Chapter Text
Rumination
Leon speaks:
September 30th, 1998.
I ruminate on that night like a broken record, and I admit I have to fight the urge to just blurt it out to any clueless stranger—anyone without ties to what went down in Raccoon City. Most of the time, people just walk away making cracks about how wasted I must be, assuming I’m rambling about the outbreak while drowning my sorrows in expensive whiskey. Or they just look at me with a mix of pity and dread—probably because they think I’ve lost my mind and need to be committed as soon as possible. After all, who would have the imagination to dream up such a detailed story about some zombie virus wiping a Midwestern American town off the map? And who would be crazy enough to scare themselves with their own hallucination and swear on their life that everything had been real?
Honestly, I would prefer being committed.
I survived.
So did Claire and Sherry.
Yet, many others weren’t so lucky.
Marvin Branagh’s face and his words visit me every night, acting as a sort of guardian and, above all, a mentor. His advice about never hesitating when facing the infected stays with me in every bioterrorism counter-operation I’m thrown into. In fact, the government only sends me on these types of missions, betting on survival odds that, to no one's surprise, are abysmally low.
It’s almost strange to think I’m only going to handle the disappearance of a young woman.
Claire became the sister I never had.
We share the burden of having survived Raccoon City, and we fight the same war against those who deploy biological weapons. Perhaps she is more invested than I am, because working for the American government… sometimes requires me to look the other way if, by chance, one of my bosses decides to acquire an arsenal built on some virus developed by a particular corporation. Anyone who thinks Umbrella is the only one exporting these little bugs, or that politicians have no interest in them, is dead wrong.
I was keeping the promise I made to Claire.
I protected Sherry with my life when Claire decided to head out in search of Chris.
Not long after she left us, the government tracked down both me and little Birkin.
I fought like a monster for that girl, who called Claire "mom" and me "dad," and I would fight all over again if I hadn’t been staring down men with weapons far heavier than my shotgun. We were taken into custody, and for the sake of Sherry’s life, I had to accept this job.
I had no choice.
Sometimes I wonder if they would even let me live if I didn’t have a police academy background—since my actual experience as a cop doesn’t count for much.
Well, at least another academy wouldn’t feel entirely foreign to me.
I mean, military grunts are just as boneheaded as cops.
It’s not like I was going to forge any bonds with anyone in there.
Unless…
Forget it, Leon!
He’s already gone, and you’re already free.
Knives are extensions of your arms, not his.
Losses in this line of work are things I must learn to live with, even if my mind refuses to. I can’t accept the fact that Marvin is rotting in the R.P.D. main hall, assuming his body wasn’t entirely vaporized by the atomic bomb the United States dropped on Raccoon City. And I also can’t think about…
I don’t even want to touch upon the possibility.
The name.
Her body plunging into the abyss.
Her red dress vanishing into the dark.
Her last words were, “Take care of yourself, Leon,” and then she let go of my hand.
After everything, after deceiving me, I swear I saw regret in her eyes, and if she had just let me pull her up, we could have…
Never mind.
Let her rest in the abyss of the N.E.S.T.
So much has happened; I opened the gates to so many people.
Sometimes I think I opened them a bit too wide.
The lively cadence of a bulería cast a vibrant red and yellow hue over those otherwise somber, grey thoughts.
The Spanish police jeep traveled down a dirt road. It had been at least five hours since they picked Leon up from the airport. The moon painted the dense forest in a pale, weak glow, casting blue reflections across the trees. The vehicle jolted; the further they sank into that labyrinth of leaves and mud, the rougher the road became. In an instinctive reaction, Leon rested a hand over his swollen belly. It wasn’t enough that the seatbelt was squeezing him tightly; he also had to be driven out to a mission in the middle of nowhere, nearly forty weeks pregnant.
The metallic, brilliant voice of the Spanish singer began to be drowned out by bursts of static, prompting the officer in the passenger seat to ask the other officer at the wheel to shut off the radio.
“We’re gonna have to cut the music, big mama,” said the bearded cop in his fifties from the passenger seat. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“It’s fine,” Leon murmured, his eyes still fixed on the window.
“Honestly, I’m still wondering what you’re even doing out here,” said the younger officer driving the police SUV. His glasses gave him the look of a uniform-wearing nerd.
“I already told you, I’m looking for a missing young woman,” Kennedy shot back.
“She’s cranky,” the bearded cop teased. “You know what hormones do to pregnant women?”
“No.”
“I’ve got proof right at home; my wife got dumber after she had our kids.”
The young man behind the wheel let out a strained chuckle.
“I’d fake being stupid too if I had to sleep with you for the rest of my life,” Leon spat.
“No need to get touchy, cowgirl. We can’t exactly deliver your baby out here in the boonies,” the older cop insisted on the joke.
