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Don’t come any closer!
Spain is cold, damp, and full of memories he’d tried to bury. After the email from Rockfort, communication had sort of – died out. It wasn’t for a lack of trying; he’d always opened his emails when he’d gotten to his PC, but there was always something in the way, some agent breathing down his neck or a dossier waiting. Jameson, and then Brant and finally Hunnigan, they’d all demanded his attention, his focus, and though he’d not disobeyed orders, in quiet moments he’d found his thoughts tracing back along those burning streets to the station, to the train, to the highway. To the rain creeping down his neck, the ache in his forearms, the tiny hand swinging in his.
Hold your breath. Count to ten, back again.
He can hear her breathe, ragged and chattering, as he nestles the stock into the crease of his shoulder, eye aligning. Breathe in, out, brace a knee, pull the trigger. Absorb the recoil, turn back against cover. The howl of a body falling, but nobody else alerted. Ashley’s fist pumping in his periphery.
Oh, you know. Just surviving.
She’s gone. Her screams echo, bounce around his head. The wind whistles through the broken windows. A whisper, distant, the moan of an unaware zealot, a curse bestowed upon them all. Count to ten, shake of the hands, back again. Knife free, knees bent, step, step, step, hand on the face, knife in the brain stem. The body slumps. The others unaware. She’s somewhere, close. She has to be.
We make a good team.
Washington is cloying. Victorious, elated, overly-simpering. Agents glad it wasn’t them congratulating him on a job well-done. The schwink of metal in his ears, chanting in the back of his throat. Check your six. Nothing. One of the girls with a tray, a spoon rattling on a saucer. Administrative leave, but he’s restless. An email, bounced.
CR: This shit never ends, huh?
She calls, but he doesn’t answer. What does he say? They haven’t spoken since Paris, a hurried phone call from a booth in the station, French chattering in the background. He should have been flattered that he was her first port of call, but there was weight on his shoulders, a duty of care he hadn’t asked for.
Leon?
She’s cold, soaked through, and there is little chance of respite. He’s crushed her to the wall, used the breadth of his back as a disguise, hidden the dirty sunshine of her shirt beneath him. She breathes, hot and wet in the hollow of his throat, fingers curling into the straps of his body armour. In, out. Count to ten and back again. A hand on her arm to stay her and he clears the way. Eyes in the back of his head. Keep her safe, keep her safe, keep her safe.
Leon, this way!
A new scar on his palm, gnarled and ugly. A spray of antiseptic had helped, but it didn’t stop infection. His muscles ached in a way he was distantly familiar with. They’d walked for hours that night, chased the dawn, alternated carrying Sherry when her little legs couldn’t carry her anymore. But this. This. The cold, wet, cramping agony of unending motion. His fingers number with the weight of the trigger. Arms taut with the stretch of safety, of bracing her weight when she tumbled, fell, willingly jumped off a ledge so he could catch her. Catch her, catch her, always fucking catch her. Don’t let her fall. Shoulders too tight with tension to do anything but ache in his neck. Eyelids burning. Blistered feet, too damp too long. Somehow, he’d avoided grievous harm, but still a new scar or two to learn. His shoulder, stiff with the damp. And Ada. Ada meeting his gaze and recognising nothing in it.
Count to ten.
Say, when we get out of here.
Back again.
He has to file a report, but where do you even begin? Pour one out. Luis. Knock it back. Another. Innocence. Naivety. Throw them back, taste the burn and the blood. Choke on it, your own mortality in the curve of your trigger finger.
Warm, in his arms, cradled close. Safe, safe.
‘Listen,’ Hunnigan, a warm throb of familiarity in his ear. ‘I don’t know what happened out there, but –‘
He tugs the cord, and she quiets. The silence is blissful, for a second, and then the buzz, the whine, the chanting murmur of a voice now gone.
Foolish lamb. Submit yourself.
A shower. He needs a shower, wash the stench away. Blood in his hair, his mouth, cloying in his throat. Burn the filth off his skin, his nails black with it. A key pressed to his palm, an apology sought and found. Offered freely. What was done was done.
CR: A real clusterfuck by the sounds of it.
