Warnings: no beta, OOCness, English is not my first language, inconsistent tenses, i am very bad at prepositions, mentions of alcohol, curse words, allusions to sexual situations
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.
A/N: Ooooh boy. Post-ID Leon was such a challenge to write, so I have probably butchered his characterisation 😰 Also I may have forgotten some lore things 😰
Leon was no stranger to secrets.
Some secrets he kept to himself, like how nightmares kept him awake and how the only way he could go back to sleep is if he had a bottle of alcohol near his bed. (Or maybe through the soothing voice of someone who rarely stayed, followed by her gentle fingers running through his hair.) Some secrets were not secrets at all, because people he trusted—his friends, and some of his colleagues—were privy to his thoughts, and he had confided in them. (And in her, who knew him more than he knew himself.)
Some secrets, however, must be carefully handled, and must be revealed only to the right people. He may not be Claire's most favourite person right now, and he might have sabotaged his eight-year friendship with her, but what good would going public with the information he had do? He wasn't certain if he had made the right choice, and part of him thought that he had made a grievous error, because really, who would throw away a friendship like that? He and Claire had forged a bond in a veritable hell on earth, but Leon had morals he ascribed to—he just wasn't sure if they were good morals. (And he had forged a bond with another woman too, in same and different hellscapes. One might think that her grey morals had rubbed off on him, but this wasn't her influence on him that made him act like this—it was his choice to not share this information, his choice to preserve peace by withholding things.)
It wouldn't be the first time that he withheld information. For his Raccoon City report, he made sure to keep Claire and her out of it. For his Spain report, there was no mention of her at all, and not even Ashley, bless her, mentioned her.
He promised himself that he would stop things. But at what cost? At the cost of losing a close friend? At the cost of losing himself?
Where had that wide-eyed rookie cop gone? Had the horrors of the world finally broken him?
He guessed they did. He wasn't that rookie cop anymore, not for a long time. He had changed. Naïve idealism could only get him so far, and the US government, as he had come to know, was a dog-eats-dog world. He had to play the game or he would lose—and in a way, he already did. He had lost his faith in a lot of things. He had seen how the system that should have protected its citizens became the very system that condemned them.
Shen May and Claire wanted to go public with the information, but Leon wanted to solve problems from the inside. So naturally, his first course of action was to tell the president.
"This contains evidence of Secretary Wilson's crimes," Leon had said as he slid the chip across the president's desk. There had been no one else in the Oval Office but the two of them—not even the Secret Service. Leon had requested to be alone with the president—better be careful than sorry—and President Graham trusted him enough to comply with his request. After all, Leon's word was the deciding factor that made the president not declare war on China.
He had recounted what Shen May—God rest her soul, if God still cared about people like her and him—had told him about the chip, and then told the president an abridged account of his experiences, starting from the killings on the submarine en route to Shanghai, up until the dissolution of Jason's mutated body in acid.
He wasn't certain if he did the right thing in withholding information from Claire. He was certain, however, that this was the best course of action for now—if the head of state wanted to go public, then they would, but as things stood, Leon knew the president very well, and he also knew that he wouldn't go public with it.
Spencer Mansion, Raccoon City, Rockfort Island, Penamstan, South America, Spain, Queen Zenobia, Harvardville, Pittsburgh—all these events were either kept confidential, covered up, or watered down for public consumption. But for Leon, who had the president's ear and a high enough clearance that would make most of the military top brass balk, flashing his badge would be more than enough to gain access to classified information. Sometimes, he didn't even need to, because he had experienced the events himself.
And now, it seemed like the events at Shanghai and Wilson's lab would also be covered up.
He was enraged when the government decided to erase Raccoon City off the map. There were still people alive in there, and their government just gave up on them. Leon could still be a cop, but his government blackmailed him, threatening Sherry Birkin's safety, just so he could be the government's personal lapdog—a lapdog who wore an ill-fitting suit and carried a fancy badge that afforded him superfluous privileges.
"We cannot go public with this," President Graham had gravely but predictably said. "Imagine how the public would react if they learned what Wilson was doing. Imagine the panic, the fear, the terror...Weren't the past outbreaks enough?"
