under the moonlight

by tennisnotensai

[Leon/Ada, Post-Vendetta, angst with a happy ending, unplanned pregnancy] "We're over. Ada and I are over." [Part one of the series called "luminaries."]

Warnings: no beta, OOCness, English is not my first language, inconsistent tenses, i am very bad at prepositions, alcohol, alcoholism, curse words, sexual situations, CW: mentions of abortion, CW: mentions of miscarriage, (just mentions of these, they don't actually happen in this fic), CW: suicidal ideation, CW: contraceptives

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.

A/N: i'm so tired of this fic and no amount of editing is gonna salvage this, so imma post it anyway. yolo amirite 😎

---

I.

19:42, September 8, 2015, Tuesday

Mount Pleasant, Washington, D.C.

Leon had long since been familiar with his good friends Jack, Jim, and Johnny, but tonight, his companion was the fine gentleman by the name of Jack Daniels. The feeling of the bottle in his hands was getting intimately familiar, like the feeling of a lover's soft hand clasped in his own. The burn of the whisky sliding down his throat made him recall a pair of red lips pressing feverish kisses on his neck. He was drinking to forget her, but everything just reminded him of her.

Another night, another bottle of whisky. That was his second for the week, and it was only Tuesday. His liver would hate him for it, but he would do almost anything just to get her out of his head.

Almost anything, because miraculously, he still had some of his wits left about him. In his line of work, anything could happen, and that anything could mean the difference between retaining his humanity or mutating into an abomination.

It was just Tuesday. He wasn't due to return to work until next Monday, so he had several more days to drown his sorrows in alcohol. A week off from work would usually mean flying off to another continent to meet her, but she was gone, wasn't she? She was the one who ended things between them, and Leon couldn't make her stay, not then, not now, not when it mattered the most.

He was getting better. He was beginning to move forward from the grief caused by losing his men prior to Glenn Arias's attack on New York City. He was beginning to see alcohol as something to be enjoyed once more, not something to quiet his demons, yet there he was again, wallowing in self-pity all because a woman left him.

He gave himself this week to mourn the loss of the woman who had never belonged to him. One week to lose himself in the pain, and then he would get over it. He promised himself that he would never go into the deep end again—no more locking himself away in a cosy resort hotel somewhere, drinking several months away. No more feeling sorry for himself to that extent. No more lonesome nights clutching a bottle of alcohol in his sleep instead of her warm body. No more—

Ah. There it was again, a memory of her. He took a long swig of his whisky to chase the memory away, but all it did was remind him that he would never get to hold her again. She told him time and time again to leave her, to love someone who wasn't her, but he never listened, because she was the one he wanted. He wished he had just listened to her, because if he did, then he wouldn't be feeling like the world had ended.

And in a way, it did.

His living room was dark, save for the moonlight and the lights coming from the city below. His window was slightly open, and the chilly spring air made his curtains flutter. He made no move to close the window or turn on the light. He remained rooted in his armchair, wearing his clothes from Sunday, completely uninterested in taking a shower or shaving his growing beard. He was becoming more and more like a slob with each minute that passed—the exact opposite of the exemplary federal agent that he was supposed to be.

Maybe when this week was over, he would take a nice, long bath, shave his face, and treat himself to a decadent breakfast. Maybe when this week was over, he would go for a run or hit the gym. Maybe when this week was over, she would be nothing but a distant memory in his brain.

But it was just Tuesday, so he brought the bottle of whisky to his lips once more and stared at the blinking lights outside.

---

09:03, September 14, 2015, Monday

Half Street SE, Washington, D.C.

When he got back to the office, the first thing Leon noticed was the empty desk that Sherry occupied.

"Hey, where's Sherry?" he asked as he set his cup of coffee down on his desk, next to a mountain of folders. He placed his messenger bag aside and added, "Was she deployed?"

Helena from the desk next to his said, "Yeah, last Thursday. To Australia. Won't be back for another two weeks."

Around them, their co-workers milled around with coffee and bagels, catching up on the latest workplace gossip. Some of them offered Leon a smile and a Welcome back, Kennedy!, to which he answered with a Hey and a small smile.

Leon nodded, then sat on his chair and booted his computer. "And these folders?"

"Those can wait. I believe we'll be given a mission soon." She turned towards him, grinning. "And? How was your week-long holiday?"

Of all the people he knew, Helena was the only one who knew the real deal between him and her. Ashley Graham knew about her, but not who she was, not even her name. Chris Redfield, and all the official reports, knew her as Ada Wong, the woman Carla Radames framed for the C-Virus outbreaks. She didn't want her name cleared, that much she made certain when she told Leon the whole truth about Edonia, Tall Oaks, and Lanshiang.

"Why?" Leon had asked her back then.

"This is my cross to bear, Leon," she had said, "and I have some personal things to settle."

But Leon still cleared her name. He had still proven that she was innocent. He didn't actively try to, not when she requested him, but that was what all their investigations had proved—Ada Wong was innocent.

That was two years ago. The DSO had immediately launched an investigation into The Family and everything connected to it, from its roots to its branches. It wasn't easy, considering how ancient The Family was, yet in a little over a year, all its leaders and commanders got obliterated, and whatever remained floundered into non-existence.

Some of those heads the DSO and the BSAA had eliminated. Most of them, however, either disappeared or were already dead when they found them.

If they were lucky enough to find them.

Leon had asked her if she had anything to do with those disappearances and assassinations, but all she did was flutter her eyelashes and say Maybe.

Leon had known her long enough to translate that Maybe into Why are you still asking me when you already know the answer?

He knew what she was. He knew how high the mountain of bodies—human or otherwise—she stood on, how many corpses and carcasses trailed in her wake. She was the furthest thing from innocent, but so was he, because he had always omitted any mention of her from his reports, and he never once thought of alerting the authorities about her activities. In fact, he was the authority, and he did nothing to stop her, because he knew that all she did didn't come from a place of malice.

And that was where he was wrong. She did one malicious thing, and Leon was none the wiser to admit it to himself.

I'm just using you, Leon, she had said. It seemed so long ago, but it happened just two Saturdays ago. How stupid do you have to be to think that I'm capable of loving someone? I can't love anyone, especially not a naïve little boy like you.

He was just getting better. After four days of crying and drinking himself into oblivion, he had finally gotten better to the point where he started taking care of himself again. Bathing, shaving, eating healthy food, exercising…he finally felt normal again, yet just one question from his colleague and he was back to that downward spiral into infinite darkness.

"Where did you two go this time?" said Helena, oblivious to Leon's inner turmoil.

Leon's PC finished booting up. He opened his mailbox, deleted unnecessary mails, flagged the important ones, and answered urgent messages. He did all these by rote, as if a spirit that wasn't his inhabited his body and moved his limbs out of its own accord. It felt like he was a prisoner in his own body, peering through eyes that weren't his. The background noise became muted, he couldn't register what Helena was saying, and the buzzing in his ear grew louder and louder until he felt someone forcefully shake him.

"Leon!" Helena said, her hands still on his shoulders, her face etched with worry. "Are you okay?"

He blinked, trying to process his thoughts. Right. His mailbox. The file folders. Helena's question.

He saw some of his co-workers looking at them, so he gave them what he hoped was a smile equal parts sheepish and reassuring, and said, "Didn't get enough sleep."

That seemed to appease his colleagues, so he turned to Helena to answer her question. "Home. I was home all week."

Her hands fell from his shoulders, although she still looked worried. She got back to her desk and said, "Staycation?"

"We met up Friday night, then she left Saturday morning." He praised himself for saying it so calmly, for not breaking down into tears again.

"Oh." Helena briefly looked at her monitor before turning her gaze towards him. "Work?"

"I…I guess."

"You guess?"

Because that was the root problem of this all, wasn't it? His work. Her work. If they didn't have the jobs they had, they would probably still be together—not that they were officially together in the first place. If she wasn't a spy trained to abhor the very thought of love, then maybe he would still have her, and the taste of her name on his lips wouldn't make him recoil.

Leon drank his now tepid coffee. He then set it down on his desk and grabbed a folder and opened it, running a thumb across the corners of the papers.

"We're over," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Ada and I are over."

It was the first time in nine days that he said—and thought of—her name out loud, and as he expected, her name tasted bitter, like his tongue wanted to shrivel and fall off his mouth. The name she used wasn't her own, but together, with each kiss and each touch, they made the spy known as Ada Wong into the woman known as Ada Wong. He loved saying her name out loud, because he helped create this person. Ada the spy and Ada the woman were two sides of the same coin, and he knew both intimately. In fact, he suspected that he was the only one who knew the woman named Ada Wong.

But everything was just a lie, wasn't it? She said so herself. She was just using him. She was just manipulating him. The Ada woman that woke up in his bed never existed; it was just a part of Ada the spy.

Her name once tasted so sweet, but now, it just made him want to gag. He couldn't bear to think of it, let alone say it out loud.

"We're over. Ada and I are over," he repeated. He closed the file folder he was holding before opening it again, looking at it but not seeing it.

It was the truth that kept running through his brain for the past week, and finally saying it aloud gave things a sense of finality. The final nail in the coffin, he idly thought.

And to make matters worse, they were never really together, so was he right in saying that they were over? What was over? Their relationship? They were never in a relationship. Eleven years of whatever it was that they had was gone just like that.

He couldn't see how Helena reacted. He turned his attention back to his computer screen, intent on browsing some reports to bury the memories away, memories that he thought he already kept a lid on.

He could hear a chair's wheels moving closer to him; Helena rolled her chair towards him.

He looked at her and saw multiple emotions cross her face—sympathy, pity, dismay—and decided that he hated it. It was so different from her expression when they both heard Chris Redfield say Ada Wong is dead way back in Lanshiang; this time, it was fraught with more pity, because she knew just how much she meant to Leon.

She's more than a just friend, he had confirmed. I have feelings for her.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Her tone sounded like she was talking to a wounded animal.

He had heard that talking about one's problems helped. He was in great need of catharsis, but talking about one of the worst experiences of his life this soon would just reopen wounds that have just barely begun to heal.

"I don't really wanna talk about it, if you don't mind." He gave her a bitter smile. "Maybe later, but not right now."

Helena still looked worried, although she let the subject drop. "If you need to talk, you know I'm always here, right?"

"I know." He smiled at her, this time a tiny but genuine one—his first one in nine days. "Thanks, partner."

She gave her a smile in return then squeezed his shoulder once before rolling back to her workstation. "Lunch is on me."

"Gee, thanks." He chuckled for the first time in nine days, and he felt a tad lighter.

He considered it a win that he didn't break down at work, but once he was home, he knew that he would be back in the company of his dearest friend Mr Jack Daniels.

---

18:16, October 6, 2015, Tuesday

Half Street SE, Washington, D.C.

The first two weeks were the hardest. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her. He had gotten better at managing his thoughts and emotions, but every time he went to sleep, there was she, with her scent and kisses and embraces that made Leon forget his troubles. He would feel her arms around him, feel the ghost of her breath on his face, and then he would wake up more miserable than when he went to sleep.

Gradually, it got better. Some days, he felt fine, and the heartbreak of what was essentially a breakup was so far behind his mind that he forgot all about it. He had gone on missions, gone to nights out with friends and colleagues, kept up with his gym routine, and just did what he normally did. He made jokes, he smiled, and he laughed, and for a good while, he didn't feel pain. She stopped invading his every waking and sleeping moment and only visited unbidden when he saw a glimpse of a red fabric swishing in the wind, or when he caught a whiff of the perfume she always wore when she visited him—the perfume that he had given her. The sharp, twisting pain in his chest became a dull throb, almost unnoticeable, and only there when he looked for it. He buried himself in his work—not that he didn't before—and put her out of his mind and heart.

But some days, waking up was a nightmare and taking breaths to stay alive were the hardest things to do. It was like the whole world had collapsed on him, and he wanted to do nothing but lie on his bed and never wake up. He wanted to ground to swallow him and never spit him back out. He felt like there were rings of thorns permanently wrapped around his neck, ready to constrict him at any second without any warning. One moment he would be working, and in the next, his fingers would stop clacking away on the keyboard, and he would sit there motionlessly at his desk, the terror of remembering Ah, that's right, she's gone would suddenly drape over him like a cloak of gloom.

But he had learned how to deal with it. He had a job to do, lives to save, tragedies to prevent, and he couldn't do all that if he was drunk and grieving. So he had learned how to manage his pain, and was extremely proud of himself when he could go by an entire day without thinking about her.

And before he knew it, a month had passed. For a month, he kept up the illusion that everything was fine. Fake it till you make it, right? But while most of his co-workers believed him, Helena didn't, because she knew what was really going on.

And Sherry didn't believe him too. Sherry had known him for a long time, and she could tell when he was fine and not. And if Sherry knew, Claire, of course, knew as well.

So it shouldn't surprise Leon when one night after work, Sherry, who had just gotten back from Australia, all but literally dragged him to a nearby fast food place, aborting his attempts for another overtime at work. She dragged him to a booth and found Claire already sitting in it.

"I would have insisted for drinks," Claire said in lieu of a greeting, "but Sherry told me how much you've been drinking lately."

He blinked. He looked back and forth between Sherry—who was still holding on to his elbow—and Claire, who had a faint smirk. "Hello to you too, Claire," he said as he lowered himself into a seat.

Claire and Sherry gave each other one long, tight hug before sitting beside each other, giggling and whispering like schoolgirls.

He leaned back into his seat. "You two really know how make a guy feel welcome."

Sherry and Claire exchanged one final smile before Claire told him, "It's been a while, Leon."

He took a deep breath. Despite the lingering pain in his chest, seeing his friend brought a smile to his face. "Yeah. It's been a while."

"I'm gonna get us some food," Sherry said as she stood even though she had just sat down. "What do you guys want?"

Leon knew this place's menu like the back of his hand. The DSO office was literally right across the street. "Bulgogi and soju."

"Leon will be having bulgogi and Coke," said Claire, making it clear that he wasn't gonna be drinking any alcohol in her presence, "and I'll be having japchae, seasoned fries, Sprite, and mango bingsu."

"Got it," said Sherry before walking away.

Claire placed her elbows on the table, steepled her hands, and rested her chin on them. She smirked. "So."

Leon crossed his arms, mirroring her smirk. "I'll have you know that I'm trained in counter-interrogation."

"I never said that this was an interrogation."

"Call it whatever you want."

Claire chuckled. "Sherry says she heard from the grapevine that you've broken up with your girlfriend. A girlfriend which, by the way, I never knew existed."

He rolled his eyes. "That's because there was no girlfriend."

"All right, allow me to phrase it this way—if there was no girlfriend, then maybe you stopped seeing a woman you've been in love with?"

He remained silent.

She sighed. "Leon, I know about your girlfriends—your girlfriends, who, by the way, had an expiration date of three months. I also know about your semi-regular international holidays, because you always give me, Sherry, and your co-workers souvenirs."

"What are you trying to say?"

"What I'm trying to say is," she laid her hands on the table, "these international flights of yours have been going on since…I don't know, 2004? 2005? So if you've been in love with this woman since then—"

"It doesn't matter, Claire," he said, shaking his head. "Whatever that thing was, it's over."

"So there really was a woman?"

Would he lie to Claire? Helena—and Ashley—knew about her by accident. Helena was the only person Leon could talk to about her, and even then, he couldn't tell her everything. Sherry only knew what circulated in the office gossip. Leon got no entertainment value from rumours, but he knew what the people were saying, only because he was a federal agent who had been trained to get information from every possible source, and gossip, as experience taught him, could be a wealth of information. He just needed to weed out the possible truths from the possible lies.

He didn't pay heed to gossip about him, but he knew what they all said. Casual dater. Dates women for two to six months. There would be periods in which he doesn't see someone, and during that period, he would be gone for days or weeks, often flying to another country. And when he comes back, he has that I-just-got-laid glow. Have you seen how much he smiles after getting back from those holidays? Do you think he has an on-and-off girlfriend that he comes back to after breaking up with those other women?

These rumours have been following him since his US-STRATCOM days, and only got more prevalent in the DSO. Helena and Sherry, his trusted friends, never participated in the gossip-trading, but they heard a lot, and they told Leon what they heard.

Apparently, his personal life was of interest to a lot of people, especially because they wanted to know what Leon did to make him the president's favourite. Whether that curiosity was born out of admiration or envy, Leon didn't care to know.

So he knew what Claire had heard, because Claire got her "information" from Sherry, and Leon was aware of the rumours circulating in the DSO office. He knew that Claire knew about the drinking, about the immense workload he purposely put on himself, about the missions he volunteered on taking that no one else wanted. But what else would he do? His mind used to be filled with thoughts of her, and now that she was gone, there was nothing else for his brain to fixate on. Better make himself so busy that he wouldn't have time to think about her, right?

This was how he managed his pain. This was how he stopped himself from getting alcohol poisoning. Better hold a gun and be in pursuit of a person of interest, rather than hold a bottle of scotch and drink himself to sleep. Because if he didn't have anything to occupy his time with, his brain would just think of her, and how would he do his job then?

"It doesn't matter," Leon repeated, looking to the side because he couldn't bear to look at Claire. He didn't want her to see whatever expression his face would inevitably make. "There was a woman, and now there isn't."

He couldn't tell her everything, but Claire deserved to know something. She was, after all, one of his oldest friends, and though they may have had their differences in the past, at the end of everything, they still had an unbreakable bond.

