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Mia Winters did not become who she is today without a lot of things to regret.
Joining a bio-terrorist organization. Lying to her husband for years. Choosing to get married for her cover story and picking Ethan Winters. Going on that one last mission with Eveline. Letting Eveline take such a hold over her. Cutting off Ethan's hand when he came to rescue her. Giving up Rose. Giving up her life over and over again only to end up alone with another fake smile on her face.
Did she regret all of those things? Not always, not all the time. But hers is not a story of happy endings, and she knows it.
She drags a paintbrush across her sketchbook in the middle of the night and then later that day laughs with coworkers over a stupid management decision. She talks her sobbing daughter out of another horrible nightmare and argues with a customer over the same phone, hours apart. She goes to dinner with the man who used to be her husband, their daughter, and the two highly trained agents sworn to kill things like them and they're happy—all three of them are happy—and she comes home and screams into her pillow.
There is no moving back. There is only moving forward.
Rose lights up when they meet up for their visits, babbling about school and everything and insisting they go shopping because she needs new jeans and no one else gets how annoying it is to try and buy new jeans. Chris helps her carry her new furniture upstairs when the moving company refuses to try without the elevator, grumbling about their lack of professionalism with her as they put it together. Even Leon, who she's never fully met, not properly, tosses her a bag of gummy candy the next time she's over for dinner because she's the only one who appreciates my taste in candy.
And Ethan…Ethan still smiles at her like that sometimes.
It's not often. He smiles at Rose like that. At Chris like that. At Leon like that. And sometimes that twists into her gut with all her other regrets and eats away at her like Eveline did until she can pull herself back out. He loves her, in some way, still, after everything, and she loves him in some way, still, after all of it. She realized he was right—"Mia, it's no use."—because he was always right when it came to stuff like them, the soft domestic side that she was never that good at, despite her masquerade as a babysitter, and bought a bottle of his favorite wine just to spite the memory of it.
She doesn't regret loving him. She doesn't think she ever could. No one regrets loving Ethan Winters, despite whatever it is he might believe.
She told Chris that when he and Leon dropped her back off after that first dinner.
"No one regrets loving Ethan," she'd said, staring at the only other person with an equal responsibility for getting her husband killed, "but don't make him regret loving you."
"He won't," Chris had replied, broken in a way that only she could understand, "that's not who he is."
"Chris."
He'd looked up at her. She'd stared back at him. Then he'd nodded, slow and solemn, and that twist in her cut coiled and relaxed in one breath. Then she'd looked at Leon and seen the same eyes that had been on the other side of that glass when they had that first horrible meeting. And she'd known. Of course she'd known. She'd married Ethan Winters, she knew what it looked like to be in love with him, because her eyes had never looked like that, not even in their wedding photos.
They could love Ethan the way she couldn't. And she couldn't bring herself to regret it.
"Ethan?"
Ethan looks up just as Chris drops onto the couch next to him, one arm around his shoulders, the other holding a glass of water. He sighs, letting his head rest against Chris. "Mm?"
"You've been glaring at the screen for close to an hour." His voice rumbles against Ethan's cheek. "Maybe it's time for a break."
"If I take a break now, it's not gonna get done today."
"Does it have to get done today?"
"It should."
"Mm, that's not a 'yes.'"
"Wait—no—" he fumbles after his laptop as Chris saves his work and takes it from his lap— "Chris…"
"You're getting all foggy-eyed again," Chris says as he puts his laptop on the coffee table, replacing it with the glass of water, "you're done for the day."
Ethan opens his mouth to retort, but he tries to have a sip of water first but then his body remembers that it hasn't had water in many hours and suddenly he's trying to chug the whole glass without stopping. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots Chris with an expression somewhere between smug and bewildered and he doesn't hesitate to glare when the glass is empty.
"Don't."
"I didn't say anything."
"Just don't."
Chris raises his hands in surrender. Ethan stares at him for a few more seconds before letting himself slump back against the couch, pinching the bridge of his nose with a groan.
"Headache?"
"No."
"You sure? 'Cause that's the face you make when you've got a headache."
"If you think I have a headache, shouldn't you not be talking so loud?"
Chris just chuckles and takes the empty glass from his hand, replacing it with a bottle that rattles when Ethan sits up. He opens his eyes and blinks at the painkillers.
"Huh?"
"Headache." Chris nudges him. "Take two."
Ethan, stunned, does as he's told. Chris replaces the bottle with another glass of water—when did he have time to go get that?—and then puts a hand on the back of Ethan's neck and—oh.
