Chapter Text
The nurse tried several different ways to ease the bandages off Grace’s arm and shoulder while she winced and did her best not to make noises of pain. “I’m sorry, Agent, I suspect removing these will reopen the wounds and I am reluctant to do so until you have been through decontamination. You’ll have to keep the bandages on in the showers: drench them thoroughly but do not agitate them.”
“Y-yes, ma’am,” Grace said. “So, um, those showers, now can….”
“Decon shower through the other end of the infirmary here,” the nurse said. She had been professional to the point of terseness but Grace thought she detected a hint of sympathy at how clearly the much-beleaguered analyst wanted to get clean. “There will be two minutes of pure water, a pause, and then two minutes of disinfectant solution. For the solution avoid exposure to your eyes and mucous membranes as much as possible: just hold out your arms to your sides, plant your feet at shoulder-width, and allow it to cascade over your body. Once that cycle has completed there will be two more minutes of plain water, then you will be able to proceed to the regular shower and clean yourself more thoroughly with soap.”
Grace nodded. “Bath?” Emily asked hopefully.
“Yes, miss. While Agent Ashcroft is showering I will take care of a basin bath for you, then when you both are done you will no doubt end up in the same exam room.”
“Okay,” Emily said, and Grace’s attention sharpened. That ‘okay’ was neutral and colorless, but the way her fingers were leaving indents in Grace’s right arm….
“W-wait!” She blurted, and winced when both the others startled. “S-sorry. It’s just, um.” She carefully knelt down to be closer to Emily’s ears. “We have to get clean,” she said quietly. “There’s no getting away from that. The nurse was saying she will take you to get clean because she knows how to do that for people like you and me who need help. And, well…it would be much more uncomfortable to come with me. B-but, if you want to get clean with me in the showers instead—”
“Yes!” Emily said, more loudly than Grace had heard her outside of danger. “Um. I’m sorry. I want to stay with Grace.” Her fingers tightened still further. “Please.”
“Please?” Grace echoed, looking pleadingly at the nurse. If poor Emily, who had never in her life had a choice, was denied this one small one….
“If the child is able to stand and follow instructions, I don’t see why not.” Both Grace and Emily let out relieved breaths, but the nurse frowned. “The bandage on her eyes…that may cause an issue.”
“I-i-it’s just because of where she was being held,” Grace said immediately. “The light was hurting her eyes when w-we got her out, s-so Agent Kennedy suggested the bandages.”
The nurse nodded sharply. “Remove them along with your clothes, then, before the first stage of decon. Leave everything in a heap in the corner closest to the door. Any questions?”
“No, ma’am,” Grace avowed, almost twitching with the desire to be clean.
The decontamination shower was as unpleasant as she’d been afraid it would be. The worst part though was how stoically Emily withstood the whole thing; it made Grace ashamed of herself and angry at Gideon in almost equal parts. When they moved on to the real shower (a communal sort of setup with a half-dozen showerheads in one big room) she nearly dove for the soap and washrags and started scrubbing furiously at her arms. She only stopped when she noticed Emily was still hovering just outside of the range of the shower Grace had turned on for her. “I-is there a problem, Em? Can you wash yourself?”
Emily looked startled, then thoughtful, then she nodded firmly. “Yes, I can,” she said, squinting hard. She scooted across the tile on her bottom until the water started falling on her, then picked up a rag and some soap and more slowly followed Grace’s example. Grace made sure her arms were clean and then came over, saying, "I'll help with, um, with your back and hair.”
Once Emily was squeaky clean she diffidently took the shampoo bottle and said, “I’ll help you, too, Grace.”
Grace wanted to turn her down, but she remembered She asked for my help: I liked that and so instead she said, “Thank you, Emily, that is a huge help.” And it was. It still hurt to raise her hands over her head. No mystery why, as more and more dried blood and grime washed off and revealed skin that was more bruise-black than pale. Being clean felt so amazingly wonderful that she wanted to fall asleep. Emily almost did, before Grace urged her to dry off and then helped her into the (nice and soft) clothes that had been laid out in the locker room for them. Grace tried to put the girl on her hip to walk out of the room and almost faded out from the pain. When she was back Emily was anxiously tugging at her hand.
“I can do it, Grace. It’s not far.”
“But your feet—”
“I can do it.”
