Work Text:
Ashley stared down at the piano, looking at the black and white keys. She knew there were 88 of them. There were 52 white keys, and 36 black. She knew that each key matched a note. She knew that multple notes formed a chord. She knew where to place her fingers to make music happen instead of harried dissonance. She'd known this all her life.
The problem was that now, she didn't know what to do with that life.
She could remember her kidnapping vividly, as though it had happened to her just yesterday. She could remember the morbid smell of los ganados as their flesh rotted with la plaga. She could remember her skin itch as she was slowly infected with it, the way she started to lose control of her body, the way she gripped the knife so tightly in her hands, so easily willing to kill for just that moment. She could feel that disgust clear as day even all these years later. But what she remembered most vividly was him.
Leon Kennedy had come to her rescue. He'd jumped off a roof with her and that was the end. She was madly in love with her savior from that moment on. And while they were in Spain, they'd grown close. She'd flirted, and he'd maintained most of his professionalism, though she was graced by the occasional flirty response to her. He'd gotten her home safe, back to her parents, to the White House, and she thought that would be the end of her little fantasy. But when he'd come back to DC to take her out, to see how she was doing, her fantasy survived. She had 21 years of that fantasy with him.
Until one day it was all ripped away.
She'd seen it first. When she'd gone to kiss him, there was a splotch of black against his neck. She'd tried to brush it off, assuming it was dirt or even oil from his bike, but it didn't come off. And within a few hours, it had grown bigger. He'd gotten a call from Sherry. She had a dark spot spreading along her hand. Others from Raccoon City were reporting similar symptoms.
Then, there had been the first death.
Sherry had sent him the address, he'd grabbed his to-go bag from his closet, donned his harness, packed his guns, and kissed Ashley goodbye.
"I love you."
It was the same thing he said before every mission, the same thing he'd said on their wedding day, the same thing he said to her over and over again, countless times every day he was with her, and in text when he wasn't. But this time, she could hear a slight tremble in his voice, something that was wrong with the very way he spoke the words. It wasn't a promise to return and watch mindless tv on the couch with her as a way to destress after a mission. It was a goodbye.
Ashley knew she needed both hands to play the piano in front of her. It was always one of her most calming hobbies, and she needed that right now. But to do that, she had to stop clutching her chest whenever she breathed in or out. It hurt too much, but she knew she had to loosen the fist she had on her shirt. She had to take that breath, no matter how painful. Every breath was painful now.
The doorbell had rung in the early hours of the morning. She'd sprung up from her bed and frozen. It was already in the back of her mind. She thought about this moment every time he went out on a mission. The doorbell rang again, and she managed to shuffle her feet until she reached the door. Two men in suits with DSO patches on their arm stood in front of her.
"Mrs. Kennedy?"
They didn't have to say a word. Bile immediately rose up her throat, and her legs collapsed beneath her. She'd never been much of a religious person, but she prayed in that moment, prayed so hard that they were here to say he left something important behind. Or that he was injured and they were coming to bring her to his side.
"I'm so sorry."
She thought she'd screamed before. Back in Spain, she'd screamed again and again as hard as she could as fear had overtaken every part of her body. But the scream she let out wasn't anything like Spain. It was her feeling the muscles in her heart tearing into two, splitting down her chest and causing her to stop breathing.
Even now, she could remember him hovering over her shoulder, giving her a light squeeze and whispering "play for me" into her ear whenever she would sit down to practice. Sometimes, he'd sit beside her on the bench just to watch the way her hands fluttered across the keys. Sometimes, he'd sit on the couch with his feet up and his eyes closed. But no matter where he was, he was always listening.
Could he hear her now?
The next day, she'd been driven to the DSO office nearby, one she'd been to several times to see Leon on his lunch breaks. Going in there for the first time without him felt wrong. As wrong as everything else. Her legs were lead as she trudged inside, trying so hard to keep her mind calm and focused.
She was led into a conference room with a young girl sitting alone at a long table, short blonde hair framing her face. She looked up, but there was no hint of a smile, not even one to be polite.
"I-I'm Grace. I was with Leon when he... well, they said you have clearance to know what happened to him, and I thought you deserved to know. I-if you want to, that is."
Ashley had taken the seat across from her. "Leave nothing out."
She'd regretted saying that. She'd spent the entire meeting with her hands pressed against her face as tears streamed down her cheeks as Grace described everything about the end. How he'd fought for her until he couldn't stand. How he'd saved her with his last ounce of strength. His last words. How he'd knelt in front of Zeno as he was shot in the face like some sort of animal.
By the end of the day, she had a prescription from her doctor to calm her down.
She tapped a key. She didn't care which key, she just needed her hands to move. If he could hear her now, God, she could hear his laughter in her ear, how he'd be making fun of her for her inability to play when she was a master. He'd tease her that she'd lost her magic touch. She'd tease him that she knew exactly what her magic touch could do to him. He'd scoff in a challenge.
It took her a few long seconds to compose herself, because his laughter was only in her mind, a faded figment of what she used to hear. Something she'd never hear again.
