Stage Nine: Inversion
Devil's Elbow, Kentucky
Across the wide open field, the world resembled a painting. The bowl of the sky was filtered through a lense of clouds and clear blue. The setting sun cast the world in shades of shadow and red. They circled each other, the girl and the man that faced her.
The cool coming fall tickled over their faces; tickling like a playful child's caress. It touched the shaggy blonde of his hair and tossed it, turning it almost pink and orange in the dying light. He had just enough of an unshaven spread of a growing beard on his beautiful face to rough it up, making him look masculine and harder. And the failing day made those eyes of his the color of the ocean, depthless and breathtaking. He wore a v-neck t-shirt in a good shade of cranberry. It was snug enough to highlight the strong, toned, sleek muscle of his arms and paired nicely with those deconstructed jeans of his that hugged all the right places on that body.
Sherry had her yards of blonde hair twisted and twirled up in pigtails at the back of her head. She wore her little white t-shirt and jeans. They were both barefooted for speed and response. As good as his word, he was teaching her what he knew.
They'd spent hours out here flipping and rolling; boxing and brawling. She understood, finally, why they'd taken him all those years ago to train him to be an agent. He had a natural affinity for battle. It was as inherent in him as laughter. He had an eye for the fight. He had an innate ability to move just a moment ahead, just a split second faster, harder, smoother. He lived, not by luck, but by skill and response and hard work.
How did she explain to him that she would survive for other reasons?
How did she explain that she was…different?
"Whoever trained you failed to teach you the most important thing of what we do here." Leon circled her and she pivoted, following him. "The things we face? They don't respond like humans do."
Quietly, Sherry queried, "How so?"
"BOW's aren't human. They don't think, move, feel. They only operate on basic function of the infected brain: hunger. That hunger is predicated on the idea that when they kill, when they feed, they will be whole again. But even that? Even that simple idea? Is giving these things too much of an emotional baseline. They are monsters, Sherry. And monsters don't feel anything."
Her heart shivered in her chest. "Infected monsters?"
"Infected monsters. Anything with that mutated virus in it is a monster. It's what the whole purpose of thee construction it was based on. The idea of creating a weapon. A weapon doesn't cry. It doesn't care. It just kills."
Sherry lifted a hand to rub at the pain in her chest. "A weapon just destroys."
"Exactly. And to fight that? You have to be better. Faster. Smarter. Because most of the time? The weapons created are stupid. But sometimes they make one that isn't. And those? Those are terrifying."
"…a weapon that is smart enough to best you?"
Leon paused in his pacing to look at her face. She was so quiet. Through the whole of their training here, she'd been an active participant. She'd been fast and brutal and intelligent. She poised, she paused, she kept pace with him like nothing he'd ever seen. She had the talent to thrive in their field. If he could just teach her the drive for it, she'd go far.
Some of that would come with age. Some would come with active participation in improvement. Some of it would come with nearly losing your ass once. Brushing death too close had a tendency to make a mortal into a survivor. She'd been a girl in Raccoon City. She wasn't a girl now. But she was untested, untried, and hadn't ever seen combat.
That would be where she was born in blood. She'd baptize herself in the sweat, stink, and stifling slap of survival and find her strength. Objectively, she was a small woman. She was built slim and petite. Size was not her friend when it came to battle. So, she needed to be smarter to make up for the lack of strength. She'd have to play to her own personal attributes to make up for the deficit of size and strength. She was fast, she was nearly brilliant at anticipating where he'd be, and she was agile. She could outrun, outsmart, and probably out gun any opponent that allowed her the edge.
But she needed to know how to survive the ones she couldn't as well.
She was watching him so quietly now. And what was that on her face? Sadness? Why?
He started to ask her what was on her mind and she swung at him. It was completely unexpected it. She planted her feet and swung a hook at his face.
His arm came up to block and she didn't stop. She drilled his side with her other arm. And then? Well, she just moved. Although moved was a mild word.
She spun back and threw an elbow at his face. He blocked her and she hooked his ankle and jerked. She grabbed the back of his neck and threw him to the ground. Leon hit on his back, already rolling up and back to his feet.
Sherry drew back her foot and kicked him as he rolled to his feet. She kicked him square in the chest. It hurt. She put some power behind it. It stole his breath and caused him to stumble. He caught her ankle and twisted it, tossing her away.
