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She hadn’t heard from him for days. Unread texts and missed calls had led nowhere, only feeding her anxiety, especially knowing he’d been sent out of the country on his last mission.
She recalled her last words to him as she stared down at her phone. “You’ll come back for me, right, babe?”
He had come back, right?
Claire kicked down her bike stand a little harder than necessary when she reached Leon’s apartment. She knocked twice at his door, then waited, tapping her fingers lightly against her hip.
“Come on… don’t do this to me,” she murmured, chewing at her lip.
Her gaze drifted to a plant pot beside the doormat. Whatever had once been planted there had long since withered into dry soil. Leon clearly hadn’t been home enough lately to take care of it. Nor had he been home long enough for them to properly spend time together. Claire still had that dumb action movie she couldn’t remember the title of sitting on her coffee table. They’d arranged to watch it almost three weeks ago.
She nudged the plant pot aside with her foot, revealing a small key. It had been her idea for him to keep it hidden there in case Leon ever lost his or someone like her or Sherry needed it. With a deep breath, Claire unlocked the door and stepped inside. The curtains were drawn shut and the lights were off. She almost tripped over the rug as she headed toward his bedroom, not bothering to check anywhere else first.
“You better just be sleeping this off,” Claire said quietly, pausing at the door to shrug off her jacket before tossing it onto the leather couch behind her.
The door opened with a quiet whine from the hinges. Leon kept saying he’d been meaning to oil them for almost a year now. The bedroom was nearly as dark as the rest of the apartment, other than a lamp in the corner casting a faint orange glow up the wall, its bulb barely lit.
Then she saw him sitting on the edge of the bed, the sheets piled in a crumpled mess against the headboard and empty bottles of various kinds of alcohol littering the bedside table, the floor, even the mattress.
Her concern flared into anger.
She could hardly believe it. She’d been worrying that he’d been hurt or that he hadn’t returned at all, and this was what he’d been doing instead of answering her pleading messages to let her know he was all right.
He’d promised he’d sworn off alcohol, and she’d believed him, but now here he was, staring down at his lap in a drunken mess.
Claire forced herself not to shout as she stepped closer, her heart slamming against her ribs. “What the hell do you think–?!”
She froze when she saw his handgun behind him on the mattress, its steel catching the soft light from the lamp.
Her stomach twisted tight. Leon was always careful about where he kept his guns and other equipment for work. Leaving it on the bed, or anywhere out in the open, wasn’t like him at all.
Her eyes shifted from the gun to his exhausted face, half-hidden behind disheveled hair. He looked like he’d been up all night, maybe more than one.
“Sorry,” he managed to mutter. “I didn't mean– I’m sorry… I–”
“Don’t speak,” Claire cut in, her voice steady even as her hands began to tremble. Anger or fear, she couldn’t tell anymore. “Don’t move.”
He complied as she slowly sat down on the mattress beside him, holding her breath while he rubbed at his forehead, not like it itched but like he just needed something to do.
She spotted his phone on the bedside table, half-hidden behind an empty bottle. The charger’s white cable was plugged into the phone but not into the wall.
With a heavy sigh, Claire reached back and carefully picked up his handgun, keeping the barrel pointed down and away from them as she checked it. She only exhaled when she saw it was empty.
“Fuck…” Claire said softly, so quietly she wasn’t sure she’d heard it herself. She glanced over at him as he turned away, ashamed. “You can’t keep pushing me away. You need to stop doing this to me. I need to know what’s got you like this.”
He stayed quiet for a heartbeat, then shifted on the mattress. The air felt heavier when he breathed, like it took more effort than it should have. Claire wrapped an arm around his waist and slowly drew him closer until his head rested near her collarbone.
“You’d… view me differently,” Leon said after a moment, his voice slow and as tired as he looked. “It was my fault… my fault… I could’ve– I should’ve…”
Leon trailed off, weakly trying to pull away, but Claire held him closer, firm but gentle.
“Tell me.” She ran her fingers gently through the strands of his dark blond hair. He turned his head, burying his face in her shirt as he took a deep breath.
“Intel was bullshit. It was supposed to be an easy op. It turned into a damn bloodbath,” Leon explained, his tone flat, though his voice carried something heavier beneath it. Sadness. Guilt.
“Are you hurt?” Claire asked, her heart rate spiking as she gently tilted his chin up. She froze when she saw the tears running down his cheeks.
She’d never seen him cry, not even after Raccoon City. She’d seen him grieve, enraged and defeated, but never this.
Never this vulnerable.
“Two young agents, so much like us… Fuck, you don’t want to know what happened to them.” Leon exhaled deeply, wrapping his arms around her waist as she slowly rubbed his back and his hair. “I should’ve done more to prepare them. I could’ve prevented… Goddammit.”
Claire wanted to ask. She wanted to know what had really happened, but she believed him. Some things were better left unknown, though she wouldn’t let him carry this alone.
“I keep wondering… when will it be my turn?” Leon exhaled as Claire lay back on the mattress, pulling him down with her and keeping him close. “Can it just be my turn already?”
“Don’t say that,” Claire said, a little more harshly than she’d meant to. “This is not on you, okay? Like you said, you had bad intel. You weren’t prepared.”
Leon didn’t respond, only nodded against her. She could feel his tears beginning to soak into her shirt, and she didn’t care.
“It's going to be okay,” Claire whispered into his hair, her chest aching, her heart heavy. “Don’t lose hope, baby.”