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Grace didn’t know why it still kept her up at night.
Things were fine. They were better than fine, considering the circumstances. The DSO made sure no one saw her leave the hazard zone, not even members of the press. She still had her job, even if her boss was less than thrilled about her period of MIA. She could go in and visit Emily whenever visiting hours allowed it.
And Leon—Leon was fine. He was cured. He was okay. Grace watched from the landed helicopter, an emergency blanket over her shoulders as the man stretched his arms up and walked away like it was nothing. No government official or secret agent had to tell her that the antiviral worked. The painful, glassy glint in his eye that he’d been trying to hide from her the whole ordeal had lessened. He stood a little taller, his shoulders less tense, his arms no longer hunched in toward his chest.
“Is he—Leon, he—he’s going to be okay?” Grace remembered stuttering out to the masked-up men who sat across her in the helicopter. She wasn’t sure where he went after getting cleared. Maybe back to his car. He said he had a car. Back during one of those moments where he couldn’t stand without vomiting blood, and Grace had tried her best to keep him lucid.
“Who, Kennedy?” One of the officers asked. Grace couldn’t see behind the masks and helmets, but none of them seemed worried at all. “From what Redfield says, the guy’s immortal. I wouldn’t worry, kid. Cleaning up your mess is his job.”
Grace couldn’t shake that feeling of guilt once she heard it. Cleaning up her mess. Was that what Leon thought of her? It had been a week, and all she could think about now was how useless she’d been. She shouldn’t have assumed the death of her mom was a fluke. She should have trained harder, should have bought a better gun.
Grace thought nothing could be worse than losing her mom. It wasn’t as if anyone she cared about had even died this time around. Grace had escaped unscathed, uninjured, nothing but a few broken ribs and a mountain of shock. They recovered Emily soon after, her body still recovering in a facility nearby. Grace kept having to remind herself that she’d been there to witness the proof, sitting beside her bed as doctors cleaned wounds and reapplied eyedrops.
Grace told herself she wouldn’t let something like that happen again. Had she been as helpless now as she was back then?
No, Grace told herself, each time she picked at her nailbeds, checked her closets for intruders, left her bathroom light on. This was different. She was older. She wasn’t on her own.
Leon was fine, but Grace couldn’t help laying awake, thinking about each time she could have ended both their lives. The blankets in the complimentary hotel room she temporarily called home brushed up too harsh against her skin. The bathroom’s nightlight stayed on, in case her mind tried to convince her that a pair of monstrous hands would reach out and rip her to pieces.
Leon hadn’t died, but there were so many ways he could have. When she hesitated taking his gun and got him trapped behind those bars. When she fought him over Emily, who already seemed too far gone. Each time Grace had hesitated was another second taken away from him in his final few hours. Each time Leon protected her, only to keel over and cough up half a lung, was another inch of his life gone. Who knew how much longer he could have had if it weren’t for her?
Leon was alive—alive, and well and cured—but the sickening scenario of Grace making the wrong choice, putting in the wrong password, couldn’t stop entering her head. She’d been so close to typing out the wrong answer. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, unsure of what Leon would have wanted if he’d been conscious enough to tell her.
The image of Elpis being destroyed, of Leon remaining half-dead in a pool of his own innards, filled her chest with enough dread to make her panic. She imagined the scenario of angering Zeno any further, the thought of him pulling out his firearm and pressing it to the middle of Leon’s forehead, and—
It didn’t happen. Grace curled up and pressed her face into the scratchy hotel pillow. She repeated it over and over, tried to erase the intrusive thought that she had almost killed the man who’d stopped at nothing to save her. It didn’t happen like that. But it almost could have.
Grace sat up when her sight blurred too much to see the floor. She rocked back and forth, trembling fingers digging into the skin below her knuckles until they stung. She could hear her own breath leaking out in desperate bursts, the pressure in her chest enough to make her panic. Grace kept her head pressed into the pillow, praying that her neighbours on the other side of the wall couldn’t hear the whimper that left her.
Leon was fine. But what if he wasn’t?
Grace was good at imagining things until they were real enough to comfort her. Like having a normal job, one that didn’t come as a result of too much baggage. Or her mother’s warm hand—as secure as it used to be when she was still alive—pressed gently into Grace’s back on nights when she felt too lonely. She couldn’t stop imagining Leon’s painful face of resignation before Zeno pulled the trigger. The image was vivid enough to make her wonder if it wasn’t just her imagination.
Grace felt her face crumple, sobbing muffled into the pillow as tears dripped down her cheeks and stained the fabric. This panic felt worse than losing her mom, worse than being kidnapped, worse than when she thought she’d lost Emily. It didn’t matter what she told herself. It didn’t matter what logic, what rationality, what grounding techniques she’d drilled into herself since having to grow up quickly.