Emily has never her whole life had a choice. “Okay, Emily. I believe you. Please tell me if you can’t anymore and we’ll figure something else out.” They limped to the exam room together where a doctor immediately removed Grace’s top once more to start working away the bandages from where the scabs had glued them to her wounds. Grace bit her lip bloody through the process while Emily listed against her side. The doctor made a hissing sound through his teeth when he fully exposed the injury on her arm and started cleaning it.
“Was this an infected that did this?” he demanded.
“Pretty sure,” Grace said.
“I need a full rundown on what you were exposed to,” the doctor continued. His voice and hands weren’t particularly kind or gentle, but he did apply something to the bite that numbed it before he started replacing the popped stitches.
“I-I’m sorry, Doctor,” Grace said, her mind racing. Leon had said to be sure Emily didn’t leave Grace’s side for treatment, but they hadn’t actually gone over any details…since Grace had been dead asleep as soon as they were in the air. “This is, is, Agent Kennedy’s case…I-I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to wait for him to debrief me on what is classified and to, um, what l-level.”
The doctor had probably worked for a federal agency for quite a while. The face he made was very displeased, but he didn’t try to fight for Grace to change her mind. He did say peevishly, “Well be sure and tell Agent Kennedy that I cannot do my job without information. Will you at least tell me if you were exposed to any infected blood or unknown drugs?”
“Th-the assailant who was the person of interest in Agent Kennedy’s case knocked me out with a blood choke, a-and when I came to there was blood being e-extracted from me. And, and a note saying they had administered something called ‘dexifil’.”
“And was there infected blood exposure?”
“Probably,” Grace said, and was half-surprised the universe didn’t strike her down with lightning or something for such a heroic understatement. “I, um, killed a few. A-and there was a big one and Agent Kennedy—” she mimed an explosion at her head level and the doctor sighed.
“Of course he did,” he said wearily.
As soon as Sherry entered the room Leon pulled out his IV and went to hug her tight. “Agent, you can’t just—” the attending tried to say.
“That’s about a pint there I’ve let you vampires take. You’ve got enough. You can start setting up a transfusion to replace that for me, thanks, and any scans you want to do while this antiviral is working on Agent Birkin.”
“Hello to you too, Leon,” Sherry said with a smirk. “Nice to see you too, Leon.”
“It was implied with the hug,” he said with dignity. He waggled the vial of Elpis that he had zealously guarded from the greedy eyes of the lab techs, even to the point of taking it through the showers with him. “We’re getting this in you ASAP, kid.”
The corners of her eyes crinkled as she let herself be directed to the other exam chair in the room. “I’m pushing forty, Kennedy. You’ll have to stop with the ‘kid’ some time.”
“And I’m pushing fifty,” he said. “Unless you have some kinda time-travel adventure and catch up you’ll always be a kid to me, kid.”
“Speaking of kids….” Sherry hefted the backpack off her shoulders and pointed at it as she sat in the chair and started being fitted with various leads. “Got your goodies. Where’s the real heroes of the day?”
“Getting their own checkup.” Leon caught the attention of one of the techs. “Hey, send someone to see when Agent Ashcroft and her charge are free. As soon as you’re done with your scans of Agent Birkin I’ll debrief Ashcroft here while I’m getting that pint replaced.”
They did a shitton of scans on Sherry before, during, and after the treatment. They didn’t let Leon hold her hand as Elpis worked, saying that they needed video recording of the fading of the black marks. When it was finished working they set up a new IV pole and started drawing blood from Sherry. Leon dragged the other exam chair across the floor, ignoring the way all the staff winced at the screeching noise it made, and sat in it to receive his transfusion. They were close enough now that he could hold her hand, and she linked their fingers but separated their palms so she could peer at the pale scarring left there by the marks. “I’m so glad, Leon,” she whispered.
“Told you,” Leon said, reveling in the feeling that something had gone very right for once. “Told you I’d figure something out, didn’t I? You’ll be back in the field in no time.”
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she said with fond annoyance. “I mean, yes, thank you. Good job. But you really worried me, Leon.”
Her bright eyes were wet and he felt a pang in his guts. “I’m sorry Sherry. I had to…still. I’m sorry.” He leaned over, cupping the back of her head, and kissed her forehead. “I won’t do it again?”
“You damn well better not,” she huffed. “At this point I really will turn to time travel if I have to.”
“Wonder what kind of passport you need for time travel?” He mused, and Sherry rolled her eyes at him, so he knew he was forgiven. There were still a few lab techs hovering around, arguing with each other over readouts, and Leon pointed at one of them and jerked his thumb at the door. “Out. All of you. Send Agent Ashcroft as soon as she’s released from medical.”
