Archive of Our Own

Ada is, as always, running late. 

Not that it bothers him anymore; Leon knows all too well by now that she doesn’t play by anybody’s rules but her own—and sometimes not even those. Rather, Ada does whatever she feels like doing at any given moment, usually involving something incredibly dramatic or inconveniencing to him.

Which, he supposes, in this particular instance means taking pleasure in making him wait for twenty-five minutes and counting, over a cup of now room temperature coffee.

Leon doesn’t mind it so much. This, too, has become routine, something he has grown to accept and embrace. He’s willing to wait for as long as he has to, if it means it’s the easiest, sure-fire way he gets to see her. And he will. Ada will come, because that’s what she said she would do, because she hasn’t failed to show up once, because—loath as he is to admit it—Leon has no choice but to take her at her word. He has little else to go on, after all.

Nevertheless, it is still more than what he had, during those dark years when he had stubbornly refused to believe she was dead but had no concrete proof she wasn’t, throughout their decade-long cat-and-mouse game when it seemed the closer he got to her, the less he actually understood. 

What Leon did come to understand is that Ada is far too fiercely independent, too uninhibitedly wild to be contained by mere mortal hands like his. It became easier then, to let her come to him first. She seems to enjoy it, at least; leaving little clues and hints for him to find, throwing meaningful yet cryptic comments around in hopes he’ll pick up on them. 

Naturally, it wasn’t easy at first. To this day Leon cannot be entirely certain there weren’t secret messages Ada had concealed somewhere that he never managed to uncover. But time has granted him the ability to recognize—if not fully comprehend or predict—her patterns: coordinates tucked away in a teddy bear’s zippered pouch, anonymous letters signed in lipstick, an airy suggestion spoken with a meaningful sidelong glance and a familiar quirk of those blood-red lips. 

A seemingly nonsensical text sent from an unknown number that only reveals its true message if the meaning around certain keywords is reversed.

Of course, there’s always a non-zero chance that he could be wrong, Leon muses as he twists in his seat to check the enormous wall clock behind the counter. He’s not as proficient in ciphers as she is; a misread sign or an overlooked clue might’ve very well sent him to the wrong address, or put him on a different day altogether—

“There you are,” a long-awaited voice snaps him out of his reverie, and instantly Leon feels every nerve in his body stand at attention. “I was afraid you’d have left by now.”

“Honestly, I almost did,” he says, a response that is anything but honest. “I was unsure if you were going to show.”

In one swift, elegant move, Ada slides into the chair opposite his and flags down the nearest waiter. “Your lack of faith in me is disappointing, darling.”

“So is your lack of regard for my time,” Leon deadpans, already well-versed in their recurring verbal repartee. By now the years have worn away much of its initial bitter hostility, leaving little more than a playful ritual meant to seize each other up before deciding whether to fall back into their old rhythm or reshape themselves around a fresh routine. 

A necessity, for two people who have known each other for as long as they have, yet have been separated just as frequently. With each reunion, Leon can’t help but wonder if she is still the same person he saw the last time, if there is some part of her that’s been irrevocably changed, if on some level, she’ll always remain an enigma to him.

Fortunately, Ada seems entirely unperturbed by his opening blow, opting instead to leisurely browse through the menu before, true to form, selecting the most expensive beverage available. That emboldens him to land a second strike. “Speaking of which, to what do I owe the displeasure of your delay?”

Handing the menu back, she proceeds to drum her perfectly manicured fingers against the table in a steady rhythm that he doesn’t recognize. “I got held up at work. You know how that goes.”

“Too held up to give me a heads-up?” 

Ada cocks her head with a challenging air, the beginnings of a familiar smirk already spreading across her lips. “Why? Would you have left if I’d told you I’d be tardy?”

In spite of his efforts to maintain a semblance of cool detachment, Leon finds himself smiling, too, finally comfortable in the recognizable back-and-forth. “I’d have found a more exciting way to pass the time.”

“I would argue there’s a certain degree of excitement in anticipation, as well,” she says. “Especially if there’s a reward at the end of it.”

“Oh?” he leans in, his curiosity only slightly exaggerated. “Am I getting rewarded now?”

“Well,” Ada hums, making a show of contemplating his question as her hand slowly snakes across the table to stroke his knuckles in a steady pattern he does not recognize. “You’re still here despite my fears, and I’m finally here despite your doubts. That’s reason enough to celebrate, isn’t it?”

Leon sighs. “Fine. You can pay for dinner.”

Though Ada pretends to roll her eyes at his request—muttering a disapproving, “Such an opportunist,”—her visibly relaxing shoulders do not escape his attention. 

The ball is fully rolling now, Leon realizes with some measure of relief, and nothing else, because he refuses to let his mind tread those forbidden waters again. It is for the best, he convinces himself. It’s not merely the path of least resistance, but also the most sensible choice to guarantee their survival should they find themselves in a life or death situation, which often hinges on their ability to work together seamlessly regardless of personal grievances.

This is the way it’s meant to be.

It’s a lesson they first learned a few years into their burgeoning dalliance, during that shaky interlude when they had not yet decided whether to foster or sever the remnants of whatever connection their initial encounter in Raccoon City had sparked.

Ironically—be it by chance, the universe’s twisted sense of humor, or more likely having similarly aligned pursuits and uncomfortably adjacent professions—it also meant they kept stumbling upon each other in the meantime.

On one such escapade, what begins as a straightforward mission—to escort one of America’s leading geneticists on his way back from an international conference in Budapest, briefcase documenting the latest scientific breakthroughs in tow, to the White House for an audience with the President as soon as possible, presumably to discuss said breakthroughs—takes a sudden left turn when Leon’s senses, freshly sharpened from their brush in Spain, pick up the distinct disturbance that often preludes an appearance from a certain woman in red: a brisk current charging through the still air.

Gun instantly at the ready, he assumes a familiar stance, one he has practiced to perfection in all the years spent chasing Ada’s ghost, and follows the crimson trail across the dining car. The gentle sway of the train as it goes around a bend only adds to the dreamlike quality of his pursuit, before reaching its crescendo just as it passes a tunnel, instantly enveloping his surroundings in disorienting darkness.

For a split second Leon fears the worst: that she might’ve slipped away, that she was nothing more than another figment of his imagination. But when the light returns Ada stands before him, as real as his own shadow, cornered just the way he intended, and with no elegant means of escape.

Somehow, it isn’t nearly as satisfying as he hoped it would be.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he mutters, slowly lowering his gun in a mirror of Ada’s own movement.

“Hello to you too, Leon,” she says airily. “Fancy running into you again so soon.”

“Indeed,” Leon concedes. “And of all the train cars in the world, too.”

Ada makes a noncommittal humming noise. “Coincidences have been known to occur, when it comes to us.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Coincidence or calculation? Surely you don’t expect me to believe you just happened to be on the same train as my assignment.”

“Oh, are you on assignment, too?” Ada gasps in mock surprise, and immediately Leon knows he’s walked straight into her trap. Though in all fairness he suspects she would’ve found out eventually if she hadn’t already, the thought brings him little comfort in this moment. “Now that’s a coincidence if I’ve ever seen one.”

Before he can formulate a response that will adequately extricate him from his newfound predicament, Ada continues unrelentingly, “Since we’re both here, we might as well help each other out.”

A snort escapes his lips. “You would help me?”

Ada regales him with a pointed look, all jest momentarily abandoned. “What would you call what I did back in Spain, then?”

A combination of nostalgic sentimentality and strategic convenience, Leon wants to say, but instead he settles for, “Fair point. But why?”

“Why what?”

“Why make the offer now?” Leon clarifies. “You’ve never needed my approval for anything, and even if you did, I could say no.”

I did say no the last time goes unspoken.

She regards him thoughtfully, as though also weighing the implication of his words for the first time. “I thought it’d be nice to work together instead of against each other, for once.”

What a novel thought, indeed, and a rather tempting idea at that. Curiosity and recklessness push him to take the bait at last. “What is it that you want, Ada?”

“Knowing what you do of my line of work,” she says with an infuriating air of nonchalance. “I think you can wager a decent guess.”

Briefly, his mind races before coming to a screeching halt. The briefcase. Of course. Of course she’d be after the bounty of the hour, the one factor that determines the success of his mission. So much for helping each other out. “Absolutely not. It’s imperative that I escort Doctor Abrams safely to the White House.”

“Well, I don’t see what that has to do with the—”

“To ensure a fruitful meeting with the President,” Leon cuts her off with a firm stare, “he’ll require the contents of his briefcase, of course.”

“I’m confused,” Ada says, sounding anything but. “Is the President meeting with Doctor Abrams, or his briefcase?”

He crosses his arms defensively. “I’m not allowed to give you either, Ada.”

“Maybe not, but you can choose to surrender to me whichever is less important to your assignment,” she points out. “Which I’m hoping, for the sake of your moral integrity, isn’t the good doctor.”

“You know, your offer is starting to sound less like cooperation and a lot like an ultimatum,” Leon grouses.

“Not an ultimatum, a compromise,” Ada argues. “My client wants Doctor Abrams eliminated before his research can be made public. I, however, have never cared for needless bloodshed. What I can obtain for them instead is said research. Exclusive access to unpublished data in exchange for a man’s life. A fair trade, don’t you think?”

As much as he wants to disagree, Leon finds her reasoning not entirely unsound. Still, he needs more than that. “What about me, then? What do I get out of compromising my assignment for you?”

“Do you know why the President needs to see Doctor Abrams so urgently?” she asks. Without waiting for his answer, more questions come. “Do you know what the contents of that briefcase entail, specifically? Or why is it necessary for you to personally ensure their safe delivery?”

He doesn’t have the privilege of being privy to such details, of course, though experience is able to give him some vague ideas, all of which point toward one thing: the development of new weapons—or as the government likes to call them, armed deterrence. 

In other words, the perpetuation of the very cycle of violence and death that he is doing everything he can to stop.

“You’re a smart man, Leon,” Ada adds. “I’m sure you can figure out the implications yourself.”

“I can keep whatever dark knowledge is in that briefcase from falling into the wrong hands for a while longer,” he says, almost on autopilot. Desperate as he is to believe Graham is a good man, even Leon isn’t so naïve as to extend the same faith to the army of scheming lackeys that surround him every waking minute.

“Your President might not be too pleased that Doctor Abrams arrived empty-handed, but he would allow the man to redeem himself as a favor,” Ada continues. “Which the good doctor would certainly jump at the chance to do. Groveling sycophants love proving their worth almost as much as politicians love granting favors. Everyone is happy in the end; too happy, perhaps, to even think of questioning your responsibility in all of this.”

Leon chuckles. “You’ve really got it all worked out, haven’t you?”

Ada practically preens. “Happy to be of service. Do let me know if you’ve got any further hang-ups.”

“I do, in fact, yeah,” he says, pausing to run a weary hand down his face as he gathers the courage to finally ask, “How do I know I can trust you with the briefcase?”

“Because the Amber is still well taken care of to this day,” she says, not unkindly, simply as a reminder. “As I promised it would be.”

He knows she is telling the truth only because they would’ve all felt the consequences by now if she weren’t. Somehow, for better or for worse, the Amber has remained a well-kept secret, something Leon couldn’t guarantee had he successfully retrieved the sample instead. 

Which unfortunately makes Ada the lesser evil, between the two of them. 

The follow-up question comes in a quieter breath, “How do you know you can trust me to keep quiet about it?”

There is an inscrutable glimmer in her eyes as she replies, “Because the fact of my involvement in Spain is still hidden to this day.”

He sighs. “Ada—”

“I’m not a fool, Leon,” she says, more decisively this time. “You act like a stickler for rules, but I know the truth.”

“Which is?” 

Ada levels him with a pointed gaze. “That you and I are more similar than you care to admit, or even realize.”

The words hang in the space between them for a long, heavy moment. Leon allows them; relishes them, even. He closes his eyes against his better judgment and only opens them once his mind is made. 

“Ten seconds,” he declares. “Then I’m going in.”

She pats his cheek lightly in a gesture he cannot decide is affectionate or patronizing. “Don’t worry. That’s more than enough time for me to work my magic.”

“It’d better be,” Leon says with a scoff. “Don’t expect me to hold back just because we have a deal.”

Ada smiles. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

As it turns out, he doesn’t need to hold back at all, for Ada proves to be a surprisingly ruthless fighter when she wants to be, and after a hostage standoff so tense he is beginning to wonder how much of it is truly pretend, Leon’s primary emotion is relief as he watches Ada disappear around the corner with the briefcase.

