Chapter Text
>EMAIL:[REDACTED]>Subject: Trial Assignment
>Date: 5/16/2006
>Body:
>Ashley,
>If you’re serious about joining us, I have a trial assignment for you. One of the assistant researchers from Umbrella’s now-defunct Wrenwood branch died recently. We believe Wrenwood Antiques obtained some of his personal effects. The local paper says they’re hiring for summer help. I’ve attached the job application.
>I’ll provide further details once you’ve got the job.
>Hunnigan
Wrenwood Antiques: museum and dusty book repository. Home to cobweb-riddled armoires, chipped marble busts, and rickety writing desks with secret compartments. The historic premises boast stained-glass windows featuring sleek Art Deco motifs: a sunburst of turquoise and gold, abstract lily forms amid bold geometric patterns. Originally established in 1930 to showcase the owner’s collection of medical curiosities, the medical equipment and grotesque unknowns swimming in formaldehyde jars have since been banished to the basement to make room for a growing collection of obscure books stuffed into dozens of mahogany shelves.
Open 10:00 am to 8:00 pm every single day, they average 4 visitors per week.
This is where Ashley Graham finds herself working on summer break before her final semester. The hours suck, and the pay is bad, but she’s managed to slip into the city unnoticed. Undercover. Okay, so technically she’s not undercover—but no one realizes it’s her, and so in her book it still counts. Changing her looks and withdrawing from the rest of the world has its perks.
When she’s not playing the part of receptionist, she’s wandering through the towering maze of bookshelves, groping blindly at the undersides of oak chests and medicine cabinets, searching for hidden catches in the wood that will magically open to reveal a secret. Hunnigan says there’s something there, some hidden unknown that needs to be uncovered: a secret from Umbrella’s past.
This assignment might prove to be pretty exciting if it weren’t for the owner, her new boss. Mr. Hyde is an elderly man who has the misfortune of possessing both bad hearing and the ability to give long, meandering lectures on the display pieces. Once, while helping sort a new box of donations, Ashley had to listen to him ramble on for 45 minutes straight about an obscure German author.
“Jean Paul, he wrote Siebenkäs, which popularized the term ‘doppelgänger’, by the way. It means ‘double-walker,’ a harbinger of ghostly doom. We may have a translated copy somewhere around here…ah, Amber, be careful when handling that one, it’s fragile!”
Since then, she’s made a point of bringing her headphones to drown him out.
Mr. Hyde leaves around noon each day, leaving her plenty of time to poke around, but today she’s made no progress. She sits at the front counter, doodling idly on a scrap of paper. She’s written Leon Kennedy everywhere on the page in different scripts. Cursive. Block script. Bubble letters. There’s even a single Ashley Kennedy near the bottom with hearts around it, like she used to do for her elementary school crushes—just to try it on. Eventually, she lets the ballpoint pen roll in idle loops over each one. The ink begins to run dry, and the red line stutters and fades before she can cross out her own name.
The sight of it causes a painful snag in her chest. It’s just a stubborn, silly little crush that never quite went away. It’s been a while since they’ve even talked. In fact, they don’t talk.
Just as he promised, Leon stayed with her every step of the way back home: as she stumbled half-dead on her feet through airports and sat through long flights. He never left her side. At one point, she leaned on him, letting her head fall against his shoulder. In those bleary moments before sleep overtook her, she felt his thumb softly graze her cheek toward her lower lip. He was probably just removing a stray bit of blood or something, but it always amazed her that a lethal man could be capable of such gentle gestures. He was always gentle with her.
After they returned to the States, Leon disappeared, leaving her back in a world that felt completely mundane. At first, she thought the novelty of the experience was coloring her view. Okay, so getting kidnapped and forcibly injected with a parasite isn’t ideal, but the sense of accomplishment she had after saving Leon? That was incredible. She joked with him about becoming an agent, but then it stopped feeling like a joke. It started feeling real.
After this semester, she’ll be free to pursue a full-time internship. Is it too much to hope they can team up again someday? Maybe he can be the one to show her the ropes. That’s only if she proves herself to Hunnigan, though, and so far she’s failing...
Twin cuckoo clocks pop out from the wall behind her, shrieking the time. Ashley startles, slamming her pen down. She jumps every time it happens.