He misses her, the warmth of her smile in the face of death. She’d known how to quip, leant herself against doorframes and crates and cabinets, chin in her palm and fingertips on her thigh, the Browning familiar there now. There’d been something in her eyes, some spark of life, a firelight glint, the echo of a flashbang thrumming in his ears. It had hurt to say goodbye, in the end, but she’d had a different path to tread.
Her fingers, warm against his cheek that last night, no sound except for the slow huff of Sherry’s breath on the far side of the room, her stood in the doorway with this look on her face. He’d let her go, traced the shape of her brow and nose and jaw and shoulder with his eyes, committed it to a memory he would bury with the rest. She’d touched him like she could have loved him, in another life, if they were other people.
She never said goodbye, because it was never going to be goodbye, not really. Lives like theirs, they’d cross again and again and again.
Count to ten. Breathe, in, out.
Part of him wishes he’d kissed her. But would that have been what Ada had done to him? Pay it forward in the worst way.
Hell of a first date, though, hey?
The rain trickles down the back of his neck, and he breathes in, holds it, bites down on his tongue.
The gate to the station, raging inferno behind him, Claire’s gaze fixed tight to his, a smile as he crashes into it, aims for casual and misses. The city was dying around them, an apocalypse localised to a few hundred square miles. Not the time. Story of his life.
He shivers, shakes the rain out of the back of his t-shirt. A glancing wound from a pitchfork, a dodge taken too late, but a second pair of hands comes in handy. Ashley’s hands are too soft, trembling with the cold and adrenaline both, but he breathes the stale dust stink of her hair in as she presses closer than necessary, pressing herb paste into the cut, tying a scrap of something around it. A few hours, he’ll be good as new. He’d laughed himself sick when he first spotted them growing in the hedgerows bordering the path, and Ashley had asked about it, wrinkled her nose when he said they could save her life, those little weeds.
But now, scream echoing behind the rattle of gunshots as he tries to break free of his captivity to reach her, now a herb won’t do shit. She’s on her own, running, and he hopes she’s listened. Hopes she’s taken what he’s said on board. Keep moving forward. He’ll find her. His job is to get her home. He’ll do that. A knight in shining armour.
I think you’d look pretty dashing.
His shoulder burns with the cold, the throb of the parasite working its way through his system. Fuck. That voice, that whining, grating hum of a heartbeat not his own, thoughts not his own, the electrical interference of a communications jam inside his brain. He shakes his head to clear it. Ashley needs him to not be a complete washout. He has to fight it. His job is to get her home, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t do it. The girl deserves it. She’s been through enough. Claire could fight it, did fight it. She had to. Ashley does not have to. He knows now, he’s learnt better, he’s prepared. He wasn’t prepared for this, for a new viral plague, but he knows better. He understands now.
Count to ten. Back again.
Sherry’s hand around his thumb, squeezing tight as the men in suits let themselves in, eyeing the preparations Leon had made. A shotgun here, a handgun there, grenades hidden and accessible. Sherry taught how to hide, how to call for help. Pressed against the back of his legs, fingers tight. He’d curled his hand around hers, pressed his fingertips to her knuckles. He’s there, he’s there, there’s nothing to fear.
The fingers wrapped around his thumb longer now, colder, wetter. He turns his hand, laces their fingers together. It’s a long wait, sitting in the ocean, and Ashley’s head rests against the back of his neck, her breath too hot on his nape. She shows her hand, asks a question he can’t answer. He squeezes hers, an apology.
‘That woman,’ she starts, and he snorts, shakes his head.
‘Nah,’ he says, gaze on the middle distance, a horizon blurred by the dawning sun. ‘Nah, it’s not that. Not her.’
‘Oh,’ she says, and falls silent. She turns her head, rests her cheek. Her hand stays in his, fingers cold in the ocean breeze.
He brings her hand to his mouth, cups it between his to blow a breath against the knuckles, thumb smoothing against the fat of her palm. She sighs, lingering, slow, the shake of a sob bitten back.
‘Raccoon City?’ she asks, a few hours later, as the thrum of a chopper breaks the shush of the waves.
He hums, doesn’t ask her to clarify.
‘Fucks you up,’ he admits, genial enough. ‘But that’s okay, it’s why I’m here.’
