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Sherry’s hand flexed, still feeling odd now that the thick leather glove she’d been wearing over it was no longer there.
She and Leon both had been cured a couple of months ago, but after years of the infection creeping closer and closer, it was still an adjustment for it to be gone. Some part of her kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for her to wake up, something. In this line of work, they didn’t get miracles, just the ability to kick the can of problems further down the road over and over until it exploded right beneath them.
But this time, the fallout didn’t seem to be coming. The scientists who were working on deciphering Elpis still believed it really was just an antiviral.
The drug lived up to its name, so far.
And they would have destroyed it without ever knowing, had it not been for Grace.
Sherry’s eyes drifted up again to see Grace sitting at the edge of Emily’s bed, reading some children’s book to her. She was stuttering every now and then with her words, but Emily didn’t seem to mind, smiling despite the bandage over her eyes as she tilted her head to listen.
Apparently the girl’s prior blindness had been caused by her virus. With Elpis, it had gone away, leaving her too sensitive to light and frequently overwhelmed in general as her eyes and body readjusted to regaining her sight.
For now, it seemed easiest for her to block off her vision except for when she was intentionally working on it.
Sherry had pulled the footage of Leon and Grace administering the cure to Emily after she’d transformed. It had felt as unreal as the virus had, way back in Raccoon City, seeing the mutations fall away from the girl, leaving her behind practically unscathed.
Elpis truly was going to change the world.
“Hmm, she’s s-still getting tired q-quickly,” Grace murmured, setting the book aside. Shifting her eyes to Emily, Sherry noticed the girl had slumped back into sleep. Grace reached out, brushing Emily’s hair out of her face, and the girl settled a little further.
“Recovery takes energy,” Sherry said softly, scanning the girl who looked better every time she’d seen her.
“True,” Grace hummed, smoothing her sheets a little further before rising to switch to a nearby chair.
It was the chair she usually took when in this room - Sherry had visited enough to know that, even if she wasn’t here often. It had been angled to face the door while leaving Emily in her line of sight, and Grace settled into it with familiarity, her arms crossed and eyes alert.
The woman seemed to fall into the role of protector for the girl all too easily, when in the same space. It was hard for her to let go of the self-appointed role even still, apparently.
Emily shifted a little, and Grace’s eyes were on her in an instant, softening to care rather than alertness. Upon seeing she was fine, her attention switched back to the door, and the softness faded to the background as something firmer took the forefront again.
The look and posture lingered in Sherry’s attention though - something about it ringing familiar enough that she rolled it over and over in her mind until it clicked. When it did, she was surprised she hadn’t registered it sooner.
Grace looked at Emily the same way Leon had once looked at her. He even still did sometimes, despite the fact that Sherry was nearly forty now.
Now that she had noticed it, Sherry was surprised she hadn’t seen it sooner. Leon and Grace were really similar, now that she was paying attention to it, in a lot of ways. Perhaps a younger Leon matched with Grace a little more simply, but even the Leon of the present was reflected in Grace.
It was the gentleness, Sherry decided, covertly watching the pair across from her. Both Grace and Leon wore kindness like a second skin, only Grace hadn’t made hers quite as quiet yet, the way Leon had after getting burned so many times in the past.
Perhaps tied into that was their protective natures - mirror images of each other, if expressed in different ways. Grace was the kind to stand firm as a barrier, while Leon was the kind to dismantle a threat. Shield and sword - both used to protect but with distinct differences.
Yet, often paired together when used, nonetheless.
“What?”
Sherry blinked, realizing Grace had noticed her attention. Perhaps had noticed it a while ago, even if she hadn’t said anything about it until now. She was looking at Sherry like the attention made her uncomfortable and curious in one.
“Oh, sorry,” Sherry said, smiling at the younger woman a little sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to stare. It’s just - for a moment there, you really reminded me of Leon. Blast from the past, and all.”
“M-me?” Grace asked, sounding baffled, as if she didn’t see it herself and was surprised someone else had come to that conclusion.
“Hmm,” Sherry agreed. “Especially the Leon I knew first, back when this all began. We met in the City, along with our friend Claire. It was… a wild night. But seeing you with Emily, it reminds me of how he used to interact with me. I was a kid then, probably close to her age.”
“T-that’s awful,” Grace said softly, frowning in sympathy. “I dug into w-what happened there. N-nightmare fuel. Especially for a k-kid.”
“Yeah,” Sherry said simply, long practiced at not letting the topic bog down a conversation, despite the baggage with it. “But you know what? He and Claire made it easier. In a city that was losing its mind, people like them stood out. I bet to Emily, you did too.”
Grace flushed a little and turned her attention back to the sleeping girl by her side. Sherry smothered an amused grin, not wanting the woman to misinterpret it. If she and Leon really were as similar as she thought…
“I don’t k-know about t-that,” Grace said, a little flustered. “I’m just glad she’s out. N-no kid deserves to live l-like that.”
