speed it up, slow it down

No one tells you what to do with yourself after you watch a city burn to ashes. They don't tell you about the cold, silent days that follow. There's no explanation for the people that had to die. Never anything but pitying stares and empty justifications.

You don't process it, not right away. Adrenaline is a hell of a drug. Makes things fuzzy. But it only takes a week of sweat-drenched nightmares to remember every disgusting, tainted thing you've suffered.

No, the only thing Leon manages to escape with intact is the twelve year old progeny of two mad scientists — and a grudge. He has no idea where to go from here.

Lucky for him, it doesn't take long until the U.S. Government finds him; holed up in a motel six hours away from the wreckage of Raccoon.

"Mr. Kennedy," they say when he resists custody. It's a futile last attempt at protecting the final shred of his sanity. "Now is not the time to be a hero." A pointed look in Sherry's direction, poor, blue-eyed Sherry, who's lived enough life for hundreds of people, and he caves. He tells them what he wants them to know. What they think they already know. Yes, it was a virus. No, I don't know more than that. Yes, I had to kill infected people. I don't know anything about Umbrella.

It's not unfair — they too, after all, deal in half-truths. Every week, without fail, he asks where they've taken Sherry. How she's doing.

Oh, Miss Birkin's in a rehabilitation center for youth, and she's doing just wonderful. We'll convey your well wishes. Now, what do you know about Nathaniel Bard? Bullshit, he thinks. Bullshit, because Sherry probably cries herself to sleep at night after their interrogations — no doubt those federal bastards were certain she had some kind of intel they hadn't managed to uncover, due to the nature of her parentage — dreaming of a world where she might one day be a normal kid.

Not to mention, he's tried to write her on two separate occasions (internally, he's worried that perhaps she assumes the worst of him, that he's thrown her to the wolves to save himself; not that he'll ever tell anyone) and he's pretty sure someone's been throwing his letters out.

It's stupid, this game they're playing with him. It's stupid and it's exhausting, but they've promised him that so long as he cooperates they'll see to it Sherry is protected and cared for. So he puts up with it.

But one day they ask for information that he finds he cannot give, because it will kill him to say the words out loud.

"We have come to the recent conclusion, Leon — may I call you Leon?" He grunts noncommittally. "Leon, we were wondering if you could tell us the whereabouts of Chris Redfield's younger sister. Our records indicate that the two of you came into contact during your time spent in Raccoon City. She would have been around your age."

His heart stops.

Deny, deny, deny.

"I don't know who you're talking about." Leon does his best to maintain the tremors in his voice. "Except for the Birkins, Lieutenant Branagh, and Sherry, I did not come across anyone else." The agent that sits across from him lifts a dark eyebrow at the deliberate line he's drawn between the girl and her parents. Surprisingly, she's younger than the others, and her hair is a warm chestnut brown. It would be a comforting color, if he wasn't about to lose his breakfast on the chalky table between them.

"Okay. Maybe you recognize her?" She— the embroidered letters on her lapel spell INGRID in blocky print — slides a photo across the table.

Static floods his body.

It's a grainy one, probably salvaged from the police station before they blew everything up. The angle of it makes him think it was likely snapped by a security camera of some kind. He squints, and suddenly she's clear as day; auburn hair swinging between her shoulder blades.

He refuses to talk for the rest of the day.


i cannot stop, i cannot cry

It's not that he doesn't want to tell them about her. Honestly. But the thing is, she's a topic he refuses to acknowledge on principle. The remorse is too great to bear on his part, and even their merciless barrage of questions about her does nothing to change his mind.

He lays in bed that night staring up at the coved ceiling, expression vacant and unmoving. Her face is glued to the inner cortex of his brain; eyes eternally alight with panic as her mouth opens and closes in slow-motion. Blood trickles from a split lip when she grins at him through that damned metal fence, where he'd gripped her fingers and promised her they would make it out of this living hell.

Hey...let's get through this. Both of us.

But he'd failed her. He had lied, because when he walks onto that train platform there's no redheaded wonder. Only a terrified little girl whose tears have carved through the grime coating her skin.

"Stay away," she screeches hysterically as he approaches.

"It's okay. I'm not infected. I'm like you, see?" After assessing his statement and finding it to be true, Sherry only weeps harder. "Please, please help me get out of here. I think it's going to explode. It's all my fault that she's dead. It's my fault that everyone's dead. Please, mister. Help me."

He coaxes her into helping him get the train started, and they climb aboard; Sherry thanking him hoarsely. They watch the brick tunnel curve and widen in silence for over an hour.

"This is all my fault," she finally says to him, her skin ashen. "My parents caused this. So many people died because of me." Her hands are folded loosely in her lap as she bows her head.

