Funeral Games – Epilogue

When Leon got back from grocery shopping on a cold, bright afternoon in late April, he found the door to his apartment unlatched and ajar. It was inconceivable that he might have forgotten to lock it on the way out, and no one else had the key.

It didn't look good, Leon had to admit. It didn't look like anything he was going to want to deal with, especially on a day when his shopping bags were conspicuously missing the added weight of a couple of whiskey bottles. But no matter how long he stared, dumbfounded, at the gap that had formed between the door and the frame, Leon could not feel any apprehension.

His instincts were still good, and they generally let him know when things were about to go south, but they weren't telling him anything now. Either there really was a perfectly reasonable explanation, one that Leon would be laughing about in a few minutes, or he'd finally gotten around to losing his edge completely.

Whatever the case, the cold stuff was already starting to thaw. Leon shifted the pair of plastic bags in his right hand to the left, then he nudged the door open with his boot.

The living room looked the same. He had half expected it to be ransacked - the couch cushions sliced open and all the drawers emptied out on the floor – though he didn't know why. He didn't have anything anyone would want, unless they wanted his life.

A soft sound from the kitchen caught his attention. It was a single muted click, a stealthy footfall on the tile. Ada Wong appeared in the doorway, looking domestic in a slim red pencil skirt and a black cardigan.

"Long time no see," she said. Her smile, when it came, was controlled, measured, but genuine enough. "I was wondering when you'd get back."

Leon felt himself relax, which struck him as strange considering what he knew of Ada and of what usually happened when the two of them got together. That was fine with him; his arms were starting to get pretty tired.

Keeping one eye on Ada, he shuffled the plastic bags over to the kitchen table and set them down. "You still remember how to make an entrance."

"I knew it," Ada said. "I should have called. But I was in the neighborhood."

Leon turned to look at her, hoping her face would trigger something inside of him, give him some clue as to what he was supposed to be feeling. It didn't. He was not flooded with a new sense of purpose and passion. Nothing made any more sense now than it had five minutes ago, or yesterday, or the day before, or in the six months that had passed in a nauseous blur since what had happened in Greece.

"Do you want a drink?" Leon said abruptly.

"Could I trouble you?" Ada was watching him curiously. He was, perhaps, not what she had expected to find after all this time. "I would have helped myself, but I couldn't find where you keep the liquor."

"I'm trying to cut back," Leon said. "All I've got is beer. Is that all right?"

"A beer sounds perfect," Ada purred. "It's friendlier than a cocktail, don't you think? More familiar."

Leon fetched a couple of bottles from the fridge. He'd whittled himself down to just a couple of six-packs a week, which actually hadn't been as tough as he'd thought it was going to be, even with basically nothing to do during the day but think. All the same, Ada was lucky she'd show up on a Wednesday when the selection was still decent.

He popped off the caps and carried them out to the living room. Ada was in repose on the sofa, and Leon half-handed the bottle to her before he thought better of it. "Do you want a glass?"

"This is fine," Ada said with one of her carefully measured out smiles. She took the beer and sipped it delicately. "Have a seat, handsome. Let me look at you."

She'd left him room on the sofa, but Leon took the chair facing her. "Ada, don't take this the wrong way…"

"You want to know why I'm here," Ada finished for him. "I understand. Whenever we get together like this, trouble is always the third wheel."

She fixed him with an unreadable stare, her eyes half-hidden behind sleepy lids. "Why do you think I'm here?"

Leon held her gaze. He remembered a time when a look like that would have really knocked him for a loop. He'd been plenty stupid back then, and he wished he could be stupid again. He wished he could just find his way back to being an innocent idiot full of notions.

He didn't say any of that to Ada, though. For all he really knew about her, she might be thinking the exact same thing. Instead, he just forced himself to laugh. It was a big, breathless sound, and not particularly convincing.

"You have a message for me," he said. It was a stab in the dark, a blind guess.

"Who would I have a message from?" she replied.

Leon hesitated. This time he couldn't make himself laugh. "Someone we both know?"

