A/N: We touch on our other heroes here. And go AU on what happens to Sherry. She's not been under Simmons thumb all this time in this version. Why? Because I wrote this originally BEFORE 6 came out. And I gave her whatever backstory I wanted. So there ya go. I tweaked it a bit after 6 to shine light on things. But I've left her backstory the same. It helps explain the love story there.

Slainte!

Chapter 8: Regression

"Egress - obsess - she tried to take it back. But the pain of the departure left her desperate, and mired in her own misery."

New York, January

"Yoko, do you think he's ready?"

Claire hesitated, watching Piers with the children down in the snowy garden outside the hospital. They were laughing and throwing snowballs. They were rushing him to take him to his back in the drifting white. Snow angels were everywhere...as was laughter...and hope.

It was so painful to believe in it.

Beside her, Yoko Suzuki was smiling. She was the best in the world when it came to trauma. She'd put him back together and helped guide him back to himself. She'd survived Raccoon City and become someone who never left that kind of nightmare stop anyone else, again, from living their life to the fullest. She'd dedicated herself to the recovery of those who seemed hopeless, helpless, and lost.

She was hoping Piers Nivans wasn't lost.

Her gaze passed from the laughing boy with the children to the man on the bench some meters away.

Where one Redfield seemed to be encouraging, the other was flagging. Chris Redfield never wavered. He showed up twice a week, he visited, he kept Piers in good spirits. But his own were sad.

Yoko could see the grief of something painful around him like a cloud. She wondered if his sister could see it as well.

But she answered the redhaired girl beside her, calmly, "Is he ready to leave the hospital permanently?"

Claire nodded, eagerly. In the garden, a little girl tackled Piers to his back while he laughed bright and loud. She put her hand to her mouth to hold in the small sound of happiness. He was so free out there. So free. In a way she'd never seen him. Children, she mused, were what gave him life again.

Children...and her.

Yoko sighed a little, shifting in the snow. The little hat she wore dipped on her brow, offering a hint of black hair beneath the white wool, "Depends on how you approach him, Claire. Is he ready physically? Yes. He's been ready for months. Is he ready emotionally?"

She shrugged, watching him, "He's tender still. A nudge could set him off. A nudge could set him free. It's delicate."

Claire nodded a little. She glanced from the laughter to the bench and frowned. Her brother.

He sat in the cold smoking.

His face was thin beneath the beard he wore. He'd lost weight. He seemed angry. The anger didn't surprise her. In the time since China, he'd been angry plenty. But for a brief moment...he'd also been happy. Where was the happy?

What had happened?

But she knew.

OF COURSE SHE KNEW.

ADA -mother fucking - Wong.

Irritated, Claire sighed a little. She started forward and was surprised when Yoko beat her to it. The little woman crossed the snow and took up a spot on the bench beside him.

Chris glanced at her beneath his heavy blue beanie cap. Her dark eyes were lost behind little red sunglasses. His were obscured by polarized Oakleys in yellow.

Yoko spoke first, surprising him, "Whoever she is, she isn't worth all this pouting."

Amused now, his mouth lifted in a smile, "No?"

"No." She turned a little, crossing her little boots, "She is a dumb woman. You are better off without her. And you are too smart of a man to sit here pining for someone stupid enough to let you go."

"That so?"

"It is. I'm a doctor. You have to take my medical advice."

"And what's your medical advice?"

Yoko considered and finally took his cigarette. She took a little puff and it curled between them. "I'm afraid it's too complex to tell you all of it now, Mr. Redfield. You need to take me to dinner and I'll explain the entire course of treatment."

They held glasses.

His mouth twitched. "Doctor's orders?"

Hers echoed it. "Indeed."

And he laughed. "Well, how can I say no?"

On the snowy hill, Claire felt her eyebrows wing up. Piers came up beside her, toting a laughing child under each arm. He was huffing and grinning and flushed. She touched his face and kissed him, softly.

He grinned at her, "Everything ok?"

She studied her laughing brother. She studied the laughing children in his arms. He looked so calm. Was he ready?

Was she?

Maybe it was time to find out.

So Claire said, quietly, "You know what? I think it will be. I really, really do."

Russia, January

The screams were horrible. They filled the night with their endless litany of desolation. It raked across the body in claws of continuous destruction.