She needed proof that Leon was okay. She just needed to make sure.
With blurred vision, Grace curled forward, hands searching around in the dark for her phone on the bedside table. It was still half-charged when the clock read 1:15 am. It took her three times to unlock it, one hand over her mouth to keep from making too much noise. With a weak grip on it, Grace thumbed through her contacts until she reached Leon’s name halfway down.
“For emergencies,” Leon told her the last time they’d spoken. The man was kind enough to ask for hers, too. Grace wasn’t sure why until he brought up Emily. “I know the two of you got close.”
Grace hadn’t used the number since Leon had given it to her. There wasn’t much news to give him, and she knew he was busy, that he probably didn’t want to be bothered. But his presence. His essence. She just needed a little bit more of it.
Grace clicked on his name, expected the number to ring out and hit his voicemail. Maybe a groggy text when morning came a few hours later. That indicator was all she needed to know he was okay. That she hadn’t watched him die, that the phone number was real, that she really had walked out of there with Leon close behind.
She hadn’t expected Leon to pick up before the first long ring. Grace went silent, body stiffening as the sound cut out to crackling feedback, of someone’s presence on the other line.
“Grace. Hey,” Leon’s voice crackled out. He said it like he already had Grace’s name in his phone. She hadn’t expected that, either. “Everything okay?”
The man sounded wide awake, and part of her wondered if she was interrupting him on the job. His distant presence was enough to make her melt into the headboard and close her eyes with relief. She pressed the phone to her forehead and leaned back until she caught her breath.
“You didn’t buttdial me, did you?”
Leon’s voice through the speaker startled her, made her realize just what she was doing. He was giving her an easy way out of this. Grace could pretend to be asleep or pretend it was an accident. She knew she was a terrible liar.
“Hi—,” she pushed out. “I’m fine, I—I didn’t realize how late it was, I didn’t think you would—”
Grace stopped herself before she could admit what she was really thinking. There was a long, silent pause before Leon pushed forward.
“Everything’s good with Emily?”
“Emily?” Grace stuttered, thrown off by his kindness even though he’d never been anything but kind. “Yeah—yeah, she’s fine, Leon. Everything’s fine.”
Grace laughed, wet and teary, and she realized as she wiped away the wetness from her eyes how much of a mess she probably sounded on the other side. She hadn’t expected Leon to pick up at all. Yet here he was, not a hint of grogginess in the way that he spoke.
“—It’s late,” she finally finished. She thought she heard him chuckle on the other end of the line.
“You’re acting like I’m the one who called you.”
Grace laughed again, her chest a little looser. She curled up on top of the covers and let the phone’s luminescent light keep her grounded.
“I didn’t think you’d pick up,” she admitted softly. Her voice wavered, too unsteady to control. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Leon didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and Grace considered rushing more apologies and signing off. His voice was all she needed to put her at ease for the night. Leon sounded more than okay. She didn’t know what she was thinking. Grace’s finger hovered over the hang-up button when the speaker came to life again.
“You’re still at the same hotel, yeah?” He asked, even though he sounded certain of it already. “Up for a ride? I’m in the neighborhood.”
Grace thought back to the men who patrolled the lobby, the same ones who investigated her old apartment. They’d disguised themselves as employees in case one of the stragglers from before would make another attempt at her.
“I don’t know if they’ll let me out.”
“You won’t have to worry,” he sounded certain, and Grace couldn’t help thinking about how Leon was the first person to tell her that in a very long time. “You up for it or not?”
***
Grace wasn’t sure why Leon offered. He really hadn’t known her for long, probably had a whole group of friends and family to spend time with off the clock. Leon wasn’t anything like her.
She stood outside the entrance, arms crossed over herself to fight back at the wind. After a handful of minutes, a black Porsche had pulled into the guarded hotel lot. The window rolled down, and a sharp-eyed, familiar face stuck its head out and waved over to the armed man standing close to the entrance. Leon really kept to his word. Grace didn’t have to worry about a thing.
Leon wasn’t dressed too differently from when Grace had first met him. He was missing the holster on his belt and the weapons hanging off his back. A handgun sat on the dashboard in between them. Grace couldn’t tell if the gesture was on purpose, to put her at ease.
“Long time, huh?” Leon looked over with a gruff smile, and Grace wasn’t sure if he was waiting for her to laugh. For all she knew, Leon had done enough government work to shut them both out.
“Yeah,” she nodded, tried to be friendly, but couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eyes. It was hard to imagine him as anything other than how he appeared when she first introduced herself. It was hard to even meet his eyes. Not when Grace had spent the last hour and a half thinking about what she could have done.
“It’s cold out,” Leon spoke again as the two drove off. He must have noticed her shivering. She was grateful he blamed the cold. “They didn’t get you a new coat yet?”
