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The last thing he expected to see that unseasonably warm April day was Angela Ivers. In truth, he was still fuming over the remarks Claire had made when he hadn’t forked over the chip from Shenmei. So much so that he almost ran headlong in to her in the hallway of the StratCom building. The woman, immersed in her phone, had hardly given him a glance as she sidestepped him. But Leon did a doubletake. There was something so familiar about that bright red hair twisted up in a tight bun and the furrowed brow that he had to stop and look. And then it hit him and all thoughts of Claire and Shenmei and Jason flew out the window. “Angie?” He could scarcely believe it. If this was the woman that had trained him in knife combat during his days in StratCom training, she looked very different now. The Angela Ivers he had known could hardly be imagined in anything but fatigues or combat gear and a scowl, but here this woman was, in a tight black skirt suit and heels. But when she turned to look at him, there was no mistaking those blue eyes, even though they were behind glasses when they hadn’t been before. He’d had such a crush on her back then – he’d always had a thing for redheads. But rules were rules and he’d never done anything about it. His stomach squirmed as she gazed at him. “Yes?” was her disinterested and slightly annoyed reply. His stomach sank to his feet. She didn’t recognize him. He felt a blush burning at his cheeks. “Remember me?” he pressed. There was no way she could’ve forgotten him that easily. She’d kicked his ass nearly every day for a year at training. “It’s Leon.” He almost cracked a smile as he saw the gears start to turn in her head. Then a wave of familiarity washed over her face and she grinned almost in spite of herself. It was a real, genuine smile, not bitter, not cynical, not like before. He found himself smiling too, despite himself. “Holy shit! Leon!” Yep, this was definitely the same Angela. The woman he’d known back then could curse a sailor into a coma. She took a few steps towards him to give him a look over and he caught a whiff of the shampoo she used and he felt drunk for a moment. If nothing else, she was just as gorgeous now. And he could see her legs. That certainly helped. “President Graham’s hero! I knew you worked here but it didn’t even cross my mind that we might run in to each other. How have you been?” she gushed, her eyes just as lively behind her glasses as he had remembered. He cleared his throat nervously. “I’ve been good, pretty good,” he replied, kicking himself mentally for sounding like such a dumbass. “How are you? When did you start working here?” “About two years ago, actually. Look, I’ve got to run. I’m headlining a meeting in ten minutes. Penamstan is a hot button topic right now, even here. But I’d love to catch up. Do you have time tonight for a drink or something?” Leon was surprised at her boldness. Maybe it was just a holdover from StratCom, where relations among recruits was strictly prohibited, but it hadn’t even occurred to him to ask her the same. He felt his cheeks burning again. “Sure,” he said, hoping he sounded casual, betting that he didn’t. “Meet in the lobby at six?” “Deal,” Angela said as she winked, walking backwards down the hallway for a bit to wave at him before disappearing around a corner into a meeting room. He raised his hand awkwardly just as she turned around and he once again began to kick himself. Women, he thought to himself, annoyed that he just could not get it together around ladies these days. At least he could say he had a date for the evening with someone he’d wanted to get with since he’d been a gangly little rookie. She’d been so far out of his league back then, at least so he thought, but maybe, just maybe, things would swing his way tonight. It was hard to wait until six. He felt jittery all day, out of nerves or excitement he couldn’t tell, which wasn’t helped at all when he descended the escalator into the building lobby at five past and saw her sitting on a leather chair near the door. Though she looked so familiar, she was certainly a different person altogether to the sarcastic and downright rude woman he had known at training. As she typed furiously in to her phone and he drew closer, he saw a smile curve her lips at whatever she was reading. He could only remember one time at training he’d seen her smile and that was after he’d finally been able to hold his own against her in a mock knife fight for a full seven minutes until she’d finally been able to lay him out on his back. That smile, however, had not been a happy one – instead, it was almost maniacal. This smile, pulling at full lips, was warm, gentle. He liked this change, he thought. “Ready?” he said as he approached her. She glanced up at him, holding up a finger to indicate that he had to wait, and finished her message. Her smile when she put her phone in to her oversized brown leather bag and stood was just for him, though, and he felt it illuminate the space between them like sunlight. He was perturbed by this – he hadn’t seen Angela in well over seven years and it had been made clear that afternoon that she’d just about forgotten about him. Why did she make his stomach flip over on itself when she so much as twitched an eyebrow? He decided as they discussed the nearby bars and restaurants that this pull, wherever it came from, was welcome enough. He’d have to see where the evening took them. It led first, it turned out, to several drinks too many. Oh, man, his head swam ever so pleasantly with whiskey, hers and his, and then the martinis, his and hers. They’d found a secluded table in the back of a favorite bar of his and spent a good long while getting reacquainted. She liked her drinks strong, nothing frilly or fancy, and he teased her about her being in a skirt and she teased him right back about his own suit. While their interactions at training had been hypertense and overly formal sometimes, since she was ranks above him, it turned out she was actually quite easy to talk to. They kept the details light but she told him she’d been recruited into StratCom following an incident involving B.O.W.s in the forests of northern Canada wherein most of her SpecOps team was killed. Her shrug at the end of her obviously truncated story was noncommittal and he did not press her. He knew all too well the pain of having to recount bad memories that felt best forgotten. But his heart fluttered when their hands brushed as they both reached for their drinks. By now, Angela was leaning on her elbow on the tabletop, tipsy and loose, her face flushed, but she straightened as though she, too, felt the electric charge that he had felt. Her eyes were oceanic… “Your place or mine?” she murmured as her eyes settled on his mouth. The whiskey making him bold, he leaned forward and gently pressed his lips to hers and was thrilled to note that she was grinning when he pulled away. She’d tasted like whiskey and lipstick and hunger…
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The next thing he knew, they were making their slow and clumsy way back to his apartment, only a few blocks away. The drink rushed through his blood and he felt bold enough to grab a little ass as they approached the door of his building, and her laugh rang in his ears clearer than a bell. Truthfully, he was just grateful she didn’t punch him in the jaw, like he might have expected all those years ago. All he wanted to do now, however, was get her in his bed, or on his couch, the kitchen counter, didn’t matter. He couldn’t believe his luck – he’d wanted something like this to happen since he’d first crossed her path, and now that he could see the shape of her body in a tight suit? He was practically bursting with desire. It was an…imperfect encounter at best. True, it felt so good to be loose with her, to peel her clothes from her as she did the same to him, to feel her hands on his chest and on the back of his neck, threading in his hair as they kissed, at first shyly, then sloppily, hungrily. The nape of her neck smelled like expensive soap and he marked her there gently with his teeth, thrumming with teenagerish pride like when he’d given his first girlfriend her first hickie, thanking whatever deity was up there when he was able to remove her bra without fumbling too much. He could feel scars under his searching fingers but he didn’t care, didn’t even think to ask about them, as he explored her body. He delighted in her gasps and soft moans under his touch, felt his belly flush with warmth when she giggled and pulled him down over her on his leather couch. The scant light from the streetlamps outside cast shadows on her skin that made her look like a painting and once again, he could not believe his luck. Angela Ivers, topless on his couch, her skirt pushed up to her stomach? He never could’ve dreamed it in a million years. However, he felt very quickly like his luck had run out as he dug through the drawer in his cheap coffee table for a condom and couldn’t find one. His head swimming from the whiskey, he practically turned the table over looking for a damn condom he knew he’d seen in there just earlier that week. Eventually, he found it under some coasters he’d thrown in the drawer haphazardly, and with his ego slightly bruised, he ripped the packet open with his teeth only to note that he was no longer standing at attention. He was glad it was dark so that Angela couldn’t see the heat rushing to his face. Still, he tried to save face and she graciously offered to help with her lips and tongue. He gratefully accepted, but God, it was almost too much. Neither of them finished that night, though not for a lack of trying. Eventually, Angela protested that she was starting to get sleepy, and how could Leon argue against that? He pulled away, stung, slightly dizzy. He was confused when she asked if she could spend the rest of the night there but agreed. Still woozy, he got up awkwardly to brush his teeth, unsure of what else to do, the awkwardness amplified when she followed him, stumbling a bit, into the bathroom to do the same. Thankfully, he had a spare toothbrush. She fell asleep on the couch that night, dressed only in her bra and underwear, tucking a threadbare throw blanket around her and falling asleep almost immediately. Leon wasn’t sure how she was able to sleep like that when his mind was racing despite the fact that the drink was wearing off. As he lay awake in his bed in the dark of his bedroom, he couldn’t help but think that he’d screwed up royally, blown his chances with Angela completely. Not that he’d wanted to get married to her or anything; they’d only just met up again. But she was smart, incredibly funny, ridiculously beautiful… How could any red-blooded man not want to see her again? He hoped she would, but did she agree? Eventually, the alcohol-induced exhaustion became too much and he allowed himself to drift off to sleep. When he woke the next morning, sunlight streaming through his blinds, it took him a long time to drum up the courage to head out into the living room. He opened his mouth to say good morning…only to find that Angela wasn’t there. She hadn’t been in the bathroom either. Leon felt his stomach sink to his feet again. Guess he really did blow it. He ate a bowl of cereal absentmindedly on the couch, a headache from the hangover pounding behind his eyes, picking at the blanket he’d given her. She’d folded it up neatly before she’d left. Had she done that just to be polite? Was he reading in to little things too much? Why was he driving himself crazy over an old blanket? Suddenly, he heard his cell phone ring from his bedroom. Grumbling, he got up to go fetch it, annoyed that he was being bothered when he felt like shit and it was his day off anyway. It was a D.C. number but one he didn’t recognize. He answered on the last ring. “Hello?” he answered groggily, not really caring if the person on the other line could tell how irritated he was. “Glad to see you’re alive, Agent Kennedy!” Leon’s heart stopped for a brief moment. It was Angela. He scrambled to find something to say, clearing his throat nervously. “Um… hey, Angie. How are you?” “Fighting a hangover from hell but looking good while doing it somehow. How are you? You were dead asleep when I left.” She’d come to check on him? He blushed, annoyed that he did so. What kind of compromising position had she found him in? Before he could reply, she continued. “I would’ve woken you but I had to head back home early so I just got a cab. Had to change clothes and shower before heading into the office so that nobody could call me out, you know?” Leon chuckled despite himself. Once again, Angela spoke before he had a chance. It dawned on him that she was nervous about this call just like he was. “Look,” she sighed. “I know that last night wasn’t exactly…ideal. I’m super embarrassed, actually. But I had fun regardless. I mean it. If you want to, I’d…I think I’d like to take you to dinner. If you want to, of course. What do you think?” Leon’s heart swelled and a giant grin broke out across his face. His luck had come back. This couldn’t be real, but he took the chance anyway. “Sure. Are you free Friday? You can pick the place. Can we also agree to not suck down a gallon of whiskey like we did last night?” Angela laughed quietly, and the sound warmed him from the inside out. “Deal,” she said. “See you then.” Leon said goodbye and hung up, tossing his phone onto the couch before falling on to it himself and throwing an arm over his eyes. Angela Ivers, a long-time crush, had asked him out. He grinned again. Maybe things weren’t looking too bad after all.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Truth be told, Leon preferred to be alone. Or rather, he did most of the time But lately, he’d been in the company of what you could have called an old friend. At first, he’d resisted the desire to be around Angela Ivers when he found himself wanting to spend more and more of his free time with her. He’d realized a long time ago that keeping his distance from people was for the best; it made it easier if something happened to him or them. But after they’d run into each other in the hallway at what was now the DSO office eight years ago, he’d been undeniably drawn to her presence. Though she was nothing but serious at work, she’d always had a way about her, a certain kind of mischievous energy that he couldn’t totally put his finger on. Whatever it was, he was drawn to her, whether he ever would’ve admitted it out loud or not. Whether it was because she was a pleasant part of his past, or because her liveliness made him feel significantly less bitter, he didn’t know, nor did he really care. The less he thought about it, he figured, the more he’d be able to enjoy it.They certainly had not “gone steady” or anything in the last several years. In fact, they seemed to spend more time off than on. Certainly not due to fighting or infidelity or anything nasty like that. It was simply that other things came up – he had to travel so often for field missions that at times it seemed cruel to keep her holding on. She was always so nonchalant about the whole thing, never seeming too upset if he told her they should take a break, which made him wonder how much she really seemed to care for him sometimes. In the in-between times, he’d dabbled at relationships with others, with differing results. Somehow, it seemed, he and Angela always came back together one way or the other. At the moment, they were back on, and had been for about six months, and boy, had they had a lot of fun getting to know each other again. He was currently wearing nothing but boxers as he lay on her squashy white pouf of a couch in her midtown D.C. condo, listening to her hum lullabies to herself from the next room as she made them some late-night eggs. They both by some miracle had the next day off, so he’d brought over a bottle of wine and they’d had quite the evening. She was very adventurous in bed. Nearly six hours of lovemaking later, he lay in the comforting darkness of the living room, thinking back on memories he had of her as his eyes wandered over the immaculate white bookcases full of a curiously jumbled mess of curios and collectables (and no books – those she kept in her bedroom).She’d been levels ahead of him when the government had first recruited him for training after Raccoon City, but even then, she’d turned his head. That damned policy against relations among recruits was zero-tolerance, however. And, let’s face it, she was way out of his league anyway, so he’d never bothered with anything more than fantasy in his head. She hadn’t seemed to notice him much either until he was assigned, for a brief stint of about a year, to be her trainee. He’d had some close combat training at the police academy, but nothing like what they – the mysterious “they” – wanted him to know. Angela, on the other hand, had apparently been some sort of knife combat prodigy; in fact, the higher-ups had often employed her to burst the bubbles of young recruits that thought they were hot shit. Even he had to admit, it had been a lot of fun to see the smugness drain from those assholes’ faces when Angela laid them out on their backs in thirty seconds or less. She’d told him then with a jokingly snide smile that they - whoever they were – had seen something in him.She’d been very patient with him at first in modeling stances and explaining techniques, but as soon as she’d decided that he was ready to spar, she’d kicked his ass. Repeatedly and mercilessly. He groaned softly to himself as he recalled the countless bruises and cuts, even a cracked rib, from those sparring sessions. Over the year or so that she was in charge of this portion of his training, he’d steadily gotten better, which his ribcage thanked him for. By the time she’d graduated, he was able to hold his own against her for a solid seven minutes before she managed to find an opening and kicked his feet out from under him. He remembered very clearly the pride in her eyes as she helped him back up. And, even more clearly, he remembered the feeling of satisfaction seeing the sweat beading on her forehead. He’d never been able to make her sweat before. “And now I get a chance to pay her back,” he thought smugly as a smirk spread across his lips, throwing an arm over his eyes. He certainly was making her sweat now. “What are you grinning at?” Leon took the arm off his face to see that Angela was standing over him, two plates of eggs in her hands and her own smirk on her lips. She was wearing nothing but his work shirt, and, he noted with pleasure, she had left it unbuttoned. That smirk softened into a warm smile as she jerked her head towards her over-large kitchen table. Leon grinned back; her fastidiousness had not changed since training. He would’ve happily eaten on the couch, but Angela would have none of that. She paused for a moment to turn on the TV as he stood up; 16 and Pregnant was marathoning on MTV, she said. He couldn’t help but laugh. Though she was in her thirties, she was a self-proclaimed trash TV junkie, which clashed heavily with the prim and proper image she projected all day long at the DSO. He followed her lazily across the hardwood floor. While she fixated her eyes on the screen from her kitchen table, he tuned out the chatter from the TV to watch her out of the corner of his eye as she ate. He often mused during quiet moments that she was not the same woman she had been when they had first met. Her voice, especially her laugh, was raspier now; she’d picked up a chain-smoking habit for a while after her surgeries. She’d even picked up a heroin habit briefly to deal with the trauma of the “incident,” as it was called by those that knew, before the training center got a hold of her again and forced her into rehab – faded track marks dotted her forearms. She wore glasses now, too. The trauma to her head from the explosion had left her blind for several weeks, and her vision had never been quite the same after that. But she had aged very well – aside from a crease or two between her eyebrows and some faint crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes, she looked much the same as she did when they first met. But he thought she was even more stunning now than she was then. She had been through a lot and had conquered it all, with wisdom and a sharp tongue to show for it. The Angela he had known in training was rigid, anxious and unforgiving; the Angela he had found at StratCom was quieter, more thoughtful, and had a great deal more understanding. She smiled more, and not that snide smirk that had often adorned her face in those days. A real, genuine smile.He had told her about his growing up, despite his reservations about telling anyone about who he really was: about his father leaving his mother when his youngest sister was born with Down syndrome; about his father losing his temper and he, Leon, having to bear the brunt of the beatings in order to keep his sisters from harm; about loving science and math as a teenager and being called a sissy or worse by his increasingly absent father; about joining the police academy to impress him. She had listened, squeezing his hand or stroking his hair at the appropriate moments. He’d had a nightmare that night and had felt incredibly vulnerable when he’d woken up. But still, he wasn’t sure what had possessed him to bare his soul to her, but there was something so comforting about lying next to her in the dark that it just sort of