Penumbra:
Shadows Collide
III:
Hero
Summer - 2014
Witch Haven Island, off the coast of Massachusetts
He sagged a little as they moved, but he held on. Her arm around his waist was kept warm by his blood. It wasn't a good thing. He was heavily sagging on her by the time they reached the campgrounds. She walked him to the camp counselor building and up the few steps to a porch.
When she tried the door and found it locked, she leaned him against the railing, and he remarked, "Want me to kick it in?"
Jill gave him a droll look. "Please. Have we met?"
She sank to one knee and picked the lock in a handful of seconds. A little loopy, Leon laughed, "Right...the master of unlocking..."
Jill came back toward him. "Come on, tough guy, let's get you inside."
She shouldered him through the door and toward a set of cots to one side of the room. He blurted, "Shit. Is the room spinning? Am I drunk?"
She laughed lightly. "Are you?"
"Might be," he decided as she sat him on the cot, "Where's my flask?"
"You have one?"
"Yep. Left back hip."
"Good," She took it off his belt and unscrewed it. Tipping it to his lips, she commanded, "Drink it."
He did. A good swallow. It burned and made him sigh. Then she took it away, and he complained, "Hey...mine."
Jill rolled her eyes. "I need it, you lush. Sorry."
"...women." Leon leaned to the side against the wall, and his eyes fluttered closed, "always taking my shit."
Jill's voice floated around him as he drifted toward sleep. "Must've known some real bitches then."
"..mmm.." he agreed, "...mostly bitches."
"Sad story," her voice soothed as her hands rustled his body. He felt her take his vest, sliding it off his front like it was nothing. He felt her peeling his shirt off the same way after a whisper of the knife slicing the back open.
She guided him to his face on the cot. He went, nearly asleep, feeling her fingers probe his skin. It felt good, relaxing, almost like a massage. The cot shifted as she joined him on it, straddling his hips and butt. Woozy, Leon slurred, "I like a woman on top."
Her voice slid against his ear as she shifted his body around some more and mused, "...then you're gonna love this."
She dumped the whiskey on his back. The pain was sharp. It was immediate. It hurt so bad he reared up from his face on the bed to find she'd bound his hands to the wrought iron frame above him to hold him down. Leon jerked, cursing with pain, and Jill commanded, slapping his denim-clad butt between her thighs, "Be still, princess, this party just started."
When he bucked to try to dislodge her, she snapped, "I mean it, Kennedy. Hold still, or I'll fuck this up."
Leon stopped fighting to get her off him and grunted, "If you're gonna tie me up and hurt me, at least buy me dinner first."
She chuckled, amused by him. She'd heard he was funny. He was, one-liners and bad jokes aside, he'd kept cracking them as they'd made their way to the lab. He was droll, sure, but it worked to ease the boredom anyway. It was an interesting change from having partnered with Chris for so long who, it seemed, didn't understand how to joke if you'd thrown the entire cast of Saturday Night Live at him and told them to improvise. Sure, Kennedy's jokes tended to be as flat as old beer, and mostly annoyed instead of amused, but she had to appreciate the effort anyway. Like tossing a whoopie cushion into a room full of praying nuns- inappropriate as hell, but worked to break the tension.
Jill laid her left hand on his shoulder and warned, "It's deep. I gotta stitch some of it."
He jerked again. "No. No. You kidding!? No thanks, bro."
She shoved him back to his face. "Be still, you big baby. You want to bleed to death before help gets here?"
He bitched, "...fucking satan's hairy ass crack...just do it."
Mouth twitching, Jill pulled the skin together and used the First Aid kit she'd found in the cabin to start suturing him up. He jerked, he flinched, but he kept still for the most part. As she wove the needle, Leon grunted, "...it burns like your piss after fucking a whore - blow on it."
Jill rolled her eyes. "It spreads the germs doing that, idiot."
"Goddamnit, Valentine, I'm gonna start fighting you in a minute if you don't help me here." His back was trembling, his body shaking like he couldn't control it, signaling he wasn't lying, "I mean it, woman...blow on it."
She leaned down and blew her breath along the line of his wound. It was stupid. It wasn't hygienic at all, but it helped. He stopped shaking so much. He went still as her breath stopped the worst of the stinging. He actually sighed, "...Jesus...that's good. I can't believe I have a beautiful woman atop me blowing on me, and it hurts this fucking bad."
Jill's mouth twitched again. "Pervert."
He grunted. "Not pervy, just true."
After a moment, he went still. She watched his corrugated sides expand and contract to tell her he'd fallen asleep. She finished stitching him, covered the wound in antibiotic gel, and bound it with gauze. When he didn't fight her, Jill untied his hands let them lie above his head. His face was turned to the side, the burnt edges of his hair looking sad somehow against his tired face.