She stopped and pulled out her phone, scrolling through her photos until she found a video they'd taken together lying in bed one morning. He'd become more than tolerant of her obsession with photos, and barely shied away from her camera anymore. He laughed with her as he complained that it was too early in the morning for her to be so chipper. Despite his work hours, he was a night owl, and loved to sleep in.
She went to the next video: him drinking a cup of coffee while she told him a joke. He laughed and coffee spewed from his mouth unceremoniously as he tried to catch the spillage in his palm. He cursed playfully at her and grabbed a paper towel off the rack to clean it up. Tears were already spilling down her cheeks, but she needed to hear his voice more than the pain it caused her to watch the videos.
And it was painful. Worse than las plagas had ever physically done to her.
She scrolled back a bit further in her phone, needing to remember why she was still here, why she wasn't able to just curl up on the couch and cry until she met him again.
Ashley stopped at a photo of Leon asleep on a couch, a small baby in his arms, also asleep.
When they'd first gotten together, they'd agreed that they didn't need to have children. Leon's work was stressful with odd hours that sometimes called him away for weeks at a time, and Ashley was just starting her career. But two years later, they changed their minds and Leon had decided that there was someone else worth saving the world for.
They'd both sit by the piano and he'd rest his hand on her leg while she played, her hand sometimes stopping to drift down to her stomach. She said the baby always calmed down when she played. And it was true when he was born, too.
A fussy baby, one who took after his father, he'd cry and whine and scream until Leon would bring him over to the piano. He'd taken time off from work and was with her every day in the early days. He'd bought a rocking chair where he'd sit while Ashley played. Sometimes, the baby stared wide-eyed. Sometimes, he fell asleep.
When he got older, he and his sister would sit on the floor while she played, Leon lying flat on his stomach with a cutting edge RC sports car for their son to drive around, and the rest of his attention on a set of blocks their daughter was working hard to stack. When she would turn around, she couldn't even fathom how her three loves all fit inside her heart without it bursting.
One was flying home from college now, and the other was in her room, refusing to come out. Ashley knew how she felt.
Fingers pressed down against the keys once again, only this time, an actual melody sounded, one she'd played many times before. She didn't want to play it, it was almost as though something inside her was forcing her to play it. When she played it, she could see his face. A song she'd written just for him coming back to haunt her.
"When can I bury him?" she'd asked the DSO.
They'd hesitated, unsure what to tell her for a long moment before one of them said, "The remains we found are currently evidence. I'm afraid we cannot let you take him home."
"You have his body. When can I see him?"
Again, they faltered. "We can't have anyone unauthorized contaminate the evidence until it's been processed. Besides, you don't want to see him like this, Mrs. Kennedy. Keep his memory pure in your mind."
She'd wanted to scream, to rage, to hit things until her knuckles bled. She wanted to scream at Grace, to berate her for not forcing Leon to safety. She wanted to curse him for leaving her behind, to hit him until she felt the rage leave her. She wasn't just sad, she was furious. He knew he was dying. He could have come home to die, to give them all a chance to say goodbye, but he'd saved Grace instead.
Some of her rage simmered down. Of course he did. That was who he was. That was why she loved him. It was torture to love someone so selfless, but she'd agreed to those terms years ago. Now, she had to live with the consequences of his bravery.
Two days after hearing the news, she'd heard worse news: Sherry had also succumb to her infection. Sherry, the girl Leon treated like a daughter. The girl who frequented their house for dinner with the family. It was too much for Ashley to bear. Too many losses too close together.
Two days after that, she'd gathered both her children and gone to a restaurant, Italian food, one of Leon's favorites. They ordered one meal to go.
When they got home, their son decided to go into the closet and grab one of his father's jackets. He rarely took it off. Their daughter took one, too, an oversized coat that looked silly on her much smaller frame. She wore it anytime there was even the slightest chill in the air.
They'd both worn the jackets to the funeral. There was no body, only a tombstone that Ashley had ordered that the DSO paid for.
A year after she'd been told the news of her husband's death, Ashley received another knock on her door. She couldn't possibly fathom what it could be. So, when two DSO agents stood outside, she wondered what worse news they could possibly deliver?
Instead, they handed her an urn.
"Our investigation was completed. Because of the unknown nature of the virus that killed Raccoon City survivors, we had to have him cremated. But we didn't want you to wait a moment longer."
She was handed a folded flag, a plaque with Leon's name on it, his ashes, and his wedding ring. They told her how he was being honored at the DSO, a hero who died in their service. One of their best agents to ever work the field.
That gave her comfort. It was relieving to know that they recognized him, that he wasn't an unnamed soldier for them to dispose of, that they remembered what he'd done for the world. How he'd saved the world countless times over. How his involvement with them had led her to her most precious people, and because of them had given her years worth of memories and experiences.
She took the ring from them last, rolling it around in her palm. She had a gold chain in her room that she immediately decided she would thread the ring through, wearing it close to her heart. She set the urn down on the table, needing to clear out a space for it to be properly displayed.
But for now, she needed to calm herself down. So, she sat at her piano, and played Leon's song once again.