Chapter Text
Grace thought Dempsey had, perhaps, finally lost it a little. Is this something he'd want to do, like normally? Why b-bring this up now?
The man had a bit of a reputation for… things that other people within the FBI would consider as "hardass"(not her words, though news traveled fast when you and other members of the FBI were around the water cooler), so for this to be Dempsey's suggestion for a 'morale booster '?
"Who is he and what has he done with Dempsey?" A co-worker leans over, muttering into her ear.
"Is this his idea, or what?" Another says on the other side of Grace, murmurs of confusion rippling through the crowd.
And while Grace laughed nervously, some part of her couldn't help but agree. A pen-pal system with the DSO?
"The DSO has agreed to communicate with us as a gesture of goodwill, people, and I don't want us to lose this this opportunity to talk." Dempsey says, holding up several slips of paper. "You'll all be assigned a DSO agent to talk to, and I do expect you all to have sent off your first messages tonight. Are we clear?"
"Clear." Grace murmurs weakly with the crowd, as the papers are passed around—and soon a slip of paper with a name is passed to her, written in Dempsey's familiar curled handwriting.
Leon S. Kennedy stares back at her from the paper, as Grace's fingers ran over the name. What sort of man was Leon Kennedy?
A jolt of fear squeezes her heart, fingers crinkling the edges of the paper. Would Leon Kennedy mind Grace writing to her? She was, to the FBI, a mess, to put it bluntly. They knew what she'd seen, but it didn't stop people from wanting to laugh and judge.
"You got Kennedy?" The coworker who'd talked to her earlier breathes, eyes wide in awe. "He's like a legend, Grace, you're so lucky."
And yet, what Grace felt wasn't exactly luck. It felt more like pity for the other person that had to deal with her as his penpal.
I hope he at least doesn't mind me saying hi…
A pen-pal system. Truly, out of all the things that the DSO had ever had Leon S. Kennedy do, this was probably one of the ones he would have laughed at if he was younger.
But they insisted. Something about getting the FBI to cooperate a little easier with them if they were going to get more done with the amount of bodies popping up as of recent.
I just hope the agent they've assigned to me isn't going to take this too seriously. There was too much to do without inter-agency crap that picked at old wounds and acted confused when the wound bled.
"Kennedy." A voice calls, as one of the other DSO agents leans over his desk, eyebrow raised. "They've sent word who you're going to be given as an FBI pen-pal or whatever. Grace Ashcroft, if I'm hearing it right." Leon froze, his attention returning to the name he was given.
Grace Ashcroft? Alyssa had a kid?
Her mother survived Raccoon City. September 1998 was ingrained into Leon's being as much as he was who he was, and he'd made it a habit to remember who exactly had escaped Raccoon City alive.
Who'd managed to fight their way through hell and come out on the other side. And, to some part of him, who Leon didn't fail to get out, to keep safe.
He did. Claire did. So did Sherry, Ada, and people he'd grown to know over the years, who kept fighting in a world that wanted them more dead than alive.
Alyssa had been on the ground during the Raccoon City incident, a reporter. She'd managed to flee with scenes burned into her mind and a goal to report the BOWs that crossed her path.
But… Leon had never heard from her since then. And Grace's name being basically thrust into his lap?
It was a strange feeling, a sense of relief at seeing Grace's name. He couldn't make a difference that day in Raccoon City. He couldn't make a difference with keeping everyone safe, or making sure they knew he always had their back if they needed him. Alyssa certainly never knew that.
But maybe, Leon mused, as he turns towards the paper on his desk—he could make a difference with Grace Ashcroft.
It wasn't Grace who wrote first. Much to her surprise, when the first streaks of dusk swamped into the FBI's office, Dempsey wandered past with a peculiar look on his face.
"Grace. Kennedy wrote you." He says, tossing the letter onto her desk.
He wrote me?
Grace frowns, as Dempsey walks away with the other letters, leaving her to her mysterious letter writer, Leon Kennedy. What did he have to say?
Something about this felt so… important. If her coworkers were right, Leon S. Kennedy was a living legend, and he was writing her.
"And I should write a legend back, huh?" She murmurs to her office, as she slits the top of the envelope open with her nail, a creased sheet of paper tumbling out after it.
Hi Grace,
Normally, I don't do this sort of thing, and I'm guessing you don't either. But, since both of our agencies are breathing down our necks—and I've heard your name before, I did want to reach out.