She goes through her closing duties on autopilot, feeling disheartened after yet another day of turning up nothing. She flips the open sign on the door to face her, then slides the lock shut and turns off the front lights. Through the foggy window, she peers out at the cars hissing by. It started raining late in the afternoon and hasn’t let up at all. She didn’t think to bring an umbrella. She groans. The sidewalk is already flooded, which promises a miserable walk back to her apartment. At least she wore boots.
She heads back to the front desk to grab her bag and hears a loud knock. She squints back over her shoulder. With the front lights out, she can’t make out more than the hulking, shadowy figure in the window next to the door.
“We’re closed,” she calls out.
He continues knocking insistently, rattling the pane. Mr. Hyde’s shrill voice comes to mind: Don’t slam the door, Amy. This building is on the historical registry! He’d probably have an aneurysm if he saw this guy carrying on this way.
She sighs, assuming the rain is drowning her voice out, and steps back around the counter. “Sir, we’re closed. You’ll have to come back—“
BANG.
She gasps, taking a step backward as the glass splinters. His fist leaves behind a crimson smear.
“What the hell is your problem!”
BANG. More glass spiderwebs across the wooden frame. Shit.
Heart pounding, she rushes back around the counter to grab her cell phone. Another loud bang makes her jump. In her haste, she knocks her phone down. The battery pack separates from the back, skidding under the desk. She curses under her breath, scrambling to her knees to paw for it.
“Ashley?”
Her head connects with the underside of the desk. Eyes watering, the pain stuns her into a temporary choked silence. She emerges from beneath the desk, rubbing her throbbing head. That sounded like…
She gawks up at him from the floor. It’s like he’s stepped out of her memories, materializing before her as he was two years ago. Strong, vital, here: Leon Kennedy.
“You okay?” he asks, reaching down to help her to her feet. “I heard you yell.”
An involuntary shiver knits its way down her spine as he lets go of her. She rubs the top of her head absentmindedly. Maybe some of her senses got knocked out of her. All she can do is stare at him, mute with shock. What was I doing again?
“Well…” She looks to the front door: empty. Nothing but ribbons of rain washing away any evidence of blood. “He’s gone,” she murmurs.
Leon follows her gaze. “Who is?”
“This guy—he freaked me out. He was out there banging on the window.” The broken window. Ashley groans. She cannot lose this job. “My boss is going to kill me.”
Leon inspects the window, glancing down the street. “There’s a bar nearby. Probably just some belligerent drunk.” He turns to her, his brows furrowing. “Are you usually here all by yourself?”
“Um, yeah, but it’s fine! It’s just weird anyone would be dying to break into here of all places,” she says with a nervous laugh, “drunk or not. Like, are you trying to steal some old rocking chair or—“
“Ship in a bottle?” he finishes dryly.
She laughs. “Yeah, we have those too!”
He smiles, and it’s like being starstruck. She looks away, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
“I didn’t mean to startle you.” He jerks his head toward the back entrance. “I was nearby and heard you were here incognito.”
Hunnigan must have told him. Her heart flutters pleasantly in her chest. So he came to check on me!
She tugs self-consciously at the sleeves of her black zip-up hoodie. Between the dark clothes, dyed hair, and heavy makeup, she’s definitely changed more than he has. She wonders if he noticed or if he minds. The last time he saw her, she was in her uniform, looking exactly how her dad prefers her to present herself: preppy and proper. Well, except for the fact that she’d been a little shabby after the whole kidnapping and running for her life thing.
“It’s been a minute, hasn’t it?” she says with a strained laugh.
“It has.”
She turns away to fidget with her phone. “You never answered my messages.”
He promised to stay in touch, but he never did. She doesn’t blame him; he’s busy. Important. Her? She’s just another girl in a long list of people he’s rescued. A dime a dozen.
He clears his throat. “Why don’t I drive you home. We can talk some more about what you’ve been up to here.”
She whips back around. “R-really?”
One corner of his mouth lifts. “Yeah. It’s raining pretty hard out there. Can’t have you floating away.”
“I’m not sugar,” she jokes, snapping the battery back onto her phone. “I won't melt.”
“I don't know. You’ve always been pretty sweet to me.”
Her phone slips from her hands again.