Still the reckless hope remains the same. Don’t let me down, he prays, as though by doing so intently enough he can telepathically channel his pleas to her. Don’t make me regret trusting you. 

Leon shouldn’t have worried, because she would not disappoint him, just as she hadn’t betrayed his trust in Spain with the Amber. The aftermath resolves itself without much fanfare: Doctor Abrams is too thankful to be alive to feel too upset by the (technically only partial) loss of his work, and the President ends up not caring as much as long as he has an excuse to put the doctor in his debt (and further exploit his services in the process). Everything happens more or less as Ada told him it would, and though Leon often wonders what ultimately became of the briefcase, as far as anyone is aware, its contents are kept tightly sealed from public knowledge…

… until the night before Doctor Abrams is to unveil his revised proposal, boldly codenamed Project Heracles, for a new class of armed deterrence—genetically enhanced supersoldiers, as Leon would later learn—when an anonymous source suddenly publicizes the original blueprints, effectively sending the government scrambling for damage control and forcing them back to the drawing board once more, now that the very foreign powers which they intend to deter have all been made aware of their plans.

“Information’s only as valuable as what you can do with it,” Ada tells him when he confronts her about it during their next meeting, which mercifully does not occur in the middle of an active mission. “When it comes to secrets, timing is everything.”

He swallows. “I’m glad it all worked out.”

“Of course it did,” she says like it is the most natural conclusion in the world and he is an idiot for ever doubting her. “Just do as I say and all will fall into place.”

So he does, dutifully playing his part each time their paths cross, wherein they each make a fair exchange, him to delay some seemingly inevitable evil or another, and her to—well, Leon has never dared to ask what her interest is in all of this. All he knows is that Ada has never given him a reason to doubt her results, regardless of the methods she might employ to attain them. 

And the results show that their teamwork is flawless when they both put their minds to it, so who is he to complain? If following a script is the price to keep seeing Ada again and hopefully do some good in what otherwise seems like a mostly fruitless endeavor, then he will pay it gladly.

He repeats it like a mantra, quashing his misgivings each time they arise. Yet something else creeps in as well, an illicit, unwelcome feeling that he has been trying, to increasing degrees of failure, to keep at bay. A desire for more. To have more time with her, to get the chance to know more about her. 

Nevertheless, Leon knows better than to push his luck. He knows what will happen if he starts to tighten his hold on someone as flighty as Ada, and he is too much of a coward to take the risk. It might be cowardly, but he’d rather have some of her than none of her, even if that means never having all of her.

Much like the futile battles he fights, the discontent will rear its ugly head again, but until then, he will do whatever he can to keep things as they are.

Anything to maintain the promise that they will see each other again.

Somehow, Ada’s gaze falls on a familiar figure in the unlikeliest of places: a black-tie soirée. 

Not that it is entirely a surprise; bumping into Leon while on assignment is a constant risk, though not always a hazardous one. It helps that he tends to be rather amenable to whatever terms she happens to devise for the occasion.

Of course, given his incurable stubbornness, Leon’s cooperation is almost never achieved without at least some initial resistance; though under these particular circumstances Ada suspects he might give in without much of a fight, just to get out of what appears to be ritualistic torture, if his body language is anything to go by. 

Hidden in plain sight, Ada observes him from across the room: standing off to the side, clutching his half-empty champagne flute with a white-knuckled grip, and looking suffocated in his perfectly tailored suit. 

The conversations have barely started, the ballroom is not even half-full, and the string quartet is only warming up, and Leon is practically crawling out of his skin. 

It certainly seems like he’s in need of rescue, though in order to request it he’d have to notice her presence first, which he hasn’t, lost as he is in a dissociative state, his own gaze fixed on an indiscernible spot by the windows. It’s irrational, but she stares at him a bit more intently, hoping he might somehow sense her gaze and return it.

Look at me, her mind commands, and miraculously, Leon turns his head just enough to catch a glimpse of her.

For what might be a minute or an eternity, neither of them looks away, locked in a mutual trance as everything else fades into nothingness, until they are the only two people in the room, the only ones that matter.

Still, Ada doesn’t move, opting to wait for Leon’s signal. 

They’ve established an unspoken modus operandi by now: a pointed glance or a covert gesture is all it takes to communicate their desired playbook for the situation at hand. A light tap on the temple in a specific rhythm (twice, once, twice) means back me up, while a quick glance downward then up again conveys a pointed stay out of it. More often than not, Leon chooses the latter, being the big damn hero that he is, but this time he holds her gaze a few seconds too long for it to be an attempt at discouraging her involvement.

If anything, it looks more like a desperate cry for help.

She should feel vindicated for predicting this outcome. But it feels too easy, almost unearned. There’s never any fun in simple and straightforward things. 

The fatally recalcitrant part of her finds more satisfaction in making it more of a challenge.

As Leon places his champagne flute on a passing server’s tray and makes to move in her direction, Ada turns on her heel and starts weaving through the crowd. 

She doesn’t need to look back to know Leon’s already given chase. That’s what he’s always done, since that fateful night when their paths crossed for the very first time. She hated it at first, finding his sentimental attachment at odds with her very nature—wherein the ability to remain elusive and unattainable is key to staying alive—but now she derives a certain comfort from the knowledge that no matter what, Leon will come for her.

No matter what, in his eyes, she is more than something elusive and unattainable. At least to Leon, she will always be tangible, real. Someone capable of leaving an actual mark on the world, one not marred by sin or destruction.

Ada holds on to that reminder like a lifeline as she rounds another corner, flees down a hallway, and darts into an empty, dimly-lit room, Leon hot on her heels.

This should provide them with ample privacy for the time being, Ada appraises with a satisfied smirk as she whirls around just in time to find Leon corralling her against the wall.

A half-hearted entrapment, one she could easily break out of if she really wanted to, but Ada elects to remain as she is, just to see what Leon does next. 

“It’s rather quiet in here,” he gasps between labored breaths, “You’re not leading me into an ambush, are you?”

Even if she were, it would be too late for him to start questioning her motives now. Oh, her sweet, sweet Leon. “On the contrary, a little quiet is exactly what we need right now,” Ada says, putting on a show of coyness. “Gotta keep it hush-hush if we want to have any fun at all.”

“That’s a relief,” Leon chuckles. “I would’ve been very disappointed otherwise, considering how hard you’ve made me work for this.”

“Thought I might liven up your night a little,” she says. “seeing as you looked about five seconds away from setting the silk drapes aflame to relieve your boredom.”

“Funny you should say that, since I’m usually the one putting out your fires,” Leon smirks. “which I suppose I should brace myself for, now that things are guaranteed to be livelier with you around.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Ada says, letting out an exaggerated sigh. “Oh well. We can save this reunion for another time, if that’s what you’d prefer.”

As expected, it is all it takes for him to move to block her path. That’s more like it, she muses with great relish. If there’s one thing she knows about Leon, it’s that it doesn’t take a lot to spur him into action, to get him to do exactly what she wants. He’s always been predictable that way. Her obliging, well-behaved boy.

Covertly, she suppresses a smile as Leon inches ever closer, until his breath is hot and heady against her neck.

“There’s no time like the present,” he says, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “I could really use a hand with cracking this case right about now.”

At least he admits it this time, though by now Ada is too drunk on the sheer exhilaration of their proximity to be satisfied with that alone. “Oh, Leon,” she sighs in mock exasperation. “You know my services don’t come for free.”

Leon’s eyes practically bulge in disbelief. “Then what was that wild goose chase you sent me on just now?”

“Oh no, that wasn’t for me,” Ada says innocently. “That was for you. To make sure you were still keeping yourself sharp.”

“Believe me, I’m as sharp as can be,” he asserts. “After all, someone’s gotta keep you out of trouble.”

“Is that so?” she says, slowly egging him toward the precipice. “And how do you plan on doing that, exactly?”

“Perhaps I could keep you occupied,” Leon says, his hand skimming the seamline of her dress, right where it curves along her hip, and suddenly Ada is thankful for the foresight that compelled her to wear this particular dress tonight, with a slit on the side, right up her thigh. Just in case, of course. “Enough to make you forget why you came here in the first place.”

Ada laughs. “Tall order, Agent Kennedy. You know I take my job very seriously.”

“I’ve never been one to shy away from a challenge,” he says, fingers deftly finding her pulsating heat. “Gotta stay sharp somehow, don’t I?”

As much as she wants to appear unfazed, Ada’s breath begins to hitch as Leon’s head slowly disappears beneath her skirt and she feels herself unfurl under the hypnotizing ministrations of his tongue. “Who would have thought… we’d both get something out of this?”

He straightens up a moment later, and instantly Ada feels the absence of his mouth like an ache deep in her bones. “We help each other out, that’s the deal,” Leon whispers against her collarbone as his lips trail ever agonizingly upward. “Gotta do my part to maintain the level playing field.”

She chuckles lightly. “Still keeping score, aren’t you?”

“I’m only finishing what you started,” he says, effortlessly hoisting her up against the wall, whereupon she immediately wraps her legs around his waist with equal practiced ease. “The question is, can you?”

If he keeps this up, she will, and much sooner than she would like, though Ada would rather die than admit any of it. Instead, she fires back, “That depends entirely on what you choose to do next.”

As if on cue, the distinct sound of a handbell rings out from the other side of the wall, loud and crystal clear, followed by an announcement on the microphone. Ladies and gentlemen, our event will officially commence in five. Please proceed to the main hall for an evening of music, champagne, and rousing conversation. Have a wonderful time and do let us know if you need any further assistance.

“Did you hear that, Leon?” she turns to him with a pointed smile. “Clock’s ticking. Better make it count.”

“Don’t worry,” Leon says, pushing into her; teasingly, agonizingly so. “That’s more than enough time for me to work my magic.”

Whatever biting response Ada has prepared withers away on the tip of her tongue as Leon settles into a pleasing pace, leading her as though in a dance; slow and deliberate at first, before gradually growing more frantic, fervent, desperate.

Perhaps this is what keeps her coming back to him: the comfort in the familiarity of his gentle, careful touch, in the certainty of his intentions, in the way he knows exactly how and where to satisfy her without being told to.

He does it so well, in fact, that soon—far too soon, for her liking—Ada finds herself barely suppressing a moan. 

“Easy now,” Leon whispers in her ear, placing a finger against her lips in a silencing gesture. “We’re keeping it hush-hush, remember?”

To her chagrin, Ada can only nod her agreement, the rest of her self-control already spent on the suddenly herculean task of not giving them away. Pressed against the wall, she can hear every spirited note of the allegro mixed with the low thrum of chatter, close enough to make out bits and pieces of conversation.

She is close, too, painfully close, practically trembling with the need for release. Nevertheless, even as her body teeters on the verge of collapsing into putty, Leon holds her steady and secure, tenderly guiding her toward the climax.

Finally, blessedly, the pressure erupts.

She comes undone with a strangled cry, muffled by the sound of applause next door.

Holding on to Leon for dear life, Ada waits for her own breathing to even out and gradually fall in sync with his. 

For a while thereafter, there is nothing but bliss.

Maybe the truth is she covets rare moments like this the most; when Leon spontaneously decides to—for however briefly—flip the script on their predetermined dynamic to remind her that he’s more than the wide-eyed rookie cop who treated her every word as law. That he, too, is capable of taking charge, of fighting back, of defying her expectations. 

Suddenly, realization hits her again, as intensely as it did the first time: that he will always hold a certain power over her, one that might very well ruin her if that’s what he wants. 

It should terrify her, the fact that she has been so careless as to lay herself bare before another person like that. But Ada isn’t afraid; after all, if she has to make that mistake with anyone, she’s glad it’s with Leon. Someone she trusts, despite her better judgment. Someone she knows, without a shadow of a doubt, will not take advantage of her vulnerability to harm her. 

“Are you okay?” 

His voice yanks her back to reality, where she finds familiar blue eyes gazing at her, shining with concern even in the dim light. The same eyes that changed her life that one night so many years ago now. Unthinkingly, Ada reaches out to trace her fingers down the length of his jawline. He has lost most of his youthful softness and gained quite a few scars, but in this moment she sees him as who he once was and still is, all at once: the man who has captivated her all this time. 

Leon.

Heart soaring, Ada brings their lips together in a slow, lingering kiss.

As they pull apart, she smiles. “I’ve never been better.”

