Chapter Text
Phoenix:
21:
Phoenix
He was almost dead when he heard the sounds of battle.
Later, he'd think he was already gone, he was dead and gone and hell was filled with all the fighting he'd never escape. Even in the beyond, he was meant to hear the screams and sounds of the damned locked forever in mortal combat. Even becoming a corpse wouldn't spare him from the smell of blood and death. There was no heaven. There was only hell and it was where he went to suffer for eternity in the yoke of a warrior.
The smell of smoke and stink of gunfire tickled his nose as the sharp thwack of a knife made Leon flinch. A second later, he tumbled down and into a heap on the floor that smelled much too strongly of what was likely his own blood and piss. Lying on his side in a pool of filth, he barely heard the words that echoed in his battered ears, "-please?"
Leon grunted. He made a garbled sound that might have been an attempt to talk. He couldn't really be sure, since his face felt like a balloon stuffed with teeth and skin. That soft voice came again, "-hear me?"
His hand shifted. It curled. It tried to push down and push himself up. Instead, it formed a thumbs-up. And someone laughed behind him.
Male. This voice that laughed, male. The soft voice beside his ear was female. "I need you to get up now. Can you? Can you move?"
Ok. That was good. He could make out whole sentences now. So, his hearing wasn't completely gone. Good, right?
Right?
But his body didn't care. He slumped back down when he tried to rise. The male voice urged, "We don't have time for this. You want me to try to carry him?"
"Can you?"
"Maybe," the male voice responded with concern, "but I don't think I can fucking get him through the cracks and back up, Graham. Can you?"
Graham. Graham. Graham. Leon's harsh tone came from his swollen mouth,"...Ashley?"
The female voice sounded broken and raw as she gasped, "Oh, god. Yes. I'm here. I'm here, Leon. I'm here. Can you put your arm around me? Can you move? Please. I need you to get up. We can get you there, but you have to get up."
With a grunt of real anger, Leon growled, "I'm done. I'm dead. I'm finished. Why are you here!? The protocol said leave me."
Ashley shifted him against her side on the ground. "Don't be stupid. I'd never leave you."
Leon jerked against her. "Stupid girl," he spat with rage in his tired voice, "stupid, stupid girl. Follow the fucking protocol and go!"
He wasn't as hurt as he seemed if he could yell like that, Ashley thought with a wince, his voice echoed around the room like a thunderclap of the gods. She jerked on his hurt body and made him moan. "Shut up, you idiot," she clutched him around his middle and pulled on him, "shut up and get up."
"I can't."
"Graham," Kevin urged again, "we gotta move. Now."
"The sample," Leon grunted, still slumped on the floor, "the sample Ryman. Get the sample."
"I've got it," Kevin returned, "it's secure."
"Then get out," Leon returned in a harsh hiss, "get out. That's an order."
Ashley put her mouth to the side of his ear and demanded, "I said shut the fuck up," Ashley jerked him upward. He groaned, he moaned, but he couldn't fight it, he was too broken, "and get up! NOW!"
She looped his arm around her shoulders. Leon leaned heavily on her and made her stumble. He grunted, "I'm too heavy, goddamnit. You're too small. I gave you a command, Graham. I told you to go! So go! Leave me and go!"
She slapped a hand over his mouth. The arm around his waist squeezed and made him moan and jerk in pain as she commanded, "You will not bring them down here with your infernal bellyaching, Kennedy. Shut your mouth. Move your ass. And help me. Or so help me god, I will kill you myself."
With little choice, he lumbered beside her. They moved. Kevin keeping point, Ashley pulling Leon with her as they went. When they turned down a hallway, Leon demanded, "Give me a weapon."
Ashley snapped, "You can't even see. What are you going to do? Throw the gun and hope for the best?"
Leon grunted, "Give me a weapon, Ryman, now."
Kevin unstrapped his sidearm and passed it over. Ashley snapped, "Really!?"
And the former cop told her, "I've seen him. You've seen him. You think now is the time to question what he can do?"
It was a good point. Ashley kept her weapon in her other hand and snarled, "Fine. Fine! Just move. Now. Let's go."
Two men curved around the hallway and were caught by surprise. One barely raised his weapon before Kevin dispatched him with a shot in the chest and Ashley's second round hit him in the throat. The second dove for cover and still wasn't fast enough. Leon hit him directly between the eyes as he leaped and he was dead before he hit the floor.
Softly, breathing hard, Leon grunted, "Blind, I could do this."
Quietly, Ashley murmured, "Yeah...yeah, you can. Then stop bitching and let's do it."
They moved. Slow with Leon dragging them down, but they moved. Kevin cleared corners, Ashley brought up the rear. The first bullet that came in from the back whizzed directly to the left of her ear. She dropped Leon to the floor and spun, standing over his body, and firing into the dark.
