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The first thing the woman in red says when she walks into the underground lab is: “So, you’re still alive.”
Ashley snaps her head around at the voice, her eyes bloodshot and hair sticking up at all ends. Ready to jump to into the role Leon has occupied. But once she recognizes the woman, her nervous expression melts into one of relief. “Oh, my God, it’s you!”
The woman in red takes careful, purposeful steps into the inner lab, just barely glancing at Leon’s unconscious but now Plaga-free body slumped in a medical chair. She almost seems to avoid looking at the tools dangling overhead as her eyes sweep the room, settling on a row of machines nearby that Ashley barely recognized.
“Yeah, Leon, yeah, he’s alive, I think, I heard a heartbeat! No, not think, I did,” Ashley volunteers, unprompted, words tripping over each other to get out of her mouth. “I swear I thought I was gonna break my back heaving him up here, but, the machine, it—what do you think? Is he gonna be all right?” She moves to his other side and leans her face so close to his, a tangle of her matted hair nearly tickle his cheeks. “Me, I feel fine, I mean, I'm beat, but inside, I—”
“I wouldn't worry. He’ll bounce back.” Her back to the pair, the woman's response is flat and terse. She has wandered toward a table near the entrance piled high with manila folders, some of them half burned in apparent haste to destroy. “Wouldn’t you know he’s been through worse.”
Ashley’s frenetic gaze lifts from Leon’s face and tries to follow the woman in red’s voice. She finally settles on the back of her head as the woman pours over whatever she can salvage on the desks. With her sleek and styled dusky black hair, coordinating black boots, and red ribbed dress—Ashley gets the inkling that she’s seen something like it in a back issue of Vogue—she gives off an air of importance, of ability, of danger. A woman that has seen the worst of humanity and beyond.
“So you’ve worked with him before,” Ashley guesses.
The woman in red picks up an empty, broken beaker apparently found with the discarded files. Ashley angles herself slightly to the right to see what she’s doing. She appears to examine it, though the bottom part is only jagged glass. “You could say that. It would have been several lifetimes ago.”
A beat. Ashley's tired brain is working overtime to figure out her cryptic responses.
“Well… thank you for saving us,” Ashley offers weakly. “And coming back. Guess when Leon wakes up he'll owe you one.”
The woman finally turns away from the materials and actually regards Ashley. Ashley’s hazel eyes meet the woman’s dark ones. Ashley wonders what she sees: a really dirty, messed up looking girl-child still gripping the chair’s arms as a lifeline, never once moving from Leon's unconscious side—in fright or in determination to stay strong for both Leon and herself, Ashley didn't know.
“It would have made my life harder if I hadn’t,” was her terse reply. Her lips, a gradient cherry red, barely move as she speaks. (It has to be MAC, Ashley thinks. She remembers gazing at the samples at J.C. Penney, swatching them on her wrists with her friends. Would she tell her what brand if she asked?)
“In that case, why don’t you come with us?” The words tumble out of her mouth before she can stop herself. “The procedure is finished, so soon Leon’ll be…”
Something in the woman's expression turns that makes the words die in Ashley's throat.
“Don’t worry about me,” the woman says, breaking the uncomfortable silence. Her tone stays perfectly smooth. “You’ll take care of him, won’t you? He really needs a friend.” She glances to the double doors just a few feet away. “Turns out there’s nothing for me in here. Good luck.”
“W-wait!” Ashley pleads, finding some courage to speak. “Listen, I don’t know if you’re working for the FBI or whatever but don't you think it's better to stay together than split up? That guy who kidnapped me, I'm sure he's still out there... and, yeah, I know you can handle yourself. Plus..."
She was speaking too quickly again. The woman was staring at her, her expression still menacingly flat. "We all worked so hard to survive tonight. It’s only fair we all leave together, don't you think?”
The woman's crimson mouth twists cruelly. The words just continue falling out of Ashley's mouth, whether either of them like it or not. "Also, um, since Leon knows you, I’d, uh, like to get to know you too." Ashley attempts a weak smile. "Maybe you're not a good terms, but... I think he cares about you."
God, she sounded so juvenile right now. But could anyone blame her for trying to look for an ally? Luis was gone; Leon’s life was literally between life and death right now, and the last human that didn’t want to kidnap or kill her was just going to leave all by herself.
