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There were two things Leon could count on whenever he got home after spending time away: an empty fridge and a full mailbox. Why keep things around if they were just gonna go bad before he could enjoy them?
At least the stack of envelopes in his hand had a longer shelf life. Nothing requiring an immediate response, if any response had been requested at all.
Except—
A small square envelope was wedged between catalogs, its sender well known to him. Ark Thompson was one of Leon’s oldest friends. More than that, he had been brought into the world of bioterrorism because of him. To think, Leon could hardly remember the last time they even talked.
The holidays, probably. He received a Christmas card from the Klein-Thompson household and responded with a Happy New Year text. It had been even longer since they’d seen each other in person.
Leon unceremoniously slid his finger behind the envelope flap and tugged. The paper tore unevenly. But the seal gave, nonetheless, revealing its contents to be an invitation.
There was surely a cap on how many graduation ceremony tickets a student could get. So, why the hell was Leon being offered one?
That question answered itself. Between p.i. work and raising two kids, Ark only had so much time for anything else. That, combined with the paranoia induced by exposure to the world of bioterrorism, made socializing particularly difficult. Plus, he’d always been one to keep his circle small. Most importantly, Lily and Lott were his priority, his pride. Now one of them was about to graduate high school.
Jesus.
Leon stuffed the invitation back into its mangled envelope, tucked it under his arm along with the rest of his mail, and pulled his keys from his pocket. He could tell there was someone inside his apartment the moment he opened the door. He was equally certain it wasn’t the person he’d given his spare key. No, it was someone who didn’t bother with that sort of formality. Someone who had always had their own way of getting into spaces.
“Ada.”
She briefly glanced over her shoulder before returning her attention to the empty pantry she’d been peering into. “If I’d known you were living like Mother Hubbard, I’d have gone shopping first.” She closed the cupboard doors and spun to face Leon.
“I’ve been out of town for a few days,” he said.
It was the truth. Intentionally light on detail, but the truth.
Leon plopped his mail onto the bar separating the living room from the space that the property manager had rather optimistically advertised as a kitchen. He sat down in one of the stools, pondering for a moment if she should invite Ada to take the other.
To join him?
Instead, he asked, “And you? What are you doing here? You weren’t just in the neighborhood, were you?”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
Yeah. No. Maybe.
“Maybe I was in the neighborhood, and maybe I wasn’t.” Ada was predictably flippant. It was almost comforting. “Either way, consider this a social call. They do exist, after all. So how about it?”
“How about what?”
“How about you buy me a drink?” Ada made a quarter turn. Away from Leon, although she was sure to keep him in her line of sight. She made a sweeping gesture toward the variety of bottles lining his countertop. “That’s the one area where you appear to be well stocked.”
“I try to have the basics covered. Never know when I’ll be entertaining guests,” he remarked, trusting his meaning wasn’t lost on her.
“Hmm.” Ada was thoughtful. Holding something back, even. Which, Leon had to concede, was a relatively common occurrence.
They’d both long since learned that sharing the finer points just seemed to make the distance, the differences, between them that much greater. Or maybe it just made him want to close the gap even more.
She honed in on one bottle in particular, curling her fingers around its neck. “So, what are you in the mood for?”
“A time machine,” Leon muttered, against his better judgment.
He pretended he saw Ada’s muscles tense beneath the snug fabric of her sweater. He watched as she grabbed two rocks glasses from the cupboard.
“I’m not sure I know how to make that one,” she admitted. She began to pour, anyway. “Maybe it’s best if I just give it to you straight.”
“I’d love nothing more.”
That wasn’t true. There was one thing Leon would always love more and she was right in front of him, elusive, evasive, and enchanting as ever.
“Will this suffice?” Ada asked, with two glasses in hand.
She approached the bar. She kept to her side, and placed one glass in front of him, and kept hold of the other. More modestly filled than if Leon had been the one making the drinks, he noted.
Ada clinked her glass against his but said nothing.
What would she say?
What would either of them say?