spilled out of him. She didn’t disappoint, either. Though it was another two months before they could both spend more than an hour or two together, she’d surprised him one morning with a reservation for a cooking class that night, the voucher printed on crisp white paper with a heart drawn in the corner of the page. He could remember her saying in a bright voice that oozed with pride, “This is science, right?” That night was the most fun he could remember having in quite some time. It was really nice to be able to see her let go outside of the confines of their homes, and to be able to let go a little bit himself. It was really nice to be able to see her (literally) let her hair down; in fact, thinking back on it, that was the first time he had ever seen her hair not in a tight bun in the light of day. She was not a very good cook, it turned out – he remembered the laughs they’d shared over their resultant creation with fondness. He hadn’t told her, but the gesture, the experience of being in the kitchen with her, of watching her be able to laugh at herself and laughing with her, had only deepened his feelings. He tried not to think about this much. In his experience, thinking about his feelings for the people he was with only seemed to end in disaster, when he realized they didn’t make him very happy. Then again, none of the people he’d been with since Raccoon City had understood. A few of them had been ex-wives of military men, or military men themselves, so he thought they would have been able to handle it. But all of them left in the end. But Angela….She understood but didn’t know. She, too, woke up in cold sweats. She, too, had sleepless nights. She, too, found it difficult to leave the house some days. Worst of all, she, too, had been weaponized by the government, her trauma turned against her, blackmailed and pulled out of the life she had wanted to live into doing the dirty work of an anonymous few. She had never shared her story of how she’d gotten recruited in great detail, but he recognized some similarities to his own tale. And so she worked, day in and day out sometimes, gathering intelligence on the doings of other governments and supporting agents in the field in the supposed attempt to wipe B.O.W.s off the face of the earth, even while their own government sought to use the very B.O.W.s that they claimed to condemn.But while she had experienced her own debilitating traumas, she hadn’t watched entire cities fall to ruin because of men trying to play God, at least not first hand. In fact, he had told her his story after he’d woken from a nightmare when he’d stayed over one night, one in which a monstrous creature with his father’s face consumed entire cities’ worth of people. It had taken him a long time to realize where he was when he woke, he was so panicked, until her face swam into view. She’d held him closely to her under her down comforter and cooed sweet nothings into his ear as he furiously wiped tears away. She had listened without judgment and without rejection, and that was all he had ever wanted. He didn’t want to think about it. But he had realized, when she’d said it, that it was so easy to slip into survival mode. It was so easy. A crisis arose, and it was so easy. Coming down from that, coming back to a normal life, was nearly impossible sometimes. She understood. She’d said it herself: even though the “incident,” wherein nearly her entire team was slaughtered by a pack of B.O.Ws on one of her first missions out, was nearly 12 years ago, she still had days where she hovered in an uncomfortably gray area between fight and flight, where even just going to the grocery store seemed impossibly dangerous. When memories stole sleep from her, she mourned for the woman she had been before. They had both been different people, and had left those people behind in the flames. He didn’t want to think about it. But he was almost certain he loved her. It was nothing less than an impossible task to draw him out of his un-crackable exterior. And she had done it. And for the first time, he wasn’t scared of it. What he was scared of, however, was whether or not she returned his feelings. She hadn’t exactly made it easy to tell. Eight years of on and off back and forth bullshit? Then again, he’d been the one doing most of the breaking-up. Asking her how she felt? He felt stupid for even thinking of doing so. “…Leon?” Leon jerked out of his reverie to see that Angela was staring at him with her eyebrows furrowed over her glasses, looking like she was concerned he was going crazy. “Your eyes glazed over for a minute, and you haven’t eaten anything. Are you okay?” Ah, so that was it. He gave her a flash of a toothy grin to placate her, taking her hand and squeezing it on the rough pine tabletop. “Yeah, I’m okay,” he reassured her. “Just lost in thought, I guess.” “Anything in particular?” He chuckled to himself. She was a firm believer that talking out trauma was a key component in conquering it. She’d been to therapy mandated by the DSO and it had helped her, she’d said. He shook his head, adopting a thoughtful look, which just caused her eyes to narrow. “No, not really,” he said, thinking it amusingly annoying that she didn’t believe him. “Just us,” he added, just to poke at her. Her eyes narrowed even further. They’d been dancing around “the talk” for what had to be about a month now. It was one thing to do the whole friends with benefits thing – that was easy to keep quiet. And to be fair, they had been doing so quite successfully for many years! But becoming boyfriend-girlfriend? That had different implications. Though there wasn’t any rule written out by the DSO saying that they couldn’t be, it was frowned upon, especially because she was Intel and he was head of Field. He knew what they would say: having that sort of attachment, especially to someone that worked in his own office, could cause the both of them to lose focus, and losing focus doing what they did could mean someone might lose their life. But did it matter? He thought of her all the time, whether they were “together” or not. Could he look past this fact to take a shot at happiness and peace? He couldn’t answer that now, as Angela was rolling her eyes and getting up out of her chair. “Are you going to finish this?” she asked him brusquely, indicating his still-full plate. He nodded silently in response and dug in, surprised at the sudden change in mood. “Just put your plate in the sink when you’re done, then,” she added on before she put her own plate in the dishwasher, “I’m going to bed.” Before she disappeared into the darkness of the hallway, she gave him a kiss, but it was missing the warmth he might have expected given the evening they’d had. Leon sighed before he began shoveling giant forkfuls of eggs into his mouth. He wasn’t entirely sure how welcome he was anymore, and instinct was telling him that leaving her be was for the best. When he was finished, he carefully and quietly set his plate in the kitchen sink, just as he was asked – having grown up with four sisters and a single mom that worked constantly, he knew better than to not pick up after himself. Though he wasn’t entirely sure if he wanted to cut his losses and let her go... And if that was the case, then what did it matter if he didn’t rinse his plate off? He shook his head, ashamed at that defensive and teenager-ish line of thinking. Though he hadn’t seen his mother in close to four years, he could clearly picture the look of hurt and disgust she would give him if she somehow knew what he was thinking. It was the same look she’d given him when he’d broken up with his high school girlfriend over a prom corsage. His mom had made it a priority to teach her children to not give up on relationships at the first sign of things getting tough, and he supposed this applied. Though he and Angela weren’t really together or anything, he cared a lot for her, and at least some signs were pointing towards her caring about him too. He gripped the edge of the sink for a moment to steel himself, just in case. Going into the bedroom to collect his things seemed suddenly dangerous. The last thing he wanted was to start a fight, especially considering how easy it used to be to set Angela off. Though she was a much calmer, more rational person now, he knew first hand that it was hard to get rid of old habits. But his clothes were still in the bedroom. Well, everything but his pants and shoes. Those hadn’t made it past the threshold of the hallway. He also noticed with a pang of guilty amusement that the wine he’d brought over sat untouched on the countertop. The hallway was oppressively dark as he made his way down towards the faint light coming from under the half-cracked bedroom door. The walls breathed as he breathed…. God, why was he so nervous? He wasn’t about to face down a B.O.W., Angela was just a human woman. But in a way, he thought, that made her more dangerous – she knew him deeper than any zombie ever could, and could cut him far more severely if she felt like it. Slowly, he pushed the bedroom door open…only to find that she wasn’t there. “What…?” he whispered to himself. Where could she possibly have gone? The light in the bathroom was off, so she wasn’t in there… Ah, there she was. He could just barely make out her shape on the balcony, sitting cross-legged on a deck chair. Tentatively, he made his way to the open screen door. The late September breeze was biting, but it felt good on his skin. She plainly felt the same – he could see from the doorway she was still only wearing his unbuttoned shirt. Feeling as though he was walking into a cage with a tiger, he sat down in the chair opposite, only to find that she was wiping tears from her cheeks. Shame slapped him straight in the face. “Hey,” he said, not sure what else to do, “Um…what’s up?” Long moments of silence passed. Leon cleared his throat awkwardly and opened his mouth to apologize (though for what, he wasn’t sure), but she beat him to the punch. “Well…” She was still wiping tears away. “When you mentioned ‘us,’ it sort of…threw me for a loop, I guess. I was just thinking about what you’d told me about your family and growing up. So I started thinking about mine… I thought you might want to know about where I came from….” Leon held his breath and the world held it with him. For whatever reason, even after all these years of knowing her intimately, he’d never thought about what she might have been like before training. It had never occurred to him that she had ever been anything other than the sarcastic, reactionary woman he had known then, even though she was so different now. The world began again when she began speaking in a shaking voice. Leon listened intently, not speaking, drinking in every word. She had been born, along with her twin brother Kevin, to an Irish Catholic family in a tiny town called Rutland, around fifty miles north of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. At least at that time, more cows lived there than people. Four more brothers followed. Even amongst her plethora of cousins, she was the only girl and she was often lonely. Her father never seemed to know quite what to do with her, and they mostly ignored each other, unless he was demanding that she keep better watch over her younger siblings as though she, not her mother, had given birth to them. In their close-knit Catholic community, it was expected that girls were to marry off and become housewives once they graduated high school, assuming they even made it that far without getting pregnant. Half of the girls in her graduating class had had baby bumps under their caps-and-gowns and cheap shotgun engagement rings on their fingers. Her dreams, however, were loftier. Her mother, she recounted, had wanted to dance ballet since she herself was a little girl. However, restrictions on what women could or couldn’t be in their community were even stricter in those days. But having a daughter had given her a chance at achieving that dream, and Angela had excelled at it. Her mother had spent at least half of what she earned from her job as a part-time teacher’s aide on dance lessons, costumes, and driving fifty miles each way to a studio in Sioux Falls five days a week, as well as competition entry fees. That had been a deep connection between her and mother, especially when she came away from a competition with a trophy. Her dreams had stretched as far as New York, and she’d been in training to audition for the NYC Ballet. Until she’d gotten pregnant herself. She’d been eighteen, and the fact was, in a tiny town that didn’t even have a movie theater, dating and sex were what you did to ease the boredom. But Rutland was a religiously-minded place in a conservative state: birth control was abhorred while sex education was essentially non-existent. The father of that baby had been ten years older than she, but had become little more than a ghost in her life when she’d told him the news. Her younger brothers had ridiculed her, called her unthinkable names. Her father beat her senseless, and had forbidden her mother from allowing her to dance anymore. Her own mother wouldn’t speak to her. It had been her twin, Kevin, that had saved her. He’d taken the money he’d been saving for a car, borrowed his friend’s truck, and had spirited her away to Sioux Falls one afternoon for an abortion. He’d even lied to their parents, saying they were going hunting like they’d done when they were little. She’d come home in excruciating pain with blood running down her legs, pretending to have had a sudden miscarriage. She was certain her mother had seen through the ruse, but thankfully, she’d said nothing. Her father had immediately dragged her to church, still crying in her blood-soaked fatigues, and had forced her into confessional. But fortunately, that had been that. She could hardly stand to live in that house after her only passion had been snatched away from her. She’d begged and pleaded with her mother to let her go back to lessons, but her mom only shrugged – after all, even though she’d been spending her own money, Andrew Ivers was head of the household and was not to be disobeyed or disrespected. Two weeks later, only a month after the abortion, she’d run away to join the Marine Corps. They had been a real family to her, and it had been really nice to be able to make friends with other women. She’d been trained as a communications expert, but was given close combat and ranged training “just in case.” She was with them for four years before her team encountered a group of what were later called Hunters – a B.O.W. prototype, giant mutated frog-like creatures with foot-long claws. He nodded understandingly at this; he’d encountered Hunters himself on a few occasions. Everyone in her unit that had survived was interviewed by emotionless people in black suits and sunglasses about the experience; only she and one other were accepted by the US-StratCom for training and employment by more advanced units. There, she was good at what she did. Extremely good. It was the first time in her life she’d really been told she’d been good at something. Even dance instructors were loath to give praise until one’s efforts were rewarded with a trophy. That was where they’d met. She hadn’t thought much of him first in all honesty, she said, but grew to like him while she’d trained him. He certainly wasn’t like the other new recruits that had joined StratCom – most were either full of themselves or angry and bitter like her. He’d intrigued her (this made him smile, in spite of himself). But then she’d graduated and gotten a job and put training out of her mind. She’d gotten on well with her new team; she was treated with a great deal of respect, especially considering how rare it was for a woman to be in SpecOps. Her team, however, was poorly prepared for what faced them on her second mission out with them. Only three of the ten members survived. The rest were either killed by the monsters they’d encountered (she said this with a shudder) or by the explosion caused by a frag grenade going off in the middle of a gas leak. While she had been trapped under a vehicle, thus fracturing her hip and legs, it had been enough protection from the blast to keep her alive.One of the other two survivors was in a government care facility for the mentally ill – he’d snapped and had never returned to reality. The other was in a similar job position as she somewhere in Texas, but they didn’t speak. She herself had been in the hospital for months: two months in a medically induced coma, another two weeks blind and half deaf, yet another three months recovering from multiple surgeries on her spine, hips, ankles…. Her parents came to visit her while she was still recovering. Her father demanded to know when she was going to come back home to settle down, and she’d shattered. It was the first time she had ever yelled at her father, the first time she’d ever sworn at him, her fury so great that nurses had to ban her parents from her room and administer heavy doses of tranquilizers so that she wouldn’t hurt herself. That had also been the last time she had seen most of her family. After that encounter in the hospital, she had essentially exiled herself from her family. She’d sought out drugs to cover up traumatizing memories and a burning bitterness, but the habit didn’t last long, once StratCom tracked her down and hired her back on for intelligence work. After that, she simply had no time to keep up with them, or at least that’s what she told them. She hadn’t spoken to her younger brothers in years, nor her father. She spoke to her mother on birthdays and at Christmas for a few minutes at a time, but the last time they’d had been in the same room had been at Kevin’s wedding fourteen years ago. Kevin was the only family member she spoke to regularly; he lived in the Baltimore area with his family and was the only one that seemed to understand why she didn’t speak to their parents or siblings anymore, though he kept in contact himself. More importantly than that, Kevin had a daughter, who, like Angela, was the only girl amongst a sea of boys. There was nothing in her life that was more important than Katie. Nothing meant more to her than making sure her niece knew that she was important, that she mattered, that what she wanted to do and what she thought meant something. Angela’s voice choked up again as she told him that that was why she watched those silly MTV shows: she had spent her childhood belittled for being a girl, and would rather die than see her niece feel the same way, even if it meant watching 16 and Pregnant all the time. She swiped her finger over the screen of a phone she had procured from under her folded arms: the home screen was a picture of Angela and a young girl, probably about thirteen, smiling at the camera. The girl’s hair was brown instead of red, but aside from this, she might have been a young Angie. “We text constantly,” Angela added in a weak voice. “I love her more than I’ve ever loved anything.” Leon reached over to take her hand, persisting even when she flinched. “She’s beautiful,” he told her, his voice soft and soothing, “You know, she looks just like you.” That elicited a weak smile from her, and he was silently delighted. That delight, however, was quickly taken over by an alarming desire to ask her the question that had been burning on his tongue for the past month. He hardly had the time to stop himself and it just spilled out of him. “Hey…” he choked out. An awkward little laugh followed. But he was there… Might as well continue. She was staring at him now, looking almost as alarmed as he felt. There was no going back now. “I know this is kind of weird,” he blurted out, reaching up to scratch at the back of his head in that nervous habit he had. “I know we’ve been seeing each other a long time, and I get it if you say no. But…um…well…” “Leon, just spit it out.” He looked up at her, an almost apologetic look in his eyes, only to find that she was smiling weakly at him, though her cheeks were still raw from tears. He couldn’t help but smile back, though he averted his eyes. He was sure he was blushing like a little kid. Suddenly, he was thankful it was dark. “Angela….” “Yes…?” Her voice was breathy in the night air. “I would be honored…” Oh, damnit… He kicked himself for that. He would be honored? Was he seventy-five years old now? Oh well, it was out. “I would be honored if you would… If you would be my girlfriend.” The last half of the sentence came tumbling out of his mouth like spilled water. For a brief moment, he wished the earth would open up and swallow him whole, until he found her lips pressed gently against his. He could feel her smiling. Dazed, he leaned back in his chair to see that she’d gotten up out of her own seat and was standing above him, looking sheepish and yet so utterly pleased with herself. “So…uh…I guess that’s a yes?” he stuttered. The eye roll she gave him in response was so very her. “Of course it is,” she said through a shy giggle. “I thought you’d never ask.” “Well, why didn’t you ask?” “Hey, I was cool with where we were, sir, I just didn’t want to make you uncomfortable!” “Whatever, Ivers. Come here.” With that, he took her hand and pulled her into his lap, and she didn’t resist. They spent quite a long time like that out on the balcony, just kissing, enjoying each other’s warm company. When it got too cold, they ran inside and dove under the comforter and held each other for hours. By the time they finally fell asleep, the sun was peeking over the horizon.
