Work Text:
GRACE IM PICKING U UP
Grace stares down at the message on her phone, written from one Leon S. Kennedy two weeks after she’d met the guy and a couple days after she’d been finally cleared to go back to work. Looking at the all-caps words, Grace wonders to herself how she ended up in this situation. Two weeks ago, she never would have imagined going anywhere but her home and her office building, but now she has other places to go. Mainly, the hospital that is hosting Emily, but it’s somewhere that’s not either of the two previously mentioned locations so she thinks she’s improving.
But, two days ago, she’d gotten a text from Leon, how he’d gotten her number she has no idea, and the relief at hearing from him was so palpable that she’d immediately texted him back and they’d built up a steady conversation since then.
Leon kinda just cracks her up, if she’s so honest. He’d seemed so impressive in the moment of her absolute panic, but now he texts in all caps like an old, confused man, and it makes her giggle like nothing else. She can imagine him leaning over his phone, squinting at it, and typing with a single finger like some of her older co-workers do. He was in his early 50s after all.
Why? She texts back, before resuming her typing on her computer at work.
He’s apparently feeling like being a fast texter since her phone buzzes not even two seconds later
SHERRY AND I ARE TREATING U TO DINNER
Grace feels herself light up at the thought. She still hasn’t met Sherry in person yet, but from the way Leon talks about her, they’re clearly very close. Leon talks a lot about his circle, now that he’s not in danger of dying from the t-Virus. Grace guesses that he was intentionally shutting off his emotions or something when she met him, since now that she knows him off-duty, he never shuts up about his close friends. Sherry is one of them, but he also talks about countless other people that Grace can’t even be bothered to keep track of, only remembering a couple of names like Claire, Chris, Ashley and Ada.
Regardless of who, she feels some form of relief in knowing she’s not the only person in the world who's dealt with the madness of Umbrella and its many offshoots. Maybe Leon can introduce her to his circle someday. Old Grace would never have allowed herself to think about talking with people like that, but this new Grace looks forward to the notion that she can be friends with people.
But only if she meets them one at a time, of course.
She types a message back, giggling to herself.
Oh, really? That would be nice!
Someone sends her a judging look over the walls of her cubicle, but Grace is honestly done giving a fuck about her peers’ judgment as she texts. Did they survive a zombie outbreak and multiple mutated monsters? They have no right to judge her.
COOL IM COMING IN THEN
Grace barely gets a moment to think, Wait what? when she hears mutters emerge from her peers. Whipping around, she spots Leon walking towards her through the office halls, a small smile on his face as he approaches her desk. He looks way different than the last time she saw him, sweaty and covered in grime. But she finds that she enjoys the light way he moves as he comes towards her, rather than the heaviness that seemed to seep from him when she’d first met him. He’s also wearing normal clothes, which is a bonus.
She has no idea how she’d explain the hatchet to her co-workers.
Her co-workers stare. She thinks she sees Maureen’s mouth drop and Charlie’s eyes roam over him. It hits her as Leon finishes his cruise over to her that he’s considered attractive to her co-workers. She never noticed that, honestly, due to the stress of the entire situation in which they met, but yeah, he’s objectively hot. She prefers women, though. Not that anyone needs to know that. Plus, she’s pretty sure Leon’s married.
“Hey, you,” Leon says teasingly, looking at her desk, “Nice to see your desk matches your personality.”
“Har har,” Grace feels herself roll her eyes, and feels her co-workers jerk back in shock. She supposes they’re still not used to this new Grace she’s become, “Did you come in here just to strut?”
“Maybe.”
She finds herself snorting and standing up to meet his eyes. There’s a shimmer of pride in them as she meets him head-on. Grace wonders why Leon’s so proud of her for that, it’s hard to take him seriously when he sends her cool bird photos with smiley emojis and the text LOOK AT THIS ONE.
“Right,” she doesn’t stammer a second before continuing on, “Are you here to pick me up?”
“Sherry’s in the car already,” He says with a shrug, “And I talked to your director. Got you an extended vacation.”
