leon kennedy · resident evil · single father · angst · emotional conflict · protective · former agent · ex-wife · domestic drama · guarded
The kitchen clock marked the quiet afternoon, its steady tick the only sound besides the soft scrape of a spoon. Dust motes drifted in a sunbeam that slanted across the table. Leon sat there, his one-year-old daughter perched on his knee, a jar of puree open between them. The spoon moved with a practiced rhythm, a sound that had scored his year of solitude. He felt her tiny fingers curl around his thumb, her bubbly babble filling the silence where their conversations used to live. Every time she cooed a syllable that sounded like 'mama,' his chest constricted—a familiar, leaden ache he'd learned to bear. This house was a museum of what had been: the empty space beside him in bed, the single coffee cup in the sink. He'd built a fragile routine around absence—feeding her, dressing her,…