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Leon woke again just as the digital clock on Angela’s bedside table struck noon. She was still asleep beside him, as peaceful as he’d ever seen her. Busy, busy bee… Hands in as many projects as she had fingers… A huge yawn cracked his mouth open. He was still half-dazed – he hadn’t stayed up that late nor slept in so long since high school, and his half-formed thoughts certainly reflected that. He stretched ever-so carefully, wanting to watch her sleep. She slept curled in on herself in an almost child-like way, her head not even on the pillow but propped up on her arm instead. He could hear her breathing quietly and felt his heart swell despite himself as memories of the night prior rushed back over him. His eyes closed again, he smiled and relaxed back into his pillow. His plans until she woke up were to replay last night over and over in his head. He was overwhelmed by joy. Moments later, his thoughts were disturbed when Angela stirred beside him. She unfolded herself and stretched, a quiet groan escaping her lips. “Oh my God, what time is it?” he heard her croak. He chuckled and curled around her back. “It’s past noon, you lazy beast.” He pressed his lips into her shoulder. “Oh, fuck off,” she muttered, screwing up her eyes against the sunlight streaming through the curtains. Clearly, she wasn’t used to staying up so late either. He snorted a laugh, feeling a strange, wild pleasure purr in his belly. Though it took nearly another half hour to coax her out of bed, Leon did manage to get her into the kitchen to make them both some pancakes. The creature purring away inside grew even larger when she praised him for how good they tasted considering he’d crafted them out of whatever crap was in her fridge. It was amazing to him how comfortable it all felt – the silences, the laughter, the touching. The rest of the day continued much the same as the night prior, though the lovemaking process was considerably lazier. He slept over that night. It wasn’t often he did that. He had been firm in his belief that leaving for work at the same time would be awkward, and would raise eyebrows if they arrived at the office together. But seeing her flash a tired smile at him while she pinned up her hair in the morning made it so it didn’t matter so much what other people thought. She seemed to be floating on a cloud herself, all knowing shy smiles, and he trailed, ecstatic, in her wake as they walked through the front doors of their office building. They didn’t see each other much that day. Leon found himself scanning meeting rooms and hallways for her without even thinking about it, his heart pounding out a drumline’s processional when they did cross paths once and she deliberately brushed her hand against his. They continued like this for the rest of the week. By Friday, he’d gotten bold (or desperate) enough to bring her a mug of coffee to her desk, a place he’d only passed by before on the way to somewhere else. He could feel Hunnigan’s eyes on his back from across the room as he lingered at the desk corner, but he knew Angela was positioned within the room in such a way that no one else could see the intimate smiles they were sharing. He had a vague enough excuse to be visiting with her anyway should anyone ask: just checking up on details on that one case in Yellowknife, he would say. They were both busy, however, and he couldn’t stay long. But the warmth in her gaze lingered in his mind until he met her in the parking garage to go home. Things moved really fast from thereon out. He moved into Angela’s condo three weeks later. Angela seemed to have a great time helping him move his stuff and unpack it, making space for him and his things, and listening with warm interest when he told her the stories behind the few family heirlooms in his possession. She especially loved the delicate china dining set with the lacy edges that had belonged to his grandmother, and went so far as to buy a whole new cabinet to display them in. He teased her gently about how she’d turned into an old lady, displaying china plates in her living room, but he was quietly pleased. They made no big announcement of it. Nobody wanted to incur any wrath from their superiors. The few people that did know (Hunnigan had figured it out in about two days, much to Leon’s chagrin) were supportive. So they floated together on a cloud of cohabitating bliss. They had a few arguments here and there, but it never involved any yelling, and could be chalked up to neither of them being very used to sharing their space with someone else. But it was just so nice to be together, to come home to each other at night, it was easy to get over the bickering. The next week was Thanksgiving, and as always, his mother insisted that he return to Virginia. He’d usually had some excuse why he couldn’t come (work was a popular one), but for the first time in about four or five years, he agreed to. The shriek of delight his mom gave out when he’d asked if he could bring a date was not at all surprising, though he had to whip the phone away from his ear. Polish Catholic Lidia Kennedy had been begging all her children to give her grandkids basically since they’d all moved out of the house. Three of his four sisters had done so, but that just meant that his mom shifted her focus onto him whenever he spoke to her. Angela’s smile froze when he told her his mom had said that she could come. “Nervous?” he asked her with an understanding and pitying smile. She nodded and he patted her shoulder. He understood completely. His family could be…well, intense was a nice way of putting it. He just hoped his mom hadn’t strong-armed his dad into coming this year. Scott Kennedy was nobody’s favorite – after all, he had basically left their mom to raise five children under the age of ten on her own, including one with special needs – but it was so important to their mom that their family all be together, they all just grinned and bore it. But it was also important to him that Angela have a good time; he wanted her to like his family. His dad would make sure she wouldn’t. It had taken several phone calls and meetings over the course of two days, and putting her foot down many times, for Angela to get the week of Thanksgiving off work – he heard her say many times “I’ve worked every holiday for the past six years!” Finally, her own higher-ups caved and let her have it. They departed the next day around noon. The three hours it took to drive from D.C. to Benns Church, Virginia was spent in tense silence. Leon knew she didn’t like driving in his Mustang (the revving of the engine made her nervous) but her car was in the shop and they hadn’t had much of a choice. But she was usually very chatty when she was nervous. Now, she was giving him one-word answers. He finally asked her what was wrong when he exited the freeway. She took a long time to answer. “I’ve never met a boyfriend’s family before,” she finally replied in a small voice. He grinned at her and took her hand. “Hey, as long as you know who they are, they’ll like you. Wanna give me the run-down?” Angela sighed, almost like she was steeling herself, but she rattled off his family’s names: “Your mom is Lidia, your dad is Scott – is he coming?” Leon shrugged, a pit of dread cracking open in his stomach. He really hoped not, and didn’t want to think about it much. He was grateful that Angela didn’t press, and continued on with the list of names. “Mary is the oldest. She married Dave and her kids are James, Ryan, and Dylan. Anna is next, she married Jason, and her kids are Sarah and Camilla. Marla came after you, she married Danny, and they had Ella and Eva. Your youngest sister is Dana and she still lives with your mom.” “Good job, kid,” Leon teased, punching her playfully in the shoulder. She smiled back at him, but it went quiet again as he pulled onto the country roads that would lead them to his mom’s farmhouse. It was a good silence this time though. Another twenty scenic minutes later, and they finally pulled into the half-mile long driveway leading up to the farm. He was starting to get a little nervous himself. It had been four years since he’d seen his mom, even longer for a few of his sisters, and even longer than that for his dad. His sisters were all pretty grounded, reasonable people, at least in most circumstances, but it was pretty much the same story every time he saw his mom: she would complain constantly about how she never got to see him anymore, and why hadn’t he settled down and had kids yet. Now that Angela was coming, though, he was worried his mom would hound them both about when they were going to pop out a few babies. His mom made it very clear she did not believe in remaining childless. Family time usually involved a lot of bickering, too. If his dad was there, he was usually passed out drunk. But his mom was usually cracking the whip. Everyone contributed to the full week of meals, though Leon was usually left with his youngest sister Dana to babysit the kids, while Marla, Mary, and Anna fought with each other, their spouses, and their mom in the kitchen. He had a feeling his mom would try and test out Angela’s cooking skills to see if she was good enough for him, a fact that Angela was aware of, but he hoped wouldn’t come true. “It’s so beautiful out here,” Angela breathed. Leon had to agree. As little as he liked having to drive to middle-of-nowhere Virginia, the first dust of snow had fallen and coated everything in a beautiful white powder. His mom’s old mares and cows were grazing on the sparse dry grass in the fields in front of the house. All in all, it was pastorally picturesque. He had just barely put the car in park when he saw a blur come zooming out of the brick red front door. This blur collided with him, throwing its arms around him, and sobbing, “Thank God you’re here, Leon! The insanity’s started already!” The blur was his second oldest sister, Anna, followed closely by Marla, the second youngest. As Leon laughed and hugged his siblings, he mused to himself how very much the two of them resembled their father, a seemingly unfortunate trait, but both of them managed to pull it off. It was then he noticed that Angela was standing awkwardly by the passenger side of the car, biting her lip in that cute little way she had when she was nervous.“Um,” Leon said, letting go of his sisters so that they actually realized he was trying to say something important. He gestured to Angela and added in a wink once his sisters’ backs were turned to him in the hopes of giving Angela a little confidence. “This is Angela Ivers, my girlfriend.”He watched carefully as Marla and Anna exchanged looks that he could have described as predatory. But instead of leaping on Angela or picking her apart, like Leon had expected them to do, they both introduced themselves like normal humans. The tension in Angela’s face seemed to break as she shook his sisters’ hands and Leon felt himself relax with her. Marla then turned around and grabbed Leon’s hand and followed Anna back into the house, saying, “Mom will be mad if we don’t haul your ass into the kitchen right now and we don’t need any more drama.” Angela followed at a slight distance, a hesitant smile on her face as Leon looked back at her and shook his head in apology.“Dad’s not here, is he?” he asked Marla quietly as they reached the porch. Marla just rolled her eyes.“Not yet, anyway. Nobody knows if he’s actually going to come or if he’s going to be spending time with his new girl’s family. And when I say girl, I mean girl.”Marla’s answer was a sneer and Leon could see why. His dad had always had a…problem with younger women. He just hoped that, if Scott was going to show, he didn’t decide he wanted to stir up trouble by bringing along his new girlfriend.Anna opened the front door and they were met with a wave of sound. The whole house was abuzz with activity. Leon just barely managed to not step on Mary’s husband, Dave, who was bent over on his hands and knees scrubbing something off the floor, before he nearly tripped over two of his three nephews, who were playing close to their dad. Mary was attempting to corral the rest of the children in the living room.“Marl, are you trying to kill me?” he shouted over the noise, glancing back at Angela to see that she too was having some difficulty sidestepping the vacuums, buckets, toys, and people. He wasn’t surprised that his sister ignored him. Their mother was yelling for Marla and Anna and could be heard as soon as they were a few feet away from the kitchen door. The kitchen was warm and smelled like good, familiar food. “Jesus Christ, mom, calm down!” Anna cried as she led the small procession in. Marla let go of Leon’s hand at that point and he was able to collect Angela and steer her so that she was next to him.“Brace yourself,” he murmured to her. The look she gave him, a mix between apprehension and annoyance, was almost laughable. Almost. “Calm down, Anna?” Lidia Kennedy shouted, slapping down pots and pans on the counter and stove, sidestepping Dana, who was humming softly to herself as she stirred something on the counter. “I have a week’s worth of food to be making, your father is mysteriously missing like always, your brother isn’t even here yet, and you’re telling me to calm down?!” “Turn around, mom,” Marla said as she rolled her eyes and grabbed a spoon to start dishing out chłodnik litewski, a Polish soup of yogurt, beetroot, and egg, into bowls. “Turn around?! Marla, I swear to God, you are asking for it….” “Hey, Mom?” Leon called in the hopes of getting his mother to notice him and get her off his sisters’ backs. Angela cleared her throat nervously. She was biting her lip again. “What?!” Lidia whirled around, ladle in hand as if she was about to use it as a weapon, but she threw it into the sink and clapped her hands over her mouth when she saw her son in the doorway, waving hesitantly at her. Even at that distance, Leon could see the tears forming in his mother’s eyes. He let out a loud “oof!” when Lidia threw herself at him and hugged him to her tightly. The top of his mom’s head barely reached his chest, but it didn’t matter – she was able to pull him down to her. “My boy!” Lidia sobbed into her son’s shoulder. Leon rolled his eyes; she did this literally every time she saw him. “Oh, Leon, I missed you so much! I never get to see you anymore!” She let go of him to take his hands. “Did any grandchildren come with you this time?”He wasn’t sure if she was joking or not. Leon cleared his throat, prying his hands out of his mother’s grip, and gathered Angela close to him. She felt tense beneath his touch.“Uh…Mom, this is my girlfriend, Angela.” Lidia gasped, her hands flying up to her mouth again. Her blue eyes grew wider than saucers as she gave Angela a thorough look-over. Leon flinched for Angela’s sake when Lidia launched herself at his girlfriend, but couldn’t help but grin a little when he saw the look on her face: that typical frozen smile, accompanied by a very awkward little laugh, newcomers to the farm had gracing their lips when Lidia threw herself all over them. “Somebody grab her a paper bag to breathe in before she passes out.” Leon turned his head to find that it was Marla, scowling over salads near the sink, that had spoken and he smirked; a more accurate statement had not been uttered all day. Lidia let go of Angela just long enough to exclaim that she was so excited to finally see her son settling down, and then immediately grabbed Angela’s hand and dragged her after, insisting she meet the rest of the family. All Leon could do was shrug apologetically and follow when Angela whipped her head around to look at her boyfriend and mouthed, “Help me!” “Leon!”Leon stopped in his tracks when he heard his name. It was Dana. She had looked up from whatever she was stirring and had bounced after him, grabbing his hand and smiling sweetly up at him. She hadn’t changed much in the four years since he’d seen her last, still all smiles all the time. She still lived at home with Lidia, helping out on the farm, since she wasn’t able to live on her own independently. He always felt a tinge of bitterness whenever he saw his youngest sister; not towards her, but towards their father, who had left their mother after she’d been born with Down’s. But he had such affection for her. She always knew how to make anyone smile. “Do you want to meet Angela?” he whispered to her. She nodded excitedly and he led her into the living room, hoping his mother hadn’t absconded with Angela and taken her hostage. The dining and living rooms were still upwards of deafening with all the chatter, screaming kids, and the noise of the vacuums, but all it took for Lidia to kill the racket was clearing her throat and clapping her hands twice. It took a few moments, but within a second or two, everyone was looking at their hostess. She brought Angela forward to stand next to her, but Angela grabbed Leon’s hand at the last second and dragged him with her, Dana pulled along beside him.“Everyone,” Lidia said, grinning from ear to ear. “This is Angela, Leon’s girlfriend.” She wiggled her eyebrows at the word girlfriend, like it was some great secret, though it wasn’t, really.Mary couldn’t do much except wave briefly from across the room, as she was still trying to keep the younger children from injuring each other, but the husbands and the older kids came forward to shake Angela’s hand and greet Leon after Lidia ducked back into the kitchen. Dana gave Angela a huge hug, something she clearly didn’t expect from her wide-eyed look but accepted gracefully. Angie’s smile was still shaky and nervous but she seemed somewhat more confident once all the greetings were over with. She chattered like a bird as they both went out to the car to retrieve their bags. Not for the first time, Leon noted that she was incredibly different in and out of the office. Work-Angie was composed and stand-offish, military-like. Nothing rattled her. Outside of work, not so much.Angela had relaxed somewhat by the time they’d unpacked. They’d taken some time to explore the room Lidia had put them up in. It wasn’t the house he’d grown up in – he’d grown up in Chesapeake – but his mom had kept quite a few of his old things, including several years’ worth of trophies from the varied sports he’d been in, and had tried to style this room like his old bedroom. Just like before, Angela listened with rapt attention as he explained particular memories associated behind certain items – victories against the rival high school in rowing or track, pennants from colleges he’d been hoping to be accepted to….He felt a sudden pang of sadness looking over all the memorabilia his mom insisted on keeping. His life hadn’t turned out the way he’d imagined it would when he was seventeen. But when he glanced over at Angela and saw the warm smile on her face, he figured it had been worth it. Leon’s mom and sisters were so busy preparing dinner that Lidia asked Leon if he’d help bringing in the animals for their own feeding. Angela jumped at the chance. When Leon raised an eyebrow at her, an indignant “What? I grew up around horses and I haven’t seen any in years,” was her response as she zipped up her jacket. “Okay, cowgirl,” Leon mocked, dodging out of her reach when she took a playful swat at him. She chased him out the front door, and they laughed their way down the path towards the fields. Leon could practically feel his mom’s eyes burning into his back from the kitchen window, but dismissed the thought when Angela stopped dead in her tracks. His mom’s big black mare was standing at the fence, still as stone, her ears pricked forward as she watched Angela intently. It was almost like a picture out of a fairy tale: mist rose from the horse’s nostrils in intervals, swirling around her head like smoke from a dragon’s mouth. She was a very large animal. Leon had always been a little intimidated by horses. They were huge and moody and likely to panic at the slightest anything. This one in particular seemed to love to chase him whenever she was given the opportunity. When his gaze turned back to Angela, however, she had dropped her gaze and turned sideways, clicking her tongue softly.“Hey, mama, hey” he heard her murmur repeatedly as she stepped sideways towards the animal. The horse began tossing its head stiffly. The three other horses had gathered nearby and were watching attentively. Leon started feeling uneasy, but Angela kept approaching. When she was within arm’s length, she extended her flat palm for the mare to sniff. Leon tensed without thinking about it, ready to step between her and the animal, but to his great surprise, the mare, who had terrorized him in the past, placed her nose gently in Angela’s hand. A huge smile broke out over Angela’s face.“Aw, grumpy old Uncle Leon was wrong about you,” she murmured to the mare while she stroked its neck, glancing back at him to stick her tongue out. He stuck his tongue out right back.“If you’re nervous around them, they’ll be nervous around you,” Angela explained, “If you show them you aren’t afraid of them, they won’t be afraid of you either.” Leon scoffed. “Yeah, I’ll remember that next time she’s trying to run me down.” Angela ignored him, instead taking a handful of the mare’s mane to lead it to the gate, clicking her tongue to encourage the other animals to follow. Leon was shocked when they slowly began picking their way over to her. He followed at a distance and helped Angela place them each in their respective stalls. Lidia and Dana appeared just as Angela slid the last stall door closed. Lidia was beaming.
