Chapter Text
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” the words clawed their way out of your throat, thin and breathless.
You could not recognize the woman looking straight into your eyes from the reflection in the mirror. How could you? Long gone was the fearless and arrogant woman; all you could see was a trembling mess of a person praying to whoever could hear her to make things right.
“Please, please, please. This cannot be happening to me.” You said to yourself as your hands pressed to the sink like it was the only thing keeping you on your feet in that moment.
You had no way to prove anything just yet, but there was a strange feeling in your stomach telling you that it was very real. You could feel it sinking deeper every second you stood there pretending you didn’t already know.
Outside, laughter bled through the walls. It made you want to scream. You needed to get out of there, but there was no way you could just leave the Christmas Eve party with all your family without them questioning you.
“How am I going to explain everything to them? I just fucking graduated from college. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
The signs had been there. Of course they had. The exhaustion, the soreness, the nausea you kept brushing off and blaming it on your pre period symptoms, because who the fuck doesn’t get cravings on their period? Or moody? Or tired? Until… you remembered your time of the month hadn’t arrived. That’s when you knew something was really up.
Of course, you ignored the issue, hoping you were overreacting, because there was no way in hell you were pregnant. There was just no way. You had been careful. He had been careful. So how? How did this happen to you?
A knock on the door startled you from your thoughts.
“Hey baby, you doin’ okay?”
Crap.
You had been panicking in the bathroom for way too long.
You slightly opened the bathroom door to meet your mother’s worried face.
“I just got my period, and I stained my skirt,” you said, the first excuse that came into your mind, trying not to feel too guilty about lying to her.
Her face visibly relaxed, and she gave you a reassuring smile. “Oh baby, I’m sorry. Do you want to go home? Do you need me to drive you back?”
That surprised you. You thought she was going to make you stay until midnight to open the presents with the whole family. But there was no way you were going to miss the opportunity to run to the pharmacy to confirm your suspicions.
“I think I’m going to head home, Mommy. I’m having really bad cramps, you know how it goes.” You tried to laugh to seem relaxed, but you knew it sounded too forced by the worried look on your mother’s face. “Please tell everyone I’m sorry for leaving without saying goodbye. I just don’t want to embarrass myself with my stained skirt, you know. I’ll stop by tomorrow morning.”
You gave her a quick hug and hurriedly left the bathroom before she even got the chance to reply.
Two pink stripes stared right into your eyes. Well, not two, but six.
You had taken three pregnancy tests just to reassure yourself that you were not pregnant. The reality was that you were, in fact, very much pregnant. With a child. With a bun in the oven.
Jesus fucking Christ. You got knocked up by Leon S. fucking Kennedy.
What the fuck.
What the fuck?!
You barely knew the man. You had gone on a couple of dates before deciding to have sex with him. He was sweet and completely charmed you with his dry humor and mysterious personality.
His sense of doom and sorrow captivated your heart. I can fix him, you told yourself once, when you noticed he tended to get lost in his thoughts and stare into nothingness with his brows knit like he was thinking about something too heavy to share with the world. You were young, but you knew he had seen things he couldn’t talk about.
Maybe that’s why he always had a drink in his hand whenever you met him for dinner.
I can fix him. You wanted to figure him out, and maybe make him yours (if he wanted, of course). He had everything you wanted in a man: a handsome face, nice biceps, a gentleman, the sex was mind-blowing, and he really knew how to make you feel special. What more could you ask for?
I can fix him.
That was until he decided to disappear from the face of the earth and completely ignore your existence on a random Tuesday morning.
He was basically a stranger, and yet you could not deny your heart broke a little bit when he stopped answering your calls. You felt like a fool. Of course he would stop answering after he had gotten what he wanted. You were such a fool for thinking a man like that would want you for something serious.
You had met him in a bar a couple of months ago, and it’s not like you had a lot of experience with guys. Leon was actually the first man to ever approach you and ask for your phone number so openly. You only said yes because he looked so put together. Almost as if he was ready for something serious, as if he wanted something more than just simple sex.
But now that you were thinking about it… what else did you expect from someone you met in a shitty bar?
He really had you second-guessing yourself, and you hated him for that. Was he into younger girls? Was that the reason why he approached you? Did he take you on all of those dates just to get in your pants a couple of times?
You felt like a fool for falling for that. But hey, who can blame you? You were still pretty young, much younger than him. He was pushing 30, while you were barely 22.
If anything, it was his fault for not being clear with his intentions.
Still, as much as you wanted to punch him in the face and call him out for being a dick, deep in your heart you knew he deserved to know that he was going to be a father. (And if you were being completely honest with yourself, you were also doing it because you knew he was kind of well-off thanks to his federal job thingy he was always so secretive about, and you were scared shitless about not being able to feed your own child.)
The difference between you and Leon was abysmal: he had a government job, while you couldn’t even pay your own rent. Your parents had been helping you financially while you applied for jobs left and right, but now that you knew you were pregnant, getting a decent job was going to be ten times harder. What kind of job could a pregnant woman fresh out of college get to support herself and her baby?
Deep down, you were hoping he was not going to abandon you and your baby (just in case your parents decided to tell you to fuck now that you were expecting.)
In that moment, you just needed someone to be vulnerable with. The feeling of a thousand rocks on your shoulders was heavy, and only he could help lift it.
So you did the right thing and tried to call him one, two, three times, but you always got the same voicemail:
“The number you are trying to call is not reachable.”
So you texted him.
“Hey asshole, it’s an emergency.
Please reach out to me ASAP”
Damn you, Leon. I don’t want to tell you I’m carrying your child by a fucking text message.
Okay, I’m going to try calling one more time. Please answer, Leon. Don’t leave me alone with this. Please.
