Chapter Text
Leon had not realized how acutely like shit he’d felt for months until that moment.
As the T-virus had mutated in his body, there’d been noticeable physical effects. A pallor to his skin; the mysterious bruising. It’d started to take him longer to get out of bed in the morning, and in general there’d been an ache deep in his bones that never went away. As things progressed, the cough started; a heavy, chest-rattling cough that sounded like his lungs themselves were coming undone.
And it hadn’t just been him. It’d been Sherry, it’d been Claire.
Claire was the first one to show symptoms. Leon recalled clear as a bell the day months ago he’d looked at Claire in their kitchen, at the garish, mottled bruise on her bare foot.
“Jesus, what’d you do to your foot?” he’d asked.
“Oh, I dunno,” she’d replied, looking down at the bruise. “Bumped into something, or dropped something, who knows. I breathe wrong and I get bruises, so who knows.” Leon had taken it at face value, but as the days wore on, the bruise did not fade. It spread, up Claire’s foot to her ankle. Claire was unsettled, but bright.
“Maybe it’s a hematoma, or something. A blood clot? I don’t know,” she’d said, and gone off to the doctor, who’d informed her he had no idea what he was looking at or why she’d have a bruise that not only didn’t go away, but spread.
“Does it hurt?” Leon had asked, one night in bed.
“No,” Claire had said. “It’s just…there. I don’t know. I don’t know who to ask about it next given the doctor basically told me he had no idea and to have a nice day.”
They hadn’t needed to contemplate who to ask next for very long because not long after that, Leon had awoken one morning and spent a good amount of time in the bathroom, quietly inspecting his hand, brain spooling.
He’d developed his own mysterious bruise, on his palm, spreading down his fingers. It looked remarkably similar to the thing on Claire’s foot, and Leon had known immediately this was a problem. Claire was in Africa, on an aid mission, and he’d texted her a photo of his hand, along with I think we need to see a government doctor.
When Claire returned early, with the blessing of Leon’s command, they’d driven to Fort Detrick to USAMRIID. USAMRIID was for military purposes, and Claire was not military, but the powers that be had been sufficiently rattled enough that two survivors of Raccoon City and countless other incidents were showing similar symptoms of something. Doctors at USAMRIID speculated perhaps it was infectious; Leon and Claire shared a house and a bed, among other things. By nature of being the first one to show symptoms, Leon felt like the doctors and researchers at Fort Detrick treated Claire like patient zero.
Answers were half-baked, and not forthcoming. There was something in them, and it was mutating. Bloodwork was abnormal, white blood cell counts were heightened. Thankfully the staff at USAMRIID had determined they weren’t contagious; this didn’t appear to be airborne, or droplet spread. As the days passed, Leon became reasonably worried that his taking them to Fort Detrick was going to result in them being more or less incarcerated there indefinitely, under observation.
They spent a week at Fort Detrick, and then they were cut loose to return home, with no more real answers than they’d had before going.
“If…if something happens,” Claire said, one night at the kitchen table, “don’t let me get out. Put me down.”
Leon had looked at her. He knew what she was talking about, of course. If she changed. If she ceased to be in control of her own faculties. If she truly became patient zero. “That’s not going to happen, Claire.”
“We don’t know,” she’d said. “The Army’s best and brightest at USAMRIID don’t even know what the fuck this is. We’ve been exposed to so much. We’ve seen what it does. I don’t want that to be me. I don’t want to be responsible for…” She’d trailed off, looking into space.
“We’re going to be fine,” Leon had said, even though he had absolutely zero fucking knowledge if that was in fact the case. He looked at his wife across the table from him, and tried to picture putting a bullet in her. He knew he couldn’t do it, no matter what happened. “Everything is going to be fine.”
Claire had looked at him like she hadn’t believed him, which Leon did not blame her for. He did not believe himself.
And then Sherry developed symptoms. It was all of them. It was his whole family. More trips to USAMRIID were made. Sherry, ever a genetic and viral wonder, seemed to be faring better than Leon and Claire, her progression slower.
Weeks passed, and people started to die. All Raccoon survivors. Leon noted his growing malaise, and noted Claire’s pale skin had taken on an unhealthy hue, her freckles popping against the pallor. Sherry complained of being in pain, constantly, and was given a prescription for pain killers. The bruising spread. The fear of the unknown hung over them like a harbinger.
And then Leon had been sent off to investigate the deaths, perhaps dying himself, and had been plunged into a plot much larger than that. He met Grace, he again dealt with infected, he returned to the ruins of Raccoon, his thoughts haunting him. He again found himself embroiled in some assholes’ larger plans for world domination.
