A/N: Thanks again to Shirahane Aikawa for her review and the people reading it.

Disclaimer: I don't own Resident Evil or any of its characters. They all belong to Capcom.

Chapter 9

The leader asked the woman to leave but she chose to die with her boyfriend rather than run away. He was impressed by her love for her companion. So being generous he asked her what's her last wish. And very dramatically she told him that she would like to kiss her lover one last time. He agreed and let the girl have her last wish. She turned to her lover who was now looking into her eyes. She moved her hands over his chest and then took hold of his collar of his jacket and he rested his hands on her waist. They were still looking at each other as if wanting to stop the time but the leader knew what was going to happen and wanted them to get over with that brief kiss already, so he could put a bullet through their heads, his hand's been itching to pull the trigger.

Leon's heart was still pumping hard. Kathleen gave him a slight nod which only he noticed. He then moved his hands lower and withdrew her guns from her holster; she did the same with his gun. And with lightening speed he shot the guys at her back while she shot the guys behind of him. When they finished killing them they moved towards the leader who had frozen during this act of theirs.

"You finished before so go ahead kill him" Kathleen told Leon crossing her arms.
"I think you let me win", he told her with a smile and shot the man down.
"Put your weapons down and hands behind your head", a police officer called to them. As they were blindly shooting in the alleyway someone must have heard the gunshots and called the police.

"Hey officer can I talk to you a minute", Leon said holding up his ID so they could have look.

Leon explained everything, well not exactly everything but whatever was necessary for the police to know and enough to get Leon and Kathleen off the hook. He looked back and noticed the same concern which she had when she pleaded him to get back to HQ. Without wasting any more time he walked over to her."Let's go", he told her.

They hailed a cab and Leon told the driver to drive to the hospital, underground which the HQ was situated. When Leon took his seat by Kathleen's side in the cab, he couldn't help but notice that she was worried about something. What is going in her head he thought; he couldn't ask her in front of cab driver. She closed her eyes and rested her head on the top her seat. She looks so beautiful, 'Shut up Kennedy what are you thinking'. He turned his head and looked outside the window, it was evening time now. Their encounter with Umbrella goons and with the police had took so much time, not to mention their little shopping incident. But all is fine now; everything is calm for now. He breathed a sigh of relief and felt Kathleen shift her position by his side. He again looked at her, she was now looking out. Leon wanted to talk to her but he resisted the urge.

They reached HQ. Though it was just 15 minutes ride from where they had got the cab but it felt like an eternity to Leon. He didn't talk to Kathleen during their ride neither did she say anything. He paid for their trip and then walked inside the building without any word and she followed. Leon had received a text from David which he assumed was sent when John must have reached there with Sherry but he checked it only after sitting in the cab. It told him to bring Kathleen to discussion room of the hospital which was used for discussing difficult cases as they didn't wanted her to see their HQ. So they made their way to the discussion room. Everybody was waiting for them.

"Where the hell were you?", Claire shot at him when she saw him walk in the room
"What took you so long?", asked Jill after her.
"I thought that she killed you. By the way where the hell is she, she didn't ran away AGAIN did she?", asked John not noticing that Kathleen was next to him and when he noticed her; he asked again "and who the hell is she?"

Everybody was now casting an inquisitive glances at her. Of course they didn't recognize her now, she was too much different from before so Leon shot down their glance by telling she was Kathleen. At first they didn't believe him and John went over to her to have a closer look and when he got very close to her face, she instinctively withdrew her gun aiming it at his head, this action cleared their all doubts about her being Kathleen.

"Oh you're are okay I was worried for you", Sherry said moving towards her as if to hug her but she stopped in mid action, possibly feeling a little awkward about it.
"So start explaining", David ordered her, straightway skipping to the point.
"I need that briefcase first", she said with a jerk of her head.
"You can't have it", he told her shaking his head in negative.
"I don't have any obligation to explain anything to you then", she told him plainly.
"Okay here is the briefcase, now tell us", David showed her the briefcase.
"Go play with your kids, this not the real one. I want real one right here", she moved forward so that she was near the table and pointed at it saying her words.

David knew that there was no other option, so he slid the real briefcase towards her. She opened and looked at its contents, her expression was unreadable. Then she started pouring the contents of vials into one and another. What was she doing nobody understood all eyes were on her, waiting for her to start speaking what she was doing. She wasn't saying anything but kept randomly mixing the contents into one and another. Then she quickly prepared an injection and with lightening speed injected into the Sherry's neck. She did it so fast that nobody was able to stop her, she pulled out the syringe and threw it away.

When everybody came back to their senses they saw Sherry collapsing to the ground, unconscious. John seized Kathleen from behind and asked Jill to get her guns and she didn't think before doing that. Claire ran to Sherry's side while Rebecca was checking her pulse. Chris was comforting her sister. Percy was cowering in a corner after witnessing all this. David was shouting orders. Everybody was doing one thing or the other but Leon, he was standing quietly watching them. At last he saw Kathleen; she wasn't struggling as John took her out from the room, where he didn't know. He just stood there. He never thought she could do something like that, fighting with her today he thought she was much nicer than she appeared to be but seeing Sherry being carried away by Chris made him doubt if he knew anything about Kathleen.