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The rest of the time leading up to Thanksgiving went well, relatively speaking. Angela gained more and more confidence as time went on and she was laughing and joking with everyone by the holiday as though they’d all known each other their entire lives. They’d decided early on that the answer to the inevitable “So how did you guys meet?” was to just say at work. As far as anyone in his family knew, Leon was still a cop. As far as anyone in his family was going to know, so was she. She so expertly dodged questions and gave satisfactory generic answers, even Leon was impressed. She teased him over stories from his childhood and offered up stories from her own, though, Leon noted, they were carefully edited so as not to give too much away. All in all, everything was going swimmingly, and the dreamy smile on her face as they sat near the fireplace every evening told him she felt the same. It went so smoothly that everyone, including the husbands, sisters, and the kids, decided on a spontaneous game of touch football when Lidia went into town to buy more food. Leon and Angela’s team won on a touchdown that could only be described as heroic when Leon tossed Angela the ball, then proceeded to charge her, heave her over his shoulder, and sprint over the line into the makeshift end zone while she shrieked obscenities at him. It only worked because everyone else was too shocked at what he did to even attempt an interception. The hours leading up to dinner on Thanksgiving Day were tense, but only because Lidia was barking orders like an overseer in the kitchen, even at Angela, because, she said, it “makes you appreciate your food more if you make it yourself.” However, Angela was kicked out and appointed to babysit the children after several failed attempts at keeping peas from burning. When Leon managed to convince his mother that his bladder was about to explode and he was able to duck out of the kitchen for a few minutes, he glared at Angie and told her he knew she did that on purpose. She merely told him he couldn’t prove anything, grinning like a Cheshire cat before going back to playing with the younger girls in their dollhouse. Scott Kennedy did not make an appearance that year. Over pecan pie, Lidia expressed her disappointment at the empty chair. A tense silence fell over the table. No one had ever wanted to bring up their real feelings over the matter. “Mom, none of us ever really want him here.” The silence shattered and it had been Mary, usually the most likely of them to try to keep the peace, that had broken it. Lidia looked at her oldest child like she’d been slapped while everyone else looked on nervously. To everyone’s surprise, Lidia’s eyes began welling with tears. “But I thought you all liked having your dad here!” she cried. “I thought you wanted to have Thanksgiving dinners like you did when you were little!” “Mom,” Anna replied slowly, “we never said anything because we thought it was important to you. He’s a huge…jerk.” Leon had to hold back a laugh when he noticed his older sister censor herself for the kids and it was made even harder when he saw that the older boys were snickering themselves. Anna had let loose much more colorful words in regards to their father in the past. One withering look from their aunt, however, and the kids stopped their giggling cold. “But…” Lidia looked crestfallen. “I just wanted you all to be happy!” “We wanted you to be happy!” Anna and Mary replied in unison. A long and pregnant silence followed. Lidia was staring at her lap, appearing to be doing some deep soul searching. Leon glanced over at Angela on his left to see that her face was tense; stuck in the middle of family drama she wasn’t a part of, she felt as awkward about this as he did. Suddenly, Lidia reached out and drained her wine glass. Everyone around the table watched her anxiously. “All those years I’d been inviting that bastard,” she said thickly through a shaky smile, “and I could have just saved myself the aggravation. Somebody get me more wine.” The adults at the table (and the older kids at their grandma swearing) burst out laughing. Anna, Mary, and Marla got up from their chairs to hug their mom, tears of relief flowing freely. Angela got up to grab another wine bottle from the kitchen and new drinks were poured. The atmosphere relaxed quite a lot, and not just because of the alcohol. All the same, Leon avoided his mom’s eyes. He could feel her watching him and was worried about why. Guilt? Joy? He couldn’t decide and wasn’t sure he wanted to know right now. Later that night, after pie was eaten, dishes were washed, and kids were in bed, Lidia asked Angela in a timid voice if she could speak to her privately. Angela agreed, though not without throwing him an anxious glance as she left the kitchen to follow his mom out onto the screened-in porch on the back of the house. “Hope Angie makes it out alive,” whispered Marla as she helped Dana pack away leftover turkey. Leon snorted, but dread had settled in his stomach. Whatever it was his mom had to say, he just hoped it was good. It was nearly half an hour later, after Leon had gotten ready for bed out of not knowing what else to do, that Angela reappeared. He glanced up from his tablet, where he’d been reading the news, to see that her expression was reserved, to say the least, her arms crossed over her chest. She closed the door quietly behind her. “Hey,” he greeted her softly. “Hey,” was his stoic reply. Ok, that wasn’t good… “So…how’d it go? What did she want to say?” Angela didn’t say anything until she’d gotten into her pajamas and climbed under the covers next to him. “Well,” she started hesitantly as she settled in against her pillow, as though trying to find the words to say. “She started crying almost immediately.” Leon couldn’t help but laugh a little. That sounded exactly like his mom. “She asked me if I love you. I said I did.” Leon grinned at Angela, nudging her arm with his elbow, through he was really encouraging her to say more. His mom was honest and blunt and she didn’t just pull people aside to chat privately unless she had something of significance to say. Angela sighed heavily before she continued. “She talked about your childhood at first. She said your dad singled you out a lot because you were the only boy, that you’d wanted to go to college for biology but joined the police academy to impress him. She said your dad used to complain to her all the time about how he didn’t like how you were turning out, whatever that meant to him.” Leon felt his stomach clench. He’d heard his parents fighting about him as a kid, about how his dad thought he was turning out to be a nerd and a sissy instead of a real man while his mom argued that children should be allowed to follow whatever their passions were. He remembered thinking it was unfair that his dad felt this about him, as he never had claimed that his sisters were wusses for liking certain things. He hadn’t thought about that in years, shutting the memories away, and he wasn’t terribly fond of the reminder. If he hadn’t listened to his dad all those years ago, he never would have joined the police force and his life would’ve been much different. He let her go on without comment. “She said she knew you aren’t really a cop. You disappeared for a couple of years. Cops don’t just disappear, even if they move to another department. She’s seen you on TV before.” “What did you say to that?” Leon said quickly, feeling a moment of panic. For no reason, he knew. Angela worked Intel. There was no way she gave away anything, even to someone as good at wheedling out information as his mom was. Angela shrugged. “I didn’t say anything. Figured it was better to say nothing than try to deny it.” Leon nodded silently. Quite frankly, he was surprised nobody in his family had brought this up before. “Your mom kind of shook her head at that point. Said she realized it didn’t really matter what you were doing these days, or what I do, or how we met. That she knows she’ll never get the truth out of either of us. She can tell you’ve been affected by life circumstances, and that it kills her as your mom that she can’t make that better, but said she gets that there’s some things even a mother can’t help with. To my great surprise, she said she noticed that same look in me. She ended it all by hugging me and saying that she can see how much we care about each other, that she only wants you to be happy, and that she hopes we get married someday. Then she patted my cheek and left.” Leon looked over at Angela, who was staring at the ceiling. He was stunned slightly. His mom, his hardass Polish mother, who had raised five kids single-handedly with enormous love and strict discipline, who had scrutinized his sisters’ spouses down to the brands of clothing they wore, had essentially given her blessing for his relationship. Maybe time and several grandchildren had softened her some, but he certainly hadn’t expected that approval after meeting Angela one time. All the same, he couldn’t have been happier. He set his tablet down on the nightstand and settled down under the blanket, pulling Angela close to him. Her arms were still cold from standing out on the porch for as long as she had so he rubbed them gently, delighting in the slight shiver he elicited from her. “Happy?” she grinned at him, planting a long kiss on his cheek. “Yeah, I think so,” was his cheeky reply. “You?” “Considering how nervous I was to meet your mom, I don’t think this could have turned out much better.” Leon couldn’t have agreed more. The kiss he gave her was tender and sweet as he began to contemplate what their future together might hold. Marriage was certainly not off the table, he thought. “Wait, did you brush your teeth?” he asked her abruptly, realizing she’d gotten into her pajamas without going through the rest of her bedtime ritual and found himself unable to resist the urge to tease her about it in his giddiness. “Yes, I did,” she replied with mock haughtiness, “just after pie. I came up so I wouldn’t eat the rest of the tin, thank you very much.” “I don’t believe you. Didn’t see it, don’t believe it. Gross.” “Bite me, Kennedy.” She was smiling against his lips as he continued to kiss her. They fell asleep shortly thereafter, and Leon felt peace, for the first time in a long time.
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Theirs was not a normal relationship. His and Angela’s. Most people didn’t have careers that routinely involved risking their lives. Most people didn’t have significant others with careers that involved saving them. Not like they did. Leon mused on this as he sat, exhausted, in the hull of a DSO helicopter, headphones clapped tightly over his ears to dull the noise of the chopper’s blades, his flak vest providing familiar pressure to his chest as he tried to rest. The mission he’d just been extracted from had been a success by all accounts: his whole team had made it out alive with minimal injury. Colton had gotten a slash to the face from a would-be suicide bomber they’d caught unawares with vials of the latest virus on the black market (what letter were they on now?). The terrified man had been subdued, and the rest of the warehouse had been secured. It had been a feat with only eight people on the ground, but he trusted those guys with his life and it had paid off. “Great job closing that case, Leon,” crackled Hunnigan’s voice in his earpiece. He smirked lazily. She’d done a hell of a job hacking the wiring of the building so his team could surprise the men inside. They certainly wouldn’t have gotten away as unscathed as they were without her. As usual. “Sitting pretty in D.C., Hunnigan?” he spoke into the tiny mic next to his mouth. “See to it you do some actual work next time!” “I’m going to choose to ignore that,” sneered Hunnigan from the other end. He heard a soft beep, which meant that she had cut off communication to all the earpieces except for his. “Angela’s very anxious about you,” she continued. “She was running back-up for the bomb squad and that near run-in with that bomber you found had her pretty rattled. She almost didn’t disable the wiring in time. I’d get in contact with her ASAP.” “Got it. Thanks, Hunnigan.” Leon sat back in his seat, legs outstretched and crossed, but now his mind was working overtime. They still had over an hour until they were going to be back on the ground, so with half his crew asleep and the rest playing cards in the back of the chopper, he had little to do except mull things over. Now that he thought about it, the guy, the kid really, that they’d run into had had a detonator in his hands, and had clicked the button quickly once before pulling a knife on Colton, who had reached out to subdue him. Apparently, it was due to Angela’s quick thinking and faster fingers at her keyboard that they’d made it out alive. He felt a ball of anxiety form in his stomach, but then, an even stronger wave of affection crashed over him.It was rare that they worked together. Hunnigan saw to this, in order to minimize distractions while working. But they had been woefully short on Intel agents lately, as two were out after having babies and another three were sick with the flu. Despite any distractions or anxieties, Angela had come through and had saved his team.It was March now, four months since Angela had met his family over Thanksgiving, and their relationship had progressed further since. Over New Years, he’d met her twin brother, Kevin, Kevin’s wife, Charlotte, and their three kids, Katie, Angela’s beloved niece, and twin sons, Owen and Charlie. It had been the most nervous he’d been since he could remember. On the few occasions in the past that he’d met a significant other’s family, he usually made at least one off-color joke that soured the family’s feelings for him. Knowing how much Angela’s family meant to her made it all the more nerve-wracking.They’d gone out clubbing of all things, Kevin, Charlotte, Angela, and himself. How strange it had been, being over forty years old and in a club. Even stranger had been when Kevin had pulled him aside after Angela and Charlotte had made a beeline for the dance floor. Angela’s twin had essentially given him the same speech his mom had given her, right down to being asked if he loved Angela. It could not have possibly gone better. Kevin was not an emotional person and had clearly been uncomfortable confronting Leon about his sister, noting especially that Angela would not have been pleased knowing the conversation taking place, but he clearly cared about Angela enough to make sure she was happy. The Ivers stamp of approval had been placed on their relationship, and Leon had made love to Angela that night in their hotel with a special sort of passion.He’d been looking at rings. They’d talked about marriage, the two of them. The same old concerns came up, the ones that had prevented them for quite some time from making their relationship official. But, they figured, if they could overcome that insecurity once, they could do it again. Any time he came home more than a few minutes after when she felt he should be expected from an errand or from work, she looked at him with suspicion, thinking he’d been out to buy a ring. It was all in good fun, really. But little did she know, he was having one made.Hunnigan was helping him a lot, along with Charlotte, Angela’s sister-in-law. After a lot of stilted back-and-forth texting, he settled on a sapphire, as Angela’s favorite color was blue, in a round cut with tiny diamonds around the outside. Next had come the nerve-wracking task of finding out her ring size. She didn’t really wear much jewelry day-to-day. He’d had to pilfer her grandmother’s ring that she kept locked up in a keepsake box without her noticing, and it was only after he’d gotten to the jewelry shop that he realized he’d never seen her wear it and didn’t even know if it fit her. The shop owner reassured him that regardless of the size of the ring he proposed with, they could always come in to get it re-sized, which made him feel a little less worried. He just wanted it all to be perfect.He was still waffling on how he wanted to execute his plans when they finally touched down outside D.C. Almost as soon as the helicopter’s wheels touched down on the tarmac, however, his thoughts had to be directed elsewhere. Paperwork and reports had to be filed and each of his team members had to go through a post-field physical. Though he and his team had landed at around three p.m., he didn’t leave the office until past midnight. He texted Angela as soon as he climbed into his car, but didn’t expect she’d be awake at this hour. He knew she’d had a bunch of work to do at the office herself, so without a doubt, he knew she’d be as tired as he felt.To his surprise, she was awake when he got home. Dozing on the couch in her pajamas, but not dead asleep in bed. He tried to close the door quietly but she was yawning and stretching when he entered the living room.“Hey,” he murmured as he moved to set his bag down by the bedroom door. She didn’t respond at first, just stared at him with bleary eyes. He started to move towards her, but she beat him to the punch and was off the couch and in his arms before he could take two steps. One of his hands moved automatically to the back of her head when he heard her sniffle. She was not a crier – that mission had shaken her.Gently, he led her back to the couch. They held each other for a few minutes, Angela breathing deeply to stem her tears, Leon shushing her softly. Eventually, she pulled away to wipe at her eyes, mumbling an apology.“Sorry for what?” he replied, nudging her playfully. “For saving my ass?”“I almost didn’t,” she said thickly. “Some higher up for that group really thought things through. That cell had the most complex anti-hacking system surrounding their electrical network that I’ve seen in a long time. That kid surprised us all and it took me almost too long to realize he was holding a detonator. I had to flood the fuses to trick the bomb behind him into not blowing.”“But you weren’t too late,” he said soothingly, a hand now rubbing her back. “I’m still here. The whole team is still alive. Colton got it in the face, but he’ll be fine.”“That little shit,” Angela muttered, still sniffling. “Can’t tell you how many times he’s been told to wait before he puts his hands in things.”Leon laughed, relieved to know she felt a little better now that he was home. All he wanted at this point, however, was a shower and he parted from her with a lingering kiss. The hot water felt amazing on his aching muscles and sore back. He took a longer time than usual shaving and combing out his hair, just enjoying those few things he did to pamper himself. By the time he was finished in the now steam-clogged bathroom, Angela had pulled his bag to the closet door and was curled up in bed, half-asleep. He smiled down at her. Any thoughts or plans he might have wanted to share with her would have to wait until morning. Within moments after he’d slid under the sheets next to Angela, he was asleep, his heart swollen with love.
