Part One: White Knight Syndrome

A gruesome mistake.

A second too long.

A mad man with nothing to lose.

Columbia- 2002

The dirty floor wasn't doing anything but making his face itch. He groaned, trying to add volume to the silence that was his current existence. He wasn't sure how he'd gotten here. He wasn't sure who'd left him.

His hands tensed and found themselves unbound for the first time in days.

They'd tried, at first, to drown the truth out of him. They'd tried water torture and smacking the shit out of him. They'd tried, after that, to get him to loosen his tongue with coercion. Look what we can promise you. Look what we can offer.

When that failed, they'd left him on the floor like garbage.

He watched a spider skitter through his blood and blink as a big red blob slid into his eye.

Manuella was gone. Krauser had betrayed him for the use of his arm. The fight was brutal. Ugly. It was pain in ways that had no name. Because why? Why?

Because they'd been friends, he and Jack. They'd been friends.

Sorta.

Enough that the first stab to his lower back had more than surprised Leon, it had nearly cost him the fight. He hadn't seen it coming. Sure, they'd argued. Sure, they'd shouted. Sure, Jack was wounded and scared and broken. But he'd thought if they just got him back. If they just got him back to the compound, they could fix him.

Jack knew better.

Jack knew his arm was lost to him.

Jack wasn't a man who handled a disability well.

And he blamed Leon for the loss of it all.

Why?

Because Leon had chosen to protect Manuella against impossible odds. When things had turned hopeless, Leon had stuck to her side like glue. Jack, cut adrift, had battled against enemies too many to count. He'd lost more than his arm in that battle; he'd lost his faith in comrades.

Choosing to protect the target had cost Leon his partner.

And Jack repaid that loss in blood.

The knife had burned going in. It sank deep, it drove a cry from his mouth as he'd nearly gone to his face on the ground with the force of it, and barely held his feet as Jack added a kick to the back of the knee to put him there.

As he wrenched the blade free, he shouted, "How does it feel, comrade!? How does it feel to get stabbed in the back!?"

The heat of the blood pouring down his skin acted like a shock rod and drove Leon to his feet. He staggered, he ripped his own knife from his vest and pointed it at Krauser, "Don't be stupid, Jack! This was the JOB! It was the mission! I did what needed done!"

"You betrayed me for a piece of ass!"

The hurled horror of that shout echoed over the steep valley. Leon circled him, his left leg going numb. It was a good stab. Krauser had likely gotten him right in the fucking kidney.

He wasn't sure how long he had before it incapacitated him and left him for dead.

"I never touched that girl," Quiet, soft, emphatic - Leon implored him, "I never touched her. She was the mission, Jack. She was the reason we came. I couldn't leave her to die!"

"You ignorant son of a bitch, you left me to die!"

The guilt joined the pain in his side as Leon shook his head, "I didn't! I had to make a choice. I had to! I had to protect the girl. Otherwise what are we doing here?! We can't let the innocent die, Jack! That's what we do! We save the girl!"

"No! NO! You save the girl! You choose the girl over your partner! Me?" Jack stopped circling, "I kill men who betray me. There's nothing worse, nothing, than a traitor."

Traitor. A word that meant something to a man like Leon. Traitor. A man who betrayed what he believed in for something evil. Was he? Was he a traitor? He'd left Jack for dead, that was true. But his intentions had been good. They'd been right.

He was right.

Wasn't he?

He just didn't know anymore.

With one arm lost to him, Jack was still formidable. They battled across the burning grass as the compound blazed behind them. They threw punches and bled and fell.

When Jack was on the ground with Leon's knife to his throat and his arm poised to snap Krauser's neck, Leon had begged, one last time, "Please, Jack. It's not too late."

And Krauser had spat, "It was too late the moment you left me behind. I won't be a cripple, Kennedy. Finish it!"

Leon had started to let go and the first whine of a bullet surprised them both. It struck the grass beside Leon's hip and tossed up dirt and mud. It bit like a land shark into the ground and chunked sod in a hot splatter.

A warning shot, clearly.

Leon started to drop Jack and the other man bellowed, "NO! NO! Not like this! You kill me! You hear me!? You kill me, Kennedy! You kill me!"