"Wha…?"
"Shh," Chris murmurs, somehow knowing exactly how to massage out a stress headache, "just lean your head forward, I got you."
"H-how're you so—so good at this?"
"You think you're the only one who's ever had to do so much goddamn paperwork you get a headache?" His thumb presses a sore spot the side of his neck and an embarrassing groan leaves Ethan's lips. "Used to trade these to get people to do my paperwork."
"What—oh, left, left—yeah, there, please, that hurts—what do I owe you?"
"Not a damn thing." A hand wraps around one of his as Chris works on a stubborn knot at the base of his skull. "You get them for free."
He's not ashamed to say he loses track of time a little bit, there on the couch with Chris working patiently at the ball of stress at the back of his head. He registers at some point that he's drifted to the side, his head resting against the dip in Chris's chest, his cheek slightly smushed, his eyes closed, Chris taking his weight like it's nothing—which, honestly, it might be. When the pain abates enough that he can open his eyes again, he cranes his neck to look up at Chris.
"Hey," Chris rumbles, hand moving to tangle in his hair, "you feel better?"
"Mm. Mhm."
"You look tired."
"Mhm."
"You wanna lie down? Have a nap?"
"Mm."
He laughs. "You gonna say anything that sounds like words, or no?"
Ethan just hums again, half expected to be picked up like a sack of potatoes and hauled upstairs to his room, only for Chris to wrap his other arm around his waist and lay down, Ethan atop his chest. He opens his mouth to protest but then the hand in his hair starts scratching lightly at his scalp, the other slung across his back like a heating pad, and the steady ba-thump, ba-thump, ba-thump of Chris's heartbeat under his ear makes talking impossible.
"Go to sleep, Ethan," Chris says softly, "I'll wake you up in a little bit."
"…'ris?"
"Yeah?"
"You…g'nna stay?"
"Yeah, Ethan, I'm gonna stay. I'm gonna stay right here." He holds Ethan a little tighter—cuddle, his tired brain supplies, Chris cuddles him a little closer. "Now go to sleep."
"M'kay."
The first time Chris had to go out on mission after everything, it had been surprisingly simple. The mission ran as expected, he came home, nothing changed. And so it went for the next one. And the next one.
Then, Chris came back from a mission that ran a little longer than expected and Rose nearly ambushed him at the door, arms wrapped tightly around his chest, head buried in the crook of his neck.
"Whoa, whoa, hey, Rose," Chris murmured, arms going around her too, bag dropped with a thud on the porch, "hey, hey, I'm okay. I'm sorry I'm late. You're okay."
"I know, I know, I just—fuck—" she'd pulled back, wiping her face and already turning away— "sorry, I—"
"No, hey, c'mere." He pulled Rose right back in, tucking her chin over his shoulder and burying his face in her hair. "I missed you too."
"That you, Redfield?" Leon had come down the stairs and grinned, wrapping his arms around the two of them. "'Bout time you got back, isn't it?"
"Traffic was hell."
"I'll bet." He didn't miss the way Leon's hand smoothed soothingly along Rose's spine. "Come on, I bet you're hungry."
"Yeah. Figured I'd have a quick rinse-off at base when I got back so I wouldn't trek any of it here." He ran his fingers through Rose's hair. "Can I go change real quick before we eat?"
"U-um, yeah, sure. S-sorry."
"Don't apologize," he'd murmured, pressing a kiss to Rose's forehead as he went upstairs.
He'd gone to the bathroom, sorting through his clothes, only to frown.
"Have you seen my old Army hoodie?" he asked when Leon came upstairs to check on him. "Can't seem to find it."
"Uh—I'll check and see if Ethan did laundry."
Leon had gone out to the hallway, heading for the laundry room at the end of the hall, only to pause at the door to Chris's room. He leaned against the doorframe with a low chuckle.
"Hey, Chris?"
"Yeah?"
"C'mere."
Chris had frowned, going to stand next to Leon, only for his eyes to widen at the sight of Ethan, curled up in Chris's bed, Chris's Army hoodie snuggled around him. His hair was mussed, his nose a little pink, poking over the edge of his sleeve, and he had the hoodie on backwards so he could clutch the hood to his face.
"Aw, hell," Chris mumbled, "why is this man so adorable?"
"No idea." Leon's head rests against the hinge. "I don't wanna be the one to wake him up."
"Why do I have to?"
"He's in your hoodie, in your bed, in your room. I think he missed you, Redfield, go wake him up."
