Part Eleven:

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Montauk, Long Island, New York -2012

A long day found Jill trying to make sense out of a hole in the little rowboat Leon kept around the back of the house.

In the week since Leon had gone M.I.A., Jill had said nothing to his family about it. She figured that someone would arrive to deliver the news if there was something to tell. She refused to be the person who shattered their world.

She did as she promised, and she stayed. She lived in his house. She ate with his family. She took walks and bike rides with his sister and helped his mother cook. She was shown photo albums of him as a baby and pictures of him in track meets and at his graduation from the academy.

She wore his shirt and slept in his bed, and mourned him.

Because she just wasn't ready to let him go.

Sitting on a stump beside her, Ana remarked, "I think it's finished."

Jill laughed lightly, "It's certainly in trouble." She studied the hole and mused she wasn't Ms. Fix-It, and she was the worst possible person to try to get this thing seaworthy.

Considering, she wondered, "She would just slap a piece of wood over it?"

Ana tilted her head, "What if we put a balloon in the hole?"

Jill pursed her lips, "What if we filled the balloon with helium? Would the boat float?"

Ana giggled. "We are terrible at this."

Jill gave her a big grin. "Hey, I like to think we're great minds looking at things with a discerning eye."

Ana nodded sagely, "Necessity is the mother of invention."

Jill gave her a considering look. I'm slow, Ana said, to excuse her nearly wonderful sense of innocence. But she wasn't as slow as she implied. She had that trademark Kennedy humor and head for impractical solutions.

Ana stated, "Maybe we should just buy another boat."

Jill laughed and threw up her hands. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"Because it's Leon's boat. So, you want to keep it."

Yep. Smartest girl around, hands down.

Jill dragged the boat into the grass beside the house and declared, "You are too smart, Ms. Kennedy. What do you say we fix this ugly boat and hit the water?"

Ana leaped off her stump. "Let's do it."

They sanded some wood and debated how to affix the patch they'd made to the boat without putting more holes in it with nails or screws. Ana stood over her shoulder and mused, "You think he'll get mad if he comes back and we've put a bunch of holes in his boat?"

Jill met her eyes. She should tell her. She should say it - he's not coming back. The family deserved peace. They deserved to know. They de-

"Depends on if he makes it in time to stop you."

She'd officially lost her mind. She was hallucinating him now. He stood in the sunlight in a gray hooded sweatshirt and faded jeans, looking bruised and battered but alive. Jill stayed crouched around the boat as Ana let out a whoop and ran at him.

She threw herself into his arms, and Jill watched him wince with pain even as he held her. Wounded, Jill thought wildly but alive. He wasn't a ghost. He was there. His blonde hair was dirty and limp around his tired face.

Ana held on and finally commented, "...you stink."

Leon laughed and held Jill's eyes above her head, "Do I? This is all the rage in London."

Ana released him and wrinkled her nose. "You smell like rotten eggs and pennies."

"What? That's not the thing for guys?"

Ana chuckled and patted his cheeks which made him wince again. She studied his face and remarked, "You get in a fight?"

He smiled, and his bruised face crinkled at the eyes with it. "Looks that way."

"You win?"

"Looks that way too."

Ana gave him a considering look and told him, "Jill will take care of you while I go to the house and tell Mama you're back. Wait til Mama sees you. She's gonna cluck like a chicken."

Leon chuckled. "See if she'll make bitoque for dinner and have mercy on me."

Ana nodded and ran for her bike, yelling, "Make him shower, Jill! And then he can fix the boat!"

They watched her ride off toward the main house, and Jill rose to cross toward him from her crouch. She touched a hand to his where it dangled, and he curled it back, squeezing.

Softly, she stated, "Come on. I better do what she said, or she'll guilt me into oblivion."

Amused, Leon joined her in the house as she turned into the bathroom and flipped on the water in the shower. It steamed, rising in plumes around them as she turned toward him and took the bottom of his hoodie in her hands.

Softly, she warned, "Easy, ok? One, two-"

He lifted his arms with a groan, and she tugged it over his head. His chest was a mess, oozing blood and bruises. Her lips curled in to stop the sounds of sympathy as Jill wet a washcloth and bathed the minor scrapes with a wince.

Leon hissed and grunted when she moved around his back and froze. His back was one big black and blue bruise. It was awful, and it was shoulders to hips of blooming color that was so bad he should have been crippled where he stood.

