Was it stupid that he literally spent well over an hour getting ready to go out? He didn't even put that much effort into getting ready for his own prom! Leon took one last glance in the mirror, studying every inch of what stared back at him. His hair looked the same way it always had; he didn't have the heart to change it. Leon Kennedy wasn't an insecure man, he was, however, not too thrilled about the shape his head took if he cut his hair too short. It wasn't egg shaped, it was just…weird. Or at least, what he thought was weird. He pushed a strand of loose chestnut brown hair away from his eyes and quickly gave his outfit a one over.

He wore loose fitting black pants that hung low off his waist. His shirt was a deep navy color and clung onto every muscle for dear life, accentuating every rip his stomach bore. His broad shoulders filled out the shirt nicely, as did his upper body as well. Maybe just enough for him to get Claire to take notice. He couldn't help but wish his arms were as big as Chris's though. He'd have to ask him what his secret was.

"Redfield is so taking 'roids." Leon laughed. Or maybe he just wanted to get Jill's attention that bad…

He threw on a leather jacket and tied up his boots before grabbing his wallet and sliding it into his back pocket. This was it. He had to pull out all the stops tonight.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Chris had told Leon to 'run into them' at the bar a while after he, Jill and Claire would show up. Leon sat anxiously in his car, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. His fingers dug deep into the leather with a force that startled even him. How could a woman drive him so crazy? He shook it off as nerves. After all, he hadn't seen Claire in years, and yet…

There she was.

His heart nearly flew out of his mouth as he watched her get out of her car. There she was, in all her magnificent glory, Claire Redfield. Leon chuckled at the all too familiar site of her beautiful fiery red hair thrown up into a ponytail. Upon closer inspection, he'd noticed that it had gotten longer.

"I want to grow my hair." Claire said, studying her reflection in the mirror.

Leon turned from the couch to look at her, a confused expression written on his face as he swallowed the beer that had filled his mouth. "What do you mean? How long? It looks great now." He shrugged.

Claire scoffed as her fingers ran through her fire-red hair, tying it up on top of her head. He fought back the urge to walk over to her and run his own fingers through her hair. His fingertips burned to feel the softness that would no doubt come with the action his body longed to do.

"Leon, you wouldn't notice if I shaved my head."

There. She was finally wrong about something. He did notice. Thankfully though, she hadn't shaved her head.

He forced himself to turn away from his friend as she dodged the parked cars to make her way into the bar. He felt like a big-time creeper. Seriously, who sits in their car and gawks over a woman he hasn't seen in years but wants so damn much? A creeper, that's who. And Leon Kennedy was no creeper.

He couldn't just sit there though. Leon was a man of action, and his body was begging him to get out of that damn car. Tapping his fingers on the driving wheel, Leon ran over Chris's instructions one more time in his head.

"Okay, so Claire is gonna meet me and Jill at the bar around 10. I say you come waltzing in around 10:30 or so. And whatever you do, do not tell her that I knew you were in town." Chris said, wagging his finger at Leon like he was a child who was being scolded by his father. He saw the smile grow on Leon's face and quickly added, "I'm serious, she will kill me for not telling her."

Screw this, Leon thought to himself as he threw his car door open. His eyes never left her small figure as he came running up from behind her. Different scenarios ran through his mind of how she would react to seeing him. Maybe she'd throw her arms around his neck and slap a big kiss on him. Maybe she'd tell him how much she missed him, and how she never wants him to leave her again. Or maybe, she'll punch him in the stomach.

Leon stumbled back, his hand holding his stomach where Claire's fist had made contact. Hard contact, for that matter. A cough escaped his thin lips as he tried to suck air back into his lungs. Leave it to a Redfield to know exactly where to punch to stop you dead in your tracks.

"Oh my God, Leon?!" Claire screamed as she ran to his side, her hands gripping onto his arms tightly. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry! Why would you come running at me from behind? Has Raccoon City taught you nothing?" Normally, so much as mentioning the name of the city where her life was ruined would cause her heart to skip a beat. But for the first time, she found a feeling of amusement roll off her tongue alongside those two fateful words.

"I wanted to surprise you." Leon gasped out, air finally finding its way back into his lungs.

She laughed as Leon straightened. Her smiled proved to be contagious as one soon spread across Leon's face. He shook his head and opened his arms, pulling her into him. This was the Claire Redfield he knew, and damn, was he glad to have her back.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Look who I ran into in the parking lot!"

Claire's sudden voice startled both Jill and Chris who were seated at opposite ends of a booth. Jill looked straight ahead and smiled at the two young kids she saw standing behind Chris. They had gotten older and more mature, no doubt about it. But every time she looked at them, she couldn't help but see the scared college student and the naïve rookie cop. But that was them than, and this is them now. She stood up and walked over to the young woman she thought of as a sister, hugging her closely before turning to the man who now served as a bodyguard to the President's family. This was her family.

"Hey, Leon. You met Claire in the parking lot, eh? At 10?" Chris asked quietly through his teeth as Leon took a seat beside him.

"He told me about your little plan, Chris. Don't worry; I'll deal with you later."

Chris shot Leon the evil eye before chugging the rest of his beer. He slammed the glass down on the table and caught the attention of the waitress with the intention on ordering more alcohol. He'd need it to get through the ass kicking his little sister was planning on giving him.