“So, what’s the objective here?” Ada says, fixing the neckline of her dress as they stroll arm in arm across the ballroom. “Brief me, Agent Kennedy.”

“Well,” Leon clears his throat in a vain attempt to chase away the flush still coloring his face from their earlier exploits, “I was supposed to observe the target from afar and gather as much information as I can without alerting him of my presence. But now that you’re here—”

He shoots her a look.

“—I thought we might take a more direct approach.”

“Information gathering, huh?” Ada hums thoughtfully. “Didn’t take you for a recon type of guy.”

He scoffs. “Your lack of faith in me is disappointing, Ada.”

She pats his cheek with a teasing smile. “I was merely surprised that they’d entrust you with a matter more delicate than shooting guns.”

Leon seems to hesitate momentarily before finally admitting, “That’s because I’m operating in… unofficial capacity.”

Ah. She needs no further elaboration to understand what’s going on. It seems her obliging, well-behaved boy has been a bit of a rebel lately. Inwardly, Ada wonders with some amusement how much convincing it would take for Leon to go rogue entirely.

“Suits me just fine. Unofficially is how I work best,” she says. “Shall we do Distraction or Disguise?”

“I’m not letting you hog all the fun again,” Leon says. “We go in as a united front.”

“Disguise it is, then,” Ada decides. “So what’s our story? Unscrupulous business partners? Fellow mad scientists? Embarrassingly enamored newlyweds?”

Leon stiffens at her last suggestion, though he recovers fast enough for the slip-up to be nearly unnoticeable. Nearly. “Let’s just say you’re my plus-one and see where we go from there, yeah?”

“Whatever you say, handsome,” she replies airily. “Lead the way.”

“There he is,” Leon says, inclining his head toward a well-dressed couple who appear to be the hosts of the night, if the seemingly endless stream of guests lining up just for a handshake and some pleasantries is anything to go by. “Archibald Abbott. Better known as the face and founder of one of America’s emerging pharmaceutical conglomerates, Abbott Apothecaries. Considerably less known as the primary sponsor of the majority of Doctor Abrams’s  research.”

“I’m familiar with the type,” Ada says. “Usually they provide funding for certain projects in exchange for their share of deliverables. Or in the event those fail to materialize—”

“—they claim the intellectual property rights of the unfinished work, which is then outsourced to a new hire,” Leon says, giving her a sideways glance. “Thanks to you, that outcome is now all but guaranteed for what remains of Project Heracles.”

“You’re welcome,” she smirks. “Though I must admit I didn’t expect you to take such a vested interest in all of this.”

Leon shrugs. “Given recent developments, it’s only reasonable for the government to keep an eye out for Mr. Abbott’s next move.”

“I wasn’t talking about the government. I was talking about you.”

“The government and I share the same goal.” He pauses. “Even if I am technically working independently at the moment.” 

Though Ada has her doubts, she decides it’s best to shelve this particular argument for when they’re not actively at risk of blowing their cover. “Alright, you’re the expert. What about me, then? Where do I fit in this grand plan of yours?”

Instead of answering, Leon subtly points out the young woman on Mr. Abbott’s arm, her own blinding smile a near perfect mirror of his. “Do you see her? That’s—”

“—Cecilia, the third Mrs. Abbott, twenty-five years her husband’s junior, and the apple of his eye,” Ada finishes. “For good reason, too. She’s in quite a delicate condition, it seems.”

“How did you—”

“See the way she’s cradling her belly? She’s barely showing and already dying to let the whole world know about it.” Ada smirks, taking a childish sort of satisfaction in his barely disguised surprise. “I’m quite capable of doing my own homework, Leon.”

“Good,” Leon says. “That should make it easier, then.”

“What?” she glances between him and their intended targets. “Are you hoping I’ll charm her with some girl talk? Is that what this is?”

He gives her an exasperated look. “I’m hoping that by winning her over, we might be able to get her husband chatty.”

“Ever the opportunist, aren’t you?” she whispers with a nudge at his ribcage.

“I learned from the best,” Leon whispers back as the two of them finally reach their hosts, at which point he immediately puts on an impressively convincing friendly façade. “Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Abbott. Andrew Walker, pleased to make your acquaintance. If I may offer my congratulations to you for hosting such a phenomenal event. Looks like it’s already shaping up to be one for the ages.”

The way Leon deliberately enunciates his own alias tells Ada it’s for her benefit rather than anyone else’s, so she can mentally rehearse her corresponding part in this charade, but she finds herself too distracted to think. This time, it’s her turn to swallow her own surprise at his sheer proficiency in lying. God, she really has rubbed off on him, Ada realizes, unsure whether to feel impressed or unsettled by the fact.

“You’re much too kind, Mr. Walker,” Archibald Abbott replies with an air of easy amiability. 

“We’re just glad everything is to your liking,” Mrs. Abbott chimes in, like they’re one of those annoying couples who finish each other’s sentences and then giggle about how in love they are.

Suddenly, Ada spots her opportunity.

“Indeed,” she says, squeezing Leon’s arm in a gesture he might reasonably interpret as let me handle this. “My husband and I were just admiring the exquisite interiors of this ballroom. Weren’t we, darling?”

For a heart-stopping moment, Ada feels him freeze in her grip. An understandable reaction; for all the times they’ve acted out this particular scenario, Andrew Walker has never been married, not to her or anyone else. But now that pleasantries have been exchanged and flattery employed, relatability is the next logical step to schmoozing with rich people like these, especially when you’re in a time crunch and have little else to go on. 

So if Leon has never imagined her as his wife—and Ada would wager he hasn’t, given the shaky foundation that their relationship is built on—he’d better start now.

As though reading her mind, he quickly hops back into the flow of conversation. “Oh, yes. I was telling Lillian how beautifully the chandelier lights reflect off of the… uh, silk drapes.”

A markedly worse delivery this time around, but it seems to have scratched the right spot, because Cecilia perks up with such enthusiasm that Ada wonders whether the woman has spent all evening waiting for someone to bring it up. “Doesn’t it? It’s Chartreuse, you see. Which wasn’t easy to procure, especially on such short notice,” she raves, pointedly rubbing her belly with an air of exaggerated exhaustion.

That’s her cue to strike.

“Oh, but you’ve certainly made it look effortless,” Ada says, her gaze flicking toward Cecilia’s still barely-visible bump. “The ballroom is glowing only half as much as you are. I suppose congratulations are in order, in more ways than one.”

Instantly, the cordial mood comes to a screeching halt. Mrs. Abbott gapes, Mr. Abbott raises an eyebrow… and then they both chuckle. 

“Oh, I adore her,” Cecilia exults, pulling on her husband’s arm with childlike delight. “She’s an observant one. Isn’t she, Archie?”

“She certainly is, my love,” Mr. Abbott replies patiently, if rather indifferently.

“Well, it was impossible to miss such radiant joy,” Ada gushes, touching Cecilia’s hand in that overly empathetic way she has seen women act with each other. “You must be terribly excited.”

“I’m absolutely over the moon!” Cecilia exclaims. “After all, what greater honor is there than to be a mother? I’m sure you understand, being a woman yourself.”

Ada really, really doesn’t, but she’s not about to give up her game when she’s so close to leading the hapless Mrs. Abbott exactly where she needs her to be. “Alas, I have not had the privilege of experiencing it.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Ada catches a glimpse of Leon physically holding himself back, though from what, she cannot be sure. 

In stark contrast, Cecilia practically leaps out of her skin from the sheer horror of Ada’s revelation. “Oh dear, I am terribly sorry. I can’t even begin to imagine.”

“Well, we haven’t given up hope yet,” Ada says, deciding to milk the part for all it’s worth. “In the meantime, I’m perfectly happy with the way things are: just the two of us against the world. In fact, I would want nothing more than to wake up to this face for the rest of my life.”

This time, she doesn’t check for Leon’s reaction in her peripheral vision, keeping her attention instead squarely ahead. If she wavers, Ada fears she might betray her emotions entirely.

After all, the best lies always contain at least a grain of truth. 

Not that anyone needs to know that; least of all Leon.

“Still, it would be such a shame,” Cecilia remarks wistfully. “You’d make a beautiful family. Wouldn’t they, Archie?”

“They sure would, my love,” Mr. Abbott replies in his usual obedient manner, though this time he seems to regard both of them with something more than casual disinterest. “Their genes certainly appear complementary enough to create high quality specimens. I’m willing to wager that with a little intervention, we might—”

He cuts himself off, likely realizing he has said more than he probably should’ve. Unfortunately, his wife doesn’t seem to share his discretion, because she immediately brightens up like a kid being offered candy. “Oh, yes! Archie specializes in that sort of thing. We’ve had our own difficulties, you see… But science has come so far. I’m sure something can be done for you, as well.”

Mr. Abbott sighs. “Cee, I don’t know—”

“Oh, please, Archie,” Cecilia pleads, putting on an impressively proficient display of puppy dog eyes. Clearly, this is far from the first time she has deployed this particular move. “Surely you can do this one little favor for Mrs. Walker, who has been so kind to me.”

Archibald Abbott’s gaze flicks between his wife and Ada, looking, for a brief moment, like a cornered animal. Finally, he relents with another sigh. “Very well.”

Turning to Leon, Mr. Abbott whips out a hexagonal token embossed with two mirroring As shaped like a double helix symbol—the logo of Abbott Apothecaries—from his inner breast pocket and hands it over with a dramatic flourish. “This is my spare access card,” he instructs, gesturing at a closed door with a blinking red light at the far corner of the ballroom, currently guarded by an older, bespectacled man in a perfectly pressed tux. “Give this to Gareth at the end of the night and he’ll let you in. We’ll continue this discussion once I’m finished with my rounds.”

“Thank you,” Leon replies stiffly. “I appreciate it.”

A few seconds pass in relatively awkward silence before Mrs. Abbott clasps her hands together with delight. “It’s settled, then!” she grasps Ada’s hands with both of her own. “Everything will work out in the end, Mrs. Walker. Just you wait and see.”

Ada squeezes her hand back. “We’re truly grateful for your help,” she says, and is only half surprised to find that she means it. Despite Mrs. Abbott’s intense personality and rather regressive beliefs, she wants to believe they might’ve been friends, under different circumstances. It’s a shame that Ada has to take advantage of the poor, unsuspecting woman this way.

Nevertheless, whatever remorse she might feel is quickly superseded by the sheer fulfillment of a job well done. Taking hold of Leon’s arm again, Ada bids their hosts a quick farewell and strolls away.

“See, what did I tell you?” she whispers to Leon. “Do as I say, and everything will fall into place.”

He rolls his eyes. “I think you might be forgetting whose call it was to get to Abbott through his wife to begin with.”

“Of course not. This victory belongs to both of us,” Ada amends smoothly. “I’ve always known that we work well together. As you and I have just demonstrated, helping each other out is what we do best.”

Somehow, Leon seems significantly less enthused than she expected. “Is that all it is?”

The question catches her off guard. “What?”

“Is it ever going to be anything other than transactional between us?” he asks, his voice raising slightly. “You scratch my back, I scratch yours. Is that it?”

“Leon—” Ada hesitates, the intensity of his outburst sending her scrambling to find the right words to soothe his sudden frustration. “We agreed this was how we were going to play it.”

“No, I didn’t agree to this,” Leon points out. “You decided for us, like you always do, like I’m just along for the ride.”

“I was trying to spin our story in a way that would get us what we want,” she says, feeling suddenly defensive. “Utilize our expertise and all that.”

By now a few nearby guests seem to have picked up on the disturbance. Some have begun to whisper conspiratorially among themselves, while others stare boldly, like vultures waiting their turn on the kill.

Unfortunately, Leon is too caught up in his own emotions to notice, or perhaps even care. “Yes, I suppose when it comes to pretending, we really are the experts.”

“It gets the job done, doesn’t it?” Ada argues weakly, her own conviction faltering. “That’s what really matters, in the end.”

“What about us? Am I just a job to you, as well?” he says, voice climbing another octave with evident desperation. “Did you ever mean any of it?”

For once, Ada is alarmed to find herself at a loss for words. Even more alarming, however, is the fact that the commotion appears to have attracted the attention of Mr. and Mrs. Abbott, the last people they’d want to catch wind that something might be amiss. If she doesn’t act now, their efforts tonight are as good as wasted.

So Ada does the only thing that she can think of, the one thing that makes sense in the chaos of her mind:

She pulls him into a kiss.

