The Bench
"The things that would've been lost on you are now clear as a bell...and you find yourself."
Outside St. Agatha's Home for Lost Souls
A bunch of lost souls gathered around in costumes. They laughed and played, princesses and ninjas and skeletons. There were painted faces and adorable devils. Spiderman kept climbing a tree while Batman followed.
Jill joined him on the bench and offered him a cupcake with a little candle.
Amused, Leon took it and stated, "Thank god, I was afraid you'd bring thirty-one."
Jill smiled and commanded, "Make a wish, Kennedy."
He studied all those kids in the yard and blew out the candle. "Everybody will have a home by the weekend if it all works out."
Touched, she glanced at his face. "You use your wish to ask for homes for lost souls?"
"What else?" He shrugged, "I found mine once upon a time. Never hurts to hope."
Quietly, Jill avowed, "Sometimes it hurts to hope."
He set the cupcake down at his hip and mused, "Hope costs nothing, Jill. Keeping it alive? That's a struggle. Where's yours?"
She smiled a little and admitted, "I think it's on this bench."
Lord.
Leon shifted in his blue hooded sweatshirt. She wore pink today in a pretty sweater over tooled jeans with flowers at the thigh. He told her, "When the plagas was in me...I thought - this is it. This is the end. I was gonna go down and become the thing I was battling. I was gonna turn on the country I'd sworn to protect. The girl in my charge...she was done for. They'd trained me to be a machine, ya know? What happened to her if I became the enemy?"
Jill met his eyes as she encouraged, "You made it. You know that. You did it. And you saved the country and the girl."
He snorted. He shifted again and looked at the kids. "Did I? No monsters in the White House, right?"
She touched his knee and replied, "...that's why you stayed."
He shrugged. "I had moments I could've gone. With what I know? With what I could do? I wouldn't have gotten far. But they offered me a reassignment back in 06."
Jill sighed, "Just about the time I went out that window."
His hand flipped over and blended with hers. Quietly, he stated, "I did what I could to find you."
She turned her eyes to his face, and he offered, "I did. Redfield - he begged. But even the great Leon Kennedy couldn't find you."
Jill volleyed her eyes over his face and finally stated, "It's not your fault."
Leon scoffed and looked back at the kids. "The whole White House in my hands, and I couldn't find you. It's either a slap against American Intelligence or a slap at mine."
Softly, Jill encouraged, "How did the B.S.A.A. get the intel on Irving?"
Leon said nothing.
She gripped his hand and demanded, "Look at me, Leon."
He did, but he wasn't happy about it. He wore regrets like that hoodie, and neither of them suited him. "Are you on this bench with me to find forgiveness?"
He said nothing.
Jill shook her head and laughed a little, "You arrogant man. You think what happened to me is your fault?"
He finally admitted, "I should have found you sooner."
Jill denied this with a snap, "No. We should have verified the leak that led us to Spencer. We should have checked with the White House to determine its legitimacy. Chris was arrogant, and so was I, not you. You hear me?"
He kept looking at those kids until she grabbed his chin to jerk his face back to her. Surprised, he let her as Jill confessed, "We wanted the glory. We wanted the acclaim. Chris was tired of you coming behind us and claiming all the victory. He wanted to secure our position in the world because the United States kept rejecting the B.S.A.A. on principle. Why wouldn't they? They had you. They didn't need a former paramilitary organization backed by European money."
Undone, Leon grumbled, "If you'd have just...if you'd have contacted me - the department-anyone...I might have been with you. I might have been at your side that night. I might-"
She covered his mouth with her hand. Her eyes bloomed with tears as she demanded, "Stop. Right now. Just stop. If we'd had the entire U.S. military beside us, it might not have made a difference. Wesker was a monster. He was a B.O.W. that no bullet was ever going to destroy. He would have killed you...and it would have changed nothing."
When he held her eyes, looking so riddled with guilt, she assuaged, "I'm glad you weren't there."
The insult in his eyes had her clarifying, "Because god help the world, Leon Kennedy, if you'd died in that tower. Look what you've done, Leon. Look what you've accomplished. Look hard at it and understand it. You needed to be exactly where you were. The world didn't need me...but it needed you."
He tugged her hand off his mouth as he accused, "I would've met you sooner, Jill. I would've known you before it happened. You would have known you could come to me the moment you turned up again...and I could've protected you."
Jill held his eyes and demanded, "Who found the link to Irving, Leon? Who?"
Leon shook his head and murmured, "I did."
"Yeah, you did. Without you being exactly where you were...exactly who you are...I'd still be in his hands. I'd still be lost. You found me...and you sent Chris to bring me back."
Softly, he confessed, "I should have gone with him...I was ass-deep in alligators in Washington...I should have gone with him."
Jill took his face and soothed him, "He didn't need you, you wonderful man. He did it. Chris? He always pulls it off."
His eyes turned down to her chest. "...he did...he pulled it off. Because he's a fucking ogre without any finesse. I'd have disabled it and had it safely removed, Jill. He just...punched instead of planned."