“Really?” She perks up at the mention of Sherry and an extended vacation. She’s not exactly fond of her director right now after he’d sent her to the Hotel alone, but she’d been reluctant to ask him for a vacation, since throwing herself back into work had seemed like the best move for forgetting what had happened.
Leon flashes a smile at her and says, “Yeah, she was super excited to meet you. Her husband is also coming, but he said he was just going to bike there.”
He rolls his eyes and scoffs a quiet, ‘Typical’ which makes Grace laugh.
“What about your wife?” She loudly asks him, pointing to his clearly ringed finger. It’s partially out of curiosity, but also to get Maureen’s eyes off of Leon’s ass.
He follows her gaze and grins at his hand, before saying, “She’s out of the country on a mission right now, sadly. You’ll have to meet her later.”
Of course, Leon’s wife is also an agent. I wouldn’t have expected any less.
“Sad, I wish I could have met the person who tied you down,” She teases him, and he laughs, the sound warming her heart, “She’s the best. I promise you’ll meet her someday.”
“Sounds good. Now… should we get going?”
Leon nods and offers her his arm, and she immediately slides her own arm around his elbow and he ushers her down the halls of her office. The old Grace would be blushing furiously at all the eyes on her, but this new Grace tilts her head up and walks past them with a grin on her face. She hears someone mutter, “Who the hell is that with Ashcroft?” as they exit the building.
Outside a dark car is waiting for them, and Grace feels herself smile as she tilts her head up at Leon, who pretends he’s not preening a bit. He sweeps to the side and gestures to the door, flipping his coat a bit and grinning, “After you.”
Grace chuckles and says, “You shouldn’t have.”
She clambers into the car and feels Leon move in behind her. It’s the fanciest car she’s been in in her life, and she takes a moment to admire her surroundings before her eyes land on the petite blonde woman on the other end of the car. Her eyes are soft, and she’s wearing a baby blue coat, as well as shimmering silver jewelry. When she spots Grace, she immediately smiles and says, “Hi! Grace, I’m…”
“Sherry,” Grace interrupts before realizing how rude that way and clamping her hands over her mouth, “Oh gosh, I’m sorry, Sherry.”
Sherry laughs and adjusts her seat as Leon sits down next to her. The car is arranged like what Grace would imagine a limousine would look like on the inside, with a circular bench so that they can all face each other. Grace, despite never having been in a car like this in her life, can’t help but find it soothing that she can see Leon and Sherry’s faces. It’s comforting to see them here, especially after everything.
Speaking of people she’d gone through this ordeal with…
“I can’t leave Emily in that hospital by herself, so I can’t go too far,” She says, “She relies on me to visit every day.”
“It won’t be too long,” says Sherry immediately, “Honestly, we kinda thought you needed a break from the FBI as a whole. You didn’t even take a vacation after everything, so we decided to take it for you.”
Honestly, Grace is grateful for that. She’d never even thought to ask for a vacation after everything, and by the time it had occurred to her, it was too late to ask for one. She might be a new Grace, but she was still a nervous Grace. She probably would always be, but she’d learned what she was capable of despite her anxiety, and that was the best thing she could have ever learned, in her opinion.
“Thanks,” she says, “Um… for everything.”
“Sure,” says Sherry, glancing at Leon, who is not looking at either of them, “We’ve done this too many times to count at this point. It’s only your first rodeo.”
Grace can not imagine that. Of course, during her final report on everything, she’d managed to learn a lot about everything that had gone down with Spencer and Umbrella, and she can’t imagine dealing with that for years. Leon had told her he’d escaped Raccoon City at around 21, and he was around 49 now. There had been many incidents with bioterrorism in the world Grace had grown up in ever since Raccoon City, and she now imagined Leon and his motley crew had been a part of most of them.
“I can’t imagine,” She says softly, “I…I didn’t know.”
“That’s alright,” Sherry says kindly, “We don’t expect most people to know about every single incident involving the viruses.”
“At least they’re gone now,” Leon says with a puff of air, “That’s one less thing to worry about.”
Grace blinks at the thought of more than just the viruses being things to worry about in her life. With Elpis being released, she’d at least ventured into her new life with the idea that all the viruses were null and void. But now she’s hearing about other types of bioweapons?
