#this time it's to see what happens if you don't bring Rebecca onto the mission in book three

[tommykinard217]

Just did a playthrough of the Wayhaven Chronicles and yet my brain is like DO IT AGAIN

[sapphire-weapon]

Leon getting into a relationship with Ashley would be one of the greatest things in the world to ever happen to him if he took up her offer.

She is the ray of sunlight that cuts through his dark nights, she's salvation for a damned man, and someone who is careful and attentive to his sensitive heart.

I honestly feel that Ashley is the only one who could give him the clearest cut path to getting back to himself. To where he can leave himself unarmed and drop his defenses, and be okay with that again.

Capcom has a golden opportunity to make this happen if they make good on Ashley's interest in becoming an agent, herself, wanting to be Leon's partner.

Imagine how bright a future Leon would have if he allowed himself to be happy with someone who's all in it for him.

I agree with you 100% until the agent part.

I don't think Ashley will become an agent, and I don't think she should, either. Even ignoring the inherent tragedy that exists when a non-violent person turns to violence, if she heads down that road, at some point, the truth about Leon is going to come out -- and once she finds out that he's doing this all against his will, she won't want anything to do with it.

If anything, I see her being stricken by Sherry's story and the tragedy of the found family that never was, and I see Ashley turning to civil service, instead. It might be too late to reunite Sherry and Leon in a meaningful way, but she can work towards making sure that situation never happens again.

But I also don't think that she was serious about wanting to become an agent in the first place. I think she was just spitballing ideas for ways that she and Leon can continue a relationship once this mission is over. And when he's less than enthused with -- and even kind of bothered by -- her suggestion, she lets it drop immediately without a fight with a "you're no fun."

What I do actually think could happen is that, at some point in the probably near future after President Graham resigns, Ashley reaches out to Leon in an attempt to join the fight against bioterrorism -- and he'd probably set her up to meet with Claire. Even though Claire and Leon are traveling down different paths in this fight, and sometimes their objectives clash with one another (see: the ending of Infinite Darkness), he recognizes the work that she's doing as being vital -- and, most importantly, it's non-violent work (though, Claire, being a Redfield, puts herself in dangerous situations anyway but that's beside the point lmao).

Of course, this is all just theoretical "what-ifs" assuming that the remakes are a completely new timeline and will do something different from the storyline of OG canon -- which, they won't, because they're just remakes and not a separate series, and Capcom is still building onto the OG story. We know, of course, that Ashley just falls away from the story and out of Leon's life, and that's the end of it. And it'd be weird to bring her back into the story out of nowhere after being completely absent from it for 11 years canonically (Death Island takes places in 2015). She's not Rebecca Chambers or Barry Burton; she's not a main character that they'd be willing to bring back suddenly after a long absence. (We'll see Billy Coen show up again before Ashley Graham makes another appearance.) So we'll very likely never see her again, and none of this matters anyway. But it's still fun to think about.

I do think that you can make a case for a direct correlation between Ashley disappearing from Leon's life and his gradual descent into a bottle of Jack Daniels, though. Everyone in the RE universe is so wrapped up in their own bullshit that they don't take the time to check in with each other the way they probably should. The only two people who stay close to each other and take care of one another are Chris and Jill, and that's because of the partnership they'd already had before everything went to shit.

But let's take a look at Leon's "partners" throughout the years: Ada, Hunnigan, Luis, Krauser, Ashley, and Helena. Luis and Krauser are self-explanatory lmao you can't be in someone's life if you're dead (and also fucking insane, in Krauser's case). Helena and Leon work in two separate branches of federal law enforcement, so their partnership is over after RE6 ends. Leon and Hunnigan seem to have a relationship that's so professional that I'd be willing to bet they've only met in person a handful of times. Ada is... Ada. That's a whole fuckin can of worms we won't go into as much as I'd like to go off on a rant about how Damnation confirming that he fucked her at some point prior to that movie is the most egregious act of self-harm he ever engaged in and absolutely sped up his downward spiral into full-blown alcoholism.