“But we should monitor—” one of them began, hugging an instrument to their chest, but Leon cut them off.
“I didn‘t think this misadventure damaged my hearing, but I could swear that guy just responded to an order with something other than ‘yes sir’, Sherry.”
“You didn’t mention receiving any ear injuries, Agent Kennedy,” she said, all professional. “Should I amend the report?”
“No, no, maybe I just misheard.” He cut his eyes back to the technician. “You hear what I said?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You gonna do it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get to that, then.” He silently watched them file out, then sighed and let his head thud against the back of his chair. “Every damn time.”
“We’re secure,” Sherry said quietly. “Dropped a crawler in the system on the way in.”
“Just overriding surveillance?”
“Monitoring everything. What’s the plan?”
God, it was good to have someone that he knew was on his side 100%. “The plan is that there is no fucking way we let what they did to us be done to Grace and Emily.”
“That’s not a very actionable plan so far. But I absolutely agree.”
Leon grinned at her. “Hey, I’m just the brawn, here. You are the brains. You and Grace, probably. How do you see our odds?”
Sherry started to smile as well. “Not bad, actually. The case is yours, so we have the jump on it. Plenty of information control. Chris’ guys are hardly gonna tell DSO shit. You are in a damn good negotiating position because of Elpis: so is Grace. Emily is less…uniquely interesting, from a research position, than I was.” Her smile sharpened. “They don’t have anyone who could take you down in a fair fight if it came to it, and they know it. It would blow up more than a few budget line items to hire and train the dozen-plus agents it would take to replace you. And not to brag, but I am better at my job than they suspect. We could make the girls disappear if we wanted to. If it came to that.”
Leon nodded, looking down at their linked hands. He ran his thumb over a scar on the heel of her hand. “Good. That’s…that’s good.” He tried a laugh. “I had the dumbest fucking plan when I was young and stupid, you know. Whole elaborate thing worked up in the back of my head when I couldn’t sleep, all about how I was gonna break out of my federal custody and break in to your federal custody and snatch you up to go live anonymously as sheep farmers in Iceland or something.”
“I could have probably been a bomb-ass shepherdess,” she said. He was feeling a little too fragile to look at her face, but he could hear the smile in her voice. She squeezed his hand. “But it all worked out, didn’t it? I like where we are right now.”
“Me too, kid,” he said roughly. “Me too.”
The door opened not much later as the girls showed up. Emily was in a wheelchair, being pushed by Grace: there was an IV pole attached to the chair with a bag of O-neg that was helping restock some of what the FBI agent had lost. Leon instinctively started to stand up and go to help but his own IV line stopped him short. “We’re fine,” Grace assured him. She was leaning heavily on the back of the wheelchair, but she was clean and so were her scrubs and bandages. (Leon was annoyed with himself: he had intended to insist that someone gave her fatigues instead of scrubs. After something like they’d been through she’d feel better if she was better prepared in case things went to shit again.) “A-all clean, right Emily?”
“We took dee-can showers,” Emily said. Her eyes were pinched shut. “I helped.”
“You ladies look like a million bucks,” Leon said firmly. Grace snickered, and gave him a shaky thumbs-up. Emily looked up in surprise at the sound, saw what she was doing, and imitated the gesture. It was so cute that it made Leon strangely mad. “I hardly recognized you not-blood-drenched, Agent Ashcroft.” As soon as he said it he realized it was a stupid thing to say and probably freshened the memory of trauma. Sherry didn’t stop smiling, welcomingly, but she pinched the webbing between his thumb and forefinger hard.
Grace looked slightly upset, but then sympathetic. She smiled at him bravely, and returned, “W-well you look pretty different yourself. You’re not half-dead o-or a walking armory.”
Trying to smooth over his faux-pas. Grace was a good girl. “I’ve still got some stopping power,” he reassured her. He’d had to set aside his hatchet and long arms but he still had Requiem and the Snapper in easy reach. (There was also a grenade in a pocket that no one but him knew about. Just in case.) “Emily, you okay to sit in my lap here? Then Grace can steal your seat.”
Emily nodded, squinting, then closed her eyes again. She held her arms out and waited for Grace to push her close enough that Leon could lean down and haul her up into his lap. Her little feet were bandaged: he inspected them and was clad to see no fresh spotting of blood. “It’s so nice to meet you in person,” Sherry was saying. “I can’t thank you enough for everything you did. For Leon and for me, personally, along with everyone else.”