They started in the lab and spread through the building like a virus. A virus…a deadly creation meant to create monsters. And so it had. And so it did.

And the monsters awakened. And the monsters hungered.

And the monsters began to feed.

Montana, January

The mistress of pain was a merciless, mindless, soul raping, skin torturing bitch with three heads that liked to fuck you up, fuck you over, and piss on your bones. He knew this, had always known this, had always felt this. But he kept playing her game anyway because the result was so damn good. He felt the slings and arrows of her touch here, in the great wide open, more than anywhere else. Because he couldn't stay, couldn't. And wanted nothing more.

The spread of the Rocky Horse Ranch spread over countless acres of beautiful, rich, fertile land and sky. There was no real end and no real beginning to it. The Kennedy family had owned it since the country had gone from undiscovered, to populated. It had changed hands as time had brought it from generation to generation and now rested in the hands of the Senator's son, the former right hand of the President, the head of the office now known as the DSO – which was essentially a black ops division of the Secret Service.

The DSO didn't exist. It was funded, privately, by the private sector of the government bent on the dissolution of terrorist threat both foreign and domestic. The methods weren't publicly approved. The ideology was still righteous but with limits. For the good of the people took on a whole new meaning when you were staring down at a prisoner and waiting for the right answers.

He'd picked up the hatchet to take off the tip of those fingers more than once. He'd been the man with no soul more than once. The social circle that surrounded him found him charming, pleasant, intelligent and sincere. He doubted they would think so if they saw him splattered with the blood of a bio-terrorist in mid interrogation. Of course one thing remained true, he might be splattered in the blood of the enemy, but at least the blood was covering Armani.

Even now, standing on the porch of the ranch house in the middle of nowhere, he was dressed flawlessly. The jeans were Diesel, the t-shirt Calvin Klein, the jacket Hugo Boss. He didn't do flannel and man of the mountain. But if he'd had to, he'd have rocked that look too. There were few men on the planet as handsome as Leon Kennedy and even less that hid the skill and determination of a well paid killer behind it.

He moved toward the sound of hoof beats to find the Ranch manager, Gil, riding up toward him. Gil was mid-fifties and slighty over weight with a shock of red, red, red hair and a bushy beard. He was dressed in flannel and leather and had a belt buckle with two horses in rodeo. Gil was a man of the mountain.

"Well I'll be a monkey's uncle!" He leaped from the horse and moved quickly to give Leon a hard, one armed hug. "You didn't tell me you were comin boy! I'd have had Sara cook up something good for dinner."

"It was last minute really. I'd had some time off. Wanted to see how the winter was going up here."

"Great! Great! The harvest went really well in the fall. And we had to take on three extra hands to absorb the extra work. I just talked to your Daddy about it the other day actually. I'm surprised he didn't tell ya."

Well he wouldn't have. Leon wasn't surprised. His "Daddy" was the Senator of the great state of Massachusetts. Very right wing, very conservative. And although he was a versatile and talented man, he wasn't much of a father and hadn't ever really been. Leon had been raised in boarding schools or by nannies or at the Academy. He was a legacy, a title, and hadn't even bothered to fulfill that legacy by following his father into politics. He was a great disappointment to the Senator.

"We haven't had much occasion to chat lately."

Gil studied that handsome profile with a sense of the old hurt behind the blasé tone. He'd known Leon since he was a little boy. He'd spent many summers here learning the land and the ropes. He was pretty much the child Sara and Gil had always wanted and couldn't have. And when he'd needed a place for the child he'd found in Raccoon City to live, Sara and Gil had taken her in as well.

The last twelve years they'd raised Sherry Birkin as their own. And Leon had paid for the whole thing. He'd never asked for anything but that they show her love. "No boarding schools," He told them, the moment he'd shown up on the porch with her, "No nannies."

Sara, who'd always wanted children, who'd help raise the man before her, had taken a look at the scrawny, beautiful, sad little urchin with her shaggy blonde hair and quit her job the next day. She'd become a stay at home mother and put Sherry and her needs first and foremost.

Twice Leon Kennedy had blessed them with a child to love. And now he'd become a man and the girl, a woman, and Gil couldn't be happier. He and Sara hadn't been blessed to have their own but they still had children. Maybe not by blood but by something so much more important.

