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Flesh & Blood Chapter 26 part 2: The Choice

ao3 Link: Here

word count: 6.9k

Summary as the facility begins to collapse, marcus reaches the heart of project sparrow and finds enough truth to understand what umbrella tried to take from them. with leon finally at your side and the way out within reach, the three of you have to move through the remains of the nightmare together — carrying blood, secrets, grief, and the fragile shape of survival.

Minors DNI: 18+ only. minors do not interact. this is a dark fic containing mature themes, violence, trauma, captivity, forced marriage context, coercive dynamics, abusive relationship themes, medical horror, and psychological distress.

⚠️ chapter content warnings ⚠️

graphic violence gun violence blood / injury kidnapping / captivity aftermath physical restraint aftermath medical facility horror corporate conspiracy medical experimentation references childhood trauma references foster care trauma references abusive ex aftermath trauma response / shock panic and distress death / killing near-death imagery grief / fear of loss intense emotional distress explicit language

Marcus reached the northwest quadrant with blood on his sleeve and Leon’s voice still in his head.

You plug in the drive. You do not stop to read.

He hated him for saying it.

He hated him more because he was right.

The lower level of the facility felt older than the rest, as if the building had been built over its own grave and forgotten to hide the bones. The walls were narrower here. The red emergency lights strobed slower, deeper, turning the corridor into a pulse. Every few seconds the alarm cut through the air, sharp and mechanical, followed by the overhead voice repeating the same useless warning.

Security breach detected.

External perimeter compromised.

Containment transfer interrupted.

Good.

Let them panic.

Marcus moved quickly, rifle raised, shoulder screaming from where a round had grazed him two corridors back. He barely felt it. Pain was information. Blood was inconvenient. Neither was enough to matter.

Not when Y/n was somewhere in this building.

Not when Umbrella had put her in another room and called it containment.

A man stepped out from behind a server access door with a handgun trembling in both hands.

Marcus shot him once.

The man dropped.

Marcus stepped over him and took his keycard.

No hesitation.

No guilt.

He had run out of room for either.

The access panel beside the reinforced door flickered green when he swiped the card. The lock released with a heavy electronic click.

Marcus entered.

The server room was cold enough to make his breath fog.

Rows of black towers lined the room in humming columns, blue indicator lights blinking like a hundred unblinking eyes. Cables ran across the ceiling in thick bundles. The air smelled like coolant, ozone, and dust that had never known sunlight. Against the far wall, a central console glowed with active files, transfer logs, system alerts, and one progress window flashing red.

DATA PURGE INITIATED: 12%

Marcus went still.

“No,” he whispered.

Umbrella was already trying to burn itself clean.

Of course they were.

He crossed the room fast and slammed into the chair at the console, fingers flying over the keyboard before he even fully sat. The interface was old but layered. Legacy systems under newer shells. A dead company wearing new skin. He bypassed the first lock, then the second, swearing under his breath when a third authorization prompt flashed across the screen.

“Come on,” he muttered. “Come on, you corporate grave-robbing pieces of shit.”

His earpiece crackled.

Chris. “Marcus, I’ve got temperature spikes in your quadrant. They’re purging something.”

“I noticed.”

“How long?”

Marcus’s eyes flicked to the purge window.

18%.

“Not long enough.”

He pulled Leon’s flash drive from his pocket.

For one second, he looked at it.

Black. Blank. Small enough to disappear in his palm.

A weapon disguised as nothing.

Leon had built this while waiting for the day Umbrella came close enough.

Marcus had spent weeks running through the dark, chasing proof, dragging files out of dead systems and half-burned drives, thinking he was the only one losing sleep over the thing hunting his sister.

He had not been.

The thought hit strangely.

Not soft.

Not forgiveness.

Just truth.

Then Marcus plugged the drive into the console.

The screen froze.

For half a second, nothing happened.

Then a new window opened.

UNKNOWN DEVICE DETECTED.

Marcus typed faster.

The purge counter ticked upward.

23%.

24%.

25%.

“Come on.”

The system resisted. Of course it resisted. Umbrella had built paranoia into its bones. Every door locked from both sides. Every file nested behind false labels. Every crime wrapped in enough red tape to call itself research.

Then Leon’s virus woke up.

The screen flashed once.

Then black text spilled across the monitor.

SYSTEM MIRROR ENGAGED.

LOCAL INDEX CAPTURED.

DESTRUCTIVE SEQUENCE ARMED.

Marcus exhaled hard.

“Good boy, Leon.”

A file tree opened automatically.

Not the files themselves.

An index.

Names. Dates. Project codes.

Enough to know what was there before it burned.

Marcus told himself not to look.

He looked anyway.

PROJECT SPARROW.

His hand went still on the keyboard.

The folder expanded before he could stop it, lines of text appearing beneath it in clinical white.

