
Leon let out a soft breath and rubbed his temples.
"Stop it," he warned himself.
What would change anyway? If it was her, she wasn't the same woman he had met back then. And if it wasn't, he was just chasing a ghost. The whole thing was pointless.
The next day, he forced himself to stay away from the terminal. He didn’t look her up for days. He went on more missions, trying to block it out of his head. He didn’t ask anyone, didn’t investigate. He just did his job, like always.
But one evening, when everyone else had truly gone home, he sat back down in front of the computer anyway.
His security clearance was on an entirely different level now compared to the old days. He knew exactly where to look and how to bypass the restrictions. He didn’t hesitate. A few quick commands, a security code, an illegal detour through the internal network, and the highly classified files materialized on the screen.
He paused for a second, his hands resting on the keyboard. He made a deal with himself:
This is the last time.
Then he started typing. This time, he didn’t search by name. He searched by description. By operational methods. By profiling patterns.
And the system answered.
He didn’t get a full profile, nor a name. Just fragments. Observations, excerpts from military reports, half-sentences:
"Unknown female operative.""High-level combat and infiltration capabilities.""Bio-weapon related targets.""Frequent red attire.""Identification: Failed."
He read through the whole thing slowly. Once. Then once more.
There was no photo attached. Her name wasn't there. He had no tangible proof in his hands.
And yet, he knew instantly, without a shadow of a doubt. Not from logic, not from the data. But from that visceral, gut-wrenching feeling he had carried inside him for four years—the one he was utterly powerless to explain.
"It's you..." he whispered to the monitor.
His voice sounded strange, foreign in the echoing silence. As if speaking it aloud were a sin.
He felt no relief. He felt no joy. Only a crushing, heavy physical pressure building in his chest.
She’s alive.
That was his first clear thought.
The second one was far more complicated, but the core of it remained the same: she hadn’t asked for help, she hadn't looked for him, she hadn't left him any kind of trail. She simply existed in her own dark world.
He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling.
He had found her.
And yet, he had found nothing. He wasn’t any closer to her; he didn’t understand her secrets any better. He just knew she was out there somewhere in the world. And that… was simultaneously infinitely comforting and terribly unnerving.
On the screen, the cursor was still flashing impatiently. Slowly, he turned back around and closed the file with a single keystroke. He didn’t save anything; he left no digital footprint. It was as if he had never been there.
But deep down, nothing was the same anymore. Because now, he wasn’t searching for an absence in the dark. He was searching for a very real, flesh-and-blood shadow.
And he knew—he knew with absolute certainty—that sooner or later, they would cross paths again. Not because he would go looking for her. But because their fates, their very natures, simply gravitated toward one another.
A faint smile tugged at his lips in the dark office. Tired. Resigned.
And somewhere deep, deep down… waiting.