~*~*~*~*~*~

She couldn't believe that he was sitting in front of her. Further more, she couldn't believe the stories he had brought back with him from his glorious job in Washington. She was in awe at how much he had changed over the years. Never in a million years would she have thought that that scrawny, innocent rookie cop from Raccoon City could have turned into a man like the one that was sitting before her. He was so much bigger than she remembered, the muscles bulged out from under his tight fitting shirt as if begging her to rip it right off him. She shifted in her seat at the thought.

Claire's eyes trailed across the room, where Jill and Chris were sitting in stools by the bar. If there was one thing she loved about her big brother, it was that he knew when to take a hint. "You think it's over?" She asked him quietly, leaning in so he could hear her whisper over the music.

Leon followed her movement and edged forward, only to lean back against the cushion behind him. "I seriously doubt that. It'll only be a matter of time before we get news of more movement on their side."

Claire let out a defeated sigh and she shook her head, her fingers running aimlessly on the side of her glass.

"Evil will never die, Claire."

His words were harsh, but true. She needed the reality check that only Leon seemed to want to give her. Chris always sugarcoated the truth, probably in the attempt to shield his little sister from the dangers that lurked in the real world. And Jill refused to even so much as address anything that had to do with Umbrella or viruses. Her work and home lives were always separated, which constantly left Claire out of the picture. Finally, she had someone who, like always, would give it to her straight. She wasn't a little girl who needed protecting. She was a grown woman who needed people to start fessing up to the truth in what was happening around them.

Neither of them said a word to each other. They didn't know what to say. Leon was beginning to worry that maybe he shouldn't have mentioned Spain at all, that it was too much too fast. He watched as Claire's eyes drifted past him and focused on something that wasn't him.

She sat in silence for a few moments before she finally spoke. "You know, maybe it's a blessing that Raccoon City happened."

Leon shot her a confused look. He couldn't understand how she could possibly say that that blood fest was a blessing.

"I mean, look at them."

Leon turned around and discovered what her eyes had been planted on for the past few moments. Jill and Chris sat facing each other on the barstools. Their knees were touching as Chris said something to Jill, prompting her to throw her head back in laughter. He took a swig of his beer, his eyes not leaving Jill for a moment.

"They're like, made for each other." Leon turned back around as Claire finished explaining herself. "I don't think they would have ever grown so close if it weren't for what happened in Raccoon City. Being one of the few survivors, I think they have a bond that no one else will ever understand."

No one but us, Leon thought as he watched the girl sitting before him. He knew that look that he saw swimming in the beautiful ocean she called her eyes. She wanted that. She wanted that almost as desperately as he did. She wanted to be with someone who looked at her as adoringly as Chris looked at Jill. She wanted to feel the security and safety that would come in a relationship like that. Sadly, the thought of her finding all that in him probably never even crossed her mind.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Claire had agreed to keep both Chris and Jill out of the loop in regards to what Leon had faced in Spain. He was right; they didn't need that weighing them down. Each of the four Raccoon City survivors were trying desperately to live their lives as normal as possible. But when she thought about it, she realized that she was the only one of the four who was actually sticking to that mindset.

Both Chris and Jill were working with BSAA, which was also known as Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance. Everyday the two of them went to work knowing full well that they were going to deal with hell. And after hearing Leon's news, she feared it would only be a matter of time before the two of them were called in for a job involving Uroboros.

And Leon, of course, was working with the President. She remembered him talking about how much of a normal job it would be and how excited he was. That, of course, was before he found what waited for him in Spain.

As for Claire, she was supported herself by working as a waitress partime while she was on the prowl for a nursing job. An urge to help people swam through her veins, much like the urge that also ran through everyone else seated at the table. She wanted nothing more than to comfort people as they healed in the hopsital. Or to be there to listen to people as their time was coming to an end. She just wanted to be there.

And yet, here they were, four survivors of Raccoon City, a metropolis that had been turned into an undead freeforall. Everyone of them came from different walks of life with different intentions for their lives, and yet they were brought together like a family during the destruction of a city they all once shared.

Claire pulled her phone out of her pocket and read the screen. What was her boss doing calling her at midnight? She got up from the booth and signaled to her friends that she was going to go outside to take the phone call.

"Claire, forget it, sit your ass back down." Chris told her, waving his hand to the empty seat that was beside Jill.

"I can't, it's my boss. I'll be right back." She told them before she ran towards the front door.

She pushed the front door of the bar open, stepping outside into the cool night that swallowed her. She wrapped her free arm around the other as she walked further away from the entrance, wandering into the parking lot to try and escape from the blaring music that came from inside.

"Hello? Lilly? Hello?" Claire repeated into the phone. She could hear people talking in the background, but no one seemed to be talking into the phone. She called out her bosses name a few more times before she hung up, shaking her head.

"Hey there, pretty lady. You know, I would answer your phone calls."

Claire turned to watch a man stumble her way. Almost instantly, her mind shot back to the undead as they stumbled towards her. She let out a quick breath as she spun around and headed towards the bar once again, her legs pumping quickly underneath her.

"Now, now, where are you running off to so quickly?" Another man emerged from behind a jeep, blocking Claire's path to her friends and safety.

She watched as yet another man came towards her, and she couldn't help but notice that each of them was bigger than the last. She could smell the alcohol coming off them before they even got within one foot of her. And suddenly, she had wished she listened to her big brother.