Chapter Text
Conversation had died down a few minutes after they had left the train tunnel, as the effects of the adrenaline that had been pumping through their veins for the past several hours wore off, and the condition of their bodies caught up with them. They had been walking for a good part of an hour, with blistered feet and sore muscles protesting against each step they took, providing a white noise of pain to their seemingly endless escape from Raccoon City.
Leon felt like his shoulder was on fire, while the soft breeze against the sweat on his skin and his still damp-from-the-sewers clothes made him shiver uncontrollably. He was on autopilot, clutching his left arm to his torso and looking at the ground before his feet, while his thoughts raced away from him and back to Raccoon City.
It all felt like a nightmare to him, one that turned into a very boring pointless dream, never letting him truly wake up from it. A sudden assault of images of the rotting, walking corpses he had to shoot, the creatures that hunted him, beings he had to set on fire, a woman in red slipping through his fingers, sent a shiver down his spine. It made him stop in his tracks and give his head a shake, as if by doing that he could get rid of these images.
It took him a considerable effort of willpower to force them to the back of his mind, where they’d either go ignored forever or be addressed later, in a much more suitable environment.
He wasn’t about to freak out on Claire and Sherry, not when they had been through the same hell he has, and they weren't complaining.
‘Leon? Are you alright?’
For the first time in the past hour, Leon looked up from the ground, right into Claire’s eyes, and he could see worry in the crease of her brows, exhaustion in the crescent-moon-lines of her lower eyelids, sadness in the sunken outline of her eye sockets, and relief and hope in the shine that created a highlight above her pupils.
He followed her gaze when it shifted from his own to his left shoulder, and saw that the bandages had been all but soaked in red, their original colour almost unrecognisable.
‘That doesn’t look good,’ she said, trailing off, seemingly lost in thought. After a few seconds, she grabbed Sherry’s hand again, and Leon took that as their cue to keep walking. ‘We need to take a look at that as soon as we find somewhere to rest.’
Leon adjusted his grip on his bad arm, and tried to look nonchalant through the undeniable pain he was in. Claire was not fooled, not that he was putting this facade on for her.
‘I’ll be fine,’ he muttered, and was surprised at how much weaker his voice had sounded than he anticipated. He spared a glance towards Claire just long enough to see her brows crease again with that look of worry, before redirecting his gaze back to the ground in embarrassment.
‘What happened to your shoulder, anyway?’ he heard her ask.
‘I was shot, of all things,’ he replied, this time in control of the strength of his voice.
‘Shot?’
Claire’s incredulous look was as amusing as they came, and after what they’d been through, the bar for what entertained Leon was pretty low. He felt the corner of his lips curl up into a half-hearted smirk.
Then he saw Sherry’s wide eyed stare at him, and it disappeared completely.
‘It’s… a long story,’ he said, letting just enough of his exhaustion be audible in his voice that Claire would get the message. There was no way he was going to let Sherry know that it was her – now dead – mother that had shot him.
He’d only met her about an hour ago, but pure instinct and empathy had endeared her to him almost right away. A kid her age, going through the same shit he had, plus the death of her parents, all in one night…
He saw a lot of counselling and anxiety in her future.
To be quite honest with himself, that’s what he saw in his own future as well. That is, if they survived this night.
Now, that would be a riot. Escaping the horrors of Raccoon City just to die of dehydration or what have you on their way back to civilization. He had to admit, if they managed to do the former, then the latter should be a breeze.
As they continued trailing the asphalt, he wondered how long it would take for the rude driver that had passed them earlier to realise he was driving into Hell on Earth. Perhaps they should have tried to do a better job trying to flag him down, if for nothing else to warn him of what awaited him in the way he was heading.
His eyes felt dry, and hid eyelids heavy. When his mind wasn’t preoccupied with fighting back nightmare images, it teased him with thoughts of soft, imaginary beds and warm blankets, and pillows that were just the right size…
Suddenly, the sun was higher up in the sky, and Claire’s face was above his, one of her hands at the back of his head, the other covering his forehead, feeling very cold against it.
Odd. He didn't remember how he got there.
‘Are you with us, Leon?’ she asked, and from the way she sounded he could tell this wasn’t the first time she was asking the question. Sherry’s face popped up opposite to Claire’s, as it appeared she was kneeling on the ground on the other side of Leon.
‘Hmm?’ was all Leon could muster at the moment, his mind much too preoccupied with trying to figure out what had happened to actually try to formulate proper answer to her question. It seemed that was all she needed to know, though, because she didn’t ask again, and instead looked up at Sherry. Leon could almost see the gears turning furiously in her head. He knew what she was thinking, because he would have been thinking the same in her situation.
What am I going to do?
He thought about telling them to go on without him, to get help and come back for him later, but he didn’t want to say it, for two reasons. For one, he knew they wouldn’t like that idea. On the other hand, the thought of being left alone in the middle of nowhere, weak as he was, still all too close to Raccoon City – after all, if they could walk this distance, so could the zombies – frightened him.
He pulled himself together, stood up, and continued walking with them towards safety. At least, that’s what he wanted to do, but it seemed his body was not in a mood to cooperate.
The way he was feeling was much like one of those exhausting gym classes where at the end, when you sat down, you just couldn’t get back up, and getting back up required above-average power of will.
Claire had grabbed him by his good arm and started pulling him up, which provided him with just enough support that he could stand up, and, with a significant portion of his bodyweight now redirected to Claire - despite his efforts to stay upright by himself - they started walking again, now at a much slower pace.
Leon felt terrible about this situation, but he couldn't exactly just push Claire away. That didn’t change the fact that he was positive she wasn’t less exhausted than he was, and that she didn’t deserve to have to carry around his dead weight all through the home stretch.
He was surprised to feel another hand at his back and side, and glanced down to see Sherry by his other side, smartly avoiding his bad arm and staring forward with an uncharacteristically mature look of determination in her eyes. It seemed she sensed him looking at her, because she looked back up at him, and gave him a reassuring smile.
‘Don’t worry, Leon,’ she said, gripping the excess of his shirt at her hands, ‘we’ll take care of you.’
Leon’s heart was full as he looked at her. In the direct sunlight, Sherry’s blond hair seemed to shine, and in his eyes, despite the muck that was caked on her skin, she looked like a little angel.
‘Thank you,’ he whispered. He felt like he’s never felt more grateful than he did then, for Claire’s unwavering support and determination, and for Sherry’s light and positivity. They really did make him feel like everything was going to be alright.
Maybe not soon enough, but eventually.