Chapter Text
It all started with an email.
Leon had returned to home from yet another assignment located to remote area and was more than happy to crash to his bed and forgot about writing his report for a while, when he gets notification from his email. He fights back groan. New job already? He just got home and DSO has new mission for him this soon? This is ridiculous, Leon thinks while opening his laptop to check what government wanted this time to be thrown at him. But he has to stop when he gets his laptop open. His work email is empty.
Notification is in his old email. Email from time before his police days. His original email.
Leon hadn't used it in long time. Last time was when he got message was years ago from Claire, while she was caught by Umbrella. But after that he forgot that he still had it active. Or more importantly, that it was still able to give him notifications.
Now he basically used his work email, or rang straight to people, but no way he used his old email like he used to do. And no-one used it either. They didn't even propably know that it existed. Well, apart from Claire.
And now, he got an email to it.
It was unusual, sure, but not impossible. There were probably still some people from his past that remembered his old e-mail. But now of all times? It was weird.
Finally Leon decides to see, what is with his emails and things that should not be still active. His mind fills with nostalgia, when he watches his email awakening instead of his work one. It really has been long time.
Then he freezes, when he sees the email.
"Re: family reunion
Hello Leon!
It's been so long since we last heard of each other. Nearly decade, huh? Time sure flies fast, especially with all this bioweapon-shit going on. It's gross, you know, with you having been in Raccoon city and all so long ago.
But here I am! After so long, I managed to find your email again. You are hard to contact, you know? It took me so long to find a way to send this message, so please don't ignore this, okay? You literally nearly disappeared after your last email. And would you please have place where you get your letters? You have no idea how many times they returned them to us. Even return-adress at you cards would be nice.
But, to the topic! As I said, it's been so long since we last heard of each other, and little longer from when we saw! It was during your academy days, can you imagine! We have missed you. All of us. And I know, with your business being, eh, whatever it is, your life is probably hard. So we decided to make difference, and we planned an holiday for all of us! Think about it as reunion, all of us together after so long. It's coming in a week, sorry for late alert. You really should have a phone or something.
So, what you think? Pretty neat, huh? It's whole a week, in a nice hotel. We all hope that you could come. And don't worry, all things are paid, so no money problems! With you and your... things.
Mom really has been looking forward for this, and dad promised to not judge your life choices for once if you come. And it's huge, believe me. You are one of his favorite things to think aloud. He is still sad that you are not in force. But hey, no worries! We will try to be good family to you.
Nolan is coming. And Jason. Basically, all of us are there. They want really to see how the youngest brother has been keeping up. And don't forget about me! I especially want to see my big brother, you hear that? So please, confirm soon that can you come or not. We all are waiting only for you. Other than that, please at least text me. I want to hear how you are doing.
Hopefully see you soon!
Your sister Iris"
Leon stares message for long. If it was funny, he could have imagined couple of crickets to background. But this was not funny.
He kinda forgot about his family. Not totally, but still. His line of work really did it. And now it comes back to him. There is clearly problems.
One, his job. He couldn't just tell DSO that he were off for a week. Things didn't work like that anymore. He being DSO's main guy to go.
Two, his job. His family thought that he was little... shady. His last message was mess, and it had looked probably like he was getting to some kind of crime ring or similar. And now they thought that he was probably a dealer of some kind. Great. And while he really wanted to tell them thruth, there was one final problem:
His job.
He really couldn't tell about his position as government agent to them. It was purposelly kept under the radar from most people on public. Leon had only told to his closest friends, aka his only ones, that he worked at DSO, not saying that they hadn't already known. That left other ones thinking that he was having business with some outlaws. Well tecnically he did, but not in way his family thought. And with government breathing down to his neck, he couldn't just tell them straight what he did. So they were under assumption that he was smuggler.
And now they wanted to see him again. Great.
__~*~__
"So, how's it going with you? Any new dangers in horizont?" Claire smiles knowingly across her table. They were having dinner, this time at Claire's place. It had became habit for them after they got to speak things clear. When Leon appeared again from mission, they got dinner and caught up. This night was special, as also Chris was able to come. Now also he turned to look at Leon with interest.
"Yeah, tell us, you government's favourite guy"
"Oh, that you not already know, BSAA's golden boy. But nothing special, Claire. All clear on the field."