"For all intents and purposes," said Claire, "you broke up with your girlfriend of, what, ten years?" She sighed. "Leon, this isn't something that you need to carry by yourself. I understand if you don't wanna talk about it yet, but you have friends who care for your wellbeing. You know we're here for you."

He looked at her. "Talking about it might help, but right now, just thinking about it fucking hurts. I can't even think of her name."

Sherry came back bearing their food, balancing the trays with her arms and hands. Leon immediately stood up to help her, saying, "I should have helped you."

"No need," she said as she laid the trays down on the table. She took her seat beside Claire. "So? What did I miss?"

"Nothing that you already don't know," said Claire.

"I thought this was an interrogation," Leon said, sitting down, "but it looks like this is an intervention."

"It's both," said Sherry. "I know that you and Helena talk, and I think that that's helping you a lot. But she's not your only friend, Leon. We're here too. You can talk to us. You have other friends besides Jack, Jim, and Johnny, you know."

He bit his lip. "There's a reason why I talk to only Helena." He briefly contemplated whether to tell them or not, but in the end, they were his friends, and they only had his best interests in their hearts. He decided that he could tell them a little bit. "She…accidentally met her."

His friends softly gasped.

"Even so, I don't tell her everything," he added. "So please be don't hurt if I'm keeping things from you. There's a valid reason why I can't just pour my heart out, and it's not because it's 'unmanly' to do so. If I could think of her name without wanting to break down, then maybe I'm ready, but as it stands, I'm not."

Claire took a forkful of her japchae. "From what I've been told, it's been a month. I know that that is in no way enough time to heal from a heartbreak, but sometimes you just have to let it out."

He gave her a sad smile. "That's what the punching bag is for."

Claire sighed. "If you're ready to talk, you know my number."

"You know, when a friend goes through a breakup," Sherry said as she dipped her fries in Claire's bingsu, "usually, we take that friend to a bar, but considering how you're cleaning out your local liquor store of its stock…maybe we could just pig out?"

Leon gave her a small smile. "Yeah, we could just pig out."

They must have spent four hours there, continually ordering snacks once their meals had run out. They talked about everything, from Claire's love life (or lack thereof), to Sherry's apparently flourishing one. They talked about all the women Leon had dated in the past, and although Leon had no bad words to say about his past lovers, he realised that what he felt for them didn't even compare to—

Ah, he really should stop thinking about her.

Claire eventually had to go because of an early morning flight, but before he and Claire parted, they made sure to give each other twenty years' worth of hugs.

"If you're ready to get back into the dating scene, just let me know," Claire said as she released him. "I have a co-worker you might be interested in."

"I'll keep that in mind," he replied, even though they both knew that Leon was nowhere near ready to get back into a relationship—not that he just got out of one, because no matter what anyone said, what he and that woman had was not a relationship.

"Bye, Leon." Claire gave him a small wave. "I'll see you later."

He waved back. "I really appreciate you coming to see me. Thanks."

She shrugged. "That's what friends are for."

Sherry accompanied Claire to the airport, no doubt wanting to spend some more time with her.

Sherry was right. He had other friends besides Jack, Jim, and Johnny.

---

III.

19:57, October 17, 2015, Saturday

Frederick, Maryland

It was funny how things could go wrong in a second. One moment, they were cuddling on the couch, and in the next, she was pushing him away, looking at him in a way that she never did before—like she detested him, like she couldn't wait to get away from him. It was there for a mere second and was quickly replaced by her patented poker face, but Leon saw it, and that expression on her face haunted his nightmares.

He kept wondering about what could have gone wrong. They did nothing out of the ordinary. They were supposed to stay in Leon's flat all throughout the weekend, but something happened overnight, something that caused her to say all those scathing words to him.

Did she mean them? Was she keeping all her revulsion for him a secret all this time? Did he unknowingly do something that made her act this way?

These were the thoughts he refused to entertain, or else he would just reach for a bottle of brandy. He had a job. He needed to stay sober. Yes, healing a broken heart was a long and arduous process, but that was no excuse to jeopardise thousands, if not millions, of other people's safety, just because he couldn't move on from a woman who had never loved him back.

He couldn't go on like this. He couldn't go on living like a hollow shell whose only purpose was to work. In fact, work wasn't a purpose, but rather, a distraction.

He needed a new purpose in life, something that wasn't his job. Something that made him forget all horrors he had seen, something that helped him sleep peacefully, something that gave him a taste of genuine happiness. Something…something that did all the things she did for him, something that gave him all the things she had given to him.

Something that wasn't her.

(Something, not someone, because he doubted that any other human being would measure up to her.)

But because life took sadistic pleasure in fucking him, Leon, of course, had to be reminded of her in the cruellest way possible—seeing her in the flesh six weeks after their not-breakup.

He was undercover at a formal party for a company's founding anniversary. The dress code wasn't just "dress formally," but rather, a black-tie dress code. Which meant that he had to take his fancy shirt and tuxedo to the dry cleaner, and make sure his shoes were polished. He had dug around his closet, making sure he still had a presentable pocket square, and that his cufflinks were still in their place. They should be. He had never bought any of those cufflinks; all of them were from her. He didn't really need cufflinks, because the instances where he had to wear a pair were far and few in between.

Practically the entire ensemble he wore was connected to her. Even the wristwatch he wore was from her. He would have thrown everything out weeks ago, but he couldn't do it. Like how he still couldn't throw away all the keepsakes from her, all hidden in a locked box inside a safe in his closet.

Suits weren't really Leon's thing. For one, they restricted his movements. What if there was a sudden outbreak? How was he going to help people escape from B.O.W.s if he was wearing dress shoes and a three-piece suit? For another, suits reminded him of a bitter time from several years ago, when he thought that his friendship with Claire was over for good. Thankfully, all their hurts were mended and they were still friends to this day, but that didn't make him stop feeling like he was a fraud operating on performative morals. He wore a suit when he had to, but he really didn't enjoy wearing them—except on certain occasions. She loved seeing him in a suit, and her pleasure was his pleasure.

He wouldn't even get a tuxedo if could help it; tuxes were expensive, and it was cheaper to rent one. But apparently, renting a tuxedo was as blasphemous as buying one off the rack, so she dragged him to Saville Row and had a jacket, trousers, and shirt made especially for him.

"A man as handsome as you are needs a bespoke tux," she had said, smoothing the lapels of his coat before steering him towards a mirror. He tried to hide his blush with a grimace, but judging by the amused look on the tailor's face, Leon failed.

She had turned to the tailor and said, "I like this fit, but I want it in midnight blue."

"Certainly, madam," the tailor had said. Leon let her do the talking; he knew fuck all about fashion terminology.

He had gone through extensive fittings over the course of multiple visits, and when it was finally all over, he left the tailor's shop with a nice midnight blue tux; a white wing-tipped, pleated shirt with French cuffs; a classic butterfly bow tie; a pocket square; a waistcoat; and a cummerbund. He got the complete package, and he paid for it all.

Except for the cufflinks, which came with a matching chained lapel pin. He didn't know what the design was called, but they were white gold, had diamonds, and cost as much as his beloved Ducati.

Who knew that she would give him diamonds before he even could.

That was a couple of years ago, and he had worn his only tuxedo for a couple of times before this night. One occasion in particular was during dinner at a fancy restaurant. He could remember her helping him get dressed, and he could certainly remember her undressing him later that night. He could remember those slender fingers removing his bow tie. He could remember the hands that buttoned his shirt and cuffs undo those selfsame buttons, the same hands that unbuckled his belt and pushed him down onto the bed. He could remember that night vividly, as vividly as he remembered the morning she left him.

She had been a bit off the last time they were together, but he supposed that it was normal, considering that she wasn't feeling well. She was a bit cranky, overly sensitive to smell—she loved his cologne, but back then, she, for whatever reason, couldn't stand it—and on the verge of constantly vomiting. He had offered to take her to the hospital but she didn't want to go. Somehow, that exchange escalated into a fight. Somehow, that fight escalated on what would ultimately be their not-breakup.

Leon took a deep breath. Six weeks wasn't enough, and he suspected that even sixty years would never be enough, to forget her. How was he going to move on if the very clothes he wore were essentially from her? He couldn't just keep on wanting to move on—he must do something as well.

When he got back home, he was going to burn every item he owned associated with her.

Leon's mission was simple—get the key to his target's study, proceed to the mansion's third floor unnoticed, break into the study, open the safe, obtain the little notebook his target kept there, and then proceed to the extraction point. It was a simple retrieval operation that he had done—and accomplished—hundreds if not thousands of times before, but the moment he saw her, he knew that this mission wouldn't be as easy as he had previously imagined. She was the exact opposite of simple.

She favoured clothes to clung to her like second skin, accentuating her figure, but this time, she wore a red ankle-length gown with a fitted bodice and flowing tulle skirt that started under the bust. It wasn't the first time that he had seen her wear something flowy, but it was a rare sight nonetheless.

He had to forcefully tear his eyes away from her. In the six weeks since he last saw her, she didn't change. She was still alluring, radiant, and heartbreakingly beautiful. There stood the woman who broke his heart beyond repair six weeks ago, and all Leon could think of was how absolutely beatific she looked, like a goddess who had come down from the heavens to grace the mortals with her divine presence.

Just one glimpse of her and all the emotions Leon kept hidden under the surface bubbled up.

He cursed softly, mentally berating himself for getting hopeful. He was supposed to be moving on, not hoping that they would get back together.

His heartbeat sped up. He wasn't sure if it was due to excitement or anger, but he forced himself to calm down and let his heart rate return to normal. He was here on an official mission, and he would not let his not-ex ruin this. She had already ruined his sleep for the last six weeks, she had already ruined his heart, and she had already ruined whatever hope for a happy future he had. That was enough wreckage caused by one woman.

A waiter passed by and he grabbed a flute of champagne. He could still see her from his peripheral vision, her arms hooked around David Sullivan's, a.k.a. Leon's target. He wasn't angry or jealous at the sight of her with another man. What right did he have? She never belonged to him, not even during the eleven years they spent…acquainted with each other. She was most likely aiming for the little notebook Leon was ordered to get, and he must get to it before she could.

David Sullivan hosted this party. He owned this mansion, and the company that was celebrating its anniversary. He owned that little notebook he needed to get, the same notebook that reportedly contained the contact details of every person and organisation who had inquired about the freshest virus off the B.O.W. market.

Mission first, feelings later.

It wasn't out of character for him to mope over a woman. He had once gotten black-out drunk because someone broke up with him, which resulted in his tardiness for his first day ever as a cop. That might have saved his life back then, but not now, not when his not-lover of eleven years, who not-dumped him, was a spy likely angling for the same thing as he was. And Leon knew that she would eliminate whatever got in the way of her job.

Once upon a time, Leon thought that he was the only exception to that rule, but not anymore. Not since she told him that she had never loved him, when all Leon did for the past eleven years was love her.

The champagne wasn't enough. He needed something stronger if he was going to get through this mission—and night.

He wove through the sea of people and made his way to the open bar. Any minute now and Hunnigan's voice would come through his earpiece, so better get that glass of alcohol before his actual work started.

He waved the bartender down and asked for bourbon. While the bartender was preparing his drink, he felt a presence sidle up near him, a presence that he knew all too well—a presence that he had been trying to forget for the last six weeks.

He found it hard to breathe. His fingers itched to loosen his bow tie, but he needed to look the part of a guest. They were separated by the width of an average person, and it would be so easy to reach out to touch her.

But he didn't. He was on a mission. He had a job to finish.

He swallowed. He wondered if she had seen him. Of course she did; they were a mere arm's length away from each other. He tried his hardest to not look at her, but it was impossible to not see her from his peripheral vision. If she wanted people to notice her, then notice her they will. It was effortless on her part, because how could someone not notice her? She had a face and body that encouraged Leon to sin.

But she was also a spy. If she wanted anyone to not notice her, she would become as good as invisible. She could cast her spell in an entire room, commanding all eyes to look at or away from her.

He wondered if his presence ruined her night. Of course it did. He would just get in the way of her job.

He wondered if she still thought about him, if she still thought about the last time they were together, if she still thought about the last words she had said to him.

Stop chasing me, Leon, she had said, because you'll never have me.

The bartender slid him his drink before turning to her.

"A martini, please," she said.

Leon felt a jolt of electricity run through him. He hasn't heard that voice in six weeks, and to hear it again this close…He froze. He wanted to leave and run away from this place, far away from her and everything, throw away the clothes he was wearing, and remove all reminders of her in his flat. He wanted to be back to his normal self, but he realised that was now impossible. What was he like "normally" anyway? He needed to be whoever the man he would become after he moved past this grief—and he needed to be that man right now.

He needed to move from his spot—and to move on. But he wasn't going to do anything stupid—he was a consummate professional—but the longer he stayed near her, the weaker his resolve would be. He needed to remove himself from this situation now.

Thankfully, his earpiece crackled.

"Leon," Hunnigan said, "I have disabled the locks on the third floor. Proceed with caution."

He raised his glass to his lips, saying, "Copy," before drinking his bourbon. His earpiece was hidden by his hair, so he was certain that he was as careful as he could be in concealing its existence, but he had a hunch that she still knew that he was at this party for a mission.

He drank more of his bourbon, and she remained near him, no doubt observing his every move. She didn't even touch her martini; maybe she needed to be sober for whatever her mission was.

Well, not Leon. He could afford a drink (or two).

"Proceed to the bathroom in the first floor," said Hunnigan. "Go to the farthest stall from the door. There's a vent above the toilet, and you'll find a box with two loaded guns, extra ammo, a stun gun, some flash bangs, and a knife. Hopefully you won't get to use them."

He hoped so too. This was just a retrieval mission anyway. It should be easy, but with her in the vicinity, chances were, if he didn't get to use his gun, then at least he would point it at someone or something.

Leon downed the rest of his drink before walking away from the bar and from her. If he wanted to succeed in his mission, he needed to do it now before she could stop him.

She made her move too. She returned to Sullivan's side, and the man placed an arm around her waist. She leaned into him, looking at him coyly, and Leon's mouth formed a grim line.

Mission first, feelings later.

Everyone was busy chattering away. On his way to the bathroom, Leon heard laughter from a group of people. He looked back to see what it was all about, and saw Sullivan, with his arm still around her waist, doubling over in laughter. She was chuckling, standing up to support him, looking at whomever caused the laughter. When she looked away, her and Leon's eyes met.

There was a good hundred of people in the room, but in that moment, Leon swore that there was only the two of them. Their eyes remained locked on each other despite the moving throng of people. Her gaze was like an enchantment cementing him on the spot. If he didn't move now, he wouldn't be able to move away again, and he would stand there on that same spot, waiting for her to come back to him.

He snapped his head around, eyes fixed on the bathroom. He praised himself for being the first to turn away this time. Last time, his eyes remained on her back as she slammed the door to his flat shut.

He opened the door the bathroom and went to the farthest stall. He removed the vent's grate, opened the box, and made sure that the guns were loaded and had their safety on before tucking one behind his waistband, and another on his ankle, before hiding the rest of the weapons away on his person.

Sullivan was a cautious man. The only way to get into his study was through the door—there were no windows or other entry or exit points—and the door was locked with a key that only he carried, and he carried it with him twenty-four seven, according to the surveillance reports from Hunnigan's source. Not to mention that he was always surrounded by bodyguards. Retrieving that key should be the hardest part of this mission.

He tapped his earpiece.

"Hunnigan," he said, careful not to be overheard. "Sullivan's arm piece is sticking to his side like glue." No matter what anyone said, Leon did not say that last statement with a scowl. "Retrieving the key might take a while."

Hunnigan sighed. "Would there be a change of plans?"

He heard laughter—Sullivan's laughter—coming into the bathroom. "Huh. There might be none. Looks like we won't need to separate Sullivan from his entourage after all. Can you disable the electricity now?"

"Let me check."

"When you hear me say 'students,' cut the power for a minute."

"Copy."

He exited the stall and saw Sullivan washing his hands by the sink. Leon went to a nearby sink and washed his hands, and after drying them, he turned to Sullivan, saying, "Mr Sullivan?"

The man turned to him with a questioning look. "Yes, Mr…?"

Leon stuck out his hand. "I'm Roy, Roy Mustang. I teach at the Harvard Business School, and I was there for your talk last week."

Sullivan shook his hand. "You'll have to excuse me, Professor Mustang, but I don't believe I've had the pleasure of making your acquaintance last week."

Leon took his hand back. "Yes, that's right. I had to leave early. But it was a very informative talk, I'm very grateful for my colleague—that's Dr Alex Armstrong—for having me as his plus one."

"Ah, Alex. Of course."

Leon took a calling card out of his pocket. He was ready for this night. His cover story, alias, and fake IDs and other paraphernalia were all prepared in advance.

He presented his fake calling card to Sullivan. "If you ever find the time in your busy schedule, I would be very happy to have a discussion about your book, maybe even invite you to conduct a talk for my students."

As Leon had expected, Hunnigan came through; the lights suddenly went out, and there was that whirring that only came when appliances got suddenly cut off from electricity. He only had a few seconds before Sullivan's bodyguards came through the door, or before the man got his phone out to use it as a torch.

"What—What happened?" Leon heard Sullivan mutter. "Professor Mustang, are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. What about you, Mr Sullivan?"

"I'm all right." He clicked his tongue. "Power cuts rarely happen here. I wonder what happened…."