SUBJECT M — RESPONSE PROFILE: ADAPTIVE / AGGRESSIVE SUBJECT G — RESPONSE PROFILE: STABLE / LATENT PARENTAL INTERFERENCE: TERMINATED FOSTER NETWORK: ACTIVE MONITORING PROXIMITY ASSET E.H.: MAINTAINED SIBLING BOND: PRESERVED FOR CONTROL VARIABLE

Marcus stopped breathing.

For a second, the server room disappeared.

He was eight years old again in a house that smelled like mildew and dish soap, sitting cross-legged on the floor beside Y/n’s bed because she wouldn’t sleep unless he stayed close. She had one hand wrapped in his shirt, tiny fingers fisted in the fabric like she could anchor him there by force.

He had thought he was protecting her.

Umbrella had been watching that too.

Sibling bond preserved for control variable.

Something inside him went white-hot.

A shout tore out of him before he could stop it.

He slammed his fist into the console hard enough to crack the plastic edge.

The file tree flickered.

The purge counter hit 34%.

His earpiece crackled again.

“Marcus?” Chris snapped. “Status.”

Marcus could not answer.

His eyes locked onto another line.

EXPOSURE SERIES: INCOMPLETE VIABILITY: SUBJECT G RETAINED RECOVERY PRIORITY: HIGH TRANSFER PROTOCOL: ACTIVE

He thought of Y/n upstairs.

Cuffed.

Drugged.

Bruised.

He thought of Leon’s face in the garage when he said she was his wife.

He thought of himself standing in Leon’s kitchen, bringing truth like a bomb and watching it destroy her.

Alive and hating me is still alive.

The prayer had followed him for seven weeks.

Now it tasted like ash.

Because Umbrella had never wanted her dead.

They wanted her returned.

Marcus’s hand shook once.

Then he forced it still.

“No,” he said.

The word came out low.

Final.

He selected the project root folder, overriding the mirror delay.

A warning flashed.

PRIMARY SYSTEM LINK DETECTED. DESTRUCTIVE SEQUENCE WILL PROPAGATE TO ALL CONNECTED LOCAL NODES. CONFIRM?

Marcus stared at the word.

All connected local nodes.

Research logs.

Surveillance records.

Transfer routes.

Every file in this facility with Y/n’s name in it.

Maybe answers.

Maybe proof.

Maybe pieces of their parents, their childhood, every wound Umbrella had opened and dressed in clinical language.

For one second, he hesitated.

Only one.

Then Y/n’s voice came back.

You let me bury you.

The hesitation died.

She did not need every monster’s note to know she had been hurt.

She needed the monsters to stop reaching.

Marcus hit confirm.

The room seemed to inhale.

Then every server light flickered at once.

Blue to red.

Red to black.

A cascade of failures rolled down the rows like stars going out.

The console screamed warnings.

DATA CORRUPTION: 4% LOCAL NODE FAILURE: 9% REPLICATION BLOCKED ARCHIVE DAMAGE DETECTED DESTRUCTIVE SEQUENCE IN PROGRESS

Marcus grabbed a nearby drive array from the side rack and yanked it free, sparks snapping at his gloves. One piece. One surviving piece. Enough for answers later, maybe. Enough to prove what had happened. Not enough for Umbrella to rebuild from here.

A door opened behind him.

Marcus turned, rifle coming up.

The silver-haired man from Y/n’s room stood in the doorway with a gun in one hand and no fear on his face.

Not enough fear.

“Agent L/N,” he said calmly. “You really should have stayed dead.”

Marcus stared at him.

The man’s eyes flicked to the console.

The failing servers.

The virus eating through the system.

His mouth tightened.

“You have no idea what you’ve destroyed.”

Marcus smiled.

It felt nothing like humor.

“Yeah,” he said, raising the rifle. “I do.”

The man fired first.

Marcus moved.

The bullet tore through the server behind him, sparks exploding into the air. Marcus returned fire, driving the man back into the corridor. He followed, rage and gunfire carrying him through the doorway as the server room burned itself clean behind him.

In his ear, Leon’s voice crackled through at last.

“I have Y/n.”

Marcus’s step faltered.

For half a breath, the whole world narrowed to those three words.

I have Y/n.

Alive.

Found.

Not safe yet, but found.

Marcus closed his eyes for one fraction of a second.

Then another shot cracked against the wall near his head.

He opened them.

The silver-haired man was running.

Marcus lifted the rifle again.

“Good,” he said into the comm, voice rough. “Then get her out.”

Leon’s answer came through low and deadly.

“Working on it.”

Marcus advanced down the corridor, firing once, twice, forcing the man around the corner as smoke began to spill from the server room behind him.

The facility alarms changed pitch.

Lower now.

Worse.

A new warning rolled overhead.

“System integrity failure. Evacuation protocol initiated.”

Marcus smiled again, blood on his teeth.