Sherry had called it.
She tamped down on the satisfaction of a correct prediction, as well as the amusement that came with it to focus on the conversation. Grace had that same guilty, troubled look on her face that Leon tended to get - and wow, now that she’d spotted it, Sherry was shocked she hadn’t made the comparisons sooner.
They really were cut from the same cloth, it seemed.
“Well, that’s thankfully in her past now,” she said simply, catching Grace’s eye. “Thanks to you, she doesn’t have to.”
Grace smiled a little, at that, some of the heaviness the guilt lent her frame easing at the reassurance. She reached out, taking Emily’s hand carefully in hers.
“I guess you’re right.”
Music audible even over the rumble of the car was filtering through the headphones Rose was wearing, and Chris resisted the urge to tell her to turn it down as she hummed, kicking her legs in the carseat in the back. It wasn’t like simple soundwaves could actually do anything to damage her hearing, after all, unlike most girls.
The navigation sounded, letting him know to turn, and Chris slowed, pulling up in front of an apartment building. Following the instructions he’d been given, he rolled down the window and entered the visitor code into the lot’s security gate, and the music cut out as Rose pulled her headphones off, looking around curiously. He found the designated ‘Visitor’ spot he’d been told was reserved for him for the night, and turned the car off.
“Is this it?” Rose asked, glancing around, though there wasn’t much around for her to see yet.
“Should be,” he said, grabbing the bottles of sparkling cider he’d picked up on the way over and getting out of the car. Walking around, he helped Rose out of her carseat, and she stuck close, grabbing his free hand as they walked, in the way that small children tended to do.
Making their way over to the elevator, Chris shifted the drinks to free up a hand, pressing the number for the floor they needed, and from there it was only a short ride and walk down the hall to the right door.
“They… know about me, right?” Rose asked quietly, her small hand holding his tightly as she looked up at him from his knees, before he could knock on the door. Chris paused, looking down at her.
“Leon already knows,” he said, keeping his voice low as he crouched down to one knee to put himself on her level. It made his joints ache with old wounds, but it was worth it for this. “He found out when he met you and your mom, remember? He told Grace when this was suggested, and she doesn’t mind at all. Do you remember me telling you about her kid, Emily?”
“You said she was a little like me,” Rose said, biting her lip a little. “But because of something else.”
“That’s right. Do either of them sound like someone who would judge you, for being a little different?” he asked, smiling at her, trying his best to calm her nerves.
They’d been well-earned, was the thing. Preschool… hadn’t gone as well as he and Mia would have hoped. The kids had been accepting at first, until she’d done an accidental show of telekinesis, and the parents and teachers had found out. From there… well, kids that young took their cues from adults.
Mia had wanted to do homeschooling for att least a year, but Rose had wanted to try again at the elementary school for kindergarten. So far it was going well, but Chris had gotten the sense that they all knew it was only a matter of time, no matter how much they tried to shield the young girl from that fact.
“No,” Rose said, voice just above a whisper.
“That’s right,” he agreed. “Grace mentioned that Emily would like to meet you too. Do you still want to meet her?”
Rose looked a little hesitant, but nodded carefully after a long moment of consideration. Chris was glad. He thought this would be good for her, but he also wasn’t going to force her into a situation she didn’t feel ready for, either. If she had asked to, they would have turned around right then and there, and Chris would have texted an explanation to Grace about their absence.
“You’ll be there?” she asked, just for confirmation.
“The whole time,” he promised, the same way he’d promised Mia, when she’d had to cancel at the last minute, leaving him as the only one going with Rose.
“Okay,” she said softly, with a nod. Chris nodded back to her, and finally stood to his full height again with a quiet grunt, knocking on the door.
There was the sound of a dish somewhere deeper in the apartment, before the door unlatched and Grace stood in the doorway. She was dressed nicely, but a little more casual than she had been in the other few times he’d seen her.
He knew she had a spine of steel in her though, despite her nervous nature - had since the moment they’d met in person and he’d found her standing off against the DSO alone, then just as willing to stand off against him, if needed.
“Chris, n-nice to see you again,” she said with a slight smile. He was pleasantly surprised to note that her stutter seemed less intense this time around - Leon had let slip once that it seemingly got worse the more nervous she was.
“Thanks for having us,” he said back, holding out the cider. “I brought something to contribute - it’s not much, but it was the least I could do. Kid-friendly, and I wasn’t sure if alcohol would be welcome here.”
It would also keep Leon from being tempted by it, but Chris kept that to himself, not knowing if he’d shared that part of his past with Grace, yet.
“Thank you,” Grace said, as her eyes drifted down to Rose. Her smile softened, and she crouched down carefully a moment later, as Rose clung to Chris’s leg. “Hi, there. M-my name’s Grace. It’s nice to meet you.”
