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It’s silly, she supposes. More than silly: it’s stupid, it’s foolish.
To take the chance that life gave her. But inclination as well as a bit of perversity made the decision easy: the fact that the man who has had such a hold on her heart since she was twenty years old now somehow reciprocating how she felt seemed to make the decision for her.
You already know, don’t you? He told her at that rooftop two weeks ago, the wind blowing at his soft tawny locks while it made a mess of her hair, his glacier-blue eyes looking kindly at her like they always did—although quite differently that evening: mingled with the merriness was boldness, even triumph.
She knew he wouldn’t say it unless she did, first. Their bond was full of that: unspoken understanding. He knew he could count on her to watch his back in the best way she knew how, back in that godforsaken place. She didn’t need a second telling after he’d promised her that they were going to get rid of the parasite that writhed between their lungs.
And when they made it out of there, though she knew distance and time and his own duty would always drive him away from her, he never had to say anything more when he promised her she would always have a friend in him.
Very “Toy Story,” but I’ll take it, she chuckled as they shook hands in the aftermath, when the quiet, private ceremony of giving Leon his medal had taken place in the White House itself.
I mean it, he insisted, earnest still even in his laughter. He wasn’t the Leon that she knew whenever he laughed: he looked like a boy. I’ll see you around, Ashley. Take care of yourself.
Except that she didn’t see him around. Not really. What supplied for the absence, though, were emails and voicemails he returned—respectfully, at first, until the courtesy turned into actual gravitation towards her. Talks on the phone that began as checking-in and anecdotes that made either of them laugh became longer: idle confabulation grew into late night talking that became real means of helping Leon pull through the unspeakable horrors of his way of life.
The communication then grew into occasional meetings, shared glances, looks that lingered for a second too long.
Three years of that.
And then: You already know, don’t you?
She did.
And right now she knows the other things, too: that there is the very real danger of loss. That the lives of others will always come before hers. That even something as mundane, as simple, as a first date would be something she’d be deprived of.
Or at least, for tonight, anyway.
“I’m sorry” are the first words that come out of his mouth. There he stands at the door of her house, she in her black dress she’s supposed to wear tonight, he already in his mission gear. In that prussian blue thermal shirt, in those combat boots, in belts and buckles and holsters in all of his government-agent, stupendous glory. “I know that doesn’t fix anything, but I’m sorry, Ash. The travel order was sudden; hell, it was issued just thirty minutes ago.”
His hair is even still slicked back, a vague musky smell of perfume issuing from his neck if she leaned in close enough.
Pursing her lips, she sits on her response. There’s a burgeoning sensation of tightness in her throat. So it begins, part of her whispers. Should this be regarded as an omen?
It’s only when Leon shifts awkwardly on his feet does she realize she’s been quiet for too long. He avoids her eyes, bites his cheek. “I understand if you’re gonna break up with me over this, but before you do, I wanna give you this—” he procures a small velvet box from his front pocket, and for a split-second she thinks her heart has plummeted to her stomach, only to be marginally mollified when he extracts a thin, glinting silver from it.
He takes her hand, pours it there. The thin chain falls into a limp puddle of silver on her palm. The pendant catches her eye immediately—delicate and small, barely the size of her fingernail, with a small glinting green stone encrusted on it.
“A key,” she says. It comes out more deadpan than she intends. “If this means ‘the key to your heart’, Leon, I swear to god—”
His laughter is such a stark contrast to everything he’s wearing, and even starker still to the muck and blood that will mar his skin once he gets to wherever he needs to go. “Well, now it isn’t.”
She gives him a pained—although amused—cringe.
“You remember the cage? When you tossed me the key out of there.”
“Wh—” she balks, but reins her curiosity in instead, a better idea occurring to her. Takes his hand, cups her hand on it. “You know what, explain it to me next time.”
The entire weight of the world weighs less compared to the smile he gives her. But there is a tinge of sadness in his expression, the shadow of the unspoken: if he’s just unlucky enough in this assignment, there may not be a “next time.”