He can feel her frown.
Count to ten, he advises her, in a brief moment of silence, putting the gun in her hands. If she has to shoot, he needs her to know how. Count to ten and back again. She wavers, laser sight bouncing all over the place. He rests his hands on hers, steadies her grip. Squeeze the trigger.
In, out.
The chopper tosses the rope ladder down, and he sends her up first.
He wakes in a hospital bed, red carnations on the bedside. He hums, closes his eyes again. His shoulder aches, forces pain to his bladder. When was the last time he had the peace to piss? With a grunt and a groan and the ache of exhausted muscles, he pulls himself upright, shuffles his way to the bathroom. There is a card with the flowers.
CR: Good job, hero.
He has never seen her handwriting before. Six years and she’d never sent a postcard, never mind a handwritten note. She’s in Washington then. Comes as no surprise that she’s giving some senator or another grief, she’s gotten good at that. A nuisance, so she calls herself around a mouthful of fries. Old enough to know better, young enough not to care. When you’re constantly on the edge of exhaustion, when you stare at your ceiling for long enough, you take what you can get. Burgers, fries, high carb, high protein, high fat. Keep you full, keep you going. One foot in front of the other, swing through the target, not just at it. Power in your back leg.
A few new scars to learn, an IV tracking bruising along his arm. He turns the card over and over and over in his hands, can hear a coo of a voice not hers, calling him names meant to – to – he wonders. Had Ada felt anything, or had he just been a means to an end? A plaything designed to capitulate, to make her feel better about what she was doing? But then, she’d helped, hadn’t she? She’d given him information, given him directions, told him where to go to get the girl.
On the back of the card, a phone number. He should call her. They haven’t spoken in years, an email here, there.
CR: I’m in town, if you want pizza.
It was the first thing they’d eaten, a quick stop at some shitty little gas station to use the facilities, wash their faces, find a map, maybe catch a ride. Using a stolen credit card, Claire had picked up pizzas, cans of coke, a bag of peanuts. The pizza had been sort of cold, and incredibly greasy, but they’d shovelled it in. Count to ten.
Yeah, pizza sounded pretty good.
She must get a paycheque worth her weight these days, because she brings quality pizza – debatably – in a takeout box, with a six pack. How she gets the sixpack through security is beyond him. He is not complaining.
She perches herself on his bedside, pizza box in his lap, and for a moment, they’re silent, chewing on cheese and dough and tomato sauce on her cheek, staring at the walls. It’s always like this. Staring into the nothing. He sneaks glances at her in those silent seconds. Ten, nine, eight. New dark jeans, slim cut to fit inside her boots, pocket inconspicuously bulging with the shape of a switchblade. Hair in a ponytail, a little longer than before, fringe cut back in, crooked, a fit of pique at three am, a desperate longing for a person she could no longer be. Seven, six, five. Leather jacket, thicker, padded in the joints. A biker’s jacket, high in the collar, taken off and tossed aside. She is safe here, she trusts him. Four, three, two. Loose sweater tucked in, a dusky pink, bordering on red. Chipped nail polish, the girl she used to be.
They never quite moved on, too much left unsaid.
One.
Zero.
Back again.
He swallows, rubs the grease from his fingertips. His fingerprints shine too bright for a second, caught in the fluorescent strip above their heads.
‘It’s never over,’ he says, and she nods.
What if it’s not just the city?
Her knees give out, and she sprawls on the steps, sobs pitifully. Exhausted, wracking sobs with little tears, just snot and noise. She’s crying more for the sake of crying than any actual desire to cry. He understands, checks the corners, moves to sit beside her. In, out. He coaxes her gently, fingers on her arm, her shoulder, the back of her neck, resting atop her head as she howls. She’s got nothing else, no other release. He understands and will not hush her. There are monsters aplenty, but they are far enough away that he can give her this. They need to move, he has to get her home. If they come, he can take them, he can hold her close, just for a minute, two, three. Take a deep breath, in, out.
The taste of blood on his gums.
The castle is haunted by the ghost of the man he used to be, and his shadow mocks him, lurches along the walls as he creeps, step, step, step, check the corners, check his six. Ashley tight behind him until he drops his shoulders, hoists her onto a platform to wind the chain and lower another.