Kevin went back to back with her and started shooting down the other way.
Leon, on his side on the floor, tilted his gaze upward and took out the one in the shadows toward the top of the cave.
And then one dropped down from directly above them.
He landed, took a shot in the vest from Leon, and kicked the injured former rookie in the stomach. It sent Leon into the wall to hit on his back. The weapon in his hand stayed in place and went off again, the shot winging into the dark. The attacker delivered a back kick to Kevin to send him to his hands and knees on the floor and elbowed Ashley in the face.
She got a partial block with her left arm, swung up under his guard, and fired twice into his face beneath his jaw. His face erupted into blood and bone beyond the plastic cover of the helmet he wore.
As he went down, Ashley kicked his body to the rocks and fired above his falling corpse, picking off two more as they emerged from the smoke to join the fray. She jerked Kevin to his knee with one hand and the other man started firing. Against the wall, Leon watched her move.
She was fast. She was careful. She moved smoothly and quickly. Gone was the girl who waited in the dark in fear. She was training. She was skill. She was deadly.
And part of him mourned the woman she might have been if she'd never met him.
When the dust settled, Ashley grabbed his arm. She hauled Leon up and looped his arm around her again. She had blood and dirt smeared across her face. But where once she'd been so afraid, now she was cold determination and drive. It was still her face.
But the expression was all Leon Kennedy.
"You don't die here," she told him, "not today."
"I'm a liability," Leon told her quietly.
And Ashley returned, "We're a team, right? You don't leave behind your team."
"I'm not a damsel," Leon whispered, "I don't need saved."
"Yeah, you do," Ashley snapped, "and this is my goddamn job. Let me do it, and shut up."
He'd told her that more than once on that long night in Spain. It's my job, Ashley, let me do it. And now it was hers, Leon thought as they moved, now it was her job. And he was the guy weighing her down. He had a choice - fight against it, and help her. She'd chosen to help him then. She'd listened. She'd helped.
It was time he did the same.
Softly, Leon grunted, "There's a stairwell they dragged me down. Toward the western side. It will take us up into an old bunker used during prohibition. It's the best way out without spelunking."
Kevin laughed, "You and that goddamn eidetic memory. Let's go."
Against his ear, Ashley murmured to Leon, "...thank you, you stubborn jerk."
She pulled him along.
Leon shot when he could. He pulled the trigger. He let them dump him when it was time to fight with fists. He tripped who he could, killed what he could, and stayed down when he was in the way. It was the best he could.
And he hated every minute of it.
When they reached the stairs, Ashley told Kevin, "Grab that table, flip it over."
And they bound him to the table like a goddamn gurney to drag him up those stairs.
Near the top, the sounds of pursuit echoed through the corridor. Leon demanded, "Let me go, let go of the table. I'll slide back down and take them out like bowling pins."
Ashley laughed and rolled her eyes. "We have grenades, Kennedy. That's what they're for."
And threw one down the stairs.
The fire from the immolation chased them up through the dark as men screamed in agony and burned.
The door gave at the top and put them into the sunlight. It burned Leon's eyes as Ashley pushed him off his makeshift gurney and then took his advice, and pushed it down the stairs where they'd come. Men screamed and shouted, she slammed the door and threw the bolt across it, and Kevin shifted Leon over his shoulders while the other man groaned.
As they moved out into the sun and sand, a bullet kicked up sand at their feet. Ashley demanded, "Go. Get him to the evac point. I will cover you."
She didn't wait. She just started providing cover fire and sent them on their way. Kevin went. Leon grunted in anger on his back. He listened to the softening sounds of gunfire as they moved.
When Kevin dumped him in the sand and propped him against a rock, Leon snapped, "Go! Go back for her! What are you waiting for!?"
Kevin rolled his eyes as he radioed in for evacuation. "You don't go back for her, man. She's good."
"She needs help!"
With sympathy, Kevin studied Leon where he sat, "No, she doesn't, dude."
"How can you know that!?"
"Because you trained her," Kevin returned as the whip of wind signaled the arrival of a helicopter, "and she learned from the best."
Damnit.
DAMNIT.
These fucking baby agents. They were all the same. Piss and wind and arrogance. But the truth was...he was right. He'd made them. Leon had made them into what they were. He'd made damn sure they knew the job, knew the risk, and lived to tell the tale. Why did his faith waver just because it was Ashley?
But he knew why. He knew. The rules didn't apply to her. They hadn't in a long time. It wasn't just because she was the girl he'd saved. It was because she was the girl who'd saved him. He'd been mostly dead already when he'd met her - a guy operating on skill and survival, lost, trying to find his way, find his faith, find his fight. And she'd given him the will not just to survive, but to live.
The rules didn't apply to her because she wasn't just another agent.
She was his. His charge, his friend, his protege...and his woman. She was his woman. She was his faith. She was his hope.