Leon knew what terror was. Leon knew was fear was. He had first-hand experiences in both, sometimes staring at terror and fear right in the face—in the tangible form of a mutated monster.
He has vanquished terror and fear. They also always found a way to come back, but in a form more horrifying than their last incarnation.
What was it that Jason had said about terror? That it started with fear. With humans. Because humans feared the unknown. That one cultivated it and watched it spread. So terror and fear were like viruses in their own right. Once the seed of terror has been planted, it will niggle at the back of one's mind, eating one from the inside out, until it spread into the population like the plague.
And in a way, it was a plague. A plague among communities. A plague in one's mind. A plague that would infect you and everyone around you, until all there was to know was fear.
What did Leon fear? He had faced unspeakable horrors all throughout his adult life. Shouldn't he be inured to these kinds of things? Did he fear death? A painful death? Not being able to save the world? Not being able to save the people he cared about?
Viruses stopped spreading when proper measures were taken. Jason said that Leon would help spread fear, but no, he would end it. He would stop it. He may have parted with Claire on bad terms, but he did tell her a year ago in Harvardville that he was gonna wipe this virus off the face of the earth. It was just that they didn't know at that time that they had different ideas of going about it.
Maybe in the future, the next president who would assume office would want to publicise the events of all these horrific events. Maybe in the future, Leon would still be a federal agent who had the president's complete trust. And in the future, if the president really wanted to go public, then Leon would give his support.
But not now, not when the current president wanted to keep things on the down low. Not now, when one wrong move from him and Sherry's life might as well be forfeit. President Graham wasn't the one directly overlooking Sherry's welfare, but the people who did would make her life worse than Raccoon if Leon didn't behave.
"I would come under heat," the president had continued, "and I wouldn't mind that. I can handle it. But my family would suffer. I don't want my wife and daughter to go through another political scandal. Especially Ashley. Do you want her to go through another harrowing event?"
And there it was, one of Leon's known weaknesses—the people he cared about. Ashley was a very strong and brave woman, but Leon regularly accompanied her to a government-appointed therapist to help her deal with the horrors of Spain, among other things.
"No, sir," he had aid. "I would never want Ashley to experience that again." He also didn't want the entire population of the world to go through another outbreak, but that was too grand of a matter. He should start with small steps.
Like changing things from the inside, applying internal pressure. He already knew how the government worked. He could try pulling the strings from his end.
If Claire revealed what she would eventually know about Wilson, her life would be in danger. Leon had told Shen May as much. He thought that it would be best if he handled things himself, because if he ended up being the person who would reveal the truth, then at least the president's favour would protect him. His privileges would protect him. The Whistleblower Protection Act would protect him. His reputation alone would protect him. And it might make him seem like a shitty human being for using the president's trust in him, but the president was also using Leon's trust in him. Like holding Ashley's wellbeing over his head. He knew that Leon had a soft spot for her.
"Just look at the past outbreaks, Leon," President Graham had said. "Look at what it did to the world. Look at the mistrust, the panic, the paranoia. Look at the people using whatever public information they could get their hands on to brew their own viruses." He had shaken his head. "Maybe one day, another president would choose to tell the truth, but not me. I want to keep my people in the dark, I want them to live under a false sense of security, if that was what it took to keep the peace." He had stood up from his chair, going around his desk to clasp Leon's arm firmly. "And you are going to help me keep the peace, aren't you? I already said as much in my speech at Penamstan. We will be the source of hope to those who seek freedom and salvation from terror."
It was a subtle reminder that even though Leon had vast freedom to his movements, he still was a federal agent, and thus constrained with shackles, no matter how long those shackles may be. Leon could only nod and say, "Yes, sir."
"You're a good man, Leon," the president had said, clapping his arm once more. "I'm counting on you." President Graham had taken the chip. "I'll let the right people—people you and I both trust—take a look at what's inside, and then we can decide on the best course of action from there. In the meantime, go home, and I'll see you tomorrow."
It didn't matter if the president had taken the chip. Leon had already made multiple copies anyway. As much as he trusted the president, he didn't trust his government. Who knew how many more Senator Ron Davises and Defence Secretary Wilsons were out there.
