A/N: Thanks a bunch guys for reading and following this story, it means a lot to me. Shirahane Aikawa, you're the best girl, for always reviewing my work, lots of love!

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

Chapter 24

(Leon's POV)

I woke up to the sounds of beeping machines and people talking but I couldn't make out a word of what they were saying, because the moment I gained consciousness my head felt like a boulder and as I tried to move it, a searing pain shot like a dart almost paralyzing me. I slowly opened my eyes and the lights felt too bright so I reflexively raised one hand to shield my eyes. I felt a doctor checking my vitals and heard a familiar voice, "Is he alright? Will he be alright?", my mother asked the doctor.
"He's fine ma'am", the doctor answered to my mother.
"Oh thank god!", I heard my mom saying as she bent down and kissed me as the doctor stepped back, "How are you feeling?"
"Head feels heavy", I croaked, "Water."
"It's normal, you hit your head pretty hard", the doctor told me, "You are lucky that you only got knocked out for a few hours but even then you need to rest."
"Yes and thank you", mom thanked him and he went on his way.

"What time is it?", I asked my mom trying to sit up.
"You just stay put, mister", mom scolded me, "He said you need to rest. And its 7:00 PM", she adjusted the sides of blanket for me; "You want something to eat?"
"Yes", I replied to her.
"Oh I didn't ask him what foods to give you", mom said, "I'll straight away ask him, why don't you eat this apple by the time", she smiled and I really found it hard to smile back to her but she didn't take notice and left me alone.

I looked at the blood red apple trying to remember how exactly I ended up here. I got a call from Hunnigan late last night; I dropped by at Kate because I just wanted to see her. I promised to take her on a date tonight, 'guess I am breaking that one', I thought sarcastically. After dropping Shadow at her place I reported to agency, where we interrogated a guy about terrorist activities and it took us a considerable amount of time to get some proper information out of him. He gave us a lead about a black market dealing of some virus samples that was going to take place this afternoon. And then most of our morning went by with confirming this information and tracking the location for the dealing. We really couldn't confirm if the information was legit but we did get a location and since we were running out of time, we thought to check it out because bio-terrorism wasn't something we could take lightly.

In the last few hours, we took our time to convince our superiors to give a green flag to check the situation out but since we didn't deal with bio-terrorism directly I was asked to contact someone from BSAA. My first thought was Chris of course but when I called at the BSAA headquarters he wasn't there yet, so I opted for another contact, Jacob and he was more than ready to tag along. As the last piece we needed a cop to act as support for this mission, so he could stand-in as an alibi and take care of the legal formalities when we catch the culprits red-handed or if things don't go as we planned and we need a back-up. So we headed to the police station, where we fortunately met another of my old acquaintances from police academy, Adrian.

The three of us together headed to the location of the dealing and sure enough the Intel was correct as we observed the two parties from our hiding spots waiting for them to make their move, so that we can catch them red handed but what we feared came to pass down, since they were already expecting us to crash their little party. We were spotted the next moment and were led to smugglers. Adrian tried to call for backup but he was awarded by getting all beat up for acting 'smart'. And we had to jump in as well in the fight but since we were greatly outnumbered, it wasn't really helpful. I just remembered punching the men that were beating Adrian and then a sharp blow on my head that knocked the daylights out of me.

I guess Adrian's backup call didn't go waste, otherwise I wouldn't be here. But I had no idea what happened to him or Jacob and no matter how much I tried I could only remember random stuff in flashes and none of those flashes had anything to do with any of them. My head started to hurt but I couldn't remember what happened to those two, nothing at all. I tried to sit up and just then the door opened and Kate entered. She hurriedly came by my side and pushed me back on to the bed.

"You should rest!", Kate said struggling to put me back to rest.
"What happened to my partner and that cop?", I asked her still trying to get up, even in this condition her strength was no match for mine.
"They are fine! Now lie down", she said throwing all her weight on me to push me down.
"Where are they now? How are they now?", I bombarded her with questions, "Don't you dare lie to me."
"Adrian is fine, he too gained consciousness, he's in the next room", she said and I felt relieved to hear that and stopped struggling. It would have been expecting too much on my part if I thought they'd get away without getting injured.
"And Jacob?", I asked her again.
"He slipped into coma", she told me a little hesitantly.
"I want to go see him", I tried to get up again.
"Leon, stay down!", she tried to push me back yet again.
"Jacob is my friend, Kate!", I told her.
"I know but you need rest, you lost lot of blood", she said and tears stream down her face, "they barely saved you, please lie down", I couldn't see her crying, so I slumped back on the bed.