Chris had wanted to roll his eyes. He really did. But then he'd looked at Ethan and before he'd had a chance to move, Ethan stirred and his eyes opened and he'd shot up in bed, flushed and stammering and, well, what was Chris supposed to do, not go over there and kiss him?
What do you take him for?
The black SUVs are a fact of life now. They're not subtle, they're not interested in being that discreet, and they want her to know they're there.
They're there when she meets up with Rose, even if it's Chris who drops her off. They're there when they go out to eat, lingering across the street. They're there when she picks Rose up from school, there when she goes to work, even when she's at home and she hasn't left the house all day, she'll catch sight of one driving by on the street.
She accepts it. She's a former member of a bio-terrorist organization and the mother and ex-wife to two bio-weapons. Luckily, none of her coworkers have ever noticed the pattern of black cars following them around whenever she's with them, and she's not sure whether she wants to breathe a sigh of relief or decry their lack of observational skills. And if she goes out of her way to make sure she's never the one sitting with her back to the window, well, it's unlikely they'll notice that either.
There are only a few of the drivers she ever actually talks to. Paul's the one who's there most often. She doesn't like him, he doesn't like her, and whatever courtesy they have for each other is a thin veil. He's the one who called Rose 'Eveline' the most and that's enough to make Mia hate him on principle. But he's a decent agent, if an asshole about it, and he knows how to pick his fights.
Jack is the other one she'll see most often. She likes Jack. Jack treats Rose like a person, like a kid, and he's always a little bit bumbling in that endearing way that agents are when they're trying to be disarming. She thinks it's his way of trying to make Rose's situation a bit better, like he's more of a bodyguard for her rather than an agent tasked with keeping the asset in line. He makes small talk with Mia and jokes with Rose. If her life were different, she thinks she could have been friends with him.
There are a few others. She doesn't know their names. They all address her as 'Ms. Winters,' no matter what she says, and they seem as twitchy around her as they do around Rose. She's never quite sure how she feels about that.
The only other driver she's ever actually had a conversation with is the one she's only seen once or twice. A younger woman, someone Rose actually smiled at when she got out of the car. She'd introduced herself as Addison, someone else who Chris worked with. She'd explained there was a scheduling conflict and that she was going to be the one picking up Rose when they were finished, and if there was anything they needed, to call her and let her know. Like Rose was just a normal teenager being dropped off, simple as that.
She asks Rose about all of the agents, when Rose wasn't already complaining about them. Paul tried to be nice every once in a while, and it was painful for both of them. Jack played video games with some of the other guards on a regular basis and told her about how they'd all been stupid that week—sometimes Rose got to act as the go-between for all of them gossiping about each other and it made Mia laugh and wince that the closest thing her daughter had to actual friends were the agents tasked with her surveillance. Addison worked on data analysis mostly, not field work, but she would make an effort to try and spend actual time with Rose outside of whatever tests they were running on her.
Before Ethan came back, before Chris got his head out of his ass, Mia would bet that Addison was the closest thing Rose had to someone safe inside that base.
So, when she starts noticing another car tailing her, a black SUV that isn't one of the BSAA trucks, she knows who to tell.
"Leon? Dad says dinner's almost ready, you should—oh."
Leon looks up. He's lying on his bed, phone in hand, someone's voice coming from the speaker. Rose hesitates inside the door as the conversation trails off.
"Oops. Sorry. Didn't realize you were on the phone. I'll, uh—"
"Is that Rose?" says the voice.
"Yeah, that's her. C'mere, Rose," Leon calls, holding out a hand to beckon her over, "come say hi."
She lingers at the door for a moment longer before giving in, sitting on the bed next to Leon as he tilts the phone. On the screen is a woman with short blonde hair, a light blue shirt with an embroidered collar, and a cheery smile. She waves when Rose comes into frame.
"Hi Rose! Leon's told me so much about you."
"Are you Sherry?"
"Yes, I'm Sherry. I'm guessing Leon's told you about me?"
"Some. He's not good at talking about stuff all the time."
"Hey!" Leon shoves her shoulder lightly as Sherry laughs.
"No, he's not. It's really nice to meet you, I've been asking for a while."
"You have?" Rose settles more on the bed as Leon puts his arm over her shoulder so she doesn't have to lean in as much to see. "Why?"
Sherry laughs again. "Let's just say he has a habit of trying to adopt stray children. Stray blonde children in particular."
"Wait, he does?" She looks up at him. "You do?"
"I would argue that twice isn't indicative of a habit, but—"
"Oh, no, Grace and Emily absolutely count, Leon. We've all talked about it."