She does the rest of her closing routine at double speed, flicking off lights and stuffing her things into her backpack. She makes sure to pen a hasty note to her boss about the broken window. He’s too cheap for surveillance cameras, so they’ll have a hell of a time tracking the guy down who broke it, but who cares—Leon Kennedy is taking me home!
>Memo to: Leon S. Kennedy
>Circulating reports suggest Wrenwood may be home to an aberration. Several people have gone missing under similar circumstances. Two employees, M. Bronson and E. Howard, from Bewick’s Hotel left in the middle of their shift. Another man, M. Peters, who had gone missing previously, reappeared and attacked his wife. Police neutralized the subject before any preliminary questioning could be conducted. Local PD is unsure if the two cases are connected.
>Still awaiting the blood analysis report.
>Head to Wrenwood and see what you can find.
>End memo
Leon sets up shop at the Bewick Hotel, located in the sodden heart of Wrenwood. Besides the faulty locks and mystery stains on the comforter, two weeks in, he’s uncovered nothing surprising. The employees who disappeared have no unusual backgrounds. Just normal people who showed up for work one day and never came home.
The other man, M. Peters, is a biomedical researcher, which raises some obvious flags. Peters’ widow reports that he went missing from his office and returned weeks later: apparently unaware of the massive search effort underway. She says he behaved strangely before attacking her. Leon has a meeting this week with the coroner to take a look at his body. Beyond that, he’s at a loss.
Leon is grateful for the assignment. Anything to get him out of his apartment, out of his head. It wasn’t until he was halfway there that he realized a glaring issue he had overlooked when he agreed to check it out: the city suffers from an unfortunate proximity problem. Wrenwood is too close to the ghosts of his past to get comfortable. Not with the sprawling ruins of Raccoon City looming so near. On his drive in, he spotted the corroded signs for it lying dead in the overgrown grass by the roadside. Exits for the city are still blocked off, the chainlink fences thick with crawling vines and yellow police tape waving in the wind.
There’s a special kind of dread that fills him when he’s reminded of its existence. That it was real. That he played a part in it. At least there’s a bar within walking distance he can escape to each night. There are only so many ways to forget the past. His chosen vice isn’t healthy, but he’s not in the job for his health.
Surprisingly, something other than the liquor manages to drag the dead city from his mind.
He spotted her as he was leaving the bar one night. In his semi-buzzed state, he found himself admiring a particularly fine pair of legs clad in artfully torn thigh-highs walking just ahead of him. His eyes trailed appreciatively from each shapely calf to the soft, bare thigh peeking out beneath a pleated skirt—until he realized just who those legs were attached to. Ashley Graham. The former president's daughter. Here, of all places. Leon has long stopped believing in coincidences.
He didn’t reveal himself; instead, he hung back and followed her from the shadows. She’s not in his world anymore. She doesn’t know that having a routine is dangerous. That’s how people go missing. That’s how they wind up with men from their past tailing them down dark streets at night.
It didn’t take him long to find out where she’s working: a museum not too far from Bewick’s. Since that night, he’s been keeping track of her comings and goings. She shows up at the museum every day around ten and leaves a little after eight each night. He watches her bounce cheerfully down the stairs, stuffing earphones in as she does—another dangerous habit of hers that annoys him.
She’s usually sporting those distracting fishnet stockings or tight black denim shorts. Streaks of magenta run through her honey-toned hair. She’s really leaned into the whole alternative thing in their time apart, and despite trying to keep it professional, he can’t help but think how well it suits her.
Over the last two years, he has thought of her occasionally. Like when he notices a particularly beautiful sunset, and he’s transported back to Spain—not to the church or damp castle, but to the ocean: salt spray on the wind, Ashley’s arms wrapped around him, her head resting on his shoulder. When he sees that blazing gold, it’s like he can feel the warmth of her draped over him again. It’s a lonely feeling, compounded by the cold reality he usually finds himself in.
Maybe it’s because she managed to pull him from the brink of darkness, but something has always felt different about her. Special.
He checks his watch beneath the dripping eaves of the convenience store across the street from the museum. Between the passing traffic, he notices the front light go out. She’ll be getting off soon.
Why am I here?
