After he made up the couch with a blanket and pillow, he deeply hoped that Helena wouldn't remember most of their time this night. Despite it being fun, what happened earlier wasn't his idea of asking someone out. Also he didn't want Helena to be embarrassed either. He yawned before drifting off to sleep.
Leon woke up around 6 or so in the morning and began to clean up after last night. While taking the garbage out he quickly went to his room to check up on Helena. She was sleeping peacefully, and he cracked the door open a bit so light could get in and wake her up. He wondered if she was going to be okay though after drinking so much. He felt guilty a bit for keeping it going but at the same time, it was nice to let loose.
Leon went over to a closet and picked out a random black t shirt and slipped it on. He decided to go into Helena's apartment and get started with moving her belongings. In front of her door was a notice saying she had to vacate the premises. Leon just tore up the note and opened up the door and went in. He was surprised as to how clean it was now which made it much easier for him to get Helena's things. Leon first traveled to the bathroom and got all of tooth brushes and combs out followed by pills from the medicine cabinet then he made his way towards her room. It occurred to him he never saw it before and he was surprised to see posters and other items surrounding it. It was as if Helena's true personality lingered in her bedroom for it seemed fun and inviting unlike the living room arrangement. He went through her dresser to get her clothes and pants then came across a photograph tucked away in the corner of one of the drawers.
The picture was that of a man with brown hair and a mustache smiling widely as he held his wife and two daughters in his arms. Leon could make out the girls were Deborah and Helena.
"Cute kids."
He smiled, thinking back to his own folks and his life growing up. Originally Leon was from a small town in the north. They were an atypical middle class family and his dad and mom were always working to make ends meet. He could remember wanting to be a music major in high school when he was planning on going to college, but his father shot the idea down. Leon loved his dad but never understood why he was so against his choices. He planned on going through with it anyway much to his dad's disappointment and to his mother's surprise. He saved up enough money while doing part time work for the high school music teacher and planned on going to an art academics school in the south. Leon could remember coming home late from work excited to bring the good news to his folks that he had been accepted, only to find cops greeting him instead. His mother had been murdered, and his father was broken.
Leon was depressed and angry after he graduated and ended up not going to the college of his choice. He stayed home for a year helping his dad cope with the loss of his wife, and after looking into the police program at Raccoon City, decided he wanted to be a cop and eventually join the S.T.A.R.S team. Though his mom's murderer had been caught Leon wanted to make a difference and prevent any other people suffering the sad fate his father and himself had to endure not having her in their lives ever again. He recalled telling his dad about moving to Raccoon City which he fully supported and even gave him enough cash to last him for a year in an apartment complex within the area. While Leon was at the police academy training for the first year, his father passed on from a heart attack. Leon could remember being saddened at the fact his father and mother wouldn't get to see him graduate. Then again now looking back on it, he was happy they never did come for the horrific events of the T-Virus outbreak occurred and Raccoon City was purged into hell. Leon liked to think maybe it was fates way of saving him from the terror of possibly killing his own folks if they were to be infected.
Leon looked back from the kids and their mother and looked at Helena's dad. Leon could relate to Helena in a sense because each of them never got to say goodbye to their dads as he recalled her story from the previous night. They all looked happy together and Leon wished he could give Helena that sense of comfort she must have been feeling the day the photograph was taken. He knew he wouldn't be able to give her everything nor take away the pain of losing her family, but Leon was more determined to keep her safe. Kent, neither Ada, nor anyone else would get to her without going through him. In his mind he made a promise to her family and intended to keep it. After glancing at the photograph long enough, he went back to getting the rest of Helena's belongings.
Helena began to wake up feeling like her head was on fire. Her stomach churned with utter sickness as she got up from the bed and began to stretched, and then it dawned on her. She was in Leon's bed asleep the entire time. Still halfway asleep and still trying to get her body to wake up, Helena began to pat down her clothing to see if it was there still. Though she had a huge crush on him it would have been awkward knowing she slept with her best friend while they happened to get drunk together. Helena fell back into the bed with a huge sigh of relief and was thankful she couldn't recall hardly anything from last night. After she let her body adjust to the pain in her head, she looked around Leon's room. It was pretty basic but here and there he had paintings hung up. Helena got up from the bed and wanted to get a closer look at the one with a couple. The man looked like Leon but had a much more masculine face, and the woman had his eyes. She assumed after gazing upon it that it was his mom and dad.