‘To us?’
To the imaginary version of each of them that could embody such a concept.
She took a taste of her drink and savored it. Then she lifted her glass and tilted it, not far enough to spill, but just enough to see it through the light. She observed, “You know, high class liquor like this isn’t meant to be drunk alone.”
“It was a gift.” Leon took a sip, too.
“Ah. Then maybe I shouldn’t partake after all.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not the intended recipient, and depending on who gave this to you, they might not be too pleased to know you were sharing it with me.”
Leon wondered, “Since when did you care about stuff like that?”
Ada wasn’t wrong, but she had never shown concern for her welcomeness in his life before.
“Stuff like what?” she echoed, as if she didn’t know.
“What other people think of you. Partaking in things that don’t belong to you,” Leon replied.
Taking things that didn’t belong to her—things that were much worse than a few ounces of booze, high end or not.
“Now.” Ada spoke a single word. She was still standing and Leon was still sitting but then she leaned forward. She’d moved in close enough that he could smell her perfume.
“Since now…?” he guessed.
“No.” She shot him down, although there was no anger or even any irritation behind it. “Now, how about you tell me what’s really bothering you?”
Leon grabbed the envelope at the top of the stack and held it up for Ada to claim.
She took it but didn’t do more than turn it over in her hands. “What’s the matter? Nothing to wear?”
Leon chuckled, and with complete confidence, stated, “You know me better than that.”
“Or maybe you just don’t want to show up to the ball alone?” Ada wondered. She sounded just playful enough not to rouse suspicion, and just serious enough to make Leon question himself.
“Why?” he asked. Then he issued a challenge. “You volunteering to be my plus-one?”
Ada issued a challenge of her own. “And if I was?” Then another. “How would you introduce me?”
Answering a question with a question, two could play that game. “How would you?”
That was obvious: Ada wouldn’t. She just pulled the card from the envelope and read it to buy them both a bit of time. It was almost funny, considering most of their moments were stolen.
“I went to high school with his dad.” Leon offered the information ahead of being asked.
He observed as Ada did some rudimentary mental math. It was more than a little endearing to see the confused expression on her face as she attempted to process how someone his age could be a father to a teenage son.
Finally, he explained, “He’s adopted.”
“And you’re jealous,” Ada concluded, tucking the invitation back into its envelope. She put it down on the countertop, tapping it once for good measure before sliding it back toward Leon.
“What? Come on,” he scoffed. “Okay, fine, a part of me thought I might have a family by now. But it’s the same part of me that thought I’d be clocking in at RPD every day.”
“Is that the life you wanted for yourself?” Ada asked. She stood up straight, as if his answer would determine whether or not they could see each other eye to eye.
“Not sure.” It felt weird to say it aloud. Leon brought his glass to his lips again. He took too big a swig and swallowed it too quickly. Past warmth that hardly registered in the back of his throat anymore, he quietly confessed, “It’s the life I thought I’d have.”
“Nothing is stopping you from having that, you know,” Ada pointed out, as if it was that simple.
“No?”
Forget that Leon was hardly ever home, that he was basically government property now, and that his deepest, most enduring relationship to date was with a corporate spy-for-hire. The problem was, he couldn’t. Couldn’t forget, couldn’t… anything. The version of him who wanted that life died in Raccoon City. Or maybe it was just the version of him who deserved it.
“Why are you really here, Ada?”
“Do you want me to leave?”
“Of course not.”
“Do I need a reason to be here?”
“No. But you don’t really expect me to believe you haven’t got one. Maybe this really is unofficial.” Leon paused and corrected himself. “A social call. But you aren’t here for nothing.”
“I’m here for you.” Ada put her hand over Leon’s wrist but didn’t squeeze. Still, it seemed like she would forever have her fingers on his pulse. “And I didn’t give the sample to Wesker.”
“You didn’t?”
“No.” She shook her head, resigned but also resolute. “I have absolutely no doubt he got his hands on it, anyway. But he didn’t get it from me.”