"Here I got you some cafeteria food", mom said entering the room, "Now I know you don't like it but I promise I'd get you homemade food from tomorrow and why haven't you eaten your apple yet?"
"I don't feel like eating anymore", I told her as Kate stood up and mom sat in her place.
"Don't be a kid and eat up", she said, "and what's more you get to sit up", she tried to convince me. I didn't feel like arguing with mom, so I sat up with a little help from Kate and silently started eating whatever mom brought for me, "So your shift ended?", mom asked Kate.
"I took an off today because...", Kate stopped abruptly looking at me but I dared not look up at her, "I had some plans but I'd resume work tomorrow."
"And now you're stuck here", mom said to her sadly looking at me, as if it was entirely my fault.
"Leon is more important than any other plans", Kate said and I felt it was more to me than to her.

The room was filled with odd silence after that, which was only broken by soft voices of Kate and mom talking among themselves, trivially. Mom was asking Kate things and she was merely replying to her and occasionally asked me a question or two. When John arrived however, the voices changed and it was him and mom breaking the silence, as he made jokes and mom laughed at it. By night mom and John got up to leave.

"You call me if you need anything", mom said to Kate and she nodded.
"Or me", John said.
"Can you pick up Shadow from my place and look after him tonight?", Kate asked him.
"Yeah sure, I am one of the few person he likes", John said smiling.
"Take care of my Leon", mom said looking at me and then and placed a kiss on my forehead.
"Goodnight!", Kate wished them as they left wishing her back.

Kate turned and walked back to me, sitting by my bedside again. I just noticed she looked tired, "Did you sleep last night?", I couldn't help but ask.
"I was thinking about the date you promised", she again tried to smile.
"Sorry about the Date", I apologized sighing.
"No problem, you can take me some other time", she said faking a smile this time.
"Yeah sure!", I said sarcastically.
"You should take rest now", she said getting up.
"I slept all day", I couldn't help but say throwing my arms in air.
"Natural sleep is necessary, Leon, so try and sleep okay", she said switching the lights off.
"What about you?", I asked her.
"I'll squeeze into this couch, if you need something tell me", she replied somewhere to my left.
"I need you to sleep", I said to her.
She didn't say anything for one long minute, "but you are waking me up if you need something", she said, "And promise me you won't leave your bed."
"Deal!", I agreed lying down. I watched her settle on the bed and then turned my eyes to stare at the ceiling wondering if I'd be able to sleep knowing that one of my friends is as good as dead, 'Well at least he's not a living dead', I joked sarcastically.

(Kate's POV)

I never in my life felt this helpless as I watched doctors and nurses trying to stabilize Leon. I wanted to help but at the same time I didn't know what to do, all these years of study were all in vain if I can't use it now. I looked at the beeping machines as they warned me that I was losing him. Why can't I remember what to do to save him? I looked at the other doctors trying to figure out what they were doing, attempting to remember how to save him. But nothing came to me, my mind was as blank as it could be, I felt tears stream down my cheeks as I could do nothing but cry helplessly. The machines gave a long beep and I cried out, "Leon!"

"What?!", I heard Leon's voice and realized it was just a nightmare. I was still in the dark room lit only by the lights in the hallway, my heart beating ten folds and tears had really streaked down my cheeks, "Kate?", Leon called out my name again.
"Are.. are you okay?", I asked trying to sound normal and moving towards him, drying up my tears hoping he wouldn't notice that in dark, "Do you need anything?"
"I am fine but that's a really weird way to ask", he said as I rounded off to his right side. I could make out his confused face now that my eyes had adjusted to the darkness.
"Sorry you wake you up", I apologized sitting on his bed.
"It's not your fault that I am a light sleeper, you really didn't scream out that loud", he told me and as if he knew he said, "So what was it about?"
"What?", I played dumb.
"Me dying", he stated it more than asked, my whole body froze at that thought and my hand was already at his lips.
"Don't you ever say that! How dare you said that?", I spoke fast and even faster than that my tears came running down my face, "It wasn't… no never… never ever…."
"Sshh…. I am here. I am fine", he said pulling me close to himself wrapping his arm around me, "I am fine", he kissed my head as I lied next to him, sobbing on his shoulder, gripping hard on his clothes, "It was just a dream okay, try to sleep."

(Leon's POV)

It took some time to calm Kate down and put her back to sleep. I could never see her cry and I knew she was tired, so much so that it showed on her face, and with me being in this mess wouldn't have been really stress buster for her. I couldn't help but begin to regret meeting her for the first time, regret all the times I took to bond with her and regret falling in love with her. I loved her and I knew she loved me, otherwise she wouldn't be here holding onto my shirt tight because of the fear that she'd lose me. I looked at her, she was peaceful now and my heart also felt peaceful seeing her like that, my grip tightened on her and she moved a bit closer to be comfortable. I closed my eyes too and waited for sleep to take over.

A/N: Thanks for reading. I hope you liked the chapter and enjoyed it. I apologize for any sort of inconvenience caused due to my typos or poor grammar.