She climbed off his butt and moved to wash her hands in the sink of the kitchenette. Then she set about securing the cabin until his evac arrived. While he slept, she sat in a chair and watched him. He was all muscle. From shoulders to hips, there wasn't an ounce of fat on him. There were scars, but that wasn't surprising given the life he led.
She thought about that time she'd met him. Even there, he'd been different, odd, a stand out amongst suited penguins. He'd been in blood red button down with a black tie - a splash of scarlet against a void of color. She'd listened to him lecture - found him engaging, direct, and no bullshit. He advocated the cause, outlined his plans, and he gave his report.
He was, without a doubt, made for what he did. He charmed. He encouraged. He led by example, demonstrating he knew his enemy with slides and data about each image he showed. He roused the room with his inspired call to arms.
He wasn't Chris, he didn't use fear to bring those to the fight beside him. He used common sense, and boatloads of truth. He shook hands, smiled, and turned men and women alike with just the dedication and drive he radiated like an aura around him.
They'd shaken hands, and Leon's first words to her had been, "I didn't expect a legend to be so beautiful."
She'd rolled her eyes, mouth twitching. "I didn't expect one to be so unprofessional."
Leon had chuckled. "What? The shirt? Life's too fucking short to dress like it's a funeral every day."
Intrigued, Jill had mused, "I meant the flirting."
He'd cast her a look and smirked, "Was I flirting?"
"Weren't you?"
"Not really," He'd shrugged, "Life's also too short not to compliment something when it looks good."
"A big believer in taking your shot, I assume."
He'd leaned down enough to speak beside her ear over the din of the rest of the agents around them, charming her against her will. "Why not? My life is all about hedging my bets. Telling a woman she's beautiful? That's the safest bet I've made all day."
Jill had rolled her eyes again, and he'd offered, "How about I get you a drink and show you the difference?"
"Between?"
"Between an offhanded compliment and flirting."
She'd snorted and returned, "No thanks, bro," making him laugh as she left him standing there.
They hadn't spoken much after that, too busy doing their circles of the room to drum up support for the organizations. But before he'd left, he'd sought her out for just a moment and invited, "So, how about that drink?"
Jill had shook her head with a smirk. "No, thanks."
"Some other time then," he'd answered, and he'd lifted her hand to his lips to kiss the back of it.
She'd advised him, "You're wasting your time, Mr. Kennedy. Fair warning."
He'd shrugged a shoulder, unflappable, and decided, "Never a waste to take a night away from this, Ms. Valentine. If you ever change your mind and just wanna do that, give me a call."
She let him kiss the hand, amused more than annoyed. It had been a long time since anyone had bothered to flirt with her. It wasn't like she avoided romance, she just didn't bother to chase it, either. There simply wasn't time for it in her world. And usually, the circles she ran in were full of people she knew professionally and wouldn't dare cross the line for anything that might fall apart and weaken those ties.
It was, admittedly, nice to take a moment and let a handsome man remind her she was also a woman under the warrior.
She'd gone out the window to save Chris not long after that, ending the warrior, the woman, and the legend he'd jokingly called her. After waking in the hands of a monster, she'd had most of herself eroded under the sheer force of Wesker's will. How she managed to hang onto who she was might have been a testament to her own iron resolve, but mostly it was just survival. She refused to give up, die there, and let him own her.
He might have controlled her body, but her heart...her head...those were her own. They were Jill Valentine. And Jill Valentine was made of more than limbs and legs and fingers formed into weapons against her will.
She'd heard he'd suffered in Spain under the control of the plagas. She knew the charming guy she'd met at the convention had come back harder, darker, more determined somehow under a layer of near defeat. Surviving infection tended to do that to you, left you a little haunted, a little fractured, and forced you to fill in the cracks of yourself with whatever it took to keep going. Whatever he'd survived in Spain, it had taken him from a boy who'd once held a badge to a badass whose name was whispered with reverence in every circle they shared and those they didn't.
He was the guy who wouldn't die. No matter where they sent him, he came out covered in blood but victorious. The redshirt suited him then, it would suit him now - red, the color of passion and death - somehow intricately linked, somehow complementary. Inexplicably, he had a penchant to survive and save those who needed him. She suspected the plagas infection had done for him what the T-Virus had done for her - taken a mere mortal and boosted him to something not nearly so human.
Curious, she pulled up the tape on the bandage on his back to check his wound. It was already a little less ragged, a little less inflamed, a little less deadly. And the answer she was looking for was clear as day on his flesh.
Jill fell asleep in the chair, watching him, oddly comforted by his presence. Because right here, at this moment, she wasn't alone anymore. She was betting Leon Kennedy understood what it meant to be an outcast by choice, a pariah by design, and a freak by circumstance. Maybe they had more in common than anyone else in their field for it.
