Chapter Two:
-Doctors and Damage-
Leon studied the blonde as she crossed the bar while the redneck raged and cursed, cuddling his broken nose as his palm filled with blood.
As she approached the bar, she called, "Gina - grab me a club soda and a shot of vodka, would ya?"
The woman glanced at her cowboy boot with disdain as she muttered, "Asshole. These were my favorite pair. I'll never get this blood out."
She wore teal cowboy boots with skinny jeans in dark denim tucked into them. The look was topped off by a brown tank top sparsely spread over the chest with glittering jewels. The breasts beyond the brown and white layered tank were full and feminine.
She glanced over as she stuck her left boot onto the rung of a stool and tried to wipe off the offending red left behind by a dumbass hick with more balls than brains.
Kevin mused, "You'd think a little blood wouldn't phase you."
The woman gave him an exasperated look. "Didn't we get out of that life to avoid shit like this?"
He chuckled and gestured, "Ashley Graham - this is L-"
She laughed lightly. "Kennedy."
He arched a brow, and she informed him, "It's been a long time."
Rojo La Muerte, Spain - 2004
The candle stick hit his palm with a snap of metal on leather. "Easy."
The dirty, scared, bruised blonde grabbed for the next available weapon she could find. She swung a shoe at him as he approached, and it glanced off his biceps as he caught her wrist, spun her around, and pressed her back to his front. Terrified, the girl fought against his hold, warning, "I will fucking gut you! You hear me!? I will knock your goddamn teeth down your throat!"
She attacked like a woman trying to escape. She came at him fast, furious, and without any real skill. He mostly set about trying to stop her from hurting herself while attempting to fight him.
He pinned her arms against her chest and held on, grunting at the struggle of holding her still, "Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah! You stupid son of a bitch! You think because they send in one of you that looks like a freaking GQ Model, I'm just gonna lay down and take it!? I will kick those perfect caps in before I give up!"
Amused, Leon teased, "Feisty...I should have listened when he told me you were high-strung. You kiss your father with that mouth?"
She froze, ears pricking at the reference. With a snap of anger, Ashley spit, "Don't you dare talk about my father! I won't do a damn thing for you! You get that!? You can hit me all you want! You can keep trying to scare me until I piss myself...I won't turn on him! Tell your fucking friends - you're wasting your goddamn time!"
Softly, he replied, "Jesus, I've heard soldiers with less trash mouth than you. I'm Leon Kennedy...and I've been assigned to protect you."
Ashley went still, "...what did you say?"
"I said your father sent me to bring you home. If you stop trying to kill me, I'll prove it."
Ashley backed off when he let her go, and as she went, she jerked the knife on his thigh free. Impressed, he let her have it as she scrambled back and aimed it at his face with steady hands. "You touch me again; I will deep-throat you with this damn thing."
Mouth twitching, Leon lifted his hands to show himself unarmed, tugged his communicator free from his leg pocket, and tossed it to her. Ashley caught it, and Hunnigan stared up from the screen. His handler breathed, "...Ms. Graham! Thank god! We've been looking everywhere for you."
The knife lowered as Ashley glanced from the screen back to his face. "...how can I trust you?"
He offered her the thing in his other hand - a sealed letter in her father's handwriting addressed to her. She read it. She nearly broke down and sobbed on the floor with relief.
And she gave him his knife back. She didn't apologize, which he found endearing. She was tougher than she looked in that fragile package. But she didn't doubt him again. She just listened and followed and fought beside him - and made damn sure he knew they were in it together.
Silver Lake, Montana - 2014
Goddamn. Ashley Graham. It had been a lifetime since he'd survived a nightmare with her. He didn't even recognize her as she stood there grinning at him. He tilted his head at her. "Is this backwater hellhole where the former heroes of bioterror run to hide?"
She laughed lightly. "You might be giving me too much credit with the word hero." She studied him where he stood. He'd aged well, objectively, rangy and lean but capped off by a good set of arms and a pretty impressive shag of dirty blonde hair around a nicely bearded face.
A far cry from the sweaty fantasy of a badass with a model's good looks she'd developed a massive crush on once upon a time.
He looked rugged and tired, and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes made her wonder if it was laughter or regret marking his handsome face.
Ashley gestured with her head, "What's your poison?"
He set the glass on the scuffed bar and returned, "Tonight? Whiskey."
