The Girl on the Train
Part Five:
Reflections of Each Other
A fonte puro pura defluit aqua
"Because what's worse than knowing you want something, besides knowing you can never have it?"
― James Patterson
Whispering Pines, 2013
The next few times they'd meet up - Claire would discover that he was always "dead".
The call came through that he'd died in Tall Oaks. Heroically. Tragically.
Later, she'd remember a handful things she should have done. She'd remember his smile and the way his mouth moved when he sang. She'd remember the smell of his hair and the way the sun turned it red in the right lighting.
She wept in the bathroom for eighteen minutes precisely when they came to tell her he was gone. Eighteen minutes. She wanted to stay there on the floor and dissolve, but it wasn't who she was. She had a brother missing and a life that needed her to keep fighting.
Losing Leon Kennedy couldn't be the end of her world.
Even if losing Leon Kennedy felt like the end of her world.
The call came from an anonymous number. It lasted eleven seconds. Eleven seconds that made her world whole again.
"Claire...I'm alive"
The office over looking Madison Square garden wasn't his. It was Adam Benford's. It was the president's office.
The moment she emerged into the semi-darkness and noted the glass on the desk, empty beside the bottle that mocked it, she knew who'd killed the President.
The rumors said it was before he'd turned. It cast Leon as the bad guy. The betrayer. The fucking Kingslayer. The backstabber.
But it wasn't true.
It couldn't be true.
Adam had been a surrogate father to him. He'd been at his side for so long that she didn't know how Leon was standing, let alone still alive. He'd ended the man who'd raised him to save the world. It was that simple.
He'd saved the DSO in the process. This baby of his that he'd made with the most powerful man in the Western World. His lovechild born out of a desire to stop terror upon the people he'd spent his life protecting.
At what point was the price he'd pay enough?
The white t-shirt and jeans were simple, unadorned, and so utterly far from the fashionable bad ass that flaunted his skills in the face of the world. Here, in this moment, he was just a boy who'd stayed behind in a burning city to save her. He was just a guy trying to pick up the pieces of his shattered world.
She whispered, brokenly, "...Leon..."
And he turned from the window where the moon reflected on his ravaged face. It gilded the tears there silver. It broke her heart to see it.
She moved, shaking her head; she almost ran.
"...Leon..."
He shrugged, laughing wetly, "Some hero huh?" Forlornly, he begged, "What's the point, Claire? What difference does any of it make?"
"It matters. Leon...it matters. You're alive."
And he laughed again, harshly, "I feel dead."
"You're not. Let me show you." She grabbed his wrists and tugged.
The move tugged him in. It brought him close. He shifted his hands to her hair to tilt her face back. It was a wet moment. They rubbed faces like cats in the dark. It left her breathless and smeared her face with his tears.
Her hands wedged under the shirt to tug it up so she could touch him. He let her and the sound of their panting filled the cold air. Her fingers roved over bruises and bandages and bare skin. It gripped a handful of scarred muscle on his back to bring him closer.
And it settled over the steady beat of his heart. It curled there against the damage left by lickers and hunters and spies with nefarious agendas and heroic acts that would probably stop it all together one day. It pressed and Claire tried, desperately, to fill him with her strength to keep going.
She didn't think she'd survive it if she lost him again.
She whispered, clinging, "It's not easy to be the hero, Leon Kennedy. Sometimes...it's ok to be the coward."
He shook his head, gripping her face in his hands. "I can't live with myself if I run away, Claire. It's not how I'm built."
She pressed a wet kiss to his mouth and tried to inhale all his pain into her body and heal him. "...I know that. I know it...sometimes I wish you anything but a hero."
And they held for as long as the world let them.
Sydney, Australia 2014
She awoke to find him at her bed side. The look on his face told the story of how bad she was. She was brutalized. She knew that.
She was almost dead when the chopper had brought her here. Julie had failed to kill her, but the damage was done. She'd heard them talking about her spleen and her face.
She'd needed her face rebuilt on one side. She could only imagine what she looked like.
Hoarsely, she whispered, "Bad huh?"