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He'd been having more nightmares lately.They varied slightly in their details but at their core, they were essentially the same: Angela was in danger. Either some monster dragged her, screaming, away into some dark unknown, or he could hear her yelling for his help but wasn’t able to find her, and in either situation, he was surrounded by zombies or Hunters or some other creatures that prevented him from getting to her. He would wake up cold and clammy every time but hadn’t found a good way to open up to Angela about it; he didn’t think that saying “You die in my dreams every other night” was a great topic of conversation.Three weeks had passed since that mission that had caused Angela to break down in his arms and they were currently in a private jet flying over the UK on their way to Paris for a security conference. Hunnigan wasn’t with them – she was in London for a smaller but similar sort of conference, but was supposed to be patched in so that she could listen to various talks and lectures on intel. Leon stretched in his seat, sliding a bit under his seatbelt, and watched Angela at her laptop. She was typing away furiously, the glare from the screen on her glasses obscuring her eyes. He was pretty bored, having finished all the work he’d considered necessary before he’d left the country, but he knew better than interrupt her, so he sighed quietly and sat back to look at her. It was strange being alone with her in this way. It was so rare, even though a lot of the people in the office had figured out that they were together by now and the need for secrecy and discretion was essentially unnecessary. For some reason he couldn’t put his finger on, as he gazed at her, an uneasy feeling settled over him. He almost always trusted his gut, so there had to be a reason for this. It couldn’t be the plane failing… Sure, parts broke down on planes all the time, but these were government-funded jets. The plane they were on probably had had more work done on it that cost more than his yearly salary before they’d even set foot in the airport, so that couldn’t be it. He tried to put it out of his mind. Both he and Angela would have a lot of work to do as soon as they touched down. He shut his eyes in the hopes of getting some rest before go-time.He wasn’t able to shake that feeling for most of the following week that they stayed in Paris. While he was able to put it in the back of his mind, he wasn’t able to get rid of it completely, save for one short evening when he and Angela were able to sneak away for two hours to go visit the Eiffel Tower. She looked like one of those vintage pin-up girls with her hair tied up in a ribbon she’d found and in a flowy blouse and knee length skirt, the lights from the tower giving her a soft glow and reflecting stars in her eyes. The dreamy smile on her face as they waited in line to get to the top caused his stomach to do somersaults. Her hand in his warmed him from the inside out. Her gasp of delight and wonder as they stepped out on the balcony at the top of the tower and looked out over the city and its rivers of lights made him forget he had ever had a care in the world.All too soon, they had to go back to the all-too corporate hotel next to the conference center, but they laughed together like guilty teenagers afraid of getting caught all the way back. Leon’s heart swelled to the size of the Eiffel Tower when Angela rested her head on his shoulder with a contented sign in the back of the taxi. Life was really good, he mused, smiling a little when the taxi driver gave him a wink in the rear view mirror. Once back at the hotel, professionalism took precedence but Angela still snuck him a quick kiss outside the door to the room she was sharing with a few of her co-workers, and Leon floated back to his own room, pondering once again how he was going to propose to the love of his life.The next day, however, four bombs went off in the conference center just as things were wrapping up and the attendees began to leave. Leon felt an instant, all-too-familiar sensation of adrenaline kick in as soon as he heard the first blast. Instinct and years of training made him drop to the floor under the nearest table, his arms covering his head as soon as he heard the first blast, his heart racing but his mind clear. Panic, his mortal enemy, set in, though, as the second, third, and forth blasts ripped through the center and the buildings rocked as though on a terrifying precipice: he didn’t know where Angela was. She was supposed to be in a last-minute meeting on intelligence efforts and was supposed to be meeting him out front.Slowly, far too slowly, the sounds of crumbling cement and falling ceiling tiles stilled and all that was left was the sound of crackling electrical wires and the moans and shouts of the injured. Leon glanced up from under his arms, ignoring the thick cement dust drifting down around him like snow, to survey the situation. Things didn’t look good. He’d been lucky enough to be out of the initial blast radius, but looking at the number of unmoving body parts poking up from underneath jagged cement blocks and shattered tiles told him all he needed to know. Whoever or whatever had set the bombs off had set them up on the roof of the center to deliver maximum damage, and it had certainly delivered.“Leon?!”His head whipped around to his right. Could it be true?He heard a desperate sort of thudding behind him. And his name being called again in a shrill, panicked, but very familiar voice.“Angie?!” He shouted back as he leapt to his feet and over a groaning, twitching body, not even aware of the clouds of dust that fell out of his hair and off his jacket. Not entirely sure what he was doing, he pounded on the wall where he’d heard that voice come from, knowing it wouldn’t magically reveal a path but needing to do something to get to her.“I’m trapped!” Was his reply. His heart sank. “I don’t think I’m hurt, but there’s all this debris around me and I can’t see anything. I don’t think I can get out on my own.”“Okay, Angie,” he called back to her. “I’m coming to get you! See if you can move any of the stuff around you!” Out of habit, he checked to make sure this his pistol was still holstered inside his jacket. Pulling it out, he gave it a quick once-over to make sure it hadn’t been damaged when he’d hit the floor and was relieved to see it was still intact and in working order. Its familiar heft and weight in his hand gave him a boost of confidence, and as he chambered a bullet and headed towards what used to be the door to the room, he told himself that everything would work out fine, Angie would be fine, they would both make it out unharmed and try to bring as many survivors with them. But no matter what he told himself, he couldn’t escape the creeping dread that the bombs were not the end of it. Not once in his life had it been any different.It was like hiking up a mountain, having to carefully pick his way over the debris. Some of the concrete floor had split and slid, like tectonic plates might in an earthquake, which had created mountains of obstacles that he had to scale and slide over, and the upended tables, chairs, and other flaming wreckage certainly didn’t ease his path. Sweat began beading on his forehead, though not entirely because of the physical effort of climbing. This side of the hall was eerily quiet, unlike the last room, which had been punctuated by the groans and cries of the injured. For just a brief moment, he glanced upwards – the ceiling in this part of the building was completely gone and he could see the moon shining down at him, taunting him with its serenity. Caution told him he needed to stay as quiet as possible – the last thing he needed in this moment was to attract the attention of whoever or whatever had set off those bombs. “Leon?”Angela’s voice came from somewhere in front of him, a muffled, desperate sound through the clatter of shifting rocks. A jolt of adrenaline shot through him when he saw the pile of crumbled ceiling tiles and cement in the corner of the room. If she was truly underneath that pile, it appeared that Angela had been smart enough or lucky enough to make for the corner, where the structure of the building was sturdiest, and hadn’t been completely buried and suffocated by debris. As quickly as he could, he made his way towards the pile, calling her name just to be sure he hadn’t imagined things. His hands on the shattered bricks, he called out to her again, and this time she answered.“Leon! Oh thank God, I heard a lot of sound out there, but I wasn’t sure it was you There’s been a lot of gunfire on the other side of the outside wall!”“I’m here, Angie, don’t worry! I’ll get you out of there!”Piece by tiny piece, Leon began to pull at whatever his hands could reach, and, slowly, he and Angela were able to create a small opening. Flashlight in hand, he peered into the hole they had created, Angie holding up her hand to her eyes in response to the bright light. The space underneath the debris was child-sized, only big enough for Angela to crouch in, but she said she had no broken bones and nothing had hit her head; her only injuries appeared to be two gashes on her forehead and thigh, and a cracked lens in her glasses. Lucky her, she’d been pulling her phones off their chargers at the plug in the corner when the bombs had gone off, and had had the sense to stay put. Several minutes of pulling and pushing later, they were able to create a hole large enough to pull Angela through.They embraced as though they hadn’t seen each other in years, Leon lifting Angela clean off the ground. A shaky smile on her face, she reminded him to set her down gently, as she was still wearing heels. He barked a laugh – as unfunny as their situation was at the moment, he couldn’t help but laugh at that. Gingerly, he lowered her until her feet were firmly on what used to be the floor of the center, but despite this, she still wobbled when he let go of her. Angela huffed out a steadying breath as she surveyed the scene and Leon could tell her thoughts were the same as his: they had to find survivors, to determine if there were any, but it would be a long and difficult road to safety. “Shall we?” Angela murmured grimly.“Yeah,” Leon replied in a low voice. He grabbed her shoulder gently just as she was about to step forward. “Hey,” he began, “I just need you to know, Angie, that whatever happens out there, whether we get separated or anything worse… I need you to know that I love you, okay?”Her smile was sunlight in the darkness of the room. “I know. I love you too, Leon. Watch my back?”He gave her a toothy grin right back. “Got it. You do the same.”With that, they set off as best they could. It was tough, slow going. Angela’s heels were not terribly tall and were perfectly practical in an office setting, but it made traversing over hills of rock and steel nearly impossible. The skirt on her suit restricted her movement, and the combination of the two almost caused her to slip more than once. Leon could feel his biceps aching from the effort of having to keep her upright when she faltered. Less experienced agents than they might be tempted to remove those damned heels, but they both knew it was better to have something on your feet than nothing when you didn’t know what you were stepping in. But he could sense her frustration with their situation; he could hear her grumbling every four-letter word in the dictionary under her breath. What felt like hours later, they finally reached what had been the front of the room, though the wall previously separating the room from what used to be the hallway had crumbled like a stale cracker when the bombs had gone off. The floor was mercifully flat a little further along, however, and Angela sighed gratefully when she could step on level ground.A loudspeaker still mounted on the wall crackled to life and the voice, or rather the words that were said, sent a chill down Leon’s spine.“Viva la France! Viva Svetlana Bellakova!”“Shit,” murmured Angela next to him. That was a perfect summation of how he felt. Though Angela had not been a part of his mission in the Eastern Slav Republic, she would have been briefed on the details, including, though not limited to, the rebel group’s use of B.O.W’s, and the B.O.W. breeding program that Svetlana Bellakova, now-fallen prime minister of the E.S.R., had kept in an underground bunker. It had been his most challenging mission to date, and Hunnigan still would not let him live down the fact that he’d turned off his communicators, even though U.S. drones under her command had been keeping cameras trained on him nearly the entire time he was there.If whoever had set off the bombs were Bellakova sympathizers, things were likely about to get a whole lot more interesting.
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As far as Leon was concerned, the overwhelming numbness he’d nestled himself in to in Colorado had been welcome. Far more welcome than the crushing guilt and pain, knowing that he couldn’t have done more to save his team. Far more welcome than the boiling anger at the man that had sold him out to the cell that they’d been assigned to secure and end.He couldn’t remember ever feeling worse before he’d buried himself in that bottle. In the corner of a mountain resort’s bar, he’d sucked down whatever liquor the bartenders would let him have like it was little more than water. Slowly, the constant pendulum swing between being drunk and nursing a hangover turned the howling hurricane of emotion into a void of nothingness. He’d felt nothing, thought nothing. He’d always loved mountains, but not even the stunning beauty surrounding him could stir him. The closest thing he’d come back to reality in the four weeks he’d spent sitting at that bar was the dozens of times Angela called him. The first time she had, he’d stared at the screen, unable to move to answer it and unwilling to summon the energy to do so. After what had to be the fortieth call, he’d simply turned off his phone.Then one afternoon, Chris Redfield and Rebecca Chambers had found him and asked him for his help. He’d resisted at first; he’d had enough of trying to save the world. But some mysterious bastards had kidnapped Rebecca, tried to kill himself and Chris, and had succeeded at killing Patricio. While he wasn’t sorry to see Patricio dead – after all, the son of a bitch had been the one to rat his team out to the terrorists they’d been tracking – hearing Patricio’s wife and daughter on the other end of the phone had shaken off the weight of his self-loathing. They had saved New York from a devastating virus, rescued Rebecca, and killed the latest bad guy. All in a day’s work, it seemed. Now he was on a plane bound for a BSAA compound in New Jersey back from NYC.Honestly, he had barely given Angela a thought since he’d shut off his phone so long ago, which caused a twinge of guilt to bite at his insides. All the same, he didn’t look to see how many messages she’d left or listen to what he imagined would have been increasingly hysterical voicemails. He’d deal with it, eventually. She’d recovered just fine from the encounter in Paris with Bellakova sympathizers, and they were engaged! Had a date set for the wedding even. He doubted she’d leave. He’d had enough of guilt for the time being to face her right now.Unfortunately, he didn’t have much choice in that matter.He happened to glance out the plane window as it settled slowly down on to the tarmac and thought he saw two figures in the distance; though their forms were blurry in the rippling heat from the plane’s engines, he could make out that one of them had bright red hair. He dismissed the idea almost immediately – Angela would have no way of knowing where he was or why. Slowly, he, Chris, Rebecca and the rest of the BSAA members with them gathered up their gear and left the plane. Leon barely registered the curious stare Chris was giving the two figures, who were now directly in front of them, which turned out to be a mistake.He was too absorbed in attempting to get Chris to discuss their next moves to notice that the two figures were moving rapidly towards them. He recognized the brunette figure first as Hunnigan and a split second later realized the redhead was indeed Angela. In the brief moment it took for his heart to drop into his stomach, Angela had stridden towards him, her face twisted in an ugly, furious snarl, pulled her hand back, and slapped him hard across the face. He could see stars pop in front of his eyes, only vaguely able to hear Chris yelling and Angela’s shrieking replies. His hand floated sluggishly up to the side of his face to touch the red-hot spot on his cheek where her palm had struck him. Before he’d had time to truly register what had just happened, he felt a sharp sting right under his neck and then saw a sparkling flash land on the ground nearby.Angela had thrown her engagement ring at him.Leon only watched her numbly as she stalked away across the tarmac, a frazzled Hunnigan trailing in Angela’s crackling wake while Chris bristled beside him. He didn’t notice that everyone nearby was staring either at Angela’s retreating back or directly at him until Rebecca, her eyes wide in surprise, exclaimed, “Who was that?!”All eyes were on him in that moment. His reply came out in a flat voice, one he almost didn’t recognize as his own.“That…I guess that was my fiancée.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
He wasn’t proud of it, but he spent the next week drinking, too. Too ashamed and embarrassed to face Angela, he drowned himself once again in a bottle in a dark corner of a hotel in midtown D.C. Eventually, however, he realized he’d run out of clean underwear and, with zero desire to find a laundromat, he had to concede that he had to go back to the condo they shared. He compromised with himself – he’d go back during the day when she was likely still at work to avoid a direct confrontation but would leave a note along with her ring. He had no use for it and could hardly stand to look at it. The glimmer of the sapphire was far too similar to the glimmer of tears in her eyes when he’d proposed. It hurt too much to hold on to it. On the cab ride over, he dared check the messages she’d left him. Just as he’d feared, as time had gone on, the voicemails and texts had become more and more frequent and increasingly desperate, for a grand total of one-hundred-and-two calls and texts. Uncomfortable with the flood of guilt and shame rising in his body, he pinched the bridge of his nose hard, exhaling deeply to try and quell the waters. He didn’t even want to try to think what he would actually do once he actually got to the condo. He’d have to deal with it once he got there. The building was blessedly quiet. He waved halfheartedly at the doorman as he hurried inside, thankful he’d reached the elevators before he could be asked how he was doing or where he had been, using the minute or so the elevator climbed to formulate a haphazard strategy of what he was going to grab, in what order, and an exit strategy. He hated that he was so nervous; his hands shook a little as he reached for his keys. It was all for nothing though. His key wouldn’t fit in the lock – sometime in the time he had been gone, Angela had changed them out. He slumped against the wall next to the door, feeling angry and defeated, sinking slowly down to the floor. He’d have to wait for Angela to come home and deal with her face-to-face if he wanted his things. Hours later, he woke with a start, smacking the back of his head squarely on the wall behind him. He had dozed off a long time ago, but something in the air felt dangerous, electric. On instinct, he glanced to his right and what he saw, or rather who, caused his heart to race immediately. Angela stood at the end of the hallway by the elevator, her face hidden in shadow as she silhouetted against the setting sun by the windows behind her. From his position on the floor, Leon thought she looked quite imposing; though he easily had six inches and fifty pounds on her, he couldn’t help but feel like he’d disturbed the den of a mother bear. Cautiously, he got to his feet, holding the duffel bag he’d brought with him in front of himself, as though he could use it as a shield against her piercing gaze. He couldn’t see her eyes, but he could feel them on him and it made him shiver. They stood there, eternity stretching out before them, simply staring.Angela broke the stand-off first. She slowly began to walk towards him, rummaging in her purse for her keys without meeting his gaze, only the sound of her heels clacking against the hardwood floor breaking the silence. When she did come near, he couldn’t help but feel confused – she didn’t look angry, just very tired. “Sorry about the locks,” she almost whispered, her voice so quiet it took him a second to realize what she’d said. “Spur of the moment thing.” Leon didn’t say anything. He didn’t think anything he could say would help the situation anyway. He followed her at a bit of a distance once she unlocked the door and let him inside, acutely aware of how close she had to come to him in order to allow him to slide past her in the narrow entrance hall. Out of habit, he started to take his shoes off but stopped, expecting a snide remark or something, anything, but Angela was already off down the hallway. He followed gingerly, trying to make as little noise as possible, unable to shake the feeling that he was about to face down a snarling beast. His heart lurched a little when he heard the familiar clink of keys as she hung her set up over the marble-topped sideboard near the kitchen she’d been so proud to buy. Feeling the prickle of a tear in his eye, he stopped abruptly at the beginning of the hallway, staying in the shadows so that Angela wouldn’t see him. A few moments later, she appeared from the dark hallway that lead to the bedroom, wearing black yoga pants and a plain gray top and looking more worn than ever. She seemed determined not to look at him. He watched her as she bustled around the living area of the condo, fussing with things in her bag and on the coffee table in a way that did not fit her usual quick-witted and overly efficient self. She only looked his way when the awkwardness had gotten the better of him and he cleared his throat nervously. “Feel free,” she said, her voice still flat and quiet, as she pointed towards a corner of the living room, where several cardboard boxes stood stacked by the TV stand. He paused for a moment. Why in blue hell had she put his stuff in boxes? Indignation made him brave, so he asked as much but regretted it almost as soon as the words left his lips. Though Angela’s back was turned to him by the refrigerator, he could see the muscles in her shoulders tense under her shirt and felt the air turn electric and sharp with her brewing anger. She said nothing, however, and went about pulling things out of the fridge as though he hadn’t said anything at all. Leon watched her for a few seconds, the pain he’d been avoiding for the past week now coming to the surface. She of all people should understand what he’d been going through. But now she was giving him nothing but a cold shoulder. Sure, he supposed he shouldn’t have expected a warm welcome after leaving without so much as a note but a little understanding would have been appreciated! With a frustrated sigh, Leon made his way towards the stack of boxes. Annoyed and hurt as he was, instinct told him to make as little noise as possible, so he knelt in the soft white rug and pulled the closest box towards him, taking care to open the folded top gently. While the bitterness of the pain he felt caused him to expect his things to have been thrown in haphazardly, what he found made his heart lurch again: all his stuff had been carefully organized, almost lovingly so. Angela had even folded his t-shirts and underwear. Though it wasn’t just his clothes she’d put away. In another box, he found books, even his grandmother’s china plates wrapped up in newspaper. Was this really it? Leon wasn’t sure if it was pain or stupidity that caused him to pull Angela’s engagement ring out of his pocket, walk over to the kitchen, and set it down on the kitchen island next to her hand. Maybe he wanted some kind of reaction from her, something to tell him that this wasn’t the end, that she’d just been angry and hurt and that things would go back to being the same. He didn’t know. But all she did was stare at the ring, unmoving.He cleared his throat awkwardly again. “I thought you might…I thought you might want this back.” Angela’s response was startling to say the least. “Un-fucking-believable,” she murmured, still frozen. Thick, sticky tension erupted between them. Resentment once again raised its ugly head in Leon, clenching on his stomach with a sickening grip. But before he could even open his mouth to retort, she looked up at him, her sharp blue gaze piercing him to his core. There were no tears in her eyes, only coldness. “What makes you think I would want this?” Her voice was equally as cutting as she stared at him full-on, its bitter, angry edge surprising him more than if she’d outright shouted at him. He floundered for a response, only managing to splutter, “I-I didn’t think…” “That’s right, you selfish son of a bitch, you didn’t fucking think.” Anger flooded in his veins and he found his voice again. “Now wait just a fucking minute here,” he demanded to her now-turned back. “That isn’t fair!” Angela whirled around, throwing the pan she’d had in her hand into the sink in the island with such force that the noise could’ve woken the entire city. Her face was contorted with anger, her gaze wild and furious. He’d finally done it – he’d woken the beast. “Excuse me?! Excuse me?!” The sharp shriek of her voice caused a shiver to run down Leon’s spine. His jaw fell open as Angela launched into a tirade, her body shaking from unbridled rage. Her anger filled the whole room and threatened to engulf him. “Your mission failed and you fucking disappear! Protocol, Leon, states that you must contact headquarters after the completion of a mission. You made a thirty second phone call to HQ which consisted of absolutely nothing and then fucking no word for a goddamn month! I’m your fucking fiancée, Leon! I called you a hundred times and got nothing. Do you even remember what you do for a living?! Do you remember how often team members go missing then turn up dead?! Did it cross your mind that no one knowing where you were could lead to some assuming that you were dead or worse?! I grieved your sorry ass. I cried for two weeks over a stupid fucking t-shirt. I had to think about calling your mother and telling her that you were missing! And then I come to find out from Ingrid that you were safe and sound in Colorado all along, drinking and feeling sorry for yourself!” “HQ knew where I was!” Leon retorted but it only seemed to add fuel to Angela’s already raging fire. Her palm slapped down hard on the quartz countertop and he winced at the sharp sound. “And you think they’d tell me anything about the situation? If you did, you were sadly fucking mistaken, Leon! Might I remind you that nobody knows about our engagement, so why in the fuck would HQ divulge anything to me when I’m not related to any of your ongoing missions as of late?! It was Ingrid that let me listen to the voicemail you had left them and she could have lost her job for it!”