“Run,” he muttered.

Then he followed.

Marcus caught up to him at the end of the corridor.

The silver-haired man was fast for someone who had spent his life standing behind glass and calling children subjects. Fast enough to make it around the first corner. Fast enough to fire blindly behind him and force Marcus to duck behind an open doorway as bullets chewed into the wall.

Not fast enough to escape what he had made.

Marcus pressed his back to the frame, breathing hard, rifle tight against his chest. Smoke curled along the ceiling from the server room behind him, black and chemical-thick. The alarms had shifted into something deeper now, less like a warning and more like a countdown.

System integrity failure.

Evacuation protocol initiated.

The facility was dying.

Good.

Let it.

“Marcus,” Chris crackled in his ear. “You’ve got movement converging on your level. North corridor.”

Marcus ignored him.

His eyes stayed on the hallway ahead.

The silver-haired man’s voice came from somewhere beyond the corner, too calm for how quickly his empire was burning.

“You are making a mistake.”

Marcus almost laughed.

He looked down at the blood on his sleeve, then at the drive array tucked into the pouch at his hip. One piece of proof. One ugly little surviving bone pulled from the mouth of the machine before Leon’s virus ate the rest.

Not everything.

Enough.

“You people love saying that,” Marcus called back.

The man answered, “Your sister is valuable in ways you do not understand.”

That did it.

The last thread of control in Marcus went quiet.

Not snapped.

Quiet.

He stepped out before the man finished the sentence.

Another shot cracked through the hall.

Marcus felt the heat of it graze past his neck.

He fired twice.

The first shot took the man in the shoulder and spun him backward. The second shattered the gun from his hand, sending it skidding across the tile. The silver-haired man hit the wall hard but stayed upright, one hand clamped over the wound, face pale now beneath all that clinical composure.

There.

Fear.

Finally.

Marcus advanced slowly.

The man tried to straighten. Tried to put that clean, bored expression back on his face as blood darkened his shirt beneath his coat.

“You need me alive,” he said.

Marcus kept walking.

“I have access codes. Research hierarchy. Off-site routes. Names you will never find without me.”

Marcus stopped a few feet away.

The man’s eyes flickered.

Hope.

A stupid thing to have in front of a brother.

“You killed my parents,” Marcus said.

The man swallowed.

“They interfered with a long-term—”

Marcus hit him with the butt of the rifle.

Bone cracked.

The man went down hard, palms skidding against the floor, blood spilling bright beneath the red alarm lights.

Marcus crouched in front of him.

For a second, all he saw was Y/n at six years old, crying into his shirt because she missed a mother whose face had already started blurring at the edges. Y/n at nine, asking if he remembered their dad’s voice. Y/n at fifteen pretending she didn’t care that nobody came for school events. Y/n in Leon’s kitchen, staring at him like his being alive was another kind of death.

The man coughed, blood spotting his lips.

“Project Sparrow was bigger than your family.”

Marcus tilted his head.

“No,” he said quietly. “It wasn’t.”

The man blinked.

Marcus leaned closer.

“To you, maybe. To the files. To Umbrella. To whatever dead thing you’ve been feeding for the last twenty years.” His voice roughened. “But to her? To me? It was our family. It was our childhood. It was every door we were afraid of and every adult who looked at us too long and every needle we couldn’t explain.”

The man tried to speak.

Marcus didn’t let him.

“You turned my sister into a subject,” he said. “You turned me into a variable. You turned our parents into an obstacle.”

His finger tightened around the trigger.

“And you still thought you were leaving this building.”

The man’s eyes widened.

“Wait—”

Marcus fired once.

The shot was deafening in the narrow hall.

The man’s body went still.

Marcus stayed crouched for one second longer, listening to the alarm, to the crackle of flames somewhere deeper in the facility, to his own breathing.

He expected something.

Relief.

Satisfaction.

Peace.

Nothing came.

Only the same old hollow ache, wide and familiar.

Dead men did not give childhoods back.

He stood.

“Marcus?” Leon’s voice snapped through the comm, rough with urgency. “Status.”

Marcus looked down at the body.

“Handled.”

A beat.

Then Leon said, “We’re moving. East medical corridor. Y/n’s ambulatory, but hurt.”

Y/n’s ambulatory.

Hurt.

Alive.

Marcus’s chest tightened so sharply he had to press one hand against the wall.

“On my way.”

He ran.

The facility was coming apart around him. Overhead lights sparked and went dark in sections. Sprinklers kicked on somewhere, then died almost immediately, spitting dirty water across the floor. Doors opened and closed with failing electronic groans. Somewhere to his left, men shouted orders that no one was calm enough to follow.

Marcus moved through it like the building was already a corpse.

Two guards tried to cut across the hall ahead of him.

He dropped them both without breaking stride.

Another rounded the corner, saw him, and turned to run.