"Well that's good. You might actually have time to stay here for a while. White House still going strong?"
"Of course" Leon smirks "how would I be here if it wasn't?"
"Then why you seem like you have something in your mind? You have been restless this whole time" Claire looks at him with concern. Leon tries to ignore it, but Claire is too stubborn. And she has Chris at her side.
"Well, I got an email. No, not that kind of email" Leon is quick to correct himself when he sees other's reactions. Chris rests his jaw to his hand and waits Leon to continue. Leon sighs.
"It was not to my work email. It was to my old one."
"Old?" Chris tries to think "you have more than one email?"
"Don't say you don't remember it" Claire whips her head towards Chris. He looks at his sister and only because Leon has been trained to read facial expressions well he can see little fear in Chris' face. You and me both, Chris.
Chris shrugs and Claire reminds him about time when Leon sent him the email many years ago. Leon spaces out while siblings argue for while. It is nearly too same sounding like he and his siblings used to sound back then. Maybe Claire forgets about it now, and continues to tell how things are going with TerraSave.
"What was it about Leon?"
Great.
"It was from my little sister."
"Wait wait wait, you have a sister?" Chris perks up from his seat. Leon nearly groans while Claire looks at him with interest.
"You never told" she tells him accusingly. He really has to tell them everything, seriously?
"Yeah, I really should have told you while escaping those B.O.W.s and zombies"
"Fair enough. But really, not a word? We have know each other for so long."
"I kinda, forgot to tell you" Leon grimaces "I don't really keep much contact with them. Only couple postcards across years, when I can."
"Hopefully she's easier to handle than Claire" Chris smiles knowingly as Claire looks ready to come to him at night and commit a murder on him. Leon snorts.
"She is, thankfully."
"Have you more siblings? Wait." Claire stops. The she rises finger towards Leon as if accusing. "This is the reason why you were good with Sherry back then! And you still didn't tell!"
"We had better things to worry" Leon tries to calm her down "I have two older brothers too."
"I always learn more things about you when I think I know you" Chris shakes his head.
"I'm not an federal agent for no reason" Leon smirks again across table.
"Shut up."
"What she wanted? If you don't keep up with them, why she now suddenly reaches to you?" Claire ignores Chris and returns to topic.
"Apparently they have planned a week long family reunion. It is more or less in week, 'cause I'm so hard to contact, according to her."
"Well that's nice" Claire looks fondly at him. She however doesn't miss the way how his face doesn't lit up the same way.
"Wait. Aren't you going?"
"Think about my job and ask again" Leon sighs.
They fall in silence. Leon knows that both of Redfield siblings understand what he means. He couldn't just drop from his job, even if it was summer and most of people were on holidays. In his line of work, there was no word for proper holiday's. Sure, he kinda had them, but he was always called back from them.
"Does your family know about that?" Chris asks. He was nearly at same position as Leon, but he could at least decide his holiday's AND stay at them. Perks of being captain.
"No" Leon sighs "They don't know anything. Not even where I work."
"Then what they think you do?" Claire looks at him curiously. Leon decides to surrender and just spit the thruth.
"They probably think I'm smuggler."
Both of Redfields stop on spot. Then they both start to snicker. Leon supresses a groan.
"Yeah, I know" he tells them while they start laugh uncontrollably. Chris tries to calm down, but he can't.
"Only you, Kennedy! Oh, when Jill hears!"
Their laughter booms in apartment. This time Leon does groan.
__~*~__
Suprise comes two days later, when Leon's phone rings as he after one long work day while he's at his apartment. He is not expecting it to be Hunnigan, who calls him, after spending couple last hours finishing his raport. He answers through his com, which is still linked to his work phone.
"Hello, Leon" Hunnigan's always professional voice fills his ear.
"Hunnigan" Leon replys while he sits down to his sofa "Did someone decide to break three day rule? Hopefully not, 'cause I just thought that I had some sense of normal just for once."
"No. There has not been outbreaks that need you to field. Instead they wanted me to inform that your holiday plans are all clear."
"Thanks, Hunnigan, I reall-"
Wait.
What plans?
"Wait a minute" Leon rises his brows "I didn't ask for a holiday."