It’s forced and awkward, but it seems to do the job, at least—something about public displays of affection never fails to make people uncomfortable enough to look away. Not that she minds either way; there’s always been a certain allure in being with Leon out in the open like this when so much of their relationship has been shrouded in the darkness, in more ways than one. 

Unfortunately, try as she might to ride it out, the high is over before it even truly begins. Leon barely leans into the kiss before pulling away, and for a startling moment Ada is reminded of their first kiss that night in the depths of Raccoon City, another cheap diversion tactic, tinged with lies and regret.

And yet, it feels worse this time: all these years and they’ve somehow ended up exactly where they started. So much has changed and still hardly anything has.

Around them, the party resumes its merry pace, their brief ruckus now all but forgotten. The world has been successfully fooled for another day, but when she looks at Leon, all she sees is a man who is waking up to the truth for the first time.

“I’ve always known that you can be cold,” he whispers. “But I never thought you’d be cruel.”

Something sharp prickles at her insides. 

“Leon,” she says, but he’s already slipping out of her grasp.

“Do you know what the worst part is?” he continues relentlessly, slowly but surely crawling toward the inevitable end. “Even now, a part of me can’t help but hope you did.”

She should say something, Ada’s mind vaguely registers. Lay out a rational explanation, one that will put his emotional outburst to shame. Or perhaps, a far simpler solution: tell the truth. But Ada is not in the habit of justifying her own actions, and she has already come too close to exposing herself tonight to risk it again now.

So instead she simply watches as Leon walks off, leaving her standing alone, lost and suffocated by all that remains unspoken.

As much as Ada wants to hate him for it—and it would be so much easier if she could hate him for it—she knows only all too well how unavoidable it is, that Leon will overstep his boundaries at some point. Still, she used to think, quite foolishly, that all she had to do was maintain her distance. Establish an arrangement that would keep them toeing that line for eternity. 

But even the most effective routines grow stale after a while. And so it begins to thrill her, every time he breaks from the script, not knowing, or rather not caring, that it only brings them ever closer to the inescapable end.

Because when it comes to him, things are never as simple as drawing a line in the sand and expecting him to stay on his side of the delineation. He will try to at first, because he’s hopelessly eager to please her and always has been, but there will eventually come a time when the edges become blurred and the rules start to bend.

Once again, she has forgotten a crucial fact about him: even as an obedient, starry-eyed rookie cop, Leon was capable of conquering her firmest inhibitions, a skill which has only grown stronger as the years pass.

She resisted him then, too. She should’ve realized by now that it would be futile.

The prudent thing to do would’ve been to cut Leon off from the start. After all, that’s what she has done for as long as she can remember: discard false personas, abandon aliases, alter aspects of her own appearance once they’ve served their purpose. But something—be it selfishness or cowardice—has compelled her to keep Leon around.

Somehow, Ada holds on to him, recklessly and stubbornly, despite the warning signs, despite her own better judgment. She closes her eyes to the constant risk and the guaranteed fallout. She revels in the illusion that as long as she keeps him at arm’s length, it will not compromise her or put him in danger. 

She tries to tell herself that she has found a loophole, one that will allow her to have it all, but Ada knows it isn’t true. She made a mistake the moment she decided to get emotionally involved, and she has continued to make that same mistake by allowing Leon to remain a part of her life. The reality is she was compromised a long time ago, and he hasn’t been safe in just as many years. 

And now the fallout has caught up to her at last and all at once, all because she was foolish enough to try and delay the inevitable. 

Perhaps, Ada muses wryly, she is finally waking up to the truth, as well.

Ada misses their next rendezvous.

Leon doesn’t think much of it, at first. It isn’t unusual for her to blow him off, just to keep him on his toes or even punish him, in some rare cases. Which would not be entirely out of the question, given how their last meeting turned out. But when one week turns into two and then three, his concern gradually shifts to anxiety, occasionally punctuated by the fear of not knowing.

That’s when the regret starts to set in.

He shouldn’t have done it. He shouldn’t have imploded on her and risked shaking up the predetermined rules of their already precarious liaison. He should know better than anyone what will come out of such a foolhardy endeavor, and now he might’ve driven Ada off for a long time, if not for good.

Still, Leon would rather believe that she is staying away from him out of her own volition than entertain any of the grimmer possibilities which have plagued his imagination with increasing intensity. He would sooner face his own responsibility in the dissolution of their relationship than the prospect that something bad might’ve happened to Ada.

It does little to comfort him, however. The fact remains that he simply cannot be certain either way. Even if something had happened to her, Leon would have no way of knowing, because he isn’t the one calling the shots, she is. He doesn’t know where she is because she never tells him and he never asks, and he has no means of reaching her because he has always left that choice to her.

He should’ve fought harder, Leon realizes. He should’ve put his foot down the first chance he got. But he contented himself with treading lightly for fear of losing her.

If only he knew he would lose her either way.

Against his sound judgment, he starts to look into Ada’s whereabouts.

This, at least, is not entirely uncharted territory; in the years following the Raccoon City incident, he found himself occasionally tapping into the government’s resources in search of any rumors or sightings that might confirm or disprove Ada’s survival. 

Ironically, he was able to dig up more news on her as a newly-minted agent with far less access privileges than now—despite non-discriminately ransacking every available database and scouring each individual report that he can get his hands on—which is to say, nothing.

Not even a whiff of gossip. Nothing.

It’s as though she never existed at all.

Somehow, it only further convinces him that she is still out there somewhere. Experience has taught him that Ada can make herself disappear if she so chooses, whereas if she were dead, he would almost certainly hear about it, given how many enemies she has made during her illustrious career as an effective but somewhat fickle mercenary with a penchant for pocketing the very bounties she is hired to obtain.

As it stands, he has no choice but to wait. Wait for her to come around, if she ever does. Wait to be needed again. Wait for a resolution that might never come.

In a way, it isn’t all that different from what he’s already doing, passively, every single day. So Leon thinks, why not.

He busies himself with work to avoid thinking about her. He takes on more missions and stays later at the office to finish the paperwork he normally procrastinates on. His employers are, predictably, thrilled by this new development, and before long Leon has his hands so full he barely has any time to dwell on anything anymore. Which is just as well with him.

That is, until he returns home one night, exhausted and more than ready to fall into a week-long slumber, only to find that his apartment is clearly not as empty as he left it.

He’s already got his revolver locked and loaded when a familiar voice rings out from the dimness of his living room. 

“Of all the greetings you could’ve gone for,” Ada sighs. “A gun in my face is what I get.”

For all the different ways Leon imagined this particular reunion would go, he always thought he’d be happy to see her, or at the very least relieved. But now that she’s standing before him, alive and real, the only emotion he’s feeling is indignation.

“Had I known you were coming, I would’ve prepared a warmer welcome,” Leon retorts as he holsters his gun again. 

“Well, it’s not too late to improvise,” Ada teases. “You know I do enjoy a little spontaneity from time to time.”

He scoffs. “Spontaneity? Is that what you call breaking into someone’s home in the middle of the night, after leaving them hanging for months?”

“In my defense, I had my reasons to stay away,” she says. “I needed time to take care of a few personal matters.”

“Such as?”

Ada shrugs. “Eliminating enemies, serving clients, visiting old friends. The list goes on.”

“I must be at the very bottom of it, then,” Leon remarks. “Considering how long you’ve made me wait my turn.”

“Oh, but you’ve hardly been idle,” Ada says. “Considering how many disgruntled virus dealers I’ve heard from these last few months.”

“I figured if I kept following their trail, one of them might lead me to you,” he explains. 

She smiles. “You really went to such lengths just for little old me?”

“It might’ve been avoided if you’d simply told me where you were,” Leon says.

That seems to put a damper on their playful banter, because immediately Ada straightens up as though wanting to put a physical distance between them, however minuscule.

“What good would that have done?” she says. “You’re not my keeper, Leon.”

“Who am I to you, then?” he demands. “Because right now, we might as well be perfect strangers.”

Ada gives him a lingering, meaningful look. “We both know you don’t really believe that. Perfect strangers don’t do what we do.”

“And what is that?” Leon asks, a hint of provocation slipping into his voice despite his best effort to conceal it. “What exactly is it that we’re doing, Ada?”

For a long, excruciating moment, they stare each other down in silence; two fighters in a ring, locked in an impossible stalemate. 

They’ve been here so many times before, this unending cycle of push-and-pull. This time, Leon refuses to let it end the same way. This time, it has to be different. He’ll make sure of it.

“Ada,” he says, more gently this time, as he takes a step forward to bridge the gap between them. “Why do you keep coming back to me, if a part of you is so obviously eager to walk away?”

“Probably for the same reason you continue to leave a way in for me, even when the rational thing to do would’ve been to shut it down a long time ago.”

Leon chuckles mirthlessly. “Is that what we are to each other, then? An outlet for our impulsive needs?”

“Does it really matter?” Ada asks, her words escaping in soft, featherlight sighs. “Right now, at this very moment?”

“It does to me,” he says, hating himself for sounding so weak, for his crumbling resolve, for the way every fiber of his being is already prepared to surrender to her inexorable pull. “It always has.”

“Look at me, Leon,” she coaxes, guiding his gaze toward her with a tender touch of her fingertips to his chin. “Tell me what it is that you want.”

Half dazed and aching for release, all he manages to utter is, “You.”

As though she has only been waiting for this moment, Ada leans in until their breaths begin to mingle, until their lips meet, hesitantly at first before gathering momentum as all of their pent-up desires rise to the surface, with such sudden intensity as to cloud his judgment and overwhelm his senses entirely.

“Prove it,” she whispers into the crook of his neck, a barely-restrained hunger in her voice. “Show me you really mean it.”

“I will,” he says, his answer coming as naturally as breathing. “I do.”

Right now, it is easy to remember why he has so often lost himself in her, why he has been so wilfully blind as to disregard the tenuous fragility of their situation. What does the uncertain future compare to the sheer bliss of holding her in his arms after thinking he might never get to do it again, of knowing they’ve defied the odds that threaten to drive them apart for good—and very nearly did.

And so Leon shoves his doubts aside once more, as thoughtlessly as he sheds his own clothes, before allowing himself to sink into her all-consuming embrace. He pulls her so tightly against his own body that a part of him hopes they might somehow meld into one being, and she returns the ardor by clinging to him with equal desperation, her nails clawing into his back hard enough to leave permanent marks.

He doesn’t mind. Not when it’s her, not when it reminds him that this is real, that she is here with him, that they’ve once again found their way back to each other despite everything.

Just for this moment, nothing else matters.

When Leon wakes, the sun is shining straight into his eyes and he is lying on his living room rug, naked—save for a throw blanket haphazardly wrapped around him—and more importantly, alone.

His first and only thought is, not again.

With a speed he didn’t think himself capable of, Leon springs to his feet, ready to scan and search his surroundings for any clue or sign that might give him an idea as to where she has gone. 

Thankfully—if rather unexpectedly—he does not have to look for long, because a few seconds later he nearly jumps when he finds Ada casually sitting on his couch, pulling her stockings on like she has absolutely nowhere else to be. 

For a moment, the sight has him rooted to the floor right where he stands: Ada, swathed in the golden light of day, exuding a rare softness about her features that he doesn’t often get to witness. It’s like daylight is giving him the clarity to see her—and all of the questions he has been avoiding—clearly for the first time.

“Making progress with good old Archie, aren’t you?” Ada says suddenly, startling him out of his daydream.

It takes him several beats to understand what prompted her seemingly random comment: he has left Abbott’s token on the coffee table among the scattered dossiers on Abbott Apothecaries, its founder, and the various projects under its name; likely the remnants of his latest research session before he was summoned for the mission he has just returned from.

“Certainly, I would say so, yes,” Leon stammers, clumsily attempting to gather all the papers before giving up altogether. 

Ada hums thoughtfully. “So he took it well, then? The revelation of your true identity, purpose, and allegiance?”

About as well as I did when I found out about yours, Leon is inclined to say, but if there’s any time to resist the temptation to bicker with her again, it’s now.

“Once he became aware of what I brought to the table, yes,” he counters, though the truth is it took quite a bit of convincing; Leon ultimately settled on the pretense that it would not have been wise to discuss his true plans so plainly in such a public setting. “So much that I’ve been tasked with liaising with his company on behalf of the government, now that they’re looking to forge a new partnership to realize Doctor Abrams’s unfulfilled vision.”