“I’m Rose,” the girl responded, watching her curiously. “You’re Emily’s mom?”
“Sort of,” Grace agreed, clearly not wanting to explain the unusual relationship between her and Emily. At this point, it might even be the truth - Chris hadn’t exactly been keeping tabs on the duo, the way Leon had been. “Did you w-want to come inside and m-meet her?”
Rose glanced up at Chris one more time for reassurance, before nodding shyly. Grace’s smile got wider in response, and she rose to her feet again, motioning for them both to come in.
Her home was small but not cramped, and it looked cleaner than he expected it normally did, with a busy adult and a young child in the house. A few bookshelves lined the walls, filled with a combination of fiction and nonfiction, with a shelf of new children’s books added in. The nonfiction looked mainly like a mix of true crime, history, and coding textbooks from a distance, which was interesting.
“Emily!” Grace called, leading them towards the kitchen. “Come greet our g-guests!”
“Coming!”
A young girl with ash-blonde hair came running into the room to collide with Grace’s legs as the woman set the drinks on the nearby counter. She was dressed in a light blue dress, her dark eyes looking at the newcomers curiously.
“Emily, this is Chris and Rose,” Grace told her, resting a hand on her head fondly. “C-can you say hi to them?”
“Hello,” the girl greeted, as her eyes trailed to Rose. Chris noted they weren’t too far apart in age, though Emily was clearly a few years older than Rose’s six years. “Do you want to play? I have some games in my room. No dolls though.”
Rose looked up at Chris again, and he raised his eyebrows at her, letting it be her decision. She bit her lip a little nervously, but nodded slowly. Emily gave a slight smile in return and held out her hand, which Rose took after another moment’s hesitation. Within a minute, the two girls disappeared around the corner.
“W-well, that went easier than expected,” Grace said wryly, looking after the pair fondly. “Kids really do make friends easily, huh?”
At that moment, Leon came out of what Chris assumed was the kitchen, wiping his hands with a towel, frowning over his shoulder.
“Hey, Grace, where did you say the - oh, hey Chris,” he said, smiling slightly at the sight of him. “Glad you could make it. Been meaning to host something like this for a while, but my place doesn’t exactly have the space or furniture in it for this many people. Good thing Grace was willing to offer up her own space for us all, huh?”
“You do live a bit Spartan,” Chris agreed, clapping a hand to his shoulder, glancing towards the woman in question. “Mia’s sorry she had to back out, by the way. Work emergency they wouldn’t let her say no to. She didn’t want Rose to miss out on this though, so she still got to come.”
“N-no problem,” Grace said, shaking her head. “It happens. Leon, you were asking about something?”
“Right, you mentioned a serving bowl earlier,” he said, shaking his head. “I couldn’t spot it, and it felt odd to be going through your cabinets after the first few guesses were wrong.”
“I’ll get it, don’t worry about it,” Grace said, smiling as she ducked into the other room.
Chris’s eyes trailed after her, taking in the way alertness still lined her form despite her ease in the space. His gaze then flicked to the frosted window film on every window in the area, that likely continued on throughout the house. He noted the flinch Grace gave when a timer went off, her hand twitching towards her weaponless hip briefly.
“She doing okay?” he murmured to Leon, whose movement paused as he met Chris’s eyes. “Lots of people… don’t exactly. After seeing the things we’ve seen.”
Leon met his gaze steadily, before shifting to look at Grace’s back for a long moment. The woman in question pulled a large bowl out of a cabinet and began transferring food from the stovetop to it.
“She’s a survivor,” he finally answered simply, turning his attention back to Chris. “She’s figuring it out.”
Chris hummed his agreement, noting the way Leon’s eyes somehow simultaneously bled pride and regret at his statement. He knew his friend always blamed himself for not doing more. He was glad his friend had something extra on the other side of that one, though.
A clatter from deeper in the kitchen drew their attention as Grace gave a quiet yelp, and Leon disappeared to go lend his assistance.
They stood together, Leon now holding a stack of plates and Grace carrying the large serving bowl, talking about something Chris couldn’t quite hear from where he was. He noted everything about them - too much time spent training the skill to be able to turn it off by now.
The set of their shoulders, the look in their eyes. The tension in their jaws despite the ease in their posture. The worn and worried cant to their expressions, covered up by the simple ease of companionship. The mirrored way they stood and moved through the space.
Leon had been right about Grace being a survivor, Chris thought, stepping into the room to help grab the rest of the food. Of course he would recognize it in her. He was exactly the same.
Ashley was getting weary of the number of people coming up to her just to say they had spoken to her. She sipped her champagne, keeping her press-friendly smile plastered on as she moved around the room, being greeted by person after person.
These events were as much for networking as they were for official business, she knew. As the Director of National Intelligence, she was one of the biggest fish here, and a lot of the younger intelligence agents and officers were interested in making connections that could boost their careers.