Contrary to what the president thought, Leon didn't think that he was a good man, but at least he was trying to do what he believed to be the right thing. He just had a different way of doing it than Claire.
In hindsight, Leon should have expected this, but the thing about this woman was that she was usually unexpected.
He just got home from work, bone-tired from meeting after meeting, when he found her in his kitchen, setting up the table with plates and utensils for two, a wine in an ice bucket, a lone rose in a vase, and candles.
Freaking candles.
"Good. You're back," she said as if she lived in his apartment, as if it was common occurrence to find her in his home fixing him dinner. "I was afraid your meetings would keep you longer."
That universe loved to mock him, that much he was certain. First, he invited people out to dinner, but no one wanted to go with him. And now, the person he desperately wanted to have dinner with was in his freaking kitchen putting some freaking steak on a freaking plate.
He hasn't seen her in a while. He should be happy. Instead, he was livid.
He balled his fists to restrain his fury.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" he asked, levelling her with a glare.
It seemed, however, that she expected his anger, because she wasn't fazed. "I heard about what happened. And that you've been asking people out to dinner, so here I am, serving you dinner. Now sit before this gets cold. It took me three hours to make this, you know?"
He laughed, not because he was happy, but because this whole damn situation was too incredulous.
"Leon?" she said. To her credit, she actually looked concerned, but he didn't want to believe it.
"You can't keep doing this," he said, the laughter now replaced with a scowl. "You can't keep doing this to me. You can't just drop in and out of my life unannounced, like I'm some toy that you only pick up when you're bored."
She strode towards him. She wore a form-fitting red dress and black heels, and as angry he was, he still couldn't help but think about how goddamned gorgeous she looked.
"Leon, are you all right?" He didn't want to believe the concerned tone in her voice.
"All right? You're asking me if I'm all right?" He was angry, not just at her, but at everything. The rage simmering inside his body was threatening to explode. "Four months ago, I woke up to find you gone. You didn't leave a note. Four months, Ada, four months without contact. And now you expect me to welcome you back with open arms?"
She reached out to touch him, gingerly placing a hand around his arm. He wondered how did he look. Did he look like a frightened prey lashing out? Like an emotionally unstable man about to blow up?
Like a mutation about to spread fear and terror?
The hand on his arm tightened, and he could feel all the rage and tension flow out of him. Her hand acted like a conduit that absorbed his anger, and soon, his shoulders were sagging and she was taking him into her arms.
Before he knew it, his arms wound around her waist and his face was buried in her neck.
"I'm sorry," he said.
She ran her hands up and down his back. "I should be the one apologising. You know how my work is."
"I know. All too well."
"But that shouldn't be an excuse." She gently lifted his head from her neck so she could stare at him. He felt so weak, so tired, and he wanted to do nothing but crawl into his bed and have a hundred years' worth of dreamless sleeps.
She brushed his cheeks with her thumbs, rubbing them against the stubble that he was too lazy to shave these days. "I heard about Wilson, about Shanghai. Are you all right?"
"You heard, or did you investigate for yourself?"
She gave him a small smile. "Both. I know about the White House attacks and who was behind it." She stopped brushing his cheeks, resting her hands on his shoulders instead.
"You know about Wilson? About Jason and Shen May?"
"I knew of Jason, of Wilson and his inhibitors, but Shen May…I can't say I've heard of her before until I've read your report."
"And the chip?"
"I have long since obtained and parted ways with one. The information stored inside it is old news to me."
He stared at her, trying process all the new information he has learned. "How long have you known about these?"
"Will it change the current the situation?"
He laughed lightly, although there was no humour in it. "I guess not." He shook his head. "I'm not sure if I made the right decision."
"About what?"
"About the chip. Shen May and Claire wanted to go public with it, but not me." He was breathing heavily, but after his outburst, he felt lighter. He had just relieved himself of some feelings that were weighing heavily in him, and her hands on his face certainly helped in anchoring his emotions. "I'm not going to be the one who will spread and terror into the world. I've been working my ass off to stop it. If that chip goes public, then what, mass hysteria? I won't spread it, Ada. Fear is a virus, and I refuse to be instrumental in spreading it."
"Do you want to tell me what happened?" She already knew what happened, but she didn't know about the things Leon didn't include in his report.