Marcus let him.

Then shot the control panel beside him, sealing the fire door between that man and the exit.

Let him find another way out.

Or don’t.

Marcus did not care anymore.

He turned into the east medical corridor and saw them.

For one second, everything stopped.

Leon was halfway down the hall, one arm around Y/n’s waist, the other holding his gun low and ready. His black jacket was torn at the side, blood darkening the fabric beneath his ribs. His face was smeared with smoke and someone else’s blood, expression carved into something lethal enough that even the dying facility seemed smart enough not to touch him.

But Marcus barely saw him.

He saw Y/n.

Her hair was tangled around her face. One cheek was swollen and red, her lip split, blood dried at the corner of her mouth. There were marks at her throat that made Marcus’s vision sharpen to a point. Her wrists were raw where the cuffs had cut into her. She leaned heavily into Leon but was still trying to walk like she didn’t need help from anyone.

Of course she was.

His little bird.

Alive.

Hurt.

Looking at him.

Marcus stopped in the middle of the hall.

Y/n stopped too.

Leon’s arm tightened around her, more instinct than restraint, but he did not pull her back. He looked between them once, then shifted just enough to support her without standing in the way.

That small movement hit Marcus harder than it should have.

Leon let her choose the space.

Even here.

Even now.

Y/n stared at Marcus.

For one awful second, Marcus thought she might recoil again.

She had every right.

He had no defense left.

No explanation worth offering in a hallway full of alarms and blood and failing lights.

Then her face broke.

Not fully.

Not dramatically.

Just enough that the little girl he had raised flickered through the woman standing in front of him.

“Marcus,” she whispered.

The name almost took him to his knees.

He moved without thinking.

Then stopped himself after one step.

Because she had flinched from him in the kitchen.

Because he remembered.

Because he would not take one more thing from her, not even comfort.

His hands lifted slightly, empty.

“I’m here,” he said.

Her mouth trembled.

The alarm screamed overhead.

A door slammed somewhere behind him.

Leon glanced sharply down the hall. “We need to move.”

Y/n did not look away from Marcus.

Her eyes were wet now, furious and devastated and alive.

“You killed him?” she asked.

Marcus knew who she meant.

Not Evan.

The other one.

The man with the clean hands and dead eyes.

Marcus nodded once.

“Yes.”

Something moved across her face.

Not relief.

Not horror.

Something too complicated for either.

“Good,” she said.

The word came out cracked.

Marcus almost broke then.

Leon’s expression flickered, but he said nothing.

Good.

This was not his moment to soften.

Marcus took another careful step closer. “Can you walk?”

Y/n gave him a look so sharp and familiar it almost hurt worse than her injuries.

“I am literally walking.”

A laugh tore out of him before he could stop it.

It was awful. Shaky. Almost a sob.

Leon looked at him like he had lost his mind.

Maybe he had.

Maybe they all had.

Y/n’s mouth twitched once, but then pain cut through her face and she sagged slightly into Leon.

Leon’s focus snapped to her immediately. “Hey.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Everyone’s bleeding.”

Marcus moved to her other side before thinking better of it.

This time, Y/n did not pull away.

She looked at him.

He froze.

Permission was a strange, sacred thing in a place like this.

After a second, she shifted her weight just enough.

Not into him fully.

Not forgiveness.

But enough.

Marcus slid an arm carefully around her other side, opposite Leon, taking some of her weight. She was warm. Solid. Breathing.

Alive.

His throat closed.

For seven weeks, he had imagined all the ways he might see her again.

None of them had included this.

The three of them stood there for one impossible second in the middle of the dying facility — Y/n between the two men who had lied to save her, bruised and furious and held by both of them because she allowed it.

Then the overhead speaker shrieked.

“Evacuation protocol failed. Containment breach in lower system sectors. Structural integrity compromised.”

Leon’s eyes lifted.

Marcus muttered, “That sounds bad.”

Y/n’s voice was hoarse. “Is there ever a version where it sounds good?”

Marcus looked down at her.

For half a second, despite the blood and the alarms and the red emergency lights, he smiled.

“There she is.”

Her eyes flashed.

“Don’t.”

The smile died instantly.

“Sorry.”

She looked forward again, jaw tight.

But after one step, her fingers curled briefly into his sleeve.

Marcus felt it like a hand around his heart.

Leon saw it.

Didn’t comment.

Just adjusted his grip and started moving.

“Exit?” Leon asked.

Marcus forced himself back into the room, back into the mission, back into the burning skeleton of Umbrella around them.

“Service stairwell west. Main route is probably locked down.”

“Probably?”

“I was busy committing light treason and murdering a scientist.”

Y/n let out a sound that might have been a laugh if it didn’t hurt.

Leon’s mouth tightened. “Focus.”

“I am focused.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“So are you.”

“I’m fine.”