The sides of the woman’s mouth quirk up into an almost smile. She breathes out a short laugh. “Fair, huh? You’d do well to learn the definition of that word.” She steps away from them, ready to swing the door open. With one hand on Leon's chair, Ashley reaches out another beseechingly to the woman.
“Miss—”
“It’s Ada. See you around, Ashley Graham.”
She watches Ada push and disappear through the heavy steel doors, the sound of her boots swallowed up by the thick outer material. Ashley lays her head on the arm of the chair, feeling more exhausted than ever before her life. And yet, she mouths the woman's name silently in the quiet of the lab.
Should she had tried to convince her more? Was there something she should have said? If Leon was awake, would the situation have changed?
Ashley closes her eyes and imagines a sun rising from a stripe of crimson from horizon, banishing their long and frightening night.
+++
Ada feels sick. It’s Raccoon City all over again.
After creating some space between the underground lab and herself, Ada allows herself to sink next to a wall and let her brain do some catch up.
Leon, unconscious and hurt. Ada, herself, chasing after a little vial of something deadly. Nothing seems like
But the girl isn’t part of the story. Wasn't supposed to be.
Ada couldn’t protect Leon from Annette’s bullet. She had to escape into the darkness of the sewer and leave him half-dead. This time—
This time, things are different. (Didn't Leon say that?) (And are they, really?)
She did her homework, so seeing the girl wasn't all that surprising. Ashley Graham, twenty years old, First Daughter, a sophomore in college. Everything Ada isn’t. And here Ada finds her, hovering over Leon’s body, praying Sera’s research will perform a second miracle in the bowels of an island from Hell. For a First Daughter, her expectations meeting her made her envision the 2004 equivalent of meeting Leon from 1998: a teary eyed, nervous, shivering, tall child. Someone who is too trusting; too ready to believe in the goodness in people.
Yet Ada had to admit she was she didn't expect the unadulterated nativity even Leon didn't have. She looked Ada in the eye and said, sincerely, “It’s only fair we all leave here together.” It took everything Ada had to bite back a laugh. The poor girl. She hasn’t seen all the evils of the world, yet. She’ll soon go back to her little nest and this will eventually be a nothing more but a nightmare.
As it happens, their shared nightmare is Ada's reality. She will survive, and so will Leon. They will play their roles once again until the master that feeds will tug them back into the endless cycle of fighting—and perpetuating—bioterrorism. Ashley Graham is not a part of that world. And she wants to talk about what's fair.
She’s not jealous of her, nor is she angry at the notions the girl holds. Letting herself breath for a second in the dim lighting, she swallows down that nauseous feeling. Could she be feeling...relief? Perhaps a form of gratuity someone can do what she couldn’t six years ago. Time is turning itself back and she’s watching things play out differently. Leon will wake up with someone next to him and a genuine chance at happy ending. Well, a chapter in his life that can end happily instead of with the bitter aftertaste of betrayal.
Ada wonders what she should have done back there as she makes her way out from the steel catacombs. What if, for a second, she took up Ashley’s request and the two waited until Leon came to, sitting side by side. Maybe they'd make small talk. How'd it feel to have a parasite inside you about to kill you? She imagined Leon’s reaction to their brand new partnership as Ashley explained everything; too caught up in her newfound infatuation to notice Leon being pissed (and for a good reason). To be honest, she’s not much into teasing him right now. She thinks she’d be too distracted by Ashley’s bright, bright eyes, still full of unbreakable trust, to deal with Leon's attitude.
At the end of the day, she’ll take responsibility for robbing that twenty-year-old rookie cop of his ability to trust people. She lied about everything, even if her personal morals complicated things a bit. And six years later, she still yearns for that naivety: the innate belief human goodness exists, and why she felt they way she did about Leon then. Ada thinks of Ashley’s eyes: strong, but tender. “It’s only fair we all leave together.” She still wants that kind of world to exist, even for a second. Maybe that's why she regrets not taking up an offer that would grant her a little penance, for a time.
A selfish part of Ada would like to see that brilliance again. That selfish part should have stayed with them in the lab, keeping Ashley company. But for now there is only the company of Ada's beating heart and the reminder to complete her mission, no matter what.