Putting his tongue in his cheek, Gil said, carefully, "Well…the Senator is always aware of what's going on around you."

"Right."

"I ain't gonna tell you he's the best Daddy, god knows that ain't true," Gil struck up a cigarette and inhaled, deeply, "But he did the best by you he knew how. Someday you'll appreciate that."

"I appreciate it. But it doesn't make me love him." Leon turned his head and listened, he heard the laughter first. "Sherry is home as well."

"Yep. Gotta a break from work herself. Flew in to see how we were doing."

Leon followed him off toward the barn. "Will it complicate things if I stay in the house too then?"

"'Course not. Sherry loves it when you're here. And there's plenty of room."

The barn was filled with the clean smell of hay and horses. The laughter lead them toward the office built into the back.

Sherry stood in riding gear, jodhpurs in pale beige tucked into knee high black boots, a little black jacket that hit at the waist with a furred hood. Pale pink peaked out of the partially zipped front from the collared shirt she wore beneath. Her short blonde hair was expertly cut and maintained in a pretty pixie, highlighting her lovely face. She wore no make up, she wasn't much for it and never had been. But she didn't need it. She had good genes from both her parents and was beautiful for it.

She caught his eyes as they moved forward and laughed with delight. "Leon!"

He caught her in a hug and brought the scent of her into him. He realized he'd missed her. They hadn't seen each other in quite some time. What had happened in China had been so brief, so fast. And it had been nearly five years since he'd seen her before that. He regretted the little time he had to spend with her as she got older.

He knew she worked with Claire, for Terra Save now, in some capacity as an advisor. He knew she'd brought Wesker's son into the fold as well. She was somewhat of a field agent when it was necessary.

Part of him wished she'd avoided this life. That she'd married, had children, and grown up to be something safe and simple. But here she was and she was good at what she did and he was proud of her.

"Look at you," He smiled down into her face as she squeezed him, "Getting too old for your own good kid."

Sherry laughed a little and hated this moment. Would he never see what the rest of the world did? Would he never see she was a woman now? He was only a decade older then her. But sometimes she got the feeling he might think of her like a daughter or something. It was annoying.

He thirty five now, she knew. And still hadn't married. And she wondered if he'd ever figure out what she'd known for thirteen years. That she was crazy, completely, utterly in love with him. He looped a companionable arm over her shoulders as she drew back.

"I've missed you." He said it with such honest sincerity. And part of her hated that it was said with what might be brotherly affection.

"I've missed you too." And hers was said with boiling, burning love. She'd come out here to get away from the need that festered in her for him. She'd always loved him, always. As a girl it had been dreamy, sweet, and hero worship. As she'd grown and spent summers with him, it had become real and painful.

The summer of her eighteenth birthday, he'd just taken the job as President Graham's bodyguard. He'd come home one last time to celebrate. She'd thrown on her best party dress, fixed her long, long blonde hair into curls and glory, and tried her best to entice him.

And then she'd come around the corner of the barn and saw him on the phone. It was a facetime chat of some kind. A conference call with someone in his agency. The girl on the phone was pretty, yes, but she was talking about a woman. And showing pictures of the woman. Some tall thing with black hair cut short and pretty in red.

The look on his face had been what Sherry had always hoped she'd see for her. It was something painful and denied. He looked at the pictures of that woman like Sherry had always looked at him. And her heart broke. It shattered.

That next day she'd gone and gotten all her hair cut off. Part of her hated that she did it thinking maybe he liked the short hairstyle of the other woman. Part of her did it because no longer did she have to pretend to be a girly girl. Clearly that wasn't going to entice him.

She joined up with Terra Save after college and tried to move on from the idea of him. He disappeared for great periods of time on missions. He wasn't there at Christmas anymore and didn't call like he'd used to. Life moved forward. And the woman in the picture, Ada Wong, popped up one day as a bad guy and everything went down with Simmons and the clones.

Undigging from that mess had taken awhile. Sherry had met Jake and they had engaged in some kind of awkward and brief flirtation. She'd let him be her first lover. Why not? Saving herself for Leon wasn't doing anyone any good. It had gone well for a few months and then he'd been sent on assignment some place she couldn't follow and the relationship had dissolved naturally.

And now she was here and he was here and it maybe it was finally time to push it. Maybe it was finally time to lay it all out there.