“Why?”
“I found out what he was planning,” Ada responded. “Or maybe I accepted that I’d known all along and just couldn’t go through with it.”
“How come didn’t you tell me before?” Leon figured that was a fair question.
“Let’s just say it was a spur of the moment decision.” And Ada clearly figured this was a fair answer.
“Yeah? And what influenced this spur of the moment decision?”
“You aren’t really asking me that, are you?”
“I suppose not.”
“Maybe it was the angel on my shoulder.” Ada’s tone was soft and gentle, betraying fondness. “Or maybe I’m sick of being the devil on yours.”
Leon would feel her weight on his shoulder—no, in it—for the rest of his life, but not like that. “You’re not…” He tried to protest.
“It’s alright. I didn’t come here for an ego boost. Even if I had, you aren’t in any shape for it.” Ada gave his wrist a pat.
Consolation?
Well, it wasn’t like he was much of a prize at the moment. She was right about that.
“No argument here.”
“I know how easy it is to get lost on the road not taken.” Ada stepped around the bar and sat next to Leon. Looking ahead rather than at him, she said, “There’s no getting on it, not really, but—”
“But there’s also no getting off, either.”
“I don’t suppose there is,” Ada conceded. “Do you remember what I said to you in the lab? In Raccoon City?”
“Goodbye?” Leon guessed.
“Before that.”
“Said a lotta stuff,” he muttered, failing not to remember any of it.
Ada rose, swiftly. “Thanks for the drink,” she declared, and seemed content, or maybe just intent, to slip away without saying anything more.
“Funny, I don’t remember you saying that,” Leon remarked, wondering, for the briefest moment, if he shouldn’t lay off the smartass one liners and bad jokes.
Then he wondered if he could.
“Well, it was a long time ago.” Ada almost sounded disappointed. “And a lot’s happened since then.” She began to walk away.
Leon sprung up from his seat. “Ada, wait,” he called out before she could get further away. He wasn’t sure why he said it. It wasn’t like she ever listened to him.
Only, she froze.
“Seems like we’re both feeling nostalgic.” She was coy, her words coated in her signature aloofness once more. But the lacquer was streaked, and such shoddy application wasn’t like her. “If it makes a difference, I was referring to when I said I wanted to escape with you.”
Leon felt something jolt inside his brain, half electric shock, half record scratch.
I really wanted to escape with you, Leon. …Escape from everything.
“What about now?” he asked, trying to make the tingling feeling go away, both inside and out.
“Not sure,” Ada answered, honestly. “We might not cross paths again for a while. On the job, that is.”
“Yeah. I can see how that would be the way of things, given recent events.”
Said events being her burning bridges with Albert Wesker… It made sense she’d want to lay low for a while. Still, this wasn’t one of those cases where ‘enemy of my enemy’ applied. She and Leon had always existed outside of those lines, anyway. What they were to each other, and always would be, had never adhered to any kind of definition—at least not one that made sense. But just because something resisted to be labeled didn’t make it any less real. Plus, there was a certain pattern to all of it. A thing that could be counted on. A thing that could be broken.
A thing that could be fixed?
Or maybe just finally made right.
“Then you’ll just have to come by and have a drink with me again sometime,” Leon offered.
“That sounds an awful lot like an invitation,” Ada noted. She was guarded, yet something like optimism resonated in her words.
It reminded Leon of someone peering through the wrong side of a peephole and hoping they could still see what was on the inside.
“It does, doesn’t it?” he agreed, all too aware of how easily a person could throw that sort of thing away then pretend it got lost in the mail. “Hey, you said it yourself: stuff like this isn’t meant to be drunk alone.”
Ada kept her feet planted. She didn’t come any closer but didn’t move any farther away. She just leaned forward at the torso and wrapped her outstretched arms around Leon. She was just near enough to plant a peck on his jawline.
He half expected her to make a remark about his stubble. Instead, she let go, straightened up, and said, “Take care of yourself, Leon.”