Comprehension dawns on him a second too late: not only has he unconsciously slipped into his preprogrammed agent response, which is embarrassing enough on its own, he has also revealed a bit more than he should’ve, so he quickly amends with, “Which I’m not supposed to tell you about, so forget I said anything.”

It’s only partially a lie, but if Ada senses it as such, she makes no effort to point it out. Small victories, Leon muses with relief.

“As long as you forget I was ever here,” she says with a meaningful smile.

Don’t I always, Leon nearly says, but something about the reminder stops him in his tracks. If he goes along with her now, if they slip back into their familiar repartee now, he might never find the courage to do what needs to be done. 

And it is necessary, he realizes at last. For the longest time, he has held his tongue just to hold on to any part of her that he can. But now he knows it’s not quite that simple. No matter what he does, there will be a price to pay: either he keeps quiet to maintain the status quo and spends the rest of his life wondering what could’ve been—

—Or he upends it all to fight for more, knowing he might risk everything he has.

“I don’t know if I can,” Leon admits finally. “The truth is you were here. You still are.”

Ada shrugs without even looking at him. “Not for much longer, I’m afraid.”

“But long enough for some breakfast, I hope?” he offers, optimistic and afraid at the same time.

She rises to her feet and gives him a light pat on the cheek. “Another time, perhaps.”

The dismissal is final and Leon recognizes it as such, but as she passes by him, the stubborn part of him refuses to let that be the end of it. “We’ve got to talk about it one of these days, Ada.”

To her credit, she does meet his eyes this time. “What exactly do we have to talk about?”

She’s playing dumb in hopes his usual fear of confrontation will compel him to drop the subject, Leon realizes. Somehow, it only further incentivizes him to do the opposite. 

“This,” he gestures vaguely between them. “You and me. Whatever’s going on between us. Where we go from here.”

Ada pauses, seemingly weighing his words. Finally she says, very carefully, “What we have works, Leon. It might not be what you hoped for, but it works.”

“Does it, though?” he argues. “Seeing each other once every few months at best, all the while not knowing if there’s going to be a next time? Does that really work for you?”

“I didn’t say it was easy or fair,” Ada counters. “But nothing about our lives is easy or fair. We take what we can. We’ve done it for decades.”

Leon scoffs. “Decades, and what do we have to show for it? Still the same cat-and-mouse game we played in our twenties.”

She reels back, looking dismayed. “I should’ve known you’d ruin it. You just can’t help it, can you?”

“You’re right, it’s my fault,” he snaps. “I rocked the boat, I strayed from the script, and worst of all, I went along with this arrangement knowing in my heart I wanted more than this to begin with.”

“Why did you, then?” Ada demands. “Why are you only saying something now?”

“I wanted to,” Leon says. “I thought, at the beginning, that there was still time to figure it out. But it became harder to broach the subject the longer it went on, and before I knew it, here we are.”

“Here we are, indeed,” she says. “The question is, where does this leave us?”

“I suppose we either move forward, or not at all,” he concludes. “I’ve already said my piece, so the rest is up to you.”

“What if I can’t figure it out?” Ada asks, not unkindly, but merely stating a possibility. “What if I never have an answer for you?”

Leon shrugs. “Well, then I guess that is an answer in itself.” 

“You’ll be content with any answer, then? Even one you don’t like?”

Anything is better than this perpetual limbo, he wants to say. Instead he settles on, “At least we’ll know where we stand. Until then, I’ll wait.”

Ada smiles sadly. “You might be waiting a while.”

“That’s kind of what I’ve been doing, anyway,” Leon says.

They lapse into a brittle, tenuous silence, and for a terrifying moment he thinks she might just bolt and leave him in the dust, but when Ada speaks again her voice is calm and devoid of any ire he would’ve expected their ill-timed confrontation to elicit, “I’ll see you around, then.”

It’s as much of an olive branch as he expects to receive at the moment, and Leon grasps on to it greedily, almost desperately. “I’m counting on it.”

When Ada leaves at last, it is not silently and while his back is turned. Leon is grateful for it, at least; this tiny reassurance that she is more than a figment of his imagination, more than a fleeting ghost; that all of the time, tears, and sleepless nights he spent on her were not in vain.

Nevertheless, as he watches her climb down the fire escape and disappear around the corner, a renewed determination emboldens him.

They will work it out, one way or another. For whatever price they might pay, a more certain future surely awaits them, and that alone must be worth everything.

What surprises him is how much more confident he feels, once he has made up his mind. It’s as though the only thing that matters now is his ultimate goal and how best to achieve it. 

Unfortunately, as all of his plans involving Ada have to be put on hold for the time being while she ruminates on her next move, Leon diverts his attention to the second most important matter at hand, which is continuing his investigation of Abbott Apothecaries.

If he’s being entirely honest with himself, it did not begin as a conscious decision to defy orders; merely a curious probe into what Ada’s well-timed leak revealed, which is that the government has taken an undeniably questionable interest in any and all matters of genetic enhancement.

While Leon wants to trust the authorities to do whatever is necessary to ensure the greater good, he’s also been around them long enough to understand that they do not always, just as he knows there are times when he must act on his own judgment, regardless of how much he wishes he could defer to the will and whims of the government.

Nevertheless, he isn’t nearly stupid enough to believe this is a problem he can solve at the snap of a finger.

If he wants to get anywhere with this venture, he’ll need proof. Solid evidence of any wrongdoing. Something that will substantiate his claims, should he decide to expose the truth, like he should’ve done years ago, when the opportunity first presented itself.

Leon supposes it’s a blessing in disguise that his employers have equipped him with every available opportunity and resource to get as close as he can to Abbott Apothecaries in his newly-christened role as the official go-between. A rare advantage of having a solid track record as a reliable agent, one he intends to exploit to its full potential.

Which is precisely why when Secretary of Defense Matthew Moore announces his intention to tour one of Abbott’s laboratories, Leon jumps at the chance to escort him, an offer that the man is unable to refuse once presented with Leon’s sheer familiarity with the project, having visited the same lab some time prior.

Though it’s only a first step, Leon finds his resolve further strengthened. Whatever evidence he must obtain, he must do so during this visit. He only has one shot. It is now or never.

As it turns out, it’s a far more challenging endeavor than Leon imagined. 

For over an hour they’ve dutifully trailed after the tour guide—a bored young employee who clearly is not paid enough to put in the effort—passing a series of locked doors Leon vaguely recognizes, admiring nondescript lab equipment with no specific purpose, and listening to what sounds like excerpts from the company’s PR brochure being recited verbatim. 

Thus it has fallen on Leon to fill in the blanks for Moore, which is when it becomes abundantly clear that the same asset that allowed him to tag along in the first place is proving to be his biggest hurdle yet, because try as he might, Leon cannot seem to escape Moore’s relentless inquiries long enough to do any kind of snooping of his own.

More concerningly, if their guide’s increasingly hurried pace is anything to go by, their visit is likely wrapping up sooner rather than later. Leon has to do something quickly, or it will all be for nothing. 

The mere thought is enough to incense him. He has come too far to give up now, and who knows when he might get another opportunity like this again?

“Excuse me—” Leon says, aiming for an amiable tone as he squints to read the slightly askew name tag pinned to the guide’s lab coat. “—Wesley. May I please use the restroom?”

Wesley shoots him a look of equal bewilderment and surprise that indicates such a request likely wasn’t covered in the PR brochure, while Moore’s singular raised eyebrow clearly communicates a stern could you genuinely not right now? 

Leon supposes it is a rather silly plan, blurted out in the heat of the moment for lack of any better ideas. He can only imagine what Ada would have to say about this. But he’s never been half the strategist she is, and desperate times do often call for desperate measures.

“O-of course,” Wesley stammers, nervously fixing his glasses. “I’ll take you there.”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” Leon says with a friendly wave of dismissal. “Just tell me where it is and I’ll find my own way.”

Wesley frowns. “I’m not supposed to let unauthorized personnel walk the premises unsupervised.”

“Aren’t you also not supposed to leave Mr. Moore by himself?” Leon points out; though technically he’s not supposed to either, Wesley seems like the nervous type that could be pressured with some outward display of assertiveness. “He is your main guest for the day, is he not? I’m sure he still has questions he wishes to ask you.”

As if on cue, Moore’s irritation instantly vanishes and his face lights up. “Indeed I do. Plenty of them, in fact.”

Wesley glances back and forth between Moore and Leon, looking conflicted. “As much as I would love to, we do need to mind the time—”

“I insist,” Moore says, turning out to be quite the effective, if unintentional, abettor. “The time will be well spent, I can assure you. After all, I must be thorough if I am to report back to the President. We both know the future of our collaboration depends on it.”

“Very well,” Wesley relents with a weary sigh. Turning to Leon, he instructs, “Go down the hallway and take the first left that you see. The restroom should be at the very end.”

“Thank you,” Leon says. “I’ll be quick.”

“You’d better be,” Moore calls after him, but by this point Leon no longer pays him any heed, focusing instead on pulling up his mental map of the place to figure out where he should take that decisive detour.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t get very far—mentally or otherwise—when it becomes Wesley’s turn to call out to him. “Please wait a moment.”

Leon pauses, holding his breath as Wesley approaches.

“I’m going to need you to hand over your gun,” he says, indicating Leon’s trusty Matilda, which lab security has graciously allowed him to bring into the facility, on account of his accompanying an important government official. “You’ll get it back when you return, I promise. It’s simply protocol.”

“Of course,” Leon says, obediently doing as he is told, his only focus being to get it over with and get the hell out of sight.

Unfortunately, Wesley seems intent on playing airport security, and doing so rather diligently—with a surprising newfound air of confidence, too.

“Any lighters or matches on you?” Wesley asks, a bit more brusquely than is perhaps called for, before quickly offering a softer follow-up, “It’s only for your own safety. We’ve got quite a few flammable substances in the lab, you see.”

“No, I’m not much of a smoker,” Leon quips. “Or an arsonist, for that matter, so you can rest easy about that.”

The joke lands about as well as a punctured hot air balloon, and Leon quickly finds himself withering under Wesley’s blank stare. He clears his throat. “Anyway, can I go now?”

Wesley shrugs. “Certainly.”

The only thing that’s certain about this situation is that it’s going to be an inconvenience, having to roam enemy territory with no means of self-defense. Still, at least being unarmed will give him some plausible deniability, should he get caught.

Besides, they haven’t confiscated his most valuable asset yet: the fancy token courtesy of Mr. Abbott himself. One he hopes—fervently, stubbornly, foolishly—might come in handy yet.

With all the casual nonchalance he can muster, Leon walks down the hallway and takes the first left turn as instructed. As soon as he’s out of sight, he breaks into a light sprint and loops around the opposite corner toward the series of locked doors they passed by earlier.

Standing in front of one, he casts quick glances along both sides of the corridor before pulling the token out of his pocket. 

In his role as the officially-designated go-between, his token has been encrypted with the necessary credentials to access a number of similar labs, a privilege which Leon enjoyed the last time he was here. Of course, that is no guarantee it’ll work on this one, but he would certainly regret it if he never gave it a try.

Miraculously, when he holds the token against the card reader, the light flashes green, and the door slides open with a light woosh.

Stepping inside, Leon is greeted with a surge of cold air and the low thrum of running electricity. It doesn’t take him long to identify the source: a dimly-lit row of identical incubation tubes, all of which appear to hold human embryos in varying stages of development.

A memory flashes through his mind like a bolt of lightning. Archie specializes in that sort of thing. We’ve had our own difficulties, you see… Mrs. Abbott’s meaningful glances at her husband, her sheer confidence that he can resolve any fertility issues no matter how hopeless they seem, and her own budding pregnancy that may or may not have something to do with whatever’s going on here…

Leon has to hold himself back from dry heaving. This is far too much to process for now, or maybe ever. Not to mention he has overstepped God only knows how many boundaries at this point. The prudent thing to do would be to collect the evidence and quickly get out before he raises any suspicions or trips some kind of alarm, if he hasn’t already.

At least they didn’t confiscate his phone, Leon muses as he starts examining his surroundings in search of a good angle to photograph, when something else catches his eye. Across the room, a low green light illuminates an otherwise darkened corner, where a line of much larger vats seem to contain half-formed humanoid creatures, with bulging veins spreading across flesh and muscle like tangled tree roots, and pulsating cysts where their hearts should be. 

A new class of B.O.W.s, no doubt about it. So this is what those genetically enhanced supersoldiers—the government’s armed deterrence—look like. The new and improved Project Heracles.