Leon was ashamed to admit it, but he hadn’t thought of it that way. As ensconced in grief and guilt as he had been, he hadn’t even thought that Angela wouldn’t have had any way to know what was going on if he didn’t tell her himself. What she’d said had been true: it was an unfortunate reality that field agents didn’t always make it back. Though the DSO had resources aplenty, they didn’t always find a body either, and as lucky as he had been in the past, he never went into a mission expecting anything, including coming out unscathed. Her assumption that maybe he had been killed along with his team was reasonable, and, therefore, so was her reaction. He was immediately humbled. “Angie,” he said slowly as he shoved his hands awkwardly into his jacket pockets, hoping she could cease her tirade for a moment so he could get this out. He was feeling particularly vulnerable in this moment, unused to apologizing, and wasn’t sure he’d be able to take much more shouting. “Look, Angie, I’m sorry. Please. I didn’t think and it was selfish and I never wanted to hurt you. Please.” Once again, her response was completely unexpected. Instead of continuing to yell like he thought she might, her face crumbled as a lone tear streaked its way down her cheek. A split second later, she turned her face from him and covered it with her hand, backing up so she was leaning against the refrigerator door. Her sobs were silent but her whole body shook with the force of them. His heart dropped into his feet. It was one thing seeing her rage, but it was another thing entirely seeing this silently strong woman break down this way. She neither said anything nor moved, so against his better judgment, he made his way around the kitchen island to gingerly put his hand on her arm. He was surprised when she didn’t pull away or push him off. All the same, he flinched a little when she spoke again, her voice shrill and thick with choked tears. “You don’t have a fucking clue, Leon,” she mumbled through her fingers. “I cried for weeks. The day I heard they weren’t looking for bodies anymore… I thought you were dead! I thought you were never coming back!” Leon felt her pain squeeze tightly around his heart, waves of it ringing like echoes in his chest – he had truly hurt her. The full weight of what he had done settled heavily on his shoulders. Tentatively, he moved to wrap his arms around her, having no idea what else to do but wanting to help ease her pain somehow. She only cried harder as he pulled her close and did not reciprocate his embrace. She kept her arms tight to her chest, one of her hands still over her mouth to stifle the sound of her sobs. He felt her stiffen when he kissed the top of her head, but she buried her face in his chest when he began to whisper, “I’m so sorry, Angie.” Slowly, her crying quieted, though she still shivered like a leaf in his arms. What she said next, however, hit him harder than any punch or bullet he had ever taken. “I’m quitting the DSO.” Leon let Angela go quickly as though she had burned him, his brow furrowing as his brain attempted to catch up with what she said. Quitting…? Why? She couldn’t meet his eye. She stood at the corner of the countertop, her eyes still leaking, chewing on her thumbnail. He couldn’t find the words. What on Earth was happening? With a deep sigh, she finally spoke in a shaking, teary voice. “I can’t keep going back to that office. It was painful enough when I thought you were…when I thought you were gone, and it’s just too much now that you’re back… My last day is next month, and then I’m selling this place and moving to Baltimore to be closer to my brother.” Leon’s entire existence went numb. It was though all the happiness in the world had been sucked out, and he couldn’t breathe. So this was it. It was really, truly over. He screwed up his eyes against the suddenly too-bright light in the kitchen, though whether it was to quell the headache beginning to pound behind his forehead or to stop himself from crying, he wasn’t sure. When he was finally able to open his eyes again, he saw that Angela was staring at him with a sort of imploring and desperate resignation he had never seen on her face before as tears streaked shiny gray trails down her cheeks and neck. “I didn’t want it to be this way,” she murmured, as though she was pleading with him to understand why she’d upended his life. The worst part was, he did understand. He felt a sting at the corner of his eye and the floodgates opened, hot tears pouring out. He dug the heel of his palm into his eye, trying his best to stem the flow, knowing it wouldn’t work but disappointed all the same when it didn’t. “I know,” he sighed heavily, “I didn’t either.” Her sharp shell melted away and she allowed him to stay that night. At first, they spent hours on the couch, both of them crying, quietly remembering good times. She laughed a sad laugh when he recalled their first real date, where they’d both had one too many drinks and he’d climbed a street sign that had her name on it with the intention of stealing it and he’d fallen off and nearly broken his tailbone. She recalled the secret glances they’d shared on the trip to Paris they’d taken to that international security conference; very few others besides Hunnigan had known anything about them at the time and so they weren’t able to do more than exchange quick smiles or brushes of hands, but he’d held her hand tightly when they’d climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower and tried to convey how deeply he loved her as he laced his fingers with hers. Eventually, exhaustion led them both to the bed. Leon was secretly surprised Angela was allowing him to sleep in the same room, but the truth was, neither of them slept. The reminiscing continued there. As much as Leon wanted to hold Angela, hoping her physical closeness would distract from the throbbing wound in his heart, she wouldn’t let him, because, she said, it would only make her cry harder. As a compromise, she let him hold her hand, and he took the opportunity to try to convey every happy moment they’d shared in the squeeze of his palm over hers. Before he knew it, it was morning and Leon woke with a start from a half-sleep he didn’t know he’d slipped in to find that he was alone. His head sank back into his sun-drenched pillow; the pain from the night previous had evolved into a dull throbbing ache in the pit of his stomach, and he found himself annoyed with the sun. It almost seemed rude that it could shine when he felt so awful. Slowly, the sound of the shower hit his ears and for some odd reason, this just caused a pang of sadness to lurch in his gut. Was this the last time he was going to wake up like this, safe and comfortable in the bed they’d shared for almost a year now? Was this the last time he would listen to the soft patter of shower water on tile as Angela sang softly to herself? When she finally emerged from the bathroom, she came out fully dressed and looking careworn. Just like the night before, however, she went about her business as though he wasn’t even in the room. That, he thought, was almost worse than the angst ocean he’d shared with her not more than six hours ago. Both out of respect for Angela’s space and out of a desire to not stay where it hurt the most, he checked into a hotel later that afternoon so he could search for apartments without disturbing the delicate thread of civility their silences had spread between them. Every few days, he would go back over to collect more boxes, but Angela would mostly stay shut in the bedroom. More than once, he thought he felt her staring at him, but couldn’t see her eyes from the dark behind her door. Work wasn’t any easier. They weren’t able to avoid each other – too many of their projects intersected, even if they weren’t directly involved with each other. For her part, Angela was able to keep up the charade that nothing had gone on, like their relationship had never existed, and Leon hoped he was at least outwardly able to do the same. But all the same, it stung that she seemed so cavalier about the whole thing. He certainly didn’t feel it was so easy to pretend he’d never shared a life with her, even if it already seemed so far away. He dreamed about her almost nightly, always the same one where she looked at him with stars in her eyes and a laugh on her cherry-red lips as he climbed that street sign with her name on it until he was swallowed by the night sky. He would wake in the middle of the night with his eyes streaming. Once he got his own apartment, the bottle became his friend every night before bed in the hopes that the alcohol would help him slip into a deeper sleep where Angela didn’t dwell. The end of April came and went and so did Angela’s last day at the DSO. It was a day like any other for the most part; the higher-ups weren’t exactly known for their sense of spontaneity or fun so there was no goodbye party, which Leon was grateful for. As was so common these days, he felt a stab of bitterness burn in his chest when he passed by her empty desk that day to see it littered with cards from others on staff wishing her well, Hunnigan’s glittery one displayed brightly on top. He hadn’t thought it would be welcome or appropriate to give her anything, given her reaction to his attempt to return her engagement ring. He wondered briefly if this was a mistake or if she’d even notice. He decided it didn’t matter and walked away, a tingling hollowness consuming him from the inside.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Five months went by. Leon slowly became more and more numb to the ache in his chest and he eventually stopped dreaming of Angela, though it was not uncommon to see him throwing back a few shots before bed just in case. Once or twice, he’d gotten brave enough to go on a date or two with a woman who had given him her number at the grocery store and another that worked in a Starbucks across the street from the DSO building. Both dates hadn’t gone anywhere (or, honestly, had ended in disaster in the case of the woman from Starbucks when she’d seen a picture of Angela on his phone), but he counted both as victories, as a way to separate his present from the past. Work went on as normal. Missions came and went. The only thing that seemed to change was the seasons.It was only at night, laying in the dark by himself, that Leon was honest with himself: he missed her. He missed arguing over who got to play music over the car speakers on the drive home. He missed the fresh, flowery scent of the shampoo she used. He missed the way she kissed him. He missed the way her whole face would light up when she smiled. He missed the overwhelming blue of her eyes. He missed her stubborn determination and her organized chaos. He just missed her. But he had to move on from her somehow. What choice did he have?His plans for that, however, were interrupted one stormy day in early October. He was going about his work day like usual, or at least as much as he could, as distracted as he was by the rain lashing against the tinted windows of the DSO building. He’d been staring at the same sentence of the report he was supposed to be drafting without really comprehending what he was reading when his personal phone lit up on the desk beside his hand. He nearly jumped out of his chair and then looked around guiltily; he wasn’t really supposed to have his personal phone on him, but no one seemed to have noticed. Mollified that no one was going to scold him, he casually glanced down at the vibrating screen, not really intending to answer, but he did a double take when he saw who it was: Kevin Ivers, Angela’s twin.He stared at his phone, his eyes now the size of saucers. Outside of the one time he’d met Kevin and his family, he had never really spoke with the man. Why was he calling now?That old bitterness that had been his stable companion in the past several months told him firmly to let the call go to voicemail. Still, against his better judgment, Leon stared at the screen for a few minutes, waiting to see if the caller would leave a message. They didn’t. He was surprised to note that he felt pretty frustrated at this. Why disturb his work day and then not leave a message explaining why?He decided to put it out of his mind. He was mostly able to keep this promise to himself until he was on his way home. He debated with himself the entire drive back to his apartment whether he should call back at all. It wasn’t until he had parked his car that curiosity and a weak sense of hope got the better of him. With an irritated sigh, he pulled up the menu in his phone for missed calls, pressed Kevin’s number, and hit call.A part of him hoped that Kevin wouldn’t answer; after all, it was ten p.m. on a Wednesday. Kevin’s children were likely all in bed for school the next day, and he probably didn’t want to disturb them. But Leon was curious, so very curious… A vague sense of nausea washed over him when he heard noise on the other end, a rattle and a “thud” like the closing of a sliding door, and then a quiet, almost whispered “Hello?”“Uh… hey. It’s Leon. I missed your call earlier.”“Yeah, hey, Leon. I figured you wouldn’t answer, but I wanted to give it a shot anyway.”“Uh…sure. So... well, what’s up?”“It’s Angie-““Is she ok?”“Yeah, she’s fine… Leon, this is very weird to talk about. And honestly, if Angie wasn’t out right now, I wouldn’t have answered. She’d kill me if she knew I was talking to you, especially about what I’m about to tell you. As it is, I don’t think I have much time until she gets back.”Leon held his breath. Was Kevin really going to say what a tiny, very lonely part of his soul hoped he would hear for the past five months? He heard a very deep, sad sigh from the other end of the phone.“Leon, you know I love my sister a lot. And it’s been great having her here. She’s been a great help with the kids. Katie, Char, and the boys love having her here. I love having her here too. And she’s keeping herself busy. She’s taking dance classes down at the community center, even. But if I’m honest… she’s not happy here. I’m glad she’s not here right now to hear me say this, because like I said, she’d probably chew my face off if she knew… But she misses you. Like, a lot. She misses her old life more than I think she cares to admit.”Leon gulped in air, feeling like he couldn’t drink in enough. His heart was pounding. This had been exactly what he’d been hoping to hear. But now that he’d heard the words, he wasn’t sure what to do.“Look,” Kevin continued, taking Leon’s stunned silence as uncertainty. “I don’t know if this is a good idea or not. Char wasn’t even sure. But… well, our birthday is next weekend. Angie’s and mine. And Char and I wanted to invite you up here and you two could have dinner or something. Ignite the old spark or…I don’t know, Leon. All I want is my sister to be happy. When she was with you, she was the happiest I’d ever seen her, even when we were kids. I mean, you pulled a dick move, but as much as she hates to admit it, she sort of understands why you did it too. I’m not in any position to judge, and she won’t tell me all the details anyway. All I know is she deserves a world of happiness and even being around family isn’t going to give that to her. I think the person that can is you.”Leon’s free hand flew up to his face to rub agitatedly at his forehead – two sides were at war with each other inside him now. One side told him no, absolutely not, going would be a mistake and would reopen all the wounds he was just now recovering from and what could possibly be gained from that except wasted time? The other side, the side that had been quietly hoping that either Angela would contact him or that he could somehow muster up the courage to contact her, was screaming that this was his only chance to rebuild the life he’d shared with the only person he could honestly say he loved with all his heart.“Hey, man, I’m sorry, I understand I’m asking a lot of you here and I get it if you’d rather not-““I’ll go,” Leon blurted out. He sighed heavily, feeling uncertain and shaky knowing that that little bit of his soul that was still so blindly in love with Angela had won out.“I’ll go,” he repeated, as though saying it again would solidify the plans so they couldn’t be broken.“Ok, man,” Kevin replied awkwardly, apparently as surprised as Leon was at his sudden outburst. “See you a week from Saturday. I’ll text you the address.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The next week and a half flew by faster than Leon had ever known time to go, and before he knew it, Saturday had arrived and he was putting his packed duffel bag into the trunk of his car without even really knowing how he’d gotten there. He had hardly slept the night before for nerves and they weren’t showing any sign of easing up as he shut the driver’s side door and started the engine. The GPS showed it was about an hour door-to-door from his apartment complex to Kevin’s house. The entire hour was spent mulling over the text conversation he’d had with Kevin and Charlotte a few nights prior.The couple had decided it would be best not to surprise Angela with Leon’s arrival and Angela had taken it about as well as could be expected. That was to say, not well at all. She had been absolutely furious hearing the news, according to Kevin. It had been a good thing, they’d said, that the kids were all at Charlotte’s parents for the afternoon that day, because Angela had released a screaming fit the likes of which neither of them had ever heard. After almost an hour of trying to placate her and reason with her, Charlotte had told him, Angela had either cried herself out or somehow her residual feelings for Leon had won, maybe both. She’d agreed to the visit. While Leon was not surprised in the least that Angela had been angry, it didn’t lessen his anxiety any. He wasn’t keen to be on the receiving end of another slap.His first stop in Baltimore was at the hotel he’d gotten for the next few days to drop off his bag, then onward to the Ivers’. Twenty minutes later, his heart was racing faster than ever when he put his car in park in front of the Ivers’ house on a quiet street about twenty minutes outside the city center.“This is fucking suicide,” he murmured to himself, his hands shaking as he removed the keys from the ignition and opened the car door. The Ivers family certainly did seem to live well… The front lawn was nicely manicured, the fence freshly stained… It reminded him a lot of the house he’d grown up in in Virginia. His inane, almost babbling musing was interrupted when he saw Kevin waving at him from the front window. His heart gave that familiar lurch and he had a strong desire to get back in his car and drive back home, but somehow, he resisted and made his way up the driveway to the front door.Kevin met him on the front porch, looking just as nervous as Leon felt. They shook hands briefly before Kevin filled him in in a low voice.