"I had no idea he could even draw let alone paint."
She muttered as she began to head towards the living room area. Helena found that the couch had been made up and assumed Leon must have slept there for the night. The bottles of booze and the like were nowhere to be found, neither was Leon for that matter as she searched the kitchen and the hallway for him.
"He must have gone out to get breakfast or something…"
Helena walked back into the kitchen hoping to find a medicine cabinet of some sort since the bathroom didn't seem to have anything. Helena found an ice pack in the fridge however and placed it on the side of her head which burned with pain. She couldn't believe she got drunk let alone she couldn't even imagine the stuff Leon must have had to endure with her being crazy and on edge.
"I better apologize when he gets back. He's probably regretting me living here now as we speak. Leon's got enough to worry about."
Helena's thoughts went back to the painting in Leon's room and she began to think about her father. Helena's family was quite poor while Deborah and she grew up and her mom was a stay at home wife while her father was a government agent. Though he was high up in rank, he barely received enough money for his services let alone got to see his children, but during the times he'd be in the states he'd always stop by and play with Deborah and Helena. Helena's mother was the one who raised Deborah and her up. She could recall her mom trying to get her to become more feminine like Deborah and the many disputes they had on what it meant to be a woman. Helena's love for her mom was undying because she sacrificed her career just to have Helena and Deborah after an unexpected pregnancy, but she hated the fact her mom never approved of her attitude towards gender since Helena was a tomboy. Helena would say that her mom was traditional, and Deborah until they entered middle school and everything changed. Her dad was honorably discharged from his government services but since he was gone from home so often, he desperately wanted to get away from the house. Because he was on the go in search for jobs all the time, he could never help out their mother with household things nor could he really raise Deborah and Helena. Many fights between Helena's mom and dad ensured and Helena would sometimes find herself caught in the middle of it trying to keep her dad from beating up her mother. Helena tried to keep Deborah out of the mess, and took it upon herself to be her mother's shield as well as her sisters. Her already strained relationship with her father dissolved into nothing, and it continued to get worse from there.
Shortly 9/11 happened which shook the entire world. Helena could remember being 12 at the time and watching the towers burn. She held Deborah in her arms as the child cried while hearing their parents fight. Helena would whisper sweet nothings and songs to her sister trying to be rid of the fighting going on. It turned out that Helena's father ended up falling for someone else and the other woman was expecting his child and he wanted to be there for her. That did it for her mom and they divorced. Helena's dad departed on her birthday to leave with his new family. Helena could remember feeling mixed about her father leaving; sure the fights ended but a part of her envied her newborn step-brother. He was going to be there with him rather than Deborah or herself and for a 12 year old, it was hard to take in.
By the time she was seventeen her father died in the war. Both Deborah and she lived with guilt for not having had the chance to make amends. Because of the news of her husband's passing, Helena's mother one day left and was never heard from again. To this day no one knows her whereabouts. Helena had to take it upon herself to raise Deborah and was forced to drop out of high school in order to put a roof over their heads. Thanks to her father's new wife, she managed to get contacts from the agency her father worked for and then worked her way up in the secret service after she got her GED at 19. Deborah and Helena were tightly bonded together despite the problems that occurred in their life for they only had each other.
Helena looked back on the week before she was to guard the president in Tall Oaks, remembering they had a huge fight about searching for their mom. If that was one thing she regretted, it was not apologizing to her sister for that fight. The last time they talked was right before Simmons kidnapped them and they were still bitter towards the other. Helena had sacrificed her life and future for Deborah, so the devastation of losing her was still so huge that not even her soul would be able to heal it seemed.
Helena found a tear streaming down her face thinking back to the past. She quickly wiped it off and realized she was sitting on the couch wrapped up in the blanket that was there. Her mind went to Leon for a moment. Ever since they started to bond in China, Helena felt like Leon was the closest thing to family she had left. After laying her sister to rest Helena found out their mom passed on a year before. She now only had her own company and Leon's along with the rest of the CIA and BSAA troops.
"He's the only family I have. Kent is not going to harm him, not while I am here."
Helena heard a knock at the door, and despite having the biggest hangover of her life, she got up to answer it.