Agent Kennedy’s jaw tightened as he glared at the old officer through the rearview mirror. It wasn’t worth arguing with someone of that caliber.
“So what they said at the airport is true, then,” the young cop with glasses tried to break the ice. “You’re really here to fetch a missing American girl. I just don’t get why they sent you in your condition. Didn’t they know it would be dangerous?”
“It’s because they’ve made up this new thing where only women can rescue women,” the bearded cop chimed in before Leon could even open his mouth. “They just forgot that female agents barely exist. Guess this was the only one they had.”
“Could you stop calling me a woman?” Leon growled.
“Don’t get mad, blondie, you’ll have plenty more to worry about once you go after the girl,” the old timer replied.
“I’m aware.”
“A lot of people have been vanishing around these parts lately,” the cop with glasses noted. “We’re talking entire villages left completely abandoned. An alert had already been issued banning tourists from entering the forest because nobody ever comes back. And here we are, heading right into it.”
Leon felt the baby kicking against his ribs—they had been getting stronger lately. He cupped his stomach beneath his coat, choosing to stick strictly to business: “And what else do you know about these disappearances?”
“Not much. The authorities only found empty houses and bizarre artifacts.”
“Bizarre artifacts?”
“Yeah,” the officer at the wheel said, navigating a sharper bend. “Amulets made out of animal bones shaped like something… looked like a dragonfly. Inscriptions in blood on the walls. But no signs of deaths, except for a few animals.”
“Understood.”
Silence took over once more, broken only by the sound of branches and leaves being crushed under the SUV's tires.
An insistent flicking sound, followed by the flare of a flame, drew Leon’s gaze to the officer in the passenger seat. Agent Kennedy clenched his fists; the man had just lit a cigarette.
“Put that out,” he ordered, his voice dropping an octave lower.
“Man, I feel sorry for the guy who knocked you up. Relax, cowgirl, we’re almost there,” the stubbled old man said, rolling down his window. “If you feel sick, let us know.”
The open windows allowed the cold night air to circulate, clearing out some of the cigarette smoke. However, the lingering trace of the smell was enough to make Leon’s stomach churn. The agent swallowed down the urge to vomit and demanded more forcefully: “Put that shit out right now. I’m getting sick.”
The older cop gave a dismissive shrug toward the driver. “Pull over, I’ll smoke outside.”
The cop with glasses pulled over to the side of the road.
“Stay here with the tomboy,” the bearded man told the youth as he pushing open the passenger door. “I need to relieve myself anyway. Nature calls, as the old folks say!”
Momentarily relieved to be rid of the man, if only for a bit, Leon Kennedy let out a slow breath. While the young man with glasses took a deep breath in the driver's seat, Agent Kennedy reached into the pockets of his shearling coat and pulled out the photograph of the young woman he was sent to find.
Ashley Graham.
The daughter of the President of the United States.
She had vanished on her way to college; her classmates stated she hadn’t even set foot on campus that day.
Leon looked into the girl’s eyes, and for a fleeting second, Sherry’s face flashed in his mind.
Ashley also had blonde hair cut into a bob and vivid blue eyes, though her youthful, spring-like charm radiated through the orange of her corduroy jacket, whereas Sherry leaned toward lilacs and more muted, greyish blues that matched the tone of her hair. President Graham's daughter smiled with closed lips at the camera—carefree, youthful, completely unable to imagine that at some point in her life, she would end up across the Atlantic, lost in some forest in Spain.
“Mr. Kennedy?” The voice of the cop with glasses broke Leon’s brief distraction.
“Yeah.”
“Did your nausea pass?”
“A little. I’m used to it,” Kennedy said, slipping Ashley’s photo back into his pocket. “It won’t be long before it goes away completely.”
“Okay.”
An uncomfortable silence stretched out, and Leon found himself fighting off sleep. The journey had been long, exhausting, and embarrassing—given all the stops the agent had to request just to use the bathroom, among other inconveniences of his current state. The night had grown even darker as the moon vanished behind the clouds, its light barely piercing the dense canopy of trees. The light, chilly breeze kept flowing through the jeep's windows. Combined with Leon’s coat—which was three sizes too big, acting like a heavy blanket—he was being pulled down into a quiet drowsiness.
Bless the nerd cop for snapping him awake with a jolt:
“He should have been back by now.”
“How long has it been?” Leon rubbed his eyes.
“Almost half an hour, and… Mr. Kennedy?” The young man's voice faltered as he heard the click of the seatbelt from the back seat, followed by the creak of the rear door swinging open. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going after the old nuisance,” Leon replied flatly, checking the gear hidden beneath his jacket. “Wait for me here. I don’t think I’ll be long.”
“O-okay,” the officer stammered.