All of a sudden, a wave of boldness overtakes him. As reckless as this particular endeavor might be, he has already taken so many risks that surely one more will not matter too greatly either way.

Before he can talk himself out of it, Leon holds out his phone to snap a photo. 

In the semi-darkness, the camera flash automatically goes off.

He thinks nothing of it, at first—other than he clearly is as technologically challenged as Sherry accuses him of being—and then suddenly, something cracks.

“Oh, shit,” Leon mutters as the glass on the vat closest to him, the same one he has just taken a photo of, starts to fracture like a sheet of ice. 

As he stumbles back a few steps, the vat shatters completely, spilling viscous green liquid all over the floor. The creature inside slumps forward inelegantly with a squelch, its skin immediately blistering as though mere contact with the air is causing a chemical reaction within its body.

One that causes it to mutate even further.

“Well, fuck,” Leon mutters again when his instinctive grasp at his gun reminds him he is painfully unarmed and has been this whole time.

All around him, alarms start blaring. Not that it worries Leon anymore. At this point, getting caught might be the least of his problems.

With a roar, the creature swipes blindly—or not so blindly, if its surprising accuracy is any indication—forcing Leon to dive for cover. 

He has hardly recovered from the near-miss when it makes another attempt at him, one he barely manages to avoid before realizing he has been cornered.

Actually, he would welcome getting caught right about now.

The creature draws back, preparing for another strike, when it’s suddenly seized by a violent spasm. The cyst on its chest bursts, sending pus, blood, and various innards raining down on him as it keels over, a dead weight in every sense of the word.

Wryly, Leon wonders whether he should open with gratitude or apology, but when the dust settles, the cavalry turns out to be a single person, and the one he least expected to see, yet hoped—irrationally, foolishly, even—would show up.

I knew you’d come for me, the sentimental side of him wants to say. You always do. But his pride refuses to allow such a display of weakness in an already vulnerable moment, so instead he demands, “What the hell are you doing here?” 

“Saving your life, apparently,” Ada states matter-of-factly, reeling her grappling hook out of the dead creature’s back, before making a futile attempt at shaking the blood and gore off of the gun itself. “You know, most people would simply say thank you.”

“Am I meant to be thankful that you’re keeping tabs on me again?” Leon scoffs. “How long have you been following me, anyway?”

She rolls her eyes. “Bold of you to assume I needed to do anything of the sort, when you were making enough of a ruckus to attract far more attention than just mine.”

“And yet you reacted faster than any of them, including lab security who had complete freedom of access to, presumably, every nook and cranny of this place,” he points out. “Speaking of, how did you get in here?”

With a sigh, Ada brandishes a token of her own, aptly shaped like a teddy bear. “Technically, the same way you did. I copied the credentials from your token that morning while you were sleeping.”

Leon shoots her an exasperated look. “Ada—”

He’s cut off by distant sounds of footsteps rushing toward them, growing louder and clearer by the second. Oddly enough, Ada’s demeanor shifts to something akin to relief. “Finally. I was beginning to think they’d never come.”

That makes him chuckle, despite himself. “Gee, can’t wait to get away from me, can you? Surely you can at least spare a kiss goodbye?”

“I’ll do you one better,” she says. “Since you’ve managed to make a complete mess out of whatever it is you’re trying to achieve here, I’ll distract them and buy you some time to get your story straight.”

Without waiting for a reply, she rushes off.

“Ada,” he calls after her anyway. Though it’s not enough to make her turn around, she does stop, hovering expectantly at the doorway.

“If you’re thinking of stopping me, all you’ll be doing is wasting your own time and mine,” she warns.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Leon says with a smile. “I was only going to say… Thank you.”

Ada lingers for a moment longer, as though absorbing the sheer weight of his words. But then the shouting begins as the footsteps grow nearer, and she takes off without another word.

“There she is!” someone bellows. “Don’t let her get away!”

Left on his own again, Leon finds his gaze drawn back toward the creature’s corpse, sprawled among shards of broken glass. If it weren’t for Ada’s timely intervention, it might be his mangled body lying there instead.

The thought alone is enough to spur him into action.

After all, helping each other is what they do best.

The aftermath is, to put it plainly, a barely mitigated disaster.

On the one hand, Abbott Apothecaries isn’t too happy with what they perceive as unnecessary termination of one of their cultivating specimens. On the other hand, the government isn’t entirely pleased with him for bungling what was meant to be a straightforward field visit. At some point, both sides raise serious concerns as to why Leon Kennedy, one of the President’s finest agents and a trusted associate of none other than Archibald Abbott, would be at the center of the incident that nearly ruined their burgeoning partnership.

As if defending himself against all of that wasn’t enough of a problem, there’s also the matter of his accomplice, whom they were unable to apprehend, partly on account of the guards having to split their forces to tend to the injuries Leon sustained when he cut his arm on the broken glass trying to fend off the creature on the loose.

Or so Leon says, of course. Luckily for him, the lack of any eyewitnesses means no one can challenge his assertion in any meaningful way. The same, however, cannot be said for his claim of not knowing Ada, for combined testimonies argue she bears a striking resemblance to Leon’s companion from the night of the soirée, and government records prove she is most certainly not his wife or a fellow agent sent to back him up with his mission.

His only proof of innocence, as it turns out, hinges on letting Ada take the fall: that she was the one who released the B.O.W., killed it with her grapple gun when it went out of control, and wounded Leon when he happened to stumble upon the scene, drawn to it by the commotion.

It’s all so perfectly convenient that he has to wonder, in part, whether this was her intention all along. For all of her proclamations to the contrary, it wouldn’t be the first time Ada has attempted something stupidly altruistic—albeit detrimental to her own safety—to protect him.

The thought only serves to vex him further. There she goes again, making decisions for the both of them and keeping him in the dark about it. Leon supposes he should be touched or grateful, but all he feels is sick and tired of being treated like something fragile and helpless, instead of a partner. An equal.

He wants to protect her, too, to shoulder some of that burden alongside her. He wants to say, that’s not how it happened, even if it means squandering every chance at an out that she worked so hard to give him. But any beginnings of a protestation is quickly overridden by the government, who seems all too eager to buy into the explanation that would paint Ada as the sole perpetrator.

It doesn’t take him long to realize why.

“We’ve identified the intruder as a mercenary known as Ada Wong,” Moore tells him one day during an impromptu debrief. “Upon reviewing past records, we have reason to believe you might have had a few run-ins with her which you seem to have neglected to report back to us.”

A very clear accusation, despite the carefully diplomatic phrasing. Leon’s heart sinks to his stomach, but he steadfastly maintains a straight face. “All insignificant encounters that resolved themselves, sir. I did not think it prudent to trouble HQ with every minor inconvenience that I happened to come across. As you know, my focus and priority has always been the mission at hand.”

Moore hums noncommittally. “Everything is a minor inconvenience until it’s not. What would’ve been prudent was to prepare ourselves before it became a major crisis, the way it was back at the lab.”

Leon bows his head. “I apologize. Clearly I’ve misjudged the situation.”

For a long moment, Moore’s only response is to stare disapprovingly at an indiscernible spot on the carpet, and it makes him feel like he’s in grade school again, being summoned to the principal’s office for misbehaving, nervously awaiting the verdict that will decide his punishment. 

Finally, Moore sighs. “You’ve always been reliable, Kennedy. There’s a reason the President holds you in such high regard. I would hate to see you fall out of favor over an honest mistake.”

Leon bites his lip, bracing himself for the catch he knows is coming. 

“Of course, not all is lost quite yet. There’s still a way for you to rectify your error and redeem yourself, should you take that chance.”

A wave of nausea threatens to overcome his entire being as Ada’s words echo back at him. He would allow the man to redeem himself as a favor. So it seems the day has finally come when Leon has fucked up enough to give them the excuse to use this tactic on him.

Once again, Ada is proven right, and once again, Leon cannot outrun the inevitable.

“You want me to find her,” he says. It’s not a question and they both know it.

“Given your history, no one is better suited to the job than you.” Moore smiles, all teeth and no warmth. “Help us bring her to justice, and any transgressions you might’ve committed will be nothing more than a simple misunderstanding.”

For the first time, Leon doesn’t know what to say. Openly opposing this plan means they’ll simply hand it off to a more obedient agent, while he will likely be stuck on probation for who knows how long and thus unable to help her. But he cannot in good conscience act enthused about it either, so all he can manage is, “I see.”

Seemingly sensing his hesitation, Moore relents, suddenly the very image of a benevolent god. “I’ll give you some time to mull it over. But I do hope you’ll make the right choice, Agent Kennedy. That will be all.”

There’s no choice to be made here at all, but there’s nothing more to be discussed, either, so Leon takes the dismissal as it is and beats a hasty retreat.

It was foolish of them, to think they could’ve maintained this delicate balance forever, that the repercussions would somehow spare them, if only they’d run far enough, pretend hard enough. The truth is reality has followed them like a shadow all along, always two paces behind, biding its time, waiting for the worst moment to strike.

That moment, Leon supposes, has arrived with a vengeance.

Sooner or later, they will both face their reckoning.

If there is one thing Ada is absolutely certain of, it’s that Leon is in serious trouble. 

In all fairness, it has been a long time coming. Leon has been moving with a distinct lack of caution lately, and though she knows he’s always had a reckless streak, not even that can explain the sheer carelessness exhibited in deciding to look her up using government resources, only to then neglect to wipe his own traces.

It’s one thing for him to do something stupid to get her attention—they’ve been down that path so many times that she doesn’t mind it so much anymore—but another thing altogether to be so sloppy about it as to be noticed by the exact people whose eyes they’ve spent their entire adult lives evading.

In situations like this, it’s often up to Ada to fix, or at the very least mitigate, any possible mess that might ensue. Which she has been doing, first by laying low for a while so that any of her activities—and by extension, his—will fly under the radar, then by cleaning up the trail of breadcrumbs Leon left in his frantic search for her. Even when he somehow got it in his head to infiltrate the lab in some undoubtedly ill-conceived plan to uncover forbidden knowledge that would only get him killed for his trouble, she aided his efforts by hacking into the security cameras and replacing the footage with looping feeds of empty hallways.

Yet all of that could only do so much. In the end, she still had to swoop in to save Leon from being mauled by yet another mutated monstrosity. Again.

It would be nostalgic in a charming way if it wasn’t so frustrating. Because of him, she’s been forced to leave the shadows where she prefers to work from, and does so best. Because of him, their prior connection has gone from an unsubstantiated rumor at best to practically common knowledge.

What worries her is how they’ll choose to leverage that knowledge, because the fact that they will is all but inevitable.

Somehow, the other shoe is taking quite a while to drop. In fact, Ada would argue that it hasn’t shown much sign of falling victim to gravity anytime soon. Despite her anxiety, her overactive imagination running wild every which way, and her pre-emptive preparation for the worst-case scenario, life goes on as it always has.

Well, that’s not entirely true. Life goes on far more peacefully than she is used to, almost unnervingly so.

Almost suspiciously so. 

They say no news is good news, but Ada knows from experience the opposite is true for Leon. Normal for him is being out there, causing trouble and leaving messes. But he has been, by all accounts, keeping a low profile; his entire routine consists of leaving for work then going home again, rinse and repeat ad infinitum. 

That, coupled with the fact that he has seemingly stopped taking—or rather, being assigned—field work means only one thing: Leon is being watched.

And if his refusal to even try and get in touch with her is any indication, Ada should stay far, far away from this ticking time bomb of a situation.

It would be the smart thing to do. Unfortunately, she has never been smart when it comes to Leon.

Of course, it isn’t all about him. It’s simply her contrarian nature acting up again, Ada reminds herself. Nothing and no one can tell her what to do, including and especially not Leon. And the fact of the matter is that she wants to see him, so she shall, caution and consequences be damned.

She holds onto that reasoning even as she makes her way down the familiar path toward his apartment, through her wait for an opening to strike, right until she unlatches the loose, rusted lock of Leon’s living room window and slips inside.

Loath as she is to admit it, her visit doesn’t exactly pan out the way she hoped it would.

Naturally, she expected a number of reactions from Leon; surprise is a given, now that she has learned how to move around without him noticing. Dismay, certainly, given her frequent, sudden, and often prolonged absences. Even anger, as unpleasant as it can be, is not entirely out of the question these days. But what she sees on Leon’s face the moment he steps into the kitchen to find her perusing his spice rack is something else entirely.