Ada frowned slightly, and quickly hid the expression behind her bottle of beer. Not fast enough, though. Leon had seen the look that passed across her face just then. It had been pity.

"Believe it or not, I have better things to do that pass notes for you," she said. Whatever she had been thinking, whatever she thought she might have known, she had shelved it for the moment. Her voice was once again an inscrutable purr, her expression a mask, her manner impenetrable. "In fact, I came because I wanted to. Because I missed you."

"Really?" Leon said. He did not sound like he believed it.

"A bit," Ada replied with a shrug. "It's been so dreadfully quiet lately. I got to thinking what you must be like when you're not out playing cops and robbers, and I realized I couldn't imagine it. So I came to see for myself."

"What do you think?" Bottle in hand, Leon gestured vaguely at his surroundings.

"I wasn't sure what to expect, but somehow it isn't what I expected at all."

"Sorry to disappoint you," Leon said.

Ada shook her head, brushing the remark off as if it annoyed her. "That wasn't what I meant. I'm really dreadful at small talk. I used to be quite the charmer, but I'm afraid that is a muscle that has atrophied from disuse. Shall I cut to the chase?"

"It depends," Leon said. "Are you here because you need something killed?"

"I'm here about T-Odysseus," Ada said.

"I heard about that," Leon replied. He took a sip of beer; he throat was suddenly so dry that it ached. He had been trying to avoid gossip, but some things were impossible to miss. There had been talk for months now, of a vaccine that was in production. They said it attacked the T-virus protein, that it gave the recipient total immunity to all existing strains. They said a lot of crazy things.

Ada went on. "I have a contact who tells me that they're pushing distribution through. Sending it all over the world. They're going to wipe it out, like smallpox."

"Look, Ada, it's not that I don't like seeing you, but don't you have anyone else you can discuss this with? A book club or something? Why come to me?"

"I came to you because my first thought when I heard that wasn't relief. It was dread, of a world that isn't always on the verge of ending. That doesn't need bad girls or Boy Scouts. Where do I fit in a world like that? I thought you, of all people, might understand. Better than a book club, at least."

Leon didn't say anything. He kept turning it over in her mind. He'd never heard her sound so fatalistic, so final, not even in Raccoon City, in Lianshang, when things really had looked their bleakest. It had taken something like this – a potential end to the T-virus and the unwinnable, unending war it had brought with it – to get her to really contemplate her own mortality.

Leon did have to admit he understood where she was coming from.

When he didn't reply, Ada pressed on. "You know I didn't have anything to do with it, right?" she said. "Raccoon City, I mean. I was there, but I never wanted anything like that."

She didn't sound like she was asking forgiveness, or even like she wanted him to absolve her. It was just a bit of business to clear up before they could move on.

"Sure," Leon told her. "I always knew that. And you always knew that I knew."

"He never wanted that, either."

This time, Leon didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to think. Over the past few months, he'd almost managed to convince himself that what had happened with Wesker had been temporary insanity, hypnosis, zombie sex pollen. The details didn't matter. What mattered was that it had been an aberration, something he should never and would never have done if he'd been in his right mind. It had been pretty touch and go for a while, but he'd almost gotten himself convinced of it, and that was really for the best.

One thing he had never needed to remind himself was that he didn't want anyone to know the details, least of all Ada Wong. If he'd ever been sure of one thing, it was that she didn't need to hear about the tenuous, stumbling agony of those days.

But she was here now, telling him that she had understood everything all along, and he felt nothing but relief.

"I guess you knew him pretty well," Leon managed at last.

Ada shrugged. "I worked for him for a long time, but he kept his secrets. I wouldn't say I knew him that well. For a man like that, intensity matters more than duration when it comes to relationships."

Leon's suspicions must have registered clearly on his face, because Ada laughed abruptly. "Are you concerned for my honor? Or his? Let me set your mind at ease: nothing ever happened. We were strictly professional. Besides, I prefer the all-American type to the Ubermensch."

"I wasn't going to ask about that," Leon muttered. He felt his face getting hot.