Fucking puzzles. The city had been riddled with them unnecessarily. Place a medallion here, light a candle there, shoot your superior on the first day to get through another fucking minute.
Temperance, child.
There would be time to think about it later. He needs to write the report before he can do anything else. Start at the beginning, a car ride through a deserted landscape with shit music on the radio and the blissfully ignorant belief that it would be alright. That it would be simple. A call to stay away except this time it’s a call to approach, to enter, to play fetch. To play hero. He scrubs his face, digs a knuckle into the corner of his eye. They’ll never bring the bodies of those officers back, burnt to ash and consumed by the thing in the water. Fuck sake, it never fucking ends. He takes a breath, holds it, releases it. In, out. Easy as that.
Aim above your target, account for drop-off. He presses tight to her back, feels the slack of her posture as she settles, relaxes against him. Safe, safe, she’s safe there, in his arms, as close as possible without being under his skin. Her heart loud in her throat, fingers trembling. Gooseflesh along her bare arms. She licks her lips, hears what he murmurs, her trigger finger twitches. Her feet shift, weight leaning towards one leg. His knee nudges her weight back to centre. Her shoulders flex. Her breath shudders. He tells her to shoot on the exhale.
In, out. Bang.
You’re welcome?
The station had been a maze, back and forth with fucking keys, and the village is no different, the castle. There are clearer routes across the island. Wrecking balls. Mike. Pour one out for Mike and all.
How many good fucking people had to die to pave the way for him? To help him on these fucking asinine quests to undo the bullshit these lunatics with delusions of grandeur and ultimate power manage to cause. Krauser. Irons. Chris had spoken of Wesker, and Claire of the Birkins. All of this for what? Someone would stop them. Someone would have to, just because that was what you did. You stopped the bad guys. Sherry had asked him, in that brief, brief time together before the agents had caught them, if he was a good guy, and Leon hadn’t known how to answer.
In the end, he told her she had to make the choice she felt was right, to do the right thing.
I don’t know if I can.
Sitting together on that bench, trying his best to say the right thing. He’s numb to it, the horror. The blood splatter and the moaning and the adrenaline. It’s nothing to him now, caked under his nails, a worn-down false molar. He reaches out, touches her shoulder, makes a joke. He has to make a joke, break the tension. She’s falling, lost in the buzz behind her ears, and he hears it in his own, the whispers of desire. Desire for his death, for pain, for suffering. For surrender. His veins ache, his shoulder throbbing with the adrenaline. His hand throbs, the onset of infection. She sees him flex it, reaches out to touch his knuckles, apologises. He offers her a smile, a gentle dismissal. It’s alright. Better his hand than his neck. It doesn’t make her feel any better, but she smiles at him anyway, laughs at the joke.
The President’s hand on his shoulder now, that same smile on his face. He can’t help but notice that it lacks the warmth of his daughter’s, that there had been something in Ashley’s smile that he had never seen before. A pride, perhaps, a faith in him. Those that had depended on him had been let down, and the rest hadn’t needed him. Ashley had found in him something he had never been able to find in himself, and that was worth dying for.
Because he had been ready to die. He’d always been ready to die. Raccoon City had taught him of his mortality, of the miniscule importance of his life in the grander scheme. He was one man. There would be other men. Other women. Chris, Jill, Barry. Claire. There would be others like them. More to take up the mantle. Ashley could keep it up, keep the fight going. Put him out of a job.
Her body, limp and loose in his arms, the shush of waves behind his ears, his head swimming with the thrum of his blood. Saddler’s voice, the murmur of the zealous choir, begging for his submission. But his mission had been to get her home. Her skin, soft, cold. So fucking cold. Every step a concrete slab about his ankle, every breath knife between the ribs. One foot in front of the other, get her safe, safe, safe. Get her home. One job. Damn him if he failed. Her weight in his arms, propelling him forwards. The chair, the bated breath, holding her hand as she screamed and writhed. The shush of the waves, whispering behind his ears and dragging him under.
I can catch ya.