And he kissed her forehead, shaking his head, "You look like a million bucks, Redfield."
They gripped hands.
He stayed at her side for three months during her recovery. It was the longest he'd spent with her in years. When they could, he moved her to the ranch he owned in Montana for rehabilitation.
It was a good few months. She healed and he cooked. He made her laugh. He seemed so calm, so easy.
For a moment, it was almost like being best friends without the world against them. Almost.
She wasn't sure at what point she admitted she was in love with him. Maybe she'd always been. Maybe she'd always be.
But loving him came with losing him.
And she wasn't willing to lose him to have him. She just wasn't. So it was best friends forever and tiny pangs of want that nearly choked them both.
But he never let go. He didn't know how.
They kept each other alive through sheer force of will.
Washington D.C. 2016
The Operation had been perfectly timed. It had planned and executed flawlessly. It had zero margin for error as the men involved in the procurement of the target in question were some of the most brilliant in the country. It was the perfect plan.
For just as long as it took for the operation to go into effect, it took half as long for the trap to be sprung. He'd never forget it, the moment he knew they'd been betrayed. He turned back, too slow, too fucking slow.
The first bullet struck like a snake. It went through the throat of man just behind him. Watts. Jim Watts. They'd spent the evening before playing BlackJack and drinking scotch. The tactical gear was useless when the other side knew who they were up against.
Jim Watts had a wife and three little girls.
The blood bloomed in a wet, hot, coppery flower from his throat. He clutched, he stumbled, and he died there on the pavement. Leon barely had time to breathe before the storm came, "No."
The bullets were like a barrage of fire and brimstone. The frontal assault took out twenty men before it relented. Leon was trapped on his belly beneath an SUV, watching…watching…watching them fall all around him. The rage and loss chewed up his guts and hollowed him out, it ripped a sound from his throat that was desperate and manic.
When the gun fire stopped, the second wave began.
They poured from the walls, from the sky. They came like demons from the gaping mouth of hell. Lickers and hunters exploded from doorways, dropped down from roofs, came from alleyways and buildings where they'd cleared. THEY'D CLEARED only hours before.
The plan had been perfect.
A perfect storm.
Leon rolled from beneath the SUV. He wouldn't die like this, a coward, a coward who hid while the world burned. Car alarms were blaring and fire had begun to lick the sky around them. The end. The end of the fucking world.
"THE BRAINS!" He yelled it loud over the cacophonous din of rapid gunfire and shouting. "AIM FOR THE BRAINS!"
He put a .50 calibur round into the brain of the licker that charged him first. The one behind it threw that tongue at him fast and desperate. He feinted left and it hit like a whip against the place his face had been a moment before. The knife in his had gotten there without any thought behind it. He used it to take a hard swipe at that fucking tongue.
It leapt, up, up and landed atop the car beside him. He spun himself out to avoid the swiping claws and back into a perfect flip. He landed, skidded over the blood slick ground and was face to face with a hunter. Time went slow, stopped.
It's smashed one giant clawed hand into him. The combat gear saved him from being split in half. It tossed him away like a swatted fly. He hit the side of a car and fell to one knee on the street, his pain echoed in the screaming wail of the car alarm he'd set off.
The hunter sprung, shrieking madly. Leon rolled to the side and it drove those razor sharp talons right into the door of the car beside him. He scrambled and spun a back kick into it before he put three rounds from his Magnum into its shrieking face.
There were too many. Too many and too few of the good guys left. He turned, yelled the order for the retreat. He yelled it ABORT ABORT ABORT. But he couldn't see a single man still standing. He started running.
The bomb went off as he ran. The bomb. It exploded the world into raining fire and steel, light and death, the world was on fire.
There was an alley to the left that he ducked left into without thinking. Someone else had the same thought as she was racing the same direction. He caught up to her and had never been so happy to see her face.
"Helena!"
Helena Harper, the other agent who'd been assigned to the mission. They were old friends and had survived together before this. Helena was still alive.
"Leon!"
