#thisshallpass

starter for @thisshallpass

IT  DOES  MORE  THAN  she  expects  to calm her nerves when  Leon  says  he's  not  going  to  leave  her  side.  Not  that  he  could,  logically.  This  room  was  only  so  big  and  there  was  no  way  out.  He  was  pretty  much  stuck  with  her,  even  if  he  didn't  want  to  be.  But  she  doesn't  point  that  out.  Instead,  she  takes  a  deep,  shaking  breath,  glad  that  at  least  if  she's  going  to  die  underground  in  some  god  forsaken  lab,  at  least  she  has  company.  Even  if  that  makes  her  feel  guilty. 

             She  doesn't  want  him  to  die  with  her  after  all.

But  that's  also  out  of  her  hands  now.  Just  another  thing  from  these  last  few  days  to  feel  guilty  about.  She  couldn't  save  Emily,  and  just  as  she  had  thought  she  had  saved  Leon…  she  had  really  only  just  prolonged  his  fate.  He  was  cured  now,  only  to  have  to  starve  to  death  down  here.  Or  run  out  of  oxygen.  Or  to  be  crushed  by  the  falling  building  pieces  around  them.  Or  for  one  of  those  monsters  to  come  back  and  finish  them  off-

             Her  breath  picked  up  a  little  at  the  racing  thoughts.

(txt): funny story. i'll tell you in person at petes. they're still open late.

​[txt:] Right. Sure. See you in a bit.

Before he left his health was steadily deteriorating from a virus. Which one? It could have been anything, the black patches on his neck were seen in a wide variety of different bioweapons.

She'd kept quiet about it for a while, saw Sherry was experiencing the same things, and then he suddenly vanishes again for a week or more. Even INGRID didn't know where he was, which told her something serious was going on.

Leon never leaves anywhere without Ingrid in his ear, the fact that he did was terrifying.

She slowly makes her way into Petes, a little buzzed from some earlier drinking, but thankfully the place was in walking distance, and coffee sounded great now. So she grabs her usual order, and finds them a table by the window, eyeing the lightly falling rain amidst the street lights.

The second he sits down, though, she sits up- clearly upset and frustrated, but mixed with relief at the sight of him. The black patches were gone... When did that happen?

It was like a dirty bomb went off at the Lodge when the first symptoms began showing. Ahab had detected some kind of change in the most senior members of their company, a shift in smell that alerted everyone to the idea that something was going on- but no real idea as to what...

Then, one by one, in quick succession, people got really sick. Blotches of black concentrated around lymph nodes, eyes, and old scars; overwhelming fatigue, headaches, bloody coughs- Hawk assumed that the Guild had somehow been compromised. Everyone did.

But that didn't explain why their systems didn't alert them to the presence of a contaminant. Or how something or someone could have gotten in during the most difficult travel and transport weather- or why it was almost exclusively the old guard of the Guild that fell ill... Or why symptoms started at the same time for those off-base and in the field.

All units RTB to Quebec Zulu.

Nighthawk dreaded giving the order. Worse still that it had to come from him, and not the Boss, Hunk... who had the worst of the symptoms.

All operatives were recalled from missions, from leave, from tasks for mandatory quarantines and checks from Ahab for the mystery ailment. Whatever it was, it wasn't contagious- but it made the body produce T-antibodies like hell, and was slowly slowly spreading in the individuals symptomatic. Antivirals seemed to slow the disease's progress, but not halt it.

Hawk had to leave Ahab to her work, and focus on what he could with the rest of their crew, to keep the Lodge running and redeploy where they could recoup losses.

Days later, 'Raccoon City Syndrome' hit the news with a few odd deaths. A little later than that, the number rose to six. Then one of their own, another USS refugee that wasn't part of the Wolfpack, succumbed.

How to handle disposal, and more importantly, how to report deaths associated with Raccoon City Syndrome in a way that wouldn't compromise the security of survivors and renew scrutiny into their members' involvement and connection to the Raccoon City and Greater Arklay outbreaks became the topic of serious discussion. How could they protect their own and prevent another Ian Sider situation with their survivors?

If there were survivors.

That 'if' hung over Wolfpack like a cleaver and a butcher's block. None of them were strangers to confronting their own mortality, Hector going so far as to challenge it openly- but this manner of death? Slow decline and sudden stop? Was so alien to they who spent the majority of their lives fighting monsters and avoiding all manners of violent death. An enemy hibernating from within was mindnumbing.

All they could do was wait.

