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When Leon first heard someone wanted to build a museum and memorial to the war on bioterrorism and its participants, he'd been convinced it would never come to fruition, but now he's standing here, and it's just...surreal. A shiny modern building, new and completely untouched with information displays, photos, glimmering plaques full of names, and statues.
They'd invited him to this opening day, he and a handful of BSAA members and others. A private showing just for them, and Leon has never felt this exact emotion as he drifts between the displays. Images of Raccoon City, both before and after the missile, make his heart clench. An informational display on different sorts of viruses makes him feel ill. There's a statue of his own likeness in one corner near a display about the development of the DSO that he utterly hates. The fact that they got his hair wrong, that it doesn't actually look that much like him, is a small mercy.
There's a small display about Valdelobos as well. He'd there would be. A photo of a plaga fossil. A few lines about Ashley's kidnapping and his involvement in her rescue. Even after so many years, much of what happened there is still classified. To one side is the thing he'd been both looking for and dreading. A list of casualties, of honored dead from that incident. There are only three points on it.
183 Spanish civilians. (Leon feels this, keeps the tally on his heart like every innocent he's lost, remembers too well how many of them he killed himself.)
Capt. Mike Stephenson, USSTRATCOM. (Leon swallows against the memory of raw helplessness as he'd watch the chopper go down, the knowledge that Mike was only there because Leon needed help.)
He takes a shuddery breath before he lets himself look at the last point.
Dr. Luis Serra Navarro.
It's been twenty years now, and Leon's throat still tightens just reading the name. Luis.
No one had wanted to include his name. Of course they hadn't. Not a one-time Umbrella employee, not the man whose research led to everything that happened in Valdelobos.
Leon refused to rest until they did. Leveraged everything he had, his own name and reputation, his own support for and involvement with the project. He wouldn't let them erase Luis or turn him into a villain. He was a complicated man, yes, but he was good in the end. He knew what was right and turned away from his past. He saved Leon and Ashley's lives.
And then there were the things Leon couldn't say. The things too personal. The way Luis had looked at him. The way Luis understood guilt unlike anyone else Leon has ever met. The way he saw it in Leon and spoke to him about it. The way Luis touched him like he was still worth something, spoke to him gently, called him sweet things. They'd known each other for two days, but it felt like so much more. Leon had never fallen so hard, so fast, and he doesn't expect to ever feel love like that again.
And then, of course, he'd watched Luis die. He'd knelt there, helpless, as his life drained from him, as life ripped yet another good thing from Leon's hands.
He still has nightmares about it.
"Hey. You okay?"
Leon flinches at Chris's soft voice at his shoulder, blinks back to reality to see his own fingers pressed against the shiny plaque, leaving fingerprints over Luis's name. Just like you did to me.
Leon sniffles, unashamed for once. "It's good to see him here," he says softly.
Chris nods, and Leon looks over to see his eyes are wet too. Leon had left him at the BSAA memorial wall earlier, knowing he was there for Piers, for Ethan, for so many others he's known and lost over the years. They've both lost so much to this war. The entire world has.
Leon wants to ask if it's worth it. It wouldn't be the first time. He's found himself with both answers as time passes, and he's not sure what he would say today. The loses feel choking, seeing them all here in this building. The innocent victims, the soldiers, the scientists, the agents, the freedom fighters. When does it stop?
But he thinks about Luis and he thinks about Chris and Piers and Ethan and the rest, and he knows they're good people, that there are still good people fighting, always will be. The war against bioterror isn't over yet. It may never be, and some days that knowledge is crushing, but it isn't lost.