People raced from the flickering firelight and grabbed for them. Jack pleaded, desperately, "No! Please! Kill me! KILL ME! KENNEDY! YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

They dragged them apart. Leon slumped, nearly too weak to do anything else as they dragged him. Jack's final plea reached his ears as they shoved him into a van. "LEON!"

And the darkness snapped closed around him.

They asked him questions when he awoke. They treated his wounds. They fixed him - so they could torture him again. It was a cycle. Fix him, fuck him up. Fix him, fuck him up.

He was beyond hope here, he knew that.

Whatever they wanted to know, he didn't know it. They asked about Wesker. They asked about something called Project Pentacle. They asked about The Initiative.

He didn't know about any of it. What he knew of Wesker was limited. It was useless. Didn't they understand? Torturing him wouldn't make his clearance any higher to learn the things they wanted.

He wasn't anyone. Just a grunt. Just a worker bee.

Just a fool who finished the job and left his friends to die.

He started to rise and his arm gave out. He went back to his face in the blood on the floor. There was a squeal of metal and a cool breeze touched his cheek.

Sleek red heels appeared beside his face and voices filled his ears.

The voice that spoke first was his captor, or one of them, "He's useless. He knows nothing. I don't understand why you want him. We were going to insert him into the Nemesis program."

Jesus. Was that still active? He'd been sure that was shut down with the fall of the labs in Raccoon. Apparently, not.

And then a familiar dulcet tone replied musically, "He has value. More than you know. I should have your ass drawn and quartered for what you've done to him. Did you run this up the flagpole before you started torturing him?"

The other voice sounded nervous now, "...no. They said to interrogate the man we found."

"Yes. And yet you found two men. Two. Where's the other one?"

The feet shifted. The voice replied, "He's gone. He gave us what we needed. He's been taken care of."

Jack. Jesus. Leon made a small sound of regret.

The red shoes shifted back to him, "You were to interogate the other. Not this one. This one was off limits. He's under my protection. I should split you open and watch you die screaming."

The other voice came terrified now, "Ma'am. Please. Please. We had orders. I followed them. I didn't think -"

"No. You didn't. Get the chopper ready. He needs emergency medical attention. You fucking idiot. If he dies, I will enjoy making sure that you join him."

The black boots all but ran for it. The red heels moved into his vision again. He listened to the rustle of fabric and felt the cool touch of fingers on the side of his face.

The creamy voice soothed, "I'm sorry, Leon. I tried to get here sooner but I was delayed. I never imagined they'd be stupid enough to interrogate you both like this. I'll fix it."

Lips touched the edge of his ear as she added, "Kiss it, make it better." She pressed a kiss to his temple.

And he smelled her perfume.

On a hoarse sound, he moaned, "Ada?"

But he couldn't keep it together. He slumped back down. He focused on those red shoes, and he let the dark claim him again.

Las Gachas, Outside of Guadalupe -Santander, Columbia

The warm push made his muscles feel like spaghetti.

It had taken him almost three months to recover. The damage to his body was one thing - he had scars all over his back and shoulders. There were burn marks dancing up his hip and over his stomach. His body looked like a man who'd survived torture.

But it was his mind that was keeping him here.

Ada had shipped him off to some kind of recovery center. She didn't even come to see him. She left him in the hands of doctors and disappeared.

At first, the physical toll had guaranteed he just slept and slept and slept. After he'd been weaned off the narcotics, the pain had propelled him to fight against recovery. He'd been the type that was a wounded bear - grouching and snapping and resisting.

When it was clear that he was going to recover anyway, he'd thrown himself into the demands of it. His body, well conditioned, had come back beautifully. The nightmares, however, never left him.

It annoyed Leon how utterly fragile the human psyche could be. His own inability to shake the PTSD that plagued him enraged him. The comfort of the remote beauty in which he found himself was the only real thing he looked forward to.

Las Gachas was known as the Cano Cristales to the locals, or the colorful river. It was red when it suited, due to the algae that clung so sweetly to the river bed beneath your feet as you walked. Or purple when it pleased, offering the viewer something incredible to feast their eyes upon.

