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The decision to go back is probably impulsive and ill-advised, but when has Leon ever done anything which didn’t embody those exact two sentiments? Ashley is finally safe. Securely extracted from the waking hell which is Valdelobos, on her way back to the U.S.A. and her family. Leon should be celebrating. He should be settled in that aircraft alongside her, bruised and battered but breathing. Yet, Leon can’t find it in himself to rest, can’t find it in himself to ease the tension still hiking his shoulders. He’d requested a separate extraction, told them he required a few more hours to tie up loose ends. Ashley had looked scared and disappointed, but there was also understanding simmering there. She’d tapped into that well of resilience and put on a brave face. She’d squeezed his hand, and with tears sparkling in her eyes, told him to go. Told him to bid their knight farewell for her.
It still feels like a betrayal to leave her, after all they’ve been through, but like a dog with a bone, Leon just can’t let things be. Always too sentimental. Always too easily forming attachments which only ever end in one way; with his heart rendered and utterly shattered upon the cold, hard floor. It’s going to happen with Ashley too, and perhaps that's why Leon is already making an effort to distance himself. Once the two of them set foot back into American soil, he knows he’ll never be permitted to see her again. Deemed too dangerous. Deemed too unstable. He’s nothing more than a weapon, and just like with Sherry, he’s not to be trusted around valuable things. Leaving Ashley now, with the promise of tomorrow, is perhaps a kindness to her. Is it selfish that a tiny, lonely part of himself hopes she misses him? Hopes the blade of goodbye cuts just as keenly for her as it does for himself?
The mines are just as decrepit and gloomy as Leon recalls them being. The fresh air wafting through the opening does little to chase away the stale bite of mildew and rot. The sky is brighter now than it had been earlier, and yet, everything seems impossibly greyer. A cast of grief which strips the vibrancy from the scenery. Leon draws in a deep breath, briefly allowing his eyes to slide shut. There’s an itch at the back of his eyes, a tightness at the base of his throat. Why did he come back here? He can’t do anything for the man. He can’t do anything for the dead. So is it some long buried, masochistic urge of his resurfacing? Years after Raccoon City, when he still believed Ada to be dead, Leon had been unbearably distressed to discover time whittled away his memories. He hadn’t been able to recall the exact cadence of her voice. His mind failed to procure the exact shade of her eyes and slope of her lips. It was the same for Sherry. The same for Claire. The same for Marvin, and for everyone else Leon had ever lost.
Is this his brain’s foolish, misguided attempt to brand memory to his being? Luis looks the same. It hasn’t been long enough yet for the stench of decay to overtake him, but it has undoubtedly still creeped into his body. Harsh wires of rigour mortis stiffening his limbs and sculpting his frame. He’s still leant against the crates where Leon left him, blood pooling stagnant and crusted around his long legs. It is unbearably unfair, Leon thinks, that the man isn’t even granted the semblance of peace in death. Ruggedly handsome yet exhausted, his eyes weighed down by deep bags and the scruff on his jaw speckled through with grime. Leon can’t resist the urge to raise trembling fingers to that angular jaw. He thumbs away layers of caked dirt and blood, until the thin scar marring Luis cheek is revealed. He hadn’t noticed that when they’d first met, in the dim of a confined prison. It wasn’t until the cabin, when Leon had threateningly held the man prone yet pliable against a wall. It hadn’t been the time then to ask how Luis had gotten this particular scar. It had never been the time, and now, there never will be.
It’s unbearably awkward hefting his body up. It’s unwieldy and cold, so unnaturally still and silent in a way the man never was during life. Luis is locked into a hunched-over position and it takes Leon quite a while to deduce how to best carry him. He settles for cradling him in his arms. It could have almost been gentle, could have almost been romantic, if perhaps under different circumstances. Another lifetime, one in which they could have met simply and existed as plainly as they were intended to be. As it is though, there is nothing but a deep, aching sadness. It lodges itself into Leon’s chest and takes root there, hunkering down and sowing seeds for years to come. He can smell Luis’ blood. So bitter and pungent against the back of his tongue. He breathes it in through clenched teeth, because it’s at least better than the linger of death which hounds his nose. Faintly, almost buried beneath everything else, he can smell the familiar tang of tobacco smoke and leather. He’s surely imagining it, but he clings to it all the same.
Hours have likely passed by the time Leon gently sets Luis down against the swaying grass. It’s dry and crackly beneath his feet, crunching faintly as he moves to sit beside his companion. His chest is heaving with exertion and he feels sticky all over from the perspiration of sweat. Carrying someone so far, particularly someone lodged into such an awkward position, was harrowing work. Leon raises a hand, wiping his brow with hands which probably fail to do anything but further spread the grime coagulated thickly there. He must surely reek, so it doesn’t matter. He got him here. That’s what matters.