She came at him like a storm now. She didn't pull anything. She rolled low and swept her leg at his. Leon leaped over it. He grabbed for her throat and she knocked his arm away, came up under it, and grabbed him around the hips. She literally threw him to his back on the ground.
When he rolled, she put her boot on his back and held him down.
Surprised, face down, he said, "That's what I'm talking about. Where has that been all afternoon?"
Sherry said nothing. She offered him a hand up.
He brushed off the dirt on his shirt and looked down at her. What was that look on her face?
"What does your clearance tell you about me, Leon?"
He considered, studying her. "Nothing. I don't have access to Simmons' files. I logged inquiries in the beginning; when they took you. But no one ever told me anything. Claire kept me abreast of things. She made sure I knew you were ok."
Sherry nodded and considered him. Another brush of cool breeze ruffled his hair. His mouth looked smooth, soft, and pink in the slumbering light. She fisted her hands into his t-shirt and pulled him down to her.
A smooth kiss, soft, and without pressure. When he started to increase that pressure, she shook her head and stepped into him. His arms curled around her body; hers slid up to cup his face. She kissed him the dying light of the day and it shivered, gently, between them.
When she drew back, he cupped her face. And for him? It was a surprisingly gentle gesture. "Tell me."
"…I can't. I can't tell you."
They locked eyes for a long moment and she finally added, "But I can show you."
Her fingers slid up his chest to the shoulder holster he wore. It was good dark leather and had his initials etched into it. It had his big Magnum and his combat knife. It seemed Leon Kennedy was never without both within his reach.
She unhooked the knife and dropped it into her hand.
Curious, he studied her face.
She rolled the heavy hilt in her hand. "What is this?"
He was quiet, watching her. And his voice was low. "It's a zero tolerance knife."
"Zero tolerance?"
"Yes."
"A curious choice for a man who battles monsters." She looked at his face now. So cool. So composed. He was unflappable. She'd heard his humor was legendary. She'd yet to see it. He was so very controlled with her. Even his lovemaking had been about control. Was she nothing more than a thing that he owned?
Was she a knife in his holster?
Simmons saw her as one. Did she really believe she was anything more to Leon Kennedy?
"Do you have zero tolerance, Leon?"
"…presumably."
"For monsters?"
"Tell me what's wrong, Sherry. I'm not a mind reader."
They held eyes again. Sherry lifted the little five inch blade between them. "I can't. Words won't work here. You have to see it."
"See what?" He was watching her so coolly. So controlled. She wanted to take it from him.
"What I can do."
And now she saw it. She saw, for just a moment, the flash of something like panic on his face. He must have realized what she meant to do.
"What can you do?"
"This." And she rolled that little knife toward her.
"Sherry!" He grabbed her arm but it didn't matter. Not anymore. She thrust the knife in her stomach. Hard.
"Oh my god!" Horrified, panicking, he thrust his hand on the wound around the knife. His other arm spilled her back against it as he lowered her to the ground. She watched his face, breathing sharp and fast around the pain of it. No control now. No. He didn't look cool. He looked terrified. "Sherry, jesus, why!?"
He was putting pressure on her stomach. She heard him hiss as the knife cut his hand. He kept the pressure on her bleeding belly even as he bled himself. Sherry gasped, shuddering with the pain of it. "Pull the knife out, Leon." She whispered it.
He glanced at her face. "Are you kidding?! You'll bleed out."
"Pull the knife out, Leon. Trust me."
He studied her face but he didn't move. So, she did. She jerked the knife clean of her belly and it cut his hand as she did it. He threw both hands down on her belly now to push. "Sherry! What the fuck are you doing here!?"
Touched by the concern, Sherry pushed his hands away from her. "Stop it! Look! Look at the wound, Leon!"
"What!?"
"Look!" She lifted her shirt to show him. She wiped aside the blood. His eyes latched onto the weeping, gushing little open mouth of a wound.
"Sherry we have to get you to the hospital."
"NO! Just watch!"
And then? That little open mouth of a wound started to knit. It started to close. It latched and leeched to the other side and regrew. Sherry gasped, jerking with pain from it. In moments, her little belly was covered in blood but healed.
She was whole.
Leon lifted his eyes to her face. And there was nothing but shock now in his. She said, softly, "Yeah. Yeah. You and Claire injected me with DEVIL. You stopped the further mutation. Maybe. But you didn't stop it all. Do you understand, Leon?"