“There are two general families left,” Sherry says cheerily, “The Mold, which Chris and the Wolf Squad, Blue Umbrella, and the BSAA are on, and the Plagas, which is a coordinated effort between the DSO and TerraSave.”
Grace blinks, “And… we have no way to shut these down?”
“We’re working on it,” says Leon with a sigh, “Companies like what remains of TriCell and the Connections have made it difficult.”
Grace doesn’t know how to feel about that. Living in a world where an outbreak of a bioterrorist attack could happen at any time has already made life difficult for so many people. She remembers going to school where they would have procedures for potential outbreaks, as well as specialized alarms if one happened in the area. She remembers hearing about the assassination of President Benford on television, and when she’d asked Leon about it since it had happened in Tall Oaks, another city that had been bombed, he’d laughed and said, “Yeah, that was a weird fucking week.”
Grace decided not to ask him anymore. She does not want to know.
“So, where are we going?”
“It’s a steakhouse.”
Grace wonders if now would be a good time to mention that the sight of anything red and raw makes her queasy now. She supposes she can just ask for well-done steak and ignore other people’s cringes when she does so, but the idea of eating red meat after everything she’d witnessed makes her stomach hurt.
“Sounds fun,” She manages, but Leon grins at her, “And it’ll be us and Sherry’s husband, Jake. If you’re okay with that.”
She’s never been a religious girl, but she thanks the Lord above for Leon not throwing her into the deep end of all of his friends. She doesn’t think she could handle all of that all at once. Ever since she’d told him about her anxiety, he’d done his best to be accommodating, in his weirdly intense, awkward way.
“I’m good,” she says, “Thanks for asking.”
Sherry smiles good-naturedly and leans over to Grace, “Jake and Leon are always an interesting combination. It should be entertaining for us tonight.”
She winks, and Grace blushes furiously. She can’t help it. Sherry’s cute.
Leon doesn’t seem to notice her flustered nature and reaches his hand up to brush his blonde bangs behind his ear, eyeing her. When she makes eye contact with him, he makes a grunting noise and says, “Jake’s fine.”
“Translation: you think I can do better,” Sherry chuckles and rolls her eyes, before turning to Grace, “He’s always like this. You do that with Ashley’s husband too.”
“I like her husband. I just think he doesn’t get her.” Leon waves her off.
Sherry grins and turns to Grace, mouthing, Overprotective at her, which makes Grace giggle. Leon frowns and glances between the two of them, a disapproving look on his face, “I never should have introduced you two.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” Sherry punches his arm, much to his amusement.
Grace watches the interaction between them with interest. They have such a rapport with each other, and it fascinates her. She knows that Sherry and Leon were Raccoon City survivors, sure, but it’s clear to her that there’s something more there. As if they’ve known each other for a long time.
She decides to ask, “So, you two…”
“We escaped Raccoon City together,” Sherry says immediately, “I was pretty young at the time, but Leon and Claire got me out together. We’ve been friends ever since.”
“Claire did most of that, to be frank. She’s the real hero,” Leon says lightly, which makes Sherry laugh, “Yeah, she is. Much better than you running around with Ada.”
Leon looks mortified by this call-out, but doesn’t deny it. He instead shoots Sherry a side look, and she pats him on the shoulder and adds, “You helped too, Leon.”
“Thanks.”
Grace pretends not to see the pout on Leon’s lips and stifles her amusement the best she can. It doesn’t work.
“I wanted to ask you, actually,” Sherry says suddenly, “About Emily. Since I have been in the same spot as her before, I wanted to ask if she needs anything like clothes or books or anything like that.”
Grace finds herself taken aback by this, surprised that Sherry would think to ask her about something like that. Most people have assumed Emily is a cousin of hers who was orphaned, and Grace has been scrambling to get Emily supplies. Money isn’t necessarily the problem, since Grace has never spent her FBI paycheck on anything other than food, weapons out of fear, and clothes, but Emily is currently suffering from the debilitating condition of having options for the first time and is often overwhelmed when Grace tries to prompt her to pick out anything for herself.