"Ever the gentleman," Ada said vaguely. Her expression grew vague as well, for a moment, as if she had just remembered something important. "Do you like surprises, Leon?"

"I hate them."

"Then I'll spoil this one for you," Ada said. "The BSAA has taken over distribution of the T-Odysseus vaccine, which means they can sidestep a lot of government regulation. They're going to try to get it out all in one push, the idea is that they establish herd immunity before the next outbreak."

"How do you know all this?" Leon asked. He had his sources, and he'd been paying more attention to the vaccine than he wanted to admit, but nothing about the BSAA's involvement had trickled down to him.

"I still have friends in high places," Ada told him. "And I cultivate them very well. But that's all I know for sure. There's more I can guess at, though. For example, whoever is behind the vaccine must have still had some strings left to pull with the BSAA. And he must be awfully publicity-shy. No one seems to be able to get a handle on who actually synthesized the compound."

Leon's thumb scraped over the label on his bottle, fraying the edge. He knew that it looked like a nervous affectation. "Whoever it was, he might have bothered to ask the rest of us what we think about it."

"I'm sure he's got everything worked out just how he wants it," Ada said. "He does know a thing or two."

"He doesn't know as much as he thinks." Leon realized he sounded bitter, though he didn't feel it. He stood up abruptly, and motioned to Ada's bottle. "Want another?"

"If you're offering."

There was still a good three inches in the bottom of his own beer, but it was as good an excuse as any to get out from under her probing eyes. Leon headed for the kitchen.

Wesker was still out there somewhere. He'd retreated back in the shadows where he'd always felt at home, but now, instead of threatening them with destruction, he menaced them with peace. Leon had expected a grand gesture eventually, but he hadn't thought Wesker would go crawling back to the BSAA.

There was the matter of the other Wesker, too. They hadn't found her. Leon had expected her body to wash up on the mainland eventually, but it never had. Alex had vanished as silently and unfussily as her brother had, though Leon had the impression that there was at least one person who knew right where she was.

He could see what was happening: Wesker was retracing his steps, cleaning up messes, patching up old wounds. He worked steadily, systematically, because he didn't know any other way. And he never doubted for a moment that he would find all just as he had left it, waiting for his hand to set it in order.

Leon wondered if he qualified as a mistake now, if he was now just another repair to be made, a dropped stitch to be picked up. He supposed that, if he was, Wesker would get around to him eventually. And he also supposed that he would be waiting when it happened. His pride didn't suffer much for the realization, but neither did his sense of hope. In truth, he expected very little and he preferred it that way.

It was time for a change, and he knew he wouldn't get another opportunity as good as this one. Tomorrow, the next day, sometime very soon, news about the vaccine would break. It was called T-Odysseus, and Leon suspected that Wesker had been adamant on that point. It was a romantic gesture flung in the face of the world, for Wesker knew as well as anyone and better than most that there could be no cure without a long and humbling convalescence.

For a moment, Leon could see the world as Wesker might have, more than twenty years ago when he had begun work on the T-virus. He must have been drawn at once to the sub-microscopic world, the last frontier that mankind had yet to conquer. A stage set and dressed for the performance of some grand and beautiful dream.

The dream had not come to pass as he had planned it, but the dream might come and go, might change in shape and mutate into strange and unthinkable forms.

Wesker had gotten what he wanted in the end; he'd left an indelible mark on the world. Now all that remained was to go back and unmake all that he had created. Leon wondered if Wesker considered it a victory, or an absolute and crushing defeat. He couldn't say for sure; he really knew very little of the man.

All he really knew was that in the end Wesker had come through. He'd done the right thing. It didn't really matter whether he had done it for himself, or because Leon had asked him to. Hell, he might even have done it just because it was right.

Leon would ask him some day. And he wouldn't let him off the hook until he got a straight answer.

A/N: That's it. It's finally finished. Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed. You guys are really great. I'm genuinely grateful for all the kind, encouraging, thoughtful comments I've gotten. I hope we meet again soon.