She caught sight of another duo approaching in her peripheral vision, with the man in the lead, and she mentally sighed while strengthening her smile.
“Hello, sir, are you enjoying the evening?” she asked, turning to face them. She then almost choked on her drink, seeing an unexpected familiar face.
“Really, Ashley? Sir?” Leon Kennedy asked, raising an eyebrow with an amused quirk of his lips. “I know I’m older than you, but I didn’t think it was that big of a gap.”
“Leon!” she exclaimed, her smile widening to something a lot more real. Holding her drink out to the side, she gave him a warm side-hug, not surprised in the least to feel body armor under his suit jacket. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here - you usually avoid these like…”
“The plague?” he asked, laughing a little at the play on words, while Ashley rolled her eyes good-naturedly. They’d long since reached the point about being able to joke about the plaga, even if the memories still unsettled them both sometimes. “The DSO finally cornered me on this one. I can get out of a lot of these, but not all of them. Besides, heard you’d be here, and figured I’d say hi. Also, I wanted to introduce you to Grace.”
Ah, that’s right. He’d walked over here with someone, hadn’t he? Turning her attention to his companion, Ashley took in the woman apparently serving as Leon’s plus one for the evening.
She seemed a little nervous, which implied she was still relatively new to scenes like this, and looked to be somewhere in her twenties. Instead of wearing a dress like Ashley and a little over half the other women in attendance, she was wearing a nice pantsuit. Given the way the fabric shifted a little oddly every now and then, Ashley suspected she was also wearing some kind of armor under her clothing too.
Interesting.
“Nice to meet you,” Ashley said with a smile that was a little more professional, but still far more genuine than most she’d been giving out tonight. She reached out to shake the woman’s hand, and noted that while it was a little clammy, her grip was firm. “I’m Ashley Graham, DNI. Pleasure to meet another friend of Leon’s.”
“G-Grace Ashcroft,” the woman introduced, stuttering a little with wide eyes, but voice as firm as her grip. “FBI. Technical Analyst.”
“Technical?” Ashley’s eyebrows rose. “I’m curious to hear how you met this one, then. It’s not often he makes friends outside of the field, and as an analyst you’d be pretty office-bound, I’d imagine.”
“I make friends just fine,” Leon huffed quietly, which Ashley ignored. She was pleased to see Grace’s lips twitch at the slight banter.
“W-we did kind of m-meet in the field,” Grace said, sending an entertained glance sideways. “I was involved in the Wr-Wrenwood and Rhodes H-Hill incident, ma’am, if you heard about that.”
“Ah, that.” Ashley barely withheld a grimace, knowing there were members of the press here. A few of the trashier reporters were likely already planning how to spin her hug with Leon into her cheating on her husband, or some such nonsense. Vultures, all of them.
The whole incident with Gideon, Zeno, and Umbrella once again had been a mess to deal with, and a massive oversight of her departments. Well, some oversight, and some proof that there were still damn moles in their governing bodies after all these years.
Knowing Grace had been involved - and now that she was thinking about it, Ashley did remember mention of an FBI worker being caught up in it all - changed her perception of the woman.
“I apologize for any oversights on the behalf of our intelligence agencies, for what happened,” Ashley said seriously, knowing from experience how… haunting, such encounters could be. She had never been back to Spain herself, after all. “We are working on ensuring it doesn’t happen again, I promise you that. Though, it’s a credit to your resourcefulness that you survived and seem to be managing well enough to join us here. We could certainly use more people with your fortitude in our agencies.”
Leon smiled a little off to the side, and Ashley knew she’d have to tease him over finding a protege and not telling her later, after the event was over, even if the term might not be one he’d ever use himself. In front of her, Grace flushed a little, a pleased smile flickering across her features, even as humble awkwardness fought it down.
“O-oh, no, really,” she stammered, waving her hands in front of her a little dismissively, as if she could bat the complement away. “It was n-nothing special. If L-Leon hadn’t shown up w-when he did, I’d have b-been eaten - and if the BSAA hadn’t, w-we’d have been c-crushed. Or s-something like that.”
“Grace,” Ashley said, smiling a little more gently at her, in the hopes of soothing her nerves. “A piece of advice: take the compliment. I have seen far more people do a lot worse when faced with a crisis like that, in my time. As a young woman just starting your career? Take the win. Accept the acknowledgement of your skill. Take up the space you take up. You don’t win in the world by making yourself smaller.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Grace said softly, after a startled moment of silence. Then she smiled a little, quiet. “Thank y-you, then.”
Ashley hummed her acknowledgement of her thanks, casting another glance at Leon. He looked pleased, and Ashley raised her eyebrows at him, unable to help the teasing gesture. He rolled his eyes at her, and she bit back a smirk. She had plenty of time to harass him later, and only so much longer she could spend getting to know his protege.
