Chapter Text
“Keep the Anchor alive and in line with the Script at all costs, do you understand?”
A sharp crack - the sound of thunder - answers the call. “At all costs.”
STREETS, RACCOON CITY
We might die here.
The grim certainty took root in Leon’s mind as the undead threw themselves against the cruiser, the hum of the engine and the promise of something fresh and alive drawing the horde in.
He placed a hand on the gear shift to back up the car when a drawn out horn bellowed distantly behind them. Leon whips his head around to look through the rearview glass of the car.
Is it someone coming to help? A small part of him dared to hope.
The horn belonged to a massive tanker gunning straight for them without slowing down. The hope was immediately crushed like the zombie unlucky enough to wander into the truck’s way.
“Claire, we have to get out now!”
“No shit, Sherlock!”
Leon threw himself against the police cruiser’s doors desperately, the adrenaline spike numbing the ache in his shoulder and arm. Across the console, he hears Claire doing the same. But the swarm of undead outside pushed back against them with unnatural strength; a classic case of unstoppable force meets an immovable object. Trapped inside, the cruiser that had once protected them was slowly turning into a metal coffin.
We’re definitely going to die here, Leon despairs as the headlights of the tanker light up the interior of the cruiser like heaven itself coming to welcome them-
Calculation: The Anchor’s probability of survival is 0%. Outcome unacceptable. Intervening.
There’s a faint bell-like sound, swallowed by the cacophony of rattling metal and undead moaning.
The tanker swerves.
It bounces off of two cars piled up on the side of the road. Sparks fly as metal scrapes along metal with a loud screech, the cars shooting off into the wall like a dangerous ping pong machine. The tanker clips the trunk of the cruiser instead of slamming into them head on, and it tips over, momentum sweeping its long gas tank along the road and into more cars.
The zombies are thrown off as the cruiser slams into the trunk of another car. The force slams Leon’s head back hard against the headrest.
The world spins. He clutches his throbbing head, a loud groan slipping out of him involuntarily. Leon gags at the pungent scent of fuel in the air. He has to get out, and he has to go now.
He doesn’t waste any time. Despite the ringing in his ears and the tingling in his bones from the collision, he shoves open the door and stumbles out on wobbly legs.
All he can hear for a beat is the sound of his heart and the rain pounding on the pavement before the whoosh of flames lights up the car. The trail of flames runs over several cars before slowly crawling over the gas tanker.
“Oh no…” He breathes before making a run for it. Too late, the fuel ignites and the tank explodes. The force is enough to knock him off his feet and send him flying directly into the hard, cool embrace of metal nearby.
The wind gets punched out of him on impact and he coughs violently. Pain spikes sharply along his back from the point of impact.
That’s gonna hurt like shit tomorrow. Leon groans as he pushes shakily to his feet. But at least I’m alive.
Claire’s voice distracts him for a brief moment from the pulsing pain, and as they confirm their rendezvous point, he sends up a quick prayer to whoever is listening.
Please get us out of this.
Leon’s ears pick out a faint bell sound that sounds out of place in the chaos and rubble of the streets around him, but he chalks it up to the ringing still in his ears.
RACCOON POLICE DEPARTMENT, RACCOON CITY
The hallway of the RPD was deathly quiet. The silence broken only by a radio crackling to life every now and again, static cutting up the transmissions into barely decipherable broadcasts. The silence should have been welcome after the explosive incident in the rainy streets just hours before, but it just set Leon’s teeth on edge.
He clicks on his flashlight and shines it into the hallway. It barely cuts through the dark.
“Comforting,” He sighs to himself, as he swivels the flashlight around the hall. The light illuminates an officer slumped on the floor against the wall, his jaw barely attached to his face. “Hope I don’t end up like him.”
Bringing his pistol and flashlight up the way the academy taught him, Leon ventures into the corridor, checking carefully for any wandering zombies. He’s in the middle of clearing a corner when something jumps at him, hellbent on taking a chunk of flesh out of his face. He raises his arm just in time, his forearm jammed under the zombie’s rotting neck to stop it in its tracks.