Predictably, Sullivan's torch-wielding bodyguards broke through the door. Leon pretended to be startled by the sudden intrusion, complete with a gasp and a You scared me! He then tripped on nothing, stumbling to the ground along with Sullivan and his bodyguards. He landed on top of Sullivan, and in the commotion, crept around for the key, which dangled from a necklace Sullivan wore. It would be suspicious if Leon just tore the necklace away, because surely Sullivan would feel the sensation of his necklace being yanked away, but Leon supposed that the man might blame the fall for the sudden loss of his precious key.

Leon quickly placed the key and necklace in his pocket, then rolled over to his side, pretending to groan.

Someone helped him up; he wasn't sure who. Might be one of Sullivan's bodyguards. And then the lights went on, and Leon saw Sullivan's confused face.

"I'll have the electricians check what needs to be checked," said Sullivan. "And for this to happen tonight out of all times…I must have lost some face."

"It wasn't your fault, Mr Sullivan," Leon said.

"But this would reflect poorly on me." Sullivan sighed. "Did the fall hurt you?"

Leon grimaced. "I think I lost my phone, but I'm sure it'll turn up later."

Sullivan shook his head. "I am really sorry, Professor Mustang. If you still can't find your phone, you can talk to my butler. Now, please excuse me; I have guests to appease."

Leon left the bathroom after Sullivan and his men left. He made sure that no one was looking at him before throwing the necklace to the ground, keeping the key in his pocket. He hoped that this would give the impression that the fall from earlier caused the key to fly away to this spot.

"I have the key," Leon muttered.

"Great," replied Hunnigan. "Now go get that notebook."

---

Leon peeked from behind the wall and saw two guards standing beside the door to the study. He had managed to sneak past the other guards, but he concluded that he needed to deal with those two. He didn't want to kill a human being, so he looked around, saw a vase (which must have cost as much as a brand-new car), and let the vase slowly roll towards the guards. Once the guards were distracted, Leon dashed out from behind the wall and rendered the guards unconscious with an uppercut to the first guard, and then a roundhouse kick to the other. With the threats momentarily disabled, Leon was finally able to unlock the study door with the key.

The room was richly decorated with ornate furniture and decoration; Sullivan clearly had mountains of disposable income. He suspected that the china in this room alone could fund a kid's university fund. It reminded him of the rooms in the European castles that he had visited with—

Ah. Yeah.

The surveillance report mentioned that the safe was located in a depression in the wall, which was hidden by a replica of Fragonard's The Swing. Hunnigan had sent him a picture of the painting because Leon knew virtually nothing about the arts, and upon locating it, lowered it to the floor, careful not to let it get damaged.

He was greeted by the sight of the safe. Hunnigan had given him ten different lock key combinations to try, and he got it right on the sixth try.

He opened the safe.

It was empty.

"Looking for this?"

He quickly turned around, gun at the ready, and found her holding up the notebook.

"The moment I saw you, I knew you'd be looking for Sullivan's little notebook," she said. "You need to get out of here. Sullivan suspected that you stole his key and is screaming bloody murder for your head."

"What does it matter to you if he wants my head?" Yes, mission first, feelings later, but he couldn't help but be touchy. "The last time we saw each other, I seem to recall your saying that you don't give a shit about me."

Her expression turned stony. "I don't. But you're getting in the way of my job. So go now before your blood spills. I don't want to be the one who has to hurt you."

Leon snorted. He chuckled, until that transformed into laughter, making him bend down and throw his head back, clapping his arms at the absurdity of her statement.

"You don't want to hurt me?" He was laughing lightly, but tears threatened to leak out of his eyes. He didn't know whether they were tears of amusement or pain. He raised his gun again, pointing it at her. "You already did. And trust me—whatever torture you plan on doing to me, that will hurt a lot less than your leaving me."

She let her hand down, her fingers still firmly clasping the notebook. "It's been weeks, Leon." She said his name with such venom that Leon couldn't help but recoil. She used to say his name so lovingly, like when they have just woken up and she would say Good morning, Leon with a soft and small smile. "You still can't move on from that?" She took a gun out of the thigh holster hidden underneath those layers of tulle, then pointed it at him. "Stop acting like a child."

His eyes hardened. "I'm not going to let you get in the way of my mission, so hand that notebook to me now."

"Or what, you'll shoot me?"

Leon flicked the safety of his gun off, then cocked it. "I'm not gonna hesitate anymore."

She did the same—turned the gun's safety off before cocking it, pointing it right at his head. "Leave, before I decorate the walls with you brains."

A lifetime ago, Leon may have thought that she didn't actually have the guts to shoot him, but now, after telling him that toying with him gave her immense pleasure? She may have always hesitated in the past when it came to him, but not now, not when she made it clear that all she felt for him was hatred.

He didn't think that it was possible for her to look at him with such fury, but she did, six weeks ago, and again, tonight. He thought he was the sole exception to her many rules. As it turned out, he was just a convenient pastime for her.

Maybe he should have pleaded for her to stay, suggested that they use each other for information—and more. But this frenemies with benefits situation would do little good for him, especially when there were feelings involved in his part and none for her.

"Any minute now and the guards would be here. You're outnumbered," she said. "Give up, declare this a failed mission, and save yourself from death." Because I won't save you anymore.

Leon wondered why did she save him all those times before, only to declare that she hated him. Maybe she didn't always hate him. Maybe a switch just flipped in her brain, making her realise that Leon was no longer useful.

He was just asking the same questions he had been asking himself for six weeks. How was he going to move on? It wasn't like they didn't have closure. She even explained why she was leaving—because Leon's feelings for her made her uncomfortable. But Leon had told her long ago how he felt. Why was it making a difference only now?

Maybe the reason why he couldn't fully move was because he still had unanswered questions, but she wasn't going to answer any of them. Best he could do was move on with his life.

The footsteps were now getting closer, and Leon felt something whizz past him.

A bullet.

He smirked. "You're missing the target now?"

He heard a thud behind him, and he turned back to see a guard fall.

Before he could turn back to her, he felt a kick to his stomach, making him stumble backwards. He still hasn't caught his bearings, and there was a kick to his chest, but unlike before, he only stumbled a few steps backwards; he was a good ten kilos heavier than his assailant.

And his assailant happened to be her.

"Leave," she said—more like commanded. Her stony expression didn't waver.

She advanced towards him like a prey about to pounce on her quarry, and Leon couldn't help but stagger backwards. He could attack her, pin her to the ground, grab that notebook, and escape, but something about the way she walked with purpose stopped him.

Or maybe it was just her pretty face—angry, domineering, and still so goddamned beautiful.

Another bullet whizzed past him, and he heard another body thud to the floor. They passed through the doorjamb and were now out of the study. There were windows behind him, and to the east and west were more entry and exit points. He would be surrounded, with dozens of guns pointed at him.

He still managed to smirk. "Sullivan would be surprised to see his girlfriend holding a gun."

"Sullivan hired me to be his bodyguard," she replied.

"And bodyguards doubled as girlfriends now?"

She didn't answer his question. Instead, she said, "I'd be doing a piss-poor job if I let you escape."

"Then shoot me. Kill me. See if I care. I'd be living this never-ending nightmare of battling B.O.W.s anyway. You'd be doing me a great service." During and after Raccoon, the thought of ending his life crossed his mind more than a dozen times. But he decided to live anyway. He decided to live, because Sherry needed him. And then he met her again after Spain, and he wanted to live so he could keep seeing her.

But she didn't want to see him again. Sherry was all grown up now. And then outbreaks continued to happen and people kept on dying on him. What more reason did he have to live? How long was he going to continue fighting those B.O.W.s? Even now, the notebook that he wanted to obtain would possibly lead to people involved in the production of more B.O.W.s. It was a never-ending cycle.

She strode towards him and pressed her gun to his forehead. "The Leon that I know is a survivor."

"Well…" he said, relishing the feel of the cool metal on his forehead. Oddly enough, it comforted him. "…you killed that Leon."

"Don't blame me for your inability to move on."

He chuckled. "You're right. It's all my fault. Because I fell in love with but you didn't fall in love with me. So go ahead. Shoot me."

He heard footsteps—lots of them, speeding towards the study. They were muffled so he still had time to get away, but wasn't going anywhere without that notebook.

Mission first, feelings later.

He grabbed her shoulders and slammed her against the wall. He expected the gun go off but it didn't, so without a second thought, he reached for the notebook.

Their fingers briefly touched and she started, as if burned by fire. Her grip on the notebook loosened, and was the only reason why Leon was able to take it.

He was surprised that she let him.

But then she grabbed his neck with her free hand and pushed him against the wall. Her fingers closed around his throat, and while he may have found this arousing in another situation, he didn't this time, not while in the middle of a mission, not when the fury was gone from her face and she looked like she was about to cry.

The fight in him left at the same her grip on him loosened; he could breathe now, but her fingers were still wrapped around his throat.

"Remember what I told you when I left you," she said as he removed her hand from his neck.

The footsteps were coming closer now.

"I have no room for love in my life." She took the notebook from him, then pressed her gun under his chin. "I have no room for you in my life. So hate me all you want." She gave him a…was that a sad smile? "Hate me until all you feel nothing else for me."

She placed the notebook in a pouch at her thigh holster. Her hand crept around his sides, and she retrieved Sullivan's key from his pocket. She placed it inside her pouch then stepped backwards, gun still pointed at him.

The guards arrived, and Leon heard Sullivan's snarls.

"There you are," Sullivan said, "Professor Mustang." He had a shotgun trained at Leon. "Who do you work for?"

"He's not talking," she said. "But don't worry. I've got the notebook here."

Sullivan smirked. "That's my Riza."

He heard what must have been dozens of guns being cocked. He was surrounded, and he had no choice but to…

There was a window next to him.

He looked at her, at her now emotionless face. He wondered why did she look like she was about to cry earlier.

It didn't matter. She was out of his life now. If they continued crossing paths like this in the future, Leon couldn't let his feelings control his actions.

He just hoped that he wouldn't have feelings for her by then.

There was no hope for them—not that there was any in the first place.

With one final glance at her unreadable face, Leon used one of his flash bangs, and when the white light overtook the surroundings, he jumped out of the third-floor window.

He hurtled towards an awning, breaking his fall, and then jumped to the ground. He could see and hear Sullivan's men looking for him.

"I failed to get the notebook," said Leon to his earpiece, "and Sullivan's men are on the prowl for me."

Hunnigan sighed. "We'll talk about this later. Right now, you need to get out of there. Proceed to the extraction point. There's a motorcycle waiting for you there."

Leon took a mad but furtive dash to the gate. "Is it a Ducati at least?"

Hunnigan sighed. He could imagine her rolling her eyes. "Yes, it is. Now hurry up and proceed to the office for debriefing."

---

00:04, October 18, 2015, Sunday

Half Street SE, Washington, D.C.

Leon circled around the roads for a good hour to make sure he wasn't followed, and when he was confident that no one was on his tail, he drove towards the DSO headquarters.

His face was dirty, he needed to comb his hair, he had scrapes and bruises, and his suit had some tears here and there. But it didn't matter, because the moment he got home, he was going to burn this suit and every object he owned related to her.

She loved giving him gifts—usually expensive ones—even though she knew that federal agents couldn't accept presents costing more than twenty dollars. That didn't stop her though. A lot of the trinkets, decorations, clothing, and accessories he owned were from her, and Leon suspected that he would be probably burning half of his belongings later.

This late at night, there were only a few people in the office; some stayed late only because there was an operation—Leon's mission—in progress. He had the hallways to himself. He was grateful for the blessed silence, and now that the adrenaline from his mission wore off, he could feel the exhaustion claiming his body.

He went to the bathroom first to wash his hands and face. He saw his reflection in the mirror, and noted that he needed to shave. She would sometimes tell him when his stubble got a bit too much, so then he would shave, and she would run her hands on his cheeks and jaw, marvelling at how smooth the skin was, before peppering his face and neck with kisses. He would half-heartedly tell her to stop but she wouldn't, and he would make no moves to stop her.

He allowed himself to recall this memory, because before the sun rose, his memories of her would go up in flames.

He took some paper towels to dry his hands and face. He fixed his hair with a hand—God, he needed a nice, long bath—and smoothed out his clothes, made sure he was presentable.

He reached into his pocket for his phone, and while he did find it, he also found something else—a small plastic container with a microchip inside.

He couldn't remember ever seeing it or coming into contact with it, much less shoving it inside his pocket. Where could it have come from? How did it get there? What did it contain? Was it dangerous?

He turned it over in his hands, inspecting it. And then he remembered her reaching into his pocket for Sullivan's key.

Maybe she was the one who put it there, but why? Why would she do that? To further torment him?

He guessed this was better than nothing. He may have failed to obtain the notebook, but at least he had something to show to his boss.

He opened the doors to the office and was greeted by his colleagues working overtime.

"Kennedy, you look like shit," one said.

"Right back at you," Leon answered, making his co-workers chuckle.

He strode towards his boss's office. His boss looked tired and grim, but it was already twelve in the morning and Leon was sure that he wanted to get home to his family.

The same couldn't be said for him, though. He had no one waiting for him, nothing but bitter memories.

"Well?" his boss said, sitting up straight. "Hunnigan said that the mission failed."

Leon closed the door and chose to stand in front of his boss's desk instead of sitting down. "I failed to get the notebook, but I got this."

He slid the plastic container with the chip across the desk. "I swiped it from the safe," he lied. "I don't know what's inside. I didn't have time to check because Sullivan's guards were on my ass."

His boss looked down at the chip. "The surveillance report didn't say anything about a chip."

"Surveillance reports aren't always a hundred per cent accurate."

His boss sighed. "Very well." He took the chip and stood up. "Let's head over to the IT people."

Leon followed his boss out of the office and into the IT department. There were only a few people working on a Saturday night, so instead of the usual chatter, the IT department was filled with the sounds of machines whirring and keyboards clacking.

His boss handed the chip over to a computer analyst. After a few minutes, the computer analyst turned to them and asked, "Is this what you're looking for?"

His boss whistled. "Well, would you look at that. It's the information in the notebook, but digitised." He turned to the computer analyst. "Any malware?"

"None that the system could detect, but I'll do a sweep just in case," she said.

"All right, send that information to me and I'll take it from here," his boss said. He clapped Leon's shoulder. "Good work, Agent Kennedy. This mission wasn't a failure after all. They may have the notebook, but at least we have this."

"What if this is a trap? What if this is just false information?" Leon said.

"That's what we've got the FOS for. They'll suss out the good intel from the bad ones." His boss clapped his shoulder once more. "Now go home and get some rest. We'll need you in your best condition if any of these leads pan out."

Leon and his boss headed out of the IT department.

"And what about you?" Leon said. "You heading home?"

"Got some last-minute things to take care of," his boss said. "I'll see you on Monday—if there's no pressing matter."

Half of Leon hoped that there would be nothing serious, but the other half of him hoped for something—anything—to happen just so he wouldn't be alone with his thoughts in his flat.

"All right. Good night," he said.

"You too," said his boss.

He was a few steps away from his boss when he heard him speak again.

"And Leon?"

He turned around. "Yeah?"

"Leave the Ducati. That's government property."

"How am I supposed to get home?"

"Take a cab. There's plenty here in DC."

Leon sighed, then tossed the key to his boss.

"Let's hope the next we see each other is Monday," said his boss before turning around. He waved at him, the Ducati key in his hand.

Leon sighed once more before heading to the lifts.

---

01:17, October 18, 2015, Sunday

Mount Pleasant, Washington, D.C.

The cab driver gave his dishevelled appearance an odd look through the rear-view mirror, but didn't say anything when Leon paid him with a wad of cash and told him to keep the change. And because the streets were deserted at this time of the night, in less than twenty minutes, Leon was already pushing the door to his flat open.

The first thing he did when he got home was pour himself some scotch, recline in his armrest, and enjoy his nightcap. He just sat there in his seat, decompressing but still wide awake, his mind racing with questions he had no way of getting answers.

Why would she give him the chip? Why did she look like she was about to cry? Did she still care about him, to some degree? Or did she pity him?

But she said it herself—she was just using him. So Leon was inclined to believe that something else was in that chip, something that would harm the DSO, and possibly the US government, so he had to keep his eyes peeled. Their IT people were good at their jobs, but Leon could never be too careful.

Once he was done with his scotch, he proceeded to the bathroom and emptied the contents of his pockets, placing them on the counter, along with his wristwatch and cufflinks. He then took off his clothes and almost put them inside the laundry bin before remembering that he was going to burn them anyway, so he left them on the floor instead.

He took a good, long soak in his bathtub, almost falling asleep multiple times. By the time he got out, forty minutes had passed, so he dried himself and got changed. He was so tempted to go to sleep, but he needed to burn some things.

He placed the suit and the accoutrement that came along with in a garbage bag; burning those in his fireplace would be a fire hazard. He would have to set those on fire in another location.

Then he went to his bedroom and opened his bedside drawer, removed the false bottom, and retrieved the only item hidden inside it—a key. He opened his closet, pushed his clothes out of the way, unlocked his safe, and took a locked metal box from it. He set the box and key on his bed before taking the garbage bag to his closet, shoving all her clothes inside it, and all the articles of clothing she had given to him.