“So, Grace,” she said, turning her attention back to the woman. “What got you into this field? You like solving puzzles, interested in justice…?”
“My m-mother was murdered when I w-was a teenager,” Grace said, voice wavering before firming into something more steady a moment later. Her eyes flashed. “The p-person who did it w-was never caught, d-despite me being there and h-having a description of them for the a-authorities. I… wanted to h-help make sure that didn’t happen to o-other families. Fell into it f-from there.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ashley said, with a slight frown of sympathy. Grace shook her head.
“N-nobody’s fault but Umbrella’s,” she said firmly. She quirked a slight smile, seemingly intentionally lightening the mood again, but not in a way that was forced. “Y-you’d be surprised how often k-kids get overlooked in cases. It’s… nice to h-help their voices get heard. Even indirectly. I’ve been w-where they’ve been.”
Ashley paused, staring at Grace, a little startled.
That look on Grace’s face, the quiet surety in her words. The… compassion, in the way she approached the work that she was doing, despite how grim it could sometimes get. Even the age she was at, during this stage of her career - though maybe a little greener.
Her eyes drifted to Leon, as Spain seeped over her perception like a filter.
He was watching Grace still, quietly letting her take the lead here, in this place he’d clearly brought her to make connections, even if she seemed like she hadn’t realized it yet. He seemed proud too, even if he was trying to hide it from being too obvious to a random passerby. Protective, in the way he stood close and ready to step in if she needed it.
Leon could see it too. Of that, Ashley had no doubt. That was maybe the reason he’d taken her under his wing in the first place.
“It sounds like you’re doing good work, Grace,” Ashley said, smiling as she turned back to her. “I’m glad we have you working for us.”
“Mrs. Graham,” one of her aides murmured, walking up, tilting their head to the side, where several of the other VIPs for the night had just entered the room. Ashley nodded at the aide, who nodded back and stepped aside.
“Unfortunately, duty calls, so I can’t stay and chat longer,” Ashley sighed, smile turning a little wry. She glanced towards Leon. “We’ll have to meet for coffee sometime, so you can tell me what you’ve been up to recently. Be sure to give my number to Grace when you get a chance, too, she’s lovely. Grace, it’s been wonderful to meet you. Keep it up, and if you need something, call me.”
“Will do, Ashley,” Leon smiled, turning his attention back to her. “Good luck with the vultures.”
“T-thank you, ma’am,” Grace stammered, seeming surprised at the warm reception and offer. Ashley shook her head, already moving away, but wanting to correct that now.
“Call me Ashley, Grace,” she said, sipping her champagne again as her heels clicked purposefully across the floor. “A friend of Leon’s is a friend of mine. Take care.”
She could feel her smile get faker again as she left the pair, and resigned herself to that being one of the only spots of complete honesty tonight. Still, she was glad Leon had stopped by to show off his protege - because she knew that’s what he’d been doing, even if he’d deny it. He hadn’t done that with any of the other strays he’d picked up through the years.
Those, she’d met during the rare occasions she was able to make it to one of his or the Redfields’ twice a year ‘Survivor Socials’, as Claire had once called it. The group itself had grown and shrunk over time, but it was a solid group of good and capable people.
Still, if people like Grace were going to be their next generation standing up to bioterrorism, then things would likely be in good hands.
“Shit.”
Claire fell silent mid-sentence as her eyes darted to Leon. As she watched, he spun on his heel and began jogging back in the direction of his car, tucking his phone back into his pocket as he went. Claire blinked after him for just a second, before she took off after him, catching up a moment later.
“What’s going on?” she asked, voice serious as she read his worried mood.
“DSO finally got their hooks in Grace,” he muttered as they reached his car. He tossed their bags of purchases in the backseat carelessly, buckling up and starting the car quickly as Claire followed suit. “Hunnigan tipped me off that she’s on the premises.”
“Well, shit,” Claire agreed, remembering from previous conversations how similar Grace’s situation could become to Leon’s if they weren’t careful.
They didn’t talk much as Leon drove, both too worried about what exactly the DSO would want with Grace - and what they might do to get it. Claire was fairly certain Leon was breaking a few traffic laws as they sped across DC towards headquarters. Ordinarily, she’d be giving him trouble for doing so, but right now she knew how important time was for them.
When they arrived, Leon didn’t bother to park neatly, just fitting the car into the nearest spot available and throwing it in park. He was already halfway across the parking garage when Claire caught up with him.
At the doors, they were waylaid by Hunnigan herself, as she snagged Leon’s arm and pulled him through the halls of the building, Claire close behind. All three of them were familiar enough faces that security didn’t even bother to stop them - especially given their apparent urgency.
“They took her into room 33A,” Hunnigan said, opting for the stairs rather than the elevator. “There’s a guard at the door, you won’t be able to get in, even being you. But 33A is meant for covert information gathering when it’s not being used for this - it’s why I diverted them there instead of 23C which they were going to before. There’s a room with one-way observation set up, and I can get you in there. You won’t be able to say anything, but you can make a ruckus on your side if you need to.”