The cold picking away at the wounds still healing on her arms grew apparent, and Grace realized she was worse at pretending things were fine than she remembered.
“I left it upstairs,” She said. Leon’s remark sounded more like a comment than a question, but Grace jumped to life in defence. “I just wasn’t thinking. Everyone’s been really nice to me.”
Grace knew she was saying that too much, but she really hadn’t been thinking. Since everything had happened, it felt like things switched to autopilot.
“They should be,” Leon ignored her barrage of excuses and kept a hand on the steering wheel. “Trust me. You did a hell of a good thing for them.”
It doesn’t feel like that, Grace wanted to say. Instead, she crossed her arms and held her chest together. If she stopped shivering, Leon might stop looking at her so intently, and she could stop imagining the light leaving those kind-hearted eyes.
Reaching into the backseat, he pulled out his black leather coat. He dropped the jacket over her shoulders, eyes watching the road, and Grace melted into the fur-lined collar. Grace felt herself relax into the car’s heated seats and the heavy coat over her shoulders.
For a while, the quiet hum of the engine was the only sound between them. Grace expected the ride to be awkward. She curled into herself and sighed, loud and shaky. Leon noticed before she could silence it.
“Any tourist attractions on your list?”
Leon pointed to the road, and Grace realized they weren’t really driving anywhere. She still felt shaken, couldn’t think of anything to say. Plotting out a destination meant Leon would eventually have to drop her back where she started. Grace would be alone again with her thoughts. Leon wouldn’t be there to prove anything wrong.
“Why are you in the neighborhood so late?” She asked instead.
Leon’s eyes flickered for a moment, from the empty roads over to where she was sitting beside him. Even though Leon looked better than the week before, his shoulders still held the same tension.
“Driving at night’s more peaceful. No one else on the road,” Leon said. The car took a gradual turn onto an equally empty street. He looked uncertain again, before adding, “Good way to wind down on a rough night.”
Guilt built up in her chest again. It was evident how much she was struggling with the aftermath. He wasn’t doing this for her, was he?
“I’m sorry I bothered you so late,” she started, but Leon was already shaking his head, adamant.
“I was already up.”
“You couldn’t sleep, either?” Grace lifted her head up in surprise. She caught the man’s gaze in the rearview mirror. She tried not to think about the darkening veins that used to cover the back of his neck, the smell of hot blood on his breath each time she found him half-conscious. Grace wished she could banish the thoughts from her head. Leon was okay, wasn’t he?
“Something like that,” Leon finally answered. Before Grace could think about what that meant, he added, “You hungry?”
She wasn’t, but nodded anyway. The thought of him dropping her back so soon loomed in the back of her head. The man veered onto another side street. Even while the rest of the world slept, Grace noticed with a strange kind of warmth how he stopped at each traffic light and stop sign.
When asked, Grace couldn’t think of anywhere she wanted to go. The anxiety from earlier still coursed through her like a virus. They ended up in a drive-thru a few blocks down. Whatever she and Leon were avoiding back in bed was chased away by the 24-hour neon sign that flashed through the tinted car windows.
It felt weird, watching a person like Leon act so normal. Grace didn’t know why watching him talk to another living being without a gun in his hand and a stern expression on his face was so strange. When Grace reached around for the wallet she left back up in her room, Leon already had his card out.
“How many of those did you get?” Grace laughed breathlessly. Her own burger sat half-wrapped in her lap. Leon had a bag of at least six of them wrapped up in the brown paper bag. He tossed the bag her way when the streetlight turned green.
“You can’t tell me just one of these is enough to fill you up,” the man shot back, surprisingly humorous. She nibbled on her own burger as Leon took them up through the hills and over to his favourite spot. With the ignition off, the sound of crickets leaked through the closed doors and windows.
Grace let her eyes trail down from the strings of street lamps and shops below them. In the distance, she locked onto a dark spot that sat in between. That couldn’t be Raccoon City, could it? She felt the guilt from before coming back full throttle. Maybe she was why he couldn’t sleep. Her thoughts drifted until Leon was looking over at her again, too intensely. She realized too late how quiet she'd been.
“You sure things are going okay?” Leon sounded like he knew more than he let on. “What happened was pretty terrifying. Even for FBI.”
Grace had to look away, down at his elbow perched on the wheel, a half-wrapped burger in each hand. She would’ve laughed again if he wasn’t asking such a loaded question.
“I’m fine,” Grace struggled to say, even though she was fine. It was her own fault that she couldn’t stop imagining a worse alternative. “I’m—I’ve been thinking too much about it. That’s all.”
“What you did saved a lot of people.”
“I—I know,” she tried not to trip over her words. “And I’m glad we’re out of it, but— I don’t know why the after part feels just as bad.” She shook her head quickly. “It’s stupid. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Leon stuck his food on the dashboard and turned to her, a dark smile twitching at his lips.