I'm Leon Kennedy-DSO. I've been at this for a long time, ever since… well. Your mother and I survived Raccoon City in 1998. Alyssa Ashcroft, right? She was one heck of a woman, and I'm sure you are too.
(Some part of the paper crinkles, Grace's hands are trembling. Leon wrote her and believed in her already?)
If you want to know more about what I knew from 1998, feel free to write me back. But I also want to know more about you, too. How long have you been with the FBI? Is it something you like doing? Haven't been around them in a while, so it'd be interesting to know what's been going on with your end.
I hope I don't sound too intrusive, I'm a bit out of practice with people. Add or leave out anything you don't want to tell me.
And if you ever need anything, let me know.
-Leon S. Kennedy
That's where she knew Leon's name from. Mom had told her that she survived the impossible during Raccoon City, she never specified, but—
Whenever she talked about Raccoon City, Grace would see untold darkness in her gaze. That of a woman who'd seen a million horrors and managed to come out with a shred of sanity.
So would he tell her?
Grace grabs a stray pen threatening to roll off the table, and one of the only blank pieces of paper nearby—and began to write.
Her hands tremble as words pour out, about how she'd joined the FBI eight years after her mother was murdered. Did she like it?
Sometimes.
But even then, it feels like I'm yelling underwater.
"Kennedy." The same coworker who'd told Leon about Grace peeks towards Leon, dangling a letter between his fingers. "Ashcroft wrote back to you."
"She did, that fast?" Leon, for some small moment, was surprised. But then again, he'd written Grace quickly enough as it is.
Is she worried about keeping up with me?
Leon grits his teeth at the thought. If the FBI was breathing that much down her neck about writing each other, then fuck that. Grace could respond at her own pace.
It was also no wonder he felt some small trickle of his familiar protective instinct toward her already.
The letter was hastily sealed, a simple shake let its contents go clattering onto Leon's desk, including a tiny photo clipped to the corner.
Mr. Kennedy,
Thanks for writing to me. I think it was Dempsey who started this whole thing, he's always talking about ways to better communication, so he must have talked to the DSO about doing this whole thing and us getting assigned to each other and what not.
I'm Grace Ashcroft—FBI. But you kinda already know that, huh? My name must have popped up when we were given each other as a match.
And yes, Alyssa Ashcroft is my mom. Was my mom. (Leon's fingers ghost over a tear stain by that word—was.)
I joined the FBI eight years after she was murdered at the Wrenwood Hotel… and I was there. (She was there? Alyssa was murdered?)
I wanted to try and make a difference, find the man who murdered Mom, but here I am eight years later, a technical analyst. So to answer your other question, do I like it?
Sometimes. There's days where I feel like I can get closer to doing what I should do, other days where I'm screaming underwater and no one can hear me. Look at me, confessing my fears to someone I barely know…
Uh, I guess I should ask you some questions too, huh? Let's see… when did you join the DSO? And uh, did you really mean it? About telling me about mom? And… if I needed something?
Let me know in our next letters.
-Grace Ashcroft
Leon finishes the letter with a muffled curse into the letter, hands shaking. Alyssa was murdered in front of her daughter. And he didn't know.
Didn't bother to check, or reach out. Another body from Raccoon City on his shoulders again.
And now Grace was drowning, with the only person to see her being him.
Like hell I'm going to walk away from her now without letting her know I've got her back. That thread of protective urge was a full-blown fire now, as Leon removed the letter from his mouth and planned out what to say next—while idly planning to visit the FBI. The sooner, the better.
The Photo in the corner of the letter catches his attention next, of a young woman with white-blonde hair and greyish-blue eyes, a nervous smile on her face as she looked at the camera.
And it broke Leon's heart a little more. She looks as young as I was. And she has no one.
Leon was twenty-one when the world ended that day in September, by his rough guess, she must have been twenty-two.
Only a year difference between us. A year.
The thought of Grace waiting for his next letter already had him putting another pen to paper, and marking some time off of his calendar for said visit to the FBI.
I know you feel like you're screaming underwater with no one to hear you, Grace, but I do. I do now.
Fate must have been fucking with Leon. He did end up being able to visit the FBI, but he and Grace kept missing each other.