Leon didn’t look happy about it, but Claire knew he trusted Hunnigan enough to follow her lead. Moments later, Hunnigan was ushering them into the room, glancing over her shoulder briefly at the sound of voices. Once they were in, Hunnigan gave them a look, murmuring good luck to them before she took off down the hall again to cover their trail.
Claire got her first good look at Grace, then.
She’d heard a lot about the woman from Leon, but hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting her yet. Grace was younger than she’d expected, nervous and still dressed for her job at the FBI as an analyst. She also clearly didn’t seem to know why she was here, her eyes darting between the three members of the DSO in front of her at the table.
“Miss Ashcroft, thank you for joining us today,” Middle said, smoothing her hands over a page in front of her on the table. “We’ve heard about your… efficiency during the Elpis Incident.”
“I s-see,” Grace said quietly. “I hadn’t realized t-that was what it was being called.”
“Informally, as of yet,” Right interjected, adjusting his glasses a bit. “The incident is still being reviewed, of course. It will get its official designation when the review is complete.”
“Which brings us to the topic of today’s meeting, I believe,” Left finally said. Claire knew the tactic they were starting with - alternating who was speaking to keep Grace off balance and unable to focus for too long on a single person. “The DSO appreciates resourcefulness in the field - it is one of our leading criteria for our agents. Your performance has managed to impress us - something that is uncommon to do.”
“... While I appreciate that, I h-have no interest in b-being a field agent f-for the DSO,” Grace said firmly, after a long moment of silence, her voice still quiet. “Or in transferring f-from the FBI in general. To put it b-bluntly.”
Leon let out a breath that sounded slightly relieved, to Claire.
“I see,” Middle said diplomatically, folding her hands on the table before her. “Well, we knew it was a long-shot, which is why we chose to start with that topic first. I appreciate your candor. The more important topic that we wished to discuss with you, was what you had managed to accomplish at Rhodes Hill.”
“The Blood Collector,” Leon murmured, with a frown, and Claire glanced sideways at him. He looked stressed, and she rested a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t look away from the room, even though he leaned a little into the touch.
“The Blood Collector,” Grace mirrored unknowingly a moment later, eyes sharpening in an instant. Claire could immediately see why she had been hired so young at the FBI now - the quick intelligence behind her eyes easy to see even at a distance.
“Indeed,” Right said, leaning forward in interest. “You accomplished something very impressive with your modifications - your invention, even. We were hoping you might be willing to sell us the design, at a very reasonable cost.”
At this, Middle slid one of the pages in front of her across the table. Grace picked it up, scanning it carefully.
“Read the fine print, Ashcroft,” Leon murmured, shifting his weight.
It was as if the two were on the same wavelength, Claire noticed, seeing the way Grace was letting the silence stretch as she took her time reading each line carefully, finger tracing each sentence. Her face was mostly impassive, and she ignored the way the three representatives in front of her exchanged a look several minutes in. Finally, she looked up.
“I would b-be open to selling usage r-rights to the DSO,” Grace began, and Claire felt Leon’s shoulders relax under her hand, as he huffed a slight laugh. Claire knew everyone present had caught the wording distinction there. “However I would l-like to show this to a p-private lawyer before I sign it. Under the appropriate NDA, of c-course.”
“Of course,” Left agreed, a slightly sour look on his face. The pleasant expressions on the faces of the other two looked somewhat forced now as well.
“W-was there something else?” Grace asked, her eyes on the remaining pages in front of Middle.
“We suspected you might say no to transferring,” Middle said, after a moment. “However your work with the Blood Collector was truly remarkable. That paired with your knowledge of and experience with Elpis leads us to our final proposal for you.”
“Our scientists here have nearly finished reverse engineering the formula for Elpis,” Left said, adjusting his glasses again in a way that spoke of habit rather than actual need. “It is a miraculous cure - a significant boon to us and the BSAA both. However, we were uncertain if that was all it was capable of gifting us.”
“You see,” Right continued, glancing at the other two briefly. “Umbrella, the Connections, others… they are successfully creating supersoldiers, to a degree. Modified humans, BOWs that are stable enough for their purposes, and who knows what else tucked away in their basement. On our side? Ordinary men and women. While they grow in power and ability, we remain… stagnant. Limited by the human form.”
Claire stared at the representatives in unison with Grace, knowing that beside her Leon was doing the same. It was clear what they were asking, and she almost couldn’t believe her ears. Beside her, Leon was rigid.
“You want me to modify Elpis,” Grace said quietly, eyes sharp upon them. “L-likely as a contracted role, given m-my refusal to transfer. You w-want the benefits of the viruses, without the s-side effects and risks.”