She came awake huddled on the floor with his arms pinned around her. The panic nearly sent her into a manic state to be confined until his hoarse voice declared, "Easy. Easy. It was a nightmare. It's ok. I gotcha."
Was it? Had she been having one? She did, though her brain often shut down the truth upon waking. She had them. Oftentimes, she'd wake somewhere beside her bed to find herself hiding in corners and half concealed under the bed itself. Apparently, even at rest, her mind still tried to save her from the things it didn't want her to remember.
Her legs were curled under her, her arms pinned against his chest and hers, his wrapped around her back to hold her against him. He had a set of nail marks looking raw and ugly down the left side of his neck, proving she'd hurt him without meaning to. And just like in that sewer, he hadn't hurt her back, he'd just stopped her from hurting him. Voice cracking, Jill offered, "I'm sorry. I'm ok. I'm ok now."
He shifted his face to look at her. Their noses brushed. His voice was strained from smoke and survival, "You sure? I can keep holding on until you are."
He was compressing her central nervous system by applying pressure across large parts of her torso and body. It was a survival technique, often use to stop outbursts among trauma victims or autistic personalities, and it worked like a charm. She was calm in his arms once she let go of the latent need to panic.
Jill nodded rapidly. "I am. I'm good. I swear. Are you?"
He released his hold enough she could reach around his back to touch his bandage. It was dry, showing it hadn't leaked through while he'd slept. It looked like they were hugging on that floor, and maybe they were, but not exactly. Leon murmured, "I stink like shit, but I'm alive."
Jill's mouth twitched. "You smell ok."
He snorted. "You liar."
He smelled like smoke and lake water. It wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't the worst thing she'd ever smelled, either. So, she'd meant what she said - he smelled ok.
He rose up, and he offered her a hand to do the same. She took it, figuring it wasn't a time for feminism to rear its head and reject him. Jill circled around his back to look at it. She peeked under the bandage again and announced, "Looks good. Healing...fast."
Leon grunted. "I do that."
Jill nodded. "Me, too."
He crossed the cabin to steal a camp counselor t-shirt in gray from the wall of them behind the counter. Slipping it on, it clung to him like a second skin, showing every muscle. His biceps bunched as he knelt and started relieving his vest of its magazines. With some regret, he remarked, "Damnit. This thing was custom made."
Jill's mouth twitched. "Can it be fixed?"
"It's trash," he decided and rose to steal a backpack from the same wall with the camp logo emblazoned across the canvas. He poked the spare magazines and the ruined vest into the pack and started to sling it on his back.
Jill grabbed it and offered, "Let me."
Head tilted, Leon smiled. "I'm ok, Jill."
Jill took the backpack and slung it on. "I know that. But no reason to piss off that wound. You cover us, let me play pack mule."
"Why not?" He joked with a smirk, "Women do that, right? That's women's work."
Jill gave him a deadpan look. Leon winked at her and had her rolling her eyes. "...men."
He chuckled, eyes sparkling under his butchered and burnt hair. "That's my line."
Jill said nothing as she crossed to the door of the cabin. He added, "There's a drop site about a mile from here. Should have a car on-site for use. The safe house is set up on the back side of the island. We'll hole up, and I can get you where you need to go once we're there, and it's all clear. "
Jill tilted her head. "Any reason why they're keeping us off radar?"
Leon held the door as they crossed through it to the early dawn in the dirty sky. "The cameras at the lab got us, Jill. Full display, full body - right now, those images are being broadcast over the wrong networks to the worst possible people. We need to lie low until the heat is off."
Jill considered as they walked. "Is that a fire joke?"
He glanced at her over his shoulder and smirked. "Inadvertently."
Jill sighed as they moved. "I never considered the cameras. We should have disengaged them before we went in."
Leon returned, "I tried at the console in the lobby. But apparently, even my superb hacker skills weren't enough to crack the program. So, instead, we lay low and let the government clean the slate for us."
"They're ok with covering up for me, too?"
"Sure," he answered, "I told them I'd deputized you."
Jil blinked. "You what?"
"I told them I deputized you to work with me. So, now you're sorta a confidential informant and specialized liaison to the DSO. Welcome board."
"They were ok with that? Knowing who I am?"
Leon shot her a look as they eased down an embankment. "And who is that exactly?"
"The butcher of Kijuju."
He paused as she passed by him and watched her move, and she added, "The scourge of Africa."
"Are you?"
Jill snorted. "Of course, I am. I killed hundreds of people under Wesker's command."
Interested, Leon followed her. "Not by choice."