He got a separate garbage bag for all the non-combustibles, such as her skincare products, and the souvenirs from distant and foreign places that she had gotten for him. He should have gotten rid of those weeks ago, thereby saving him the constant heartache of being always reminded of her, but the important thing was he was getting rid of those now.

Fridge magnets, trinkets, ceramics, ornaments, stuffed toys, textiles—everything went into the garbage bag. Everything that she owned, and everything that he owned that came from her, went into the garbage bag. His house looked bare after all the trinkets and decorations were removed, but at least there were no constant reminders of her anymore.

The more expensive gifts from her, such as wristwatches, cufflinks, and lapel pins, would surely fetch a good price in the market, but for now, he threw them in the garbage bag where they belonged.

He went back to his bedroom to get the metal box and key. He unlocked the box, placed the key on his bedside table, and went back to the living room, standing before his unlit fireplace.

He opened the box. The first thing that he saw was a compact mirror with butterfly engravings on it. He tried to give it back to her after Lanshiang, but she insisted that he keep it, so he did.

It was non-combustible, so in it went to the garbage bag. Maybe someone else would find its false bottom useful.

The second thing he saw was a teddy bear keychain with a zipper compartment on its back.

Parts of it were combustible, but the other parts of it weren't, such as the metal keyring, so he chucked it into the garbage bag for non-combustibles.

There was a flip phone from ages ago, containing messages from an unknown sender.

Combustible. Garbage bag. To be properly disposed of later.

An ornate silver dagger and its filigreed sheathe.

Non-combustible. Garbage bag. To be sold later.

A butterfly knife, its blade as sharp as her tongue.

Non-combustible. Garbage bag. To be sold later.

A book of poems, her notes and messages for him written on the margins.

Combustible. Fireplace. To be burned later.

He would have to properly segregate his trash later, but for now, everything inside that box that would be too risky to throw into the fireplace went into the garbage bag.

The other items in the box were other flammable materials—like photos and papers.

Most of the papers were little notes with the same message worded differently—I gotta go now. See you later, Leon or See you soon, handsome—all followed by a kiss mark. Some were ephemera, like tickets, programme leaflets, and faded receipts.

All were combustible, so he threw them all into the fireplace.

And then came the part he was dreading—the photos. He wanted to put off looking at their happy faces as much as possible, but some things just couldn't be avoided.

All the photos were taken by a Polaroid camera. They wouldn't have to go through the trouble of having the films developed, and there would be no digital traces. There was only one copy of these photos in the world, and they were all hidden in Leon's bedroom.

Scrawled at the bottom of one photo in his handwriting was Barcelona, November 2004. It was a few months after they reunited in that village, and he had received a message from an unknown sender on that flip phone, telling him to meet her in Barcelona.

Despite the sender being unknown, Leon knew exactly who it was. It was signed AW, and the message had addressed him as "Handsome."

They met at a flea market, walking around as she told him in increments about what she had been doing in the six years that Leon thought she was dead. There he saw a Polaroid camera and some films, and he purchased them, intent on taking photos of Spain that would overwrite his horrible memories of it.

One of the good memories was a picture of them together in a café at the Gothic Quarter. It was the morning after their first night together. He could remember asking their server to take a photo of them, and, much to his confusion, she agreed to be in the picture.

So now, whenever he thought of Spain, he just didn't think of parasites and castellans—he also thought of the first time he had seen her without clothes, the first time he had run his fingers across every inch of her bare skin, the first time he had given himself to her, and the first time he had let her take him.

He marvelled at how young he looked in the photo, and at how she didn't age. She looked just as good as she did back then, if not better. He remembered a couple from the next table making casual talk with them, asking if they were on their honeymoon. He remembered her holding a hand up, saying they weren't married.

He remembered everything about that night, everything about the morning that followed. He remembered the feel of her hands in his, keeping up the pretence of them being a couple on a holiday. He remembered wishing that this wouldn't be the last he would see her. He remembered sorely missing her weight on top of him when they parted ways, the goodbye kiss she had given him, saying that she would see him soon.

He threw that photo in the fireplace.

The other photos all had inscriptions at the bottom—a city, a month, and a year. The latest one was captioned Naples, July 2015. It was only three months ago—three months ago when nothing seemed wrong.

He didn't know what went wrong. He could beat himself up trying to wonder why, but the end result would still be the same—she was gone, and she was never coming back.

He stared at that photo. It was taken just outside the Palazzo Reale, where he was hugging her sideways, his lips to her cheek. She was smiling in that photo, one of her hands tucking her hair behind her ear, the other slung across his waist. He could remember the summer air blowing back then, the kind woman who took their photo, and the ice cream they shared afterwards. He remembered telling her I love you, the warm embrace she had given him as an answer, and the taste of strawberry on her tongue.

Everything looked fine then. Now, things weren't fine, so he tossed that photo—and all the other photos—in the fireplace.

His entire heart belonged to her, so when she left, she took every piece of his broken heart with her. He had barely begun the process of piecing it back together when she came and destroyed it again. But he would never be able to retrieve all the pieces of his heart, because a part of him would always remain with her. He knew that it was foolish to love someone with all that he had, and people always said to leave some love for yourself. But he was a selfless man who put the needs of other people first. He had dedicated his entire life to saving them, so it was no wonder that he too would dedicate his entire being to her.

He arranged the logs in the fireplace and then went to the kitchen to get a grill lighter. He took one final long, hard look at the papers and photos in the fireplace, then bent down, ready to set his memories on fire.

Their smiling faces beamed back at him, taunting him. Eleven years gone, just like that. What they had was something transient, existing only in the spaces where people wouldn't know where to look. They came together and coalesced into one, then scattered in the wind when they separated, leaving no trace behind of their union. They hid in the dark, they hid in plain sight, and in the end, only two other people knew of what they had besides them. Once he burned and got rid of everything, those two would be the only evidence left of what she and Leon had shared.

He flicked the lighter. He stared at flame, momentarily entranced by its lambency, before slowly stretching out his arm, ready to make tinder out of his memories.

One photo in particular stared at him. Valais, March 2013, the caption said. They were in her cabin in a quaint Swiss town, and after a night of merry drinking and lovemaking, Leon had woken up a bit groggy, and her laughter hadn't help.

She had handed him some pills and a glass of water, presumably for the hangover. After he had taken the medicine, he found her looking at him with amused eyes and a slight upward curl in her lips.

"What?" he had said.

"Do you remember what you said last night?" she had asked. She had tugged her underwear on, then picked up Leon's shirt from the floor. She had been about to wear it but Leon snatched his shirt back.

"You have your clothes," he had said as he put his shirt on. "Why, what did I say?"

She had stood up and worn her tank top. "Leon, at three in the morning, you shook me awake, asking me if I would still be with you if shaved your head."

He had been in the process of putting his trousers on, but stopped at what she said. "What? When did I say that?"

She had rolled her eyes. "I literally just said it."

He had zipped and buttoned his trousers. "Three in the morning? I was drunk, okay?" He had yawned, stretching his arms. "And? What did you say?"

"I told you to go back to sleep. And you did."

He had plopped down on the bed and dragged her back into it, making her yelp.

"Well?" he had asked. Maybe he shouldn't have plopped down; the pounding in his head grew worse. "Real talk, Ada. Would you still be with me if I shaved my head?"

"But I'm only with you because of your hair."

He had placed his head on her lap, and she sat up, running her fingers through his hair. He had stared up at her then pulled her down by the back of her neck, kissing her good morning.

"So if I shaved my head bald you'd leave me?" he had said against her lips.

"Stop being silly." He had felt her smile. "I'd still be with you no matter what."

Leon laughed dryly at the memory. She said she would still be with him no matter what, but she didn't, because she walked out of that door and left him, telling him words he thought she would never tell him.

Before he knew it, tears were streaming down his cheeks. He turned the lighter off and placed it on the mantelpiece, then wiped his face with the balls of his wrists, but the tears won't stop gushing out of his eyes. He tried to stop them, but the tears just kept on coming and coming, and his body was wracked with sobs and heaves. He had managed to keep himself together throughout the night, but unearthing their memories together reopened a wound that had barely healed.

Maybe the wound had healed, but maybe he also kept on picking at the scab, making it bleed again. Maybe he didn't want it to heal.

He sank to the floor, crying, surrounded by things that should have been so easy to burn.

Would it make the pain hurt less if he got rid of them? Would it make forgetting her easier if he got rid of them? Would it make the hole in his chest disappear if he got rid of them?

He had known the answer all along—no. Not in one day, or ten months, or a hundred years would he be able to completely cut her out of his life. He already said it eleven years ago—she was the part of him that he couldn't let go. She was woven into the very fabric of his entire being, and to unravel that fabric was to destroy it too.

He had already known it back then. He should have known that getting rid of the things that reminded him of her wouldn't do much. They said that time healed all wounds. He hoped that time would speed up so he could rid himself of this sorrow, but with the way things were, time moved slowly for him, and the hole in his chest that she made only grew bigger with each second that passed.

He laid on the floor with tears still streaming down his face. He wondered who he was in his past life, what did his past self do to deserve all this kind of shit. First, he had to deal with B.O.W.s, and then he had to save hundreds, thousands, and millions of lives. Then the woman he loved, the only thing that gave him a taste of happiness, left him.

He could continue on living, but it would be a miserable existence. He would be as alive as the zombies he had given their permanent deaths. He could continue on living and still save the world and, if life pitied him, maybe he would die trying.

He got up from the floor, seeing the couch in the process. That was where they spent their last moments together, huddled up under an afghan blanket, rubbing a soothing hand down her back because she wasn't feeling well.

He wished he had known that that would be their last time together.

---

IV.

15:08, September 4, 2015, Friday

Tribeca, New York

Ada stared in horror at the object in her hands.

Two lines. Positive.

She threw it in the garbage bin and grabbed another testing kit, but the result was the same—two lines. Positive.

She grabbed a third kit, which showed her the same thing—two lines. Positive.

She grabbed a fourth, fifth, sixth…She must have used fifteen home pregnancy kit tests, and they all showed the same thing: Two lines. Positive.

She was pregnant.

Bile rose in her throat, and it wasn't because of morning sickness. The realisation that there was a life growing inside her sickened her to such a degree that she was having a physical reaction. She retched and retched, emptying the contents of her stomach, until there was nothing for her to throw up but green bile.

She got up from the floor. She brushed her teeth and washed her face, then stared at all the two lines mocking her.

She grabbed all the home pregnancy test kits and threw them all in the garbage bin. Once she left her flat, she would take the rubbish out too.

If only that too could get rid of this thing in her belly.

She did some mental calculation. She missed her period last month, and the last person she had been intimate with was Leon. Who else could it be? She hasn't been intimate with anyone else but him for the last couple of years, not even as a way of getting information. She couldn't, not until she realised that…

She shook her head, unwilling to let her thoughts go further. She had no room for such thoughts, and she especially had no room for a fucking child.

How was that even possible? She was using an IUD. He usually used a condom. With these two alone, conception should be impossible, but there have been several cases of people on IUD getting pregnant. Besides, condoms broke all the time; it sure did happen to them a couple of times before, although those didn't result in a baby.

Except now.

She felt the bile coming back up her throat.

Why her, when there were thousands, if not millions, of people desperate on bearing a child? Why her, when she never wanted to carry, let alone bear one, in the first place?

Other people would see this as a gift, but not her. She shouldn't take this for granted because there were so many people out there who would give anything just so they could bear a child, but here was Ada, cursing her accidental pregnancy.

Maybe she should have gotten a hysterectomy.

But getting one would put her out of commission for a couple of months, making her lose precious job opportunities. She kept putting it off, and for a while it didn't matter because her IUD worked. What use would she have for a uterus? She had no intentions of becoming a mother, not with her job, and especially not in this kind of world.

And then she met Leon, and in that night as she lay dying in his arms, everything changed.

She didn't die. She survived, he survived, but the damage had already been done—she saw in him what could she have been and what she could have had, and once those thoughts were planted in her brain, they didn't leave. They remained dormant, until she saw him again in a Spanish village, and in that moment, those thoughts flourished, only tamed by the constant pruning she had to do.

Every time they touched, those thoughts grew and grew, producing more stems and branches that wrapped around her brain. His kisses and embraces were the water that gave these thoughts their blossoms, but the times in which he said I love you gave them thorns, digging into her heart and brain, tearing her skin apart.

She wanted him but she couldn't have him, but sometimes, it was fun to entertain flights of fancy every time he kissed her over breakfast. He could be a cop, she could be an FBI agent, and they could have a kid—the very picture of a normal family.

But they were far from normal. He was at the forefront of the war against bio-organic weapons, and she was in the shadows, facilitating things in the dark. They should be enemies. Instead, they lay in bed together, and he professed his love for her again and again, not minding when she didn't—couldn't—say anything back.

She placed a hand on her stomach. If her calculations were correct, she could be at least four weeks pregnant, which meant that this thing was conceived when they were in Naples last July. Italy was a beautiful place with even more amazing food, and it wasn't hard to give her all to him in a hotel room that overlooked the Gulf of Naples.

It was a passionate night, that was for sure. She had woken up with a hoarse voice and sore legs, which rarely happened, especially with the kind of physical training she did daily.

Leon had been so smug about it. He had been gloating for the rest of their time together, right until they kissed each other goodbye.

The most logical thing to do was to get rid of this child. She had never been pregnant before; as someone who had been trained in espionage since childhood, she was taught that any attachment—a lover, a relative, a friend, a child—would just cause her death. She would have a weakness, and it would be used against her. She would need to take a break to deliver and raise this child, and she didn't have the time to do that, not when her career was at its height.

Besides, what did she know about being a mother? Raising a child would require stability and permanence, both of which didn't exist in her world. She had to be constantly on the move, and having a child would just complicate her life.

So yes, she had to get rid of this child. That would be the most logical thing.

But this was also Leon's child, and Leon had been complicating her life since day one.

Leon's child. This is Leon's child.

Their enemies would see a child only as a bargaining chip, and with the kind of jobs they had, there was a big possibility that this child would grow up neglected. The child would grow up resenting them. Or maybe the monsters would get to the child first.

In her belly was a life that she and Leon had created. She had the power to terminate it, but would she really do that to Leon's child? They had a shot here at a normal and happy life. She could leave the spy life, he could retire, and they could purchase a house somewhere near the sea or the mountains where the troubles of the world wouldn't be able to find them. She could have him and he could have her, and even someone as irredeemable as she would get her happy ending.

And then reality came crashing down on Ada.

That wasn't the life she was supposed to have. She wasn't supposed to have a child, she wasn't supposed to have a husband, and she wasn't supposed the have the apple pie life. She was supposed to be a spy—cold, emotionless, calculating, and only showing feelings when her job required it.

That woman with Leon…that wasn't Ada. Ada Wong was a spy. It was a name that she should have cast away a long, long time ago, but it stuck to her nonetheless.

She had to leave that woman to Leon, leave behind that child and the house with the white picket fence, and return to the underbelly of world.

This was who she was—a nameless spy who would eliminate everything that got in her way.

And this baby got in her way.

Ada knew that if she got rid of this baby, all these feelings that she wasn't supposed to feel would be gone too. It was just pregnancy hormones, she told herself.

What Leon didn't know wouldn't hurt him. It was fine. She could get rid of the baby and everything would go back to normal.

But why did she feel like someone she cared about died every time she thought of having this baby aborted?

It wasn't just the child, but what it represented—her happy ending. A bright future. A life with the man she…A life with the man she lo—

She pressed a hand to her belly. She and Leon had a child, and she would get rid of it to return things to normal.

She got out of the bathroom. She felt like shit, she had to pee all the fucking time, the nausea wouldn't go away, she wanted to eat everything in a restaurant, the vanilla candle she used to love now smelled like animal manure, and she wanted to lie down on the bed and sleep for twenty-four hours.

But right now, all those wants were superseded by her desire see Leon, so she dressed up nicely, hoped her makeup would hide her ghastly pallor, and took the garbage bag out of the bathroom, throwing out the horrible reminders that she was pregnant.

---

18:51, September 4, 2015, Friday

Mount Pleasant, Washington, D.C.

They were planning on having a staycation, but with Ada's sudden illness, it looked like they were going to be staying in Leon's flat all weekend.

Last night, she knocked on his door instead of breaking through his window. It was a rare occurrence, although it happened from time to time. She was wearing makeup, but Leon could still see that she was a bit pale.

"Hey," he said as he closed the door. "You okay? You look…"

"Like shit?" she said. "I think I'm sick."

"And you drove four hours to see me. Ada, you could have just told me that you were sick. I wouldn't have minded. I would have come to you."

She shook her head. "I wanted to see you." She embraced him, burying her face in his neck, but she immediately pulled back, her nose scrunching in disgust. "Did you change your cologne?"

"No," he said as she stepped away from him. "It's still the same."

"I don't know. I think it smells bad."

He frowned. "Yeah, I think you're sick. Go lie down, I'll bring you food."

He steered her towards the bedroom by the small of her back. She peeked into the kitchen, saying, "But you set up the table so nicely."

"Never mind that, just go lie down."

He gently pushed her towards his room, helped her lie down, then tucked the blankets up to her chest.

"Do you need to change into more comfortable clothes?" he asked, opening his closet.

She nodded, standing up.

"Where are you going?"

"Restroom. I think I'm gonna vomit."

He was holding one of his old shirts—she always preferred wearing his shirts—but he dropped it on the floor as soon as she said she was going to vomit.