"Well, asked or not, you have two week free time, starting from tomorrow" Hunnigan states "they thought that I would be best person to tell you, as I am already familiar with your unique perks."
"I'm not that hard person to speak, others doesn't just have good sense of humor" Leon tells her and decides to ignore obvious eyeroll from other side of conversation "but don't they always call me back from holidays? And what am I even going to do?"
"It's made sure that you don't get any missions during that time. How, I don't really know details. But you are free to go where ever you want. You could use it as family time. From what I heard it sounded good for you. Now, remember to thank our golden boy and his sister."
"Will d- wait!" Leon nearly jumps as he hears Hunnigan hanging up. He stares forwards to his apartment wall. He didn't tell anything about the reunion to his mission handler. Suddenly he realizes it.
"Redfield" he groans.
__~*~__
Confirmation was easy to make, considering how long time was since he last emailed his family. He even found his last email, sent right after his government 'employement'. It was mess, no wonder his family thought what they thought about him. But now it was kind of hard to change. So at least he could send email to thank them for invitation, confirm that he was free to go and come enjoy family time.
The hard part was consequences of attaching his new phone number to email.
His old phone with all his contacts was dead by the time they got out of Raccoon City. Pretty much everything he used to have was dead. So he didn't have his family's phone contacts anymore. Only way to have possibility to be in touch with them was through post cards, and thankfully his parents didn't move out of their house. And now he had added also his phone number to email, because it would be little less ankward than writing only emails from his nearly dead email.
Correction: it was not less ankward.
It was a lot more.
When he got added to groub chat created by his siblings, he already knew that he had a problem.
His phone started to go off that evening.
Iris: "Look who's alive! The idiot decided to finally share his phone number with us"
Well, that's reassuring. Then his brothers decided to make their appearences.
Jason: "Look at that, we still have a brother"
Nolan: "How did you manage to find him? I tried for months and found nothing"
Iris: "Younger siblings connection"
Leon huffed. He typed his own answer.
"She found my old email"
Jason: "ohh he does speak :o"
Nolan: "good job Jason, you just made fool of yourself"
Jason: "wtf man?"
Nolan: "ofc he does talk, what you thought? No wonder you're still single"
Jason: "Just speak of yourself"
Iris: "knock it off"
Iris: "You were supposed to be our role models back then? Unbelievable."
Iris: "I just found your brother, hello? You gonna ignore that?"
Jason: "Oh yeah, thanks for that. Does that mean...?"
Iris: "Yup. Hes coming."
Nolan: "It's good to finally got to see you, lil' bro"
Jason: "Gonna teach us to behave, huh?"
"Nah. That's hopeless."
Nolan: "Yeah, that's him. No other person would be that kind of sassy."
"I'll take that as compliment"
Iris: "How is it going? With life I mean, we haven't heard about you for so long."
Yeah. That's where the problems start.
Jason: "Still going with the business? ;)"
Correction: This is the moment.
"Not in the way you think, Jason. Being busy though, got two week holiday starting today."
Jason: "So you are smuggler afterall! Nolan, read the sentence for this bad boy!"
Nolan: "How many times I have to remind you. I'm lawyer, not judge."
Jason: "Yeah yeah, mr. Judge"
Nolan: "I AM NOT"
Iris: "How we ever were able to live with these idiots, Leon?"
"No idea. But I'm not smuggler Jason, please keep it in mind."
Jason: "And I just thought I could finally use my wrath as security guard."
Nolan: "Still guarding old town's museum? Thought you were supposed to be something big"
Jason: "stfu"
Nolan: "..."
Jason: "Yeah."
Iris: "You said that you got two weeks freetime? At summer?"
"Yep"
Iris: "damn"
Jason: "What kind of work place you have? I at least have one and half month."
Well...
"It's complicaded"
As complicated as it can become when you are federal agent.
Nolan: "Sounds like that. Coming for a while?"
"About one day prior, have more time with you and little ease at jet lags."
Iris: "where did you live again? Not even Nolan has that bad jet lags."
Leon grimaces. He really has to tell them. Well, it was little late to back up now.
"DC"
Nolan: "Well that's something. Looking forward to meet president, hmm?"
Worriedly close to truth.
"Something like that."
Jason: "Well, good for you. Stay out of trouble though. Would hate to have to save you, Leon."
This is gonna be long weekend.