"Wait, who are Grace and Emily?"
"Leon!" Sherry's face falls but she's clearly trying not to laugh. "You haven't told her about them yet?"
"When would I have gotten the chance? It's not like I make it a habit to talk about all the horrifying shit I've had to deal with, not with a kid!"
"I'm not just any kid—"
"Rose isn't just any kid, Leon."
Rose glances at Sherry, who winks as Leon groans, scrubbing a hand over his face. "Jesus Christ, now there's two of you."
"Five if we count Ashley too."
"Wait, who's Ashley? Why have you never told me about these people, Leon?"
"It's not like you asked!" he defends, ruffling her hair. "Besides, Grace and Ashley don't count. They weren't kids."
"Uh huh." Rose has to laugh at Sherry's disbelief. "Sure, like that would have stopped you."
"Ashley was like, five years younger than I was!"
"Seven," Sherry corrects—Rose already likes Sherry, a lot—"and fine, but you were definitely being a big brother to her the whole time."
"How do you even know about that? You were not old enough to know any of this!"
"Notice how he's not denying it," Sherry says to Rose, who giggles, "and Hunnigan told me."
"Of course, she did," Leon grumbles as both of them laugh. He shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose, but Rose can see he's trying not to smile too.
"What do you do, Sherry?"
"I'm a DSO agent too. I work with Leon when he's out in the field."
"You're a field agent?"
"Sometimes. I do handler work too, more recently. I took a long break from field work and I'm getting ready to transition back into doing it full time."
"Why'd you stop? Sorry," she says quickly, wincing, "you, uh, don't have to answer that. That was rude."
"It's okay, Rose," Sherry says as Leon's hand rests on her shoulder again, "I don't mind. What…what has Leon told you about me?"
"That you were in Raccoon City when it fell. You and Chris's sister, Claire, you guys all made it out, but you were, um…infected with the—the—"
"The G Virus," Sherry finishes when Rose can't remember which letter it was, "that's right. My father, William Birkin, he was an Umbrella scientist doing research in the lab under Raccoon City. Leon and Claire saved me, got me out."
Leon shifts a little, getting tenser at her words. Rose presses closer to him, wrapping her arms around his chest and waist. He settles a little bit, his head coming to rest against hers, and Sherry keeps talking.
"We didn't know at the time that we'd also been exposed to a version of the T Virus, which is what—"
"Why do all of them have letters? What do they mean? Is it just, like, arbitrary?"
"Sure feels that way," Leon grumbles under his breath. "But that one—that one was the worst one."
"So you—wait, you were—" Rose's eyes widen and she shoots up, staring at Leon, hands flying to his shoulders— "are you okay? Do we need to—are you—"
"Whoa, whoa, easy, Rose, I'm okay," Leon soothes, cupping her face with his hand. "I'm okay. We found a cure for me and Sherry, we're both alright now."
Rose glances back over her shoulder at Sherry's face on the screen. Her expression is a little twisted too, but she smiles when Rose meets her eyes. "He's telling the truth, Rose. We're both okay now. No more virus in either of us."
"You promise?"
"I promise."
"C'mere," Leon murmurs, coaxing her back to his side, "it's okay. There you go."
She wraps her arms tightly around him again, her head on his shoulder. He just brings the phone back up so Sherry can look at them. "Because I had both viruses, the cure took a little longer to do all of its work. That's why I'm not back in the field full time yet."
"Oh. That makes sense."
"Now, he's skipping a lot of parts about how he found the cure," she continues, her smile sharpening, "including Grace and Emily—"
"Who are they?"
"Grace Ashcroft is an FBI agent who was involved in another case that overlapped with this one, and Emily was one of the people she rescued from the lab in Raccoon City."
"Wait, but I thought Raccoon City was—this was years ago?"
"Oh, no," Leon sighs, "they had another lab in Raccoon City after the nuke went off."
"They had a what?"
"Isn't this shit classified, Sherry? Aren't we not allowed to talk about this?"
Sherry shrugs, grinning. "Rose is technically classified and you tell me all about her."
"I think she has a point."
Leon just gives her a look. "Fine, fine. But that's a long story and I'm pretty sure Rose said something about dinner being almost ready."
"It was nice to meet you, Rose!" Sherry chirps. "Make Leon give you my number, I've got so much to talk about with you."
"Do you know why he and Chris won't tell me or Dad about Monopoly night?"