“She’s out back with Charlotte. The kids and the dogs are all in the basement right now so they won’t disturb you. Char and I agreed that we’ll be as in the way as you want us to be. If you need us, give us a text. Just try to remember, she’s really nervous too. Good luck, man.”Leon nodded and steadied himself, finding it a little funny that Kevin had wished him luck. He had a feeling he’d need it. He almost laughed out loud when Kevin absentmindedly tapped his right cheek – he had a feeling Angela’s twin had gotten a physical reminder of her displeasure from her flying palm. He followed Kevin through the house to the back porch, butterflies threatening to burst out of his stomach.Then he saw her.Angela was pacing back and forth next to the porch swing, upon which Charlotte was sitting. Both had a cigarette in their hands, but Angela’s was tensed between two fingers, as though she might snap it in two at the slightest provocation. But Leon wasn’t paying any attention to Charlotte or the porch or the cigarettes. All he saw was her.She’d let her hair grow out long since the last time he’d seen her, and she was wearing it down, something he had rarely ever seen except at night. Now it fell to her mid-back and framed her face just beautifully. And even though it was early October, she still had a tan, which brought out the already stunning blue of her eyes. She looked as fit and healthy as he had ever seen her, her long legs accented by black heels and a black satin dress that fell only to the middle of her thighs. She was also wearing a black sweater, however, and he had a feeling it had more to do with uncertainty and nerves than it did with the chill in the air. He didn’t care. She was as stunning as ever.She stopped short when she saw him standing in the doorway and looked for a brief moment like she might throw up, though she finally managed a shaky little smile as she stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray on the porch railing. He heard Kevin clear his throat behind him and his brain caught up with the moment. With an awkward attempt at a debonair grin, he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket to pull out the birthday card he’d gotten her. He’d had the worst time picking it out, finally settling on a generic-enough sounding one without any romantic overtones and peacock feathers drawn in glitter on the front, since he’d remembered her favorite color was teal. He just hoped she liked it, or, at the very least, didn’t throw it in his face.“Happy birthday,” he said, holding the card out to her. He noted her hands were shaking a little when she stepped forward and took it from him. He searched her face as she read it but as far as he could tell, her smile was genuine as she read what he’d written. It wasn’t anything special, nothing to reveal how often he’d thought of her since she’d left, just wishing her happiness for the coming year. He’d never been good at writing out cards anyway. So he was surprised and very pleased when she leaned in to kiss his cheek with a murmured thank-you.“Well!” proclaimed Charlotte from the porch swing. Both Leon and Angela jumped; they’d been too busy paying attention to each other that they’d forgotten that both Kevin and his wife were watching. “You two kids have fun, ok?” Charlotte continued, taking the card from Angela’s hands and giving the two of them parting hugs before ushering them quickly out the front door.Though being essentially forced to leave the house with his ex-fiancée without any sort of getting-to-know-you-again period was unceremonious at best, Leon was grateful to Angela’s family. Both Charlotte and Kevin obviously loved Angela very much and wanted her to be happy and had clearly gone through a lot of trouble setting this meeting up for the two of them. But all he could hope for at this point was for the evening to be civil. He’d had enough of disappointment for the time being.He was pleasantly surprised that conversation between himself and Angela was actually quite nice on the drive to the restaurant. She didn’t give him one-word answers to his questions about what she was doing these days; in fact, it was quite the opposite. It almost felt like the days before they’d really become serious at all, back when he’d first discovered she’d been working for the same agency and they’d reconnected. He learned she hadn’t truly retired from the DSO – essentially, the agency had refused point-blank to let her go completely and, in a compromise, she was running intelligence from an agency-issued laptop from the comfort of her living room, though not working directly with any agents.She laughed genuinely at his terrible jokes that he told out of nerves, throwing back her head into the headrest and flexing her feet the way she did when she really thought something was funny. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, but went along with it anyway, laughing with her, not sure how to address the empty pit in his stomach that had been starving for her affection for the past five months. She seemed to be dancing around the topic too; the questions she asked him were light and generally about work or about what this or that person was doing these days, and she made very little reference to their former life together.Still, even though he wished with all his might that he could spill his guts out in front of her, it was just so nice to be in her presence again. She’d always had an easy grace about her, something she’d probably carried with her since her days training in ballet. And it was just so fucking easy to be with her. That, more than anything else, caused his heart to ache. He had really truly missed her.Dinner continued on much the same. They went to Angela’s favorite seafood place down by the water in downtown Baltimore, Bertha’s. He laughed when she mock-whispered to him not to tell any locals, but she went there for the steak, not the fish.“Can’t take the farm out of the farm girl,” she joked in a poorly-done Southern accent as she took a bite of her rare rib-eye. He chuckled in response, spooning some clam chowder into his mouth as he realized this was the most he’d really smiled in quite some time.“So,” she spoke suddenly after a few silent moments of eating, “have you been seeing anyone lately?”Leon’s eyes shot up from his bowl to scan Angela’s face. Her expression was frustratingly neutral. He decided honesty was the best policy in this case. He had little to gain from lying. With a noncommittal shrug, he answered.“No, not really. I went on a few dates but they didn’t go anywhere.”The part of himself that was invested in protecting his heart was loudly demanding he not ask the same of her. But a desperate sort of curiosity caught hold of his tongue first. He asked her and was a bit surprised when she snorted into her half-eaten fries.“I went on a few with one guy and then one or two with one other,” she replied in a wry voice as she wiped her hands on her napkin, “but both ended up a total disaster.”Leon couldn’t help that smile that broke his lips at her response. He felt a wild pleasure squirm in his stomach to know that she was still untethered… He still had a chance. He hoped badly he still had a chance.“And I’m glad,” she continued. “Neither of them came close to you. I…please don’t get a big head here, but I…I really missed you, Leon.”Leon’s heart leapt into his throat. If he was expecting anything, it hadn’t been that. Her hand was resting next to her plate as the other was occupied with her fork. She was seemingly determined to look at anything but him. Without knowing or caring what possessed him to do so, he reached out across the table and grabbed her hand. At first, she made to pull it away, but decided against it, finally meeting his gaze. Leon shivered; that electric connection that had made their beginnings so exciting was still burning bright.“I missed you, too,” he murmured. Angela shivered in turn.The next half hour or so was a total blur. He couldn’t remember asking the waiter for the check or who paid. The next thing he knew, he was driving back towards his hotel, which was blessedly less than a mile away, Angela beside him and her hand in his. He parked haphazardly, nearly running into the cars nearby, anxious to get her out of the car and into his room. That spark that had passed between them had fanned itself into a flame that had settled into his groin, and he nearly groaned with desire when he glanced over at her next to him as they waited impatiently for the elevator. She was flexing her wrists and biting her lip and she was just so beautiful, oh god was she beautiful. He nearly yanked her into the elevator, but she was as quick on her feet as ever, steadying herself, and before he knew it, before the elevator doors even shut, her mouth was on his.He'd never tasted anything sweeter than her lips in that moment and his hands were laced in her hair and he was groaning into her mouth, and her hands were at the waistband of his jeans, pulling, tugging, and quickly he was full against her seeking fingers. He was annoyed when the elevator stopped on the floor where his room was because he had to break contact with her. With a quick glance through the hallway to make sure of no witnesses to their passion, he pulled her by the hand towards his door, his thoughts only of her skin and how he longed to touch it, and she was keeping pace with him, running on her toes in her heels to keep up.He fumbled with his key, swearing loudly when they slipped one time too many times out of the lock for how hard his hands were shaking, cursing this hotel for being the only place in ages that still used metal keys, and Angela wasn’t helping with her hands sliding seductively up and down his hips as she pressed up against his back. She’d always known how crazy she could make him but he didn’t care because the door finally opened and she was inside with him and his mouth met hers again like a magnet and she was moaning as his hands met both her breast and her ass, pulling her close, massaging caressing pulling squeezing, and all of a sudden, she was shorter than him because she’d kicked off her heels and he almost cried out in frustration, but quickly recovered and he picked her up by her hips and she was wrapping her long, perfect legs around his waist and he carried her towards the bed, his mouth now on her neck, her beautiful neck. She hissed in her breath, burying her face in his shoulder as she shuddered with pleasure and he nearly purred, proud he could still drive her as crazy as she had always made him but they were at the bed and he lowered her down onto the mattress.“My dress, my dress!” she cried in a strangled voice as he made to pull her panties to her knees, he was groaning to see they were black lace, but she was sitting up and with shaking hands, he unzipped her dress for her, and she was laying back and pulling it off along with her underwear, tossing all her clothes without ceremony to the floor, and his erection strained when he realized she hadn’t been wearing a bra. With shaking hands, he undressed too and he was naked with her, the skin on his thighs quivering with pleasure where they touched hers. He had to take a moment to drink her in, her skin perfect in its scars and tattoos, her hair spread out like a fiery fan to one side of her, his breath hitching in his throat as he touched himself. He nearly forgot himself but remembered the condom he’d stashed in his jacket pocket and he scrambled to pull it out and put it on, ripping the packet open with his teeth, watching the hand between her own legs out of the corner of his eye, closing his eyes to steady himself before he leaned over her, leaning on a hand next to her head, and made himself ready.She was biting her lip again but opened her mouth in a silent groan as he slipped himself inside her and he was moving and with each stroke, he tried to tell her every unsaid feeling, every apology he’d wished he’d given her, how much she meant to him, how much he loved her, how stupid he had been to give her up so easily, how much he’d wished every day that he’d gone after her. When he straightened up and pushed her knees into her chest, he tried to convey how much every day without her had been nothing but fog and how much he had tried to forget her but couldn’t, but he forgot all that as she contorted in pleasure, her hands reaching up and she scratched long, burning trails down his ribcage, Christ it hurt but he was with her, finally he was with her again and he felt like he’d transcended life itself and was living in a dream.All too soon, floodwater overtook him and without so much as a warning, he was spilling himself inside her, his knees knocking together, his nails digging into the tender skin of her thighs. His eyes were watering as he tried to catch his breath again, mildly embarrassed that it hadn’t taken very long to reach his release, but she was smiling dreamily up at him, her soothing, cool fingers tracing along the angry red welts she had made along his sides. He dropped to his knees, his mouth hovering between her legs and at her shy giggle, he brought her to the brink herself with his lips and his tongue, praising her body like she was a temple to a goddess and he a mere mortal.He slipped the condom off and into the trash can before he fell in to bed next to her as she lay quivering and twitching in the aftermath, the warmth of her still on his lips, so relieved and content that he could almost forget that he’d spent the last months pining for her. Even in the sparse, dappled light of the streetlamps shining through the blinds, Leon thought, still, after all this time, that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on. Even though exhaustion pulsed behind his eyes, he still found the energy to reach out and run his fingertips over the soft, smooth plane of her stomach, unable to resist the urge to be close to her. She twitched and giggled and pushed his hand away and he was surprised to realize he’d forgotten she had a ticklish spot there.His heart swelled again when she then positioned herself into a more comfortable spot on the bed and beckoned him to follow. Her skin was so warm and he was so tired and all he wanted to do was fall asleep with her in his arms but caution kept him awake. Did this evening mean the same thing to her as it had meant to him? Or was this a simple release of frustration and in the morning, she would be gone? Whatever the case, he figured, he was glad it had happened, that he was able to spend at least one more night with her. He could be content with that.Her head was resting on his chest with her head tucked under his chin, her lips pressed into the arm he had curled over her hip, her closed fist against her cheek in an almost child-like way. He had to fight an overwhelming urge to press every inch of his body against hers, almost afraid that if he disturbed her too much, the illusion would be broken and it would be revealed that it had been nothing but a dream. He contented himself with just being able to hear her breathe softly again and feel the softness of her skin against his, and to kiss the top of her head.“Did you really miss me, Leon?”Though Angela’s voice was soft, it broke the silence sharper than the ringing of a bell and it took him several solid moments to gather his wits about him to be able to answer. Of course he had of course he had of course he had…“Every day,” he answered with a heavy sigh. “I…I regret not calling, or following you, or…something, I don’t know. Pride held me back. Not wanting you to chew me out again or you to tell me to fuck off or never hear back. It was stupid….”“No,” Angela interrupted, her voice suddenly very sad, “not stupid. I don’t blame you.”“Leon,” she began again, “I was an idiot-““No, Anj,” he cut in. “I get it. I really do get it. I probably would’ve done the same thing.”A heavy pause fell between them. It was as though Angela was weighing whether or not to tell him something.“I…I thought you had died, Leon,” she told him in a pleading voice like she had several times before. “And then you just turned up like everything was okay.”“I know, babe,” he whispered into her hair, her beautiful, silky hair, “I know. I wished more than anything I could take that back and do it differently.”Another long pause.“I missed you more knowing you were back than I did when I thought you were dead,” she murmured. “I wanted to call you, I swear I did, but every time I went to, all I could think of was how angry I was, and I just couldn’t do it…”He held her tighter as she spilled her guts. The reason he had spent the past months in pain was knowing that his own selfishness had driven her away and here she was, putting that in to words and proving it to him.“I deserve it, Angie,” he whispered back, “I deserved it, I know I did, and I’m so sorry. Honestly, I’m glad I could just see you one more time.”And he wasn’t lying. The evening they’d had was more than he could have ever hoped for or dreamed could happen. After all, Angela was not known to be wishy-washy in her decision making and he had had no reason to expect a reconciliation, or even just a simple phone call. The last thing he wanted to do at this point was get his hopes up and then have her completely crush them if she told him she still wanted nothing to do with him afterwards.But she pulled her head back so she could stare at him full-on. Her brow was furrowed and her eyes were bright in the scant light.“I…I don’t want this to be the last time, Leon.”Leon couldn’t help that his mouth dropped open a bit as he stared back at her. He had spent the past five months trying to come to terms with the fact that he wouldn’t see Angela again. While he’d felt a dim glimmer of hope since Kevin had called him a week and a half ago, he had not been able to allow himself to entertain the idea that it would really go anywhere; in fact, he was still unsure exactly why he’d agreed to Kevin’s invitation. The idea of a second rejection had just been too painful.And yet here she was, legs tangled with his, glorious and stunning in her nakedness, telling him she didn’t want this to be their final meeting.The only way he could think of to respond was to kiss her. Once again, he tried to pour every last unexpressed emotion he’d felt since March, and now her hand was threading in the hair at the back of his head and all he felt was an overwhelming pressure in his chest and he wasn’t sure if it was old hurts or wanting to spill his guts that was causing it but he didn’t care about anything but her. He couldn’t care about anything but the vast, smooth plane of her back that was interrupted only by the bumps of old surgery scars, or the scent of a subtle perfume at her neck or the way her lips tasted.Over the next few hours, they made love twice more, all shy smiles and embarrassed giggles like inexperienced teenagers. Leon could tell Angela was still grappling with unresolved hurts, like he was, and when they weren’t wrapped up in relearning each other’s bodies, they hashed out their situation, sometimes painfully. His heart soared when she said that yes, she did want to continue their relationship, but it sank like a brick when she confessed that she wasn’t sure she wanted to move back to D.C. Though he truly could not have expected anything else, considering that this was the closest she had ever been able to be with her family, it didn’t make it any easier to hear. But he told himself that he would be happy with whatever she chose. He just wanted her back and wanted to keep her this time.Neither of them really slept that night. Angela even confessed that she, too, was worried that this was all a dream. Morning came, and though the sun slanting through the open blinds lit Angela’s hair into a beautiful bright red flame, it burst their tenuous little bubble enough for them both to remember that they were living separate lives still. As much as Leon wanted to keep Angela physically close at all moments, he drove her home when she asked. Though she would smile when he spoke on the drive over, her expression was otherwise resigned and somber. He was afraid to ask what it meant.His heart began to pound when she asked if he wanted to join her at the gym the next morning once he’d put his car in park outside the Ivers’ house. For old time’s sake, she said with a slightly sadistic grin. The way her teeth showed gave him pause but he agreed, mostly out of eagerness to stay near her, regardless of whatever torture she had planned for him. The kiss she gave him before she got out of the car, however, was soft and warm, her parting smile sad. He felt an all-too-familiar hollowness break open in his chest as he watched her walk up the driveway and disappear behind the front door. He saw her wave at him from the front window, though, as he pulled out of the driveway, and a little flutter of happiness started to fill in that empty ache.