“Clever girl,” Middle said, smiling at her, looking actually impressed by the quick deduction. “That’s exactly what we want.”
“Are they crazy?” Claire whispered, incredulous.
In the room, Grace stared at them for a long moment.
Claire couldn’t deny the picture they’d painted was tempting, given the battle being fought here. Agents with regenerative healing. Agents with increased durability, and heightened speed or reflexes. Agents with the ability to see in the dark, or with heightened senses, or the ability to tank bullets and walk away okay. Something like that would change the game, no matter how chilling the source of it was.
It would also bring them far too close to Umbrella’s work themselves, for Claire’s comfort, and no doubt Leon’s too.
“No.”
That simple statement was enough to freeze both rooms. The three representatives stared at Grace - one blankly, one irritated, and another analytical. Claire let out a shaky breath, unsure what to expect now that Grace was refusing all three of the DSO’s requests. Leon almost never could, after all, and Sherry wasn’t generally a big enough name to have to.
“No?”
“Elpis was m-meant to be a cure,” Grace said, voice firm. “An apology - a w-way to make up for e-everything else. I will not h-help you turn it into something f-for - for human experimentation. Something to c-cause people harm. S-something that will get people k-killed.”
“Miss Ashcroft, please reconsider-” Left began.
“Miss Ashcroft, do not be difficult,” Middle interrupted, voice quiet and eyes assessing. “This could eventually save lives. A lot of them, even. All it means is potentially sacrificing a few in the meantime, while the… quirks get worked out.”
“I put a g-gun to my head for a man I’d only known for a f-few hours,” Grace said, eyes frosty as she stared down the DSO representative across the desk from her. Beside Claire, Leon made a soft sound at the statement, but she couldn’t look away long enough to read into it. “I’m w-willing to do a lot more than that to s-save even more. Especially from t-this.”
Middle stared at her for a long moment of silence, and the other two glanced at her. It was clear now that she was the one in charge of this meeting, and Claire watched as Grace met her gaze evenly, even if her hands looked like they were shaking on the table in front of her.
Something about the way she looked at them - firm, unswayed by their words, solid in her own convictions, unwilling to sacrifice even one person here…
Claire’s eyes drifted to Leon, whose jaw was clenched so tightly Claire wondered if she should force him to a dentist later.
“Miss Ashcroft,” Middle finally said, the thin veneer of true decorum finally giving way to a calculated politeness. “We have been patient with you. We have allowed you to take the child found at Rhodes Hill under your care, despite her value to our knowledge of Elpis and Umbrella’s work. We have allowed you to maintain your intellectual rights to your invention, despite being well-authorized to seize it as an asset. We are well able to make your life… difficult, should you continue to deny us.”
Leon took a step towards the window, as if preparing to make that ruckus Hunnigan mentioned. Claire snagged his collar just in time, and he sent her a glare.
“Wait,” she said, on a hunch. Grace didn’t look afraid. She looked like Leon when he was backed into a corner, and Claire would put her money on him any day.
A moment later, Grace took a deep breath, breathing out shakily as her hands curled into loose fists, the stability of the position easing the tremors. She rose to her feet smoothly, taking hold of the contract she’d been given, and ignoring the one she hadn’t that was still in front of Middle.
The representatives were tense, Right’s hand halfway to his hip, as if worried Grace was about to attack them. Grace met their eyes steadily.
“I am the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft,” Grace said softly, her gaze steady and stutter gone with the force of her conviction, even though her voice still shook a little. “She brought down Umbrella as a journalist. I work for the FBI. If you try to force my hand with this, what do you imagine I could do to you?”
Claire felt a giddy sort of shocked terror at that statement, a little stunned Grace had decided to apparently go nuclear here - or at least allude to the possibility. A glance sideways showed even Leon looked a little stunned by that, so apparently this wasn’t how Grace typically was. Even the representatives seemed taken aback by it, glancing towards Middle to see what the response here would be.
Grace didn’t give them a chance to.
“We’re d-done here,” she said, moving to the door. Middle stood to stop her, but the door was already open. Grace blinked up at the sight of a guard - they must not have arrived with them - before side-stepping them and walking out.
“Well, shit,” Leon said, hissing through his teeth. Then he shook his head and began moving to the door. “That girl really can’t stay out of trouble. That may come back to bite us later. We should catch her, though, before she gets cornered again.”
“Sounds a lot like someone else I know. I’ll be glad to finally meet her,” Claire said, forcing a bit of a smile to try and add some normalcy to this. “Even if you did fail to tell me that she’s crazy - in a good way, of course!”
“Shut up,” Leon said simply, shoving her shoulder as he walked through the door to the room, causing Claire to let out a genuine laugh as she stumbled from it.
Claire followed after him as they hurried to intercept the young woman. Despite everything, she was glad he’d found a new friend that at her core was so clearly very much like him.