The investigations stalled, so he might as well talk to her. Could prove promising. She might have some information he could use. He can get to the bottom of why she’s here in the first place, and maybe they can grab a drink or…Fuck, why lie to himself? The truth is, this isn’t about the investigation. For once, he just wants to see a familiar face. It’s stupid. He’s got a job to do, but here he is, following her around at night, spying on her like some creep. Shame burns low in his gut. Is this who he is now?
Besides, she may not want to see him.
In the aftermath, she emailed him. He never knew how to respond, so he let her messages sit in his inbox and rot. By the time he felt less paralyzed by indecision, it was too late. Months had passed. She moved on with her life, and who was he to drag her back to that nightmare? He’ll always be an ugly, living reminder of what she went through.
As the minutes slip by, he begins to grow uneasy. Now that the traffic has cleared, he can see that the museum is silent and dark. The rain is coming down heavier. He frowns. She’s usually out by now. Even through the heavy curtains of rain, he would have noticed her dart out.
There’s a burst of static before Hunnigan’s voice sounds from his earpiece.
“Leon.”
“What’s up?”
“You wanted more information on why Ashley Graham is in Wrenwood. I hacked into her email. She’s in trouble.”
He’s already striding out through the rain. “Send me her location.”
Ashley’s temporary apartment is inside a historic brownstone nestled between a pizza parlor and a laundromat. She likes it there. It’s grungy in a cozy, lived-in sort of way that she never got growing up. Depending on the time of day, it either smells like dryer sheets or oregano. Tonight it’s dryer sheets. The fresh linen scent helps dispel some of the damp mugginess of the summer storm still raging outside.
The latter half of her teenage years were spent on the third floor of the White House, where every decision she made was scrutinized. She was polished, stripped of flaws, so she was always camera-ready. Family outings turned into photo ops, and when the camera was gone, so was her father’s warmth. Her home was always sterile. If she so much as set a cup down, someone would be there to clean it up—even if she wasn’t finished with it.
Here, she’s allowed to leave mugs on the coffee table. They’ll still be there the next day until she moves it herself. She's allowed to draw on her messy eyeliner, wear mismatched socks, and sing along to the moody music her dad hates. She’s allowed to bring a guy back home without having him vetted by the FBI.
Okay, bad example.
“Sorry for the mess,” she pants as she unzips her hoodie, discreetly kicking a pair of Doc Martins from the doorway as Leon enters behind her. “I’m just renting it for the summer…It came furnished.”
She’s still huffing and puffing from running from the car and taking the stairs. The apartment is a third-floor walk-up—its only downside. It figures he wouldn’t be out of breath. She glances back at him as he removes his jacket, hanging it neatly on the hook by the door. He’s completely silent. Probably never breaks a sweat. He must undergo some pretty intense training to manage that kind of breathwork. She remembers that when they were in Spain, he was always calm, coiled tightly like a spring, ready to move at a moment's notice. Judging by the way her heart is pounding, she’s got a long way to go until she reaches that point. If she ever does.
Though the stairs aren’t the only reason she’s a little breathless.
“I’ve been emailing back and forth with that woman you mentioned before—Hunnigan? She’s been getting me information on how to intern for the DSO! Maybe someday soon, you and I can—”
“What can you and I do?”
His voice is lovely and deep, a familiar murmur of soft velvet. The cadence of it matches her dreams perfectly. Because she has dreamed about him, about this. This very scenario is plucked straight from one of her fantasies. The ones she has when she’s alone, desperate thoughts turning her nightmares into something sweet. Leon, taking her home, walking her inside, eyes glued to her like he can’t bring himself to look away. Too self-indulgent to ever be true, but here he is, helping peel her damp hoodie off her shoulders. She shivers as her wet skin touches the cool air.
Before he ambushed her, she was halfway through removing a boot. She stands lopsided before him, unable to respond to the unfamiliar urgency shining in his bright eyes. Her brain short-circuits, overwhelmed by conflicting sensations: the lingering shock of seeing him again to the sudden intensity of the moment now that they’re alone. He moves closer, and her back flattens against the wall.
“Leon,” she squeaks, “what are you—”
“Isn’t this what you’ve been wanting?” he murmurs, lightly tracing a finger from the top of her bare shoulder down to her hand. He lifts it to his face, letting the back of her hand graze the smooth porcelain of his cheek. He gazes at her through half-lidded eyes that suddenly look so much darker than they ought to. Another shiver works its way down her spine.