"Oh, I sure do—"
"Alright, that's enough, bye, Sherry!" Leon quickly hangs up the phone as Rose bursts out laughing, nearly falling off the bed with the force of it. "I'm so gonna regret introducing the two of you, aren't I?"
"We should start a club," she manages through her giggles, "me, Sherry, Grace, Emily, and—what was her name?"
"Ashley."
"And Ashley! Blonde Kids for Kennedy."
"That sounds like the worst campaign slogan in the world, thanks."
Still giggling, she wraps her arms around him again, hugging him tightly. "I'm glad you still have Sherry. Really."
He returns the hug, pulling her into his chest, his chin on the top of her head. "Me too. And I am glad the two of you met, even if it means you'll bully the hell out of me."
"…hey, Leon?"
"Mm?"
She worries a bit of his shirt between her fingers. "Do you, um…i-if you could…is…am—never mind."
"What?"
"Never mind."
She pushes herself away from him and tries to get up, but he's faster and grabs her arm before she can get very far. Her mouth opens to insist it's fine, it doesn't matter, let's just go downstairs before Chris starts yelling but the soft look on his face stops her dead in her tracks. He tugs her closer, wrapping his arms around her again, hands splayed wide over her back like he's trying to show her how much he wants to hold her.
…oh.
"You know how important you are to me," he whispers, "right?"
She just nods. He gives her a good squeeze and lets her go with a kiss on the very top of her head.
"C'mon. I think Chris is about to storm up here."
There's someone following her. Mia's sure of it now.
She thought she was just being paranoid about the car when she told Addison, but now she's certain of it. There's someone following her. Not all the time, it's not quite that aggressive yet, but someone is definitely following her.
They're avoiding BSAA security like a professional, which has her worried. There aren't ever two black SUVs following her, and they never come around when she has Rose or when Chris or Leon are around, but she'll get this prickle along the back of her neck like she's being watched by something else.
Her first thought, ashamed as she is to admit it, is that Eveline somehow found a way back. But Eveline's dead, long dead, and there's no way she'd come back without Chris or Ethan or Rose knowing about it, and they would tell her right away if Eveline ever showed back up. So it can't be Eveline, even if it gives her the same cold, slimy feeling down her spine and in her gut.
She tries to catch glimpses of them, but the car windows are tinted no matter who's driving them, BSAA or whoever the hell this is, and it's not like she's stupid enough to walk up to the car to get a better look. Sometimes she gets the feeling when there's not a car in sight, though, and whenever she looks around, there's no one suspicious to be seen. Which she knows was a long shot anyway—hardly anyone would assume she was part of a bio-terrorist group after all, that was one of the main reasons the Connections picked her—but she can't help it.
It's like an inverted version of the thrill she used to get when she was with Ethan: a sense of adrenaline that would tingle just under her skin, something that made her smile just a little too wide, laugh just a little too hard. It gave her this energy that she could never explain but it raced through her veins like a drug. It was one of the main things that kept her agreeing to those missions, agreeing to just one more job, just one more lie.
This isn't that. This is the paranoia she accused Ethan of, words wriggling on her tongue even now. This is knowing what is possible, what people are capable of, but not knowing at all what to do about it or what could happen next.
Someone is following her.
And she has no idea why.
Leon's missions were less often, but they were worse.
More unpredictable. Riskier. Longer duration. And Chris couldn't get any word about them until the DSO let him, which was…hardly ever.
Rose hadn't been the one to ask, but she'd been the one to make the decision: when Leon wasn't there and nightmares got bad, all three of them slept in his room. Chris mumbled something about it when he'd gotten back from that first mission and Leon had been torn between laughing and crying. Rose did cry. So did Ethan.
He hadn't wanted to believe—couldn't believe he'd been missed that much, that they'd been that worried, but they were. Even Chris, who was the only person Leon had ever relied on to be the last man standing if he wasn't around, had pulled him in for a tight hug and muttered you better get back here, Kennedy, the next time he left for a mission.
Then he'd come home way past midnight, still wincing at the strain in his shoulders, and found Ethan on the couch.
"Hey," he said as quietly as he could, "shouldn't you be asleep?"
"Couldn't." Leon's heart sank at how rough Ethan's voice sounded. "Sorry. I'll go—"
"Hey, hey, no, I didn't mean it like that."
Ethan's eyes flickered over him and he stood up quickly. "What can I do?"
"No, no, 'm fine—"
"Leon. You're home. Let me help you, remember?"
His next protest died in his throat and he managed a chuckle. "I remember. How, uh, how do I do that?"