Grace was panting for breath, hand on her hip as she used the other to suck down water. Leon was a little out of breath himself, feeling a decade younger thanks to Elpis, but still at least two decades older than Grace despite the endurance his additional experience had granted him.
The mat of the training room was cool beneath his feet, and he walked over to where his own water bottle rested, deciding to drink some himself.
His eyes drifted back to Grace.
She’d been improving - taking up hand-to-hand over the last several months and progressing quickly. She had private sessions twice a week with a Krav Maga instructor, as well as training with Leon himself whenever they could make the time for it. She was focused - fresh still, but eager to learn and plenty of determination from that steel spine of hers.
It still hit him, every now and then, just how earnest she was about everything.
She wanted to be prepared for the next time. No matter how much they both wished there wouldn’t be, things like Umbrella and Gideon and Raccoon City had a way of coming back again. They both knew it. Hell, Grace had even been in the middle of writing a report on the history of BOWs in the US when she’d gotten taken.
There was also the matter of the unknown number of people who had been following her for years, sending photos and reports back to Gideon and Umbrella. They were all still trying to find answers on that, but it was slow going so far.
Grace had been worried that when this skeleton crawled out of the closet again, they wouldn’t be as lucky the next time. She blamed herself for Emily, even though they’d gotten her back. She blamed herself for the helicopter pilot too, and the officer at the Wrenwood. Once they had Elpis in hand, she even blamed herself for those at Rhodes Hill who had been there for treatment. She had admitted once, late at night over the phone, that she still blamed herself for Alyssa.
So she prepared herself. She upped her security, and maintained her awareness. Trained, researched, used her skills and role in the FBI to keep her thumb quietly on the pulse of bio-terrorism activity.
She was changed by the experience at Rhodes Hill and the City, but so was everyone who came into contact with Umbrella’s horrors.
Leon tried not to feel too much like he was looking into a funhouse mirror, sometimes, when he looked at her. It was hard though, when sometimes it felt like he was looking thirty years into the past at that too-earnest, too-determined, too-guilty rookie cop he would have sworn died the day Racoon City did.
Now a part of him lived again, in the form of an FBI worker in her twenties, and Leon couldn’t help but try to offer her the things he’d never been given. Things that would have made all the difference to the him of thirty years ago - especially right after the events in the City.
“I’m still not getting enough momentum on that back kick,” Grace said, catching her breath as she turned to look at him. There was some slight frustration in her expression, but more determination to get it right. “It takes me too long to get into position, and leaves me open to retaliation while killing all the force behind it.”
“Let me show you again, and we can run some drills,” Leon said simply, setting his water down again. He stepped forward to do just that - pleased to note that she was improving enough by now that she could start seeing where she still needed to improve further herself.
He demonstrated the move for her again, once slowly as he verbally explained each step he was doing, once at half speed, and once more at full. Then it was Grace’s turn to do it, starting with the slow breakdown as he nudged her feet and hips into the right alignment whenever they wavered.
Grace was a quick learner - something he wasn’t surprised by given her success at reprogramming the Blood Collector at Rhodes Hill. It didn’t take long until she was successfully doing the kick at half speed, and he switched them to a half-speed spar, letting her test out the move in a more active scenario.
After a narrow dodge from a half-speed strike of his, Grace yelped, reacting instinctively. She snapped into a full speed back kick, landing the hit solidly on Leon’s ribs and sending him back a couple paces with a sharp gasp of breath as his air whooshed out of him.
That was unexpected.
She looked a little stunned, before racing over, hands fluttering anxiously in the air above his torso.
“I’m s-so sorry!” she exclaimed, looking hesitant to test for damage, eyes worried.
Leon tested an inhale, feeling nothing wrong other than being a little winded, and smiled down at her. He was a little amused by her panic - he’d gotten far worse than this in training sessions gone wrong in the past, and way worse out in the field. But this was another way that she was still green - she’d had yet to see an actual injury from training, and that stress was still lingering under her skin, despite any injury she might have caused clearly being an accident.
“Good job,” he said, cutting off her concern at the quick. Grace blinked at him, startled out of her worry right into confusion. “You did the back kick - full speed, full momentum.”
Grace blinked a few more times, before it finally registered and she broke into a broad grin.
Like this, the filter faded and all he saw was Grace, the rookie from thirty years ago left back in the past where he was from. While Leon saw him in her fairly often, he almost enjoyed it more when he didn’t, because ‘just’ Grace was plenty enough on her own, too.
“Let’s run it again, full speed,” he said, grinning back, as Grace seemed to fully realize her success. “Gotta make sure it’s repeatable.”
Grace groaned her protest but her grin never faded, and she settled into a ready position easily, making it clear her protest was just for show. Leon huffed a laugh and settled into a ready position himself. They lingered there for a moment, mirrored sets of analytical eyes watching each other.
Leon struck, and Grace rose to meet him.