He was so quiet, watching her face.
"I'm a B.O.W, Leon. I'm the monster. I'm the thing you fight." She held those eyes as the last vestiges of daylight slipped beneath the burgeoning horizon and fled. She held them while the world went purple and pale with twilight. "I'm the thing you kill, Leon Kennedy."
He said nothing.
She rolled away and rose. The white t-shirt was stained red with her blood. She glanced at his face once more but he was looking away toward the rising darkness. Without another word, she moved back toward the house.
Sherry stripped off her bloody clothes and climbed into the shower. The boiling heat of it washed away the lingering stickiness of her display but it couldn't touch the regret that stemmed from knowing she'd likely ruined things out there. She hadn't wanted him to know. Why?
Was it because she knew, knew, KNEW that a man who fought monsters wouldn't want to love one?
The regenerative powers of the embryo she'd carried seemed to be the greatest of things she possessed. She was slightly faster, slightly better than your average human; true. But the Wolverine type regeneration was her greatest gift. It was enough. It marked her as OTHER. It made her aware she was no longer human.
Not exactly.
As she stepped out into the bedroom, she found him leaning in the door way waiting for her. He'd lost the shoulder holster and was in his jeans and t-shirt. He didn't look afraid. He looked…edible.
Sherry held his gaze with the towel wrapped around her. "It's ok. Really. Not even Claire knew about it. It's not something that is broadcasted through the world. Most of the time? It's innocuous enough. I even forget it's there."
Liar.
She rolled a shoulder in a shrug and moved to her suitcase to gather clothing.
"That's why they've kept you hidden for so long."
His quiet statement startled her. She jumped a little and finally rose with clothes in her arms. She moved to the bed to lay them out. "Yes. They've been experimenting. They take blood and do god knows what with it. Probably building vaccines and designing BOWs. Simmons is…he's been kind to me. But he's only concerned with protecting the USA. He doesn't care about me, really. Save for having me be a means to an end. When I got hurt the first time and healed it, in minutes, he looked like he might weep from happiness."
She stared at the wall while she spoke. He watched her face. She sounded so calm, so simple. It was like she was telling a story about someone else. But her face was so very sad.
"I never had any friends. Not real ones. I had tutors. I had scientists that came. None spoke to me about anything but to give me instructions. Claire was the only friend I had. That's what it means when your parents are monsters and they make you one. It means you have no one who cares about you. Not really."
Shrugging again, Sherry moved to pick up her boots and carry them to the bed.
"I could have told Claire about me. But she'd probably react like everyone else."
Quietly, he asked, "How's that?"
"Like you're reacting right now. Like I'm rotten. Like I'm broken or sick." Sherry turned to pick up the bra on the bed. "Like I'm a monster. Because I am. And monsters don't feel anything. So, I'm used to those reactions."
He felt the twin fangs of regret and remorse for his speech out there in the field. He knew, now, what she'd taken from it. He also knew that, after all this time, he could still be wrong as hell about all of it.
Sherry said, "We can extract Burns as soon as it gets dark. We'll be on a plane by morning with the mission done."
He was so quiet.
So silent.
She felt the rejection of it like a knife in her belly. But this one? She couldn't heal the damage. It just kept on bleeding.
Sherry lifted her hands to her face and pressed.
In the doorway, it broke him to see it. What kind of life had she known? The sweet kid he'd rescued in Raccoon City had become a woman. Yes. A beautiful, kind, expressive woman who was so lonely it was palpable. She'd spent her teenage years locked in a prison without any friends or family or hope. She'd spent them drawing pictures of a wet behind the ears rookie cop that had had more guts than brains.
That rookie had become the best in his field. And he still had more guts than brains.
He'd been trying to teach her. He'd been trying to possess her. That beautiful, haunting, desperate innocence had enthralled him. But this? This was the most real he'd ever seen her. She was so lonely.
And so tired of being alone.
Through her hands, she spoke softly, "Can you just go? Please? I'm sorry. Just…for awhile. I need to be alone. I'll be ready to go after Burns in…just a minute. I just need a minute."
The silence was her answer.
And the doorway of the room was empty.
She put her face back in her hands and made a small sound of grief.
Of course, he'd left. Why would he stay? To comfort a monster? What had he said? Infected blood made weapons. She was a weapon. And weapons didn't stand in a towel and weep.
Sherry took a deep breath.
