Leon stood at the kitchen counter with a mug warming his hands, staring at the window as rain slid down the glass in slow, crooked trails. Washington, D.C. carried a different kind of quiet than the quiet after a firefight. The Bureau had insisted on "rest and reintegration." Translation: sit still and try to remember how to be a person. Anything but "retirement."

Weeks ago, he had stood in a collapsing facility beneath Raccoon City's ruins watching the last of Umbrella's pet projects dissolve into ash. He had walked out with Grace Ashcroft breathing and conscious. That felt like a miracle in this line of work. It also felt fragile, like a glass left too close to the edge of the table.

The diagnosis still rattled around in his head sometimes. Raccoon City Syndrome. A neat little phrase for the way his hands used to shake when he looked at the mottled bruising. He had carried Raccoon City in his bloodstream for years—viral residue and survivor's guilt braided together. Now the scans came back clean.

The apartment looked temporary because it was. Bureau safe housing with generic art bolted to the walls and furniture that felt like it had been assembled by someone who hated screws. A government-issued couch faced a muted television cycling through morning news. That's when he finally took a sip of his coffee.