Quebrada Las Gachas was a series of natural plunge pools along a shallow river bed. The river was shallow because water naturally flowed down into the pits, and forced you to literally walk on the river bed. It was slippery, and not for the faint of heart to attempt traversing it. But the reward was more than worth the effort.

Thirty plus pools of perfectly steamed Jacuzzi like water stretched as far as the eyes could see. You plunged in, you felt the immediate joy of utter surrender, and all your pain simply slid away in the sheer release of it. He floated there now, eyes closed, head back, and just - existed.

He just wished the warmth could spread to his brain as well. He was afraid he'd be plagued by doubt and indecision and guilt forever. Jack was dead. They'd all but confirmed that for him. He was gone. He'd died hating Leon Kennedy for betraying him.

In all his life, Leon had never thought of himself as a bad guy. He was a good guy. A friendly guy. A cop who wanted to serve and protect and help.

He'd left Jack to die. He'd left his partner to die. And he'd been tortured for it.

The torture didn't die with Jack. It plagued him in sleep, in waking, in a walking. Behind the closed lids of his eyes, the horror of what they'd done to him never quit. It ran like a movie on continuous play. Torture in itself, it did what any good trauma would do, it kept him from recovering in mind like he did in body.

How could he go back to the agency a shell of himself?

Was anyone even looking for him? It was likely they thought he'd died too. He was probably disavowed and forgotten about. He was likely a file in a drawer somewhere that no one even took the time to read. Another dead soldier in a useless war.

Leon paused, considering the thought. Did he think the war was useless? Sometimes. Sometimes he was aware his body and his mind were taking the hits for a war they were losing.

Did he think there was reward at the end of every mission? Naively, yes. Yes, he did. Sometimes, he thought there should be light at the end of the dark tunnel he was in. He was drowning here. He needed, something, anything...to remind him what he was fighting for.

He wanted to give up and go home. He wanted...what? For his mother to stroke his hair and coo to him and make him feel like he wasn't going to weep every time he pictured a shock rod shoved into his fucking balls.

There was a shift of sound and Leon felt the water lap against his chest.

He opened his eyes to find Ada floating in the water in front of him. The pale curve of her breasts were nicely hidden in the red, red water. She smiled, slyly, and mused, "Leon, long time, no see."

He shook his head, "You wait until I'm all stitched together to show up?"

Ada shrugged a delicate shoulder, "I had things to do. People to see. And I can't stand broken things. I only play with dolls that are working."

He didn't even smile. He wasn't in the mood for her games. Not now, not anymore. Leon looked away, sighing. "What do you want, Ada? You brought me here. You made me all shiny again. You fixed me up. What do you want from me? I don't know anything. I can't tell you a damn thing. You think showing me your tits and flirting with me will loosen my tongue?"

He looked back at her, his gaze direct and cold, "They tried to cut my fucking tongue out to do the same. At least they were honest about it."

Ada studied him, shrewdly. They said he was physically a revelation. She could see the scarring, the blistering, the bruising. She knew he'd taken months to recover from what other men might have never come back from. His body was strong and virile and roped in muscle. But there was nothing in his eyes.

Not the twinkle of the boy she'd known in Raccoon. Not a sparkle from a flirtatious and cocky little thing about to take on the world. He was broken. And she hated broken toys.

She wanted to play with ones that worked. She needed him fixed. She needed him cocky. She needed him ready.

She knew The Initiative was lurking and working with that god damn zealot Saddler on back door plans for a coup to overthrow the United States government. She was still trying to grease palms and find out what channels had chatter about the "how". Wesker was trying, desperately, to circumvent The Initiative and crack his own egg all over the same frying pan.

Whoever got there first, she needed to piggyback into the right circles and avoid the fallout.

The only way to do that, was to let Leon Kennedy uncover Saddler and the Los Plagas, get the sample she needed, and keep the eye of both parties on him while she used him as cover to gather her own intel. He'd never get picked up by Graham as a private detail agent in his current shape. The damn interrogation by those idiots Wesker had hired had nearly broken him.

Physically perfect or not, he'd lost his heart. A man like Leon needed to believe to push on. She had to get him back into the fight. She had to get him back to believing in himself and what they were doing here.

