Sherry and Hunnigan stay three steps in front of Leon as they exit the state building, talking about matters of fashion that are beyond his knowledge or interest - they pause only once at the security rotunda to retrieve their weapons or rather, Leon does. Sherry had had her weapons, badges and cellphone taken upon landing and Hunnigan did not carry (though she once assured Leon she had weapons at home and knew how to use them, but that had been more of a soft threat).
He checks the safety on the wing tip 9MM before securing it into his chest holster, followed by the USMC ka-bar knife into it's own sheath, same holster. With a crouch he tucks two small marine blades into a second holster strapped around his lower leg, under the Valentino. A light, casual loadout for home - he loved being back in Washington.
He has to sprint fast to catch up with the two as they stop at the foot of the steps outside, Hunnigan confirming details with the other - "Lots of paperwork-" he heard over the late afternoon traffic. "-You can come in tomorrow morning, Leon has an office he's never used - we'll set you up there and get the ball rolling."
"I have an office?" Leon jokes. Hunnigan fixes him with a look.
Sherry isn't making eye contact with him and he feels as if he may have overstepped his boundaries by grabbing her locket - he doesn't even know why he did it, upon reflection it did seem - 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵, 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘚𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘺! his mind recoils back before he can have a full moment of clarity. There were no walls with Sherry - 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘚𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘺? He supposes if he's being honest with himself they've never actually had the past they deserved, just fiction in his head about the way it could have been. He has to remind himself often that reality is not simply the way you wish it had turned out.
Hunnigan ducks into the SUV that is parked for Leon - he takes note that he's due for his 2'oclock reprimand. She'd arrived in her own white 530i BMW and never used government detail vehicles, afterall. A monster loomed behind that black tint window.
Leon and Sherry stand awkwardly.
"Leon about-" her fingers are on the necklace.
"-That's so cool you keep a photo like that - I have one of you, too," he immediatly offers, cutting off the explanation that she can hardly get out and he could hardly be ready to hear. Reaching around to his back pocket he removes a dark brown trifold leather Balenciaga wallet (Thankyou Hunnigan - two christmas's ago). He flips open the contents, pushing folded bills and scraps of paper with half letter-heads showing various department stamps and smidges of different handwritings that curl femininly. There is no plastic flip for multiple photos in a Balenciaga wallet but that is okay because Leon doesn't have photos of many people - mostly those he meets will filter in and out of his life, he knows, with no need for poignant remembrances. But from a slot he pulls out a rectangle cut from a standard 35mm print and leans over to show Sherry a photo of herself, 16 or 17 - with Claire.
"Claire sent it to me years ago-" he adds, a nostalgic smile touching the corners of his mouth. "I think its the only reason I recognized you in China, you lost those chubby little cheeks you had."
Sherry stares down at herself, Leon's finger overlapping the photo corner so it doesn't catch the wind and blow away. She touches it whistfully, along with the faintest brush over his hand. She notes gouges and scars on his fingers - funny, she would have imagined them as long and elegant and deft but they are just a collection of healed wounds - a metaphor for the man, perhaps. In the photo she has on a tennis skirt and sweater combo - the skirt is a little too short but she reasons that it had been during her rebellious teens. A matching headband pushes back long hair - impossible to see how long - but it brushes over Claire's elbow in a ghostly wind. They are by the water.
Leon watches her and recognizes the little twinge of pain that crosses her face, expressions that bear the inward weight of times long ago that are impossible to put into words. He knows them well.
He loves this photo. Even if he and Sherry aren't quite their locket photos anymore they both exist in a tandem of the past and present, blurred silhouettes neither sees quite correctly.
Sherry looks up at him and simply smiles and Leon responds by stuffing his wallet into his coat and wrapping his arms around her and pulling her in tight. He rests his chin on the top of her head and looks out over the crowded traffic-laced roads.
"Thankyou Leon." she murmurs.
"Oh, you shouldn't thank me. You did an amazing job with Mueller. And as for me, I'm getting old. I need a partner - these knees dont work great anymore-"
"you're only eight years older than I am!" Sherry interjects, but he keeps his hold on her tightly, "-you'll understand when you've lived as long as I have, 20 year old knees, I think of them longingly-"
Sherry smiles against the silky material of his suit jacket and closes her eyes briefly, trying to shut down the sounds of the city around them. He has on a woodsy, clovey cologne that mingles with the gunpowder from the weapon holstered near her face. Even now that she' grown he feels like a towering force, not so different than the way she remembers him.
Sherry had been too young to recall much of her limited time with Leon. Many of her memories from the days of the outbreak and subsequent rescue have been blocked by trauma, drugged dry with experimentation, and eroded by the childhood blessing of forgetting. An idea of him stayed with her, though - how he looked under the rising sun as he had walked hand in hand with her out of Raccoon city. There is a sense of the way he had smelled then, too - the same leathery clove and gunpowder. Though he'd existed as only a line of poetry in her story it was a line she had never stopped reciting. Into the dark when she was alone at night. Into the air when Simmons would grip her hand and it felt cold and unyielding compared to Leon's. Even to the memory of her parents when her mind tried to recall the good times over the bad and came up short. Her childhood was a pool of water that rippled with William screaming her name in the sewers, Simmons experiments - often revolving around her regenerative abilites - and training that had never been gentle or kind. And lonliness - god. The lonliness she had felt when her parents were at the lab or the lonliness she had felt when Simmons locked her windowless bedroom door every night. The line of poetry, though, wound it's way over all the hurts and softened them into one tragic past that she signed for by name, in the end. Capital S, capital B: her life lived thanks to him, in ways she knew and others she did not.
She'd asked Claire about him so often but a more disimpassioned response came each time: 𝘓𝘦𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘺 𝘴𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥. They had both lost him, Sherry came to realize when the emotions of womanhood became recognizable to her and she heard in Claire's voice a cooled bitterness.
But then there he was from out of smoke like a specter forbidden to her for over a decade, conjured up out of wishes in the darkest times and prayers before bed - 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭, 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭, 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭? His profile offset by a fire that blazed like that saviored dawn fifteen years ago. The words of the poem had come rushing back to her and she had almost faltered to say his name out loud again.
There had been letters through the years - more than the ones she'd been baited with she's sure - but Simmons had always made her pay some high price to get them. There were tests she'd fought hard against, but he'd slip a wrinkled envelope out of his coat pocket addressed to 𝘔𝘪𝘴𝘴 𝘚𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘉𝘪𝘳𝘬𝘪𝘯 and lay it on a table between them and silently ask her again if she didnt want to reconsider his requests.
She brings her arms up and gives him a proper hug in return, slipping them under his coat so they circle tightly around his ribcage and muscle and she squeezes as hard as she can to convey it all to him, knowing that he can take both the sentiment and the squeeze.
Several minutes pass and neither breaks the hold, prompting the back left SUV window to glide down with a monotone, depressed hum.
Hunnigan's lips are pursed like she's eaten a lemon, no doubt a fancy, imported lemon but its sour all the same. "Leon."
He pulls back from Sherry enough to see her face. There are two wet trails running down her not so chubby cheeks and her eyes are closed. He could react in many ways ; more than anything he wants it to be the right reaction, the one she needs. But he doesnt know what she needs. All he can do is glide a thumb across one shimmering streak and bring his lips to her forhead. He hums a tune against her skin, it's a song Sherry remembers her father singing in a lab 20 years ago as he twirled his little girl around with a flounce of his labcoat.
𝘐𝘮 𝘨𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘢 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘦, 𝘚𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘣𝘢𝘣𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