“O-oh! Sherry!” Grace said. She sounded surprised. She flushed as she shook the DSO agent’s hand, and sat back in the wheelchair looking mortified. “I didn’t think—n-no, th-that’s, sorry….”
“You didn’t think I’d look like a middle-aged lady when I sounded twelve on the phone?” Sherry said impishly. “You aren’t the first and you won’t be the last: don’t worry about it.”
“You don’t look middle-aged!” Grace stuttered immediately, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “It’s just n-nice to meet you.”
“Leon, did you change your mind?” Emily asked him quietly while Sherry was once again reassuring Grace that she was only joking and not offended at all.
“About what, kiddo?”
“Loyalty,” she said. “I don’t smell like you any more.”
Sherry didn’t interrupt but he caught an eloquent side-eye that promised at some point he’d have to explain how he’d managed to make a kid think he judged people’s character from their smells. Like a dog. Note to self, Leon: careful telling jokes that kids can take literally. “You and Grace are my friends no matter what you smell like, Emily. I’m too old to change my mind at this kind of thing.”
Emily just nodded, looking shyly pleased. Her eyes slitted open for just a moment, checking that Grace was still nearby, before she closed them again and leaned against his arm.
“Thanks,” Grace said softly.
“I notice you didn’t protest that I don’t look middle-aged,” he complained at the ceiling, going for ‘aggrieved’ with his tone.
“It’s not the years, its the milage,” Sherry said drily. Emily cracked her eyes to look at her, now, and Sherry smiled gently at the girl. “I’m glad to meet you too, Emily. I’m Sherry. I was Leon’s Emily.”
Grace sat up straight, looking between them. “Sorry?”
“I used to live in a place called Raccoon City,” Sherry said to her and Emily both. “A disaster happened there when I was a little girl, a lot like the disaster that happened at the lab you were in, Emily. I was in danger and Leon rescued me and got me out like how Grace got you out.”
It had mostly been Claire, but Leon understood that Sherry was trying to explain in a way that would make sense to Emily. Not much point introducing a new character in the story for the girl to have to keep track of. Grace looked at him, wide-eyed. “S-so when you said, you said in Raccoon City—I didn't realize you meant the initial outbreak.”
“I was a little younger than you, then,” he said ruefully.
“He was a baby,” Sherry said, teasing him. “I’ll show you the pictures. The most sweet-faced little rookie you ever saw…though of course he seemed incredibly big and strong to me back then.”
“So you are about the same age as my mom,” Grace murmured. Leon wanted to tease her that she had moved on from dadzoning to momzoning, but he decided she wasn’t up for much teasing at the moment. (Because despite what Sherry implied, he did in fact have tact.) She adjusted her IV and looked at him earnestly. “W-well, we needed your experience in all of this. Thank you. You made…made a big difference to Emily and me.”
“Speaking of you and Emily," Sherry said, while Leon felt things, “–we’ve been talking about options. For how to make sure she’s taken care of.”
Emily tensed in his lap: she was listening. It suddenly and painfully occurred to Leon that a young single woman who had been through a huge trauma might not want to raise a small child who’d grown up in a lab. He reached down for the backpack Sherry had brought in and started digging around in it.
“I-I-I’m going to!” Grace blurted. “To, to look after her. I…I want to. If I can…?”
“We’re gonna make it happen,” Sherry said firmly. Some of the tension went out of Emily. Leon pressed one of the books from the bag in her hands, and she gasped softly and started to run her fingertips over the words on the cover. “Was there any information at the Care Center that I should hack in and erase? If no one has a reason to think she’s interesting….”
“There was a cloning program,” Grace said. She looked haunted. “Since…the 90s. B-before I was born. Trying to do some sh…some nonsense with inheriting memories?” She scowled. It made her look a bit like an angry kitten, which of course Leon would never tell her. “That’s why Gideon and, and that other idiot thought I had Spencer’s memories. Th-they couldn’t even comprehend the idea that Spencer could have adopted a baby for any reason other than ‘successful experiment’.”
Leon could hardly comprehend it either, but plenty of men did some version of ‘finding Jesus’ when they found themselves staring down the teeth of a very final mortality. “So, since the 90s…?” Leon tilted his chin subtly at Emily, who was several pages into her book.
Grace nodded and swallowed, like the thought made her kind of sick. “Yes. They showed me a video—” she stopped and closed her eyes, breathing carefully like she actually was about to vomit. Leon reached out the hand that Sherry wasn’t holding to rest it lightly on Grace’s knee.
“So there’s video,” Sherry said.
