Leon Kennedy was a strong man, more so than he normally liked to admit. He had held dying men in his arms, watching the life leak from them like a sieve, their eyes becoming dull and meaningless. Yet with their last breathes, something sparked, as if their life was trying to crawl back inside their brains, and screamed from the glassy orbs that stared directly at him, before vanishing. They were gone. Only not for long.

He had seen with his own eyes what he had only watched in old Horror movies. Staying up late, after his parents snored upstairs, to watch George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. His wide eyes did not move from the screen as he laid eyes on the pale skinned man limping and stumbling through the graveyard. The blank, vacant stare as it made it's way towards Barbra and her gawky brother, Johnny, as he had taunted her maliciously, "They're coming to get you Barbra!"

As a young boy he remembered the fear he felt. The elderly man said not a word as he grapples Johnny in a persistent, deliberate, and forceful manner. Cold eyes stared out in the distance as his attentions appeared manic. Young Leon had trouble sleeping that night, making sure his bedroom and closet doors were shut firmly. He pulled the covers up to his chin, a child's safety net, and closed his eyes tightly. Yet the images of the flesh-hungry monsters infested his mind. The wind outside toyed with his imagination, leaving him at edge. Surely, he wouldn't sleep tonight. But exhaustion eventually cut the strings of tension and he drifted away.

Over ten years later, he had never imagined seeing it for himself. No matter how many movies he had watched about the Undead, despite his parents approval, nothing prepared him for the real thing. Seeing a dead man begin to blink, his fingers twitching and the low groan that rattles through their throat and send shivers into his spine. The eyes never lose their vacant appearance. As the body becomes animated once more, their dilated eyes remain just as dead as their bodies once were only hours before. He had watched a man literally rise from the dead, standing wobbly on his own two feet. Slowly, with stiff-limbs, the man began to shuffle towards him.

Although the undead man was motivated by core survival, so was Leon. It didn't take but a split second of thinking to remove his never-used .22 from it's holster and raise the barrel between the man's boring eyes, splattering thick blood, brain tissue and skull fragments across the file cabinet behind him. The man's knees buckled and his body collapsed on the tile at Leon's feet. Blood began to pool around his head as the body continued to jerk and twitch. To be safe, Leon sent another round into his head, eye matter and blood spraying across his boots.

It wouldn't be the last being he would kill. After thirty, he began to lose count. His uniform was stained with the blood of innocent people that had fell victim to a virus. Sick people. Flesh-eating walkers. Years after, while subjected to his own thoughts, as their faces never left his memory, he thought of their lives before. They had been normal, every day people. People who had been eaten alive. Possibly a bag boy for a local Grocery Store, a Student working steadily to become a Pharmacist, the town drunk; it no longer mattered. They all became one, hungry, killing mass. It would take years of therapy to make Leon finally come to the understanding that Umbrella had killed these people, not his own hands. If anything, Claire had told him multiple times, we saved them, we put them at rest. Leon believed she was convincing herself as well.

Claire. The woman who escaped Hell with him. The one he held as they cried tears of joy as they were driven away from Raccoon City. He had fell in love with her. The young redhead with big, blue eyes that sparkled with spunk. They went through their coping together, having each other to lean on. To talk to one another on sleepless nights when, instead of rest, memories haunted their sleep. They worked together to fuse back into a normal existence and to live freely.

Three years after that Summer's night, they were to marry. The planned it for the Fall since Claire wanted to have an outside wedding and weather would be best then. They invited close friends and relatives. Claire's brother, Chris, stood at Leon's side as Best Man. Leon had stood on the platform with his clammy hands laced together, to keep them from shaking as best as he could. As if Chris scenced his nervousness, he leaned over and patted Leon's shoulder. The firm hand on his shoulder reminded him to breathe and he glanced over at his soon-to-be brother-in-law and gave him a thin smile as if to say, "I'm okay. I'm not going to faint or toss my cookies all over your shoes. I promise."

Sherry, along with Claire's niece Michelle, were the first to appear. They wore quiet pink sundresses with their hair pinned back with small flowers and carried straw baskets in their hands that almost overflowed with white and red rose pedals. With their small hands, they graciously filled the isle between the chairs with the pedals, twirling and resting on the dewy grass. Selected members of the crowd awed and began snapping pictures, the clicking sounds of busy cameras manic to freeze the memories of that day.