“You’re so cold,” she whispers.
“You can warm me up.”
She gasps as he sweeps her off her feet. In his arms, she practically floats into her bedroom, where he lays her down onto her unmade bed. Light from the neon sign next door streams in through her bedroom window, bleeding cobalt down the glass. He grabs the hem of her camisole and lifts it over her head. Without thinking, she raises her arms obediently. She reaches to return his touch, but he catches her wrists within his cold grasp, pinning them above her head to her pillow.
“Is this how you imagined it?” he says in her ear. The mattress dips beside her. She closes her eyes, arching into his touch. His voice is so close, it sounds like it’s coming from inside her skull. “Is this what you want?”
The hand not holding her wrists trails from her collarbone to her sternum. Her heart knocks against her rib cage like an intruder on the glass. He leans down and presses a frigid kiss to the spot over her heart.
This isn’t right.
“Wait,” she begins, “Leon, actually, I think this might be too—“
He silences her with his lips.
That is where the wrongness of the situation sinks like an anvil through the shock, slotting into place as loudly as a lock turning in a door. It’s late June, but the space he occupies over her body is radiating frozen air. She shudders when his tongue grazes her lips like an ice cube. Her body is wracked with convulsing shivers. From cold, from fear. He isn’t even breathing. His fitted black shirt doesn’t expand, only twists with his movement. He’s a living statue poised above her, frozen from the past. Whoever, whatever, he is—he isn’t her Leon.
She lifts her chin, turning away from his mouth. Not good, not good. She whimpers, struggling in his grasp, but it’s like wrestling against granite. His hands holding her wrists, his legs on either side of her hips. She pants, writhing, twisting fruitlessly beneath him.
“Let—me—go!”
A frigid hand envelops her throat. “Not until I fulfill your dreams.”
The front door splinters from its hinges.
Gun raised, Leon navigates silently through Ashley’s apartment. He surveys the scene in a quick sweep: a stained-glass lamp in the corner casts warm light across the room, illuminating golden puddles of shoe prints. A sopping black hoodie on the ground. A single boot lying outside a door left ajar. He moves stealthily, relying on the rain lashing the windows to dampen the sound of his footsteps creaking across the floorboards.
Through the door, he makes out the shape of two bodies on a bed. Ashley’s pale legs are spread out, thrashing beneath the man on top of her. Her fingers claw at the stranger's hands wrapped tightly around her neck.
Leon’s veins flash white hot. They say when you’re angry, you fly into a blind rage, but his rage has never been blind. He’s spent years sharpening it from careless adolescent fury into a sniper’s precise focus. Another part of him takes control; the part of him that is willing to obliterate another human from being.
Sensing Leon’s presence, the man straightens his spine and lifts his head to look at him. Leon’s finger is already halfway to squeezing the trigger when he turns. The bullet hits its mark, right through the center of the assailant's forehead.
Before the man’s body ragdolls sideways, a sense of strangeness briefly overcomes him, but he’s too focused on Ashley and her sudden pained gasp of air to figure out why.
He quickly lowers his weapon, tucking it away. Ashley wheezes again, rubbing her hands over her throat, inhaling lungfuls of air. She kicks away from the limp body beside her, legs twisting, tangled in the dark sheets.
Leon raises his hands, murmuring softly as he approaches her. “Hey. You’re okay. You’re safe now.”
She blinks up at him as though her eyes can’t stay in one spot; her eyes ricochet across his face and body, before trailing to the corpse beside her. “You—”
“Hey, hey, look at me,” he urges, “You’re in shock. Let’s get you up.”
“I’m okay,” she insists, shaking her head a little. “I’m fine.”
He watches her reach a trembling hand to the corpse beside her. “Ashley, don’t. You don’t need to see that.”
She sucks in a steadying breath, glancing back at him. “No, but…I think you do.”
With some effort, she grabs the man’s arm and heaves him onto his back, allowing his head to loll sideways. Ashley scrambles from the bed, stumbling backward into Leon’s arms. He steadies her before turning back to gaze impossibly into his own lifeless eyes.