“Whoa!” His quick reaction saves him from being zombie food, its bloody teeth snapping just inches from his face. “You should really see a dentist!”
Panic spikes, hot and sharp, as the zombie’s unnatural strength and aggression takes Leon by surprise. Leon is caught slightly off balance and steps back, completely unaware of another zombie on the floor behind him that was woken by the noise. It struggles to lift its head from the floor, slowly pulling itself towards Leon’s ankles.
Saliva and blood drips from its mouth as its jaw widens and it lunges-
Anchor about to be infected. Intervention required.
Lightning streaks through the sky outside, illuminating the dark hallway in a brilliant flash of light. A wooden board comes loose from the window and smacks the zombie on the floor unceremoniously in the face. It groans loudly in pain, and Leon finally manages to put a bullet through the zombie’s head and scoot off to a safer spot in the hallway.
Phew, close call.
“Huh, must be my lucky day,” He glanced at the zombie yowling under the wooden board before making a quick exit through the Operation Room doors.The hallway fills with the smell of rain and ozone as he goes. He misses the tiny gold spark that drifts down and sizzles out on the floor of the grimy, bloody hallway.
“Time to get that final electronic piece,” Leon murmured to himself as he jogged across the aligned bookshelves. He had been keeping an ear and an eye out for the huge bioweapon (or “Mr X” as Leon had oh-so-affectionately called him) as he had pushed the loudly creaking shelves into place, but none of the ominous footsteps had reached his ears.
That silence made him feel even more tense. Where could he be?
Maybe he was far away, and Leon could get to the clock tower before Mr X could even catch up to him. He swung open the library door and turned-
Right smack into a humongous wall of bioweapon hunting him down throughout the RPD building with a muffled oof. Leon looked up and sighed internally.
Just my luck.
It truly was the most terrifying thing Leon had ever seen. Fully clad in a black trench coat (which had to be bulletproof, his shotgun shells sunk into the thing like a sponge), as wide as it was tall, and a wrinkled face with unblinking yellow eyes.
Yet, Umbrella had the audacity to adorn the thing with a fedora as if it was just an unnaturally large noir detective and not a killing machine.
A beat passes as the two lock eyes.
The bioweapon swings. Operating on pure instinct and adrenaline, Leon ducked under Mr X’s arm and stumbled into the hallway, the door swinging shut as he went.
The arm went straight into the library door, splinters flying and wood splitting as the force punched a hole clean through the heavy wood.
Shit shit shit-
Leon looked frantically around for a place of escape. The library door was a no-go, and Mr X was fully blocking the hallway to the clock tower. The only place for him to go was the dead-end of the hallway. He backs up to regroup and think through his options.
Mr X recovers and locks in on him. Its face turned slowly towards Leon, half bent over and arm still stuck in the door. It looks like something straight out of a horror movie, the light from the library spilling out of the hole to highlight its creepy yellow eyes. Leon shivers, heart pounding loudly and swiftly in his chest.
It starts for Leon again, boots thudding heavily in a syncopated rhythm on the marble floor. Too heavy to belong to any human person.
Leon reaches behind him to pat his utility belt for any last resort and finds nothing but hopes and dreams. A heavy feeling sinks in his gut. He truly is going to meet a dead end.
His aim and flashlight beam hold steady on Mr X, watching and waiting and praying for an opening-
A bell rings out as time stops, the very air heavy like honey dripping from a bottle.
In the space between reality and beyond, you watch the situation unfold with a tactical gaze. Probabilities lay out before you, none of them optimal, good or even ending with the Anchor alive unless you intervened.
You assess the Anchor clinically. Running low on ammunition, nothing to save himself in a bind, a shaking mess of carbon and adrenaline too fragile for the future he was supposed to carry.
Something flickered in your chest. You weren’t sure what it was; maybe curiosity, maybe bemusement. This protection assignment had been a mess since the start. The Anchor - designated Leon Scott Kennedy - was entirely too inexperienced and required constant supervision and intervention to keep him alive. Goodness, he had almost gotten killed just barely within five minutes of entering the city if it wasn’t for you.