The White House is bustling, thrumming with noise. Condors everywhere, and they’re scanning the area, but for what? They aren’t seeing a thing. Check the windows, the doors, the ceilings. One of those failed mutations might be there, waiting, tongue lolling, joints tight and ready to spring. Check the windows again. A clatter of crockery; a tea tray wobbling with a brutish barge past. Count to ten, hold it, release. It’s alright. It’s okay. The White House is – is – it is not safe, because nowhere is safe, but it will be harder to get in.
Some press conference or another. Some peace-making with Spain. Terrorists on their land dealt with by a lone American operative. An island explosion, a minor noble murdered. There is paperwork to do. His report filed, written drunk, edited sober. Claire’s gaze over it, a low whistle. Her smile on the video call, disbelieving and soft, and he aches. He aches in places he doesn’t know how to name. Her hand in his.
Hot breath on the back of his neck, Ada’s perfume in his nose. He shakes it free. There is a meeting to attend. He chews gum, stares at a bird in the bath outside. Condors lining the path, staring at nothing. Green, wet behind the ears. He scans the faces of the men around the table, the eyes, the veins in the neck, wrist. Flexes his hands. The scar on his hand shines red and new.
Count to ten, back again.
A break for lunch, some fancy pretend buffet bullshit he wants no part of. Pizza and burger and instant noodles, whatever is cheap and easy, that he can eat on the move. He goes to step out, intends to find her detail, when fingers curl tight around his thumb.
He yanks, and she squeaks, falls into him.
In, out.
Hands on her elbows, toe-to-toe, her eyes clear, her smile bright. Her hands on his chest, her fingers tap-tap-tapping against his heart.
‘It’s good to see you,’ she says, scans him up and down. ‘The suit’s a good look on you. Very Armani.’
He snorts. ‘Try Macy’s,’ he replies, which makes her laugh.
He’d not heard her laugh much, the odd giggle at some quip, or a moment’s unbridled, near-deranged laughter at a portrait of their good pal Ramón, throwing eggs at it for nothing more than a minute to breathe, to decompress, to do something not fight for their lives. It’s a fun laugh, the laugh of a young woman who is – who is – Sherry’s laugh had been less haunted. Claire’s more so. Claire’s laughter carried the weight of what she had seen, and what she had had to do. Sherry’s had no weight. She had had to survive, and that was all. Ashley’s laugh is – is –
It’s nice. That’s all. It’s just nice.
Normal.
He hasn’t been normal in six years.
‘I can’t imagine you in a Macy’s,’ she says, and takes his hand, drags him down a corridor.
She is safe here, brazen with it, and he tries not to notice the dig of her nails, the turn of her head, checking the doorways, the windows, the stairs. Glancing back, as if to check it’s still him.
He squeezes her hand back as best he can, and her nails ease.
I did this.
A parlour, away from the hubbub of tea trays and condors and the whispers of voices long dead, and she looks at him, really looks at him. He lets her. It’s been months. He’s been out of the country, dealing with other affairs. Out of state, another outbreak. His limbs ache. Her hand on his shoulder, where the throb of the bullet still lingers in the rain.
‘You kept going,’ she says, quiet, fingertips pressing, as if expecting to stem blood. ‘It must have been hurting. Sanderson told me they ache in the rain, like bones.’
He watches her, tries to work out where she’s going with this. He had rubbed his shoulder a few times, probably, because it was a comfort to do so, and it hurt, why would he not try to alleviate that pain? He’d caught her and lifted her and carried guns and fired guns. He’d had to do a lot on a little, and his shoulder had hurt, that was not worth attention. Her expression is soft, lashes long, lips soft, glossed, downturned. She’d chewed through one, left it a scabbed mess.
‘Yeah,’ he says, for something to say.
‘Your hand?’ she asks next, traces her fingers down his arm until she gets his palm in hers, lifts it between them, still toe-to-toe.
His fingertips brush the cashmere of her cardigan, loosely tied at the neck, contrasting baby blue to the white of her blouse. She’s wearing navy trousers, smartly tailored. The bulge of a switchblade in the pocket. Count to ten.
‘I’m sorry,’ she murmurs, traces a fingertip along the lines of the scarring.
It’s an electric shock, a cattle-prod in his mid-back. He swallows, breathes.
Back again.
‘Not you,’ he says, ‘don’t blame yourself.’