He was immediately at her side, helping her towards the bathroom.

She gently shook him away. "I'm nauseous, Leon, not dying."

"Do you want me to take you to the hospital?"

She glared at him. "You know I don't do hospitals."

"But you're—"

"I just need to lie down, okay?" She kissed his cheek. "Stop being such a worrywart."

"You know I always worry about you."

She smiled weakly, said, "I know," then closed the bathroom door.

He went to the kitchen and got an instant chicken noodle soup box from the cupboard. He listened for any sounds of retching as he turned the stove on, but he heard none; instead, there was a flush and the bathroom door opening.

He had just began boiling the water when she came to kitchen.

"I thought you were gonna vomit," he said.

Ada wrapped her arms around his waist, her face pressed at the back of his neck, before pulling away. Again.

"I want to hug you but you I hate how you smell," she said as she walked towards the table, getting herself some of that penne pesto.

"I thought you were sick. That's why I'm making you chicken noodle soup," he said, somewhat exasperated. To be fair to her, she never said she wanted chicken noodle soup.

"I think I want pasta." She took a bite. "You've worked so hard on this."

He turned the stove off and sat across her at the dinner table, plating some pasta for himself. "Are you sure you're feeling okay?"

She reached for a garlic bread. "Just feeling a bit tired."

"No wine for you, then."

She looked…sad? "Yeah, no more alcohol for me." Leon found it weird. She wasn't really affected by whether she could or could not drink alcohol…. "And I want some strawberry mochi."

"Strawberry mochi?" He chuckled. "Babe, where am I going to find strawberry mochi—"

She was staring at him with that expression, the one she knew that would make Leon do anything for her.

He sighed, partly in resignation, and another part in fondness. "All right, I'll go look for strawberry mochi tomorrow."

"Good boy," she said with a smile.

Ada, to his surprise, finished her food, but declared having a headache, so she went to the bathroom while he cleaned up in the kitchen. He thought she might be vomiting for real this time, but all he heard was the faucet running. He saw her emerge from the bathroom and head to the bedroom. Once he was done cleaning up, he went to the bedroom.

He found her dressed in the T-shirt he had dropped earlier. She brought the blanket up to her chin, then patted the space beside her.

"I'm gonna take a quick shower first, get the smell of the cologne out," he said.

"All right," she replied.

So he took a quick shower then brushed his teeth, and when he returned to the bedroom, he found her with her eyes closed. He gingerly climbed onto the bed, careful not to wake her up, but it seemed that she was still awake because she quickly wrapped her limbs around him, making a pillow out of his chest.

"Good night," she said.

"Good night," he replied, kissing her forehead. "I love you."

She embraced him tighter.

---

06:59, September 5, 2015, Saturday

Mount Pleasant, Washington, D.C.

Ada had woken up with the conviction that there was no way she was going to keep this baby.

There were a lot of factors to consider, but just on Leon's side, how would he explain fathering the child of an enemy spy? His career and reputation would suffer. It didn't matter if he was the president's favourite anti-B.O.W. agent; if word got out that the famed Agent Leon S. Kennedy of the DSO was having a dalliance with Ada Wong, a spy often at odds with the laws of several countries, then all hell would break loose. Never mind that Ada had already been proven innocent for Carla Radames's crimes; she would be hunted by US government because of all the things she knew. Leon would be court-martialled, her child would be forcibly taken away from her—by her enemies or Leon's employers—and her happy ending would go down the drain.

This child didn't mean the beginning of a new a life—it meant the end of one.

Yet another cruel reminder of what she couldn't have.

She got up from the bed, feeling suddenly nauseous. She wasn't sure if it was because of morning sickness or just plain repulsion at the thing inside her, but she vomited it all out in the toilet. She brushed her teeth and washed her face, intending to go back into the bed with Leon, but fatigue—both physical and emotional—caught up to her.

She didn't make it to the bed. She collapsed on the couch, letting the afghan blanket she had given him cover her. She felt so cold. If she told him that she was pregnant, would he want to keep the child? Considering how honourable he was and how he wanted to save as many lives as possible, he might want to keep the baby. But he also knew how terrible this world was. He knew the risks that a child would bring, especially for someone who was at the front lines of this war. He might want to get rid of the baby, if only to make sure that nothing would be used against him, and that the kid wouldn't have to grow up in this hellhole of a planet.

The mere possibility of Leon wanting to keep the child was the main reason why she thought she couldn't tell him, and why she needed to get rid of this thing—and not because she felt…things for him, and definitely not because this child was a reminder of those feelings.

But could she really do it? Could she really get rid of their baby?

In a few weeks, there would be physical manifestations of the baby. Her baby bump would grow bigger, and until she could get it aborted, she would have to stop seeing him. That was okay. They could go on months without seeing each other. It wouldn't be out of the ordinary.

She would have to lie to him, and she wasn't sure if her non-existent conscience would allow that. She hadn't lied to him, not since Raccoon City, and all the "lies" she had told him since then were either bent or omitted truths, never an outright lie. How could she keep on seeing and sleeping with him if she decided to keep this pregnancy and subsequent abortion a secret? She wouldn't be able to live with herself. She wouldn't be able to handle the hurt look on his face, thinking about how she betrayed him once more if he found out the truth. This was the man she…greatly cared about, possibly the only thing that she lived for. And a terminated pregnancy would drive a wedge between them, ruining the one good thing that Ada had in her life.

This would be so much easier if she didn't love him.

And that scared her, because she wasn't supposed to care for someone, let alone fall in love with someone. It was an endless argument that circled in her head—she wasn't supposed to do this and that, she couldn't do this and that—but her brain had been conditioned since childhood to think of these things, and act upon them. To feel these emotions for him scared her, because wasn't it a human trait to fear the unknown? She hadn't known real love, not until she met him. Her love threatened to spill out of her body and flood the ground he walked on; it was too much for her mortal body to contain. She wasn't afraid of the monsters that she had to constantly fight; she was afraid of smothering him with all these feelings she didn't know how to handle and express.

This wasn't her. She didn't develop feelings for anyone. Ada Wong wasn't supposed to care for anyone. But she did anyway, in that city that she thought was going to be her grave. I know I'm not capable of caring about anyone, she had said, but I don't want to lose you.

The first time she genuinely cared for someone, she almost died. She decided to give up her life for him. She kissed him goodbye and passed out in his arms, only to wake up later, still with enough strength to complete her mission and escape from the city about to go up in flames.

The second time she genuinely cared for someone, a monster pretending to be a man was breathing down her neck. She ignored this man's orders, ensuring the safety of the one she cared about, until they both lived and escaped separately from the island.

The subsequent times she cared for that someone, she did out of her own volition. She made the conscious choice to meet and spend time with him, knowing the risks full well. She was supposed to see him just one more time—that time in Barcelona—but she kept coming back, because there was something about him that she couldn't find anywhere else.

John Clemens truly loved her, but she didn't. She felt for him, knew that he wasn't like the rest of the Umbrella researchers, but at the end of the day, Ada was only using him, and it was easy for her to leave him.

Albert Wesker used her, and she used him. They didn't trust each other and they both knew that, but it was a sort of partnership that served their purposes.

Derek C. Simmons was a demon in a human's skin. He was obsessed with her, and she was all too happy to cut him out of her life.

But Leon…There was no way to explain the racing of her heart whenever he called her, or the electricity in her skin whenever he touched her, or the smile that always tugged at her lips whenever she woke up in his arms. There was no way to explain the thrill that surged in her veins whenever she saw his face contorting in pleasure, or the utter bliss that overcame her whenever he made her come undone. There was no way to explain it all—the hands that subconsciously reached for the other, the lips that automatically found each other's, the eyes the brightly lit up whenever they saw one another—except for love. Deadly, dangerous, devastating love.

For one moment, there was clarity, like the warmth of the sun on her face after the biting coldness of the winter night—Ah, yes, I love him and he loves me, and we could have a happy ending—but she banished that thought immediately out of her mind, because it could never be. It just couldn't.

Leon was the kind of pleasure that lasted for a lifetime—a permanent bliss. One taste would never be enough. She had never entertained thoughts of a blissful, domestic life until she fell for him. And she couldn't even remember the exact moment she had fallen for him; one morning, she just woke up, consumed by all her love for him.

She decided to keep it a secret, even to herself, never once acknowledging it until now, when it bore a fruit as dangerous as the one that damned Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Take a bite and she would be damned too—not just her, but Leon and their child too. Her love was the snake hissing in her ear, ready to drag her down to hell if needed be.

And so she asked herself, was she going to get rid of this child to protect him from his government, or to protect her from her own self?

Her mind was in an overdrive. She couldn't stay with him, not when she knew that her secret would make him hate her—something she never wanted to happen. He had always looked at her with eyes full of love, and to see those eyes look at her with anger would break her. She couldn't stay with him, because her love for him would destroy them both. They would continue on evading their employers and skirting around the laws just for a few days' worth of playing house. And then what? They would continue with these trysts until they got old? Would Leon get tired of her constant coming and going and leave her for someone more stable? Would she be selfish enough to keep him chained to her?

Her heart told her to keep the child and stay with him, but she had always been a mind over matter kind of girl. Her brain told her to get rid of the baby and save herself from further heartbreak by leaving him. He would never know of his child that never was, he would never hate her for not telling him, he would never loathe her for destroying what could have been the best thing in his life, and she would never endanger all three of them by her selfish choice of letting herself experience happiness. Better nip it in the bud before her feelings for him jeopardised their jobs and lives.

She had a real shot at happiness this time, but attachments were death sentences to spies. To be a spy meant to be alone. She worked alone, she lived alone, and she would die alone, and her memories of him would be nothing but distant echoes of the past. She would fondly remember him in her deathbed, and her womb would forever remain empty, only experiencing the fear and joy of creating a new life once.

Ada had to let go of this child, of the man who wasn't hers, and the life that would never be hers, unless she wanted the world to come for them.

She knew he would let her go if she asked him to. Leon was a good man, and he would never dare tie her down. He would be hurt, yes, but he would let her go. He wouldn't probe her for answers if she didn't want to give them, but he would wonder for the rest of his life.

But she would rather let his anger break her than have him mourn the loss of her. She wanted him to be so angry at her that he would try to erase her out of his mind, and then maybe he would meet someone else, someone who would bear him a child, someone who wasn't afraid of the love she felt for him. She wanted him to hate her, so he could finally see that she wasn't good for her. She wanted him to hate her so he could finally have a normal life. Ada wanted Leon to be happy, but she wasn't the kind of person who could give him happiness. She wanted him to stop loving her, because maybe then she would stop loving him.

And that was just a big maybe.

She heard the bedroom door open. She heard his footsteps coming towards her. She felt his gentle hand on her shoulder, the light pressure of his lips on her temple, the warm hand that rested over her forehead.

"You're not burning up," he said, "but you're clearly not feeling well."

He removed his hand on her forehead, wishing that it would stay. Minutes from now, he would be gone from her life, and she would never feel his skin on hers again.

But could she have just a few more moments with him? Just a few more moments where she didn't have to worry about the consequences of her selfishness?

She tugged his hand, bringing him down to the couch and snuggling into him. He wrapped his arms around her and she didn't want to leave—not his arms, not his flat, not his life. She wanted to stay with him, to see if they could have a room for a child in their bleak futures, but doing so would just result in a catastrophe.

"You sure you don't wanna go to the hospital?" he asked, his hands running up and down her back. "I couldn't count how many times you had gotten up last night."

"I don't want to. I'm fine." She didn't want to get confirmation that she really was pregnant, and she sure as hell didn't want him to find out. Not to mention all the hassle about needing to present falsified identification cards and documents….

"Yeah, and you've retched twice. I don't think that's normal." His hands played with her hair. "I'm just worried, okay?"

She took a deep breath to steel herself.

She put on her mask—Ada the spy, not Ada, the woman in love with Leon. She did her best to look like Leon was the most repulsive creature she ever had the displeasure of getting acquainted with, and then pushed him away, making it seem like she couldn't get away from him when all she wanted to do was crawl back into his arms and never leave.

She stood up and looked down on him. She adopted an impassive expression and said, "Leon, I'm leaving you."

He blinked. Once, twice, and said and in an even tone, "Leave me? Like, leave me to go to the hospital?" He stood up, tried to hold her hands, but she just stepped back, not letting his touch tempt her into staying. "I—I can drive you."

"I'm going away on a long-term mission," she lied. "It's going to be deep undercover, and I don't know when will I be back. It looks like it's going to take a couple of years."

His face fell. Ada didn't think that he was capable of making such a face, like she had just ripped his heart out.

She might as well have.

"But…you'll call me, right?" His tone sounded as if he was pleading.

She shook her head. "It's for the best, Leon. I can't be distracted this time, and you're nothing but a huge distraction for me." She crossed her arms. "We've been doing this…thing for a long time. Don't you think it's about time we ended it?"

"I—I'm not sure what you mean."

"Oh, Leon." She smiled at him sadly. She dared take a step towards him, dared to cup his face with a hand. Just one touch and she could already feel her resolve crumbling. "You love me, don't you?"

He leaned in to her touch. "You know I do."

But Ada mustn't give in to temptation; she much overcome it. "You know why I never said it back?" She ran her thumb across his jaw. She swallowed the bile wanting to come up her throat and forced herself to say the words, "It's because I never loved you." You were the only one I've ever loved. "I have no room for love in my life." Every time you tell me that you love me, I feel the empty spaces in my heart overflow with emotions. "I have no room for you in life." I've already made a room for you in my bed and in my heart, and threw the key far, far away.

"Then why did you keep on meeting up with me?" His voice was shaky and his eyes were bright with unshed tears. "Why did you keep on sleeping with me? Why did you keep on letting me love you?"

She wiped tears away from his cheeks, hoping that her resolve alone would keep her own tears at bay. "Everything was just a lie. I'm just using you, Leon." Her voice was gentle, like an adult indulging a child. "How stupid do you have to be to think that I'm capable of loving someone?" She brought her hands to sides of his neck, and then to his chest. "I can't love anyone, especially not a naïve little boy like you." She pushed him away. She took a few steps back, creating distance between them—a distance that spanned oceans and continents. "Did you think that I care about you?"

He looked like he wanted to chase her back. Despite her words, he still wanted her back.

That wasn't good. She needed to hurt him. She needed to make him angry, make sure that there would be no turning back after this.

"With how you kiss and touch me," he said, "it's impossible to not think that you at least care about me."

She forced herself to smile. "Then I'm a better actress than I thought."

"What about all those times you've helped and saved me?"

"I told you, I was just using you. You were so easy to manipulate." She narrowed her eyes.

He balled his fists. That was good. He was getting angry. "So everything was just a lie?"

"'A lie'? What do you mean?" She crossed her arms, cocking her hips to one side, hoping it would make her look indifferent. "What were you believing in? The façade that I've shown you?"

He didn't say anything. He was breathing hard, possibly restraining himself from shouting at her.

"You believed that I cared about you, didn't you? That I could love you back?" She stood up straight, made her expression look stony. She wasn't sure if he was going to believe her, because she wasn't believing herself. She didn't sound like she was actually angry at him. She needed to hurt him more. "I feel nothing but hatred for you, Leon. You constantly whine about not having the life you envisioned yourself having. Well, guess what—not everyone wants to be a hero like you. You purposely risk your life for other people's. Do you think that makes you better than the rest of us?" She scoffed. "There are a lot of things that I hate in this world, but you are really making your way to the top. If you weren't so useful, I would have let you die all the way back in Spain."

Spain. It should be a bitter memory for them both. Instead, they created another memory of that country, one filled with warmth and hope. That should have been the last she should have seen him, but those earnest eyes and wicked tongue kept her coming back for more.

"Soft-hearted people don't last long in this job, and you of all people should know that." She hoped that poison trickled from her every word. "Do you have any idea about what would happen to you if your employers find out that you were sleeping with a spy?" She snorted. "No, don't answer that—I don't give a shit about what happens you." She smiled, and from the corners of her lips dripped venom. "Stop chasing me, Leon. Because you'll never have me."

He breathed heavily, his chest puffing. "How disgusted were you when you fucked me? When I fucked you?"

She sighed. "No matter how much I hated it, I must do everything for my job. But knowing that you love me…It's really making me uncomfortable. Like I'm hurting a puppy always following me around. So I have to leave." It's my only comfort, the only reason I could go to sleep—because I know you love me despite everything. "Emotions just make me uncomfortable. So thank you for all the information you've unknowingly given to me. You have been very helpful—and useful. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and I must now embark on a new identity and life—a new job away from all you B.O.W.-fighting bastards."

"God, I should have known." He shook his head. "Fool me once, shame on me you, fool me twice…" He chuckled dryly. "I know you have questionable morals, but I never thought that you were cruel. It seems like I was wrong." His fingers twitched, as if itching to break something. "I really thought…I really thought that despite everything, I could get my happy ending. With you." When he blinked, tears were leaking out of his eyes. "Did you enjoy toying with me?"

"It gave me immense pleasure, yes." I would never forgive myself for hurting you. "There's really something charming about playing with naïve and gullible little boys." She bit her lip. "It's been nice knowing you, Leon."

"Go to hell," he spat.

She might not have taken a bite out of the forbidden fruit, but she might as well have. Leon might be safe for a good long while, but at the cost of Ada's suffering.

Better her than him. She had already endangered him too much.

"I don't want to ever see you again," she said as coolly as she could.