He briefly contemplated not telling her, but what secret did he have to hide from her? She knew him better than he knew himself, and she had seen all the things he had seen. So he told her what he hadn't written in his official report, what he hadn't told President Graham.
"After I've seen what Jason had become, he told me that that I will spread the fear." He removed his hands from around her waist, scared of hurting her lest he let his anger overtake him. "You know why I became a cop. I want to help and protect people. I know how this government works, and its very core is made up of corrupt people. I want to affect change from within to avoid senseless deaths. Claire wants to apply external pressure, and I want to do it internally. She's angry at me because I didn't give her the chip, but if I let that information go public, what good would it do? It would just create more chaos." He sighed in defeat. "Tell me, was that the right decision? Was I right in helping the president keep his citizens living under a false sense of peace? Was I right in wanting to preserve peace this way?"
She took his hands and kissed each knuckle, each bruise, each scar. "These hands were meant to save and protect, not destroy." She kissed the back of his hands. "And that was what you sought to do—protect the people by protecting their peace. They won't know what dangers happen deep underground, because you're the one who deals with them" She kissed his forehead, his nose, his cheeks. "You're the reason why they can sleep peacefully at night." She brought her hands to the back of his neck, playing with the hair on his nape. "This wouldn't be the first cover-up your government will do, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. Sometimes, lies are needed to preserve the peace, even if just a veneer of it. Are you prepared to lie, Leon?"
For the people that he vowed to protect and serve? "Yeah." For his family and friends? "Yes, I am." For Ada? "But I can't lie to you. You know me too well."
She shook her head. "Sometimes I feel like I don't know you at all. You continue to surprise me, especially with how you ended things with Ms Redfield."
At her mention of Claire, his heart sank. "Do you think she'll ever forgive me?"
"I don't know her personally, but based on what you've told me about her, your end goals align. I'm sure you'll meet somewhere in the middle. Same ideology, different method. There has to be a compromise."
He felt his eyes water. He sacrificed his long-standing friendship with Claire for what he believed to be the greater good, but he still wasn't sure if that was the best course of action.
"You're not convinced."
"Not quite." He placed his hands at her waist. "I trust the president and some of his staff, but the entire government?" He scoffed. "I'm part of an official investigation team, but I'm also doing my own investigation on the side. They will keep secrets from me, I'm sure of it." He let his gaze fall to the floor. "Sometimes I think if cooperating with Claire was the right choice. Would it force the government's hand? And then I remember Sherry." He took a deep breath and looked at Ada. There was anger in his expression once more, anger that was directed to the government he served. "I was forced into this job. You know that. They held Sherry's safety over my head. If Shen May, and eventually Claire, revealed that information, what do you think would happen to them? Back then Sherry was just a twelve-year-old kid, and they were already prepared to do horrible things to her. I'm sure Shen May and Claire would have suffered the same fate, if not worse."
She brushed the hair away from his eyes. "You're willing to take the fall for them. Better you than them. Is that what you're thinking?"
He nodded. Sometimes, this woman knew him too well for her own good. "I already have the president's favour. And if I choose to say something, I'll be protected by the Whistleblower Protection Act. The same couldn't be said for Shen May, whom Jason killed—and for Claire. Her brother might be BSAA, but this government hates the BSAA. That would only serve as another nail to the coffin." He groaned. "Does this make sound like I have a messiah complex?"
She bit her lip. "A bit. But that's just who you are. You help and protect people. That's a major tenet of your character, and one of the reasons why I admire you so much." She patted his cheek and disentangled herself from him. "You're choosing to spare the people from new horrors. What they don't know wouldn't hurt them, is that right?" She grabbed the plates on the table and put one into the microwave oven.
"That's the idea, yes." He leaned against the kitchen island. "I keep thinking, wouldn't it be better if the populace was more well informed?"
"Some things are better left in the dark."
He crossed his arms. "Like how you choose to keep me in the dark?"
They stared at each other before chuckling.
"I thought you were mad at me," she said.
"I am. I know that leaving without notice is your style, but four months of radio silence? Do you know how worried I was?"