When she arched a brow, he told her, "Most nights? Doesn't matter."
She'd heard that too, that he'd burnt out bad and gone into the bottle. Maybe it wasn't anything more than the booze lining those pretty blue eyes. Ringed by dark lashes, they popped like seawater in the sun-dappled skin surrounding them.
He was nicely tanned, showing that he'd spent time outside since his arrival. She knew working the ranch with Kevin was likely as close to a vacation as he'd had in years. The snug black t-shirt he wore hugged those biceps he was rocking to perfection. As he shifted, a little chain winked around his neck and made her wonder what kind of symbol a guy like Leon Kennedy wore.
Ashley gestured, and Gina, the bartender, dumped three fingers of Jack Daniels into his glass. He swirled it, studied Ashley, and mused, "You fit up there."
Surprised, she tilted her head at him, "Do I?"
"You do. Some people are made for the stage."
She laughed a little. "Are they? I use it like a good drink - buries the bad for as long as the music pours out of me."
He cracked a half-smile. "I know the feeling."
Curious, Ashley wondered, "You play?"
"Sure." He shrugged. "Guitar mostly. Learned at the knee of my old man a million years ago."
Ashley leaned on the bar beside him. "Eleven years of piano lessons, and the best I can do is play for rednecks and losers in this podunk flop of a bar."
Leon snorted softly. "Hey...whatever gets the blood flowin, right?"
She angled a look at him as she decided, "Definitely. You wanna jump up there and serenade some losers?"
He laughed. "Can't do it. I'm here to work."
She shifted and gestured at Gina again so the girl could come and fill his glass again. "I know it."
"This place is a shithole, but I've seen worse."
She cocked a brow and remarked, "A shame for the owner, really."
He glanced at her and mused, "That you?"
She laughed and waved a hand. "Hell no. Me owning a bar? I'd drink my own inventory until it was gone." She gestured to Kevin, "He owns it."
Surprised, Leon glanced at Kevin, who shrugged a big shoulder. "What can I say?"
"...you bounce at your own bar?"
He snorted. "Why not? Someone's got to. And it's not quite as simple as it sounds."
Leon glanced at Ashley and wondered, "So...what do you do when you aren't pouring out talent on unappreciative assholes?"
She chuckled, "Work the ranch for Kevin. Bounce around when it suits me. Pick up odd jobs here and there."
When he held her look, she returned it - unflinching. He liked that. After a moment, he asked, "Rodeo?"
Ashley chuckled. "Of course. No better rush, right?"
"Living your life eight seconds at a time."
"Looks that way. That's how we used to do it, right?"
He considered the stage and remarked, "...seems that way. You should get up there and do that full-time."
Surprised, Ashley queried, "Oh? Just strike out on a redneck rodeo tour and give the world a big dose of piano-playing delight?"
When she turned toward him, he caught a glimpse of a curl of scars beneath the double-layered tank she wore. Anybody in their business knew she'd survived the UV radiation laser that had gotten rid of the parasite in her body. She'd been a handmaiden to a monster. They both had. It was a kind of bond that a lifetime and a thousand miles couldn't lessen. She'd been a trooper, a companion, a stalwart survivor who'd picked up a gun at the behest of a monster and resisted the control he'd tried to force on her to kill her erstwhile champion. He remembered the horror in her eyes and on her face as she stood looking at him, trying like hell to resist pulling the trigger and blowing his well-meaning face off.
A strong woman - even when she'd barely been old enough to drink.
Upon her return, she'd gone off the map. No more battles with B.O.W.S. for Ashley Graham. Last he'd heard, she'd been kicked to the curb by the same organization she'd helped start to promote awareness of bioterror on domestic soil. Even Graham's reputation hadn't been able to control the taint that came with whispers of her potential use as a terrorist weapon. She seemed to be doing alright, objectively speaking. She didn't look like a drunk curled in a corner, waiting like a dog to be kicked.
"Why not? You ruled that stage."
She tilted her head at him, mouth twitching. "You're an easy sell."
He shrugged, "I'm an easy guy."
She returned with a twitch of good humor, "Not from what I hear."
When he held her eyes, she added, "You have a reputation."
Amused now, Leon grumbled, "Which one?"
She chuckled and replied, "You're a pain in the ass. You go it alone when you should wait for backup. You're rude, sometimes outright insulting. And you don't play well with others."