“Try me.”
Grace knew she didn’t sound very convincing. Leon didn’t seem to believe her. Grace watched from the corner of her gaze as his right arm twitched. She thought he would reach out to her, but he hesitated once she opened her mouth.
“You—you told me Raccoon City was where you couldn’t make a difference. How do you—” She tried to find the words. “How did you get that feeling to stop?”
Grace closed in on herself when Leon hit her with a look as cold as ice. Any kind-hearted expression had left his face. A part of her wanted to reach out and make sure he was real, that she hadn’t left him behind with a bullet through his head or his body beyond salvation.
“Do you really feel like you didn’t make a difference back there?” Leon finally asked. Grace didn’t know what to say. Tears of shame and frustration built up behind her eyes.
“I know I made a lot of things worse. I didn’t know anything I do now. If I could go back, I—” She paused again, tried to avert her gaze. “I told myself, no more regrets. I can’t close my eyes without thinking about what went wrong, and what could’ve gone wrong, and how you—”
Leon was looking at her like she was someone else entirely. Grace didn’t know why it worsened that feeling in her chest. She’d thrown him off. She’d overstepped. She shouldn’t have said anything at all.
“So it’s about me,” Leon shook his head slowly. He looked guiltier than he should. It wasn’t his fault that he had saved her while dying. It wasn’t Leon’s problem if Grace couldn’t stop applying all the ways she could have killed him. “I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s not your job to worry about what happens to me.”
Grace could see it now in her head again. Leon with his brains splattered against the hard, metal floor. Leon curled up and gasping for air until the virus took the last bit of oxygen from his lungs. Leon staring up at her with such compassion, who was willing to keep her alive over himself every single time.
“How—how can you say that? Each time I saw you—I don’t know how much longer you would have—” Grace couldn’t catch her breath. She regretted now what little food she’d eaten, not when the sound of Leon choking on his own blood kept roaring through her ears.
“Hey. Look at me.” The car didn’t feel like the car anymore by the time Leon leaned in and pressed a hand atop the coat on her shoulders. The feeling burned. She tried not to flinch back. She didn’t want him to pull away just yet.
“I don’t know if I can,” she whispered. The pang in her chest rose to her throat. She felt so stupid. She thought she could find relief in his presence, but now things felt so much worse. “It would’ve been all my fault if—”
“You didn’t make any wrong decisions back there.” Leon swallowed hard before starting again. “You made a hell of a lot more of a difference than I did.”
“I could have killed you.” The tears from before broke free, and she lowered her head, shielded by a curtain of hair. “I was so close to doing the wrong thing, I was so close—”
“But you didn’t.” Leon’s grip on her shoulder faltered. “You saved everyone who could’ve been saved. It’ll never feel perfect, but you'll still move forward. You aren’t on your own.”
Grace tried to slow her breath. Leon’s face, twisted with worry, looked distorted from her tear-filled vision. Grace knew she wasn’t on her own, but she’d still never felt so alone.
“When does the feeling stop?” She curled up, pressing herself further into his fleeting touch. Leon’s hand twitched against her shoulder. He winced and swallowed again, like the question had daggers tied to it.
“I don’t know.” He moved down to rest on her mid-back, breath sounding ragged. “But dwelling on what could have happened will kill you. No one was around to tell me that. So I’m telling you now.”
Grace felt at such a loss. Her chest hurt thinking about it. It was hard, imagining Leon as young as her. She couldn’t think of him as someone so wide-eyed and scared, someone with as many regrets and mistakes as her.
“When everything started for you,” Grace wiped her face, cheeks already sticky. “What—what did you wish would’ve happened instead?”
She waited for a table’s worth of wise words, an anecdote from when he was too young to defend himself or the start of a devastating sob story. Instead, Grace couldn’t stifle her shock as the man leaned over and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into his chest.
The feeling felt warm and stable, and Leon didn’t smell like copper and sweat and raining bullets, and Grace couldn’t remember the last time someone wanted to hug her. Leon’s hands twisted under the coat on Grace’s shoulders and wrapped around her lower back. He squeezed hard enough to hold her together.
“Not what you were expecting, huh?” Leon muttered back, voice tight. “Trust me. You’re gonna be okay."
For a moment, he didn't feel like Leon at all. His words sounded tilted, his breathing uneven like hers. Hesitantly, Grace tightened her arms in return. She let her head fall into his collarbone, his head coming down to meet the top of her shoulder.
As the sea of streetlights glimmered below, Grace wondered if she and Leon were similar. She didn't know much about him, didn't know how much he'd come to regret, if he imagined what could have been different. Letting her eyes close, Grace let the rest of her thoughts pool out of her head, absorbed by the arms wrapped around her and the coat around her shoulders. She'd knew she'd have to leave the car eventually. For now, Grace didn’t have to think about the difference.