Work Text:
30 Days of Prompts, Day 4:
Character Awakes Wearing a Strange Hat
Leon awakes unable to move his head without the electrodes pulling at his hair and skin painfully. It’s definitely not the worst way he’s ever woken up, but it does serve to remind him of the last seventy-two hours. He hopes that Ashley isn’t alone while she, no doubt, goes through the same tests they’re running on him.
She’d proved herself to be strong. She’d even saved him and he’d been being completely honest when he’d told her that she didn’t need him to keep her safe. But that doesn’t make what they’ve both experienced any less traumatic. He knows well enough that once you’re out of the situation, no longer having to fight just to survive, sometimes what you’ve been through is all you can think about.
But for now, he’s exhausted. He has no idea how long he’s been out, but it’s all he can do to keep his eyes open. As sleep takes him again, he absently wonders when he’ll be released.
The answer turns out to be several days later, after repeated blood tests and observation. Luckily, the electrodes get removed quickly.
He spends his time in isolation trying to write his report, hopeful that once it’s down on paper he’ll be able to move on and forget what happened in Spain. The feel of the plaga inside him, old faces, Luis’ death and having to kill his mentor.
A few days in he receives a phone call from the President and an invitation to the White House. He’d turn it down if he could, but he’s pretty sure it’s all already been arranged.
He doesn’t sleep much after the first day or two, having developed an uneasy feeling about medical facilities since Raccoon City, and he hardly interacts with anyone, outside the personnel assigned to monitor him.
There’s one more debriefing, which takes the best part of a day, before they sign him off active duty and assign him a counsellor. He’s reassured it’s just standard practice, and he’ll be reinstated pending a psychiatric evaluation. He’s pretty sure it’s just for show, especially when he’s then offered a shower and a change of clothes and is whisked off to the White House.
He’s glad to finally be back in his own apartment, even if it isn’t much of a step up from the facility, given how plain it still is. He’s not here often enough, given how punishing his work for USSTRATCOM has been.
He stows the groceries he picked up, after asking the agent driving him home to drop him at a nearby convenience store and goes to bed. And that’s when the nightmares start. He can still feel the Plaga wiggling around inside of him, devouring him from inside out. Taking over. And in his dreams the Plaga wins. He becomes a slave to it. He can’t save Ashley and he is the one who brings her back to the US, helps the infection to spread.
It had always been in the back of his mind that maybe he was still infected. The screen had been blank when he came round after all. But now it’s all he can think about. He can’t sleep and his appetite is virtually non-existent. He can’t leave the house, too afraid that he might turn. He calls in sick and gets his counseling sessions moved to the following week.
As much as he tries to stay awake, he must fall asleep at some point as he wakes to the sound of a ringing phone. He answers it on autopilot.
“Kennedy.”
It turns out to be Claire. He must sound as bad as he feels as she calls him out and tells him she’ll be right over. She puts the phone down before he can even argue.
When she arrives an hour or so later Leon lets her in and then retreats back to the couch. He doesn’t want to, not really. He’s afraid he might be dangerous, still infected. But he also doesn’t want a fuss, and really he’s just tired. Tired of being so scared and alone.
She has with her a pan of frozen lasagna (courtesy of her brother), chicken noodle soup and crackers and a six pack of beer.
“When was the last time you ate?” Claire asks as she stows the lasagna and beer, clearly thinking better of offering him one.
Leon shrugs as she puts the soup in the microwave. She frowns at him, but he doesn’t say anything and looks away, examining his fingernails that have been bitten down to the quick.
While the soup is heating up, she opens the blinds in the kitchen and curtains in the other areas. She cracks a couple of windows slightly.
She puts the soup and crackers on the coffee table in front of him and plops down in the recliner to the left.
“Eat,” she instructs, leaving little room for argument. Leon looks at the food. He feels his stomach turn. He can’t shake the image of the cooking pot for a moment. The one back in the hunter’s lodge. He blinks a few times and the soup looks normal again.
He can feel the weight of Claire’s gaze, so he picks up a cracker. He kind of just turns it in his hands.
“Leon,” Claire begins softly.
He looks over and sees she’s sitting on the edge of the recliner, closer but still giving him space.
“Did something happen?” She asks.
Leon knows he technically isn’t meant to discuss mission specifics. But he’s exhausted, fed up of going in circles in his mind, and he feels like Claire might understand more than any therapist he has to talk to.
“I was infected.” It’s out before he can even really fully think about it. “I was given the all clear,” he adds quickly, turning to look at Claire.
But there’s no fear or revulsion, nor pity. Just sympathy.
“Let me give you something,” she says gently and Leon realises she’s waiting for him to accept, giving him a choice.
“OK,” he agrees, after a moment.
“You should eat,” she tells him as she opens her bag, noticing that he’s still holding the cracker. She watches until he takes a nibble.
A silence stretches out between them, broken only by the scratch of pen on paper. Leon feels a little lighter, despite the worry still being there. The panic is just out of reach, but it’ll be back again later, he knows.
“Here,” Claire interrupts his slow nibbles of the cracker to sit next to him. She hands him a piece of notepaper. “These are Jill and Chris’ phone numbers.”
“Jill Valentine? The ex-S.T.A.R.S. member? And your brother’s?”
“Yep,” Claire nods, popping the ‘p,’ “Jill was infected in Raccoon City. If anyone knows what it’s like to be infected, she does. And if you can’t talk to me, maybe you can talk to Chris?” She pauses for a moment, “You shouldn’t have to be alone. You’re not,” She adds a second later.
Leon sits for a moment and thinks about that as he stares at the paper. He doesn’t have the heart to tell Claire that being infected by the T-Virus and a Plaga are completely different. But he feels touched, he guesses, by Claire’s gesture. Some kind of warmth he thought he had lost spreading inside him, even if he doesn’t know whether he’ll truly reach out to Jill or Chris.
Claire sits with him until it begins to get dark. She tells him about the new bike she’s working on, and TerraSave. An organisation she’s thinking of joining to help those whose lives have been affected by Bioterror. Leon would rather her be out of harm's way, but he’s got no room to talk and it does seem somewhat less dangerous in theory.
He manages to finish the soup and a couple of crackers. It sits heavily in his stomach after she’s left and he’s left alone again with his thoughts. He sits for a while, then sighs and picks up the note paper Claire gave him. He doesn’t have to be alone, not if he doesn’t want to.
He makes a call.