He loved her.
He loved her.
And everything he believed, every rule he followed, every protocol that applied to everyone else...it didn't matter with her. Because he'd risk it all for her. Not because it was his job, but because she was his reason. She was his heart.
He'd risk the world for her. Like she'd risked it all for him.
He'd been mostly dead when he met her...and she'd brought him back to life.
He went into the dark waiting to hear her voice that said she was with him. He was almost there when he heard it, when she whispered in his ear, "Don't you dare die on me now, Kennedy. Or I'll bring you back until I'm done with you."
She'd done it once before she really knew him. She'd damn well do it now.
Love, it seemed, wouldn't let her do anything else.
Ashley sat in the conference room. She drummed her pen on the table and waited. She was likely here to be reprimanded for going outside of the protocol. She was going to be bumped down from duty.
She didn't even care.
She'd gotten into this job to make a difference. She'd saved his life, she'd made sure he made it. Even if it cost her the job, she'd done what she'd set out to do. She was ok with paying the price.
The doors opened. Leon came through looking battered, and bruised, but wearing a suit that was pressed and clean. Blue, like his eyes; blue, like the world when he was gone.
Ashley rose from the table. "What are you doing out of bed!?"
He crossed around the table. He offered her the gun and the badge they'd taken from her during her debriefing and pending her review.
Ashley looked down at it and then back at his face. "That's not mine."
"No?"
"No," she answered, "the call sign is wrong. I'm Baby Eagle."
Leon shook his head, "Not anymore. Baby Eagles need saved. You don't need saved. You don't need anyone to save you ever again. You're cleared for duty, Graham, effective immediately. And without restriction or partner."
Quietly, Ashley breathed, "Solo?"
"Solo," Leon returned in a cool tone, "Welcome to a life of shit pay and zero reward, Special Agent."
Ashley stared at the badge and the gun in his hand. She looked back at his face again. "What happens when I take it?"
Leon's eyes flickered. "You start fighting."
"Without you?"
Leon's eyes held hers. "Without me. You don't need me anymore, Agent Graham. Your training is over."
They didn't touch. They didn't kiss. They didn't do anything but stare at each. "Maybe Agent Graham doesn't need you anymore," Ashley said softly, "but I still do. I will always need you."
His battered eyes flicked over her face before she added, "I love you. And if that means I can't work here anymore, then they can shove this fucking badge up their ass."
Leon's mouth twitched. "Give it all up for me, would you?"
"I'd give up nothing for you," Ashley answered, "because you're everything. Tell me you don't know that."
"There's no rule that says Agents of the same rank can't date."
Ah. Her mouth twitched. That was as good as it was going to get to a promise from him.
Leon held her eyes. "Take the badge, Graham. You've earned it."
So, Ashley thought, even now, there'd be no great confession from him. That was fine. She was a fighter. She could wait.
"You can change the name, but it won't change what I am."
"No," Leon answered quietly, "you already did. Baby Eagle died in Spain, Ashley. But you didn't. You rose from that. You remade yourself into what you are. You didn't need me to do that, Ashley. You just needed someone to push you out of the fire while you learned to fly. You deserve what you've become."
Ashley looked down at the badge and breathed, "Do I?"
"You do," Leon affirmed.
Ashley laid her hand on top of his where it held the gun and the badge. Ashley gripped the gun. She holstered it. She took the badge and pinned it to her lapel. Their eyes held in the sun from the window.
Leon nodded. He turned to head toward the door. She watched him in the sunlight as he paused, and finally spoke over his shoulder, "I'll pick you up at seven."
Her brows winged up. "For a mission?"
"For dinner," Leon returned, "I'm thinking Mexican."
"Is that a taco reference?"
His shoulders twitched with humor. "First the food, then the fucking, Graham...maybe you've still got a lot to learn."
"Good thing I have the best teacher."
The dark was behind her. It was in her head, in her memories, but no longer in her heart. Through him, she'd burnt it all away. She'd risen from the ashes of her own loss.
She was born again in the fire of a new life.
"Tell me you love, you stupid man."
His shoulders twitched again with humor. "Come to dinner and find out."
"First the food, then the fucking, then the confessions?"
"Something like that," Leon paused and added, "Thank you for breaking the rules for me."
"You did it for me more than once," Ashley returned, "seems only fair I share my taco with you."
He laughed. He actually laughed. She remembered a time she might have given anything to hear him laugh. The warmth of that made her blood feel like happiness in her veins.
"Ready to report for duty, sir," Ashley teased, "Good to be here."
Leon chuckled. "Welcome aboard...Phoenix."
Before he left her smiling in the sun, he gave the girl who'd once been a victim her new name and branded her at the beginning of a world where she had the power to rise and be whatever she chose.
And this time she wasn't alone.
Because he'd be standing there in the sun beside her.