He looped his hands around her wrists and pulled her hands away from her face. She made a sound of surprise and opened her eyes. He was utterly, completely, and totally soft while standing there in front of her. And her blood yearned so hard, so fast, it stole her breath.
He said, calmly, "There are no monsters in this room. None. There's just a girl and an idiot."
Quietly, Sherry remarked, "I'm not an idiot."
Sherry Birkin had just called him a girl.
Leon Kennedy. The Immortal. The Ghost. She had just called him a girl.
And now he laughed. He laughed. And it was the first real time she'd seen it. Hadn't she mentioned his humor to herself before?
"Right in this moment? I think I might be both." He studied her face. "What do you want, Sherry?"
Sherry turned and opened her suitcase. She pulled out her notebook and tossed it on the bed in front of him. "Look. Look in there."
He picked it up and leafed through it. And each page, each perfect page, was lovely in execution and skill. She had a steady and suggestive hand. She had a good eye. She saw what others missed. She saw emotion on his face, in his eyes, on his lips.
He lifted his head to look at her.
And her heart stopped. Because he looked at her through all that shaggy hair. He looked at her behind the veil of that perfect hair with those sea foam eyes of his. And she'd never, ever, be able to understand what was on his face. He was just that good.
So she went with brutal truth.
"You're all I want. All I know how to want. I wasn't just a girl in Raccoon City, Leon. I was in love with you. Then, in between, now. Don't look at me like I have some kind of Stockholm Syndrome. Or like it's a white knight complex. Don't look at me like I'm not fully aware of what it means to spend your days and your nights and your hours fantasizing about a man you knew for little more than eighteen hours. I know it's insane. It's insane to be able to heal knives in my body too. But I can. And I did. And I do."
They held eyes. Hers were wide and determined. His were somehow soft and yielding.
"I don't think you know me at all, Sherry. I'm rude. I'm occasionally OVERTLY lazy. I don't wash laundry."
She lifted a brow at him.
"Oh yeah. I don't wash laundry. I send it out. Or I throw it away."
"You…throw away Armani shirts?"
Leon shrugged, shifting in the Armani he was currently wearing. "So? It's just clothes. I can buy more. I have plenty of money. Buttloads of it. I came from money. I make lots of it. I'm the laziest thirty two year old man you've ever met."
And now she looked unconvinced.
"Oh it's true. I live in a penthouse apartment so I don't have to take care of a yard. I order take out food so I don't have to cook. I CAN cook. I just don't. I don't clean my own place and I rarely bother to date. I work out…clearly. Constantly. And I think I may own every single DVD ever created. EVER. Because you know what I do on a Friday night?"
She studied his face.
"A thousand sit ups and I binge watch episodes of either House, M.D. or Grey's Anatomy."
And now she laughed. She laughed a lot. She shook her head and laughed. "Shut up. Now you're just trying to make me laugh."
"Seriously? You think so? That McDreamy dude? Total fucking idiot. What do girls like about him?"
"Probably his shaggy hair."
And now Leon was grinning, grinning. "You calling me McDreamy?"
"...no comment." She grinned back at him. "But continue."
Amused, Leon said, "I've done plenty of stuff. But I also NEVER get to finish a vacation. Ever. EVER. So, I don't date seriously. I sleep around and enjoy it. I like girls. I like looking at them. I like fucking them."
Oh. That made her shift a little. She looked upset a little. But he was going for brutal truth himself here so he kept at it. "I won't feed you some line about you being my first woman. Or even the first girl I threw down on that I barely knew. Although you were, definitely, the first I threw down on that was a total stranger. Which should tell you how I feel about you."
Sherry held his gaze now, enthralled by him.
"After Raccoon City, Claire and I tried dating for awhile. We gave it a good run. She's a good girl and I cared about her a great deal. But you can't really love someone long term in this business. So we broke it off pretty quickly. No hard feelings. And we're as good a friends as any two people can be." He looked at her face to impress the point on her, "I think you've idolized me for a long time. You've made me something I'm not. I'm just a man. Just a man. And I don't want you to make me more than that."
Sherry felt the racing thump of her heart. She saw him. She did. She saw him as the girl who'd lain in his arms dying while she turned into something else. She saw him as the girl who had pictures in her bedroom that Claire would bring her. She saw him.
Didn't he realize that?
