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The apartment smelled like stale alcohol, rain, and something burnt that had been forgotten on the stove hours ago.
The lights were low, the kind of dim that felt less romantic and more like hiding. Curtains half-drawn, city glow bleeding through in sickly orange streaks across the walls. Bottles lined the coffee table like silent witnesses, some empty, some half-finished, condensation pooling beneath them.
Leon sat slumped on the couch, jacket discarded on the floor, tie long gone, shirt collar open and wrinkled. His head rested back against the cushions, eyes half-lidded, glass dangling loosely from his fingers. The TV flickered without sound, meaningless images washing over him.
He didn’t look like a hero anymore. Just tired. So, so tired.
The knock at the door didn’t register at first. Then it came again — sharper this time. Leon grimaced, dragging a hand down his face. “Go away,” he muttered to no one in particular, voice rough with disuse.
The door opened anyway. He straightened just enough to look and froze. Rebecca stood in the doorway first, still neat, still professional, still infuriatingly composed. She had that soft-but-firm look she always got when she was about to dig her heels in and refuse to back down.
And behind her — Ashley. Older now, but unmistakably her. Hair pulled back, expression cautious, eyes already flicking around the apartment, taking everything in with quiet concern.
For a heartbeat, the room was suspended. Then Leon surged to his feet too fast, nearly knocking the glass from his hand. “Rebecca — what the hell?” His voice snapped like a whip. “What is she doing here?”
Ashley flinched at the tone, but didn’t step back.
Rebecca didn’t budge an inch. “You weren’t answering my calls.”
“I was busy.” His gaze flicked to Ashley again, something tightening in his chest. “You don’t bring her into this. You don’t — you don’t drag her into my mess.”
Ashley finally stepped forward, shutting the door behind her. Her eyes lingered on the bottles, then back to him. “…You look like shit,” she said quietly — not cruel, just honest.
Leon let out a bitter huff of a laugh. “Charming as ever.” He turned his glare back to Rebecca. “You had no right.”
Rebecca crossed her arms, not unkind, but unmoving. “I had every right when you stopped being honest with anyone — including yourself.”
He scoffed. “Don’t play therapist.”
“I’m not playing anything,” she shot back. “You’re burning out. You’re drinking yourself into a grave. And you’re convincing yourself you don’t matter anymore.”
That hit. Harder than any bullet. Leon’s jaw tightened. “I’m fine.”
Ashley looked at him — really looked — and her voice softened. “You’re not.”
He looked away from her, suddenly unable to hold her gaze.
Rebecca exhaled slowly. “I called her because you listen to her in ways you don’t listen to me. Because she knows what you went through in a way almost no one else does.”
Leon snapped his attention back to her, anger flaring like a spark in dry tinder. “And what if seeing me like this hurts her? Did you think about that?”
Ashley stepped closer before Rebecca could answer. “I came because I wanted to,” she said gently. “Not because she made me.”
Leon swallowed, tension rolling through his shoulders. His anger deflated, leaving only something raw and exhausted in its wake.
He sank back onto the couch, running a hand through his hair. “I’m just… tired,” he muttered — not to them, not really. To the air, to the ghosts that lingered in every corner of his life. “I keep helping. And it never ends. It never gets better. People just… keep dying.”
The room fell quiet. Ashley sat beside him slowly, careful, like approaching a wounded animal. “You saved me,” she said softly. “That mattered.”
Leon let out a shaky breath, staring down at his hands. “Sometimes I don’t even know if that’s enough anymore.”
Rebecca’s voice cut in, steadier now. “That’s exactly why this was necessary.”
Ashley didn’t argue. The room stayed heavy — that peculiar kind of quiet that isn’t calm, just held together by tension. Rebecca leaned against the kitchen counter now, arms crossed, eyes never leaving him. She didn’t look angry. Frustrated, yes — but underneath it was something softer, something that clearly came from years of knowing him.
“You act like everything you’ve done just… vanished,” she said, voice steady. “Like the world didn’t change because you were in it.”
Leon stared into the half-empty glass in his hand. The amber liquid caught the dim light, swirling sluggishly when he shifted his wrist. He didn’t look up. “People change,” he muttered. “Monsters change. The jobs don’t.”
Ashley sat beside him, close enough that he could feel the warmth of her presence. She wasn’t touching him — not yet — just there, solid, real, not a memory or another mission report.
Rebecca pushed off the counter and took a few careful steps toward them. “You’ve stopped outbreaks before they even made the news. You’ve pulled people out of places most agents would’ve run from. You’ve saved cities — plural — that will never even know your name.”
A bitter huff escaped him. “Yeah,” Leon said dryly. “That’s the problem.”
Ashley’s brows knit together. “What do you mean?”