She needed him. She'd spent too long grooming him for him to give up now.

They studied each other through the swirling steam.

And she said, "I have so many better uses for your tongue. Want me to show you?"

Apparently, his body could still get hard. Shock rod to the balls or not, he was still a man. He reacted just like she wanted him to. His heart rate went up. His dick went up. His blood pressure joined the party. She watched the pulse in his neck skip.

These were all good things.

It sounded strange, but if he could be lured with sex - he was still able to access emotion. So he was wounded, but he wasn't dead. This was a very, very, very good thing.

He answered, softly, "You can't fuck me back to life, Ada. Even you aren't that good."

Her eyes sparkled, shrewdly, "You have no idea what I'm capable of, Leon."

Their eyes stayed locked again. He answered, coolly, "We both know you'll run the second I touch you. I'm too tired to chase you, Ada. And I don't want anymore games. What do you want?"

Interesting.

The chase, for him, was something that propelled him. Did he think he was chasing her? She knew it was more like she was shadowing him. But he didn't know that either. He really thought she was leading him on.

She was, in her way, but not like a cock tease. Not exactly. Despite what he thought, chasing her gave him something that put blood back in his dick. Just the thought of her had fired him up. She could smell the want on him.

Broken or not, he still wanted her.

She could take that want and leverage it into a reason to "chase" her. It might just be enough to lure him back to the fight.

So she answered, holding his taunting gaze, "Try it."

She watched his pulse thump. She saw him swallow, twice. Nervous. He was nervous. Of what? Her? A curious thing. So she encouraged, "I have things to tell you. Important things. Things I need your help with. But I don't think you're ready."

He tilted his head, "I'm ready. Tell me."

"You're not. You're broken. I don't play with broken things."

Oh. That worked. His gaze narrowed. She watched the flush creep up his neck. He was turned on and mad now. He didn't like her calling him broken. Whatever else was true, he was also a man with a great deal of pride. She'd wounded his.

"I'm not broken."

"Yeah? You look like a mess to me. I'm right here. Come and get me."

So she taunted that pacing bull with a red flag. He said nothing, volleying his eyes over her face. She twitched one corner in a smile and cooed, "Who's running now?"

His hand shot out. It caught the back of her neck and dragged her in. She let him, feeling the press of her breasts against the scarred heat of his chest. Her hands twisted in his hair and she nipped at his mouth, breathing, "Heroes survive, Leon. Are you a hero? Or a has been?"

That worked too. He kept his eyes open and drove his tongue into her mouth. They kissed wetly, sharply, sucking and sloppy. Neither closed their eyes.

Her blood burst wet and hot in her veins. There was that, she thought, that. That wasn't her grooming him. That was him. That darkness. That eager edge of something raw and dark under the hero's cape he wore so prettily.

He was edged in Darth Vader under the Jedi shell. He was the type who was good, true, strong - and willing to step into the blood to build an empire. Hadn't he left Jack Krauser to die?

She liked it. She liked his ambiguity. She liked his dealing with her at the expense of his vows. He was a man who knew sometimes, sometimes, sometimes ...you had to sell pieces of your soul to fight the devil. How much would he lose before he was the shell of a man she'd glimpsed just moment before? How long before he lost everything good and had nothing left but darkness?

Her hands shifted, angling his face back to her. She hooked her legs around his hips and mounted the front of his body, brushing against him like a whore. The scars were paint on a perfect canvas, they didn't make him less, they made him more. He was now more than a boy in a bad city, he was a hero in a battle for the world.

He was so much more than the rookie she'd found in Raccoon; he was a hero.

She just had to keep him chasing her and the truth so she could duck under that cape and operate in his shadow.

She was bad for him. Bad. Like the girl in high school that used him for a ride to school. She'd stick her hand in his pants and play with his dick but she'd never come across. She gave just enough to keep him on her hook.

Ada was keeping him on her hook.

He knew it. He could feel it.

But he didn't want to get off.

Being on her hook was the first time in weeks that he felt alive.

How far was he willing to go to chase that high?

They kissed until they were both breathless. His hands finally slid against her to see how far he'd let her go. He cupped his hand over her groin. His fingers slid into her body.