"That should be my line."

"Good." She smiled. "We finally share the same feelings for each other."

"Just…Just get the fuck out," he hissed through tears.

"You don't need to tell me twice." She grabbed her coat and bag, then slammed the door to his flat shut.

The last image she had of him was of his tear-stained face staring at her with fury.

---

07:36, September 5, 2015, Saturday

Mount Pleasant, Washington, D.C.

As soon as she closed the door, the tears she had been desperately trying to hold back finally fell like a deluge. They streamed in torrents down her cheeks, down to her neck, collarbones, and chest.

She shrugged her coat on and went to the fire exit instead of the lift. The fire exit stairwell gave her privacy, so she collapsed on the first step, her body slumping against the railing, as she finally allowed herself to cry.

She threw away the one good thing she had in her life, and she was going to throw away another.

It was all for the best. No baby and no lover meant no baggage. She could go back to what she was meant to be—a blank canvas ready to painted on with a new life and personality with each mission.

There was no Ada Wong. There was only a nameless and emotionless spy who had no child and lover.

She clutched at her middle. This unborn baby would be gone soon, but for a moment, it gave her a glimpse into the future that she could have had were she not a spy. It made her admit to herself that she wouldn't be able to fall in love with anyone but Leon. This baby should be the harbinger of joy, yet all it did was give her death.

She stood up and wiped her tears away. She took her sunglasses out of her bag—both were gifts from Leon, ha—and wore them, hiding her swollen and red-rimmed eyes away from the world.

She should throw these sunglasses out.

When she got back to her place, she was going to have some cleaning to do.

---

09:54, September 14, 2015, Monday

Bleecker St, New York

Last week, she readied her fake IDs and documents, along with a wig and eyeglasses, before she went to the Planned Parenthood office. She got the confirmation that she was indeed pregnant—six weeks last week, and seven weeks now. She immediately set an appointment for medication abortion, feeling relieved back then, knowing that she would be rid of this burden soon.

And then she got back home. Her flat was littered with garbage bags that she couldn't bear to throw away. They contained gifts from Leon, and one garbage bag alone was filled with his shirts and jackets.

She could remember one time when she bought him a T-shirt. She had told him, "I bought this for you," and he replied with, "For me? You mean you bought it for yourself. You're gonna let me wear it a couple of times before you steal it."

He had worn the T-shirt anyway. He had let her steal it anyway.

It now rested in the bottom of a garbage bag.

Another time, she was wearing one of his old T-shirts—a blue one from ages ago, with a faded It's More Fun in the Philippines at its front. He had asked her regarding the whereabouts of that shirt, and she had said, "No."

He had pointedly stared at the shirt she was wearing. "Really."

She had shaken her head. "I haven't seen it."

He had given her a tight smile and said, "Okay."

She had taken that shirt home and he never asked for it back.

She had a whole drawer dedicated to his stolen shirts. Now, that drawer is empty, all its contents thrown inside a garbage bag.

Currently, she was wearing the same disguise from last week. She was sitting inside her car, staring at the Planned Parenthood office. She rested her head against the car wheel, trying to convince herself one more time that she was doing the right thing.

She had thought and thought about it for the last couple of days. Hell, she had left Leon because she was convinced that this was the right thing to do. If she chickened out, all that pain and suffering would be for nothing. To not go through this would be to invalidate her last attempt in keeping Leon safe.

She took a deep breath and got out of her car. She walked towards the office, then doubled back towards her car to see if she didn't forget her fake IDs.

She didn't. They were in her bag. She just needed an excuse to delay the inevitable.

…Or was it?

She could always cancel and reschedule her appointment. She had one week to mentally prepare, and she had three more weeks if she wanted the medication abortion; beyond that and up to twenty-four weeks, she would have to opt for an in-clinic abortion.

She turned the engine on and leaned back in the driver's seat, irritated at herself for having second thoughts.

She laid a hand on her stomach. She would never feel the baby kick, hear its cries and laughter, or carry it in her arms. She was going to get rid of her and Leon's child, and nothing would be used against them, Leon would live and wouldn't be court-martialled, and she would go back to who she originally was.

She repeated these things to herself each night, hoping that they would comfort her. Instead, they just made her feel like she was making a huge mistake.

What if she consulted Leon first to decide what to do with the baby? She could have done that. But if they got rid of the baby, she was certain that its non-existence would just haunt Leon for the rest of his life. It was better that she suffered alone and he lived in blissful ignorance.

She ran her hand across her middle. She had rejected two job offers since finding out that she was pregnant, and while getting an abortion would put her out of commission for a while, it would be nothing compared to the break that would be required of her if she decided to carry and bear this child.

Maybe she should quit being a spy and beg Leon to take her back, tell him she's carrying his child, get married, and live the life that was denied to her.

But Leon…Leon was a huge flirt. He probably found someone new by now. He would have a child with that woman, marry her, and create a home with her. He would teach his family how to defend themselves from humans and non-humans, and he would retire as a celebrated fighter in the war against bioterrorism. No one would suspect him of his affair with an enemy spy, and he would live out the rest of his days in domestic bliss.

This was what Ada had worked hard for—Leon's safety and happiness, even if it came at the cost of her own.

And this child? This wasn't happiness. This was a representation of what she would never have and what she would never be. This was a death sentence, a constant reminder of her broken dreams. She must get rid of it.

But her body refused to move, and her brain kept giving her images of her and Leon attending to their child. She would be the strict parent, but Leon would spoil and dote on their baby. She would be a shitty mother, but he would be a wonderful father.

In getting rid of this child, she was not only keeping Leon safe, but also saving this child from the world that would literally eat it alive. It was the best and most logical choice.

Yet somehow, her body moved without her permission and drove her back to her flat, away from the place that would get rid of it.

She couldn't abort her baby—Leon's baby.

---

20:06, October 17, 2015, Saturday

Frederick, Maryland

Of course she had seen Leon. David Sullivan hired her to be his bodyguard, and also fancied her to be his lover. She had been paying attention to all the entrance and exit points. It was impossible not to notice him, wearing that ensemble that she helped him get from Saville Row.

She had to prevent herself from smiling at the memory of that suit. She had pushed him down on the bed, his shirt unbuttoned, his belt unbuckled, and his trousers unzipped. She had run a manicured finger down his chest and stomach, and then slipped her hand under the waistband of his boxers. She could remember the gasp that followed, how dark his blue eyes had turned, and how his hair had shone golden in the light of their hotel lamp.

In Sullivan's mansion hall, his hair still looked like spun gold. He looked healthy. His hairstyle was still the same—that would never change, would it?—his stubble was still there, and he still owned her heart.

She thought that she would have to pretend to be only one thing this night—to be Sullivan's bodyguard-slash-lover—but it seemed that she would also have to pretend to be not still in love with Leon.

Their paths would definitely cross. She had been monitoring the movements of a mole within Sullivan's men, and upon reporting to him, he had increased the number of his guards, and had taken to wearing the key to his study at all times.

But she didn't want to fail this job, so she had taken the liberty, without Sullivan's knowledge, of duplicating the data in a chip that she would later give to Leon. The notebook would still be in Sullivan's possession, but he would never know that the DSO would have a copy of the data.

She had worn something a bit looser to hide her growing baby bump. She was three months pregnant, and while her growing belly wasn't that noticeable yet, wearing a form-fitting gown would just expose her.

She wanted to get rid of the baby since last September. It was now October, and she still couldn't get rid of it. She had made up her mind, but her body wouldn't move according to her wishes. She would set an appointment, only to back out at the last minute. The counsellors at Planned Parenthood offered their guidance, but she refused to open up to people she didn't know. That was why she accepted this job—if she couldn't decide, then she would let her job decide for her. If she miscarried, then so be it. If not…only time would tell.

She saw Leon go to the bar, and immediately, her body moved on its own accord, and she found herself ordering a martini that she wouldn't drink. Why wouldn't she? She would have this baby aborted anyway. She shouldn't be caring about whether or not something is harmful to her unborn child, yet she kept on reading pregnancy books before her bedtime anyway.

He was so close to her. It would be so easy to reach out and touch him, tell him that she loved him and always has, tell him that she was pregnant with his child. It was so easy to follow what her heart wanted, but she has had enough of letting her body move involuntarily.

Mission first, feelings later. She had a job to do, and that job didn't include dealing with a federal agent.

She would have to make sure to get rid of him without harming him.

She just wished her feelings wouldn't come out in the process.

---

V.

06:10, October 19, 2015, Monday

Mount Pleasant, Washington, D.C.

Yesterday, Leon couldn't remember how he had woken up on his bed. He remembered Sullivan's party, seeing her again, throwing everything in the trash but failing to burn them, and then staring at couch, thinking about their last time together. He could remember drinking scotch from the bottle, and then…nothing.

He had sat up, and immediately the pounding in his head made itself known. He had reached for the medicine he kept in his bedside table and dry swallowed an aspirin pill, but it got stuck in his throat so he ventured out to the kitchen for a glass of water. Then he had gone back to sleep, and when he had woken up again, it was already midday and his stomach was growling.

He had been feeling better, so he had taken a quick shower and had popped by the nearby McDonald's for coffee and the greasiest meal they offered. He had been caffeinated, his stomach had been full, and his hangover had been receding, so he had gone back to his flat and had intended to do something about the garbage bags littering his floor.

Only that he couldn't.

That was yesterday, and this morning, he had just gotten back from a run and he had work in three hours. Three hours would be enough to burn and dispose of everything.

Yet he still couldn't.

He went to work, and the garbage bags were still on his floor, and their photos were still sitting unburned in his fireplace.

---

08:16, October 19, 2015, Monday

Bleecker St, New York

Ada was once again staring at the Planned Parenthood office from inside her car.

This was the fifth time that she had scheduled an appointment. The staff from Planned Parenthood was very understanding, never once mocking her indecision. The staff had offered counselling services to her, but she had rejected them all.

She was thirteen weeks pregnant. She could no longer opt for the medication abortion; the only service they could offer her now was the in-clinic abortion, where a gentle suction would be used to empty her uterus. The Planned Parenthood website said it was 99 per cent effective. The tiny life that Ada and Leon had created would, in all likelihood, be gone before the day had ended.

She started her car and found herself driving home instead. This was the fifth time that she had bailed out on her appointment. Surely there must be a limit as to how many cancelled appointments Planned Parenthood could handle.

Maybe she really needed to consult one of their counsellors.

Or maybe she just needed to see Leon.

Ha.

She set her mind on just going back home and putting off her decision, prolonging her child's life for another week, but once again, a spirit had taken control of her body, and instead of driving back to her flat in Tribeca, she was driving towards Interstate 95, out of New York and into Washington, D.C.

---

12:22, October 19, 2015, Monday

Mount Pleasant, Washington, D.C.

This was stupid.

First, she didn't go through her abortion appointment, and now, she was sitting inside her car, which was parked on the street across her not-ex's apartment building.

She had driven for four hours. Four. Fucking. Hours. She was hungry, she was craving for red velvet muffins, and she was feeling nauseous. The pregnancy books said that the nausea was supposed to subside at the third month of pregnancy, but clearly, Ada was one of the unlucky ones whose nausea persisted.

There was a café just around the corner. She could go there, vomit in their toilet, and then get herself lunch, but she and Leon had eaten there a couple of times over the years. The staff might recognise her. Besides, retching in a public place would just attract unwanted attention.

It was a good thing she knew of a private place literally right across the street.

This was stupid, she thought, but it was midday and Leon would certainly be at work. She could retch and be gone in thirty minutes tops. She didn't have the key to his place—she left it inside a garbage bag in her flat—but she had broken into his window way too many times before.

The last time she had been at his place, she wasn't feeling very well, so instead of landing on his veranda using her grapple gun, she had gone to the main entrance. She still had her grapple gun and she could still use it to break into his flat through his balcony window, or even scale through the building, but it was broad daylight. She didn't care if she was pregnant; she would do those at the risk of miscarriage, because at least fate finally decided for her, even though she didn't believe in fate.

She had a lockpick. She knew it would work. And she had just come from Planned Parenthood, so she was still wearing her disguise. The front desk staff at Leon's apartment building wouldn't know better.

And so she did just that. She made up a bullshit excuse that the front desk staff believed, and minutes later, she was breaking into the door of Leon's flat.

She was immediately greeted by the sight of garbage bags. She tossed her bag into the couch—ah, yes, that couch where they spent their last moments together…and where was the afghan blanket?—and walked towards the garbage bags.

They weren't tied or sealed shut, and she could see what was inside—everything that she had given him, including the afghan blanket.

She didn't need to take a guess about what was inside the other bags.

Her eyes drifted towards the fireplace.

Her and Leon's happy faces stared back at her. They were taken from Leon's Polaroid, and the very first photo he took with that camera was the one in Barcelona in 2004—the one that was meant to overwrite their not-very-nice memories of Spain.

She remembered the couple who had mistaken them as honeymooning newlyweds. That wasn't the first or last time they had been mistaken as a couple, married or otherwise. Who could blame those people when she and Leon always walked down those foreign streets hand in hand, or with her arm around his? They could risk being openly affectionate in a foreign country. Sunglasses made for very poor disguises, but they allowed Leon to curl a possessive hand around her waist, and they allowed her to kiss him under the midday sun, unafraid of the consequences.

And Leon wanted these memories destroyed.

She couldn't blame him, not when she wanted to do the same. But as it turned out, neither of them could actually get rid of anything.

Maybe he still loved her.

Ah, that couldn't be it. Leon was a busy man. He probably couldn't find the time to dispose of the rubbish.

She flopped down on the couch and tossed her wig and eyeglasses on the coffee table. She was tired of pretending, and Leon's flat was the only place where she felt like she could be herself, whoever that person was.

She was certain of one thing, though—she still loved him.

Just a few weeks ago, she had laid her head on his chest and his arms were wrapped around her, but now, she was alone, with only her unborn child as company.

At the thought of her baby, the feeling of nausea came back, and she suddenly remembered what she broke into Leon's flat for. She hurried to the bathroom and puked, used some mouthwash because Leon had thrown her toothbrush in the garbage bag, then grabbed a glass of water from the kitchen until she heard the door open and Leon's unmistakable voice saying, "Ada?"

---

12:38, October 19, 2015, Monday

Mount Pleasant, Washington, D.C.

The only good reason that Leon would have to be in his flat at twelve in the afternoon on a Monday was because his boss had sent him home.

His boss had summoned him in his office, and upon closing the door, he immediately told Leon, "You look like shit, Kennedy. Have you been drinking again?"

When am I not, Leon wanted to say, but US president's favourite agent or not, Leon would certainly be sent to rehab or a shrink's office if he didn't get his drinking habits in control. He already got into enough trouble after that bender in the Rocky Mountains, but the BSAA's Captain Chris Redfield and Dr Rebecca Chambers's good words had gotten him out of that pinch.

"I didn't drink yesterday," he said truthfully. Because he really didn't, and he was so damn proud of himself for not touching a bottle of alcohol.

His boss didn't look convinced, but let it go nonetheless. "Look, you know the people here love gossip—"

"Which workplace doesn't?"

His boss nodded. "You're right. Which workplace doesn't love gossip." He chuckled. His face then took on a more serious expression. "I've been hearing that you've gone through a rough breakup."

Leon wanted to roll his eyes. There was no relationship so there was no breakup, but for all intents and purposes…He shifted on his feet, suddenly wanting to bolt out of his boss's office. "Uh…Yeah."

"Now, what goes on in your personal life is none of my business, but when that affects your job, I have to take an action." He leaned across his desk. "Thankfully, it hasn't affected your job yet, as proven by your successful mission last Saturday. But before it does—and before the fucking president hounds me again why his favourite agent is drowning in alcohol in the Rocky Mountains—I need you to take care of yourself. I'm putting you on forced leave."

"I…Look, sir, if I just stay in my apartment—"

"Then go on a holiday!" His boss shook his head. "You used to treat your vacation days like they're something sacred, even glaring at me whenever I dared send you on a mission during a planned vacation." He sighed. "Remember every time I pulled you out of furlough? Remember how you'd always bitch about it?" He leaned back in his seat. "You were meeting with your girl, weren't you, whenever you were on a holiday?"

She was never mine.

"Not always." He crossed his arms. "But most of the time, yeah, I was."

His boss groaned. "Then go on a holiday by yourself. Go to a place you've never been before, maybe try some soul-searching. Just…get out of this city for a while and take a breather. I don't want my best agent messing up on the field because he couldn't take his mind off his ex."

What was he even going to do in a foreign city alone? He would go to a pub, that was for sure, and maybe meet someone new. Maybe he could even meet someone who would replace her.

He doubted it. No one would ever come close to her. No one.

"I don't wanna see your ugly mug here until next Monday," said his boss. "So go home. And when you get back, you better make sure that you're on your peak performance. The FOS is already sending us confirmation about the info on that microchip."

"Yes, sir."

Leon turned around, and just as he was about to open the door, his boss said, "And Kennedy?"

"Sir?"

"You'll get through this. You've always gotten through the worst that life has thrown at you."

Leon didn't know if he could ever get over her, but he sure as hell would try. "Thanks, sir. I appreciate it."

So he drove home, telling Helena and Sherry that he was on forced leave until next Monday, and planned to scour the airline sites for the earliest available flight to…well, he would think about it later.