With a gush of horror, she whispered, "What the hell happened to you?"

Without preamble, Leon returned, "...I got tossed like a baseball into a column by a thirty-foot tyrant."

She came around his front and shook her head, eyes wide and shocked, "How are you still alive?"

Leon shrugged, hissed at himself for it, and laughed, "...luck?"

Jill's hands went to his belt, looping it free as she tugged at his zipper. She knelt to remove his boots and helped him leave the jeans in a pile on the floor. She rose and remarked, "You better sit for this."

He sat on the closed toilet seat, and she reached for his boxers. She slid them down his legs while he winced and grunted. Jill shed her clothing as he stepped into the shower and joined him.

With his back to her, she studied the damage in its entirety. He was bruised from shoulders to thighs, and his ass looked like a muscled wasteland of ruptured muscle and blood vessels. Rolling with pity, Jill bathed his back for him as he let the water beat on his front with his head ducked.

She wanted to hold him, but he was so wounded, and even a little hug might hurt worse than fire in the flesh. She slid around his front and spilled shampoo into her hands to wash his hair, where his head angled toward her. Leon braced his hands on the shower wall beside her and breathed hard.

The left side of his face was a burst of purple and green with sickly yellow thrown in to show the bruises were aging. His left eyebrow was crusty with dried blood. Her thumb smeared over it to determine he was ok, just a tiny cut above the eye. Softly, she queried, "You wanna tell me?"

He shook his head and murmured, "It's done. I got the shit kicked out of me. But it's done. The best I could do."

She had no doubt.

Quietly, he added, "I was disavowed, Jill. I'm done. They took my job and flushed it. I don't know what it means for me, but for now? What you see is all that's left."

Jill shook her head. She carefully cleaned his chest. "It won't hold, Leon. You know that. You probably turned the tide in the ESR. Right?"

He said nothing.

She nodded. "Yeah. I heard about the cooperation with Russian and American forces to quell the unrest. You do that?"

Again, nothing.

She urged, "It's not classified if you're not an agent anymore."

He opened his eyes and held hers as he wondered, "You wanna hang around for a guy without a country?"

She laughed lightly. "So, we'll buy an island and become hermits."

Softly, he whispered, "You stayed."

"I did."

"Why?"

"...you asked me to."

Just like it was that easy. He leaned down, kissed her, hissed with it, and muttered, "Super. Can't even say hello."

Jill smiled gently and answered, "You're here. You didn't die. There's time for that."

"They tell you I was dead?"

Her eyes welled as she shrugged and focused on cleaning his chest again. He demanded, "Up here, blue eyes, look at me."

She did, and he told her, "I'm ok."

When her face tried to collapse, he reiterated, "I'm ok, Jill. I'm alive. I'm here."

Her lips twisted as she gushed, "I...slept in your shirt."

Touched, Leon murmured, "Yeah? Like my smell, do ya?"

She touched his uninjured shoulder and answered, "I'm getting used to it."

She was careful not to touch him when he slept beside her that night. She watched the peace on his face as he rested, stubbly jaw relaxed and soft. She kept after him for days to take care of himself. She ensured he was comfortable and brought him ice and whiskey to help with the pain.

When he sat with an ice pack on his crotch one day, she didn't even make fun of him. He did, lamenting, "My big balls got me wounded."

She laughed. She kissed his head's crown and made him a sandwich. For her, it was domestic as she'd ever been.

After about two weeks, he was able to get around pretty well. He fixed the rowboat to Ana's delight and promised to take her on the water when he was fully recovered. His mother kept bringing him food, trying to fatten him up.

In the middle of the night, he rolled on her. Jill let the t-shirt skim up her thighs as he shifted, trying to find a way to love her that didn't hurt. Touched, she let him go for a moment before she cupped his uninjured cheek and soothed, "It's ok, Leon. There's no rush."

In the moonlight, his eyes were silver as he spat, "I want you. Ok? I want you. Let me have you."

Blood singing with it, Jill returned, "I wish you didn't sound so fucking angry about it."

Abashed, Leon adjusted his weight and cajoled, "I'm sorry. I'm not. It's not you. I just-"

Jill put her hand over his mouth. "I know. You hate the weakness."

His eyes were a fiery mix of shame and anger. She shook her head at him. "You're a man, Leon—just a mortal man. Let your body heal. I'm not going anywhere."