Last time she'd heard, Ada Wong had been working for the BSAA. She didn't think he'd seen her in awhile. Maybe he had. Maybe they were rocking the bed sheets every night. But it didn't matter. She was going to take her shot. Now or never.

"Let's go for a ride."

And so they did. He was good on a horse, smooth. But he was good at everything so that was no surprise. He rode the animal with the same grace he did everything else. Some women would find that kind of perfection tiring. Sherry found it wonderful.

They rode along the bank of the creek until they reached the place where the old fort still stood. It was built there by Leon and some of the boys that he'd played with growing up. Sherry and her friends had also made a home out of it in her time spent being raised by Gil and Sara. It was a legend, in one hand, the sight of countless imaginative battles and tea parties and sieges.

It was a dilapidated tree house and a couple tire swings. It was sticks and twine and old pieces of rusty cars. It was built by luck and patience and happy kids with big imaginations. It was always worth seeing and coming back to. And kids would continue to play it even after all the world grew up around them.

She slipped onto the tire swing and he began to push her, gently.

"How's things kid?"

"Great." She sighed a little at the beauty of the coming evening. The setting sun had gilded the horizon a burnt yellow and orange. Soon the sky would look like blood and gold. What was life without a little blood and gold? Two precious things.

"Killed any zombies lately?"

He laughed and settled onto the swing beside her. She wondered if anyone else alive had ever seen Leon Kennedy on a tire swing.

"I was planning to do that after dinner."

Sherry pushed her feet against the ground and they swung in silence for a few moments. "What brings you here Leon?"

"I could ask you the same kid."

Sherry shrugged. "I had a break from work. So here I am."

"Same."

And life was too short. So screw it, she thought, and stopped swinging to face him. "How's Ada?"

His swing came to an abrupt stop itself. "What?"

"I said: How's Ada? You know, Ada Wong? Your girlfriend."

He faced her and his expression was priceless. It was both calm and tumultuous at the same time. It was the face of a man who hadn't seen this coming at all. She'd surprised the Iceman. Not many could say the same.

He had many names amongst the community. The Iceman, the Ghost, the Executioner. He was known in circles by different names. But she knew him only as her hero, as her unrequited love. He was the man who'd saved her in Raccoon City, who'd offered her this chance here in Montana to live again. He had stood between death and her in Japan and would again, and again, if she only asked.

"Ada isn't my girlfriend."

"But you want her to be."

He eyed Sherry, trying to find out what her angle was with this conversation. He was a master at reading people, in his job, you had to be. But she had always crossed signals with him. He was never quite sure where she stood.

"It's more complicated than that."

"Doesn't have to be." Sherry slid off her swing. "Do you love her?"

He lifted a brow, studying her face. Where was she going with this? She appeared to be an angry little pixie in tight riding pants. Why was she angry? Had she ever even met Ada?

"I don't know here. Not really. So the question of love is irrelevant."

"Oh stop talking like a robot!" She whipped around, stalking a line back and forth in front of him. He watched her, rather like watching a tiger pace. She was all nerves and energy. It was fascinating.

"What's the real issue here Sherry?"

Sherry shook her head, hard. Stopped, seemed to be thinking something very, very important..or was possibly crazy. He wasn't a girl so he couldn't really figure out what the hell she was thinking in that little head of hers. She turned to him and gave him the evil eye.

"Are you stupid?"

Well that was certainly a loaded question. He had an IQ of 140. He'd been taught by some of the most prolific professors and teachers in the world. He was literate, cognitive, calm and patient, kind, considerate, good in a fight. He was physically impressive – working his body in a rigorous and controlled manner to maintain top physical shape. He was studious and organized and good under pressure. He'd been taught to box and fence and was a crack shot. He could whip the asses of almost anyone in the world in various styles of martial arts. He was a machine, a trained assassin, a natural mediator.

But he had to agree in this moment, he must be stupid. Because he had no idea what she was getting at here.

Sherry moved toward him and every instinct in his body had him wanting to retreat. It was almost laughable. He'd faced down a crocodile the size of a bus, a whole town full of chain saw wielding psychos, a series of creatures from the black lagoon, and the apocalypse…twice. But he was afraid of this little blonde thing that weighed a buck ten soaking wet.