He opened the door to his flat. He immediately noticed the wig and eyeglasses on the coffee table, and then the handbag on his couch—a handbag that he had given to her.

And then he found her, her back to his, standing in his kitchen, drinking a glass of water.

"Ada?" Her name was out of his mouth before he could even think about it.

She got startled, dropping the glass of water on the floor. Immediately he was crouching, batting her hands that were trying to pick up all the shards of the broken glass.

"Don't, you'll hurt yourself," he said, clamping a hand over hers when batting them away didn't work.

He found that he didn't want to let go, and she was making no move to take her hands back either. He revelled in the feel of her hands. He thought that he would never be able to touch her again, but here she was—

Wait. Wasn't he supposed to be moving on?

"I'll clean this up," he said, letting go of her hands and gathering the shards. "You just…I don't even know what the hell you're doing here." He stood up to the throw the shards in the garbage bin. "Didn't you say that you didn't want to see me anymore?"

"I'm sorry." To her credit, she did sound contrite. "I was in the area and I felt nauseous. I didn't want to vomit in a public place, so—"

"So you came to my apartment instead. Great. Nice to think that you only think of my apartment as a convenient place to vomit in."

He grabbed paper towels from the counter and laid those out on the floor, looking out for tiny fragments of glass. Then he looked up at her. She wasn't wearing any makeup, exposing her paler than usual complexion, and the dark bags under her eyes.

"You sure you don't wanna go to the hospital?" he asked as he reached for a dishcloth.

She crossed her arms across her middle and leaned against the counter. "Huh. I was under the impression that you didn't care about me."

He dropped the dishcloth to the floor, mopping up the water with it. He would have gone for the mop in the cleaning supplies closet, but he had this…strange conversation to continue. "I'd hate it if someone died in my apartment. No one would buy this place if I decided to sell it."

"You planning on moving?"

He washed his hands, dried them, then looked at her pallid face. "What are you still doing here?"

"Right." She straightened up, and as soon as she did, she bent over, her hand clutching at her stomach. Leon was by her side at once, helping her up, only to be waved away when she said, "It's all right, it happens sometimes. It's just a bit of cramping."

She retrieved her wig and eyeglasses from the coffee table and shoved them inside her bag.

"I can drive you to the hospital." The last time he said those words, she told him she was leaving him.

"I'm all right. Really, I'm sorry for the sudden intrusion. I promise you, it won't happen again."

"Were you looking for something in my apartment?" He crossed his arms. "State secrets, perhaps?"

She glanced back at him. "Not this time. You might wanna change your locks, though. They were all too easy to pick."

"And that chip that you left in my pocket?"

She smiled. "Did you like it?"

"Why? Why would you do that? To spread malware?"

"There are easier ways to spread malware into your government's computer systems. I wouldn't go through the trouble of handing you that chip."

"Then why did you go through all that trouble?" Why did you look like you were about to cry when you pushed me against that wall, your hand around my neck? "Are you double-crossing Sullivan?"

She smirked. "You know me so well."

"Where's that notebook now?"

"Already in the hands of my other employer." Once again, she crossed her arms in front of her stomach. "Should I be expecting a warrant out for my arrest soon?"

Leon's mouth transformed into a firm line. He should have written about her in his report. He should have told his boss about her presence in Sullivan's mansion. He should have told his boss everything he knew about her, her past crimes and activities, her safe houses and hideouts, and ask for his immunity in exchange for all this information. He should have. He was angry at her, wasn't he? He wanted her to suffer, didn't he?

No, he didn't. As much as she had hurt him, he would rather die than hurt her. Didn't his body automatically move to make sure she didn't hurt herself with the shards? If he couldn't let her get hurt for something considerably simpler, then how could he let himself be the cause of her incarceration?

Just because he was supposed to move on doesn't mean he had to be a huge ass about it and destroy her life and career.

Her sudden presence reopened a wound that barely began to heal—and now that Leon thought about it, that wound never healed, did it? It always remained open, exposed to the elements and festering, and only her touch could heal it.

But there was poison at her fingertips right now.

Still, Leon would risk getting poisoned if it meant feeling her hands on his skin one more time.

How the hell was he supposed to move on if his brain constantly screamed at him to reach out to her and beg her to take him back?

He shook his head and laughed dryly. "No, I'm not gonna report you or anything. Let's just pretend that our paths never crossed. It would be better that way."

One of her hands fell to her side, while the other remained on her stomach, gently rubbing it with a thumb. She was doing that an awful lot since he had seen her again today. There was an uncharacteristic wistful smile on her face—uncharacteristic, because considering their situation, she should be smirking or grinning or smiling at him maliciously, not wistfully.

"Thank you, I guess." She was still wearing that wistful smile. "Goodbye, Leon." Her voice was strangely soft and sombre. "Take care of yourself."

And then she turned her back on him and walked towards the door.

If she walked out of his door, maybe he would see her again, considering how often their paths crossed, but he would never have her back the way he used to. He would never hold her again, or kiss her, or make her laugh, or cook her breakfast, or tease her, or make love to her. He would never grumble about her always taking his shirts, or argue with her about the better hotel to stay at, or outwardly blush every time she called him handsome but secretly preen deep inside.

He would never have her back—his one true shot at happiness in this godforsaken world. Did he really want that? Did he really want to live the rest of his life with a cavity where his heart was supposed to be? Did he really want to try fill that cavity with something or someone else, knowing that that cavity was in the exact shape of her heart, and no other shape would fit?

No, he didn't. He didn't want her out of his life, and he didn't want to move on from her.

He remembered how her face looked two nights ago, when she looked like she was about to cry. He remembered her wistful smile just now. He placed his bets on those. If there was an infinitesimal chance that she still cared for him, then he was going to take that gamble. At least he tried and he wouldn't be haunted for the rest of life, wondering what would have happened if he didn't try to win her back.

Before she could reach for the doorknob, he grabbed her arm and spun her around, placing a hand at her waist and another at the back of her neck, and then crashed his lips with hers.

There was a moment of stillness when Leon thought that No, she doesn't care about me, it really is the end, but her fingers suddenly wove through his hair and she was pulling his head towards her, kissing him like she was drowning and Leon was the air she needed to survive.

Her arms wound around his neck and his arms wrapped around her waist. He pulled her closer until there was no more space between them, until all that existed in the world was them and only them.

Oddly enough, Leon couldn't feel any malice from their kiss—just desperation, yearning, and hunger. It didn't feel like the beginning to angry or pity sex, but rather, the beginning of returning to something comfortable and familiar.

Like being reunited with a lost love.

Kissing her didn't feel like a mistake—it felt like everything was finally coming back into their rightful places.

Eventually, they parted, and she was looking at him like she hasn't seen him in ten years.

Maybe this was just all an act. Maybe she decided that he was still useful for information. Maybe—

Tears were falling down her face, and in the eleven years that Leon had known her, he had never once seen her cry.

To say that it was alarming was an understatement.

He wiped the tears away from her face with his thumbs. "Ada, what's wrong?"

"Fucking hormones," she said, half laughing and half crying, until she was crying again. "I'm sorry, Leon. I'm so sorry for hurting you. I'll never forgive myself for hurting you."

"You don't have anything to apologise for," he said, and found it true. "Whatever you thought you did, I already forgive you."

She shook her head. "No, you don't understand. I wanted to hurt you. I wanted you to hate me so you would stop loving me."

"Hate you? How can I ever hate you?" He laughed at the absurdity of their situation. "Ada, I'm still in love with you. I don't think I've ever stopped, not even when you left. Not even when you told me those things."

"Nothing that I told you that morning was true." He continued on wiping her tears away, but more and more fell down her cheeks. "I don't hate you. I want to keep on seeing you. I care about you. And I…"

She finally stopped crying. She took a step back, leaving a few inches between them, and Leon wanted to have her back and never be away from her again.

She composed herself, brought her face back to a neutral expression. Even with her pallor and the dark bags under her red-rimmed eyes, she was still the most exquisite creature Leon had the fortune of laying his eyes on.

She took his hand and placed it over her stomach. Was it his imagination or her stomach wasn't as flat as it used to be? Her abdomen was all toned and lean muscle, and yet…

"I'm pregnant. It's yours," she said.

He blinked. He opened his mouth to say something, but no word came out. He stared blankly at her equally blank expression.

"You're what?" He heard her correctly, but he just wanted to make sure.

"I'm pregnant," she repeated, "and it's yours."

He narrowed his eyes and cocked his head to the side. "H…How?" They were very careful. She was using an IUD. And Leon went through regular physical examinations due to the nature of his job. He was clean, so sometimes, she let him fuck her raw and come inside her.

When was the last time they had sex? Ah, that was right. Naples, around the last week of July. He didn't pull out back then, but used a condom, he was sure of it.

"I asked myself the same thing." She looked down at her belly, at where their child was supposed to be. Their child. His child.

Fuck. He was going to be a father.

"It does happen," she said. "Condoms and IUDs can always fail. Abstinence, apparently, is still the best form of birth control."

Fuck. He was going to be a father.

"And in case you're wondering…I haven't been intimate with anyone else but you for the last few years, not even for work. I can't. Not when…"

Fuck. He was going to be a father.

"If you don't believe me, then—"

"Fuck. I'm going to be a father?" He looked down at her stomach, where their hands rested atop each other's.

She stared at him, searching for something in his expression. "Only if you want to be."

"What do you mean by that?"

She took a deep breath. "Are you scared, knowing that you're going to be a father?"

"Scared?" He scoffed. "'Scared' doesn't even begin to cover it. I'd rather face ten Tyrants at once with nothing but a butter knife."

"That was I felt—how I feel." She gripped his hand. "Imagine bringing a child into a world where Tyrants exist. That's why…" Her hand shook, so he took it both hands and kissed her knuckles.

"That's why what?" he prompted.

"That's why I went to Planned Parenthood. To have it aborted. I made an appointment five times, and bailed out five times. Earlier today was the fifth time. Instead of going home, I went here, and I don't know why."

He blinked back the sudden tears forming at the back of his eyes. "You wanted to get rid of our baby?" He had only learned that he was going to be a father a literal minute ago, but already he was feeling protective of their child.

She tugged her hand back and looked away. "I'm sorry for not telling you. This child further complicates our already complicated lives." She looked back at him. "If I told you, there's a possibility that you would want to keep it, and just imagine the kind of dangers it would bring. What would you do if your employers learn that you're the father of an enemy spy's child? What would your enemies do if they learned that you have a child?" She placed her hand at her middle. "And I can't be saddled with this burden. I have jobs lined up." She sniffled. "But I couldn't get rid of it, knowing that this is your baby too." She met his eyes, and somehow, he already knew what she was going to ask. "Do you want to keep it?"

Did he?

She was right. Keeping this child would pose dangers. The US president may have favoured him, but if word got out that Leon was sleeping with an enemy spy for the last eleven years, Leon wasn't sure if he was going to get off lightly.

The legal definition of "treason" in the United States constitution was muddy at best, and being convicted for it relied much on the semantics of the US law. Maybe he would be charged with espionage, although he didn't volunteer any information to Ada; she found it on her own. Or maybe he would be indicted for something else.

It would be hard to say. Leon had been sleeping with her for more than a decade, even going as far as fathering her child, and it would be all too easy for the brass to see what wasn't there and believe what they wanted to believe, even if it wasn't true.

Maybe they would pin all their crimes on Leon, just like how Carla Radames framed her.

He would be incarcerated. He would lose his reputation overnight—although that didn't matter to him. They would blackmail him using his baby, just like how they blackmailed him using Sherry Birkin. The US government wouldn't be above using his child against them.

And Ada. What would happen to the woman he loved—the woman he still loved, the woman he would never stop loving?

The most logical thing to do would be to get rid of this baby. Not just for his and Ada's safety, but because Leon couldn't imagine raising a child in a world where virus outbreaks could happen any second.

He now understood why Ada decided to leave him and keep her pregnancy—and desire for abortion—a secret. She had already thought of the things he was thinking about. She was always thinking ahead. She knew how risky it would be, what would be the repercussions, and how her and Leon's life would change. If they kept the baby, who was going to take care of it? Ada and Leon's jobs would keep them from being the best parents they could be. If they let other people take care of their kid, the kid would end up being neglected, and he had already seen enough damage in Sherry.

And what if their kid ended up being kidnapped, as a bargaining chip, or as test subject?

He rubbed his face with his hands. "Honestly? I don't know."

"See?" She ran a hand down her stomach. "This is why I didn't tell you. I thought of getting it aborted while still continuing on seeing you, but…I couldn't live that kind of lie. I can handle lies. I am made of lies. But this thing that I have with you…it's the only real thing that I have, and to continue on seeing you without telling you about the abortion just doesn't sound right. And if you somehow found out that you got me pregnant and I aborted the baby without telling you…I don't think I could recover from that fallout."

He held her hands, keeping her in place in case she wanted to run away again. "So you decided to leave me so you wouldn't have to tell me, while also not putting me in a position where I wouldn't be caught between a rock and a hard place. Is that it?"

She nodded.

"Why do you always do this? You always take on the burden of keeping me in the dark to protect me." He sighed. "You could have told me right from the beginning and saved us from this unnecessary heartbreak."

"I wanted to. But now I did, and you're doing the thing that I'm afraid of the most."

"Which is?"

"You're unsure of whether you want to keep this baby or not, which brings us to this whole dilemma. So I didn't tell you right from the start. And in leaving you, I would be no longer risking your job and safety, because you won't be associating with me anymore."

"You…" He gave a pained laugh. "Ada, I love you, but that was stupid. You didn't have to circumvent the problem. We could have avoided all that unnecessary drama if you—"

"If I what? If I told you that I was pregnant? If we debated on whether to keep this baby or not?" She scoffed. "Leon, the longer you keep on seeing me, the more dangerous our lives would get. Just because we've been getting by fine for the last eleven years doesn't mean that everything would still be normal in the next eleven. If I told you that I'm with your child and you wanted to keep it, what would happen then? You're going to be skirting around the law you once swore to uphold, and you're going to outright lie to your employers, your friends and colleagues, just to see me and you kid. You're already risking enough just by seeing me. This child doubles that risk. And I can't…" Tears were once again streaming down her face. "I can't let anything bad happen to you."

"We could have solved this together. You didn't have to…" He shook his head. "What is it you're not telling me? You're not this stupid." He felt her tug her hands back so he let them go, only to cup her face and wipe those tears away.

She turned her head away, hiding her face, so he said, "Babe, come on. Talk to me."

"This isn't me," she whispered. He wasn't used to seeing her cry this much, and he never wanted to see her cry again—except for happiness. "I'm not supposed to develop feelings for someone. But I did. I started caring for you all the way back in Raccoon, and when we went our separate ways, those feelings receded. And then we reunited in Spain. And you accepted my invitation to Barcelona, and we just kept on seeing each other and…" She chuckled. "Fucking hormones. I can't stop crying."

He kissed her cheek. "The only other time I'll make you cry is because of happiness, I promise you that."

She placed a hand over his. "I'm just a woman who fell in with you, nothing more."

At those words, Leon's mind thought back to that underground lab, where a woman he barely knew said those words as she died—or so he thought.

That was a grim experience, but he still smiled fondly at the recollection.

"I thought I was going to die back then," she said. "No use pretending. But I lived and met you again, and you reignited those feelings. So I had to keep on pretending. I didn't want to admit it so I pretended that I didn't love you, but when I found out I was pregnant…That was the moment that I admitted to myself that I do in fact love you, and I didn't want to feel that way. Yes, having this child is scary, but what's scarier is feeling something that I'm not supposed to feel."

"Who told you that you're not supposed to feel love?"

"The person who raised me to become a spy."

"Well, whoever that person is…" He kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her nose, and her cheeks. "That person is wrong. You're human. You're allowed to feel love. And people change. Who you were in Raccoon isn't the same person as the one standing before me."

"I don't believe that I deserve happiness, not with the kind of things that I have done."

"You do. You deserve happiness. And I deserve it too."

She sniffled. "Sometimes, I just want to escape with you. Escape from everything."

I really wanted to escape with you, Leon. Escape from everything.

"I promised you that we would escape, but you gotta help me out here." She smiled at those familiar words, so he kissed her on the lips, tasting the saltiness of her tears. "Can I have it? Can I have you?" Another kiss to her lips. "Can we have our baby?"

Her eyes widened. "You want to keep it?"

"I still don't know. But if you hold me at gunpoint, my answer would be yes."

Her tears finally stopped flowing. He took her hand and led her to the couch, letting her sit down, before going to the bathroom to retrieve tissues. He returned to where she was and wiped her face, but she batted his hands away and wiped her face on her own.

"I can wipe my own face," she said as she crumpled a tissue. "I'm not a baby."

"You're my baby."

She rolled her eyes. "You have literal, though unborn, baby."

She snuggled into him, and it took him back to that time six weeks ago when everything seemingly ended. He wanted to pretend that those six weeks never happened, that they remained on this couch, content to be just lying in each other's arms.

He carded her hair through his fingers. "When did you find out?"

She nuzzled his neck. "The afternoon before I came to see you six weeks ago. I was panicking, but I really wanted to see you."

"And then overnight, you decided that the best course of action was to leave me?"

"I was afraid of what would happen if I let this baby live. And I was afraid of what I feel for you."

"How far along are you?"

"Twelve weeks."

"Twelve weeks…Three months. Huh. So Baby Kennedy was conceived in Naples." He chuckled, and then shuddered upon remembering something. "You were working as Sullivan's bodyguard even when you're pregnant."

