Chapter Text
Fighting Primal
The smell of Espresso and Cigarette smoke permeated the air of the dingy Boston Commons Coffee shop. The coffee being served was burnt, the barista stood at the back of their kitchen area neglecting their job in favor of talking up some sorority girl, and the Spiced Chai in Ashley Graham’s mug had gone cold almost twenty minutes ago.
Rose-tinted shades distorted Ashley’s already foggy vision, but her discretion was preferable to comfort. A few too many times there had been a passing glance in her direction. The looks of people trying to remember why this random girl in a random coffee shop looked so familiar. It didn’t help that her face had been plastered on the front pages of every newspaper and article headline across the United States. Even with a few months passing by the world had not forgotten those tense days of swirling rumors about the kidnapping of the President’s Daughter. Her homecoming had been one of the most tumultuous events in her life. From the dark and dimly lit corridors of medieval castles to the flashing lights of a White House newsroom in only a matter of days had Ashley’s head swimming in ways she never thought possible. To think two completely different ways of life were only an ocean away…
There had been dreams. Nightmares, more accurately. Scenes of gore and bloodshed crossing her every path, she would find herself fleeing from the hounding footsteps of dozens of angry villagers all yelling obscenities at her, eager to serve her to that creep in the robes, Saddler. They were all different somehow. Some of the dreams had her running through a dark forest with animal carcasses and strung up sacrifices to Las Plagas all around her. One of them had her locked in a freezer with a Regenerador, its blade-like teeth dripping in anticipation to sink into her.
But all of them had one solid, terrifying constant.
Leon.
She had seen visions of Leon dying to the hands of the Los Illuminados cultists time and time again in her restless dreams. Sometimes it was quick, the spinning blade of a scythe beheading him quickly, his body slumping to the ground in a puddle of blood. Others had his eyes gouged out, blades dragged through his neck, or his body torn asunder. Things she knew would never happen, but the violence and bloodshed she was now aware of never seemed to leave her be. Something had to change, and it was going to start here.
The bell over the door tingled and allowed some of the cigarette smoke wafting at the ceiling to be let out. At the door there he stood, just the man she had been waiting for. Ashley reached a hand up to grab his attention and called out to him.
“Parker, I’m over here.”
The man… more a boy really, beamed at the sight of Ashley Graham. “Ash! It’s good to see you!” His arms reached out for her for an embrace, but the only response his fellow college classmate gave was a firm hand outreached to him. His happy demeanor faltered for a second. He took the hand given and gave a gracious shake.
Parker Matthews wasn’t an unattractive man, it was fair to say that he was quite handsome actually. His hair flowed back and out of a black beanie, accentuated by the black and blue checkered scarf he was so fond of around his neck. He filled his navy blue autumn jacket well, tailored to perfection and ready for any social call.
Ashley smiled at him as he sat down at the table with her, finally taking off her shades to look at him more clearly. “Hey Parker, I’m glad you got my text. I had a hard time getting approved contacts into my new phone.”
“Listen, it's no trouble. I totally get it. Seems rough having to get back into the swing of things, new security measures too?” Parker’s eyes darted around the cafe almost expecting men in black to surround him. Ashley couldn't help but smile at the silly display. “I mean, it’s been like, what, two months give or take? I’m surprised you’re allowed to be out here like this already.”
A quick hiss shot through Ashley’s teeth, her eyes tensing up in an almost imperceptible way. Parker knew what that look meant though. “No fuckin’ way… Ashley Graham is playing hooky from her security detail?”
“Keep your mouth shut!” She hissed sharply, looking to see if anyone overheard. “It’s only for an hour or two, I’m due back at home at sundown. So just, let me say what I need to say.”
Parker's face softened and nodded at the young woman. Ashley’s fists crumpled at her skirt underneath the table, a deep breath coming in through her nose, holding it, and finally out of her mouth. Tension held in her shoulders seemed to slip away.
“Parker?”
“Yeah Ash?”
“I’m breaking up with you.”
The lingering smell of burnt espresso passed through Ashley’s nostrils, briefly reminding her of the smell of corpses piled against a wooden spire and lit ablaze in the center of the Valdelobos village, embers and soot raining into her hair as she followed Leon through a crowd of bloodthirsty villagers.
“Ashley! Down!”
The command had hit her like a brick, her knees immediately buckling as her hands came to the floor, almost face planting into the begrimed dirt. The blast of Leon’s 12 Gauge W-870 had her hands coming over her ears in pain, before the tight grip of a hand reached her arm and pulled her to her feet.
She almost fought the aggressive hold, before another command broke through her ringing ears.
“Ashley! Move it, now!”
“O-Ok!”
The next few moments felt like a blur as rain poured down around them, the distinct sound of glass shattering as Leon led her through a broken window to get past the debris blocking the way to their extraction point.
The sounds of a pistol being fired rang out behind her as she climbed through, her ears ringing violently only after a few shots. She felt the weight of something crashing beside her, turning to see Leon in the motion of rolling out of the window away from the Villagers attacking them. “Down off the roof, go!”
“G-got it!”
Leon had told her that her father trusted him. Now she needed to trust him too, and to do exactly what he said. She scrambled down the ledge to find purchase against the wall, using broken beams and piles of debris to climb down as she watched Leon effortlessly leap from the top of the roof and roll, pistol at the ready as soon as he had hit the ground.
“Whoa…”
“Come on, we gotta cross through the windmill. Extraction’s this way.” He holstered his pistol and raised his shotgun, loading more shells into the feed and racking the slide in preparation. She followed as she felt the adrenaline of the chase fading from her skin. As her nerves calmed and she fell into step behind the agent, a huff blew past her lips.