Y/n groaned. “Oh my God, both of you shut up.”

They both did.

Immediately.

That, more than anything, nearly made Marcus laugh again.

Y/n leaned between them, breathing hard, eyes forward, refusing to be carried. Leon matched her pace even though every instinct in him was screaming to lift her and run. Marcus felt the restraint in him, saw it in the way his hand flexed against Y/n’s side and then gentled.

She noticed too.

Of course she did.

Her voice came quieter.

“Thank you.”

Leon looked down at her.

“For what?”

“For not picking me up like luggage.”

Marcus stared straight ahead and decided not to smile.

Leon exhaled once through his nose. “I considered it.”

“I know.”

“You’d be faster.”

“You’d be divorced.”

Leon’s face went blank.

Marcus barked out a laugh.

Y/n winced from the effort of her own tiny smile.

For three seconds, in the middle of hell, they sounded almost alive.

Then gunfire cracked from the far end of the corridor.

Leon moved first, pushing Y/n behind the partial cover of a medical cart while Marcus swung wide and returned fire. The two men shifted without speaking — Leon low and right, Marcus high and left, Y/n crouched between them with one hand braced against the cart and blood running down her wrist.

One guard went down.

Then another.

The third dropped his weapon and ran.

This time, Marcus did not let him.

When the corridor fell quiet again, Y/n stared at the bodies, then at Leon, then at Marcus.

Her face was pale.

But her voice was steady.

“Are we done?”

Leon reloaded.

Marcus checked the hall.

Somewhere below them, the building groaned.

Leon looked back at Y/n.

“No.”

His eyes softened for the smallest second.

“But we’re leaving.”

Marcus nodded toward the stairwell.

“Then let’s move before this place decides to bury us with its secrets.”

Y/n pushed herself upright between them.

Her knees shook.

Leon saw.

Marcus saw.

She saw them seeing.

“Don’t,” she warned.

Neither man spoke.

They simply stepped in close enough for her to take what she needed.

After a long second, Y/n slipped one arm around Leon’s waist and the other around Marcus’s back.

Not because they decided.

Because she did.

Marcus closed his eyes for half a heartbeat.

Then they moved together toward the stairwell, three shadows under red lights, carrying blood, secrets, and the first fragile shape of survival out of Umbrella’s dying throat.

The stairwell spat them out into cold night air and smoke.

For one disorienting second, the world was too open.

After the concrete corridors and red alarms and the stale chemical breath of Umbrella’s dying facility, the outside felt unreal. Black sky. Wet gravel. Dead grass shifting in the wind. The distant line of trees beyond the perimeter fence. Sirens somewhere far off, not the facility’s internal alarms but something human, something coming closer.

Chris.

Evac.

Medical.

The words moved through Y/n’s head without fully landing.

Leon had one arm around her waist, his body angled slightly in front of hers even as he tried not to drag her. Marcus was on her other side, rifle up, eyes sweeping every angle like if he looked hard enough, he could personally threaten the dark into behaving.

The facility groaned behind them.

A deep, metal-boned sound.

Smoke vented from the upper windows in ugly black bursts. Somewhere inside, something exploded with a dull concussive thump that made Y/n flinch before she could stop herself.

Leon felt it immediately.

His arm tightened around her.

“Almost there,” he said.

His voice was low. Rough. Too controlled.

She looked up at him.

His face was streaked with blood and soot, jaw tight, eyes still scanning. There was a cut near his ribs darkening the side of his jacket. His hands were stained red.

Evan’s blood.

Maybe hers too.

Maybe both.

She should have felt something about that.

Horror. Satisfaction. Relief.

Instead, she felt distant from her own body, like she was looking up at him from underwater. Her wrists burned. Her cheek pulsed. Every breath scraped against the places Evan’s hand had been. But Leon was here. Marcus was here. The night was cold and the building was behind them and for one fragile, stupid second, her body thought:

Out.

We’re out.

Marcus spoke into his comm. “We’re clear of the east exit. Need medical now.”

Chris’s voice crackled back immediately. “Two minutes out. Keep moving toward the service road. Do not stay near the building.”

Leon glanced toward the road.

“Can you walk?” he asked Y/n.

She gave him a look despite the dizziness swimming behind her eyes.

“If one more man asks me that tonight, I’m going to start biting.”

Marcus made a strangled sound that might have been a laugh if he had any air left for it.

Leon did not smile.

He tried.

She saw the attempt flicker at the edge of his mouth and fail.

That hurt worse somehow.

“Okay,” he said. “Bite later. Walk now.”

“Bossy.”

“Alive,” he answered.

The word hit all three of them.

Marcus looked away first.

Y/n’s fingers tightened weakly in Leon’s jacket.

Alive.

Yes.

She was alive.

She was angry. Bruised. Bleeding. Shaking so hard her knees kept trying to fold under her. But alive.