I wonder…what can he possibly do? What do THEY see in him?
You sigh.
It’s a good thing he has me.
You snap your fingers. The bell sound rings out again and time snaps back into place like a rubber band.
The Tyrant raises his arm to swing - and slips on a patch of oil. The punch crunches into the marble floor instead of the Anchor’s skull.
Leon doesn’t think twice, seizing the opportunity to scurry past the Tyrant. He shivers as he passes, the air carrying the sharp electric tingle of ozone, making his hair stand on end. The feeling only bolsters the urge to run as fast and far away as he can.
You watch him go, pity flickering in your core as you look at the golden thread of his life stretching out into a hazy future filled with fire and blood.
GUN SHOP KENDO, RACCOON CITY
Robert Kendo steps into view, the light behind him casting hard shadows across his rugged face. His shotgun is raised at the Anchor’s head, and calculations and directives run through your mind immediately. Robert’s a high-risk threat variable, his emotions running high and a loaded weapon in his possession. He’s desperate to keep Leon out, but why? He should be happy to see another human in this hellscape of a city.
And then you spot it: a child in her pajamas in a shack in the back of the shop, slowly stumbling through the open door. You pick up the barely there sound of an inhuman growl and the situation dawns on you. Humans with something to protect are always the most dangerous. You re-adjust your calculations.
Ada is in your periphery, hidden by shadows. Like you, she’s assessing the situation as she draws her gun and makes her way quietly to the altercation. Your plan is clear: if Ada doesn’t intervene, if she messes up, if she turns on Leon, you would jam the gun, make it backfire if necessary. If the infected child turns and lunges, the only thing she would chew on is concrete.
But you need not have worried. Ada recognises that working with Leon is in her best interest, and ever the consummate professional, Ada catches Robert Kendo off guard and the tables turn.
Now Robert is on the defensive, pleading with the duo to let his daughter live.
The sorry sight tugs slightly at your heartstrings, but cold logic whispers in your core. The girl is already gone. To end her now is mercy.
Ada definitely agrees with your assessment. Her gun is trained on the child, unwavering and unmoved despite the man’s desperate pleas. But the Anchor does something completely out of your calculations.
He lowers his gun. “Let them be, Ada.”
He’s composed and persuasive, the perfect combination to defuse the high-pressure situation. His eyes are earnest, his body language open.
A beat passes - Ada sighs. Then lowers her gun, but doesn’t holster it.
You tilt your head in curiosity. Why?
What’s going on in his brain? Why would he do that?
You reach out to the tether between you and his thoughts and emotions, curious and filled with the need to know. Something cold inside of you fractures at what you see.
To the Anchor, he was offering the man dignity. The opportunity to make the decision for himself, no matter how illogical it was. Robert Kendo wasn’t a “threat”, not in the same way you viewed him. He was a grieving father, someone who had lost his wife and now was losing his daughter the same way. And as for the girl-
Shouting snaps you out of your thoughts and to the scene in front of you.
“You’re a cop! You’re supposed to know these things! How did this happen?” The anguish in the man’s voice snagged Leon’s conscience. The man hugs his daughter tight, and Leon can’t tell between the tears on the man’s face and the rain pouring down on them mercilessly outside of the ruins of the Gun Shop Kendo.
He chanced a glance at Ada. She’s watching on, impassive and unreadable. Leon waits for a beat. When it’s clear that she’s not revealing any information, he opens his mouth-
“Don’t.” Her voice is sharp, barely a whisper. He wants to, oh, does he want to. But she’s FBI and technically his superior in this messed up chaos. With a great amount of reluctance, Leon holds his tongue, jaw clenched.
His heart feels like it’s splitting open when the young girl’s voice rasps painfully for her parents.
For a moment, he sees the ghost of his younger self.