She let him. She let him finger her. She let him thumb her folds and find her clit and bring her to orgasm. He felt her tighten. He felt her clench. She sucked his tongue and came for him.

He figured, what the hell, and shifted his hand aside. His left hand clenched through her hair to drag her down. He savaged her mouth as his right angled his dick toward her trembling body. How far was she willing to go to keep him on her hook?

Her free hand wrenched down to his hip to stop him from shoving his dick into her. So not that far. She trembled and their eyes held over their gasping mouths.

Gruffly, he grunted, "...yeah, who's running now?"

If she backed off now, he'd resent her. He'd likely call her a cock tease. He'd hate her a little every time he saw her.

Her nails scraped his hip. Her eyes flicked over his. Flushed, they faced off in a way that could cost her everything. And him. But it was the first time he didn't feel like he had anything to lose.

His heart slammed hard and fast behind his chest. It was her. It was the feeling of knowing he could never have her. It was knowing she was bad for him. It was like sneaking a drink of whiskey and a cigarette out by the barn when he was boy - bad...but so good.

How far would he go to chase that high?

And Ada whispered, "Project Pentacle is run by a man named Marlon Sievers. Stop him. You're the only one who can."

Surprised, the hand in her hair slid to the back of her neck. "How?"

She pressed a kiss to his mouth, soft this time, almost tempting. "His wife is a lonely woman...and you've got a pretty face."

Leon trembled, brushing the head of himself against her. She didn't pull away. And the thrill of it made them both shiver. "I'm not James Bond, Ada. I'm not that fucking charming."

Ada licked his mouth and made him stiffen, "You are. Under the broken pieces, Leon, there's nothing but charm. Harness that pain, and start acting like a hero."

He started to answer that she had more faith in him than he deserved. He started to say something clever and funny and more like him than he'd been in a long time...and she stole the words out of his mouth and his head and his soul.

She used her thighs to sink down on him. The water sloshed. Her hands shifted and gripped his neck, almost like she'd choke him. The shock of it, the need of it, it burst out of his mouth on a curse as his latched to her hips to hold on. The power of her thighs, the power of her pussy, both of them stole all his reason and ripped it screaming from his body.

She fucked him stupid, fast, and determined. She rode him like a jockey on the racehorse of his soul. He angled her just enough to hit the end of her body and she took it, thighs clenching.

He felt her tighten. He watched her face while she came. She clenched so hard around him that he lost his grip on her. She tightened her hands around his throat. Like a leash. Like a noose.

Like a trigger.

He grunted, "...fuck." And she did that too. Riding him madly. The perfect storm. He slid his hands up her back to curl her around him and gripped her shoulders, shoving her fast and hard and furiously down on his body.

Her one sound was a cry into his mouth as she came. He felt his ball seize. He felt his brains scramble.

Her hands gripped his throat and she hissed, against his mouth, "Not in me. Not yet."

And she pulled off him as he reached the edge of his own orgasm and hit it, grunting like a pig or something.

She kicked off the wall behind his hips and left him spurting and gasping in the swirling water as he came. He grappled with the edge of the pool, clutching madly as he shot thick ropes of release all into the pretty red water. Alive.

He felt ALIVE.

She'd shocked his system and brought him back to life.

How far would he go to chase that high?

Above him, he listened to her leave the water. Her voice was hoarse, proving she'd succumb to her own game enough to enjoy him as much as he had her. "You don't have to do the right thing to win, Leon. Learn how to balance on the edge of both worlds. That's the only way you win." She crouched above him. Her hands turned his face up and she kissed him, eyes open, upside down while he quaked after his release.

"When you find the balance, you'll have me. Until then..." She licked his mouth and rose, "See you around, handsome."

He watched her perfect ass as it strode away, easily navigating the slippery rocks. Somewhere in the jacuzzi, the evidence of their coupling was still swirling around him. She'd fucked him back from the edge.

She'd given him the keys to pick up the pieces of himself and keep fighting.

His hand slid down to stroke over his softening dick. He could still smell her on him. The thought made him shiver. She was bad for him.

Bad.

He couldn't wait to see her again.

How far would he go to chase that high?

All the way to the end of his sanity.