Sherry said, "I have pictures on my walls in the compound where they keep me. Some are of my parents. Some of my childhood home. I have pictures of Claire. Pictures of places I'd love to go. And I have pictures of you."
He held her eyes now, humbled in a thousand ways by her.
"You don't even know me, Sherry. Not really. Why?"
"Because every week Claire would come to see me. She'd bring me things. Food from places she'd gone. Toys. Treasures." Sherry turned to her suitcase and knelt. She opened a pocket and pulled out a tiny box. She brought it to the bed and set it down there.
He watched her, curious.
It was pretty and had a lovely sculpted oriental bird on the top. It shivered in his memory and he narrowed his eyes. It was a crane.
"Oh yeah. You gave this to her to give to me."
Yes, he did.
He did.
He'd bought it from a merchant in Shanghai when he'd been there on his first team mission. His gaze lifted to her face. The surprise was evident.
"Yes. I kept it."
Leon said, softly, "Claire told me you loved birds."
"I do." Sherry opened the hinged lid with a tiny musical sound. A music box. It played Beautiful Dreamer. "And it's a crane. The crane, traditionally, is a symbol of freedom. Did you know I needed freedom, Leon Kennedy? You offered me the hope for it with this box. And I loved you."
Inside the little box was a series of things.
He felt his heart start to race a little as she removed each one and laid them on the bed.
"This is a doll you had made for me in R—"
"Russia." He almost whispered it, "I had it made in Russia. The dollmaker took custom orders. He made it look like the picture I had of you."
"The picture of the three of us? The one we took with that camera before Claire left us?"
He held her gaze. "Yeah. That one."
Sherry asked, softly, "Where is that picture now?"
He could TASTE his heart in his throat. An interesting feeling for a man so used to facing adversity without fear. He was afraid of this conversation. "On my nightstand."
"In your fancy New York penthouse apartment."
"In my fancy penthouse."
"Where you throw out the things that don't matter."
Sherry smiled so softly. So sweetly. It made him laugh a little and nod.
"Clever. Clever. Clever girl."
"I was fourteen when she gave it to me." And fourteen when she'd drawn her first sexual picture of him.
Something shivered in his belly.
And now she laid the next item on the bed with a little smirk. It was a beautiful antique compact. The kind that women had used to powder their faces for centuries. It was edged in gold filigree and had sapphire encrusted on the flower it bore atop its closed lid. "You got this in S—"
"In Spain. When I was rescuing Ashley Graham.
"Yes." She touched it so delicately with her fingers. "I gave Claire a drawing for you when she brought this to me."
She waited. And he gave her the only answer he had. "I have it. I had it framed. It's the three of us on the train watching the sunrise."
"Yes." Her heart shimmered for him. "Where is it?"
"….it's over my fireplace."
"You kept it."
"I kept it."
"In your penthouse where you throw things away."
His FACE. His face. She was obsessed with him. He was looking at Sherry like he'd never seen anything like her. He was looking at her like she might know where all the answers to life were hidden. He was looking at her like she might set him on fire and dance in his ashes while he died. It was a heady feeling.
"Each time you sent me a gift…" She laid each tiny gift on the bed for him to see. "I would draw a picture of us. I would draw a picture of the three of us. And I would draw a picture of you. Because Claire…she brought me pictures of you. You in Spain. You in Harvardville. There's…my favorite one here."
She pulled it out of the tiny box. It was a Polaroid. It was taken by Claire at a café in Venice once when he'd met her at a conference. She'd snapped it while he'd been looking out at the water. It was the right lighting, the right shift of color. His eyes, Sherry thought desperately, were the same blue as the sea he was so carefully coveting. And those eyes…they were so sad.
"I thought…why are you sad, Leon? And maybe you were sad for the same reason I was sad. Maybe you were lonely."
She lifted her eyes from the photo to the man in it.
"When I saw this photo, I drew the last picture you see in that notebook."
He flipped to it and glanced down. It was them. And they were sitting together on a long pier. They were holding hands and watching the water together. And him?
He was smiling.
She said, "You're never smiling in your photos."
Surprised, he glanced up at her face.
"You're never smiling. Why are you so sad, Leon?"
God, she was something. She was something. Something that kept the little trinkets he'd sent for her all these years. Something that saw into his fucking soul. Something that coveted him like he was the only thing in the world she wanted.
He saw the reflection of himself in her eyes and wanted her. He just…wanted her...and the lie of peace she offered.