The music started and Leon swallowed the snowball that was growing in his throat. He never understood why marriage had been such a scary thing to most people. He did now. As the piano's delighted keys danced through the air, it hit him like a brick wall. Their lives would now, legally, be fused as one. She would bare his last name. They would promise each other, till death do they part, that they would stay loyal and together. The thought scared him. Would he be a good husband? Would he make her happy? With the grace of God, he would hopefully see another 50 years before they pitched the first shovel of dirt on his closed coffin. Would he be able to satisfy her till they grew old, grey and wrinkly together? He was beginning to feel sick again.

Then he saw her. The tension in his body released as he laid eyes on her. Claire wore a simple, white sundress and white flats. A headband of lilies hugged across her thick, auburn hair that laid flat against her shoulders, the white veil covering her nervous smile. In her hands was an assortment of flowers and she held close to her body, her arm locked with her Father's. Later that night, as they danced, she admitted how awkward she felt wearing a dress. Admittedly, their wedding day is one of the only times Leon had seen her in a dress. The other time having been for a formal Police Ball they had attended. A plain but exotic black dress that seemed to had been painted onto Claire's curves. "Although," ,she whispered in his ear, her arms draped across his shoulders, "you look so damn handsome in this tuxedo. As soon as I saw you I just wanted to take you away somewhere private and tear it off of you." Leon grinned, pulling Claire close to him, feeling a stir in his pelvic region as she never ceased to amaze him with her blunt, out-spoken ways.

Their wedding day had been a staple of Leon's recovery to a normal, happy life. Their smiles were fruitful and genuine, the happiness glittering in both their eyes. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so alive other than leaving Raccoon City. But this was a different high. Mrs. Leon Kennedy sat beside him as they indulged in conversation with Chris, who was steadily visiting the open bar and making the newly wed couple laugh until the muscles in their stomach ached from constricting. He had became the life of the party but remained from becoming deliberately obnoxious.

After the wedding had died down and everyone had gifted them with their best wishes and various house gifts, (a Mr. Coffee expresso maker, various Yankee candles, Wedding Memory picture frames, heated towel racks with plush towels and his and her robes, a few bottles of wine, a gracious amount of cash and a "newly wed naughty game" from Chris) the couple packed everything away in their Nissan and traveled back home.

When they made it to the door, Leon paused and looked at Claire as he cracked open the door.

"I have to keep tradition." Is all he said before picking up Claire into his arms and cradling her body. She giggled and kicked her feet playfully, wrapping her arms around his neck. They were both intoxicated on alcohol and the feeling of absolute bliss. He carried her inside and walked her to the counter top and sit her up on top.

She kept her arms around him, both smiling as they looked at one another.

"Welcome home, Mrs. Kennedy." Leon's smile widened as he addressed his wife.

"Why, thank you, Mr. Kennedy." Her arms grazed down his shoulder till her palms rested on either side of his clean-shaven face, leaning down and pressing a firm yet soft kiss against her husband's bottom lip. Leon's eyes closed halfway as he returned the kiss, his finger tips tracing up her outer thighs.

Claire pulled back enough to whisper, "Now, let's get you out of this tuxedo."

Leon's arousal returned from earlier in the night but this time he let it take over. His strong hands wrapped around Claire's lower back and pulled her off the counter, her legs wrapping around his waist.

It was that night that they conceived their first and only child, Taylor Kennedy. He was born on the hottest day of the Summer that year. The doctors had quickly wheeled Claire into the delivery room as she huffed and puffed, screaming obscenities that could be heard by everyone on the same floor. Leon quickly followed behind, trying to reassure his wife.

"Babe, just breathe." He said nervously.

She cut her blue eyes at him, sweat beading at her forehead.

"You -" A contraction cut her off and she groaned in pain, gripping the arms of the wheelchair and pushing herself up some as her face contorted. It released long enough for her to finish, "You shut the fuck up! You don't have a baby trying to push it's way through your fucking dick! So just, SHUT UP!"

Five hours later that night, Claire had apologized for her slur of insults as she laid in the hospital bed, cradling their newborn son in her arms. Leon reassured her no offense was taken as he gazed down at his first born son. The small, pink infant was sleeping soundly. He had been frightened and worried about becoming a father, much more than he had about becoming a husband. Yet as soon as he saw Taylor, the delicate features of both him and Claire apparent in his rounded face, he knew at that moment he would do his damn best to become a great father. He would be a fan-fucking-tastic Dad.