"I'm sorry, okay?" The microwave dinged and she put the other plate inside it. "I was deep undercover and they were watching me like a hawk. I couldn't risk it. I couldn't risk you."
"Can you tell me about it?" he asked, even though he already knew what her answer would be.
"You know I can't." She leaned against the island, standing beside him.
He nodded, and she laid her head on his shoulder.
"I threatened to report Jason and Shen May when I found out what they were up to. But look at me. I'm sleeping with you. I've always omitted you out of my reports. I handed you that Plaga sample."
"To be fair, I had you at gunpoint. Even though you could have disarmed me in probably ten different ways."
"Exactly. And I couldn't even give Claire that chip. Which is more destructive—giving you that sample, or not handing the chip to Claire?"
Leon didn't know what happened to that sample. Maybe Ada still had it, but most likely, she had already given it away to her employers. That had been two years ago, and further theorising about its fate was futile.
"Sometimes I feel like I don't know you at all." He pulled her by the waist and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "But moments like this, when I'm straddling the line between white, grey, and black morals, I think I can understand you a little better."
They stayed like that—her head on his shoulder, his arm around her waist—for a while until the microwave dinged, and even then, neither made a move. He wanted to stay just like this, standing so close to her, not having to worry about anything.
She eventually broke the silence. "Do you feel better now?"
"Not quite. But I will be. Eventually." He closed his eyes. He felt like he could fall asleep standing like this.
"I'm gonna make you feel better later."
"How?"
"I'll leave that to your imagination."
He laughed. Despite it all—the anger, the inner turmoil, the anxiety—he found himself laughing. "I have a pretty wild imagination when it comes to you."
"You'll find that I'm a lot wilder than your imagination."
"Don't I know it." He sighed. "Four months without contact, huh? You haven't gone that long without sending me a message." He chuckled. "Look at my fingernails. I stopped trimming them regularly."
Ada extricated himself from beside him, and he already mourned the loss of her contact. But she stood in front of him and took his hands in hers. "I'll make it up to you, okay? Starting with dinner."
"I'm supposed to be mad at you, but dinner sounds lovely."
Then she kissed him on the lips for the first time in four months, and like a man dying of thirst in a desert, Leon greedily took whatever she was willing to give.
They broke apart. He surged forward for more, but she stopped him with a finger on his lips. "Dinner first."
He initially wanted to say Dinner can wait, but he really had been wanting to have dinner with someone for the last few months. So no matter how eager he was to jump straight into the more physical side of their complicated not-relationship, he nodded.
"All right. Let's have dinner."
Raccoon City changed him for the worst. Ada Wong changed him for the better. So he knew that for that night, it wouldn't be the bottle of alcohol under his bed that would lull him to sleep, but rather, her gentle fingers playing with his hair, while her soothing voice kept his nightmares at bay.
There was still a lot to be dealt with, but for one night, he could have his favourite version of peace—lying in her arms as his worries faded away into nothingness.
A/N: It was really hard for me to pin down Leon's characterisation post-ID, but here are some of the things that helped me understand him:
1. Suzaku Kururugi and Lelouch Lamperouge from Code Geass. Suzaku, a victim of an oppressive government, wants to change that government from the inside by working for them. Lelouch, another victim of that oppressive government, wants to... Well, I don't want to give any spoilers, but let's just say that the contrast between these two friends, especially Suzaku's desire to change things from within, helped me understand Leon. Sort of.
2. Kaladin Stormblessed (my son) and Dalinar Kholin (old man tight-butt) from The Stormlight Archive. Kaladin suffers from depression and survivor's guilt, among other things, and he mourns all the people he failed to protect, not even thinking about the countless of lives he had saved. Dalinar, during his youth, invaded and conquered lands for the glory of his nation. Now, he's an ageing general, and while he's still a force to be reckoned with, he no longer hungers for battle, and his reputation is suffering due to his apparently deteriorating sanity. He was also an alcoholic. I thought that Leon shared some traits with both Kaladin and Dalinar.
As soon as I've made the connection to these familiar characters, I had an epiphany. I know that I suck at explaining things, but if you know Code Geass and Stormlight, then maybe you can understand my ramblings 😂 This was how I understood post-ID Leon, and if you have differing views, I'd be very happy to hear them.