And then there's Ashley. The only person on this list who could have theoretically stayed in Leon's life after their ordeal together, because there really is nothing tangible actually keeping them apart, but... doesn't. And there is absolutely nothing in her character that indicates that she was the one who pulled away from him. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that she fought like hell to try to stay in his life. But he pushed her away. And, because it's Leon, he probably didn't do it maliciously; it was probably done out of a sense of professionalism paired with an unconscious self-destructive reaction tendency born from a lifetime of trauma.

But, even in OG? Leon's interactions with Ashley are the most "normal" he seems to feel and act after RE2. After RE4, he's never that warm, playful, or expressive again. Leon becomes more and more emotionally closed off until, eventually, Chris Redfield is screaming at his drunk ass in an empty bar in the middle of the day because he's too hammered to properly follow a conversation, and the only emotions he ever shows outwardly anymore are frustration and sorrow.

Ashley was an anchor to reality for him. She was arguably the first and only one since Sherry to make him feel like he was actually a person and not just a sophisticated weapon in the US's arsenal to be pulled out and used when necessary until broken.

And that probably scared the shit out of him. For multiple reasons. So he pushed her away, and that was the end of that. (It was an unfortunate side effect from the dramatic change he underwent between RE2 and RE4.)

But imagine a version of events where he didn't do that -- where he was brave enough to be vulnerable enough to actually keep her in his life. Do you really think he still would've developed a drinking habit that eventually turned into a full-blown problem? Because I don't. Sometimes, all it takes is just that one person -- that one person who loves you, that one person who inspires you to keep going. And Ashley believed in him more than anyone. He would've kept his head above water for her sake, and he'd have been better off for it.

I honestly believe, especially after RE4make, that Ashley was/could've been the love of Leon's life, but he was just too fucking scared and up his own asshole in his misery to even think to give it a chance. She brings out the best in him in ways that literally no one else does in the entire rest of the series. And they have a relationship unlike any other that Leon has with anyone else -- it's one that was built on a foundation of explicit trust and only grew from there.

Leon and Ashley trust each other on the same level that Chris and Jill do. Maybe even more. They had to, in order to make it out of Spain that unnamed European country alive. And, at no point ever, is that trust ever tarnished, damaged, or betrayed. To even just call them "partners" feels like an understatement. In remake, by the end of the game, they're two parts of the same machine working in tandem towards the same goal.

He would've kept lifting her up, and she would've kept him honest if they'd stayed in contact after RE4. And, having her to come home to, he would've been able to breathe a little easier between missions. The weight wouldn't feel as crushing. She'd be a constant reminder that he wasn't a complete failure, and that there are still things in this world worth fighting for. There was a potential for happiness there that he threw away, because he simply couldn't see it at the time.

Because, here's the thing. By the time of Vendetta, Leon has become so beaten down and mired in his own failures that he's started to believe that his only legacy is death. But that's not true. Ashley is his legacy. Everything she does, and everything she is, and every act that she performs to make the world a better place (and you gotta believe she's actively doing her part), is only possible because of him. And he loses sight of that, the same way he lost sight of it with Sherry (do nOT GET ME STARTED ON HIM FUCKING ADMITTING HE HADN'T TALKED TO HER IN AT LEAST 3 YEARS BY THE START OF RE6 ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME LEON).

And, don't get me wrong. I get why he did it. I understand why he wanted to pull away from Ashley, especially right after returning home -- but to not go back to her -- to purposefully make the conscious decision to keep her out of his life? Is to also purposefully leave the "What're you, my mother?"/"I knew you'd be fine if you landed on your butt" part of him behind.

I've long since said that Leon never actually truly escaped Raccoon City -- that some part of him did bleed to death in the sewers after being shot and was left there forever. And I think that's true for his relationship with Ashley, too. Cutting her out of his life also forced him to cut a piece of himself off in order to create that break, and she's still carrying it with her.

And if he'd just pick up the phone and fucking call her, she might bring that little piece of him back with her. And maybe, for the first time in a long time, he'd remember how to take a moment and breathe and laugh at some dumb bullshit, and it'd allow him to see a world and a life outside of the constant horror show of bioterrorism. Maybe he'd remember what it was like to actually feel sexy, and maybe he'd start to feel like a person again. And maybe -- just maybe -- he'd finally see that "home" isn't the country that he slavishly (literally) serves to thanklessly protect -- but that it's a person, and her name is Ashley Graham.