Resounding footsteps collided with the metal grating below, leather heels made a soft click each time they padded across the surface of the submarine floor. She'd only just arrived. Ada felt the figure behind her shuffle without sound, the shadow of the Agent moved alongside the wall in front of her as she grasped the metal bar of the door and twisted until it opened. She cast a glance over her shoulder, eyes latched on to the black-clad comrade who raised a hand, thumb poised in the air toward the ceiling encouragingly.

Right behind you.

Attention averted back toward the door, she stepped through with the shadow of a man following in suit at her back as she passed the corridor to the guard that awaited further down the curve of the pathway. She paused, feet slowed to a stop as the Agent brushed by her; shoulder to shoulder in what should have caused a friction. Instead she felt little more than a brush of air as he stepped closer, hands extended to grip a hold of the unsuspecting J'avo guard. It happened in the blink of an eye. A quick pull, a sudden lift of the knee and silent snap of the neck. Her eyes fluttered closed, barely for a moment, then reopened to the shimmering body as it combusted at her feet, the Agent now gone from sight.

Glossy lips pursed together slightly as she stepped away through the next corridor, no longer feeling the shadow at her back. It wasn't until she slipped under a small passageway on her knees that she'd come face to foot with dark shaded boots. Her gaze lifted, slowly and sure to see him with one palm at his hip and the other with a knife held readily in hand. She allowed her lips a small upward curl as she rose to her feet and stepped past him, her ears immediately honed in on the sound of heavy footsteps patrolling the pathway beyond the next turn. She waited until they began to pace in the opposite direction before she slid her way to the corner, crossbow aimed for the perfect strike.

But there it was, another blink of an eye and the Agent was ahead of her, in front of the J'avo with the blade of the knife embedded through the frame of it's mask and directly into it's skull. She lowered her weapon as the Agent offered a slight shrug.

I can handle it.

Something was off. As the J'avo fell to the floor, Ada turned her attention to her lowered crossbow.

It's arrow was missing.

Her eyes scaled back across the metal beneath her feet directly over to the melting foe. Instead of the knife in place between it's eyes, her missing bolt lay buried deep into the creature's forehead.

Agent was gone again.

He seemed to enjoy his little mind games, reappearing only to disappear again the moment Ada looked away. Slippery, just like her. It wasn't until later when the sub had started to sink and overflow with water that splashed around her that he remained by her at all times. She'd climb a ladder only to find him already at the top of it where he'd give a gentle nod.

I'm here.

As metal platings and broken pipelines crumbled around her and under her feet, he was barely a few steps away from her side. Even after the use of her grappling hook, a glance to her right would prove that he was still there. Somehow.

It didn't make sense, not in a logical or believable way to anyone else. But to her... She wouldn't have it any other way.

Ada had witnessed him get hit once from carelessness. He was reckless and gained a small scrape across the side of his arm; enough to sting and draw blood, but far from anything fatal. It wasn't until after the room had been clear that she'd stopped to chide him, almost able to feel a slight smile coming from underneath the mask. A tiny uplift, a barely viewable slant toward the sky. It was never more than that, she didn't have to see underneath his covering to know it.

When he disappeared again, she found herself tending to the smear of crimson at her arm.

From beginning to end, even long after the submarine incident, he was there behind her like a ghost. A silent guardian angel that forced more from her, always there as a reminder and always there as encouragement. To let her feel as though she wasn't alone anymore.

When she'd first taken the helicopter, he was one seat over in the co-pilot's chair until she'd found Leon and Helena. He'd disappeared again like a brush of wind, he left her to fire down on to the zombies that threatened the lives of the duo below. It wasn't until she'd pulled away that she knew he'd come back.

Good work.

Later, after she'd landed and during their second fight on the rooftops with Simmons, she'd seen him above through the window near Helena. Not firing to aid the other woman, but instead his attention was as always, directed to the spy. When she parted ways with the two, Ada found him back at her side shortly after. As she'd watched the evidence, seen footage of the atrocities Carla had committed, he loomed over her like her own shadow; always attached to every last step. Even as she unleashed clip after clip into everything around her, as she destroyed anything that stood as a threat to her name, he waited for her.

Then she'd met him, finally. Face to face. The mask discarded into the same shadows of her mind whence he came.

There were no more lies or delusions, not as she stared him down, her eyes locked with his own that stared back from underneath the strands of hair that never seemed to fall out of place.

Ada.

She couldn't stop her lips from forming a smile if she'd wanted as she closed her eyes and leaned forward. She could almost feel their foreheads brush together, almost smell him through her nostrils, almost taste him on her lips. He stood before her now in a new clarity, even as she knew in the back of her mind all along what he was. A reminder of all the things she'd wanted, of all the things she thought she would never have...

Of the one thing, she'd never allow herself to have.

Leon Scott Kennedy.

Her Agent, her savior, her weakness.

She expected him to have disappeared by the time she opened her eyes, but this time he'd surprised her. For one overly elongated moment, she'd felt her heart skip and the world freeze around her. He leaned in, his lips grazed across her own as he faded into air, this time in view of her longing stare. She'd slipped, allowed herself to give into something that didn't exist, a figment of imagery that couldn't exist in the reality of all things. Her secret truth was that of all the times she'd play hard to get and always left him on edge, deep down she'd always felt the impulse to stay.

Not that she'd ever willingly admit it.