He’s standing on cold pavement in front of yellow police tape, wet school uniform clinging to his skin, backpack long forgotten on the floor next to him. His voice is hoarse from crying and screaming for his parents as a kneeling police officer hugs him close, rubbing calming circles on his back.
Over the officer’s shoulder, he accidentally catches a glimpse of two black body bags on stretchers being rolled out of his house.
“Mummy? Daddy?”
Grief cracks through him. He clenches his fists until he feels the skin stretched taut over his knuckles.
Confronted with the Anchor’s agony and sorrow, the fractured thing inside of you cracks. A warm fragrance spills out, smoothing out the sharp, electric bite of ozone. A fragrance that was out of place in a city of undead and nightmares.
You slowly move forward, hand outstretched towards the Anchor - no, Leon - stiff and staring at the father and daughter pair.
As the man in the Gun Shop Kendo store retreats with his daughter in his arms, the corner of Leon’s eyes burn. He sees red; hot anger eclipsing any rational thought.
He’s struggling to think straight and form his scrambled thoughts in coherent sentences when the air around him shifts.
You step into the light behind him, your translucent hands hovering inches from his core. You can’t bring his parents back, can’t save the girl, but you can do this.
You touch him, a hesitant finger on his wet back.
The miasma of copper and rot is swept away by the soothing, fresh smell of jasmine flowers bathed in a lightning storm. A warm feeling slowly spreads from Leon’s chest out to the tips of his fingers.
It’s different from the burning, destructive anger and sorrow. The feeling is akin to the welcoming and invigorating light of sunrise. It suffuses through his veins, smoothing over the hard edges of his anger until his breathing deepened and his heart steadied.
You are not alone, Leon.
He straightens and faces Ada, anchored by a peace he couldn’t explain.
“It’s one thing to keep it from me. But why him?” Leon points emphatically at the closed door. The crack of a single gunshot echoes in the night air. He flinches as if he himself was struck by the bullet.
Then it’s silent, just the sound of the rain on concrete like heaven itself is crying for them.
It just steels Leon’s resolve.
“Helping people like them - that’s why I joined the force. So whatever it takes to save the city…count me in.”
The sincerity and steel in his tone softens something in you. You drift slowly behind the duo as they leave, one last glance at the quiet shack.
You had gone about this mission with cold logic and neutral objectivity, but here was someone who cared, bled and wept for others, who made people his mission. A warm feeling stirs in your chest, something that feels a bit like respect.
You were starting to understand why THEY had chosen this man to guard, why it was so important for you to keep him alive.
More than just the key to humanity’s survival, he was their beating, bleeding heart.
UNDERGROUND SEWERS, RACCOON CITY
Still, you have the very human urge to facepalm when he jumps in front of Annette’s bullets for Ada without a second thought.
You’re not even familiar with her, Leon.
But you knew that Leon just cared about seeing her - or anyone he was with - safe.
It made your job a lot more challenging, but as you gazed down at your charge slumbering against the wall, the ghost of a smile curved on your lips.
It was beginning to feel worth it - protecting this man who protected others.
You would have liked Leon to be completely safe and bullet-free, but the Script had forbidden it, allowing all bullets to miss him except a single one that lodged itself into his shoulder. You kneel down next to him, an unconscious, bloody mess. His shoulder’s in a bad state, bleeding through the clean white bandages. Ada’s coat has been draped over him as he rests. Looks like Ada’s developed a soft spot for him, too.
He really did have an uncanny ability to worm his way into even the most impenetrable of hearts.
“You really are something else,” You sigh, the sound quiet but fond. Something shifts in your core, and the jasmine smell fills the cramped hallway, more potent than the ozone. You rest your hand on his shoulder.
“Alright, time to wake up.” You push your power around his wound and into his body. Every cell in your body sang as your power worked, healing the gunshot wound as far as you were allowed. The Script’s barrier around the worst parts of the injury was an iron wall, so you skirted around it, knitting together nerves and muscle where you could.
Gold sparks fell from your hand and winked out against Leon’s blue RPD uniform.
Once you were satisfied, you retracted your hand and leaned back.