And at that point, he’d been forced to accept it. He was dying. He could feel his body coming undone before his very eyes. He looked at the spatters of vivid red blood that came out of him when he coughed, and thought of Claire, thought of Sherry. He didn’t know what the fuck he was doing, but he needed to see it through to the end—as long as his body didn’t give out on him before then. At the end, he wasn’t worth a shit, he knew. Without Grace holding him up, he could not stand. And yet there he was, acting like he could still make a difference, as if he hadn’t run out of time and his body hadn’t failed him.
And in his infinite dying wisdom, he’d almost encouraged Grace to destroy the very thing that had saved him. Lying there on death’s door, he was aware Grace was defying him. He thought she was about to release a viral apocalypse. His brain, torn asunder with pain, could not comprehend why she was doing what she was doing.
He’d been wrong. Grace had been right. If it’d been up to Leon, he would have signed off on all of their deaths.
Not that he’d been much aware of this. He’d lost consciousness; laying there unresponsive while Grace stuck him with the syringe that would cure him. That unconsciousness had seemed to last forever, and Leon had found it was dark, black, and absolute—he imagined that was what death was like, if he hadn’t already been dead and just too stupid to realize it. No light at the end of the tunnel, no pearly gates. Just a vacuum. Ceasing to be, for eternity. Darkness, pure and absolute.
And then he’d come to, his heart loud in his ears. He felt like he hadn’t heard it pound like that in some time. His body felt solid, reliable. For the first time in months he hadn’t felt like he had one foot in the grave.
Which was good, because there was always an asshole bent on world domination to deal with.
And he’d dealt with it. And then he’d run out of ideas, because he was just a man, even if he was a man with more skills and survival determination than the average person. He’d sat there in the darkness with Grace, listening to her loud, shuddering breathing, her hand small and shaking in his. Time felt like it stretched on, there in the darkness. It felt like the darkness he’d seen at the end of life.
And then, they were rescued by a Redfield. It was a different Redfield than Leon was used to saving him in many ways; it was Chris. It was Chris’s team, at Chris’s direction.
Over the years, Leon had often felt his now brother-in-law had regarded him with a mix of respect and a healthy amount of suspicion. Chris, at that point in his life, didn’t take things at face value anymore. He was always looking for the angle, for the ulterior motive. Leon suspected Chris had been trying to find it in him for years, when he hadn’t been admonishing Leon to be more than he was.
Still, perhaps Chris had supposed it wouldn’t do to let his baby sister’s husband die in a hole in the ground in the ruins of Raccoon City.
And there Leon was, standing amidst a flurry of activity at an established base camp, feeling like a weight had been removed from his chest, feeling ten years younger than he was. He’d just emerged from a situation where he’d burned up yet another one of his lives. Leon was a poor excuse for a cat; he wondered how many of the nine he had left.
“Sherry,” he said into his comm. He wasn’t sure if she was still listening in. He was, after all, safe. The worst was over. He was alive. It felt surreal to realize.
“Yeah?” her voice rang clearly into his ear.
“Where’s Claire?” he asked.
“USAMRIID,” Sherry said. “I started looking just a minute ago. I think Chris moved her there. She’s been there a minute.”
“She needs a dose, just like you,” Leon said.
“I’m sure Chris or his team is on it. I can’t seem to track him down,” Sherry said. “I can’t raise him on any frequencies.”
“That’s Chris, for you,” Leon said. “That’s his MO these days. Claire complains she sees him once every six months, and he’s more of an enigmatic fuck every time she sees him.”
“Maybe,” Sherry said. “Do you need that chopper, still?”
“No. There’s enough of them around here. I’ll bully someone into getting me to where I need to go,” Leon said. “I’ll be back in DC before you know it.”
“Good,” Sherry said. “It’s about time.” The comm went quiet in his ear. Leon turned around and looked back across the base camp, the direction he’d come from; he looked at Grace sitting there, blanket around her shoulders, looking small and dazed. He walked back towards her. As he approached, her eyes lifted from staring into space in front of her, up to his face.
“Hey,” he said, coming to stand in front of her. “I’ve got to get out of here. There’s problems brewing at home.”
Grace’s brow furrowed somewhat. “Is—is there—more?” she asked, haltingly.
“No,” Leon said. “But I’m not the only one who needed a dose of what you shot me full of.”
Grace continued to gaze at him. “Others?”
“Yeah,” Leon said. “My wife. My handler.”