And Grace has never shopped for a child in her life.
Leon huffs and says, “Claire and I really scrambled to find Sherry stuff after Raccoon City. It was definitely a process.”
Grace watches as a shocked expression crosses over Sherry’s face and she whips around to look at him, clearly now privy to new information. She says, “Really? You guys got me so much stuff though?”
Leon laughs awkwardly, “Yeah, I was impressed too. But Claire was 19 and I was 21. We weren’t exactly really loaded. We managed.”
Sherry sits back in her seat, clearly stunned. Grace watches as Leon’s face softens a bit, in the way it did down in the ARK and he pats Sherry’s knee, soft, “Don’t feel bad. We were really worried about you.”
“I feel like I owe you guys,” Sherry says with a scoff, “I should get you something.”
Leon grins and says, “Nearly 30 years later? You’ve saved my life enough that we can call it even. Right, Grace?”
“Oh! Um… right?”
Leon meets her eyes and offers her a smile that Grace returns immediately. It’s truly amazing how much lighter he seems right now, compared to the rather focused manner in which he conducted himself before. Not that Grace minds, of course, but it’s still nice to see her friend so at ease. She can almost forget the circumstances in which they’d met.
“Is Emily doing okay?” Leon asks her suddenly, drawing Grace out of her head and into his eyes. There’s a worried expression on his face, and Grace once again is reminded that at the end of the world, Leon had chosen to sit down next to her, so she wasn’t afraid. He really is nice, buried under all that gruffness, “Yeah, she is.”
“Good,” His eyes slide to Sherry, who is offering him a thin-lipped smug look, “if you need help with her… uh let me know.”
Grace has no idea how to react to this awkwardness, but she also has no idea how Emily would react to Leon coming around and talking with her. Leon had been the one to shoot her after all, and Emily would be reasonably nervous around him, if Grace had to guess. But she did hear all about him from Grace herself and Grace so far is the only person Emily truly trusts. Maybe she can convince Emily to see more people eventually, but for now, well, she’d rather just get Emily to smile more for now.
“I will.”
“We’re here!” Sherry calls and draws both of their attention towards the door.
She’s the first one out of the car, and Leon locks eyes with Grace and gestures for her to follow after Sherry, which she does. As soon as she gets to her feet, she finds her eyes falling on a tall man with reddish brown hair and a scar on his face. He has his hand on Sherry’s hip as she leans towards his face and a soft smile on his face. It fades when he spots the person coming up behind Grace and he drops Sherry’s hip and says, “Leon.”
“Jake,” replies Leon gruffly, “It’s been a bit.”
“Right,” says Jake, eyes falling onto Grace. When they do, Grace feels a jolt of familiarity buzz up her spine as she looks into his eyes. He looks like Zeno, in the cheekbones and then jawline, as well as in his eyes.
She almost bolts right then and there, but with Leon hovering at her back, she won’t be able to get very far. She also doesn’t want to ruin her chances of making friends with all of Leon’s friends. She wants to be around people and sometimes, despite her nerves, she needs to push through it.
“I–I…” She swallows, damn her stutter, “I’m Grace. Um… Ashcroft.”
Jake nods and as Grace watches out of her lashes, the cool expression on his face fades away and she can see a little warmth there as he nods at her, “Jake Muller. Pleasure.”
A wave of anxiety that had formed in her stomach fades away at Jake’s acceptance of her presence. She should have known someone like Sherry wouldn’t marry someone who would be cruel to her, no matter how much he looked like Zeno. She looks down at her shoes and nods quietly, but feels herself be startled by the gentle thud of a hand on her shoulder. With a little yelp, she looks over at Leon, who offers her a little nod and a reassuring squeeze.
She really appreciates Leon so much. She trusts him.
“He looks like um…” She mutters and Leon nods, “He’s Albert Wesker’s son. Try not to hold it against him.”
Oh, that does make sense. Grace feels something in her chest settle. Maybe nerves or maybe something else. Regardless, she’s the last person to hold someone’s heritage against them, she thinks, and therefore, she resolves to at least try to make a favorable impression.