You could see Leon’s eyes shift under his eyelids as a soft sigh escaped his lips. His eyelids fluttered as his consciousness returned.
“What…? Where’s…Ada…?” Worry bleeds through his groggy voice.
And we’re back on track.
NEST, RACCOON CITY
The NEST is coming down, all of Umbrella’s work crumbling into the void. The air rumbled with the sound of concrete crumbling and metal shuddering. Harsh fluorescent lights bathed the metal walkway where two people stood their ground on opposite sides in the middle of the destruction, neither wanting to back down.
Anger simmers under Leon’s skin as he stares down the barrel of Ada’s pistol, aim steady. It was pointed squarely at his chest but there was a flicker of something in her eyes - usually so unreadable - that wasn’t detached professionalism. His gut twisted. He had hoped she would deny Annette’s claims. Wished for her to give him a reason not to draw his gun on her. It was naive, idealistic.
“All this time, I was just some pawn to you?” He spat at her harshly, his eyes flashing. The words tasted like ash in his mouth. He detected the barest flinch before her face hardened into a glare.
“Look, I’m just doing my job-”
“And I’m doing mine, so drop that damn gun! I’m taking you in.”
Ada shifted slightly closer, gun still raised. “Hand over the sample, Leon.” A command wrapped up in a layer of exhaustion.
Then, a softer entreaty. “I don’t wanna hurt you.”
The bridge shuddered violently and the floor right behind Leon detached and fell into the nothingness below. The floor they were on tilted, sending both into a precarious stumble before they caught their balance, guns once again raised at each other. There was a click as Leon pressed the trigger ever so slightly, searching her face for any hint of the woman he had met just hours earlier. The one who had saved his life, versus the one standing before him wrapped in a red dress who had spun an elaborate web of lies to draw him in. Maybe they were the same, and saving his life had been another move in her chess game he wasn’t privy to. Or maybe…she really did care about him, in her own twisted way.
This standoff had to end, or they would both die. Leon took a gamble.
Screw it.
He lowered his gun forcefully. “Then you shoot me, but I don’t think you can.” A flicker of surprise crosses Ada’s face before her grip on the gun tightens. The trigger depresses slightly under her finger before Ada exhales and lowers the gun entirely. Triumph crosses Leon’s face at being proven right; Ada did have a heart under that cold, detached exterior.
You drift next to the duo on the bridge, observing the situation. You raise an eyebrow, impressed at him calling Ada’s bluff. Good intuition. Maybe THEY were right to choose him after all.
A beat passes -
Bang! Blood spurts from Ada’s shoulder, a mirror image to Leon’s own. Leon whips around to see Annette, barely holding herself upright against a wall, a smoking gun in her hands. Then everything goes wrong at once.
A violent shudder of metal on metal, and the floor they were standing on gives way. Ada loses her footing and slides across the tilted floor towards the waiting darkness below.
Leon doesn’t think. He lunges, body hitting the metal with a bone-jarring thud as his hand shot out into the empty air and clasped around her wrist just in time. The G-virus sample fell out of his pocket and bounced off the metal ledge with a light clink, freefalling into the dark. Leon couldn’t care less. All he wanted next to him was the woman currently dangling from his hand.
The yawning chasm of the darkness below waits patiently to swallow Ada whole.
You gasp, a hand clasped over your mouth. He’s saving her…even though she betrayed him?
Pain stabs through the tether between you and him as Leon attempts to pull Ada up, shoulder wound white-hot with agony. The metal bridge crumples further under their combined weight and he’s forced to abandon that endeavour lest they both fall together.
You glance at the metal supports of the walkway groaning under them, slowly bending and surrendering to gravity. From the boundary, you watch on, unable to do anything beyond keeping the bridge just stable enough to make sure Leon gets away safely. Calculation: structural integrity of bridge is compromised. Leon…is delaying the inevitable.
“Forget it…” Ada’s tone is soft, her face displaying a resigned acceptance he had never seen before. “It’s not worth it.”