“Oh,” Grace said, her face softening some. “Y-yeah. You should go to them.”
Leon looked at her. “You okay? You gonna be okay here?”
Grace let out a gust. “Yeah. I’m…I’ll be fine.” She nodded, mostly to herself. “I think you’ve done enough for me. Don’t worry about me.”
“I think you did enough for me,” Leon amended. “Thanks for not listening to me. Sometimes I’m wrong, and when I’m wrong, I’m dead wrong.”
Grace nodded again. “I…I’m glad I didn’t listen to you. I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Yeah. Me too.” Leon ran his hand through his hair; it felt like it had the grime of the ages in it. “I have to go make sure other people are going to be okay, too.”
“Go,” Grace said.
Leon looked at her for a moment longer, diminutive and young in front of him, then managed a small smile at her and turned away. He walked back across the camp, heading for the first man in combat gear he saw. “Hey,” he began, drawing up to the man, “I don’t know if you need to get Captain Redfield on the horn or what but I need out of here. I need to go to Fort Detrick.”
The man, as young as Grace, shrugged some. Leon felt like they were all young these days; at one point that had been him, too, his face unlined and his heart still filled with optimism. “Captain Redfield didn’t say anyone was prohibited from leaving,” he said. “Fort Detrick, huh? I can’t fly a chopper but I’m sure I can find you someone who can.”
“Captain Redfield moved his sister there,” Leon said. “My wife. I need to get there. A dose of whatever this miracle shit is needs to find its way there, too. I’m sure Captain Redfield’s aware but if not, someone should make him aware.”
“Yes sir,” the young man said. “Stick close. We’ll get you out of here.” He turned and began to walk away, and Leon had a thought.
“Hey,” he called to the young commando, who turned. “I need someone to find my car, too.”
“Your car, sir?” the young man asked in confusion.
“Yeah. I drove here. My car’s sitting somewhere on the other side of Raccoon, where the road ran out. It’s expensive. I’d hate to leave it behind.”
“Alright,” the young man said, and Leon dug into the pocket of his pants, producing the key fob, which he handed over to the man. He looked at the fob in his hand and grinned some. “A Porsche?”
“Midlife crisis,” Leon said dryly. “You can hotrod in it, just make sure it stays in one piece.”
“Sure,” the commando said, looping the fob into his gloved hand. “We’ll find it. We’ll try to keep the tire smoking to a minimum, sir.”
“Smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em,” Leon said, watching the man easily 20 years his junior turn off to go find him someone capable of piloting a helicopter.
This was a young man’s game. Chris was smart to remove himself to behind the scenes. Leon, ever an idiot, persisted in being there on the ground with people 20 years his junior.
………………………………………………………
“Captain Redfield briefed us,” the man in fatigues next to Leon was saying as they headed down a hallway. “We’re ready to administer the dose as soon as it arrives, and to attempt to synthesize it for widespread production.”
The florescent lighting in the hallway above them felt like it was burning into Leon’s brain. The exhaustion and come down after being in the field never got any easier. He’d also probably never been technically dead before. “Good. You need to get a dose up to DSO headquarters, too. Or get someone to get Sherry Birkin down here. However you want to do it.”
“Of course,” the uniformed man said, as they walked. “Ms. Redfield is in relatively good spirits, but she has progressed. Prepare yourself for that.”
Leon nodded. Claire’s last name was Redfield-Kennedy, but he imagined Chris in a fit of pique registering her as Redfield. They went through a set of double doors, and further down another hallway, and the uniform stopped outside a door. “She’s in here,” he said. “Try to avoid exciting her. We’ve determined exertion or excitement hastens progression.”
Leon thought of pushing himself to the brink and how fast things had progressed within him, once he had. “Sure. I’ll keep it calm.” The uniform opened the door and Leon stepped in to the hospital room, which was also fluorescently lit, but with less violence than the hallway. A curtain was halfway pulled around the bed, separating him from Claire. He took a breath and a few steps and appeared on the other side of the curtain. He froze.
Claire looked up at him from the bed, and let out the breath he’d taken in, across from her. “Hey,” she managed, sounding strained. “You’re back.” Her complexion was so pale Leon could see the veins under her skin, and she seemed more bruise than unblemished skin at that point. She looked so terrible Leon had a hard time keeping his face even. It pained him to see her lying there in such a state. He wondered how Grace had felt, looking at him. Claire noted him staring at her. “Yeah,” she murmured, “I’ve looked better.”