He murmured when her hand slid away, "I thought that once and I was wrong. I was wrong, Jill...and then? You were gone. What if..."

He trailed off, and she breathed, "What if you lose me again?"

Softly, he returned, "I hurt you. I did that. You showed up, and I let you run. I let you run from me. I was stupid and fu-"

She covered his mouth again, "You weren't mine."

Their eyes clashed in the darkness as she reiterated, "You weren't mine, Leon. I had no right to stop you from whoever was in your bed. And it's my fault. Mine. I pushed you away. Stop blaming yourself."

She pulled her hand away and added, "I'm here now. It's done. Stop holding onto pain that you didn't cause. And let me take some of yours."

He kissed her softly, and it was good. It was so good. Sweet somehow in a way that made sense. For the first time, with sex off the table, they were just together.

They talked. They took walks by the water. They sat with Ana and Fatima, and Jill learned how to crochet. She knitted him a blanket the same color as his eyes. He put it on his bed like it was the best thing he'd ever seen. It was ugly, missing stitches, and crooked. But he was proud of it.

When the call never came to reinstate him, Jill considered as they sat by the water one evening, "You could come work for the B.S.A.A."

Surprised, he glanced over at her. The bruising on his face was just mottled yellow now and healing. Jill nodded, "You could. Clive wanted to get you shortly after your mad run through Spain. But he couldn't afford you."

Leon's eyes twinkled as he remarked, "So what...now you can score me at a discount?"

She laughed lightly and shrugged, "Maybe you'd be amendable to freelance."

He considered, watching the moonlight flicker over foamy waves. After a moment, he decided, "Maybe I would."

She arched her brows and told him, "You'd be in without me, fair warning."

When he met her eyes, she smiled sadly, "I'll never be fit for field duty again. It took me a long time to accept it. I'm too damaged. I've lost the edge. I'm finished on the battlefront. But I could work FOS for you."

He tilted his head, "You wanna be my handler?"

She laughed again and shrugged, "Why not? Maybe I can live vicariously through you."

Leon shifted in the sand. "I think I'd like that."

Her eyes sparkled in the darkness. "Oh? Me in your ear yelling orders at you?"

"Why not? I do what I want anyway. You should know that."

Jill smiled softly, "what did they offer you to come back?"

Leon flapped his lips and sighed, "Benford wants me to be the Department of Security Operations Director."

Jill's brows flew up into her hair. "Wow."

Wow about covered it. It was the only word she had for what he was being offered. Wow. It wasn't just a step up; it was cradled hands tossing him into the sun. He was being offered the power, the position, the place amongst those who might make a difference.

Jill studied his face as she commended, "Well done, Mr. Kennedy. Being thrown around like an angry toddler's toy paid off."

Leon laughed and shook his head, "I don't want it."

Surprised, Jill tilted her head, "Ok. Can I ask why?"

"It's a losing battle, Jill. You get that, right? What we're doing...it's a losing battle. I can't change a goddamn thing. I'm Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom here; it doesn't matter if I'm in the story at all. I change nothing."

Jill's mouth twitched as she answered drolly, "It was Raiders of the Lost Ark, you plebian."

He glanced at her, and his brow furrowed, "...what?"

"Wrong move, you pop culture heathen. It was Raiders."

He held her look until he just stopped brooding and started laughing. She grinned as he told her, "Damn you, woman. Just let me be miserable."

"No way," Jill denied and leaned her head on his arm, "Whining is for babies, Leon. It changes nothing. You can sit there and brood like Batman about the shit that's gone wrong in your life," she turned his chin in her hand to make him look at her, "or you can get the fuck up and do something about it."

Softly, he argued, "How do I stop a world on fire, Jill? It's all burning. Everywhere I look, it's turning to ashes. I haven't saved anything, and I've just...wasted my life trying to stop the spread."

He held her eyes until she nodded, "Yeah. The fire burns everything it touches, Leon. Everything. The only goddamn thing you can do? Decide what rises out of those ashes."

His eyes zipped over her face, "what if there's nothing left to rise?"

Jill arched a brow, "I'm sitting beside a man who should have died a thousand times since I've met him. He keeps on rising. Right now? He's being offered something that might finally turn the tide. Get Benford to come clean on Raccoon."