Something akin to fear, Ada realizes with an uneasy feeling in her stomach. Panic, even.

“Ada,” he blurts out, nearly tripping over her name in the process. “You shouldn’t—”

He cuts himself off, as though remembering where he is, before taking a moment and starting over in a calmer tone of voice, “You shouldn’t have made me wait so long.”

“You’ve been waiting for me?” she asks, suddenly bewildered and wary in equal measure.

“Of course I have,” Leon says, sounding uncannily hollow despite his casual demeanor. “I’ve got something I need to discuss with you.”

A strange opener, but Ada decides to push through just to see where this is going. “Oh? What about?”

“The intel you wanted on Project Heracles,” he says. “I can help you get your hands on it.”

Something about the way he says it triggers her argumentative side. Confusion momentarily forgotten, Ada crosses her arms over her chest and stares him down. “What makes you think I’d want or even need your help?”

“Because we work well together,” Leon replies, absently tapping his finger against the side of his head. Twice, once, twice. Back me up. “We always have, remember?”

It dawns on her all at once, like a tidal wave threatening to drown her whole. There can only be one reason Leon is using their signal, and it’s because he’s being watched. Even here, in this place where they’ve always been safe from the rest of the world, neither of them can escape having to put on a show for watchful eyes and prying ears.

Whatever happens next, Ada needs to tread very carefully. “Alright, you’ve got my attention. What’s the plan?”

“They’ve set up a new facility by the Potomac. All the specimens have been moved there, after our… mishap at the other lab,” Leon says, his eyes flicking downward before meeting her gaze again. “Meet me there in a fortnight during the midnight guard shift change and we’ll finish what we started the last time.”

He’s warning her to stay away, Ada realizes. So this is how the U.S. government has decided to leverage their relationship: by using him as bait to capture her. The consequences are playing out exactly the way she always knew they would—and chose to ignore, anyway. 

What she didn’t foresee, however, is Leon ultimately having to be the one to fix her mistakes. Even now, he’s trying his best to release her from this predicament by giving her an easy way out, an opportunity Ada wagers the old her would’ve taken straight away and with no questions asked.

The current her, on the other hand, finds the thought of leaving Leon to fend for himself rather unsettling. “What about you? What’s in it for you?” 

He pauses, seemingly mulling over her question. When he speaks again, there is a sincerity not even their current ruse can disguise. “The knowledge that I did the right thing.”

A predictably noble answer, though it does not reassure her of his safety. “And what of your employers?” she asks. What will they do once they realize what’s happening remains unspoken.

“I suppose they’ll finally understand where my loyalties lie, once and for all,” Leon states, like he has somehow read her mind, and though she knows it is yet another performance for the bugs in his apartment, something tells her the truth of his words is meant for her and her only.

It’s the one thing Ada has longed to hear all this time, the cinching confirmation of everything she has ever hoped for and more, and yet she reaps no comfort or satisfaction from it. 

Not when the one thing they’ve fought for and held on to all these years is slowly falling apart around them. Not when this might be the last time they get to be in the same room like this, maybe for a while, more likely forever.

Ada wants to savor this feeling, to commit it all to memory to make up for the way she took so much of their time together for granted, but far too soon, the moment is over before it begins.

“You should go now,” Leon says with an air of weary resignation, and for the first time in their long, torturous, twisted dalliance, it feels like a goodbye. “Remember, two weeks from now at midnight. I’ll be waiting.”

It’s a lie and they both know it, but Ada isn’t quite ready to let go yet.

Unthinkingly, she reaches out to grasp his forearm. “Are you sure about this?” 

To her surprise, Leon instinctively flinches away as though dodging an attack, before his gaze drifts to where her fingers are wrapped around his arm in a vice grip, the friction of their skin growing hot.

Standing motionless, he admires it with the awed reverence of someone witnessing a rare or perhaps forbidden sight, and when he pries himself gently, carefully out of her grasp, his hand lingers over hers a second longer than is necessary.

“Trust me,” Leon says, holding her gaze meaningfully. “Just do as I say and everything will fall into place.”

In the face of his conviction, all she can do is nod her agreement. “Alright. You’re the expert.”

As much as Ada wants to hate him for using her own words against her, a bigger part of her hates herself more for wishing so desperately to believe in them. From the first day they met, Leon has had a way of making hard things sound so simple, like everything is bound to work out if she will only trust him. And God help her, she does. She always has, even when she shouldn’t, even when the rational thing to do is to fight back.

But then again, Leon Kennedy is the one battle she will never win.

As the day draws nearer, Ada finds herself increasingly conflicted over the decision that ultimately, she has no choice but to face. 

Obviously, the path of least resistance is to do as Leon tells her to. Stay away from the trap, lay low for a while, wait for the shitstorm to blow over. Hope against hope that one day things will settle enough to allow them to see each other again. But that also means toying with the possibility that they never might, and the mere idea is too unnerving to fully convince her to remain idle. After all, Ada has never been the type to sit around twiddling her thumbs when she can take matters into her own hands. That’s how she ended up saving Leon’s life far too many times to count.

Of course, Ada trusts him to take care of himself. She said as much, and she meant it. For as reckless as Leon tends to be, he has always managed to come out on top each and every time, despite the danger that surrounds him on a daily basis, and the deadly situations his job seems intent on throwing him into.

That’s when realization hits her: it’s not Leon she needs to worry about, it’s the people he works for. The people who now hold his fate in their hands—all because of her. 

If Ada doesn’t show, can she count on them to leave him be? Perhaps if she maintains her distance, they might feel inclined to give up their pursuit and forgive Leon’s sins. At the end of the day, what’s one criminal on the loose compared to the President’s most trusted agent? As long as Leon remains useful, the government will surely not risk disposing of such an asset.

Nevertheless, what use is he to them, if he cannot catch a common mercenary? What will happen to him if he fails at the one task meant to test his loyalty? Leon may be valuable, but if there’s one thing Ada knows about the U.S. government, it’s that nothing and no one is valuable enough to be indispensable, should the time or occasion call for such a need.

She can’t let him face this alone. Not now, not after everything they’ve been through together. 

It will be poetic in a way, Ada ponders wistfully. It was always going to come down to the two of them against the world, in the end.

Ada arrives at the facility at precisely seven minutes to midnight. 

Just as expected, security appears so paper-thin as to practically be nonexistent: the only two guards stationed at the entrance make a show of checking their watches in tandem exactly two minutes later before shuffling off, leaving the front gate wide open with no replacement guards to secure it. 

It seems the plan is now fully in motion.

If someone had told Ada even a month ago that she would be willingly walking into an ambush, she would’ve laughed at them. But if they’d told her she’d be doing it for Leon, she would’ve said, that sounds about right.

Because she has always been a fool when it comes to Leon, hasn’t she, even before she knew who he was or how much he would come to mean to her. What she does know, though, is that she never once regretted that decision, and she certainly won’t start regretting it now. 

Slipping through the gate, Ada makes it a point to cast careful glances around her, as though looking out for potential enemies even if she knows there are none. Two can play at this game, she muses with quiet amusement. Since they’ve gone to such lengths to put on this act for her sake, it would be impolite not to play along to the best of her ability.

Still, as she roams empty hallways with visibly disabled cameras, Ada wishes they would at least try to make their trap look less like an obvious trap. Everything is so eerily quiet that she’s willing to wager any criminal with half a brain—especially those in her line of work—can figure out something is amiss.

Either Ada’s a bigger fool for Leon than she thought, or there’s another game unfolding that she is unaware of.

In a manner of speaking, one is already underway, as she soon comes to discover: though the facility appears absurdly accessible at first, the deeper Ada ventures, the more blocked paths and locked doors she begins to encounter, all of which are seemingly designed to point her toward a specific destination.

Not for the first time, Ada wonders what possessed her to voluntarily go along with such nonsense.

The answer is, of course, Leon. She needs to find him, Ada decides as she moves away from yet another dead end into a dimly-lit room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the river and half a dozen vats not unlike the ones she found Leon snooping around the last time.

He is around here somewhere, she has no doubt about it. Ada knows him well enough to believe he’ll come regardless, because he will not risk leaving her to the wolves should she decide to show up after all; because he, too, knows her well enough to suspect she’ll disregard his warnings anyway.

She supposes there’s a bleak sort of humor in the idea that they might’ve both chosen the worst possible course of action for themselves and for each other. Ada can only imagine what Leon will say to her when he finds out she’s—

“Ada,” a familiar voice behind her rings out, breathless and on the verge of breaking. “What the hell?”

Whirling around, she spots Leon’s silhouette slowly emerging from the shadows, the green-ish glow from the incubation vats casting a sallow light upon his already gaunt features. He looks worse than she remembers him, Ada notes, and it’s only been two weeks.

Fortunately—or unfortunately for her, in this case—Leon’s frail appearance doesn’t extend to his demeanor.

“I thought I told you to stay out of it,” he hisses upon approaching her, trying and failing to keep his voice down as he does. “Was I mistaken in believing you understood what I was trying to say?”

“Oh, no, of course not. You weren’t exactly subtle about it,” Ada retorts, already feeling the familiar annoyance that comes with an impending argument with Leon. “Your only mistake was assuming I’d do what you told me to just because it was you saying it.”

It takes Leon a dumbfounded moment to find his words again. “We can’t afford to waste time arguing about this. They’re going to find us any second now. You need to get out of here while you still can.”

“And leave you to hog all the fun?” she scoffs. “You don’t have to play the big damn hero with me, Leon. I’m more than capable of taking on a few government attack dogs.”

He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, but that’s not a risk I’m willing to take.”

The decision comes to her in a split second of perfect clarity. 

“Then let us take it together,” Ada offers, overcome with a sudden, ecstatic impulse. “Between the two of us, we can surely fight them off.”

“And then what? Even if we manage to escape, where can we go that they won’t follow?” he sighs. “Please, Ada. Just this once, let me deal with it on my own terms.”

“Leon—”

Her words are interrupted by the arrival of what appears to be a platoon of armored soldiers rushing into the room and taking their positions by the vats, one by one. In a matter of seconds, Ada finds herself on the receiving end of about four dozen crossbow bolts, nocked and ready to fire.

Too late to run now.

To top it off, the last person to enter—a middle-aged man decked out in full military gear that somehow still barely fits him—is none other than the Secretary of Defense, Matthew Moore.

They’ve really pulled out all the stops for her, it seems. She would feel honored, if the whole thing wasn’t so ridiculous.

“Good work, Agent Kennedy,” Moore commends with an air of ceremony, ruined somewhat by his fidgeting with the tactical vest; the man is clearly not used to wearing anything other than starched shirts and pressed suits. “I knew I could count on you.”

“You said you’d let me handle it,” Leon snaps, before adding a begrudging, “sir.”

“I am,” Moore says. “I’m giving you the honor of taking her in. Of course, such a momentous occasion I must witness for myself.”

Ada can barely refrain from rolling her eyes at the sheer theatrics. Pompous asshole, she thinks to herself. How typical. But when she looks at Leon, searching for any sign of the distaste she is certain he must share, all she finds is hesitation on his conflicted features.

“Leon,” she calls out, willing him to meet her gaze again. “Think about it.” Think about what I just told you.

Slowly, Leon reaches for his holster, and stupidly, Ada lets him.

“I already have,” he replies, raising his gun. 

Just like that, she finds herself back at the very beginning, in a different lab so many lifetimes ago, staring down the very same gun barrel. 

It comes back to her again, a haunting reminder: So much has changed and still hardly anything has.

“What are you still waiting for, Kennedy?” Moore urges, impatience evident in every syllable. Next to him, the soldiers hold their positions unflinchingly as the glow of the incubation vats casts an ominous green light across a row of perfectly aligned weapons. “Finish it already.”

“You’re not going to take me in without a fight, Leon,” Ada says. “You know that.”

“I do,” Leon says coolly. If he’s speaking in code, she cannot decipher it this time.

No matter. One way or another, this ends now.

“Then you also know you’ll have to pull that trigger if you’re hoping to stop me from making a mess.”

Something flickers in Leon’s gaze, though his grip does not falter.

The moment stretches into eternity.

“You’re right,” he says, cocking his gun. “I will.”

Before Ada can fully process his words, Leon turns his gun on the soldiers and fires.

“Hold—” Moore bellows, but his voice is cut off by a sound far more deafening than a mere gunshot.

An explosion.