Ethan had rolled his eyes fondly and ushered him upstairs. He put a bottle of water in Leon's hands and cleaned his face with a warm cloth, checked his wounds with careful hands, and brought him soft clothes to change into after his shower. Leon had let him, drifting in the pleasant quiet, brushing the backs of his fingers across Ethan's cheek when he took the empty water bottle back, the two of them sitting on the floor with Leon's back against the edge of the tub.
"You're gonna spoil me."
"Good." Ethan's eyes met his easily, despite the slight flush to his cheeks. "You deserve to get spoiled."
And, as we all know, Leon is no saint, so he cupped Ethan's jaw in his hand and leaned closer. The kiss was chaste, barely more than a brief press of lips, but he still smiled at the golden sparkle on the tip of Ethan's nose when he pulled away.
"Cute."
"Shut up."
"No, really, it's adorable—hey!" He batted Ethan's hand away when he smacked him gently with the cloth. "Don't start fights you won't win, Winters."
"You know how many times I've been told that and then somehow I win?"
Leon just raised an eyebrow. When Ethan turned to put the cloth down, he struck.
"You know," he remarked as Ethan squealed, his fingers easily finding the soft spots on Ethan's sides and ribs, "you're not really doing a good job of proving me wrong here."
Ethan wriggled like a wild thing, trying to get away from him, already gasping for air. Leon couldn't help but chuckle as he toppled over, quickly straddling his hips to keep him still. He doubled his attack as Ethan pawed weakly at his chest and shoulders, pleas tumbling from his lips in between helpless giggles.
"Please-please—n-no! Nohoho!"
"What happened to all that big talk? Huh? You gonna fight back?" He lazily dodged a clumsy swipe at his face. "C'mon, Winters, you can do better than that."
"Le-eon!" Ethan squeaked when Leon's hand snuck under his arm. "St-stop! I—I—I give! I give! I g-i-i-ive!"
He stopped, hands braced on either side of Ethan as the man slowly caught his breath, still giggling. His cheeks were bright pink, his eyes wide and wet. The man was breathtaking. He laid there on the floor, staring up at him with the last of that fucking smile still on his face. Leon shook his head and brushed his fingers along the curve of Ethan's cheek, cupping his head to get it off the cold tile.
"You gonna argue with me when I call you cute again?"
"N-no."
He chuckled as he leaned down to kiss him. "That's what I thought."
Sure enough, Ethan didn't say a word when golden sparkles erupted all over the two of them.
"Shut up, it is not."
"No, listen—if the person responsible owns the car, that means that they would have no reason to leave it on the side of the road! They could've just driven it home!"
"Yeah, but that's a stupid idea, because it means they could've just followed them home—"
"Wait, wait, but what about the wallet found inside? That doesn't match up with any of the suspects?"
"Yeah, because it's the victim's wallet, Ethan."
Rose giggles. "Yeah, Dad. Don't you remember?"
Ethan shakes his head and puts down the piece of paper with the picture of a wallet on it. "It's not my fault that this man has the most boring name in the history of boring names. 'George Jones?' What even is that?"
Leon chuckles. "At least it isn't John Smith."
"Or John Doe." Rose puts her chin in her hands. "So, wait, whose car is it?"
That sets Chris and Leon off again. Rose giggles at Ethan from across the table and he can't stop the smile spreading across his face.
Rose had found this game during a shopping trip with Mia. It's framed like it's a cold case, a murder that took place in a park that needs to be solved. There are suspect interviews, CCTV stills, evidence folders, the whole nine yards. She'd been asking them to play it with her for ages—well, more accurately, she'd been trying to convince Chris and Leon to play it with her and Ethan. He'd been on board from the start. Anything that makes Rose's face light up like that. The other two, though, they'd protested. Chris blustered something about being too busy for something that long—"It's only 4-6 hours, Chris, that's not that long!"—and Leon made some joke about not being a cop anymore.
It only took Ethan asking once to make both of them cave in. He's not sure what to use this newfound power for other than making Rose happy, but he's sure he'll find out sooner or later.
Anyway, now they're both invested, and it's pretty easy to tell that they were both detectives of some sort for years. Chris took one look at one of the interview transcripts and spotted a flaw in an alibi that Ethan never would have seen in a million years. Leon glanced at something written in code and read it like it was plain English. It was…honestly? Really impressive.
…really impressive.
"Hold on." Chris sits up, pulling one of the CCTV images closer. "Walk me through the timeline one more time."