‘I should have fought it.’
‘You did your best. You were amazing. You applied for a job here?’
It makes her laugh, and she drops his hand to throw her arms around his neck. She does not smell of anything beyond soap. No perfume, no dirt, no blood, no sweat. Just soap and detergent, and he rests his hands on her back, breathes in the apple of her shampoo.
‘I’ve missed you,’ she murmurs, breath hot and wet in the open collar at his throat.
He doesn’t know what to say to that. She knows he cannot answer, and she does not hold it against him. He’d gone to get supplies, left the girls in the motel, gun in the back of his jeans, knife in his jacket pocket. Claire had thrown herself into his arms then, too, talked of twitching curtains and heart-pounding desperation that he returned. He’d joked then about her need for pop tarts and potato chips, and now he struggles to find a joke to alleviate the weight between them.
He is not the man he was.
Surrender yourself.
He shudders, strokes her wrists, eases them away. She goes, slowly. Stays close, eyes up to his.
‘Are you staying?’ she asks, the invitation unspoken.
He shakes his head.
‘I have to return to the meeting,’ he says, and she checks the clock on the wall.
Tick, tick, tick, how had he not heard it?
The room feels quiet, empty, a false security. The doors about to burst open, the little lord himself swanning about on the balcony. She’s happy here, with him, she’s staying put. He has her, she’s safe. She’s safe here. She’s home. He’s done his job, he can go.
‘Oh,’ she says, mouth twisting. ‘Will you be here after?’
He swallows, mouth dry. There is nothing in her tone. She has a therapist now, but she does not talk to them, her father has said as much. She hems and haws over details, discloses nothing of their time. His report is bare minimum, facts and clinically clean. Nothing of her skin, of the way she swept her hair from her face, of the way she’d go without complaint into lockers and closets and over walls, doing what she could to help him keep her safe and get them home. He’d praised her compliance, nothing more.
In her last session, she’d talked for twenty minutes about the design on the flags they’d unfurled. Another ten on the books in the library. She had spared a few minutes for the blue lights and the knights, but she had said nothing of what that meant. She has a blue light in her bedroom now, he knows.
‘I can’t sleep,’ she admits, though he has said nothing else. ‘The light helps, but the noises make it worse.’
‘Noises?’
‘Birds, the dogs. I can’t ask Dad to get rid, but they bark, and in the dark, it makes me – I don’t like it.’
‘I don’t blame you,’ he replies, aims for jovial and misses by a solid mile. ‘Dogs are always louder at night, too.’
‘It’s rained a lot, too.’
‘Winter,’ he shrugs. ‘It does that. Snowed last week, you see it?’
She looks at him. ‘Not here, it didn’t.’
‘Oh.’
They lapse into a silence that is not uncomfortable. It aches, like many of the silences. Claire’s silences in the evenings, sat staring out of the window, Sherry’s breathing steady behind them. The words unsaid lingering in the air, weighing it down, a blanket they grew to be comfortable under. Things unsaid, kept between them, theirs alone.
Maybe one day he could say them.
Breathe in, out.
The sound of her panting, keeping pace with him, without complaining, without flagging. He’d wanted to throw up, had bent double and heaved until his throat burnt, but she had never complained. Her feet had blistered, her toenails split, and his ankles had been red-raw with friction by the end, but still she had not complained. Her tights laddered, the skin beneath milky white compared. Splashed with blood and mud and grazed with narrowly avoided blades. Climbing through undergrowth, falling across wood. Tetanus boosters all round.
She licks her lip and for a second it flashes black, spilling out of her mouth, poisoned water to awaken the parasite, to make her whole, broken in two, a failure. His failure, not hers, never hers. It was not her burden to carry. The symbol, painted on her face in blood, and for a second white-hot rage spills through his veins, and the desire to check her elbows, her throat, the whites of her eyes nearly drives him to his knees. He had nearly lost her. He had nearly lost her.
Ride’s here. You coming?