They hit the far street and kept running toward the extraction point. The noise of the things persuing them was getting louder. There was no way they were going to out run them. There were too many the terrain was too wide.
He grabbed her arm and pulled her with him. He kicked open the door of the closest building and all but tossed her inside. He slammed the door behind them.
"Hurry! Find something to brace the door!"
Helena shoved the closest shelf until it collapsed over in front of the door. A quick inspection of the area told them they'd shoved their way into the library. She spun, spun, and pointed.
"We can get to the roof. We might be able to radio for evac from there."
Leon was already on it, communicating their coordinates. Hunnigan was on the line, horrified. "What happened?!"
"Somebody knew!" He all but shouted it as the rage ate him up inside, "Somebody pulled a fucking Benedict Arnold. Some fucking Judas told!"
"Leon…the losses. They are complete. There is no one left out there. We've tried to raise everyone with no answer."
"Oh my god…"He leaned on the wall, covered his face with his hands, "Oh my god…"
Helena grabbed his forearm, squeezed. "We have to do this. We can't fall apart."
Hunnigan's voice came soft and consoling, "I'm sorry, Leon. I am. But there's no time to break down. Get to the roof. I'll have a chopper there in fifteen minutes."
The door was being beat against, the shrieking and screaming was on top of them. He opened his eyes and met Hunnigan's face on the communicator. "You better be faster than fifteen. I don't think we've got that long."
He and Helena ran toward the far side of the library. They climbed the stairs to the second floor and raced toward the fire exit. Helena grabbed the handle and nodded to him.
He nodded back and braced to cover as she pushed the door wide.
The fire escape was old and metal but sturdy. They rushed out, scanning the area before they began to climb up the narrow escape. He heard the door of the library burst open just as they slammed the escape door behind them.
"GO!"
They were almost to the top when a hunter burst out of the escape door, screaming that warbling cry. He angled himself down, tried to find the shot and couldn't against the metal and the narrow wall. Furious, he turned and chased Helena across the rooftop.
"Jump across!"
"What?!"
"Helena! JUMP ACROSS!"
She reached the end of the roof and leapt. She didn't hesitate. She just did it. He was right behind her, airborne. It seemed he was sustained in flight forever before he came down into a roll to absorb the impact.
The Hunter followed them. He rolled to his back and was pulling the trigger as it came down. It shrieked and screamed until its face was blown away in a blast of blood, bone, and thicker things. It fell twitching to the roof beside him.
They were already running for the next roof.
He leapt first, spinning back to make sure she made it. She hit the side of the roof and dropped, grabbing desperately with her hands. He grabbed her wrists and pulled her up.
The whirring blades of the helicopter drew closer. They made a stand, turning to shoot at the crowd that started racing and screaming toward them. Ten lickers and maybe more hunters. This was it. This was the only chance they had.
"I'm out!" She holstered her pistol and pulled her knife. Leon picked off two more and clicked empty. He grabbed a spare clip and shoved it home.
"No!" He grabbed her arm. "We can't stay here. MOVE!"
They ran again for the next roof. Farther this time and a dangerous game to play to try to reach it. He poured on the speed, put his head down and leapt, springing with every ounce of power in his legs.
He hit the roof in a roll, sliding out of it to turn around. Helena leapt, airborne. She hit the edge of the roof and he grabbed her wrists again to pull her up.
"Leon!"
Everything slowed down. The Hunter was right above them. He was in the middle of pulling her up. He watched it fall, felt it land. It smashed down on him and his hands let go of her.
"HELENA!"
She was screaming. He rolled to his back and the hunter drove those claws down, down. They went into his chest and burst out the other side, pinning him to the roof. He could still hear Helena screaming.
The hunter lifted him off the roof, spitted on its claws like a shish kabob. He gasped, the blood spilling out of his mouth as he coughed. It roared and Helena had stopped screaming.
It shook him, shook him, shook him like a wet dog on its claws. He came loose, suspended in the air for what seemed like forever and fell. He fell tumbling down the side of the building and hit the fire escape beneath. The loud clang of metal was measured against the roaring of the Hunter, the blazing fire in the street below, the hard thunder of his own heartbeat.