Taylor was seven now. A lanky kid with a bushel of auburn hair like his mom and oval, blue eyes. He was a smart kid with many interests. They had both made sure that Taylor would not succumb to the life of entertainment and technology and kept him active by enrolling him in Baseball and taking many weekend trips hiking, canoeing and, with much convincing on Leon's part, to the shooting range with Dad.

Taylor made him forget about his past. Claire made him remember his past as if, by her being in his life, said, "See? Good things can come from the bad." He was a happy husband and father. His life felt complete.

Now, as he drove away from his home, anger deep in his bones, he felt as if he had left pieces behind. Feeling broken and battered by Claire. How the fuck could she do this? WHY would she do this? Many questions attacked his mind but those repeated over and over and over, continuously pounding hard. He couldn't see as he drove with blind anger and decided to pull over.

He shut the engine off and the world fell silent around him. He inhaled deeply, the smell of Claire's perfume lingering in the cab of his truck, and he snorted - almost as if to push her scent out and away from him. He needed to think clearly but rage left him dumbfounded.

Leon was a strong man. He had seen and dealt with more than just every day annoyances. But this. . .

This left him weak.

This left him vulnerable.

He thought of his Claire. Her naked body sweating and twisting in pleasure, the moans of ecstasy that he had believed he had only known.

Now he was aware.

Now he knew.

Thoughts of a shadow man laying over his wife, his cock pounding inside of Claire, thrusting his vial into the mother of his child. Leon's lips twitched into a snarl, his stomach turning as images mocked his unstable mind, the shadow man continually pumping away, infecting his sacred wife with his disease. He felt dirty, having now known he had been inside of her only hours later.

The thought surged his rage and as if it had short-circuited him, Leon's fist curled and over and over and over he slammed his knuckles against the steering wheel, screaming. Thankfully, his windows were rolled up tight but at that point he could give two shits less. If he had caught an on looker gawking at his fit of rage, he would have felt the need to shout, "What the fuck are you staring at? Be glad your wife isn't a cheating whore! Be really fucking happy you aren't the scum fucking my wife!" There was no pain. His adrenaline numbed his hand which was now red and pounding. He eventually stopped and gripped the wheel with both hands, pushing and pulling as if he would eventually tear it right off it's barring.

As if he had shouted and punched all the aggression out of him, his body fell limp. His breathing was heavy and shallow, his eyes gazed out the window as his stare traveled over the belt of pine trees in the horizon. For that moment it was as if his brain had shut off. He only focused on his breathing. Sooner than appreciated, his mind clicked back on, as if the gears had jammed only for a second, and began turning again.

His thoughts turned spiteful. Maybe he would beat Claire to Taylor's school and take him away and stay at a Hotel. She didn't deserve to have him, either of them. But he wasn't mad at Taylor and knew his son would be frightened by his sudden actions. He would have to explain why they were leaving - something he couldn't bare to imagine telling his son.

Perhaps he would hop through the bars, find the pick of the litter, and take her to a Hotel instead. Fuck his aggression out on a strange, pretty face. No, he couldn't hack himself down to Claire's level. He took pride in being above her at the moment.

Leon swallowed hard and let go of the steering wheel, his hands falling into his lap. His thoughts resorted in falling back into the same two question.

How could she do this?

Why would she do this?

The anger began to manifest and alter, and he felt his heart beat speed up. Leon bit down on his quivering lip, his thick lips pooching, like Taylor's had when he didn't get his way and began crying. His eyebrows scrunched together as his eyes continued to stare off into the distance yet he did not register anything he saw.

He only thought of her.

Now there was sound piercing through the silence. At first he didn't know what it was. It came to him in a moment. It was whimpering. The sound of an animal with a smashed foot. Still looking out the window, he saw cars come and go, through a film of tears.

How long had it been since he had cried? He cried when they escaped Raccoon City, but those had been of pure joy. He had cried the night Taylor was born, but that had been of relief. He had cried when his dad died after fighting grimly for his life for nine days after a massive heart attack struck him, and those tears, shed at sixteen, had been like these, burning, not wanting to come; it was more like bleeding than crying. But at sixteen it was easier to cry, easier to bleed. When you were sixteen you still expected to have to do your share of both.

He stopped whimpering. He thought it was done. And the a low cry came out of him, a harsh, wavering sound, and he thought: Was that me? God, was it me that made that sound?

The tears began to slide down his cheeks. There was another harsh sound, then another. He gripped the steering wheel once more and cried.