“Explain it to me next time,” she says again for emphasis, and as if to somehow ward off the very real possibility that he would come home not in his leather jacket but in a body bag. With a fond snort, she adds: “And I’m not breaking up with you over this. Don’t be ridiculous.”
He dutifully pockets the necklace back, gives her a grave look of mingled worry and adoration.
“We can hug, it’s okay,” she jests when his pause stretches for too long, charmed by his boyish shyness. “You’re not—oh!”
“I’ll see you soon,” he says, his lips so ticklishly, wonderfully, harrowingly close to her shoulder, his burly arms and their own kind of safety bracketing her torso.
“I’ll see you soon.” She returns the hug, slightly trembling in her desperation to keep him close and here. “Come back to me.”
“I’ll come back to you,” he echoes. Says that he loves her.
“What?” Electrified, she unceremoniously breaks off the hug, inadvertently shoves him. “Wh—what?”
His ears are pink. And the color spreads, and spreads, until he’s blushing to the roots of his hair. Based on how warm her face is right now, she’s probably sporting the same color. Probably brighter. “You—I thought you knew?” The last word falls on a crestfallen key.
“Well, I—I thought you…you just—” Infatuation she expected. But something real? Too real?
The crestfallen expression turns into utter humiliation. “You don’t feel the same way.”
“I do! I do,” with a rather wild motion of the hands. And, elated, brimming with warmth, she throws her arms around him again, tighter this time. “I do. Just…I can’t believe it.”
“What’s so hard to believe?”
“This.” It’s somehow pathetic, she realizes—how much she’s undervaluing herself. She could charm any man—that she’s always known; she was raised acutely aware of the prestige and beauty endowed upon her. But Leon just isn’t any man—rugged and honest and unpretentious, so unassuming and kind, like no one she’s ever known that he’s almost an entirely different species. “All of this.”
“I think we should start saying things explicitly, Ash,” he says, eyes crinkling, the blue of them the warmest color she’s ever seen.
“I agree,” she grins back. Something golden flourishes along with the warmth, tendrils of light blooming from her chest, flowing to the tips of her fingers and toes, wrapping her around and washing over her at the same time. “Leon, I—I’m…honored.” To be loved by someone so brave and noble and flawed and beautiful.
“Thank you,” he says, and the depth his voice adopts reminds her of those phone calls when he’d just woken up from a nightmare, when he would tell her he needs to hear a voice that isn’t growling or screaming. “For loving someone like me.”
And this would be the price she’ll pay: the first date nixed, relegated to another day. The first of what she expects to be of many, many times. “Not ‘someone like you,’” she arrests his cheeks in her palms, gently. “You.”
“I’ll make this work, Ash. I promise.”
“We’ll make this work,” she corrects, kind still. “You’ll never be alone again, Leon Kennedy.”
They share a smile, and for a moment they imagine that they’re sharing it over a hot meal under ambient lighting, and they would share it still while they’re walking home, when they would hold each other’s hands as the wind took liberties with their hair.
“I know,” he adds, turning grave once more. “I’m aware of what I’m asking you to go through. I…”
“Don’t say sorry. I know what this means, too. Just promise me one thing.”
“What is it?”
She cups her hand to the side of her mouth and leans into his ear. Whispers. When she draws away, his face has turned from pink to scarlet.
“Ashley!”
Puckering her lips, she lifts her shoulders and tilts her head at him.
But he balks after a second. “I…I can do that?”
“If you want to,” she nods, trying to tamp the naughtiness down by simply smiling, when all she can visualize now—as she has just whispered in his ears now—the image of them in the dark, Leon’s hands all over her, and parts of him inside of her where they shouldn’t be going. But hey, maybe a little humor, a little heart, could shield him. “Now go.”
She tamps the sadness that threatens to pollute the gilded sensation within her at the notion that she would have to remove this dress by her own hand tonight. More than the sadness—the oncoming worry that she knows will plague the rest of her days for as long as she will love this man.
But just as true as anxiety is borrowed grief from the future, so is the old adage: hope springs eternal.