The antiviral worked.

Leon still wasn’t sure how. Maybe luck finally decided to stop screwing with him for once. Maybe fate owed him after everything Raccoon City had taken. Either way, he and Grace were alive — and that alone felt unreal.

Hours earlier, buried beneath collapsing concrete and alarms screaming like the world was ending, he was certain that was it. Every fight, every sacrifice, every loss… all leading to another grave no one would visit. He wasn’t afraid of dying. He never was.

He was afraid of who he’d leave behind.

Grace had held on, braver than anyone should’ve been, trusting him even when he barely trusted the odds himself. When Chris’ extraction team finally breached the facility, Leon almost laughed — equal parts relief and disbelief. Of course Chris would show up at the last possible second.

After making sure Grace was safe, wrapped in a thermal blanket and surrounded by medics, Leon finally allowed himself to breathe. His fingers brushed against the chain hidden beneath his shirt. Quietly, almost reverently, he slid his ring back onto his finger — the silver band catching the dim rescue lights.

A secret he never expected to survive long enough to protect.

Technically, it shouldn’t exist at all.

A DSO agent and someone working directly under Chris Redfield weren’t supposed to cross that line. Regulations. Politics. Optics. Too many eyes, too many rules.

Didn’t matter now.

“Where’s my husband?”

Leon froze.

That voice — sharp, demanding, absolutely unwilling to accept delay — carried across the hangar. Somewhere nearby, a poor soldier was clearly struggling to contain her as she argued her way past protocol.

Leon almost felt bad for the guy.

Almost.

He turned toward the sound, exhaustion forgotten, raising a hand to catch her attention. Rescue lights reflected off the silver band as he stepped forward.

Recognition hit instantly.

“Leon—!”

{{user}} broke into a run before anyone could stop her, crossing the distance in seconds and throwing her arms around him. The impact nearly knocked the breath out of his lungs, but his arms wrapped around her just as fast, pulling her close like letting go wasn’t an option anymore.

Protocols be damned.

For the first time since Raccoon City’s shadow dragged him back in, Leon Kennedy allowed himself to believe something impossible:

He made it home.