"Sherry is still unconscious", Rebecca told them at the dinner table.
"Will she be alright?", Claire asked her concerned.
"Can't really say, she's in a vegetable state right now", Rebecca told her.
"What did she do to her?", Jill couldn't help but say.
"She refuses to speak anything on the matter", David told her, "We have to hold a proper interrogation. I'd go and talk to President about it", with that he left the table to see the President.

Sherry didn't regain consciousness within the next couple of hours and the situation got even more tensed. Even John wasn't cracking any jokes. Claire was still sobbing while his brother and his girlfriend comforted her. Rebecca was checking on Sherry every now and then. Everyone else was angry at Kathleen about what she did earlier. Leon was feeling the same anger thinking why in hell he trusted her? And why he thought she cared when she didn't abandon him when they were surrounded by men, she did it only so she could get to the HQ, get her hands on the sample and do whatever she did to Sherry.

"Where the hell is she?" Leon asked John getting up from his seat.
"I locked her up in one of the rooms", John told him in a low voice.
"Which room?" Leon asked him again.
"Twelve-o-one, I guess. Why?, John replied but even before he finished his sentence, Leon stormed out of the room.

Kathleen sat in the room looking out of the window. They would never forgive her not after what she did to Sherry. But she did not regret her actions even a bit. Sure they care about each other a lot, even the US agents who were supposed to be almost emotionless showed emotions more than she did. She knew that it would be over soon but before finally completing what she wanted, she might take a break. But something felt different; something was there which was not there before. She sighed and thought to herself 'It would be over soon. You are nearly there any moment now.'

The door flew open and she turned her head to spot the agent whom she knew very well standing at the door. She could feel how his anger and she didn't blame him for being angry at her, if it was her in his place she would react the same way. He walked towards her pulled her up by her shoulders and pressed her hard against the window. He seemed to no more care that he was hurting her. And even though he was hurting her, she didn't resist or defend herself, she had been in situations worse than this.

Leon no more bothered that he was hurting Kathleen as he pressed her against the window. He wanted to hurt her, wanted her to know what pain felt like, wanted her to feel how he felt. He wanted her to experience the pain he was experiencing now, the sense of betrayal that he felt. He put his gun on her instinctively, "Tell me what you did to her?", He asked her trying to keep calm.

"You'd know soon enough", she replied even more calmly.
"Answer me damn it!", he yelled pressing the gun against her head.
"Leon!", John pulled him away from her making him fire his gun accidentally, "Have you lost your mind? What were you thinking?", he yelled at him.
Hearing the gunshot everybody came rushing, "What happened I heard a gunshot", Jill asked concerned looking from one face to another.
"Leon are you alright", Ark asked Leon.
"You shouldn't have come here or she will try to kill you too", Bruce told him.
Claire came and hugged her best friend "Stop fooling around. I don't want to see you on a hospital bed too."

"You're asking the wrong person those questions" John said to them collectively.
"So she shot at you?", Sheva asked him.
"No it was Leon who tried to shoot her", John said looking at Leon. "Kid, believe me I want to kill her and everyone feels the same but it's not our style and it isn't yours either. And besides we need her for now. David decided to interrogate her tomorrow at 11. So till then let's just leave her, after that we can hand her over to Police", with this John shot an angry glare on Kathleen. She was on the floor, listening to them.
"Leon, that's not like you", Claire said rubbing his back.
"I just wanted some answers. I wasn't going to shoot, John lunging at me made me accidentally fire a shot", Leon explained himself.

Everyone looked at him a little doubtfully, "He's telling the truth", surprisingly it was Kathleen who said that, "You people are too soft to kill anyone", she smiled at Leon and he felt his anger rising.
"Let's just leave", he said to everyone and they left the room, locking Kathleen in it once again.

No one slept that night and spent it in the room where Sherry was kept. They were all worried for Sherry even the people who didn't personally know her. Rebecca was still checking on her within short intervals. Claire was sitting by her bed side holding on to her bedside, silently praying for her.

John was sitting next to Leon and was watching all of this. He looked sideways to Leon, who had the most neutral expression on his face but it didn't mean he wasn't worried, his training as a government agent made him like that, "Don't blame yourself", John couldn't help but say to him.
Leon looked at him and sighed, "How can I do that? I was there when she shot to Sherry, I could have stopped her but all I did was stand there. It never occurred to me that she could do that, I never for once thought that she could hurt anyone of us."
"I was there too, I could have also stopped her but it didn't strike our mind did it? If it was all this simple we wouldn't have been in this mess", John said comforting him, "Things are not as always as they seem to be, sometimes you gotta wait for it and besides these are the moment when we really come together."

John nodded his head to the scene and Leon followed and couldn't help but agree. These adversity were what bought them together and he was sure that they'd sail through it, with Sherry on their boat as well. He just wanted Kathleen to be part of the crew as well but it seemed that she wasn't willing to be with them and her objectives were different from their own.

A/N:Thanks for the reading. Hope to enjoyed that drama of this chapter