“We found it,” Leon said, moving to come next to the hospital bed. He looked behind him and there was an office chair on wheels, clearly the kind a doctor sat in when he made his observations. Leon pulled it up behind him and sat, heavily, his hatchet clanking against the back support of the chair. “The cure. Grace did, anyway. I tried to convince her to destroy it.”
Claire turned her head on the pillow and looked at him in confusion. “Grace? Why would you tell her to destroy it?”
“A girl I met along the way,” Leon said, his tone low. “An FBI agent. Your husband is not a smart man. I thought it was the viral end of the world. Grace knew better.”
Claire swallowed. “You look like a million bucks. I’m assuming you’ve had this cure.”
“I have. You too, sweetheart, soon. And Sherry.” He looked at her laying there in the bed. He knew the answer but he asked anyway. “How do you feel?”
“Like hell,” Claire replied. “I fought Chris. I told him I didn’t need to be in a hospital.” She sighed. “I…guess I figured if I was going to die, I wanted to do it at home, not surrounded by machines and IVs, on a military installation. Chris wasn’t having that.” She gazed at him. “What is it? Doctors come in here and look at me like I’m a puzzle.”
“T-virus,” Leon said. “One last reminder of Raccoon. It got all of us that made it out of there.”
She shifted some in the bed. “One final, parting fuck you from Umbrella,” she said dryly, even if her voice was weak.
“Yeah. It’s almost over, baby. We have Umbrella to thank for the cure, too. The doctors are just waiting for your dose to get here. You’re going to be okay.” He leaned back in the chair, looking her over. The hatchet dug into his back. “I’ve yet to lay eyes on your brother, but I have him to thank for pulling me and Grace out of a dark hole in the ground in Raccoon.”
“Jesus, Raccoon?” Claire asked, chagrined. “You went back?”
“Yeah,” Leon said, tiredly. “Full of ghosts. Or maybe that’s just me.”
Claire sighed, her mottled face gazing at him evenly, her eyes ethereal against the pallor of her skin. “C’mere,” she said, and Leon shifted, rolling the chair closer to her hospital bed. He leaned forward and laid his head and the upper half of his body on the portion of bed she wasn’t occupying, and he felt her hand come to his head, fingers threading through his filthy hair. “You were really in the shit, weren’t you?” she murmured.
“I almost didn’t make it out of the shit,” he said. “I almost died. I was gone. Grace saved me. She saved all of us.”
“And here you are, no worse for the wear,” Claire said, her nails scratching along his scalp.
“Grace found me in a hallway, coughing up blood,” Leon said. “I almost didn’t come back. I think,” he said, as Claire’s hand rubbed at his neck, “I used up my final life. I don’t think I have any more, after this. This feels final. This feels like I got lucky, one last time.”
“You’re exhausted,” Claire murmured. “I think it all seems this way because you’re probably one raw nerve, running on no sleep.”
“No,” Leon said. “It seems that way because I realized there’s nothing at the end. Just darkness. I’m not ready for the darkness,” he said. “I’m not ready to be gone. I’m not ready for you to be gone.” He was done holding it all together, trying to put on a resolute moue in the face of the horrors, trying to be strong for Grace. He’d stared death in the face, and it had winked at him. He’d seen the darkness at the end of life.
And it had scared the shit out of him. He’d been futile, and helpless. He’d touched the abyss. For most of his life he’d felt relatively untouchable, even when he was beat half to shit after ops. He’d been dying. Claire was lying next to him, actively dying. A fear he hadn’t known since perhaps that first night, all those years ago at age 21, settled in his bones.
Sometimes he wished he still believed in God. He craved the mind-numbing comfort, the assurance that things would be okay. It felt like an escape he wasn’t allowed to take anymore.
“Good news,” Claire said weakly. “I’m not ready to be gone either. It’s why I’m still here.”
Leon let out a breath. He was acutely aware of how close she was to not being there, and how he’d almost let it happen. “I’m tired,” he said. “I’m so fucking tired.” The words spilled out of him, brokenly.
“I know.” Claire was lying there on death’s door in a hospital bed, and she was still soothing him. Leon didn’t know at what point he’d become completely incapable of managing his life on his own, but he did know he was incapable of it. “It’s over. You’re back. You’re okay.” Her hand smoothed down over his cheek. “You should get some rest.”
“I’m not leaving,” Leon said. “I’m not leaving until I watch them put that needle in you, and you’re better.”
“Okay,” Claire said. “I’m sure it won’t be long, now.” Her fingers were back in his hair. “Which is good, because I’m sick of the hospital.”