“Ugh… definitely gonna catch a cold…”
“What?”
Ashley blinked twice as the present came back to her, the young man in front of her sitting still with eyes wide.
“I’m breaking up with you. I can tell that things aren’t going to work out. Too much has changed.” She felt a firmness in her voice that she’d only found recently. “I… I don’t want to be with you anymore.”
Parker was stunned into silence at the declaration. His mouth seemed to open and close as if to speak, only to cut himself off over and over. Using the opportunity, Ashley continued.
“It’s nothing you did or didn’t do, Parker. You’ve always been someone I can trust and rely on.” Her hand reached into a jacket pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, a document from the desk of the U.S. Secret Service. On it were the names of almost a dozen of her classmates and staff, all having a role in unraveling her kidnapping case. Alongside of the dossier was a photograph paperclipped onto the corner, a picture of her as a matter of fact. She gave a mousey grin towards the camera, and to her right side only barely cut out of the picture was Parker himself. She didn't want to hurt him. She only knew that he wasn't who she wanted to be with anymore.
“I can’t thank you enough for getting word to my dad that something was wrong. You helped save my life…”
Words finally found hold on Parker’s lips. “Ash…”
“My name is Ashley.”
The snap came forward much louder than she had intended. A few sets of eyes turned to watch the two now publicly trading words. The damage had been done, and Ashley was not about to apologize for it.
“My name is Ashley, Parker. Not Ash.”
The boy was smart enough to look sorry. “Ashley… I know things have been rough. I can’t… I don’t want to imagine what hell you went through out there.”
She felt her insides turn inside out as radiation surged through her, purging the Las Plagas parasite from within her.
“But… you don’t need to go through all of this all alone. I want to be there for you, to help you through whatever it is. Doing this alone isn’t the way to do things.”
Ashley sobbed into her scarf quietly and shook against the dusty old couch. The room was illuminated, safe, and she was alone. She wouldn’t hurt anyone here. Feelings of complete hopelessness washed through her as the steadiness in her legs left her, only being held off the ground by Leon.
All she remembered next was a flash of cold steel against flesh, and the point of a knife held against her neck.
“TEMPERANCE, CHILD.”
That voice wasn’t her’s.
That WASN’T her!
She couldn’t stop herself from digging the knife any deeper into her skin, and only dropped the knife onto the floor because whoever that was had let her do so. She had hurt Leon. She had almost hurt herself. So she did the only thing she could think to do.
She ran.
On the dusty couch she resigned herself to her fate. She wasn’t going to let anyone get close, not if it meant she could hurt them, or worse. That had been the plan, anyway. It had all changed when she saw the tell tale signs of the Plaga infection running up Leon’s bicep.
“You too?”
His nod in response wasn’t resigned or scared of the fact. It was a matter of fact. A simple affirmative. The oil lamps in the room flickered as the warm light washed over the both of them, Leon moving to take a seat next to her.
“It’s okay to be afraid you know.” The look in his eyes showed the burden of experience, a knowledge one could only know by going through the exact same thing. “But you can’t run. You got to keep moving forward.” He shifted slightly against the couch, inching closer towards Ashley. “We will beat this. Together.”
Everything in Ashley fought against his words. Fought to try and dispute anything he was saying to her. She slumped down onto the couch with a feeble response. “I don’t know if I can…”
“You can.” He cut her off before she could even take a breath, not letting her dwell on her doubt. Her mind raced back to those words in the church. She needed to trust Leon to get them out of here alive. She needed to trust him. She did trust him.
And of course, the most charming uncharming man had to rear his neck around again.
“Just, give me a heads up before you stab me next time, okay?”
Ashley gave a smile and nod at Parker as she stood from her seat, pressing her skirt out against her leggings. “Don’t worry about me Parker. I’m not alone.”
Her boots clicked against the wooden panel flooring as she made her way out into the crisp autumn air, brown leaves decaying and falling to the roads and sidewalks beneath her feet. Her rose-tinted shades came to her eyes once again as the sun began its early descent below the horizon. Throughout the "healing process", one of her therapist's had called it, using a universal constant to keep herself grounded had been something she had been trying to make use of. She'd been advised to use something like a family pet, a fond memory, or her favorite bookstore to go back to whenever the overwhelming terror began to claw at her at night.
Using those things only brought them with her to Saddler's Altar, tainting those happy moments she held close and bringing the terror with them. If those constants weren't able fight back against the monsters she carried ... then she needed to think of something that would be stronger than them. A fire in Ashley's cheeks and breast almost cowed her into forgetting what she was doing. This was what she wanted. Now she only needed to be brave enough to take it.
Brave like...
She pulled her phone out from her skirt pocket and dialed a number, waiting patiently as it rang. A startled voice answered from the other line.
“Ms. Graham! We’ve been looking across campus for you! Are you alright?!”
Her newest detail had been jumpy, near paranoid as she left their sight. Ashley supposed him being serious about his job wasn't such a bad thing. “I’m alright Dylan, just stopped at a cafe nearby, I’ll be back on campus right now.”
A relieved sigh huffed through her speaker. The relief was cut off as she continued speaking.
“I do need a favor though, think you can help me out with something?”
The response was confused. “I suppose I can Ms. Graham? What’s all this about?”
“I need a self-defense instructor.”
“I can get some of the finest instructors the Secret Service has on call for you tonight.”
She cut her jailer off with a hush. “No. I had someone specific in mind. I need you to get me in contact with him to see what he thinks.”
“Someone… specific?”
“Yes. Get me Leon.”