Leon reached for the straps of his bulletproof vest.

“Take this.”

Y/n stared at him.

“Absolutely not.”

“You’re injured.”

“And you’re about to walk back into a war zone.”

His jaw tightened.

“Y/n.”

“No.”

For a second neither of them moved.

Then she shook her head.

“It’s pointless anyway.”

Leon frowned.

“What is?”

“You giving me the vest.”

Her gaze held his.

“If something happens, you’d throw yourself in front of me anyway.”

The words landed harder than she intended.

Marcus looked away immediately.

Leon said nothing.

Because they both knew she was right.

His expression shifted almost imperceptibly before he let his hand fall from the vest.

He tried not to look affected by it.

He failed.

They moved down the gravel path, away from the building. The floodlights overhead flickered in failing intervals, throwing the yard into brief, brutal flashes of white and black. Y/n’s head swam with each step. Leon kept adjusting without asking, taking more of her weight when she faltered, giving it back when she stiffened.

He was learning.

Even now.

Even bleeding and furious and halfway feral, he was learning the shape of helping without taking.

That almost broke her.

Ahead, beyond the rusted gate, headlights flashed through the trees.

Chris.

Relief moved through her so suddenly her chest hurt.

Marcus saw the lights too. His shoulders lowered half an inch. Not relaxed. Never that. But the first microscopic release of a man who had been holding the whole world clenched in his jaw.

“There,” he said. “That’s Chris.”

Y/n looked toward the lights.

Then something shifted.

She did not know what she noticed first.

Not sound. Not movement exactly.

A glint.

Small.

High.

Wrong.

One of the upper windows on the east side of the facility was broken, jagged glass catching the flash of emergency lights. For a second, Y/n’s eyes passed over it.

Then her body understood before her mind did.

Watched.

Targeted.

The old animal certainty moved through her like ice.

Leon was turned slightly toward Chris’s headlights, body angled open for half a second as he lifted his hand to his comm.

The glint moved.

Y/n saw the barrel.

She did not think.

She moved.

Her hand slammed into Leon’s chest with everything she had left.

“Leon!”

He stumbled half a step back, shock flashing across his face.

————————————-your POV —------------------------------------------------------------------------

The shot cracked through the night.

Not loud at first.

Not like you expected.

Just a sharp, clean sound.

Then pain exploded through your body.

White.

Hot.

Immediate.

The force knocked you backward. Leon’s face changed before you understood why. His eyes went wide, all the blood draining out of him as you dropped.

He caught you before you hit the gravel.

Of course he did.

He always caught you.

Somewhere to the side, Marcus shouted. Not a word. Just a sound ripped raw from his chest. His rifle snapped up.

One shot.

The window above burst inward.

A body fell from the broken frame and hit the lower roof with a sickening crack before rolling out of sight.

Done.

Instant.

Brother before agent.

Then Marcus was on the ground beside them.

“Y/n!”

Leon was already pressing both hands to your side, his face close, his voice suddenly nothing like the calm that had walked through the facility.

“No. No, no, no. Y/n. Look at me.”

You tried.

You really did.

But the sky kept sliding.

The stars above him blurred into streaks of white.

Leon’s hands were warm and hard against you. Too much pressure. Not enough. Pain sparked through you so violently you tried to curl away, but he held you there, one arm under your shoulders, the other hand pressed down hard.

“Stay with me,” he said.

It was not a request.

Not a command either.

A prayer trying to sound like an order.

Marcus dropped beside your other side, hands hovering for one panicked second before training took over. He ripped open the side of your sweater, eyes going terrifyingly focused as he looked at the wound.

“Through and through?” Leon snapped.

“I don’t know.”

“Marcus.”

“I don’t fucking know yet!”

Y/n made a sound.

Both of them stopped.

Their faces turned toward you at once.

It would have been funny in another life. The way they both looked like you had personally stabbed them by making noise.

You tried to breathe.

It hurt.

Everything hurt.

“Don’t…” your voice came out barely there.

Leon leaned closer immediately. “Don’t what?”

You swallowed, tasting blood.

“Don’t fight.”

Leon’s face broke.

Marcus looked like he might be sick.

Chris’s voice screamed through the comm, tinny and frantic. “We heard the shot. ETA thirty seconds. Leon, talk to me.”

Leon did not answer.

His whole world had narrowed to the blood slipping between his fingers.

“Hey,” You whispered.

Leon’s eyes snapped back to yours.

There he was.

Your husband.

Not the weapon. Not the wall. Not the man who killed his way down the hallway.

Just Leon.

Terrified.

Ruined.

Yours.

“I’m here,” he said quickly, like he could answer before you even asked. “I’m right here. I’ve got you. Medical is coming. Chris is coming. You’re going to be okay.”

His voice cracked on the last word.

You lifted your hand.

Or tried to.

