Leon hadn't ever thought he would feel this afraid to knock on his own front door…again. The last time he had been seventeen and had just finished wrapping his father's car (and favourite family member) around a light post. At that time he had been genuinely afraid that his father would disown him and kick him to the curb. He wasn't exactly sure what he was afraid of this time – the inherent awkwardness of watching your parents cry; the possibility that they wouldn't cry; that he'd fit in so well that he'd never want to leave back to the cold, vice-like embrace of the government; or maybe that he'd feel as awkward with his own flesh and blood as he did everywhere else.

From inside the high peals of female laughter poured out through a window left slightly ajar. It was a tone he couldn't place; someone who had come into his family in the two years he'd been missing. He had wondered a lot about what he was missing out on in those long, hard months spent honing himself into one of the world's top government agents. Having put it off long enough, he pushed his finger against the cheery light of the doorbell.

The musical chimes sounded inside, silencing the murmur of conversation he could hear. A young, male voice could be heard along with the telltale scrape of chair feet against wood flooring. A lifetime ago he would have been able to identify the speaker as one or other of his brothers, but now he couldn't be sure. Feet padded solidly towards the door. Leon felt his stomach lurch violently into his chest.

The heavy wood door with its festive wreath of fall leaves and acorns swung open to reveal a handsome young man, exactly two years, seven months, and one hundred and seventy-three days his junior. His younger brother Lucas had always been the most outgoing and brash of the three Kennedy boys, more than compensating for the calm seriousness of Liam, and the quiet intensity of Leon. His quick wit and smart mouth had secured him the position of class clown and general loud-mouth for as long as Leon had known him, but as he stood across the threshold from his older, assumed dead brother he was speechless, a crumpled linen napkin still clutched uselessly in one hand. After a moment, he found his voice-box again.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me," he blurted out, the bare toes poking out from under the hem of his slacks seemingly rooted in place. The man facing him looked nothing like the excited rookie cop he'd last associated with his brother; he was larger, harder, more blond and more awkward. But the eyes, shadowed and tired as they seemed, were instantly recognizable – they were the same pair that stared back at him from a mirror, or the face of his other brother or father.

Leon wasn't the only one who had changed. When he had left for his illustrious career in Raccoon City, his younger brother had been barely out of high school, shaggy-haired, and constantly reeking of pot smoke, cheap beer, and unwashed teenage boy. He had also been about four inches shorter that Leon. The tall young man in front of him with his short, dark hair and crisp white shirt tucked neatly into his creased slacks may as well have been a stranger. Unsure of how to continue, they both stood like that for a moment, taking in what had changed, and what had stayed the same.

"Don't just fucking stand there – get your ass in here," Lucas said at last, reaching across the space to grab the collar of Leon's jacket and pull him inside. It was an uncharacteristic gesture, one born of the need to physically establish that this was all real.

Leon had lived in this house for his entire life up until the point where he had found himself fatefully employed by the Racoon City Police Department. His parents had purchased it shortly after their marriage to accommodate the family that had begun with the birth of his older brother three years before his own arrival on the scene. Over the years it had changed in some ways – a new coat of paint or set of furniture in one room or another – but he still knew inside and out, blindfolded. Every creaking step, every dented corner where some young body had been checked in a game of indoor hockey, every drafty window, and every finicky faucet were etched into his brain. There were some minor changes he could see, most notably the now outdated portrait of himself on the mantle, smiling broadly, suited up in his formal uniform against a backdrop of green summer leaves. He wanted to reach into the picture frame and slap the grin right off his own stupid face.

The house may have been essentially the same, but he wasn't, not in any shape or form, and he wondered if there was still a place for him here amongst the memorial pictures and the brothers he barely recognized.

"Hey everybody, close your eyes," Lucas called and was answered by a series of groans.

"Nobody's falling for that old trick, Lucas. Not after last time," came the reply of who Leon could now recognize as the eldest of the Kennedy boys. Lucas rolled his eyes and shrugged as if to say "it's not my fault nobody in this family has a sense of humour". As irritating as Leon had often found his younger brother's practical jokes and general sense of humour growing up, he was glad to have someone on his side to break the ice. Preceding him through the open doorway to the dining room, Lucas took a dramatic step to the side,

"Tada!"

Five sets of eyes stared back at Leon displaying varying degrees of shock, confusion, and in the case of a small infant squirming in a high chair between his older brother and what must assumably be his sister-in-law, blissful ignorance. The confusion that flashed across the pretty features of his brother's wife (even a blind man couldn't miss the sparkle on her finger) was understandable. Both of Leon's brother's had inherited his father's dark hair and square, Irish jaw lines – the resemblance between the three was unmistakable. Leon on the other hand, with his lighter, sometimes reddish hair and narrow face, took after his mother's side. The "Scottish Kennedy", as the joke had run in his youth.

Looking around the table, Leon realized how excruciatingly long the past two years had been for the people seated in front of him. Both of his parents were greyer, frailer than when he had last seen them, and there were lines around his brother's eyes that had no place on a man of only twenty-six. Before him was a family who has struggled, and finally succeeded (as far as one could succeed in such a thing), in dealing with the horrible, barely-explained death of a son. The pieces had barely settled back into place and he had set off the minefield all over again.

"Leon…" his mother stood up slowly, shakily, reaching out as she came towards him. Her hands, as warm and as slightly rough from gardening as he remembered, cupped his face and pushed his hair back from his eyes. His mother had green eyes, unusual in their paleness, now red and watery. "It's really you isn't it?"

Suddenly he was eight years old again, bedridden with chicken pox, or fifteen and sobbing his heart out over the first girl who ever dumped him. Then, as now, a mother's touch and kind word had dulled the pain and discomfort of existence immeasurably. He had spent months wondering if there would still be a place for him here, and now he knew he had done so needlessly.

"Yea, it is," he managed to squeak out from his paralyzed vocal chords.

She didn't ask him to explain where he'd been in the time in between, or why it had taken him so long, just pulled him in to a rib-cracking hug. After ensuring that he was in fact real and in one piece, she pushed herself away to arms-length.

"You must be starving; come and have something to eat," she ushered him to a seat, swiping at her eyes with the back of a hand.

There was a shuffle of movement as an extra chair was brought in and plates and cutlery were shifted. Leon found himself squeezed between his parents right across from his older brother who had yet to say anything, a miniature-sized spoon of something puréed and orange held loosely in his hand. His father, never one for overt displays of affection, clapped a hand on his shoulder, holding his son's gaze with same penetrating, light-blue eyes that had helped to make him such an effective police detective.

"You alright?" the authoritative voice was just a little gruff with emotion.

"I'm alright, dad."

"I…I don't believe it," the stuttered words of the eldest Kennedy son interrupted. Looking at Liam had always been like observing a living portrait of his father at a younger age. Not only were the two similar in appearance, but Liam had inherited the serious, no-nonsense manner of his sire. His two younger brothers had, in some ways, been fortunate to grow up with an older sibling with such a strong sense of order and discipline. In other ways, he had set the bar impossibly high.

Leon could do simple math – he knew how long it took to plan a wedding, to gestate a human child. And he knew all too well exactly how long he had been gone. Two years ago his brother had been unattached, childless, and newly hired on with an important stock brokerage in New York, still living in a house he shared with his roommates from college. It appeared that, once again, Liam had been stuck cleaning up for the messes his younger siblings made.

"I just…can't believe it."

"It's okay," Leon shrugged, "most of the time, neither can I."