When he drew a sharp breath, she urged, "Do it. Push him for the truth. Expose it. And let the world see what we've known all these years - that things like Raccoon...they can be avoided. They can be stopped. We just gotta work together to do it."

His jaw flexed as she finished, "Yeah, that's how you make your story matter, Leon. One godddamn life at a time. One fucking battle at a time. This one? You can do it in a boardroom instead of behind a gun. It changes the world if you succeed."

He shook his head, captivated by her, as he answered, "How in the hell do you still see anything in the future that isn't soaked in blood?"

And she returned, "Because I've lost everything. Everything. And you? You never gave up on me. So, this is me returning the favor. Do this. This is what you've been fighting for. The truth. The end of the fight. You do this, and it can open up doors for the rest of the world to walk on through. They'll all know, understand, that bioterror isn't what happens in the shadows - it's what happens in their faces if they ignore it. Show them. And save them."

Leon laughed softly. "Jesus, what did I do before you?"

Jill smiled softly, "Brooded. Drank. Bemoaned your fate to the universe. Covered yourself in angst until you could barely st-"

He caught the back of her neck to pull her in and kiss her. Soft. Silencing. She grinned as he let her go and remarked, "When the world burns, Leon, be the guy who builds it again. And make it better. That's how you make a difference. That's how you survive."

He stroked the errant hair off her face to see her clearly. "What made you decide to do the same?"

Her eyes flickered as Jill murmured, "...you left."

He blinked, and she smiled sadly, "You left. One day, I looked outside the compound, and you were gone. And I got it. I understood. The only way to have what we want, Leon...is to accept what we can't change and find the courage to change what we can."

He narrowed his eyes at her, "You giving me an AA speech?"

She laughed lightly, "Why not? It's the same, really. It's recovery. To do it, you have to accept your own failings and deal with what you can't fix. Then fix what you can. That's how you recover."

He snorted and admitted, "I kinda hate how right you are about that."

Jill smiled lightly, "Saving lives is almost an addiction for you. When you fail at it, you crash. You come apart. You start looking for another fix to get that feeling back...but if you do this with Benford...maybe you break one addiction or finally? You feed the need that started it in the first place."

Leon met her look equally, "And what if that doesn't work? What if the need is still there?"

She tilted her head, "I know all about that need. Battle. Blood. Adrenaline," she gave him a calm look that centered him, "you find other ways to feed it. Ways that aren't dangerous. Ways that won't get you killed being a hero."

Softly, he wondered, "You found any yet?"

Her eyes were level as she confessed, "I'm working on it. I might be looking at it right now."

Touched, he kept his look as cool as hers as he stated, "You gonna stick around and let me get addicted to you, Jill Valentine?"

For the first real-time, that answer was easy. "Yes," her eyes stayed on his without flinching, "I'm here. You're here. If you take this job, I'll still be here. If you don't take it..." she gave him a small smile, "I have nowhere else to be anyway. So..."

Leon felt his mouth twitch as he confessed, "I started craving you a long time ago, Valentine. You offering to be mine?"

Her head tilted, "Be your Valentine?"

Gaze direct; he demanded, "Yeah. You wanna?"

And Jill said, "Yes."

He drew her toward him. She went, eyes flickering in the dying sun, and he tilted her face up to his where they sat on the dock. "It ain't easy being mine, Valentine."

Jill's mouth curled in a sly smile, "You think it's easy being mine, Kennedy? I'm a bad bet. I'm a mess. I'm in so many pieces you could spend a lifetime trying to assemble them."

And he answered, "I ain't a guy who gives up, sweetheart. I thought you knew that."

His bruised face filled her vision as she leaned in and remarked, "Oh, I'm learning as I go, Mr. Kennedy. You just gotta decide if it's worth the wait."

His lips slid against hers as he murmured, "I've been waiting a lifetime, baby. What're a few more days?"

Amused, Jill said against his mouth, "You sure you don't wanna cut and run? Nobody would blame you."

And he simply denied, "...no thanks, bro."

She laughed as he claimed her mouth. It was a good moment. A great one. The one that sparkled like the horizon at the end of a good day. The beginning of something real, something extraordinary, something tangible.

The tide was turning.

The taste of victory was heady.

The promise of a future without bioterror...a future with each other...was something they both chased like a high. And every hit kept them coming back for more. They were addicted to hope, and there was no cure for it.

Except, maybe, each other.

And a future without fear.