Work Text:
March 21, 2027
12:30 PM
Almost six months had passed since Grace’s world was turned upside down.
The nightmares of Rhodes Hill, being kidnapped by Victor Gideon, roped into Zeno’s ambitions for a brave new world, the whole horror movie experience she remembered one time in college, watching for the hell of it. Never would she have imagined being a part of that script, but after six months, she’s learned to live with it, so to speak. After all, out of the experience, she did the miraculous.
She brought Elpis into the world, a final atonement for those who suffered from Raccoon City’s past nighmates and present terrors.
She helped Leon stop one of Umbrella’s final skeletons in its closet and bring closure for him, Claire, Sherry, and so many others who needed it.
She started to raise Emily, the poor girl she rescued in Rhodes Hill, who, for half a year, had grown so much.
She’s much taller, more extroverted than Grace herself (courtesy of spending time with Claire on some weekends), and has been going to school near Grace’s work, meeting friends and being as normal as she deserves.
Grace chuckles as she remembers how much Emily talks about the friends she’s met and how much she’s improved in her reading and writing. Whenever Grace updates Leon and Claire on Emily, they too, are happy to see Emily living a life they hoped and fought hard for her to have.
However, despite those six months of reprieve, of moving along the shores of the present time, moving farther and farther away from the Rhodes Hill incident and her own FBI Report, which was published and brought her some attention among her peers and even news stations, colleges asking for her own course on technical analysis, Grace felt off. Her world was moving too fast, but her nervous mind wavered from her failures.
To her mother, Alyssa, who, no matter how much time had passed, was forever missed in Grace’s heart, even if she found someone else to guide her, Claire Redfield, the angel Grace believed Alyssa sent for her as her messenger to take care of her daughter.
You are my hope.
A blind hope.
I only hope it serves as a requiem for those who have passed.
Was Grace Ashcroft truly hopeful? She only bought it back then, as she pressed the very word itself into the passcode to access Elpis herself, giving it to Leon to aid him in his terminal T-Virus illness, and since then, it has been on the back of her mind the more she has continued through life. In a way, she carried herself to be a symbol of hope. Whenever failure came her way from the reports she’s done to her own field missions, examining the scene with trusted officers by her side, she couldn’t help but go back to Spencer and Alyssa’s secret meeting.
A blind hope.
As the afternoon winds hit her face, slightly moving her glasses, her eyes looked out at the neighborhood that she’s come to familiarize, for she would spend weekends with Emily there, Thanksgiving dinner, and the Christmas and New Year’s party with.
She perched herself on the front porch, admiring the calm view of the kids running around that Sunday afternoon, Emily among them as she laughed and ran around with Leon and Claire’s neighbors, being a kid as she should. Her bike with the additional booster seat for the kid seated next to two others: one a deep gray BMW bike and a red and white Ducati. A cup of afternoon coffee in her hands, the smoke flickering through the windy spring air.
It was a calm afternoon, and she sipped her mug gently, a little image of Grace drawn by Emily.
We should have this printed on a mug!
Grace remembered those words from Claire, whom Emily nodded with excitement as they worked together to make Grace the very mug she’s drinking from now. A smile drew on her face from that memory, and as if God had listened to her wavering mind, a knock came out the door.
It was Leon, also mug in hand, clad in a dark Henley and some cargo joggers, looking as if he was about to go on an afternoon stroll, perhaps with Claire or Sherry. Hell, Grace thought Chris and Jill were around town, though the last time she ever got a glimpse of them was at the New Year’s party, surprised at how two high-ranking members of the BSAA, one who’s defecting, still found time to be with their found family. Grace even remembered meeting Moira, Polly, and Barry Burton, more extended family in her eyes.
It’s nice to see the family grow!
Barry’s words rang in Grace’s mind, the same feeling holding as she saw Leon walk towards her direction, asking her to scooch over from the front porch bench.
“Thought you’d be here,” Leon said in his usual gentle tone, the kind she remembered during their encounters back in Rhodes Hill and Raccoon City’s ARK. Grace grew to see him as a role model over the months, knowing him, and he always had solid advice.
“You know, last week after a grueling mission in the Philippines,” Leon groaned and placed an arm around the bench, like a father spending time with her daughter. “Claire and I took a drive, you wanna know where?”
“Where?” Grace normally stuttered when it came to her Ws and her Is, but after six months, she’s grown to be more confident in her speech. She remembered how, on Thanksgiving, she met Jake Muller, who, in his own way, tried to hype her up by building confidence in the young woman, while Sherry looked back at her husband with a look that Claire laughed at, and Leon placed a hand on the poor man’s shoulder.
“We drove to an old diner called Veronica’s. It was a place Claire used to go all the time before we started dating with Barry and the girls, and we figured after a long mission, we could use some takeout.”
“You guys know Veronica’s, too?” Grace asked with a smile on her face.