"Doesn't matter," Jill muttered as they walked, "The blood's on my hands. I wouldn't think I'd be all that trustworthy as a CI."
Leon was quiet for so long, she had to glance back to be sure he was still there. "You ok?"
He caught up to her in two strides and paced beside her before he spoke. "What's your number?"
She blinked. He caught her arm to halt her when she kept moving forward. Jill flicked a look at the hand and then back at his face. "What?"
"What's your number, Jill? Dead- your body count- what is it?"
Jill chewed her bottom lip before she answered. "Eight-hundred and eleven."
Leon nodded. His face didn't change. He kept that hand on her arm and returned. "Mines five times that."
He let go of her arm. He started walking again. Jill hesitated, blinked, and hurried to catch up. "It's different."
He said nothing. She hurried again to keep pace with him. When he didn't even say a word, she did, "Damnit, Kennedy, it's different."
After a second, Leon demanded, "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why is it different? They're still dead. I killed them. The only difference I see? I did it of my own free will."
Jill gnawed her lip again. She fell behind once more, because his legs were just that much longer, and he was moving like a man on a mission. She called to him, "Hold up, goddamnit, you're too fast."
He slowed his stride. She caught up and told him, "You were trying to save people, Kennedy. Not sent in to slaughter. That's the difference."
He stopped walking. He turned to face her, "Was I? How do you know that?"
Jill shifted where she stood. "You're the guy they send to save people. That's why."
"What's my nickname? What do they call me?"
She hesitated before she murmured. "The Executioner...but that's just jealousy talk, Kennedy. Because you're so good at what you do."
He shook his head, denying that. He started walking again. "No. It's because usually, by the time I get there, Jill, the body count is already too high for anything but sanitation. I'm the clean-up crew. I go in and waste those who have no hope. I save who I can, sure, but otherwise? I'm just there to limit the fallout. The only thing I can do to make peace with what I'm there for is to tell myself that I'm giving them mercy. Mercy, Jill. That's how I sleep at night, by convincing myself I couldn't save them anyway, so at least this way - I can give them peace."
Jill fell into step behind him again.
As they reached the road, she caught sight of a motorcycle lingering there. Apparently, the car he'd been expecting wasn't a car at all. He strapped the backpack to it and told her, "Mercy or not, they're still dead. And I killed them. Most of them were still half-human when I finished them off. And let's not forget the number of lab geeks and mercs I wasted along the way. So..."
He slung his leg over the sleek machine and announced, "Don't expect me to judge you for something beyond your control. Because I had your body count covered three weeks out of training for this job. And no one had to stick a device on my chest and pump me full of shit to get me to do it."
Jill hesitated to get behind him on the bike. Finally, she returned, "Look me in the face and tell me you really had a choice."
Leon kept watching the horizon. "I had a choice, Jill. I could have run."
"Look at me."
He did, reluctantly. She eyed him. "I know how these outfits work, Kennedy. I know what they did to get you to serve them. You can pretend you were operating of your own free will all you want, but I know what it means to do what you do, and what it costs to do it."
He shook his head. "I could have gotten out if I tried hard enough, Jill. I didn't. I stayed. I'm still here. Because even though I know what I am, even though I know what I've become - I gotta believe it's all worth it. It has to be. Otherwise, what the hell are we doing here?"
Jill studied his face. "...I don't know."
"Me, either," He patted the back of the bike, "but it's gotta be worth the loss. So, stop beating yourself up over it. Let it drive you, but don't let it own you. Or you end up lost and looking for answers - and trust me when I tell you, you won't find any that fill the void."
Just like that, he got it. He understood. She was her own worst enemy. She'd been hating herself for so long she'd forgotten that maybe not everyone did. She'd never stopped to consider that maybe, just maybe, the rest of the people understood her and forgave her.
Because she couldn't forgive herself.
All she was trying to do was atone for what she'd done. But here he sat, telling her you couldn't, you just had to keep going. There was no fixing it because the damage was done. All you could do was keep pushing toward that goal, that thing that drove you, that thing that made you fight. Sometimes it was the greater good, sometimes it was absolution, sometimes it was just sheer revenge - but whatever it was, it had to be enough to fill those cracks she'd been thinking of earlier.
And it had to be enough to keep you whole to do it.
Jill swung her leg over the bike. She took the helmet he offered her and slipped it on as he did the same. Leon gunned the engine, her arms wrapped around his waist, and she was careful to avoid pressing against his back too hard, and they shot off into the rising sun.
That was the thing about the darkness that haunts us, Jill thought as the bike whipped expertly down the road, one way or the other, the dawn always came. It was up to you how you decided to exist in the shadows left behind when it left. All she had to do was find a way to do it.
And maybe, just maybe, she could learn that from the guy in her arms.