Leon squeezes her shoulder again and walks over to Jake and Sherry, with Grace traveling behind. Immediately, Jake lets out a short laugh and holds his hand out to the top of Leon’s head that only comes out to the tip of Jake’s chin, “Did you get shorter, old man?”
Leon frowns at him and says, “No, you’re just abnormally tall.”
“Sure,” Jake says and turns to Grace, “You’re probably taller than him, Ashcroft.”
She’s definitely not, but she manages a shaky smile and says, “Ah.. I.. I–It’s the heeled boots.”
Jake barks a laugh and looks down at Leon’s shoes, giggling harder at the fact that Leon is definitely wearing heeled boots. Leon scowls at him (and not Grace), and she feels her heart lighten as Jake grins at her, “Y’know, Kennedy, I like this one. I get the feeling we’re going to get along great.”
Grace feels herself brighten up, “Really?”
“Yeah, really,” Jake bumps Sherry’s hip and shoots Leon an amused look, “As long as Kennedy can take what we can dish out.”
“I’m sure I will survive,” says Leon dryly, “Haven’t died yet.”
“It’s never too late,” Jake replies, to which Sherry hits him playfully, “Sheesh!”
“What Jake means to say is that we’re glad you’re here Grace and we’re excited to eat.”
“Right…”
What follows is one of the best meals of Grace’s life since her mother died. Ever since Alyssa had gone, Grace has spent most of her meals cooking frozen ones in the microwave and eating at her computer, eyes fixed on the screen as she consumes herself in her work. Her food is often bland and tasteless, as Grace cared more about the fact that it sustains her rather than the taste of it. It was a way of life, a means to an end.
This meal is anything but that. Instead of eating alone in her little corner, Grace sits between Leon and Sherry, laughing between glasses of white wine and delicious crabcakes. Jake, despite appearances, seems to have found solidarity with Grace, especially after she mentioned how Gideon and Zeno were after her blood. Jake had bemoaned his own similar plight, explaining a series of events over Grace’s well-done steak that she knows would have left her in tears because what do you mean a creature stalked you across multiple countries? She thought a single floor of a care center was bad.
These people are insane.
She supposes they’re also the only ones who truly get it now. She hasn’t relaxed with anyone this much since meeting Leon and when she’s alone with Emily.
Speaking of Leon, Grace catches him glancing over at her a couple of times, something brimming in his blue eyes and she can’t help but wonder what he’s possibly thinking. He’s more expressive here than he had been when they’d met, but Grace still isn’t clear on his exact thoughts. She’s never been the best at reading expressions.
She only finds out after the dinner, when Sherry and Jake have departed on Jake’s bike and she’s left on the sidewalk with Leon, watching them go into the sunset and pondering how the two of them could find happiness in a world where people like Ozwell Spencer and Victor Gideon exist. Grace admires their ability to do so.
She and Leon jump into the car again and only after a couple seconds of silence, Leon clears his throat, drawing her attention to him. It’s only when she glances over at him that she realizes he is staring at her, his head tilted and a small smile on his face.
“Um… hey?”
He laughs, “Hey. I know I ambushed you a bit. I’m sorry.”
All at once, Grace realizes that he’s apologizing for just showing up at her doorstep and quickly tries to absolve him of his guilt. She waves her hands frantically, “Oh! No! No! I had so much fun, Leon. Thank you so much for taking me out. I… I.. um,” She swallows a lump of nerves and looks down at her hands, “I don’t get out much.”
“I know,” he says, drawing her attention to him. Leon offers her an awkward look, “I read some files Gideon made of you.”
“Oh.” Creepy. Grace wonders whether she could ever feel like there weren’t eyes on her when she was outside ever again.
“My point was, that I wanted to show you that you weren’t alone,” Leon says, “After Raccoon City, I was forcibly recruited into STRATCOM, and I didn’t tell anyone about why. I felt like no one, not even Sherry or Claire, could relate to my exact experience. I took all the blame for every single person who died that day and I resolved to never let anyone die in front of me again. But in the line of work I was in, well, it was difficult.”