"I couldn't decide." She wrapped her arms around his waist. "At that point, I already cancelled four appointments with Planned Parenthood. So I thought that if I miscarried, then at least the decision would have been already made for me."

His hands trembled, and his voice shook when he said, "I'm glad nothing happened to you both." He kissed her forehead. "But no more jobs for now, okay?" He didn't even want to think about how he would feel if Ada never told him that she was pregnant with his child, only learn that she eventually lost that child.

She took deep breath. "Are we really going to keep it?"

"What does your head say?"

"To get rid of it."

"And what does your heart say?"

There was silence, and then, "To keep it."

He gently ran a hand up and down her back. "You know, my head always tells me that I should stop seeing you. I followed my heart anyway and kept on meeting up with you. And those were the only times that I can say I'm truly happy. I'm glad I ignored my head and listened to my heart. Earlier, when you were about to leave me for what seemed like the final time, I followed my heart and kissed you. And now we're here."

"When I learned that I was pregnant with your child—when I finally admitted to myself that I love you too…It was the one moment where everything felt right, like everything was fine, like I deserve to have this, to have you. Like I deserve to be happy. And then reality came crashing back, reminding me that I'm not supposed to have those things."

"I don't care what you're supposed to be. You're allowed to change."

She sat up straight and looked into his eyes. "But can we do it? Can we be parents? In this kind of world and with the kind of jobs that we have?"

He sat up, gathering her hands and kissing her knuckles. "I've been fighting in this war against bioterrorism for seventeen years. I think I can retire now."

"I don't think the president would let you go that easily."

"If he doesn't…maybe you can come work for the DSO? I can get you an immunity deal."

"I don't know, Leon." She looked away from him. "I love being a spy."

He gently tipped her chin towards him, meeting her eyes. "You can be a spy and a mother to our child at the same time."

"A spy working for whom?"

"Or we can run away," he said seriously.

She stared at him and at the resolute look in his eyes. "Do you mean that?"

"After all the shit I've been through?" He snorted. "I'm gonna go get my happy ending, whether they like it or not."

She gave him a sad smile and a pat on the cheek. "I can't, Leon. I'm not going to pull you out of this life and make things difficult for you. You have it good here. Friends, a permanent abode, colleagues who respect you…I don't want you to be constantly on the run, like me. If we're going to have this child, we need permanence and stability, and I cannot provide that."

"You can. If you work with me—with us in the DSO. Or the CIA, if you want to. But given your experience with B.O.W.s, I'm sure the president would want you in the DSO." He held her hands. "Didn't you want to escape? I'm going to help you escape. I'm going to help one of the world's deadliest spies escape from the past that constantly haunts and hunts her. Please let me protect you—and our baby."

"Can I think about it?"

"How long would it take you to think?"

"If you let me crash at your place for a few nights, it might speed up the process."

"Baby, I'll let you stay forever."

She hid her laugh with a sniffle and embraced him once again, wrapping her arms around him and laying her head on his chest. "How did I survive those six weeks without you?"

He hugged her back, bringing him closer to his body, as close as he could, erasing the bitterness of the past few weeks. "Beats me. I barely survived them myself."

They stayed like that for a while, not saying anything, just basking in each other's presence, trying to cram six weeks' worth of emotions into one hug.

"Why are you home anyway?" she said a little while later.

He laughed lightly. "My boss told me I looked like shit, said I couldn't let personal problems affect my job. Then forced me to go on a holiday until next Monday."

"Hm." She perked up. "So you have until Monday off?"

"Yeah." He kissed the crown of her head. "Don't tell me you have work, because I swear, Ada, our baby—"

"I don't have work." She sighed. "Maybe I should call Planned Parenthood, tell them I'm keeping the baby."

"You should, if that would give them peace of mind."

There was another lull in the conversation. Leon kept on playing with Ada's hair and murmured sweet nothings into her ear. She giggled, her laughter sounding like the tinkling of a wind chime during a humid summer afternoon.

"You know, I threw all your things in garbage bags too," she said, "but I couldn't get rid of them."

He chuckled. "Those garbage bags have been sitting on my floor since yesterday. I guess it's time to put them back where they originally belong." He stood up and stretched his arms.

"Let me help you," she said.

"But the baby—"

"Leon, I'm pregnant, not dying." She stood up and pinched his nose. "Light exercise is allowed. I'll let you do all the heavy lifting, if that makes you feel better."

He placed his hands on her waist. "It will."

"But first…" She bit her lip.

"What?"

"You'll need a new suit. I've seen how damaged your tux was the other night."

He groaned. "Not all those fittings again."

"You don't have a choice." She kissed his nose. "And I want strawberry mochi."

He laughed, lightly at first, until his body was shaking and the only support holding him up was his grip on Ada's waist.

"So that was why you wanted strawberry mochi back then," he said when his laughter died down. "All right. We'll go look for your strawberry mochi."

She smushed his cheeks. "I want red velvet muffins too."

"Woll ged dad doo," he said through his smushed cheeks.

Her arms encircled his neck. "And Leon?"

"What now?" He pretended to be annoyed, but really, he was loving every second of it.

She smiled. She looked radiant, like she didn't have a worry in the world, like none of the world's horrors had ever affected her. Leon would do anything and everything to keep her smiling like that.

She said, "I love you."

He mirrored her smile. "I love you too."

It didn't take long for their lips to reunite and be together again.

---

VI.

09:08, October 26, 2015, Monday

Half Street SE, Washington, D.C.

Leon had barely set his cup of coffee down on his desk when he felt eyes on his back.

He turned around and saw Helena on her chair, her arms crossed, and her eyes boring holes into his.

"What?" He placed his messenger bag to the side.

"You have a different aura today." Helena crossed her legs and leaned back in her seat. She looked like she was ready to hear a riveting story.

Maybe Leon would humour her.

"So? What happened?" she asked.

Leon looked around. There was a sudden hush, and not even the clacking of keyboards or mice could be heard. His colleagues were doing their best to look uninterested, but Leon was certain that whatever he was about to say to Helena, by the end of the day, it would become the hottest topic in the DSO (and FOS) rumour mill. Sherry would know, and of course Claire would too.

"Nothing," he said as he sat down.

"Don't give me that bullshit, Leon. I thought we were friends."

"We are." He booted his PC. "But I don't like the idea of everyone having their noses into my business."

"Please, Leon." Helena rolled her eyes. "Everyone here knows you broke up with your girlfriend, but here you come striding into the office after a week-long vacation with sunshine in your wake. What happened?"

"You're just saying that because you want gossip," he said accusatorily.

"That too." She rolled her chair towards him. "But also, I'm your friend and I'm invested in your wellbeing."

He sighed. "Fine. We…" He didn't want to be overheard, so he lowered his voice when he said, "We got back together."

Helena didn't gasp, but someone in the office sure did. It sounded like…Sherry?

Leon shook his head. Maybe he underestimated his colleagues; they were federal agents trained to get information even in the trickiest of situations. Overhearing gossip in an office should be a walk in the park for them.

"You got back together?" Helena repeated, smiling. "Leon, that's—That's great news."

He couldn't help but grin. "I know."

"How? What happened?"

"I'll tell you when these people stop eavesdropping on us."

"We're not eavesdropping!" someone said.

There was a chuckle, until the laughter spread into their entire office, filling the room with the joy that Leon felt.

He couldn't could help but laugh too.

Sherry came up to him and gave him a tight hug. "I'm so happy for you, Leon."

"I'm happy for me too," he said, patting Sherry's head.

Sherry released Leon and immediately whipped her phone out of her pocket. "Claire would be very happy to hear this."

Leon rolled his eyes. He was sure that he was going to get a call from Claire soon.

"All right, everyone," Leon said, making sure his voice was heard in the entire floor, "gossip time is over. Back to work."

Everyone shuffled back into their desks, and sounds of low chattering, chuckles, keyboards clacking, and mice clicking resumed.

Helena patted his arm. "Really, Leon. I'm very happy for you two."

Leon grinned, then chuckled. Using the cover of the office background noise, he carefully said under his breath, "You mean for us three."

Helena narrowed her eyes at him, and upon realisation, widened her eyes. She gasped, her hand covering her mouth. When she got over the initial shock, she gripped his arm and said, "You gotta tell me everything. Over dinner, because our hour-long lunch break wouldn't be enough. My treat."

Helena was his sole confidante when it came to all things Ada. She knew of his troubles with his ladylove; Ashley didn't count because she didn't even know of Ada's name. And when Leon had told Ada that someone else must know of their situation or else he would burst from all the secrecy, Ada had agreed.

It really helped to talk sometimes. Besides, he felt like he owed Helena with how much she helped him during this temporary breakup.

Claire and Sherry would know too, in time, once Ada got comfortable with the idea of finally meeting his friends.

"I'll hold you to that," Leon told Helena. "But not tonight. I have a dinner date."

---

Half an hour later, Leon's boss called him into his office.

"Sir," Leon said, standing at attention even though he didn't need to.

"I'd tell you to sit but this wouldn't be long," his boss said. "I heard you got back together with your girl."

Gossip travelled faster than light, it seemed.

He couldn't help but smile. "I did."

His boss nodded sagely. "Are you sure it's the right decision? I mean, some people get back together with their exes, and things get more disastrous the second time around."

"I'm sure, sir. I've never been surer of anything in my life."

There was another nod from his boss. "Can I continue to count on your expertise and professionalism?"

"Of course, sir."

His boss stood up and clapped him on his shoulder. "Welcome back, Kennedy."

His smile widened. "Thank you, sir."

"All right, get back to work."

Leon motioned to open the door, but before he was fully out of his boss's office, his boss called him.

"And Kennedy?"

"Sir?"

"Happiness looks good on you."

Leon chuckled. "Thank you, sir."

---

18:37, October 26, 2015, Monday

Mount Pleasant, Washington, D.C.

Leon opened the door to his flat and found Ada lounging on the couch, afghan blanket draped over her, while watching a feature show about luxurious hotels on the television.

"Hi, hon," she said, smirking, as she reached for the bowl of taco salad on the table.

"Hey, sexy," he said, grabbing the bowl and giving it to her.

He sat on the couch beside her and placed a kiss to her temple. "I thought we were going to have dinner. Why are you eating taco salad?"

"Just because I'm eating taco salad doesn't mean I can't eat dinner." She held a forkful of the food to him, and he ate it. "Well? How was your day?"

"It was fine," he said when he finished chewing. "The whole office knows we got back together. The FOS will too, and Sherry was talking to Claire on the phone during the entire lunch break. And I told Helena that we're expecting."

"An uneventful day, then. Like mine. I just watched documentaries on Netflix all day." She set the bowl on the coffee table and rubbed her stomach. "The baby wants a burger."

He gently poked her nose. "You mean you want a burger."

He wrapped an arm around her waist, bringing her closer to him, but instead of just sitting beside him, Ada cuddled up to him, encircling his waist with her arms and entangling their legs together.

The afghan blanket fell on the floor.

Her eyes were on the TV, which was talking about a room in a five-star hotel at Posillipo, Naples.

"That was where we stayed," she said fondly, running a hand up and down her middle.

He used his thumb to rub circles at the side of her waist. "Yeah." He placed a kiss to her cheek. "You remember that night?" They already have a that night, and now, they have another that night—a night that resulted in a new life, not just for the baby, but for Leon and Ada as well.

She chuckled. "In great detail."

His hand slipped under the hem of her shirt; for once, she wasn't wearing any of his shirts. "Wanna do a re-enactment?"

She straddled him, placing butterfly kisses along his jaw. "I seem to recall that we were on a bed at that time."

He placed his hands under her thighs, supporting her weight, and then stood up. Her legs immediately wrapped around his waist while her hands encircled his neck.

"To the bed it is."

He carried her to bedroom, the TV and taco salad forgotten.

To be fair, Ada was placing open-mouthed kisses on his neck. How could he even remember something as trivial like the TV still being on and the taco salad still on the coffee table?

---

20:20, October 26, 2015, Monday

Mount Pleasant, Washington, D.C.

They were supposed to have dinner. Leon thought that they would go someplace nice—maybe not fine-dining nice, but definitely nicer than the fast food chain two blocks away from Leon's place.

She said she wanted a burger, but then changed her mind and ordered a salad instead. However, she ended up consuming half of Leon's fries taking and intermittent bites out of his burger. No matter how much he told her to get her own food, she always ate his instead. He wasn't sure if it was the pregnancy or if she was doing it on purpose.

"I can get you your own fries and burger if you want," Leon said when Ada reached for his fries. Again.

"No," she said, dipping the fries in a mix of mayonnaise and ketchup. "Your fries taste better."

He sighed in exasperation. "How does that even make sense?"

"I don't know." She wiped the corner of her lips. "It just tastes better when I steal it from you."

Leon leaned back in his seat and let Ada steal his food while he resigned to eating Ada's salad. It tasted good, but it wouldn't be enough for a grown man of his size.

"You know what, I'm gonna get more fries and burgers," he said as he scooted out of the booth.

A few minutes later, he returned with fries, soda, and burgers for two people, and a strawberry ice cream for Ada.

She immediately reached for the ice cream. "I've made my decision."

He took a bite out of his burger. Finally, some protein. He had been craving for something filling all night, and the rabbit food wasn't cutting it. "About what?"

"Who to work for."

Leon stopped mid-chew. He stared at Ada, at her hair still damp from the shower, at the jacket (Leon's) and shirt (Leon's) she was wearing, and at the smudge of strawberry ice cream on her cheek. He wiped that smudge off with a napkin before taking a sip of his soda.

"And?" He placed his cup of soda down. His heart was beating like crazy. He didn't know what was going to be Ada's decision for their baby and future, but whatever it was that she decided, he would honour it. "What have you decided?"

She ate another spoonful of her ice cream. "I think I'm gonna take you up on your offer."

Leon couldn't stop the grin that threatened to break his face in half. "Yeah?"

"I've had time to think about it." She dipped her fries—her own fries this time—in that mayo-ketchup combo. "I don't want this kid to have a life like mine—always on the run, always sleeping with one eye open, always constantly watching my back. I want our baby to know love and warmth. I want our baby to have a place to call home, to set down roots, to have friends and family and a life. And the only way I could do that is if I'm with you. I can't do this alone."

"You won't. You'll have me." He reached for her hand and she held on tight. "You deserve this. We deserve this. We deserve to be happy."

"But Leon…I can't do it immediately. I still have some loose ends to tie up."

He felt like his heart has skidded to a halt. "What do you mean?"

"I'm gonna need to leave for a while and burn some bridges."

"How…How long will you be gone?" His throat suddenly felt dry. "And you're gonna be alone? Ada, you're pregnant. I'm not just gonna let you leave. What if something bad happens?"

"I didn't say that I'm gonna leave you." She squeezed his hand and didn't let go. "I was hoping that maybe you could come with me."

"Yeah?"

"Just think about it." She tried to eat her ice cream with one hand, but the cup kept on sliding on the table, so Leon held the cup in place so she could eat her ice cream in peace. "You and I make a good team, don't we?"

He chuckled. "We do. Our kid is gonna be a badass."

"You said you were gonna help me escape. You still up for it?"

He kissed her knuckles. "I think I can fit it in my schedule."

There was a glimmer in her eyes. "Coincidentally, a lot of the people I need to cut ties with are connected to B.O.W.s. You can help me while also getting some work done."

"I'll have to ask my boss about it first, but personally, I'll think he'll love the idea." He looked serious. "But can you wait for a week? I'll have to arrange your immunity deal."

"Not just mine—yours too. I refuse to let you get in trouble because of me."

He nodded. "And once I get the go signal, we can go on a short around-the-world trip apprehending the baddies. Do you think a month would be enough?"

She shook her head. "I think two months would be the minimum."

He frowned. "You're gonna be five months pregnant then. I won't let you work in that condition."

She nodded. "All right. I'm gonna work for a month, and then leave the rest to you. How does that sound?"

He grinned. "Can't wait. Because I'll have my future wife and kid with me for a whole month."

She looked at him fondly. "Your future wife, huh?"

He opened her hand and traced a finger along her palm. "See this line here? This line says you're gonna marry me."

She rolled her eyes. "Stop bullshitting me, Leon. I know for a fact that you don't know palmistry."

"Hey, I may not know how to predict the future, but I can predict one thing."

"What?"

"No matter how shitty the world gets, you, me, and our baby—we're gonna be happy."

Her eyes gleamed, and there was a small smile on her lips. "We are."

It wasn't just an agreement—it was a declaration and a conviction.

Happiness could be ephemeral, but it could be eternal too, if he worked hard enough.

He would. She would. They would.

And suddenly, for the first time in many, many years, Leon made plans far ahead—where to buy a house, what colour to paint the nursery, what kind of ring to get for Ada…

For the first time in many, many years, he looked forward to the future.

Leon and Ada's new life began now.

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A/N: if you made it this far i applaud you. thank you for putting up with this. you deserve a gold medal also remind me to never write anything over 10k ever again

Mini playlist for this fic:

1. "Miserable At Best" by Mayday Parade

2. "Hate Me" by Blue October

3. "Falling" by Florence + The Machine

4. "And the Snakes Start to Sing" by Bring Me The Horizon

5. "Floral & Fading" by Pierce The Veil

6. "When You Can't Sleep At Night" by Of Mice & Men