September became October, the disease neither got better nor worse and the stand-still continued until a call came through to Hawk's personal phone: Leon Kennedy, DSO.

Tentative ally. Despite the rocky history with the rest of Wolfpack, the Guild maintained a good working relation with the man for both the exchange in expertise and cooperating against mutual enemies. Curious what he wanted, Hawk answered.

You can no longer accrue vacation hours. You need to use them, or be placed on leave.

Those were the instructions leaving Ingrid Hunnigan feeling restless. Both herself and the FOS Director agreed that the orders from above were asinine, given the surge in strange cases of a disease associated with Raccoon City survivors. But when their citations of policy and protests fell on the deaf ears of a stubborn and maliciously incompetent administration, Director Laurel advised Ingrid to comply "as maliciously as possible" in turn.

Something was up, something suspect.

She had the same feeling before, when her requests to transfer Helena Harper from the CIA to the DSO after her falling out. To be told that Helena wasn't trustworthy enough to be placed in the newly-formed DSO, despite Hunnigan herself designing the standards, and that she would instead be placed into President Benford's Secret Service detail...

Ingrid couldn't fathom the cognitive dissonance. A few weeks later she understood why, and was glad she took the time to exchange contact information with Harper.

And now? She was certain there was something the current leadership didn't want her to know about.

Ingrid opted to use her forced vacation to travel north, far away from family and anyone in DC, setting herself up in the same area she'd been sent into the field: The Fitz Hotel, named after the Edmund Fitzgerald, near Lake Superior.

Part of her wanted a remote enough area to continue doing research into the latest wrongdoings of her superiors, and able to flee into Canada should things go wrong... the other? Wanted to see for herself and verify that what she had done here made a difference for the better.

It's been over ten years.

A-Gua-G was defunct. The infrastructure taken over by another company. The fall of the Bellecourts a topic of local debate. A-virus almost completely eradicated with a strictly enforced vaccine schedule.

No more giant fish monsters. Back to ghost sightings. But ghost stories didn't bother her.

What did bother her was finding most of her sensitive reports regarding The Family missing. And a few days after, breaking news that another lab was found under Raccoon City, actively producing bioweapons for twenty-eight uninterrupted years.

"- the president is expected to reject allegations of any government involvement since the Raccoon City incident."

"Bullshit."

Furious was an understatement.

Four Headcanons

Leon's place is one of her established safehouses on the East Coast, and has been since the end of 2013. After the accord between their different approaches to bioterror, she'll leave him 'payment' in the form of small treasures from the missions she undertakes and non-perishable gifts like cologne and jewelry that can be readily pawned for quick cash in emergencies.

When their missions do intersect, Ada's behavior towards him will change depending on what role she needs to play. He's been very good at picking up on her cues, and is more than used to her popping up with a gun pointed at him by now.

Leon is aware of Ada's keychain collection, some of which doubles as a way to smuggle capsule-sized samples discreetly. The Amber is stored in this way, which is funny to her and a little uncomfortable for him.

---

Jess ran down the maze-like halls of the RPD in a mixture of anger and flustered panic. The thudding steps following her too close for comfort made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She'd learned a while ago that bullets didn't do anything worthwhile, bar buy some time to scurry off and hide before the next chase.

She barged her way through offices on the upstairs floor, using the fact that it had to duck beneath the door frames to plan an escape. She found herself back in a hallway and turned a few random corners before DIVING through an open door. Laying on her back, pistol aimed at around head height, she waited.

The footsteps grew louder. Louder. There... and then the TYRANT continued around the corner, figuring she must have continued to run that way. Once the brown trench coat was out of sight and the impossibly heavy footsteps distant, she exhaled slowly, shakily.

The butt of her gun hit her hip as she eased, and only then did she notice a presence in the room. Brown gaze trailed over to the side, where she saw the blonde-haired guy who had saved her ass earlier by drawing unwanted attention. She'd managed to get away and was still alive. They weren't doing things in vain yet.

"Hey." Jess greeted, finally deciding to stop laying on the hardwood floor. She hurried to her feet, moving quickly to close the door to their saferoom. She leaned against it with her shoulder, offering a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

What felt like months has only actually been a few weeks since Grace had returned from what remained of Raccoon City. Writing pages and pages for the report that had been assigned to her; sixty whole pages to be exact.

Nothing like having to swallow down some not so good memories down for the sake of her work. Though having to deal with some sick and horrible stuff is what's expected of getting involved in the FBI.

But there were some positives out the entire ordeal too. And Grace was reminded of them once a familiar face that stank of death approached her cubical.