“Yeah. A-and photos. From then til now. There’s probably way too much analog evidence to cover her origins up.”
Sherry nodded sharply, letting go of Leon’s hand to reach into her backpack and pull out a tablet. “Got it. I’ll trawl the evidence and see if I need to seed or replace anything to make it clear that there’s nothing more interesting going on than being a clone. Nothing…useful.” Her eyes narrowed. “Still haven’t tracked down any specific points of contact between Gideon’s group and your home office, Grace.”
“M-my home office?” Her eyes darted between them. “How do you mean?”
“There was documentation in Gideon’s office about setting up the Wrenwood Hotel scene specifically to lure you in,” Leon said grimly. “Definitely sounded like they had a man on the inside.” She looked taken aback; surely she had realized? “Didn’t you think it was odd that your director sent you alone to a crime scene? Aren’t you a reports analyst?”
“SAIC Dempsey?” She said. “I-I mean…I’ve done crime scenes before a couple of times. A-and I don’t…I work best alone.” She looked between them again, biting her lip as she saw how unlikely they found that. “He’s…he’s always been good to me,” she tried to explain. “My…my first year in the office, there was…there were crime scene photos that, that reminded me of…of my mom. He let me, um, he found me hiding in the file room hyperventilating and he m-made me go to a shrink but he didn’t put it on my permanent record o-or anything. He’s…I really do think he thought it would…help me.” She winced, running out of steam. “Y-you really think he s-set me up?”
Leon and Sherry looked at each other. “Not necessarily,” Sherry allowed. “It could easily have been a higher-up.”
“In these kind of situations they do tend to put resources towards the biggest fish they think they can hook,” Leon said. “I don’t think any of your colleagues are likely suborned, for example. Not worth the time and effort.” He grinned a little at her, trying to be encouraging. “More fool them. Speaking as a fellow cog in the machine, I’d rather have a dozen grunts on my side than one big shot.”
“Some of them are really nice to me,” Grace murmured down at her lap. “Okay. What…what should I do?”
“You’ve got a talent for this kind of work,” Leon said. “I could get you a job offer here.”
Grace looked completely flabbergasted. “You—what do you mean! I was scared shitless the whole time!”
“Only an idiot wouldn’t be,” Leon said. He tilted his head at Sherry. “You wouldn’t have to be a field agent, though. Sherry will probably go back to being a field agent now that the Raccoon City Syndrome is cured by Elpis. We could use someone we could trust at the office.”
“I’ll be honest with you though, Grace,” Sherry said; her girlish voice was steely. “We don’t know how much of the DSO we can trust. Even if your SAIC is suborned, you might actually be safer there. We’ve got people here we trust, but that doesn’t mean I think the DSO as a whole is trustworthy.”
“I…I just don’t know if I’m cut out for this,” Grace said desperately. She bit her lip, anxiously picked at the IV in her hand until Leon tapped it warningly to make her stop. “Will…will you be all right in the field, now that you’re cured?”
Leon frowned. “Come again?”
“The, Zeno, the sunglasses guy—he used Elpis and lost his superhuman powers. Will you be able to make it through your next missions okay?”
Leon barked a startled laugh, steadying Emily when the sound surprised her and she almost dropped her book. “Grace, I never had superpowers. I’m just a guy. All the t-virus did was slowly make me sick.”
Grace gave him a look of such profound, pitying disbelief you’d think he’d just claimed the moon was made of cheese. “I-if you say so.”
“Sherry, back me up here,” Leon said urgently. Sherry smirked at him.
“When we’re back up and running let’s hit the sparring mats and find out, huh?” She smiled more softly at Grace. “We’re not gonna force you into anything. Hell, if you want to leave intelligence and federal work behind entirely I’ll find a way to make it happen. Even if you wanna go live as a shepherdess in Iceland.”
God, Leon loved Sherry. “What she said. You’ve done enough, kid: more than enough, if you want to be done.”
“I like my job,” Grace said a little ruefully. “I’m good at reports. I’m a good analyst. If…if it’s dangerous anywhere, um, it might be good to be…on the inside. Right?” She straightened up and reached over to lightly shake Leon’s knee like she had done when she found him three-quarters-dead at the door to the Pandora chamber. “But…if you need me…if you need me, though that seems crazy, just let me know, okay? Of course if you need me I’ll come.”
“I can help,” Emily said, not raising her face, still reading her book with her fingers.
What the hell kind of business did any of these girls have in being so brave. “Back atcha,” Leon managed to say.