Jill laughed wetly, "He did the best he could there, Leon. We all did. Stop dwelling on what might have been. Right here, right now...it's all we have. I've made a lifetime out of regretting what I couldn't change...don't do it. It's how you lose...it's how you get lost."
Quietly, he demanded, "Aren't you lost, Jill?"
She simply returned, "Not anymore. He brought me back, Leon...but you found me. When nobody else was looking."
His arm looped around her shoulders, dragging her to his side. She went, her face turned up, and he came down to kiss her. A good kiss. Smooth and soft.
The whooping and laughing in the yard drew them apart as Jill murmured, "We have an audience."
The kids were cheering. One whistled and hooted. Little Leon and Little Jill were sitting in their Batman and Spiderman costumes and waving. Softly, Jill speculated, "What does it say that she chose a boy superhero to emulate?"
"...that Spiderman is secretly a girl?"
Jill laughed and cupped a hand to the side of his face. "You know why I'm still here?"
He glanced down at her, and she said, "I was waiting for you."
He laid his palm over hers on his face, "Helluva thing to say to a guy on his birthday, Valentine."
She shrugged. Her eyes sparkled. "I have a gift for you."
"Yeah?"
"Oh, yeah. Say goodbye to your worshipful admirers."
He rose. He said goodbye. He talked with the nun at the fence, who shook her pretty head and got him to wink. Jill tilted her head as he returned to her side and mused, "You buy all these kids' costumes, Mr. Kennedy?"
He shrugged. She tucked her arm through his as they walked. Curious, she wondered, "You supply candy for them in case there's no trick-or-treating?"
He said nothing.
Shaking her head, Jill paused at the bottom of her apartment steps and commanded, "Come up."
He did. Her apartment was clean today. Apparently, she'd known she was having company this time. As she tossed her keys in the bowl beside the door, she moved into the bedroom.
Curious, he followed her. On the bed, a small, brightly wrapped package waited. He narrowed his eyes, and she gestured. "Go on; it's for you, birthday boy."
He opened the little box on the bed. Inside, a tiny key waited. Surprised, he glanced at her face, and she informed him, "I figure you usually stay in a hotel when you're in town. This way...you don't have to."
Leon held her eyes and remarked, "There's only one bedroom."
"Looks that way."
He tilted his head, "You offering to let me couch surf when I'm in town?"
"Well, it's not the Hilton, but there are other amenities."
When she came to stand in front of him, he murmured, "Oh, yeah?"
"Oh, yeah...I cook eggs for breakfast."
His brows winged up. "Scrambled?"
"You bet."
"With bacon?"
"...why not?"
"...done." He pocketed the key and caught her face. "Your couch looks uncomfortable."
Jill smiled almost shyly and returned, "Then maybe I'll share the bed."
"...do you steal the covers?"
Her eyes twinkled, "Naturally. Wanna change your mind?"
To which he simply answered, "Not yet."
The mantra of their entire relationship. The soft kiss was tender. It trembled. His hands shifted off her face. They curled around her. Surprised, Jill melted into him, and the hug was good. It lingered and was tight and sweet.
It turned into a warm and wet kiss.
And then, Jill took The Executioner to bed.
It was skin and soft sighs and touching. Kisses and caresses and smooth hands-on tender flesh. A discovery of scars and survival. And the tattoo of a sweet little set of fish on the back of her right hip.
On her belly, with her arm propping up her face, Jill let him skim a finger over the tattoo. "Pisces?"
She laughed and shrugged. "Seemingly."
He leaned beside her as the dying sunlight cast their naked bodies in gold and red. "A pretty emotional sign for someone once called the Ice Queen."
Jill shrugged a little as his hand petted down her spine. "You an astrology guy, Kennedy? Kinda surprising for a man known for having his head in the logical."
Leon chuckled and pressed a kiss to her shoulder. "I'm multi-faceted."
She held his eyes and teased, "Typical Scorpio. You gonna sting yourself to death trying to determine what's real?"
"I'm gonna sting somebody in this bed."
Jill giggled and stole his heart. He skimmed his fingers over the curve of her butt and had her brows bobbling. "An ass man?"
"Oh, I'm a naked woman fan. The parts are irrelevant as long as they're all where they're supposed to be."
Teasingly, she told him, "I'm older than you."
His brows launched into his hair. "So?"
"Just sayin...when you were in diapers, I was in kindergarten."
His eyes narrowed, "You assuming I wore diapers at three years old?"
"You look like a guy who enjoyed shitting his pants."
With a bark of insult, he rolled atop her and had her clutching him on a round of laughter.
Three years - nothing really in the grand scheme of things. It wasn't even a whole trip through high school. It was a finger snap. A moment. Gone and forgotten.
Or a lifetime.
She'd lost three years of her life to Albert Wesker. She'd walked the Earth for three years before Leon Kennedy had arrived into the universe to change it. She'd sat beside him for six months and started remembering who she was.