It barely moved.

Leon caught it instantly, pressing it against his chest, over his heart, like he needed your touch there to keep himself from falling apart.

“You’re going to be okay,” he said again.

You looked at him.

The words were kind.

They were lies.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

You did not know anymore.

All you knew was that the world felt far away, and Leon was close, and there was something you had meant to say when this was over.

This was not over.

But maybe that was why it mattered.

“When I was in there,” you whispered.

Leon’s face twisted. “Don’t. Save your strength.”

A weak laugh scraped your throat..

It hurt enough that darkness flashed at the edges of your vision.

“No. You don’t get to tell me what to do right now.”

Marcus made a broken sound beside you.

Leon’s mouth trembled.

“Okay,” he whispered. “Okay. Tell me.”

You tried to keep your eyes open.

His face kept blurring.

“When I was in there,” you said again, softer now, “I thought about everything.”

Leon pressed harder against the wound, and you gasped.

“Sorry,” he choked. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

You looked at him.

Even now, some part wanted to smile.

Still arguing.

Still him.

“I thought about the mansion,” you whispered. “The beach. The kitchen. The stupid honey.”

A tear fell down Leon’s cheek.

He did not seem to notice.

You did.

You wanted to wipe it away.

Your hand would not move enough.

“And I thought about how angry I was,” you said. “How hurt. How I still am.”

Leon nodded too fast, eyes burning. “I know. I know, sweetheart. You can be angry. Be angry forever. Just stay with me.”

“I thought about Marcus.”

Marcus leaned closer, his face wet now too.

“Little bird—”

Your eyes shifted toward him.

The nickname did not hurt the way it had in the kitchen.

Not here.

Not with his hand pressed against your shoulder like he was afraid the earth might take you if he let go.

“You came back,” you whispered.

Marcus’s face crumpled.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I did.”

“Then I can too.”

The sound that left him did not have a name.

Leon bowed over you, his forehead nearly touching yours.

“Don’t talk like that.”

“I’m talking how I want.”

“Y/n.”

You looked back at him.

There was so much blood.

His hands were covered in it.

His ring was covered in it.

The ring you had looked at like evidence. Like a trap. Like a beautiful, terrible thing you did not know how to hold.

Now it was red because he was trying to keep you alive.

“I was going to tell you,” you whispered.

Leon went still.

“What?”

“When this was over.”

His breath caught.

“When we got out. When I could breathe. I was going to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

You swallowed.

Your throat felt thick.

Your body felt cold.

“That I choose you.”

Leon’s face shattered.

Completely.

Not in pieces. Not behind restraint. Not quietly.

He broke in front of you.

“No,” he breathed. “No, you don’t get to tell me that like this.”

Your fingers twitched against his chest.

“I do.”

“No.” His voice cracked harder. “No, you tell me tomorrow. You tell me at home. You tell me when you’re mad at me for hovering. You tell me when you throw something at my head because I ask if you can walk. You do not tell me bleeding out on the ground outside an Umbrella facility.”

Your eyes burned.

“I wanted normal with you.”

Leon stopped breathing.

The words came easier now because everything else was slipping.

“I wanted the beach house again. And coffee. And you reading in those stupid glasses.”

Marcus pressed a hand over his mouth, looking away like he could hold himself together by force.

You kept your eyes on Leon.

“I wanted your kitchen,” you whispered. “Your bed. I wanted to be mad at you and still come home to you. I wanted…” Your breath hitched. Pain tore through your side, and Leon made a sound like he felt it too. “I wanted a life.”

Leon shook his head, tears falling freely now.

“You’re going to have it.”

“With you.”

“Yes,” he said instantly. “Yes. With me. Whatever you want. Anything you want. Just stay.”

“I was going to choose you,” you whispered.

His forehead dropped to yours, careful, shaking.

“You already did,” he said. “You pushed me out of the way. God, Y/n, you already did.”

You tried to breathe.

The air would not quite come.

Leon felt it.

His eyes went wild.

“Chris!” he roared.

Headlights flooded the yard.

Tires skidded over gravel.

Voices shouted.

Doors slammed.

Marcus looked up, yelling for a medic, for pressure bandages, for now, now, now.

Hands appeared around them.

Chris’s voice, close this time, urgent and commanding. “Move, move, give me room. Leon, keep pressure. Do not let up.”

Leon did not move.

Could not.

His hands were locked to your wound like his body had forgotten how to obey anyone but the blood.

A medic slid in beside him.

Marcus was dragged half an inch back and shoved forward again when he snarled, “I’m not leaving her.”

You heard all of it from very far away.

The lights were too bright.

The night too cold.

Leon too beautiful and broken above you.

You wanted to tell him that.

That he looked awful.

That you loved him.

That you were sorry about the blood.

That you had chosen him before the shot, not because of it. That the choice had been yours, fully yours, finally yours, and you needed him to know that if everything went dark, it was not the bullet that made you honest.