"Leon…"
His eyes rolled. Helena was lying on the fire escape a few feet from him. Her left leg was twisted, twisted and broken up behind her. Leon put a hand out to her.
He coughed, watching his blood spill too fast and too thick onto the street below.
Helena put her hand out to echo his; the lickers tongue wrapped around her wrist, once, twice.
"No…"His voice was little more than an anguished whisper.
She was jerked, screaming, up toward the roof. He tried to rise and collapsed back into his own blood. He felt the darkness grab his throat and claim him. She was still screaming as it defeated him.
They told her he was dead.
She received, for what would not be the first time in her life, the phone call in the middle of a sunny afternoon. She was in Boston at a Terrasave convention. She opened her phone during a break in lectures and had a missed call.
Barry Burton filled her voicemail with the message: The mission he'd been on had ended with no survivors. No survivors. No survivors.
She dropped the phone. It slid from her hand and bounced across the floor. Beside her, Moira Burton grabbed her arm. Her pretty face was set in lines of concern. "Claire?"
"I need to get to Washington D.C. I need to get there now."
"Then let's get there."
They'd gotten to D.C. on a chopper owned the B.S.A.A. Her brother came through when she needed him. She ran across the tarmac to find Barry waiting for them. His red hair was bright in the midafternoon sun.
His expression was dark. He grabbed her hands and held them. "They found survivors after all."
Her voice came out, low and afraid, "Leon?"
He nodded and she started to pull away, feeling the relief burn like acid in her belly. His face shut down that relief, quick and fast. "It's not good Claire. He and one more Agent are alive. He's pretty badly wounded. The other agent is barely holding on."
"Take me to him."
He was lying in a hospital bed. He was bounded from wrist to hips in a bandage. His wrist was clearly broken, his left one. His face was covered in slashes and cuts. But he was alive. He was alive.
HE WAS ALIVE.
Claire felt him looking at her.
"That bad huh?"
His voice was gravelly and pained. She felt the smile bloom on her face. "You've looked worse."
He coughed out a laugh and then winced. "We gotta stop meeting like this."
"Seriously. I have enough trouble driving around picking up pieces of my brother. You guys think I have time for all of this shit?"
She sat down beside his hip on the bed and took his hand. He gripped it, hard, palm down. "They…they ripped her screaming up to the roof. I tried….I couldn't. And everyone…they say every one of them is gone."
Claire kept holding on. "She's alive. She's unconscious and she's got a shattered pelvis and two broken legs. Her right arm was nearly pulled out of the socket. But when it grabbed her, it tossed her. And it left her for dead. She's made of stronger stuff then that it seems. She survived until the evac team got you both."
"Jesus Christ.." He made some sound of grief. She felt the tears prick her eyes for him. "Jesus Christ…somebody ratted. Somebody turned traitor. Do they know who?"
"They're still looking into it."
"When they find out, I'm going to put a bullet in them and watch them bleed out slowly."
She scooped his hair back from his face. "That doesn't sound like you."
"Yeah…things change."
"That doesn't change. Big hero."
"Big failure."
"Never that. Never."
She leaned over and kissed him. He opened his eyes to watch her. His hand came up and wrapped at the back of her neck. He held their faces together. He kissed her back, sort of hard and desperate.
Claire made a sound of longing that he probably mistook for pity and ground her face against his neck and shoulder. "Stop trying to die on me."
He laughed a little and there was a broken edge to it that scared her. "No promises. Why are you so good to me?"
"I love you," She said it so vehemently, so fully, she thought he'd finally get it. He'd finally understand.
He didn't. He said, "I love you too, Claire bear. What would I do without you?"
She breathed him in, the smell of him, the edge of pain and torture and enduring love that made the core of him. She breathed him in and died a little. She kissed the edge of his jaw, his ear, his closed eye. "I wish I knew. I really do."
He held her hand to his chest and smiled a little. She didn't let go until he was asleep.
And even then, she never stopped keeping watch.