He finally looked at her, really looked — and the exhaustion in his face was stark. There were lines there that hadn’t been when she last saw him, shadows under his eyes that no amount of sleep could fix. “Nobody knows,” he said quietly. “And nobody’s supposed to.”
Rebecca’s expression softened, but she didn’t let him off the hook. “You knew that going in.”
“Doesn’t make it easier,” he shot back, sharper than he meant to. Silence stretched between them again, broken only by the faint hum of traffic outside. Leon leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, glass dangling loosely between his hands. His voice dropped, raw in a way he almost never allowed. “You spend your life dragging people out of hell,” he said, eyes fixed on the floor. “You watch them go home, hug their families, move on. And you’re left standing in the ashes. Again. And again. And no one ever turns around.”
Ashley’s breath hitched. Rebecca inhaled slowly. “You don’t do this for applause, Leon.”
“I know,” he snapped — then softer, “I know. But I’m human, Rebecca. I get tired of being invisible.”
Ashley shifted beside him, finally resting her hand gently on his forearm. The touch was tentative, careful — not pity, just presence. “I saw you,” she said quietly. He glanced at her. “I saw what you did. I saw what you gave up. I saw how scared you were and how you kept going anyway.” Her voice wavered but didn’t break. “And I’ve never stopped being grateful.”
Leon swallowed, jaw tightening.
Rebecca stepped closer now, lowering her voice. “You think saving millions means nothing because no one writes your name on a monument. But those people are alive because of you. Their kids are alive because of you. Their futures exist because you didn’t walk away.”
He looked away again, but his shoulders sagged — the fight draining out of him. Ashley squeezed his arm, just once. “You’re not alone in that anymore.”
For a moment, Leon didn’t respond. Then his breath trembled on the exhale, and he set the glass down. Rebecca watched him carefully, hope flickering behind her eyes. “You don’t have to carry this by yourself,” she said gently.
Leon leaned back against the couch cushions, staring up at the dim ceiling. The bitterness was still there — but so was something else now, fragile and unfamiliar. “…I don’t even know how to stop,” he admitted.
Ashley didn’t let go of his arm. And in that quiet, cluttered apartment, with rain beginning to tap against the windows, neither of them rushed him to have the answer. The rain thickened against the windows, a steady drum that filled the apartment with soft, restless sound.
“Leon…” she said softly, voice low enough that it felt private, even with Rebecca in the room. “I know you’re tired. I can see it. Anyone could.” Her gaze flicked briefly to the bottles, then back to his face — not judgmental, just honest. “But this?” She nodded toward the glass she’d moved. “This isn’t going to save you. It’s not going to quiet anything in your head. It just… takes more from you.”
His throat worked as he swallowed. “I thought losing you back then would be the worst thing that could happen,” she continued gently. “But watching you slowly disappear like this might be worse.”
Rebecca shifted where she stood, folding her arms loosely, quiet now — not intervening, just observing. There was something careful in her eyes, like she knew this moment belonged to Ashley.
Leon dragged a hand down his face, thumb pressing into the bridge of his nose. “You don’t understand,” he murmured, voice rough. “I don’t know how to be anything but this anymore.”
Ashley tilted her head, studying him with that same determined compassion she’d shown on the White House lawn all those years ago. “You don’t have to stop being who you are,” she said. “You just don’t have to destroy yourself to be him.”
A faint, humorless breath left him — almost a laugh, almost a sob. She reached for his hand this time, lacing her fingers loosely through his, just there. “People love you, Leon. You might not believe that, but it’s true.” Her voice wavered, but she steadied it. “Rebecca. Me. Other people you’ve helped who don’t even know how to find you. We didn’t just move on and forget.”
His gaze lifted to hers at that. Rebecca finally spoke, softer now. “She’s right. You’re not invisible to everyone.”
Ashley squeezed his hand once. “You saved my life. You changed it. You changed me. And I’m still here. I didn’t disappear.”
For a long moment, Leon said nothing. His shoulders trembled once, barely noticeable. Then, slowly, he leaned back against the couch cushions again — not defeated this time, just… weary in a different way. Less sharp, less self-punishing. “I don’t know how to fix this,” he admitted quietly.
Ashley didn’t let go of his hand. “You don’t have to fix everything tonight,” she replied, voice warm, steady. “Just… don’t leave me fighting for you alone.”
Across the room, Rebecca’s expression softened — not triumphant, just relieved. She watched as Leon’s grip on Ashley’s hand tightened ever so slightly in return.
Outside, thunder rolled in the distance.
Inside, amid the mess and the memory and the weight of too many ghosts, Leon didn’t reach for the bottle again.
And for the first time in a long while, that was enough.