"Your parents?" he asks in confusion. Then he spots the name stitched into her muddy uniform sweater: Birkin, Sherry. Acid rises in his throat as another piece of the puzzle clicks into place. "Yes," she whispers. "They were convinced their work was going to change the world. All it did was destroy mine. I got infected. I only lived because..." She swallows thickly. "...because of Claire. She saved me. She got me the vaccine. But I couldn't help her."

A sharp-edged chill cuts through Leon's chest.

"What do you mean," he says blankly.

Sherry wipes her face with her sleeve.

"I had to leave her behind. She —" a sob wracks the girl's throat. She can't possibly be older than eleven. He feels another wave of disgust rack his body at the thought of a child being subjected to the same nightmare that he was.

"She got infected," comes her shrill admittance. "And she insisted I leave her there, that I save myself," she wails. "It's my fault. It's because I was still sick, and I slowed her down. They got her. Those freaks. Screw them."

Something thick and heavy nestles itself into his ribcage.

Leon realizes belatedly, painfully, that the red leather jacket she's got draped over her narrow frame is none other than Claire's.


a hundred pounds of heavy steel, it feels so loud
tied to my chest, it feels so loud

"Congratulations on your promotion to the D.S.O, Agent Kennedy." Graham gives him a cursory handshake and a perfect flash of teeth before turning to the camera to speak.

"Thanks to the efforts of this man right here, my daughter Ashley is home safe and sound. What an astounding brave man you are! The U.S. commends you."

He's twenty-seven. The applause that ricochets off the plaster walls sounds hollow to his own ears. As soon as the President fully launches into his scripted speech, he grips his stupid little award and dissolves into the throng of people swarming the stage. A security officer spots him and maneuvers to reach for him (God forbid the President's golden boy have five minutes to himself, no, he must always be on pathetic display) but he easily evades their grip. Please. As if you could touch me, he sneers.

These last six years have seen him carving out a hole inside his body to store his anger. He has hardened himself in self-preservation.

Leon steps out on the balcony, toying with his cuffs. It's winter in D.C., and the air is so cold that he can see his own breath.

"I thought I might find you out here." A blonde head appears in his peripheral vision.

"Ashley. You should be inside." His voice is raspy from disuse.

She doesn't speak for a moment. When she eventually does, her voice is quiet. "Yeah, I know, I just thought I'd make sure you were okay. I know how it feels to have unwanted press." He finally looks down at her, dressed in a rich green dress with clingy sleeves. She looks nice, but he knows underneath the fabric her skin is covered in scabs and bruises from her trip through the Spanish moors. Her makeup has been poorly set, and as a result; he can see that she hasn't been sleeping well.

"I'm fine, thanks."

"Are you sure?"

He doesn't answer, only continues to watch the lapping waves beneath them. Shame has swallowed his ability to speak. Because whenever he looks at her, he knows that she's only alive because of him.

Because whenever he looks at her, all he can see is Claire, with a bloodied mouth and sparkling eyes, who's only dead because of him.

Forgiveness will never be his.

No matter how many lives he saves,

it will never be enough to make up for losing her.


focus in and out, i'm doing better

He visits her every year, on the anniversary of the day they met.

This year is not much different than the past ones. It's September, and the leaves crunch under his feet as he steps through the iron-wrought arch that says RACCOON MEMORIAL CEMETERY. It's brisk, the wind ruffling his hair.

His footsteps slow as he approaches her tombstone. He drops into a crouch, tucking his coat behind his hips. The stone in front of him reads Claire Redfield: Don't put anything stupid on my marker when I die, Chris. Are you writing this down? Underneath that there's a memo scribbled in messy handwriting: My sister died doing what she believed was right. We mourn with pride and joy. 1979-1998. The words have been burned into his brain ever since the first time he had visited it thirty years ago.

"How are you today, Claire? It's getting cold outside again...I can't wait for spring to come." There's a loud crinkling noise as he produces a bouquet of flowers and lays them at the foot of her grave. "Sherry called me last week. She's pregnant, with that Jake kid's baby. He's alright. They're excited. I thought you would like to know that they plan on naming her Anne-Claire, after her... grandmother and yourself." Pause. "I started going to therapy last year, at Sherry's suggestion. I...I think I'm starting to understand that your death was never a direct result of my choices, or anyone's, at that. I'm sorry." Leon leans forward and presses the gentlest kiss to the cold marble slab.

A bird whistles above him. He looks up to see a streak of red paint the sky as a cardinal flies past.

He smiles.


i need to live a thousand times

He does not see her. He cannot see her.

Perhaps it is not such a curse to be bound to this earth, to this damned place, if only so she can watch him come speak to her so lovingly each year.

Her fingers reach up to his cheek to cup his face, and they pass through.