The house is also as Leon remembers it. A crumbling foundation which is charred so thoroughly it is a surprise it’s even standing. It would have been a picturesque abode all those years ago, before flames ravaged it completely. The lake sprawling off the decking, the thick copse of trees and greenery providing a gorgeous backdrop. Leon could so easily imagine a young boy growing up here. Running through the fields with laughter rich on his tongue, chasing after an older gentleman who looked at him with such exasperated adoration. They’d have hunted in the nearby forest and brought the game back to process on the deck. Bloodied hands and skins would be washed until clean in the tranquil waters. The daydream aches so sweetly behind Leon’s eyes, so bittersweet he can taste it choking him. He isn’t sure whether the longing belongs to himself. Whether he’s yearning for something he himself was never given, or if he’s simply wishing he could have heard tales of these adventures directly from the lips of the corpse beside him.
He’s always been a sentimental fool, and perhaps that's why he finds his mouth opening unwillingly. Why he finds choked-off words falling free like a confession. Talking to the dead, because Leon doesn’t have anyone else to hear him speak. From what he’s learnt, Luis never had anyone else either. Perhaps that’s why he’d talked so incessantly. Why he’d grinned up at Leon so brightly despite his only response earnt being grunts of mere acknowledgment. It may have seemed to be mere tolerance, but it was still more than Luis had been offered before, wasn't it? Someone to listen.
“You asked me if I thought you could change.” The words garble thick in Leon’s throat, but he forces them past regardless. The dead don’t have ears to listen, but perhaps, if he’s lucky, ghosts do. Leon knows this particular ghost is going to be haunting him for years to come. Maybe even forever. “And I’m sorry I didn’t answer you sooner.” Leon turns to look at Luis’ ashen face, the rich cast of his skin greyed and pale. He feels his eyes prickle but bites his cheek until the traitorous tingling eases enough to push onwards. He hasn’t cried in years, and he isn’t going to start now. At least not here. Not until he’s back home and liquor has eased the burden of shame shackled to his shoulders. “But yes, I think you could have.” The water of the lake ripples against the shore, the trilling song of birds fill the air with pleasant melodies. Cicadas and crickets lend voice to the chorus as Leon and Luis watch the orange glow of the sun fade behind the ruined house. It’s beautiful, but it looks like fire.
The burn at Leon’s eyes returns with a vengeance, and he raises a trembling hand to scrub the moisture away. He doesn’t even understand this attachment of his. Luis had worked for Umbrella. Luis had contributed to the atrocities which ruined Leon’s life. Yet, he finds he can’t shake it. If it weren’t for Luis, he wouldn’t be sitting here. Ashley and Leon would have found themselves submersed into a fate far worse than death. The world would have fallen into a shamble of violence and chaos as Saddler took control. Luis hadn’t realised just how large his impact had been, and he’d never receive the chance to do so.
The part which cuts Leon the deepest is that nobody else ever would either. The world would never know how valiantly the man beside him had fought to do better. Umbrella had crumbled and Luis' old colleagues were either all dead or incarcerated. If the old records and journals Leon had come across were to be believed, then Luis had only ever had his grandfather for family. Was there anybody else left who was important to him? Judging by his words and his actions, Leon didn’t think so. He’d recognised the grief and the loneliness swimming thickly through soft grey irises.
Aside from Leon and Ashley, there was nobody remaining to remember Luis. Nobody to carry his memory on. Luis, in all his flamboyance and his brilliance, had seemed like a man desperate to be remembered. He’d feared fading into irrelevance more than he had feared his own death. He’d wanted to make an impact. He’d wanted to carve a mark upon the world. He’d wanted so unbearably to imprint himself upon someone, anyone's mind. It’s not fair that all he gets is Leon, Ashley, and potentially Ada. It’s not fair that Leon can’t speak for the two women and whether they’ll cradle this ghost as close to their own chests as Leon will. He thinks Ashley will. He hopes Ashley will, because Leon alone is so wholly inadequate, so disappointing of a reward after the brutal struggle Luis had to endure.
He’d deserved so much better. He’d deserved to work and claw and fight with bloodied nails until he’d firmly grasped his redemption for himself. He’d deserved to get to see his impact. He’d deserved his second chance. Even if Leon weren’t permitted to be a part of it, he would’ve liked knowing the man was out there still struggling onwards. It would have been nice to no longer be alone, but as it stands, Leon is always left alone. A victim of life’s cruel circumstance, just as Luis had been.
Leon isn’t fooling himself into believing the man beside him was innocent in the sequence of cruelties which had unravelled. He was far too smart for that. Still, how young had Umbrella recruited him? What promises of grandeur had they whispered and poisoned his mind with? How much of young Luis was ensnared in a noose strung so tightly he practically had to snap his own neck to wriggle free? It doesn’t make his actions okay, doesn’t automatically grant the redemption he’d coveted so dearly, but it lends Leon an explanation. He doesn’t think Luis Serra Navarro had ever been a bad man. Simply a desperate one. Simply a lonely one. He’d had that in common with Leon.
“You did change, Luis. You did it. And I’ll always remember you for it.”
For the second time, the Navarro household burns.
For the second time, the body of a good man burns within it.
For the second time, a lone figure bears silent witness to the funeral pyre.
For the second time, once the house and body is done smouldering, the figure leaves Valdelobos behind without another word.
For the second time, the hounds of grief and regret nip eagerly after the figure, even after years of time have whisked the physical remains of a Navarro from this earth.