Instantly, the room is engulfed in scorching heat. Something heavy tackles her to the ground, the force of the impact leaving her winded and disoriented. Through the ringing in her ears, Ada can barely make out sounds of orders being barked overlapping with footsteps scrambling over scattered debris, which continue to rain down around her in a dazzling shower of glass and metal. Ducking for cover, Ada finds herself enveloped in a protective embrace as a pair of familiar blue eyes find hers.

Leon, she wants to say, but her voice seems to elude her, as well. So instead she clings to him with all her might as Leon hauls her to her feet, screaming something she can’t hear but feels instinctively in her bones: We need to get out of here.

Staggering about like a pair of drunks, they stumble toward the window. The glass has already been shattered by the force of the explosion, and when they peer below, there’s nothing but pitch darkness. A seemingly endless abyss.

Ada throws one last look over her shoulder at the disaster unfolding behind them: the smoldering flesh of B.O.W.s spilling out from the remnants of the incubation vats, the chaos among the soldiers as some frantically attempt to avoid burning to death while others try just as futilely to cross what is quickly turning into a thick, neon green conflagration threatening to devour everything in its path.

Every piece of the puzzle suddenly falls into place: the soldiers’ unconventional choice of weapons, the relatively modest number of vats in a room that certainly looks like it was designed to hold a lot more than that. The chemical substance used to grow these monstrosities must be flammable enough for them to make a conscious decision to diminish any potential damage while still maintaining the bare minimum illusion of it being an actual lab. 

Of course, the success of their plan hinged upon the idea that Leon would play his intended part, by using the gun he was allowed to carry to presumably apprehend her with. Ada can only suppress a smirk. If they’d known him half as well as she did, they might’ve seen it for the hopeless endeavor that it was.

Not that their current situation is much better, Ada reminds herself. Right now, teetering on the precipice of the unknown, her only comfort is that she won’t be alone. Not this time.

Leon seems to arrive at the same conclusion, because he squeezes her hand tightly in his and nods.

She nods back, silently vowing never to let him go.

Together, they leap into the dark.

Ada expected the darkness. She even expected the cold. What she did not expect, however, was how strong the currents would be. The moment she plunges into the water, Ada feels herself being ripped away from Leon as her body is mercilessly dragged downstream by the force of the raging river. Although she can barely keep her head above water long enough to catch her breath, Ada summons every last bit of strength to call out for him.

And yet, even as she screams her throat raw, her only answer is the roar of the torrents drowning out her voice and numbing all of her other senses. Leon himself is nowhere to be found. Once again, Ada is alone.

Exhaustion soon sets in; between swallowing lungfuls of water and scraping every inch of her exposed skin against rocks and driftwood, Ada knows her strength is fading. It’s ironic to think that she might meet her end like this, in a futile battle against nature, after surviving countless man-made horrors beyond imagination. She has spent so long running that it has never truly occurred to her what it would be like to stop. Ada supposes here is as good a place as any to bring it all to a close; as far as dying goes, she could’ve done much worse, and far more violently.

This isn’t too bad, she tells herself. Living on the edge means accepting the risk of falling off. It was only ever a matter of when.

As her muscles scream for mercy, Ada takes one last breath, preparing to surrender to her fate, when all of a sudden—

“Ada!”

Leon’s voice cuts through the haze in her mind and dispels the ringing in her ears entirely. 

Ada eyes snap open. Amid the currents, she spots a familiar figure swimming toward her, his single-minded determination evident in each stroke, even as the treacherous waters threaten to push him off course. 

“Hold on!” he yells, sounding nearer and clearer with every passing second. “I’m coming!”

“Leon,” she whispers under her breath, gathering what little energy remains in her weary body to push herself against the rapids, letting his voice guide her in his direction.

It’s a strange feeling, to fight her way toward him instead of away from him for once, but it fills her with the kind of excitement that only comes with a fresh undertaking. Even if it means mostly flailing about to stay afloat, Ada refuses to give up, and before long, her thrashing arm manages to take hold of his. Immediately, they latch on to each other like their lives depend on it—and they might very well do.

In that moment, nestled between the deafening rush of the river and Leon’s rapid heartbeat thumping in tandem with her own, Ada finally understands a fundamental truth: that here with him is where she was truly meant to be this whole time, and she was simply too afraid, too stubborn, too blind to realize it.

All of a sudden, the torrents don’t seem all that turbulent now that they have each other. Leon steadies her just enough to allow her to grab on to a large piece of driftwood, which in turn provides him with the right balance to reach for a rock outcrop protruding from the riverbed. 

Using it to shield themselves from the currents, they are able to swim the relatively shorter distance toward the bank. It’s a long and arduous process, but eventually they both make the final stretch and haul themselves on to solid ground, soaked and panting as they do so.

“You shouldn’t have come,” Leon gasps between labored breaths as he lies flat on his back. “They could’ve killed you.”

“If I hadn’t, they would’ve killed you.”

He scoffs, which turns into a coughing fit. “You don’t know that.”

“Oh, but I do,” Ada asserts. “And so do you. You just can’t bring yourself to admit it.”

“Maybe,” Leon says. “Doesn’t mean I couldn’t have handled it on my own.”

She shrugs. “Sorry, but that wasn’t a risk I was willing to take.”

He rolls on his side—groaning in pain as he does so—just to give her a dirty look. “You’re impossible.”

“And you’re far too reckless for your own good,” Ada counters. “We were lucky your harebrained gambit paid off this time. It could’ve easily ended very differently.”

Shakily, she gets on her feet to look around. It seems they have drifted quite far from the facility, which is now nowhere within sight. All the better for them, Ada muses. At least this will give them a bit of a head start in case Leon’s murderous employers—or former employers, as things are right now—decide to make absolutely certain that they are dead, which she knows they will. The U.S. government does not leave loose ends, it ties them into neat, PR-approved bows.

“We should get going,” Ada says, but when she turns to Leon she finds his eyes are closed and his breathing has evened out. 

Leon Kennedy is, to put it plainly, out cold.

Ada heaves a long sigh. Of course. Just when it seems the hardest part might be over, the ball lands back in her court. This is going to be one hell of a night, of that she has no doubt.

They still have a long way to go.

At the very least, they have each other this time.

When Leon wakes again, it is to a sore back, an unfamiliar bed, and perhaps most unexpectedly of all, Ada’s face gazing down at him with what might be a mixture of curiosity and concern.

It shifts into something like relief a moment later, though in typical Ada fashion she tries to play it cool. “Oh, you’re awake. Finally.”

“Where am I?” he asks, pushing himself into a sitting position. “How did I get here?”

“About two hundred miles North of D.C., in a cabin owned by a hermit named Hank, who happened to owe me a favor,” she tells him. “I figured a ride in his pickup truck and a night in one of his spare properties was a good way to call it in.”

“A pickup truck as our escape vehicle?” Leon chuckles. “It’s truly a wonder we managed to get away.”

“I didn’t say it was easy,” Ada huffs. “In fact, the entire U.S. government is still out looking for you as we speak. The only reason they haven’t done so with more urgency is because they’re too busy doing damage control for what happened last night.”

That sobers him up immediately. “What did happen last night, anyway?”

“A complete disaster, that’s what,” she says. “From what I’ve heard on the grapevine, they want to have you publicly declared KIA to cover up that pathetic excuse of a sting operation. Better to let the people believe they’ve lost a national hero in a mission gone wrong than admit their monumental blunder nearly killed the Secretary of Defense and four dozen soldiers.”

“They’re letting me die a hero?” he snorts. “How magnanimous of them.”

Ada rolls her eyes. “Regardless of their actual intentions, at least that means your wanted posters won’t be plastered everywhere for all to see. That’s one less variable to worry about while you figure out your next move.”

“Huh,” Leon says dumbly. “Alright, then. So what do we do now?”

“I’m going to try and lay low for a while, maybe take this opportunity to go on a retreat in the Canadian wilderness,” Ada says, and that’s when he realizes he might’ve been too hasty in thinking of them as a unit, in assuming that wherever she goes, he goes, too. “You probably should do the same, at least until the dust settles a little. Though even then I fear it might be difficult to go back to your old life. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he says, shaking his head. Somehow, hearing her lay it out so plainly isn’t nearly as terrible as he feared it would be. After all, it is only another inevitability he has refused to face for far too long. “It wasn’t much of a life to begin with.” 

Still, Ada falls silent for a few moments, as though compelled to pay her respects regardless. Leon supposes he can understand the sentiment. As much as his former life imprisoned him and robbed him of his free will for the entirety of his adult life, it was also the only life he ever knew. Its loss still, in some ways, feels like the end of an era, for better or for worse.

“Look on the bright side,” she tells him. “Now you get to build a new life.”

Leon scoffs. “I’m not sure I know what that looks like.”

Ada pauses again, like she didn’t really expect that answer. After a while she speaks, more carefully this time, “I don’t think anyone really does. That’s the thing about life, you never know what’s going to happen next. But you keep living anyway, just in case it turns out to be wonderful.”

He gives her a rueful smile. “And what if it’s not wonderful?”

She shoots him a cheeky one right back. “As long as you get to live the way you want to, does it really matter?”

It stumps him, this fundamental truth condensed in a few simple words. She’s right, when Leon really thinks about it; he has never been allowed to live life on his own terms, but more importantly he hasn’t dared to imagine what it would be like to follow his heart’s desire.

Until now, that is. 

If Leon is being entirely honest with himself, he’s still afraid. But if he doesn’t say it now, he might never get another chance like this again, and then he truly wouldn’t know how to live with that choice for as long as he lived.

“What if I told you what I wanted was to spend my life with you?” he says finally.

For a moment, Ada looks as though she is waiting for the punchline to drop. When none comes, her expression morphs into one of bewilderment and disbelief. 

To his surprise, the first thing that comes out of her mouth is not an attempt to dissuade his decision or dismiss his request. Instead, she merely asks, “Are you sure about this?”

“It’s the only thing I’ve ever been certain about,” Leon answers.

“You do realize that means you might be spending your life constantly on the run, don’t you?”

He shrugs. “I’ve always wanted to see more of the world.”

“Or that you might never see any of your friends again?” she prods further.

“I’m as good as dead to them anyway, at least in the legal sense of the word,” Leon quips. “Besides, nothing’s stopping me from taking a leaf out of your book and sending them a secret message or two. Somewhere further down the line, of course.”

Ada sighs. “It’s not going to be a walk in the park, Leon. I just don’t think you fully understand what you’re getting yourself into.”

“What I understand is that I’ll have you by my side,” he points out. “We’ll figure it out together, like we always do.”

Though she appears momentarily tempted to argue, in the end the pressure visibly leaves her body as Ada concedes her defeat to him, perhaps truly for the very first time. “Whatever you say, handsome. You’re the expert.”

Leon smiles, feeling all of his burdens and regret leave him, one by one.

At last, he is free.

They pack up what little belongings they have between them—some cash, a handful of Hank’s non-perishables, a couple of burner phones, a few forged documents, and a radio—into the pickup truck, ready to finally begin their journey.

“Is the truck part of the package, as well?” Leon asks. “That must’ve been one hell of a favor you did for him.”

“Indeed it was,” she says. “I should think an old, rusty truck is a fair token of gratitude for saving a man’s life. Don’t you?”

He laughs, despite himself. “In that case, you should do the honor of driving the first leg of our trip.”

“Don’t regret it, then,” Ada jokes, though the moment they get into the truck, the first thing she asks is, “Where to?”

He makes a show of contemplating her question. “The Canadian wilderness sounds like a good place to start.”

Ada shoots him a sideways glance. “Surely you don’t mean to tell me what you want to do with your life is to follow in Hank’s footsteps.”

“It’s not like I’m committing to our first destination,” Leon says. “We can go anywhere. Settle down wherever we like. We’ve got the rest of our lives to figure it out.”

Chuckling, she presses the clutch and starts the engine. “Well, then I hope you’ve prepared a list for us to go through.”

“It’s not exactly a list yet, but…” he trails off. “You know, I’ve never actually been to Tokyo.”

Ada shifts to first gear. “I’m sure we can fit that in our schedule.”

As they pull away, Leon starts to smile. The tiny cabin grows even tinier in the side-view mirror before vanishing entirely. Soon, the life he leaves behind will be nothing more than a memory.

Nevertheless, try as he might to envision even the worst-case scenario, Leon cannot imagine himself ever regretting this decision.

After all, the end of something is simply the beginning of something else. Something new. Better, even.

And Leon, for one, is more than ready to start living. 

fin