“Oh yeah. Food’s still as good as it can be for that place. Nor exactly a wine and dine.” Leon chuckled and sipped his mug, also having a character portrait that was drawn by Emily, with the words at the bottom, “Grandpa.” Grace wondered why Emily considered Leon and Claire as grandparents, but she never questioned, and it must have been something about her school.
Grandpa? Grandma?
The looks on both Claire's and Leon’s eyes when Emily asked if it was okay for her to call her as such also lingered in Grace’s mind, but then she felt a tinge of guilt as she hoped that the one who would have been called grandma would have been Alyssa herself. Claire knew, of course, she would never replace Alyssa, but hoped to continue where she left off.
I’m not Alyssa, will never be, but I will always be by your side, Grace.
“Emily sure seems to growing faster day by day.” Leon brought Grace to the present.
“Emily? Um…yeah, she is. She’s had tons of playdates and such that I was surprised, haha.”
“Seeing her with the Emersons’ kids is awesome. They always ask when Emily is coming over to visit, and it has Claire and me looking at each other, wondering the same thing.” Leon paused for a moment and then saw that Grace was looking out of the window in front, her mind lost somewhere. In the time he’s spent with her, he knows that look. It was a look where Grace was starting to doubt herself, wondering if all she’s done was worth it.
A similar look he’s had before.
“Why the glum look on your face, stranger? Looks like you don’t seem like yourself today.”
Grace sighed and held her mug tightly. She knew she wasn’t feeling like herself, as the thoughts of Alyssa, Spencer, Elpis, and her life lately were drowning her, making her think she was something she wasn’t. A blind hope? More like a false hope despite the contrary.
“You know, that message from my Mom and Spencer back in ARK…I can’t stop thinking about it. I feel like…I feel like I have a lot to live up to.”
“Ah.” Leon realized and placed his resting arm back to his mug, his gentle eyes looking at Grace still.
“Y-yeah.” Her stutter came back for a moment.
“Well,” Leon leaned forward, his face forward, admiring the view, his blue-greenish eyes no longer jaded as they once were back when Grace first met him. “I’d think what you want that message to mean says a lot about who you are, Grace.”
“Leon, I don't think you understand.” Grace’s eyes were despondent for a moment, thinking back to her mother’s final words.
You are my hope.
“I feel like there is so much responsibility to have now after we released Elpis. So many people are asking me about my report, about Raccoon City, and how I’m living up to my mom’s legacy. It’s all so much.”
Leon now looked at Grace, seeing back at her the younger version of himself again. There was a lot that Grace reminded him of, and seeing how much she wanted to carry the burden of responsibility sounded right up his alley. Especially as he learned to let it go after returning to Raccoon City.
“I think I understand, Grace. A little too much to be honest,” Leon chuckled, sipping from his mug again. “The restless nights of thinking you can solve everyone’s problems by yourself. The reports you write, thinking you figured it out, but there’s always one detail that reminds you that there is more to it. Carrying everyone’s burdens like you’re some superhero.”
“So you do get it.”
“Pretty much.”
Grace looked at her coffee for a moment. “Elpis is the goddess of hope, and I brought hope to people who needed it, and I want to…to keep doing that.”
“Take it one step at a time, kiddo.” Leon grew accustomed to calling Grace kiddo despite being close to twenty-four years of age. Grace knew that in Leon’s eyes, she was like his little girl, the one he fought hard to get back from the clutches of Zeno at ARK, and whom Grace saw as having the same paternal instincts as those of her late mother. The comfort, the reassurance, the optimism.
“Sometimes the world expects a lot from you, and sometimes you expect a lot from the world. But if you take it one step, maybe stumble here and there, you’ll see that at the end of it, you’ve done so much more than you thought you did.” Leon then placed an arm around Grace in a warm embrace. Grace felt the softness of the dark Henley and the same aroma of coffee she had in her mug.
“Your choices, Grace. Your actions, your kind heart, that’s hope. Not Elpis.” Leon rubbed her arm fatherly. “And you’re…you’re my hope too. I couldn’t be prouder of you being that.”
Grace looked at Leon’s eyes, filled with nothing but the gentle warmth of the spring sun. The blue is like the calm ocean breeze in the break of dawn, and the green is like the soft hilltops of the Midwest.
Grace then thought about how Claire wasn’t the only guardian angel Alyssa sent over, but Leon S. Kennedy, the DSO agent who always trusted her instinct and gave him a second chance at living life again, free from the regrets of his own failures.
It was that moment, Grace and Leon hugged each other, a daughter thanking her father for the time they spent together out on the front porch, almost spilling their coffee.
After a few minutes, Emily came running towards Leon and Grace now, and Claire came out as well, yelling that Sherry had finished baking them some chocolate chip cookies for the kids. Amidst that fun chaos, Leon and Grace let go of each other, smiling back and enjoying the scene in front of them, a scene Grace Ashcroft will forever remember.
A day of hope.