“Shut up, I’ve got you!” His words are forceful, fearful. “I can still save you-”
He readjusts his grip. A useless endeavour, as Ada’s hand slips even further. “No…” He grunts. One strong emotion hums clearly through the tether between you and him - heartbreak. His pain at his inability to save just another person in this wretched city. The fractured thing inside of you shatters completely. The sharp, electric bite of ozone completely burned away, overpowered by the soothing smell of jasmine.
Ada locks eyes with him, her face softening into something terrifyingly final - the kind of acceptance that people had before their certain death.
“Take care of yourself, Leon.”
Before he could scream a protest, her fingers went limp. She slid through his palm and Leon’s outstretched hand closed around empty air.
“NO!” She fell weightlessly through the air, the red of her dress swallowed by the shadows below. He lay there on the bridge in disbelief, his hand still curled around a hand that was no longer there. Coldness seeped into his fingertips.
The shudder of the bridge and the faint scent of jasmine jolted him back to the precarious position he was in. Still staring at the darkness below, he carefully clambered his way to a safe position as the metal supports finally gave out and the bridge fully collapsed.
“9 minutes to detonation,” a monotonous voice intoned.
You look down at the darkness below as Leon descends with the elevator. What a tragic man.
An ache pulses in your chest, right where your heart would be if you were human. Is this what heartbreak feels like?
You raise a hand to it, a furrow between your brows. What a tragic start to a future filled with pain. Are THEY breaking him…so he will always save people? Even at the cost of himself?
You watch Leon, the hard set of his shoulders, the tight line of his mouth. The idealism that had driven him into Raccoon City had burned away in the rubble of the city, replaced by the harsh trauma of Umbrella and its experiments. You make a resolution to Leon, unseen and unheard.
I’m not going to let you go through this life alone.
WASHINGTON, DC - A FEW YEARS AFTER RACCOON CITY BOMBING
The apartment was quiet.
Leon hated the silence. He preferred the burn of physical exertion in his muscles, the calculations and strategies his mind had to focus on in dicey situations. Anything but being idle. Because having to stay still meant being caught by thoughts and memories he would rather forget.
But he was on mandatory leave and it was storming out. So he did the next best thing.
Slumped in the middle of the sofa, he raises his bottle of cheap bourbon to his ghosts and tilts the bottle into his waiting mouth. The amber liquid burns on its way down, and Leon revels in the sensation, something real in his numb world.
Helping people’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
“To the job,” he mutters darkly. His vision blurs, ever so slightly, as he sets the bottle too close to the table’s edge. It teeters, gravity pulling it down to the floor-
Then rights itself and slides to the center of the table, way out of his reach from his position on the sofa.
“Huh.” He mumbles, rubbing a hand over his face. “I must be further gone than I thought.”
Mess averted and the alcohol turning his muscles to lead, Leon leans back against the sofa cushions and finally surrenders himself to another fitful night of nightmares. His eyes slowly drift close.
As his eyes drift shut, the acrid smell of iron and blood faded, replaced by a smell that reminded him of the rare peaceful moments during the early morning sunshine. Jasmine and bergamot.
Just before sleep claims him, a weight settles over him and he registers the texture of his blue cotton couch throw that he had thrown over the armrest (one of the many housewarming gifts from Claire and Sherry because it feels like no one lives here, Leon). He didn’t remember moving to grab it, and his brows furrowed.
“Rest.” A distant voice soothes.
There’s the faintest tingling warmth on his forehead, the same warmth when his mother kissed him goodnight all those years ago, and any doubt or worry dissolves like snow in the spring.
He lets himself be pulled under.
For the first time since the nightmare that changed his life, he isn’t haunted by bloody teeth or Ada being swallowed by the dark.
Instead, he dreams of a garden he has never physically been to, resting in the cool shade of a huge oak tree. Tulips bloom all around him, a riotous parade of colour in the light of the early morning. The garden is filled with a melodic humming that soothes the jagged edges of his soul.
His body and mind feel lighter when he wakes; the first in years.