She slipped her hands into his hair and tilted his head back. He went very still, looking up at her from the perch on the swing. Sherry scooped her gloved fingers through his hair and then, irritated, pulled the gloves off and tossed them aside. She wanted to feel if that hair was as soft as it looked.

It was. Silky. It somehow was cut in a way that it simply always looked beautiful and touchable…and untouchable. He was such a contradiction. The vibe of "don't touch" flashed warnings all around him. She wondered if any woman, ever, had gotten passed it. How did someone look like this, like walking sex, and not have women throwing themselves at him?

But maybe he did, she mused. Maybe he had a hundred lovers. A thousand. Maybe he was balls deep in some bimbo every night of the week. What did she really know about him? He wouldn't let anyone, anywhere close enough to find out.

And she knew, knew, it was against his personal code for her to touch him like this. He was stiff, rigid with it while she did. She could practically see him planning his escape.

She brushed a hand through his hair, rubbed a strand of that silky stuff between two fingers. Her hands shifted to trace the five o'clock shadow that graced his cheeks and she bravely whisked one thumb over the plumpness of his lower lip. She watched that gesture turn the blue of his eyes to glacial. She could almost see the armor going up, the Iceman putting up that wall between them.

He started to stand and she tightened her hold on his face, stalling him.

"Sherry." It was said low, with warning.

"Are you stupid?" She asked again. "Are you? I always figured you were too busy. Too blind. Maybe you saw me as your sister. Or, worse, your daughter. But now I think maybe you're just stupid."

He rose now with a jerk and she stepped back from him. Because he didn't look cold, he looked angry.

"Be careful here Sherry. I'll admit I'm not sure where this is coming from. But be careful."

"Or what?" She tilted her head, feeling the hard and fast beat of her heart, "You'll hurt me? You won't. Not me. So your threats don't work here. Answer the question."

He started to turn away and she grabbed his jacketed arm, holding him in place. He looked at her hand with something like shock. What? He didn't think she'd grab him? Didn't he realize she was done being safe?

"You don't get to run. No. Answer me."

"What is this? What do you want?"

Now or never, she thought, torn somewhere between throwing up in nervous fear and running away screaming. Now or never. She stepped toward him, ignoring the alarm bells in her head when he tried to back away, his back bumped up against the willow tree where the tree house dangled, listlessly hanging on with hope and good luck.

She had the Iceman trapped against a tree. She had the Executioner scared like a little girl had been once in the bowels of the police station in Raccoon City. She grabbed handfuls of his collar.

And, stupid or not, he finally saw what was coming. He said, quietly, "Don't."

But it was now or never. She pressed against him, went on tip toe to lift herself up, closed her eyes and moved in.

His mouth was cold, the tip of his nose cool from the coming spring evening. He didn't move, not a muscle. She pressed their lips together, once, twice. And her pounding heart was so loud she could hear it in her ears. Could he? Could he hear it beating?

Sherry didn't give up, she pressed on. She softly pressed her lips to the side of his mouth, the left, and then the right. "Kiss me back. Don't be stupid." She brushed their noses together. "Kiss me back."

Her left hand shifted, slid inside the jacket to brush over the beat of his heart. And it was hard, fast, and nervous. Good, she thought, good. Not so much an iceman after all.

She opened her eyes and his were locked on her, wide, and very, very blue.

"Kiss me back," She said it again, the arches of her feet starting to cramp from too long on point. "Please."

Maybe it was the please. Or maybe it was just feeling sorry for her. Or maybe it was insanity or boredom or guilt. But he cupped her face now and her heart felt like it might explode out of her.

And he kissed her back.

Soft, sweet, and chaste. It was the kiss you might see in a Disney movie. It was a princess and prince and a moonlit summer night. It was gentle. And kind. And something in it made her so angry. And so ashamed. Because he didn't close his eyes when it happened. He didn't sweep her against him and steal her breath.

He just pressed a kiss to her mouth that was almost…brotherly.

Sherry stepped back, pressed a hand to her mouth.

And she didn't like the look on his face. What was that? Sympathy? Regret?

"Don't." She lifted a hand now to him. "You are stupid."

And she turned, leaped onto her horse, and rode back toward the ranch.

Leon blew out a breath of air that puffed white in the waiting cold. Yep. Stupid.

And he muttered, rolling his neck and his eyes to boost the uselessness of it all, "...fucking women."