He grunted. She waited. He said nothing.
So, Ashley laughed, "Not even gonna defend yourself?"
Leon shrugged, "Was there a question in there? What's to defend? It's all true."
Ashley gave him a big smile as she backed away to head back to the stage. "Good man. Never apologize, ya know what I mean? Who gives a fuck what people think about you. Just...be whoever that is."
He laughed lightly. "Advice for a lifetime."
"I don't remember you being any of those things."
He studied her in the low light of the bar and returned, "I ain't the boy I used to be."
Without missing a beat, Ashley commiserated, "Story of my life, hotshot."
And it made him smirk at her.
When Kevin snorted, Ashley queried about Leon, "This guy as good with a guitar as he was with a gun once upon a time?"
Kevin nodded a little, "Better than you'd think."
"Great." Ashley gestured at the stage, "Any time you want to let the world know where they can stick it, that stage up there is waiting. Jump up when it suits you, Kennedy, and tell these rednecks who you are."
The night dragged on. Ashley kept on playing. Rednecks kept on slurring and stumbling, and shouting. When one grabbed her as she exited the stage, she elbowed him in his gut and made him grunt with disdain.
"Come on, Graham," The drunk begged, "Just a little kiss?"
Ashley rolled her eyes, "You get a kiss when you're a gentleman, Bill. Not when you grab a girl and force it on her."
No longer the terrified teenager he'd helped liberate, she'd come into her own. The world had a way of beating the innocence out of you. And she'd survived the worst it had to offer.
He still remembered her standing over him on the table with tears in her eyes while the laser nearly killed him. She'd held his hand and begged, "Don't die...Leon...please? I can't do this without you."
He'd held on because the plea on her had forced him to find the fight to finish it. But it had cost him. From what that laser had failed to remove, he still had pangs in his chest.
Ashley grabbed a bag of trash to help Gina take it out the bar's back door. There was a scuffle of noise and shattering glass as Gina came running back inside to call, "Help? Hurry."
Leon was the first out the door to find Ashley facing off with the angry rednecks they'd ejected earlier. One had a broken beer bottle and was trying like hell to cut her with it.
The other one made a grab for her, she swung an elbow into his face, and he punched her in the belly. As she hunched, the one with the bottle came at her as Leon whistled.
He paused, turned, and the glass of whiskey in Leon's hand hit him square in the face. As he staggered, the other guy grabbed for Ashley again, and she kicked him in the knee for it.
Beer Bottle lunged at Leon, got a punch in the exposed side for it, and the other guy brandished the hunting knife he'd been hiding in his boot.
Kevin made his appearance and called, "Don't be stupid, boys. One way or the other, this doesn't end well for either of you."
Leon simply told them, "You either end up in jail or in the ground tonight. Your choice."
In answer, the fat one with the bottle swung again. Leon snorted, rolled into the attack zone, and drilled a hook into his angry face. The bottle raked over his forearm and stung, and Leon finished the move with a hook of his ankle around the fat man's matching one.
Beer Bottle lumbered and went to his back with a shout of rage as Knife Nerd made his lunge for Ashley. Ashley kicked the knife-wielding guy in the balls, and Kevin fired off a shot in the air like a cowboy in a Western.
"That's it, boys. Times up for tough guys." The flashing answer of red and blue lights told them the cops had arrived to join the party.
Fifteen minutes later, the pair of punks with overalls were being loaded into a cruiser, and Ashley glanced at Leon in the flashing lights. "How's the arm?"
He shrugged. "It's fine. Just a scratch."
"Let me take a look."
He snorted and said, "I can handle it myself."
"Maybe...but let me anyway."
He followed her back into the bar as she laid his forearm on it and set about gathering supplies. Curious, he watched her assemble an impressive selection of first-aid. When he glanced at Kevin, the former cop told him, "She works for the ranch...but not pulling calves."
With an arch of his brow at her, Ashley simply sighed, "I traded out kicking asses for saving them."
She carefully cleaned the shallow cut on Leon's forearm as he just kept looking at her. After a moment, she explained, "I went to medical school when it was clear I wasn't getting into the fight."
When he said nothing, she glanced up at his face. "What? No judgment?"
He shook his head, "Why? I took lives; you save them. Makes sense to me."