"The victim left work at 6:45pm and drove to Rudy's bar on Belford St. Bar has him and his friends there until 11:30pm, which is when he and Lionel left to drive home. His house is on Clarkson Ave., all the way across town, and traffic light cams have them pulling onto his dead-end street at midnight. A few minutes later, Lionel's car pulls back onto the street." Leon puts down his notebook—yes, the man went and got a notebook. Ethan's still grinning about it. "That's it."
"Time of death?"
"The medical examiner thinks somewhere around 2am," Rose reads, "but there's some ambiguity because of the alcohol left in his system. Why is that?"
"Medical examiners have to mark down cause of death with all contributing factors. If alcohol or other substances are believed to be one of those, they have to put them down, even if they might be completely unrelated." Leon flips another piece of paper over. "The mechanisms of death are also just…attesting to the fact that he's dead, not how he died."
Rose blinks. "Whoa."
"What?"
"I've never heard you sound that serious about anything. That was cool."
"Aww, thanks, kid." He ruffles her hair. "Nothing like talking about corpses for a living, huh?"
"The sister."
Chris looks up at Ethan, who's staring at another one of the pictures. He picks it up, staring at her mugshot. "What's that, Ethan?"
"The sister. She has a tattoo, right behind her left ear. Look." He holds it out. "You can see it right there. It's like a flower, or something."
Chris squints at it. "Yeah? What about it?"
"Can I see the second red light camera picture?" Leon passes it over. "Look. Look at the driver's side window."
"Holy shit." Chris claps Ethan on the shoulder. "Damn, Ethan. Good catch."
"Wait, what? What is it?"
"The sister's driving in the second picture. You can see her tattoo in the light from the streetlight."
Rose peers over Leon's shoulder as Chris hands the photo back. Her face lights up with that wonderful smile as she reaches over to give him a high five. "Good job, Dad!"
"Thanks, sweetie. So that means she was in the car when they left the bar, right? She must've been in the back seat."
"And that means she left Lionel at home with George. So he's lying about the last time he saw George." Leon whistles. "Damn, Winters. You're gonna put all of us out of a job."
"I'm opening the envelope!" Rose dives for the box. "'Who's lying about when they last saw George?' Lionel!"
Chris's hand is still on his shoulder. Ethan glances up at him and Chris winks, quickly pulling him in to kiss his cheek before Rose turns back around. Under the table, Leon knocks his foot against Ethan's and grins at him.
"Okay…he admits he stayed over at the house…he and George had a fight about something—"
"What were they fighting about?"
"Something to do with work, it sounds like? A software update that George didn't want? I don't know, it sounds like it's just flavor text. The interesting thing is that Lionel mentions George left his phone on the counter when he stormed out."
"When was this?"
"Uh—he says a few minutes after midnight."
"There was a call placed then." Leon squints at the phone records. "Incoming, though, and it wasn't very long."
"Well, Lionel probably picked up and whoever was calling realized it wasn't George." Ethan leans over and snags the map off the corner of the table. "How far away is the park from George's house? Is it within walking distance?"
"Not really. Look—" Chris points— "it's farther away than the bar was, in the opposite direction."
"Maybe whoever did it caught him outside and then dumped him there." Rose's leg swings from the chair, her head on Leon's shoulder. "Doesn't the report say they found a whole bunch of mud on his pants?"
"Sure does." Leon squints. "Mud and a whole bunch of gravel."
"Gravel…gravel…wait, Dad, can I see the map?"
"Sure, sweetie."
Rose puts it flat on the table and pushes aside a few other pieces of paper, standing up so she can see better. "If George left his house here, and then walked this way, wouldn't he have ended up by the old warehouse lot? Right here? The one next to the river?"
"Maybe. What makes you think that?"
"Gravel and mud, right? It's a construction site. It's the only place he could have reasonably walked to that has those two things."
"Good work, Rose." Chris is already leafing through another sheaf of papers—how the rest of them are keeping all of these pages straight, Ethan has no idea. Virtues of having to do this sort of paperwork for a living, he supposes. "And the security records show an alert at 12:20am that night. So it's safe to put some sort of activity in that area."
"Okay, but what does that have to do with Lionel's car being on the side of the road near the park? If his sister was driving—"
"What if she killed him and framed her brother for it?" Everyone turns to look at Ethan. "People would assume because it was his car, that he did it, right?"
"But then how did Lionel get home? Traffic cams don't show her going back to George's house again that night."
"And what reason would she have to do that?" Rose tilts her head. "Kinda sounds like she doesn't care that much about either of them from her interviews and stuff. That's a lot of effort to go through for someone you don't care about."