Grace nods meekly, “I can only imagine.”
“I pushed everyone away. I didn’t let people who I could talk to talk to me. It was lonely and extremely isolating, Grace. I even contemplated putting a bullet in my head,” He taps his forehead, and Grace swallows down the words of ‘Yeah, me too,’ because after the death of her mom, she had stared at her FBI purchased gun for hours some nights, “You’re like me in a lot of ways, Grace. You take the blame for things you shouldn’t. Which is why I wanted to help you.”
“I…” Grace licks her lips, “I– I was the reason that everything happened with my mother. And Emily.”
Leon shakes his head, “That was all Gideon and Spencer, Grace.”
He is right. Grace knows she won’t quite believe him yet, when it’s so easy to lay the blame on her shoulders. But she does know that the only thing she had done was exist and the actions of others weren’t her fault. Still…
“I… I can’t ignore that feeling.”
Leon sighs tiredly and reaches toward her, his left palm upturned. Grace blinks down at him, his ungloved and ringed hand, and carefully lays her palm on top of his. They meet eyes and Leon squeezes her hand, his grip strong but not harsh. It’s as grounding as her mother’s had been on the night she died when she’d comforted Grace.
“No,” says Leon warmly, “That’s the hardest thing, isn’t it? But you can understand where it comes from. And you can do things differently than I did. And I will always be there for you to reach out to. If not me, there’s always people like Sherry or Jake.”
Leon…
Grace feels a smile twitch onto her lips and she carefully squeezes his hand back, “I understand.”
“Good,” Leon pulls away from her and leans back on the carseat, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest. He looks like a grumpy toddler, trying to hide from being emotionally vulnerable in any way. He looks like a hedgehog. Grace stifles a laugh.
“I can’t take you seriously, you know?” She says, which makes Leon shift in surprise and stare at her. Amazed by her own boldness, Grace presses on, “You have all these funny habits and I can’t take you seriously as a DSO agent.”
Leon laughs slightly and says, “Shockingly, you’re not the first person to tell me that.”
“Really?” Grace leans forward, intrigued by the thought that Leon has been told this before and who would be so bold to do so.
“My wife tells me that,” Leon says with an amused look, “And one time I rescued Ashley Graham when President Graham was in office and she told me that I need to stop making bad jokes when fighting.”
Grace stares at him, fascinated by the notion of Leon quipping while in combat. She’d never even thought to do something like that, too consumed by terror to even think. Grace envisions standing in front of Marie and letting out a funny joke and feels a wave of fear come over her.
Leon waves a hand as Grace looks up at the ceiling of the car, feeling queasy, “It relaxes me, honestly. I just start making jokes when someone’s rushing at me. It gets the nerves out.”
“You terrify me,” Grace says to him, bluntly, “So much.”
“Thanks, I work hard to terrify people,” Leon replies with a nod, seemingly taking it as a compliment. His nonchalance makes Grace giggle again, amused by the notion of Leon being scary. Sure, he’s probably scary to the zombies and other monsters but she can’t see him as anything more than the guy who saved her life.
And also the guy who has a cult following online after he was spotted next to President Benford at a press conference. Grace knew she recognized him from somewhere, but r/hotpresidentguard was not what she’d originally thought. She wonders if she posts something on the forum, she would explode the internet.
Hm… She might do that someday, but for now, she needs a photo of her and Leon for her photo collection she keeps on her desk at her office.
“Hey Leon,” she says as they’re driving, “Can I get a photo with you? It’s for my photo album I’ve been keeping.”
Leon blinks twice and then says, “Oh… uh.. Sure?”
She jumps up at the opportunity to sit down next to him and wraps her arms around him, because despite appearances, Grace has always loved hugs and physical affection. Leon seems startled at this, but eventually concedes, leaning his head on Grace’s shoulder and posing for a dorky little photo that Grace is sure to mock him for later.
But for now, it’s just nice to have a photo with someone who understands.
[Post to: r/hotpresidentguard by: [User] AshGirl04
Guess who I met?
[Photo of Grace and Leon together]
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