They held eyes until she simply returned, "...yeah...exactly. A life for a life, right?"
"...seems that way."
With a small sound, she returned, "You saved lives too, Kennedy. Don't kid yourself...and don't rewrite history."
He wanted to ask her if she was happy. But her face said she wouldn't answer. Careful, was Ashley Graham, and not the open-faced innocent he'd once ridden with to safety on the back of a jet ski. It had been ten years since Spain. Ten years for her to find her place in the world.
She seemed content.
He envied her.
Quietly, he answered, "I know what I did."
Ashley tilted her head, "Do you?"
"Yeah...I killed thirteen hundred and sixteen people that day."
Surprised, her eyes flickered. "You know the exact number?"
"Perils of a fucking calculator for a brain."
Her mouth twitched, "I'd heard you were a genius."
"Hmm." He held her eyes for so long that he watched the flush creep over her cheeks. "You aged well. What are you now? Twenty-eight?"
Ashley snorted. "Thirty...almost thirty-one. But I'll take the compliment."
Leon rolled his eyes when she went to inject him with a little lidocaine to numb his arm. "Just stitch it, sweetheart. I'm fine."
"It'll hurt."
He held her look. "...I can take it."
She had no doubt. She took him at his word and stitched up his arm. He didn't even flinch. She slid the needle through his skin and mused, "I thought...you'd retire after Spain."
His left brow arched, "Hmm. Why?"
She flicked a look at him, "You nearly died."
His expression didn't soften as he shrugged, "So? It's the job."
Her brow furrowed as Ashley mused, "Tough guy. Was it worth it?"
He looked at her pretty face in the low light and simply answered, "Worth it. What we stopped, Ashley...it was worth it."
She tilted her head at him. "We? I think that genius memory is foggy, hotshot. I didn't do shit. You? You were like...a freakin storybook hero or something. I just simpered and cried and got the shit smacked out of me...and I nearly killed you."
Leon gripped her wrist so suddenly she gasped and jerked her eyes from his arm to his face. He avowed, with feeling, "We. You hear me? It was both of us. You resisted. You held on. You nearly fucking dragged me to that table at the end. Without you, I wouldn't have survived it. I might have rescued you, Ashley...but you saved me. And when you had that gun on me? You didn't pull the goddamn trigger."
Quietly, she whispered, "Right...some hero. I cried like a coward and shook like a leaf in the wind. I was a real tough guy."
And he returned, "You were. For a girl with no training, no skills, and no help - you did what most people in your place wouldn't have been able to do - you resisted, and you survived. Don't ever forget that."
Her mind flickered on the moment it was over. She'd stood on the shore in the sunlight with him - both filthy, bruised, broken, and holding on. She'd whispered, "...what now?"
And he'd said, "You go home."
To which Ashley had breathed, "And if I can't?"
Leon had simply said, "Then you move on. And you don't look back. Back gets you a sore neck and a lot of stumbling, Ash. Forward. You keep going forward. Eventually, you'll find your way."
"...I'm afraid."
He'd nodded and replied, "...me too."
"Yeah?"
"Oh, yeah. But that fear? It's what drives us sometimes. It's what makes us keep going. Use it. Learn from it. And then let it go. Because if you don't, it cripples you. So be afraid, cry, hurt...and then just go."
"Where?"
"Wherever the fuck you want, kid. That's what it means to be alive."
She'd hesitated, nodded, and turned to start walking toward the men waiting on the rise above the beach where they'd landed. She made it two steps, stopped, and covered her face with her hands. The storm had broken, and she'd sobbed hard and heavy. The fear broke in waves of relief and regret. She'd huddled down and nearly fallen in the sand before he'd caught her, turned her, and held her against his front. His lips had landed at the crown of her hair, and his hands had gathered at her back and the back of her head to hold her against him.
He'd soothed, "It's ok, kid. It's ok. Let it go. Let it go...I've got you."
He'd smelled awful - like blood, burned skin, and sweaty survival. She'd never smelled anything better. She'd soaked his sticky vest in her filthy jacket and sweater and blubbered, "...I'm so sorry."
To which he'd just gruffed, "Don't be. We made it. We survived. Now? We figure out how to live again."
She'd spent the next decade trying like hell to figure out what that meant.
And she'd never forgotten the man who'd made damn sure she was alive to do it.