Your heart skipped when the call went through. A low, roaring noise filled the line like whoever picked up the phone was standing right beside a plane engine.
“Agent Kennedy here.” His deep and sultry voice almost made your eyes water with heartache. Your stomach dropped, and you felt like throwing yourself on the floor to cry your heart out.
You couldn’t let him hear it, not yet. Not the fear clawing up your throat, not the hurt still festering from the way he disappeared on you after you gave him your heart and your body.
So you swallowed it. Forced it down until it burned. When you spoke, your voice came out steadier than you felt.
“You tryin’ to play it cool, eh, Kennedy? We need to talk.” A pause. “It’s an emergency.”
The line stayed silent for a couple of seconds, seconds that felt like hours.
“Sweetheart?” His voice softened, slipping into something almost gentle. “What’s wrong? You doin’ okay?”
For a split second, your chest tightened. He sounded worried and you almost believed him. Almost.
The thought was gone as quickly as it came.
Don’t be stupid. He doesn’t care. He hadn’t cared when he was busy ignoring you for weeks. When he let you sit there, staring at your phone like an idiot. Pull yourself together.
“I need to talk to you,” you said, quieter now, the words dragging on something fragile inside you. “Just… please. It’s important.”
You hesitated. Just for a second.
“Don’t wanna say it over the phone.” God. You sounded so desperate. You hated it.
“I just landed in D.C. It’ll be late but I’ll drop by your place at nine.” Leon replied.
No apology. No explanation. Like he hadn’t disappeared. Like you hadn’t been losing your mind for the past month.
Your gaze dropped to your watch.
7:37 p.m.
Too soon. Not soon enough.
“Don’t be late,” you said flatly. “It’s important.” You hung up before he could answer. Before your voice had the chance to crack.
The silence that followed was deafening.
And then it hit you: You were going to see him again.
Your stomach twisted violently.
Fuck.
You were pacing back and forth, kitchen to living room, living room to kitchen. Like the floor itself might give you answers if you wore it down enough. Waiting for him. It was almost nine.
Your teeth sank into your nails until you tasted metal. A cold sweat clung to your skin. Your chest tightened, each breath shallower than the last, like the air had thickened just to make this harder.
What were you supposed to tell him, anyway?
“Hey, Leon. I hope you’re doing great. I know you disappeared for a month, but good news you’re going to be a dad!!”
The thought made your stomach twist so violently it almost knocked the breath out of you. It felt like confirmation all over again, like your own body wouldn’t let you pretend, refusing to let you escape it.
This is real. This is happening. Once he knows, there’s no going back. What if he gets angry?
Your chest constricted further at the thought. You doubted he’d be happy, but God, you hoped he wouldn’t think it was your fault. After all, it takes two to tango.
The truth, the ugly, unavoidable truth was that you didn’t know him well enough to be sure of anything.
Not beyond late steamy nights and the half-assed answers he would give you whenever he couldn’t dodge your questions anymore.
He barely talked about himself.
All you really knew was that he’d been to Spain recently, that he had some kind of government job, that he liked motorcycles, and that he disappeared more easily than anyone you’d ever met.
You didn’t know how he handled things that mattered. Things that stayed. Things that didn’t vanish in the morning light.
Like a baby.
What if he tells you to get rid of it?
The world seemed to go silent at that. Completely, suffocatingly still.
Your fingers tightened around the edge of the kitchen counter until your knuckles ached, grounding yourself before your knees could give out beneath you.
He wouldn’t say that… would he?
You hadn’t let yourself go there. Not really. Not until now.
Your hands trembled as they moved, slow, uncertain, until they rested lightly against your stomach.
There was nothing there yet. Nothing you could see, nothing you could prove beyond a plastic stick and two pink lines that still burned behind your eyes every time you thought about them.
What if he just disappears again?
Like before. Like you never existed. Except this time, you’d be left alone with something that does.
You thought about the space you occupied in his life, how small it was, how easy it would be to erase.
And then you thought to yourself: You’re about to make yourself impossible to ignore.
A sharp knock at the door shattered the silence.
Your heart lurched.
I’ve got this.
I’ve got this.
You weren’t sure if you were trying to convince yourself or stop yourself from falling apart right there.
The door felt heavier than it should as you pulled it open, your movements slow, hesitant.
There he was.
For a moment, everything else disappeared. The world narrowed to him standing in your doorway, like no time had passed and too much time had passed all at once.
The same handsome face you had replayed in your mind more times than you cared to admit. The same sharp features, softened only by the faintest trace of exhaustion. A few fresh scratches adorned his right cheekbone, but everything else…
Everything else was painfully, devastatingly the same.
His dirty blonde hair fell just as effortlessly as you remembered, styled in a way that should have looked ridiculous in any other man, but somehow it only made him more attractive.
Your chest ached at the sight of him. You had imagined this moment a hundred different ways.
In some, you were distant. Untouchable. You would meet him with indifference, like he hadn’t left a mark on you at all. You would nod, maybe offer a polite smile and nothing more. In others, you would spill everything out. Every unanswered question. Every moment of doubt. Every ounce of hurt you swallowed when he disappeared without a word.
In those versions, your voice was steady. Strong. Unshakable.
But now every carefully rehearsed word slipped through your fingers like water..
Because the second he looked at you, everything inside you unraveled.
His gaze softened, just slightly. Enough to ruin you.
“Hey.”
One word.
That was all it took.
Your throat tightened, your pulse roared in your ears as every feeling you had tried to bury clawed its way back to the surface.
You hated how much that one word still felt like home.
“Hey, Leon,” you managed, your voice quieter than you intended, fragile in a way you couldn’t quite hide.
“It’s been a while.”