Memories crashed through in fractured flashes. The first day you stepped into the mansion, terrified and furious in equal measure. Leon watching from across a room with that unreadable expression you had spent months trying to decipher. The arguments. The late-night conversations neither of them were supposed to have. The way he had quietly stood beside you when everything else felt impossible. The stolen moments in hallways, the lingering glances, the rare smiles he never gave anyone else.

You remembered learning the shape of his silence. Remembered the nights you hated him, the mornings you had trusted him, and every moment in between when you had been helplessly, stubbornly drawn back to him. The mansion had become a prison, a battlefield, a home, and somehow Leon had been woven through every part of it.

You remembered the intimacy that was built in stolen moments when the rest of the world seemed to disappear. The quiet conversations in the dark, his hand finding yours without thought, the way he had looked at you when he believed you weren’t paying attention. You remembered the wedding—the weight of the dress, the vows that had felt complicated and impossible, and the way your heart had betrayed you by racing the moment you saw him waiting for you.

You remembered realizing you had fallen in love with him long before you were willing to admit it. Not in one grand moment, but in a thousand small ones. In the way he protected you even when you both were at odds. In the rare softness he showed only to you. In the way he became the first person you wanted to tell things to, and the only person whose opinion could still shake you.

And you remembered the beach house most of all. The sound of the waves beyond the windows, the salt in the air, the brief illusion that they could exist outside the chaos that always surrounded them. There had been mornings wrapped in blankets watching the ocean, evenings filled with laughter you never expected to share with him, and nights when the distance between them had disappeared completely. For a little while, it had felt like a glimpse of the life they might have had if fate had been kinder.

Every memory led here.

To him kneeling beside you.

To his hands shaking.

To the realization that somewhere along the way, without permission or warning, he had become the person you could not imagine losing.

Your mouth moved.

Leon leaned in instantly.

“What? What is it?”

You could barely hear herself.

“Don’t let the house be quiet again.”

His face collapsed.

“Y/n—”

“Promise.”

His hand found your cheek, shaking violently.

“I promise,” he whispered. “I promise, sweetheart. I swear to you, I swear—”

Your eyes slipped toward Marcus.

He looked destroyed.

Older and younger all at once.

You wanted to tell him you didn’t hate him.

Or maybe you did.

Maybe both.

You wanted more time to figure it out.

“You owe me breakfast,” you whispered.

Marcus let out something between a laugh and a sob.

“Yeah,” he choked. “Yeah. Every morning. Every damn morning. Just—just stay.”

The medic shouted something.

Chris cursed.

Leon’s arms tightened around you as they lifted you onto the stretcher, like the movement physically tore him open.

Your hand slipped from his chest.

He caught it again.

Of course he did.

He leaned over you as they moved, walking with the stretcher, one hand still wrapped around yours, the other still stained red.

His face filled your vision.

His voice broke over and over on your name.

“Stay with me. Y/n. Stay with me. Look at me. Please, look at me.”

You tried.

You really tried.

For one second, you saw him clearly.

Blue eyes. Blood on his face. Tears he did not hide. The man who had taken you, lied to you, loved you, found you.

The man you had chosen.

Your thumb moved weakly against his hand.

“I’m here,” you whispered.

Leon’s mouth trembled.

“I know.”

This time, the words did not sound like guilt.

They sounded like hope trying not to die.

The stretcher jolted.

The lights smeared.

Marcus was shouting.

Chris was shouting.

Leon’s hand was in yours.

Then even that began to slip.

Leon’s voice followed you down.

“No. No, no, no. Y/n, stay with me. Stay with me.” His grip tightened desperately around your hand, trembling so hard you could feel it even through the growing distance between them. “Look at me. Y/n, look at me. Open your eyes.”

There was panic in every word now, raw and unrestrained.

“Don’t do this. Please, don’t do this.” His voice cracked. “You promised me. You promised me you’d stay. Y/n, please. Please.”

You could hear movement around him, distant voices, chaos you could no longer make out, but Leon’s voice cut through all of it.

“Somebody help her. Please—”

The fear in him was unbearable.

And yet, strangely, you felt none of it.

The pain was fading.

The fear was fading too.

Everything felt warm and quiet, like sinking into still water after fighting against a storm for far too long. The weight you had been carrying seemed to drift away piece by piece until there was nothing left to hold onto.

You wanted to answer him.

You wanted to tell him you could hear him.

That you were sorry.

That you loved him.

That you weren’t afraid anymore.

You wanted to tell him you were trying.

But for the first time in what felt like forever, you felt at peace.

You wanted to tell him normal sounded nice.

Coffee. Kitchen. Bed. Rings. Light. A house that was not quiet.

But the words disappeared before they reached your mouth.

Leon’s face blurred.

The sky went white.