"But then Leon's right: why else would Lionel's car be near the park? What, did she get lost on the way home or drive by it in the morning and then run away?"
Leon's eyes widen. "Wait, wait, say that again?"
"What, that she drove by the park in the morning and then ran away?"
He starts scrabbling for something. "That would make sense. If she knew she left Lionel at George's house and went to go pick him up—look, the park is between Lionel's home address and George's."
"But she wasn't the one who called in the body."
"Well, I mean, if you thought Claire had killed someone—wait, that's not a good example. You'd assume she had a good reason."
Chris raises an eyebrow. "Are you saying she wouldn't?"
Leon raises his hands in surrender. "Not at all."
"So she panics thinking Lionel killed George and runs away from the car," Rose picks up where Leon left off, "then some random stranger calls it in—where did she go?"
"To find Lionel. Probably to call him. But he doesn't know that George is dead yet, so he picks up the phone back at George's house, but he doesn't want anyone else to know that he was there, so he has her come get him in her car." Leon scribbles something down in his notebook. "Okay. So that takes care of that."
"So it wasn't Lionel, and it wasn't his sister. Did anyone else leave the bar at the right time?"
"Uh—" Chris starts going through stuff again. "Let me see…"
Ethan zones out a bit, just watching them. Chris's jaw is set with familiar determination, his knee bouncing ever so slightly. Leon's brow is furrowed, his eyes following his finger as he traces over bits of information. Rose stands over them, her cheeks bright with excitement as she rattles off more theories.
The living room is bright. Everyone is safe. Everyone is happy.
"But that wouldn't explain how—whoa, hey," comes Leon's voice, bringing the other activity to a halt, "hey, Ethan, you okay?"
Chris turns, his expression falling as he looks at Ethan too, a hand coming to rest gently on his shoulder, then his cheek, brushing something away. Rose wraps herself around his arm, staring at him with a worried expression.
"We can stop, Dad," she mumbles, "we can stop if it's making you cry."
"I'm crying?"
"Y-yeah, you're crying."
He swipes a hand over his face. It comes away wet. "Oh. So I am. I'm not sad, Rosie, I'm just—I just got really happy."
Leon's mouth tugs up in a little smile. "Talking about how this dude is definitely lying about how upset he is over George dating the women he had a crush on is making you happy?"
Ethan laughs wetly, shaking his head gently enough not to dislodge Chris's hand on his face. "I'm happy we're doing this. Playing a game. Spending time together. I'm just being sappy, that's all."
Rose hugs him tightly and Chris puts his arms around both of them, kissing both of their heads. Leon traps one of Ethan's legs between his and gives it a soft squeeze. He laughs again, sniffling slightly.
"Come on, let's figure this out and then have dinner. I'm starving."
Leon grins. "Yes, sir."
It's a man.
He's like a shadow. Mia can never get a good look at him. But she knows it's a man. It has to be. Whatever fleeting glances she gets are always of someone tall, someone broad. Taller than Chris, not quite as bulky. But he's fast. Faster than anyone has a right to be.
She has Addison's personal cell number now. Not her work phone—they'd agreed they probably shouldn't alert the BSAA to this just yet, just in case, they had no idea whether or not official lines were compromised—but a number not tied to anything on file. She texts every single time she thinks she sees the car, or him. She even tries to get a picture of him in the back of a selfie—it never works. He's too damn fast.
He still never shows up around Rose or Chris. He's always there when she least expects it: when she's out with her coworkers, when she's getting off the bus, when she's in a crowded grocery store. She has a hysterical thought of asking Addison to pull the parking lot footage from that day but dismisses it. It wouldn't do anything but risk them finding out she's onto something. Besides, it's not like she has the clearance to know if Addison finds anything.
Part of her hopes it's just someone from the Connections with a vendetta. Revenge for compromising the E-series, or for ratting them out to save her own skin. Even someone from Dulvey who was related to one of Eveline's many victims, or someone from Romania. A personal grudge against her, not Rose, not Chris, not Ethan.
Part of her hopes it's just a random person looking for information about the BSAA. Someone who'd shake her down for information she doesn't have other than the names of the few agents she's met. Maybe they don't know who Rose is, who she is. All of that. Maybe they just don't know.
She knows that's wishful thinking.
The most likely possibility is the worst one: they know about Rose and they want her.
Mia Winters has a lot of things to regret. She will not let this be another one.
Whoever this is, whoever he is, watching her from behind those sunglasses, she will not let him get Rose.