He'd once promised he'd get her to laugh - and he had. He'd once promised he'd get her to talk - and he had. He'd offered her hope and an ear and a shoulder. She'd lost three years to the dark - and found her meaning again on a bench outside a home for lost souls.
He was the guy who saved the girl. He'd saved her just by sitting down and talking.
His birthday was the best day of her life. One had brought him to life to one day find her, and the other had brought her to life to find herself. And him.
Wherever the world took her, she was found.
Because that bench was where they came to find each other.
And no matter what happened...one of them was always there waiting.
On the day Rico and Sara were adopted, Jill sat alone on the bench and cried. She was so happy for them. She felt the loss of their sweetness as they waved and headed off to their new home.
A niggle of regret reminded her that under it all, she was still a woman who wanted a family.
When the bench creaked, precisely one year after the day she'd met him on that rooftop, Jill mused, "Bittersweet."
Leon nodded and leaned forward to brace his elbows on his knees. "It always is. But...there's always another lost soul to take their place."
Jill turned her eyes to him on the bench and remarked, "And one that isn't so lost."
He smiled. She smiled. Her head tilted as she mused, "Do you think I mean me, Leon Kennedy?"
He shrugged and returned, "Or me. So maybe two."
Jill sat the little thing on the bench between their legs. He glanced down at it and then back at her face as she simply said, "Or three."
It took a moment for the man with the genius intellect to get it. His eyes flared. His brows winged up. She felt the calm expression on her face edge into amusement. "Go ahead," She invited, "Pick it up."
He did, and his hand trembled. Touched, floored with it, Jill murmured, "What do you think?"
His face was a mask of shock and wonder. He laughed, and his eyes teared, "I think I don't miss. Ever. You're sure?"
She nodded, eyes sparkling with tears of her own. "I'm sure."
He covered his mouth with one hand and shook his head. "Jesus."
"I don't think Jesus had anything to do with it. Pretty sure it was just you."
His left hand shifted and caught the back of her neck. He dragged her over and kissed her. She laughed and gripped him as he laid the other hand on her belly. "Goddamn...you said you weren't ready to retire."
Jill covered his hand and returned, "Maybe I just needed something to remind me."
"Of what?"
"Of what it means to be alive."
Leon laughed, and it ended wetly endearing him to her. "...I'll be a shitty father."
Jill caught his face and denied, "You'll be a wonderful one...Leon...you were made for it. There's nobody in the world full of more love than you. Share it. It's ok. Share it...and start living for someone else."
He kissed her and gushed, "Jill...what did I do before you?"
"Masturbate a lot?"
He laughed. He tugged her to him and kept that hand on her belly. She didn't think it could get much better.
She was wrong.
Because that bench outside the home for lost souls had found two - and brought them together to make something beautiful between them.
When he carried her, fat and laughing, into the hospital like a hero - shouting at the top of his lungs that his woman was about to burst.
When he held that tiny baby in his arms and cried while Jill lay in the bed and felt everything in her universe right itself. When he put his lips on her forehead to thank her for existing - it was better.
It was impossibly better.
They named that baby Dawn - because she was the beginning of their days in the sun.
She was officially alive.
And he'd brought her back from the dead to feel it and him and a life they were building from the ashes of what they'd left behind.
When he knelt in the yard and put his hand out to the little girl in that tube, she'd placed her hand in his palm and let him pull her clear. Little Jill, taking his hand to let him pull her out of hiding and into his arms.
When they had to juggle a baby and two children under five at the courthouse to sign the papers, Little Jill became - Mia. And Little Leon became - Sam. The architects of their impossible love story. Two people that found happiness in a mess.
When he replaced the Scotch in his drawer at work with drawings by his children and the photo appeared on his desk with his family—a wild mess of laughter and limbs. Jill was trapped beneath giggling children and him holding a baby that had just pooped its pants.
An imperfect picture - a perfect moment.
When she'd break down from nightmares and find him there to hold her - offering her a hand up from the dark she'd left behind.
When he'd struggle with the fight, and she'd soothe him with music and moments he'd taken for granted before he'd found her on that roof. He knew what he was fighting for, what he was building. He knew what he was living for.
It was days spent on a bench while the children played around them, and the baby became a toddler. She never expected more than the moment he sat beside her. She never expected more than his arm around her shoulders.
He chased the fat waddling form of Dawn while she squealed and laughed in the warm sunshine.
When he traded the fight for the desk and started training those who came next and never missed a baseball game or a dance recital, or a choir practice.
And when he stood in the twilight behind the bench that had found them and made her his.
Jill Valentine had died going out a window - Jill Kennedy was born on a bench beside a hero.
And found a man inside a legend.
Sometimes saving someone happened...just by showing up.
A/N: So there it is. A short little prompt that turned into a beautiful journey for two broken souls. Why not have a little romance and hope in a fandom ripe with death and destruction? If you have other ideas for wonderful little prompts - feel free to send them to me. Sometimes they make something extraordinary. Thank you, as always, for reading.