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72 hours after leaving his home, Leon returns to it. His grey duffle bag hangs limply from his hand, his jacket lost somewhere inside a remote and now‑deserted village in Spain. The jacket had been the first thing he allowed himself to splurge on after he started being sent on missions, encouraged by Claire, although he spent days half‑doubting and half‑regretting it afterwards.
What happened during the rescue of the president’s daughter, Ashley, is only now starting to sink into his mind, now that bureaucracy is taking the place of adrenaline. How his brain twists, and will twist, the horrors he saw into nightmares is the only battle Leon hasn’t figured out how to win; he isn’t sure he ever will.
It is late, the house shrouded in darkness and silence. Weak moonbeams fail to lighten the rooms and instead create warped shadows around him. Outside, no sound can be heard, not even a distant car passing by. He is on the fifth step of the staircase when he hears it: breathing. One fainter than the other, but both are still there.
Straight away, the hairs on his neck stand up, his body tenses, and his mind is flooded with memories of the dreadful creatures in the labs back on the forgotten island. Their heavy breathing in the darkness, their lumpy forms wobbling toward him, arms raised, prepared to squeeze the life out of him; the multiple parasites inside them making them cling to life tenaciously. The disgusting sound and the putrid smell, when they finally exploded.
Leon squints his eyes and stills in the middle of the staircase, trying to identify where those breaths are coming from, his hand hovering above the gun on his hip as he prepares for the worst. Cold panic settles heavy in his stomach as he climbs another step, reviewing the mental map of his own home and the points from which he could be ambushed, all while he silently prays that today of all days there isn’t anyone waiting to greet him back.
Then the tension is dispelled by a loud, echoing noise, a resounding fart. His mind jumps to a different memory, a month ago: Lottie in the arms of Chris, a smile on her chubby face as she tried to reach for her uncle’s sunglasses hanging from the neck of his shirt; Chris’s flabbergasted expression as he asked how the body of a baby could produce such a loud sound, while Claire’s laughter echoed through the room until she had to wipe her tears.
He shortens the distance between himself and the master bedroom in quick strides, in a haste to see with his own eyes that there, right there, are Claire and Lottie, both of them asleep. Lottie is in her crib, lying on her back under the stars mobile that stopped dancing above her head hours ago, her tiny fingers curled around the lavender dinosaur plushie Jill gifted her on her last visit.
Claire, on the other hand, is lying on her side facing the baby, her arm extended, her hand resting against one of the bars of the crib. She likely fell asleep holding onto their daughter’s free hand. Her hair is fanned across the pillow like a trail of blaze behind her head, as bright as her character.
Peeking under the covers, he can see an old t‑shirt of his that she often wears to sleep whenever he is away on a mission; it makes it a bit easier for her to fall asleep when the weight of his body isn’t next to hers in the bed.
Both of their breaths are even, safe from the horrors he witnessed while he was away, and even though Claire has dealt with her own fair share of monsters, he is relieved that she is spared from them this time. Relief blossoms in his chest, and Leon falls to his knees, tears streaming down his face.
Because 72 hours ago he left after having an argument with Claire. She wasn’t happy that he was being sent alone, without backup, to rescue Ashley. Her intuition telling her, even from the sparse explanation he could give after his briefing, that it would be more dangerous than usual, and those missions were already risky. And out of habit, he disregarded any concern about his well‑being and even tried to downplay them. He would be fine.
Anyone who knows Claire Redfield knows how much she hates being dismissed and how much she hates having her concerns for her loved ones brushed aside. Her jaw had tightened, a familiar anger blazing in her eyes. Past Claire might have tried to knock some sense into his head with a well‑executed punch to the face, a punch that, in hindsight, he deserved.
But the Claire he was dealing with was holding their daughter in her arms, and settled for calling him a suicidal idiot who didn’t care about their child growing up fatherless if a mission ever went wrong. The words stung more than he was ready to admit out loud; both of them knew what it was like to grow up as orphans, and it felt like having a bucket of cold water thrown over him.
Fuming over an imaginary lack of trust in his skills, he pressed a kiss to Lottie’s forehead, because no matter how angry Claire was with him, she would never deny him the right to shower their baby with affection, which earned him a giggle and a gurgle from the infant. Then he spun around and stormed out of the room without even saying goodbye to Claire, too deep in his anger to see what a great mistake that was.
The memory of that farewell brings a bitter taste to his mouth, and he presses his fist against it to mute any noise that could reveal the depth of his current despair. He could have died several times in Spain, or worse, become a puppet for Saddler to command, like the man described in the notes he read, forgetting about his family altogether. And Claire’s last memory of him would have been that argument.
The pain of such a hypothetical scenario strikes Leon without warning, a blow that steals the air from his lungs and spreads through the rest of his body like a stone rippling through water. And he can only cry from his spot on the floor in front of the bed, salty tears staining his face and landing with soft splashes on the wooden floor beneath him.
Claire’s eyes shoot open seconds later, because you don’t survive countless monsters and raise a baby without developing a very light sleep. Her blue eyes sweep through the room before landing on Leon’s form, as waves of sobs keep shaking his body.
She rises from the bed quickly and reaches him, enveloping him in a tight hug, one hand in his hair as if she could soothe the pain out of him. She keeps whispering that he’s safe, never pressing for details, this isn’t the moment for that, and half of what Leon could share with her is stubbornly stuck at the back of his throat, his lips refusing to form anything beyond I’m so sorry.
Claire will give him a piece of her mind eventually, but not now. It isn’t in her nature to kick him when he’s at his lowest and needs her comfort; she’ll wait until the rest of her anger ebbs away and talking to him doesn’t feel like harming a wet, starving puppy.
Once he has calmed down enough, Claire guides him to the bed. She sits with her back against the headboard, her fingers still combing through his hair as he lies there listening to her heartbeat. Steady, regular, grounding. Leon holds onto her like a man clinging to a lifeline. Maybe she is that, the thing that keeps the man in him breathing instead of being suffocated and shattered into pieces by the soldier in him.
Leon closes his eyes, not ready to sleep anytime soon, just rejoicing in the warmth of Claire’s body, nuzzling into her neck so the scent of her shower gel fills his nostrils as her steady breathing moves her chest in a gentle, rocking rhythm. Time trickles down that way, the moon yielding her place in the sky to the sun.
Another set of cries fills the room, Lottie’s. With a second of reluctance, Leon pulls away from Claire’s embrace, allowing her to grab the hungry baby. She pulls up her shirt to start nursing their child, and shifting his position to sit on the bed, Leon gently guides her back so she’s resting against him, her back to his chest. Now Claire is in his arms, his chin propped on one of her shoulders as his gaze lands on the tiny miracle blessedly untouched by the nightmares her parents know.
Leon isn’t the same man who left for Spain 72 hours ago, but his love for both his girls remains unchanged and untainted, and for now, that’s a comforting enough thought for him to keep pushing, to keep fighting one more day.