“I know, baby,” Leon said. “We’re gonna go home.”
“One day,” Claire said, “tell me you’ll let me stay at home. I don’t want to meet my end in a place like this. It terrifies me. I want to be in my own bed. I want familiar faces, not people in uniforms. Let me go the way I want.”
“That’s a long way off,” Leon said.
“It feels very fucking close,” she replied plainly. “Promise me.”
“Yeah,” Leon said, not wanting to contemplate her state next to him, not wanting to contemplate a day in the future where she left him. “I promise.”
“Leon?” His comm flared to life in his ear, and it almost made him jump. He froze, and lifted his head some.
“Yeah, Sherry.” He drew back from Claire, and she looked at him, watching him.
“I’m surprised you’re still online,” Sherry said. “Where are you?”
“Fort Detrick,” Leon said. “I’m with Claire.”
“How is she?” Sherry asked.
Leon stared into his wife’s face, aware she could only hear one half of the conversation. He saw no need to pull punches. “Not good,” he replied.
“I’ve just heard from Chris’s lieutenant,” Sherry said. “They just landed at Andrews, with the doses. They’re getting on the road immediately. Hour and a half tops, traffic permitting.”
“That’s from there to us,” Leon said. “What about you?”
“I’m still kicking,” Sherry said. “I can wait a while longer. Dad’s final gift to me. I think I’m handling it better than you two did, thanks to G.”
Leon sighed, rubbing his hands over his face. “Tell them to floor it. We’re not getting any younger.”
There was silence for a minute, and Leon thought Sherry had chosen not to dignify his comment with a response, to let the link go dead. “You’re still young to me,” Sherry’s voice said in his ear, suddenly. “In my mind’s eye, you and Claire still look just like you did the night I met you. Forever 21 and 19. I don’t think that will ever change.”
Leon sat there for a moment, processing, suddenly feeling every bit of his 49 years. Claire watched him. “I love you, Sherry,” he said finally.
“I love you, too,” she said. “Update me if anything changes.” The comm went silent.
“They had Sherry running you?” Claire asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m glad it was her.”
“Me too,” Claire said.
“Chris’s team, or part of it, just landed at Andrews. They’re on their way here. They’ve got the doses.” Leon longed to look at Claire without the dark blemishes all over her skin, longed to know she was okay, longed to know he could close his eyes and when he opened them she’d still be there. He felt like he couldn’t let his eyes shut until that moment, no matter what his body pleaded for.
One foot in the grave, Claire managed a small smile at him. “I’ll never hear the end of it,” she said. “Just another thing for Chris to give me big brother hell over.”
He looked at her. “You’re so calm,” he remarked. “How are you so fucking calm?”
“Because you’re not,” Claire said. “One of us has to be. Can’t be panicking now.”
He gazed at her for another long moment, and then leaned back forward, laying himself back on the bed next to her. Her hand came back to his hair, uncaring about its grimy state.
“I need you, Claire,” he uttered, plainly. “I love you.”
“I know,” she said, softly. “I love you too. It’s going to be okay, Leon. Everything’s fine.”
He laid there and let her stroke his hair, acutely aware of the passage of time, and his heart in his chest. His body wanted to go to sleep, with her hand on him; his mind was a riot of panic. He was desperately aware of how close he had come to it all slipping away from him, dying on the floor of a forgotten Umbrella lab, leaving Claire to die in a hospital bed in Maryland, leaving Sherry to eventually meet her own end. He thought of the ghosts of the past in Raccoon, the ghosts in the RPD. He was almost one of those ghosts. He’d almost let Claire and Sherry become those ghosts, too.
Grace. Grace had stopped it from happening.
“Leon,” Claire said.
“Yeah,” he replied, immediately.
“Relax,” she urged, lowly. “You’re shaking. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Dimly, Leon became aware of the fact that he was shaking, his hands vibrating in his lap, his holsters and weapons trembling against him.
“We were so close,” he said. “To losing it all. To nothing. There’s nothing at the end, Claire.”
“Shhh,” she said, her hand gentle on him. “Close, but no cigar. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to go home.”
“I want to go home with you,” he said.
“I know. We will,” Claire replied.
Leon laid there, vibrating, waiting for relief. He waited for the door to open and doctors in fatigues to come in, and save his wife. He waited for the now all-too-familiar grip of death to loosen its hold on him. He waited for the memories of the past in his head to once again sink motionless into the dust, where he tried to keep them.
He waited, with Claire’s hand on him.
There was nothing on the other side.
Leon was determined to keep him and his on this side as long as he could.