Going had never been an option. Staying had always been the path, the choice made for him. She was waiting, as she always waited. Whatever he asked of her, she had done, and not a breath of defiance. Her fear had been palpable, the stench of sweat and mud and blood, theirs and the monsters, and she had picked it out of her cuticles, scrubbed it off of her face. There had been flakes over her face, where it had dried, peeled away. He touches her brow with a fingertip, traces the line down her nose, turns his hand to cup her jaw, brush her cheekbone with his thumb, and for a second, naked hunger spills across her eyes, pupils wide, lip trembling. She bites down hard, shuts her eyes. Her breath shudders. She wants to capitulate, to fall, to collapse into him, a surrender to a higher power.
She stays standing.
He leans down, foreheads together, the hot damp of her breath spilling across his face. He breathes it in, too eager, choking on it. She’s alive, she’s alive, she’s safe. Mission accomplished.
‘Stay?’ she asks, a whisper against his mouth, so desperate he can taste it.
She’d been that way on the phone, three in the morning between assignments, and he could imagine her, pacing and searching for him in the dark corners, a paragon he could not pretend to be. No Don Quixote, him. Just Leon. Just over his head.
The water burbles around his temples, threatens to drown him, voices chanting behind his heart, and still he pushes onward. She is the mission, the only thing to fight for. Get her home, get her safe, get her clean. The lab is close, he can make it, hell or high water. The water is high, no doubt, and it brings with it the sounds of hell, every step lead, and he’s losing it, he knows, he’s drowning. She’s cold in his arms, limp and unmoving, stained with his failings. The bare skin of her leg cold beneath the ladder, her naked arms shining in the broken overheads.
She touches his face, and it is like surfacing. Sixty, eighty, a hundred seconds, hold your breath, soldier. Krauser had been a hard task master, but his lessons had stuck. Hold it. Count to ten.
‘Leon?’ she whispers, and he bites the tremor in his lip.
Her breath a hot waft of coffee and mint gum. Grounding, focusing. She is alive. There is no blood here.
‘I’m here,’ he whispers back, feels her swallow as she takes it in, consumes it as one consumes a sacrament. ‘I’m here.’
Her fingers knot into the lapels of his jacket, go to pull him closer, but he is iron, and cannot be moved. He cannot allow it. This is not the mission, these are not the parameters. She is home, he is done.
Let go. Let it come, give yourself to the most holy.
A breath, shuddering, and she twists, straightens.
Count to ten.
‘You’d better go,’ she tells him, smooths down his shirt, straightens a lock of hair at his brow. ‘They’ll want to listen to you.’
He snorts, feels like he can breathe, and the laser sight wavers, watching for her, waiting for her to come back. Every second apart is a year of agony. If she is out of sight, she is at the forefront of his mind. They’d gone to separate cars, separate debriefs. Back on friendly soil, his mission was done. She’d begged for him, and instinct had battled with sense. For a second, he’d reached for her, back in that cave with that pit, with her sobbing, pleading, begging for him, and he’d been powerless to help. Hands on his arms, claws around his throat. Hand on his head, his neck, pushing him into the car, her screams echoing around the empty exhaustion of his brain.
Debrief quick, dirty, off-handed, into hospital, out of hospital, back onto the field. Work, work, work, get moving, save the world. No time to think about it, no time to stop and decompress, no alcove to wedge himself into, the heat of her body against his, no time to throw eggs. No time to thank her.
The jet ski in the middle of the ocean, staring at the horizon, watching the chopper fade away into nothing. She’s gone now, too, as she always is. A ghost in his bloodstream. Join the rest, he carries enough.
She holds his jaw for a moment, stares at him, searches him for something he can’t name, hopes she finds. Words hang between them, unsaid like the rest. Sat on that bench, on that railcar, on that cold stone floor. Hands on hands on thighs on shoulders, a lingering silence weighed down by the heat of skin.
‘I’ll see you after,’ she says, a question she cannot afford to ask.
He grunts, and something indescribably fond crosses her face. The smile in the shooting gallery, the smile of telling dearest Ramón to fuck off, the smile of his gratitude, his praise. He turns his face into her hand, closes his eyes. He’s tired.
Her thumb brushes his cheek, comes away wet.
The moment passes, and he backs away, tugs at his lapels, rolls his shoulders, professional once more. She watches him go, her gaze hot and heavy on the back of his neck.
She is home. She is safe.
Back again.
Thank you.