Whenever he arrived at the FBI base, Grace had been called off for a meeting, lunch, or some other task that prevented him from meeting his young pen pal.
Some part of him thought it was Dempsey's doing—the way he'd flinch whenever Leon would enter the FBI, or the way some of the others gawked when he strode the hallways, it would make sense if they were ashamed to let Grace meet him.
But, as Grace assured Leon, she was just busy chasing down a mysterious string of deaths, and they would meet each other.
And the letters between them flew. At least that part wasn't being messed up for him.
Leon told Grace what he knew about Alyssa—while they never met physically, he knew how she escaped, and started telling the stories of Raccoon City that no one else could.
Grace told him about her first days at the FBI, how they've gone between following bodies dropped by serial killers to this most recent string of mysterious deaths.
(Leon wasn't going to admit this, but the idea of Grace going after serial killers made him want to race out and be her backup. A little bit different than the zombies of our world, but still exist all the same.)
They traded pictures, jokes, stories. Grace had recently sent him a photo of an FBI Christmas party that she was permitted to send, of the group smiling at the camera—and someone with a lampshade over his head in the background.
Unexpectedly, Leon laughed. He was doing that a lot these days, as his coworkers noticed. He walked lighter, seemed like he had more to feel joy about.
"Kennedy, what's got you so happy? You liking your pen pal? Grace, right?" One had asked him, as Leon had glanced up from Grace's letter.
He was. Leon liked hearing from Grace, to actually have someone who didn't mind him being out of practice with people. And knowing Grace is still here. That I can help her out of the water, be there for her.
"I am." Leon had said, before making another visit to the FBI—and another missed meeting with Grace. She'd been whisked off to consult on a coworker's case, which left him putting another gift on Grace's desk, instead of meeting with her.
Again.
Grace knew that Leon was trying to visit her. She'd told him a lot about her life here in the FBI, how she'd tracked down serial killers, how she wanted to find the person who killed her mother.
And Leon wanted to know who was teaching her. Has she been out in the field before? Did she have someone watching her six?
If it was someone else, it might be called be creepy. But with Leon Kennedy, it felt familiar and warm(like a parent watching over her). Grace looked forward to his letters, and much to her coworker's surprise, Grace began to open up a little bit more.
Her anxiety wasn't cured by any means—that wasn't something Grace was looking for with her exchanges with Leon. But…
There was more room to be free with herself. And a freedom in knowing someone's offering me a hand out of the water.
The knot that had curiously tied Grace's life to Leon Kennedy's had lifted her spirits, to boot.
But Grace really did want to meet him in person, at least once. Leon's visits meant appearances of letters personally placed on her desk, little snacks from nearby the DSO, things that he'd explained in their letters that he thought she'd like.
Once, when Grace was working on a case late with Leon trying to visit, a pillow had appeared on her chair, crisp and newly bought, a matching white wool blanket with a sticky note attached—
Hey Grace,
I think I've pulled many an all-nighter with the DSO when I was your age.
Am I really that old now? Saying 'When I was your age…' and crap like that?
(A crude attempt at a laughing face punctuated the line here.)
So, I picked this up for you from next door. Good luck, kid.
-Leon
That was how he called her in their letters now. Kid. Or, if Leon was feeling particularly open, a little bit… more, Kiddo.
Those were Grace's favorite letters, pinned on the furthest corners of the walls of her office.
Tonight's Leon gift was some sort of miniature teddy bear that squished rather pleasantly beneath her fingers, with another sticky note attached to the back of it, though this one was a simple We really have to stop missing each other like this-Leon.
And Grace really, really agreed. The other FBI agents and their DSO pen-pals had managed to meet, but she and Leon barely kept missing each other.
How cruel, indeed.
Perhaps Grace had spoken too soon of the cruelties of missing Leon. The next morning had Dempsey at her desk, knocking on the cubicle walls to summon her to his office.
There had been another body. Bruises on the neck, like blossoming, rotting ink…
"And I need my best analyst on it. So… I need you to investigate the crime scene." A folder slides towards her—
And all of Grace's words, her tongue, felt like it dried out.
Wrenwood Hotel. She was being sent to Wrenwood Hotel.
Alone. That word tumbled through Grace's mind like bricks in a washing machine.
Alone. Alone. You're getting thrown into this with no one at your back. You only have Leon to talk to, and then you're not going to be able to—
What am I going to tell Leon?