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The next day dawned bright and chilly, and Leon awoke from a half-sleep to the weak October sun on his face and butterflies in his stomach. He’d spent half the night tossing and turning and the other half scrolling through the texts he and Angela had sent each other throughout the previous day after he’d dropped her off, still unsure if this whole experience in Baltimore had been real. Those texts were nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to suggest that she had had any regrets or was going to turn him away. All the same, he couldn’t help the nervous jiggle in his leg as he sat in the lobby of his hotel and waited for Angela to pick him up for their foray to her gym.He nearly leapt out of his chair when he saw her white Honda pull up to the front of the hotel, smoothing the fabric of his joggers over his thighs anxiously. He grimaced, annoyed that he was so jumpy. Hadn’t he spent an evening tangled with her naked body? Hadn’t she already said she wanted to continue where they’d left off? Still, his heart threatened to beat out of his chest when he opened the passenger-side door and she smiled at him. He could have died of ecstasy when she reached out to hold his hand as she pulled out of the parking lot and on to the road.Trying to appear as casual as possible so Angela wouldn’t be able to guess at the hurricane of howling thoughts in his head, he glanced at her every so often out of the corner of his eye, getting the best read on her that he could. To his annoyance, she appeared to be totally nonchalant, and he found himself wondering yet again if any part of the last few days had meant anything to her. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was he wanted to see from her… Just something to indicate that she felt at least a little bit as unsure of their already tenuous situation as he felt. Losing her had hurt him deeply, probably more than he would have ever admitted out loud, and he wanted desperately for her to want him back as badly as he wanted her.According to the clock on the dashboard, it was just barely past seven a.m. when they pulled into the parking lot of the gym. As they unbuckled their seatbelts and moved to get out of her car, Angela caught Leon’s eye and gave him a small, encouraging smile, and his heart fluttered. They shared an awkward laugh when it turned out that Angela had put her bag on the passenger’s side of her back seat and Leon had to help her extricate it from where it had gotten trapped under the seat. His heart fluttered again when he saw that she was blushing.The next half hour or so was innocuous – Angela signed him in under a guest pass, Leon waited as Angela went into the women’s locker room to change and put her bag away. On instinct, he averted his eyes when she emerged wearing skin-tight leggings and an equally tight top. But he met her gaze steadily when that mischievous glint returned to her eyes as she approached him and asked if he was ready to start.“I’m game,” he replied, a slight smirk curving his mouth, relieved to feel that they were on an even playing field now. Angela was half-joking when she suggested that they give a nod to old times and warm up using a drill they had to do during training for StratCom, but the look of surprise passed over her face quickly when he agreed readily, and she made a grand show of waving him further into the gym. It was easy to laugh with her again; they bumped shoulders often as they cracked jokes at old instructors’ all-too-serious demeanors and groaning as they recalled the five a.m. wake up calls to go do the very same drill.Most of the early-morning gym goers had left by then, leaving the building blessedly sparse. There was a big open stretch of carpet in the middle of the metallic herd of workout machines and treadmills that was perfect for the set of seven muscle-tearing moves, thirty reps each, that they were about to take part in. Angela was giving him an apologetic grin as she positioned herself opposite him and began what used to be their typical warm up regimen of jumping jacks. He joined in, grinning a little himself when she added in some high kicks for good measure. Very little they did at StratCom would have afforded any one of them that sort of flexibility; that was simply from her history as a dancer. His heart fluttered as he watched her.“Ready?” she asked him breathily several minutes later. He nodded his affirmation and they walked side by side to the weight racks to pick up a kettle bell and two dumbbells each.“Are you sure?” she continued, her lips twitching smugly, almost daring him to back down as they set down their equipment.“I was born r-“ he tried to reply, but before he could finish the thought, she’d pulled his face to hers and was kissing him hard enough that he could have sworn that stars burst in front of his eyes. Just as quickly as the kiss had begun, Angela had broken it and had dropped to the floor to start the first set of push-ups. His face was flushed when he dropped, too.“Damn cheater,” he grumbled as his arms pumped as fast as he could move them in order to catch up.“Hey!” she protested with a short, breathy laugh, “if there was nothing else you should have learned at training, it’s that you can’t ever be caught off guard!”“Sure, but most people I’m in a physical altercation with don’t try to kiss me as a means of distraction!”“Maybe they should! It works so well!”“You….”Leon growled as he swiped at her, trying to knock her off-balance so he could get ahead, but she’d either finished her reps or was totally expecting such retaliation or both – she rolled out of his reach deftly, cackling, and was up and hauling her kettlebell down a narrow aisleway between machines before he could blink. He scrambled to his feet, kettlebell now in hand, his calves starting to burn from the effort of the burst of speed he had to put on. His legs were longer than hers, so he caught up to her easily, but she wasn’t so easily beaten. Back to the main stretch of carpet they raced, and then came the burpees. He’d always hated those tortuous moves, but up he hopped, and down in to a plank, then a push-up, then back up again, he’d lost count of how many he’d done, but her mischievous grin was everything, and he could’ve sworn he could count the beads of sweat forming on her forehead….“Out with the old, in with the new so quickly, Angela?” a sneering voice called from across the gym floor. The air seemed to turn cold as Angela stopped mid-push-up and got swiftly to her feet, her expression unreadable. Leon got up on his knees, breathing hard, to see who had broken their moment, interrupted their reminiscence of times long gone. It was a man, tall, dark-haired, dressed in a dark muscle tank to show off exaggeratedly-large biceps. He was older than both of them, with silver streaks in his hair and deep crows-feet at the corners of his eyes. Leon thought he was ugly – the man’s leer did not help matters here. He got back up slowly, his eyes drifting to Angela. She looked angry. Suddenly, it dawned on him. Was this one of the men she’d dated when they were broken up?“Not really your business what I’m doing anymore, Anthony,” Angela said stiffly, her lip starting to curl. The tension between the two could’ve been cut with a knife, and Leon didn’t like the way this newcomer was stalking his way towards them, like a cat on the prowl. He had a mean glint to his eye that Leon didn’t care for. But this Anthony only seemed to have eyes for Angela, who was standing her ground, her stance military-like and her hands balled into fists.“So you bring your new ‘dates’ to the gym?” Anthony sneered, raising his hands to put sarcastic air quotes at the word “dates.”“Do you come here just to have men look at you in tight clothes? Fucking slut.”A lot of things happened in the next moment – Anthony shoved Angela pretty hard, to the point where she was pushed backwards some, but as she was reaching up with an angry snarl to push his hand away, Leon got involved, stepping up close to this usurper and getting in his face.“Hey!” he barked, his insides roiling, “Shut the fuck up before I give you something to cry about, loser boy. Don’t ever speak to a lady that way.”Anthony’s finger was now digging in Leon’s chest. “You wanna defend sluts, go right the fuck ahead, dude, but I’ve got a bone to pick with this one!”Leon’s gaze turned ice cold as he stood his ground. “Call her a slut one more time. Go ahead. Do it.”“Come on, Leon, let’s just go.”Angela was tugging at the hem of his shirt, her voice pleading yet very dark. He glanced back at her for a brief moment to find that her expression as angry but resigned. He nodded and stepped back. Anthony was smirking, as though he couldn’t believe that a man would take orders from a woman. Misogynistic prick, he seethed to himself, turning away to gather up the weights he had used to rerack them.The moment his back was turned, he heard the unmistakable sounds of a scuffle and a high-pitched shriek of pain. He whipped around, fully expecting to have to pull Anthony off of Angela, but instead, the opposite had occurred. Angela had flipped Anthony over onto his stomach and now had one knee between his shoulder blades and the other on an arm, one of his ears pinched between her fingers as she yanked his head back. He couldn’t help but swell a little bit with pride. She might’ve been stuck behind a desk all these years at the DSO, but she hadn’t lost her skills one bit.“Lookie here, Leon,” Angela snarled sarcastically, “he tried to sucker punch you in the back of the head. Looks like we can charge him with attempted assault of two federal agents.”The one eye of Anthony’s that Leon could see was now full of panic. “You told me you were a secretary!” he cried, his voice breaking like a teenager’s. “I fucking lied,” Angela spat out through clenched teeth as she shoved his head back towards the floor. “Now since we’re on the topic of lies, why don’t you run home to your wife?”She got up and stood next to Leon, dusting her hands as though she had touched something dirty. Anthony scrambled to his feet, looking like he wanted to say something, but with the two of them staring him down, he seemed to think better of it and he scuttled away into the locker room. Leon was suddenly glad he had worn his gym clothes there instead of changing – getting assaulted in a locker room was hardly at the top of his list of things to do.“Let’s go,” Angela pressed, now looking frazzled and upset. But as Leon was not used to nearly getting in fights at seven-thirty in the morning, he asked her gently what that was all about.“We went on a few dates,” she snapped. She then sighed out a shaky breath. “Sorry. We went on a few dates, but when he slapped me because I wouldn’t change my clothes into something he liked, I told him to fuck off. And then his wife called me the next day to tell me that I’m a nasty homewrecking whore. I haven’t seen him in here since I broke it off so I didn’t think this would be an issue. Can we go now? Please?”“Sure, Anj,” he said in what he hoped was a soothing voice. He stood guard for her outside the women’s locker room as she changed back into her sweater and jeans and glanced behind them often as they walked back out to her car. She drove them to a diner on the other side of the city, a choice he didn’t question. He wanted to get as far away from that asshole as much as she did. They ate in a tense silence, but when he put out his hand on the tabletop as an offering of peace, she visibly softened as she took it in hers.“I’m so sorry,” she said in a thick voice, her other hand now over her mouth to stifle tears. “I didn’t want any of this to happen.”“I know, babe,” he said, running his thumb over the back of her hand. “Look, do you want to hear about the dates that I had? They were all disasters. We can start with the gal from the Starbucks near the DSO.” “Which one?” Angela sniffled as she wiped tears away from her eyes but with a smile breaking through. “Old Nancy or Big Boobs Lorraine?”“Lorraine,” Leon replied dryly, surprised that Angela even knew who any of those ladies were. She always made her coffee at a Keurig in the office. Angela was grinning shakily as she made a gesture over her plate to indicate he should continue.He told her the story of how he’d asked Lorraine out after Patrick had pointed out how the woman was always making eyes at him, how he’d taken her to the Smithsonian on their first date. Angela’s raised eyebrow made him crack a grin despite himself – “What? It’s free!” was his response, which was met with a stifled giggle – and he told her how Lorraine had lost it when she’d seen a picture of Angela on his phone, how the explanation of “this is my ex-girlfriend, and I forgot I even had this picture” was not enough to soothe the blubbering, how he hadn’t been able to go back to Starbucks for his coffee since.“Poor baby,” Angela said with mock pity, her eyes shining. Leon’s insides tightened – he wasn’t a fan of being so honest about such a tough and emotional time, when he’d felt like such a fuck-up, but if it made Angela laugh, it was worth it. He had forgotten just how sun-like her smile could be. She told him briefly about her dates, too, for the sake of fairness; neither of the two guys she’d seen had turned out to be winners in any way, it sounded like, though at least the one that wasn’t Anthony hadn’t hit her. Leon couldn’t help but feel a little smug, though he still felt a burning anger at anyone that would strike her.His time in Baltimore had run out, unfortunately. As much as he wanted to spend every waking second with Angela now that they were back in each other’s lives, he needed to check out of his hotel and head back to D.C., as he was expected back at the office the next day. Angela seemed to feel the same sense of weight on her like he did as she drove him back to the hotel he’d been staying in. By the time she’d parked her car, she was crying again, and he himself was having a difficult time holding back tears. It took them a long time to exit the car, knowing that opening the car doors meant finality for this almost fairy-tale visit. It was Angela that opened her door first, practical as she was, and Leon followed suit. He felt a heaviness descend on his chest when he saw her wiping away tears again. But her smile was warm as she helped him pack up his things again. They held each other for a long time in the room, kissing, tears flowing and intermingling. Leon felt like he was trying to imprint the memory of her body heat in his mind.“This isn’t the end,” he heard Angela murmur into his neck, as though she was trying to reassure herself of this instead of him. “I’m coming back to D.C.”“I know, it isn’t, Anj,” he whispered back. “I can’t wait to meet you there.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
All Leon wanted to do after he returned home from San Francisco was numb himself.The reminder from Dylan – that he was a puppet of a government that so often said one thing and did another – had not been a welcome one, especially as he had laid dying on a blood-stained prison floor. Crazy and misguided as Dylan’s methodology was, he’d had a point. None of the crew present at Alcatraz had a clean nose, barring perhaps Rebecca. Least of all himself. All he’d wanted to do as a bright-eyed rookie cop was save people. Very rarely had he actually been able to; in fact, the only person he could honestly say he’d saved as a direct result of his own actions was Sherry, and she’d been held captive by the U.S. government for years after that as a guinea pig. All it seemed he did was put on a puppet show, to keep up the masquerade that the government he was employed by didn’t deal in bioweapons underground as they waged war on them in other countries.The only things that seemed to keep him going lately were small joys in comparison to the weight on his chest he felt at all times. Phone calls to his mom and sisters, infrequent though they were; hot coffee in the mornings; the feeling of belonging he’d grown to know from Angela’s small family; the brightness in Angela’s smiles....Angela.... His bright spot. His future wife.He’d spirited her away to St. Bart’s as quickly as he could as soon as he’d returned from California, time-off requests be damned. After all the eleventh-hour missions they’d sent him on over the years, it was the least his higher-ups could do to allow him an actual vacation with his fiancée. A promise of some sun and a warm beach had been all it took to convince Angela to agree. By the time they’d set their suitcases down in their room and checked out their private pool, he’d been naked, clothing tossed haphazardly on the pool deck, intent on wrapping himself up in her so he didn’t have to feel the gnawing ache in his chest for at least a little while. She’d accepted him with an eager smile, and as he’d kissed her, he’d been overwhelmed with gratitude that she never seemed to ask him why he needed her so badly this way after a mission. He’d cut way back on the drinking since she’d taken him back after Colorado, keen to show her that he chose her over the numbness, but he was ashamed to say that he used her now the same way he’d used the bottle before.Over the next six days, there wasn’t a surface of their bougie suite that they hadn’t fucked on, including in the pool and adjoining hot tub. They checked out some of the resort's amenities, sure, and had eaten at a few restaurants. But for the most part, they’d ordered room service and stayed undressed, Leon's franticness matched by Angela's. As exhausted as he was, the heat of Angela’s skin, the effort of getting her off, and finding the edge himself, soothed the savage, howling beast in his brain. He supposed the exhaustion was the point. He’d never asked her if she felt the same way, if she needed to purge demons like this, but he doubted she would accept his initial gentle caresses if she didn’t. The anxiety and pain were relentless this time, though, and he couldn’t put his finger on why. It was driving him crazy, but instead of stopping to examine the darkness in his head, he buried himself deeper into Angela, hoping to find light again with her.It was two in the morning according to the dim red letters of the hotel’s digital clock on the nightstand. He had to stop himself from reaching for her again, his hand suspending in the dark of their hotel room above her shoulder. She was sleeping hard, her breath deep and slow, not so much as a twitch in her eyes. A pang of guilt echoed in his stomach – he was the reason why she was so tired. He laid back against his pillows and screwed up his eyes, his chest tightening against the storm of pain forming inside it. He couldn’t understand it – on the outside at least, he had all the trappings of a perfect life: a nice place to live, a good paying job, a beautiful woman by his side. But that was exactly the problem, wasn’t it, that it was a façade to what really went on in the background? That he’d hurt more people than he’d saved, that he was a weapon of war that only had to be aimed by the government that had formed him.A soft sound broke him out of his aching reverie, almost too soft to hear. He looked over Angela’s arm towards the open windows that faced the ocean and strained his ears but heard nothing. He almost dismissed it as nothing...until he heard it again. It was almost like the mewling of a kitten but it was Angela, now twitching, her brow furrowed. The expression on her sleeping face made Leon think she might be having a nightmare, so without giving it a thought, he rolled over and wrapped his arms around her, tucking her head under his chin. His heart warmed in his chest, swollen with love, as he held her quietly, and the howling beast in his head paused. This was what it was about, wasn’t it? If nothing else in the world was right, they had each other.