RE: Inclination

A/N: As a sidenote, I've worked up a timeline about this story based on research done about the series (games + degeneration movie). It is currently, as of this segment, sometime in March of 2006.

There was someone in the hallway of his apartment as he returned home. Leon weighed the options, hesitating a moment towards his gun before he made out the figure as having the curves of a woman. Not that he wouldn't need the gun because of that, but it did make him wonder who it was. Certainly not Ingrid. Hunnigan had shaken her head at him when he showed up to work that morning, but aside from her usual chiding about his health not lasting forever, especially at his age… she'd flapped a hand at him to get to work at his desk. Plus, she'd made it repeatedly clear that she wanted nothing more from Leon than that he complete his job and not get killed so he could do it all over again when necessary.

The day at the office had been more tiring than he had expected. The office lighting must be terrible, or else he really was more tired than he was letting himself believe. His eyes were feeling gritty, and his whole body ached. His systems were still a little lethargic after the antibiotics. His mouth got dry faster than he liked, and he could feel he was slower than he was used to, even in his joints. The effects of the cure, he knew. He'd felt it before. The debilitating feeling of infection, the groggy sensation of his body after the cure. It was still vexing. Somehow, he bounced back.

He wanted to be able to sink into the security of someone's arms, to let the weariness drain from him the way it was draining his strength, but there wasn't anyone to come home to. He figured he could've called Angela, he reasoned she was likely the woman's figure in his hallway, but there was just something wrong with it. She didn't understand. She talked too much about the wrong things….

She was so heavy all the time. Leon stopped halfway to his door and focused his eyes. Yes, she was heavy.

And she was standing in front of his door.

Usually this sort of an introduction meant a bad ending as the conversation turned, which was unfortunate. It was this portion of the situation that was worse than the physical drain. He could handle bouncing back to health, it was the pity… It was the inability to rest with the care of someone overlooking him that made the weariness drag on and on…

"So they finally let you out of there, huh?"

"Angela, long time."

"Six months, on the inside, if I recall."

I'm sure you do, he thought to himself, and then felt like a jerk. He unlocked the front door and held it open. "Invite you in?" he offered.

"You could," she said, stepping closer and adjusting the collar of his jacket. She was close, and when she was that close, he could remember the good things about her. When she wasn't checking, when she just quietly needed his support… when she just enjoyed his company without being so over-involved. He had to wonder, as she leaned up slightly to kiss his cheek, if she had enough to do in her own life. She did, after all, live several hundred miles away in Pennsylvania.

He tipped his head and brushed their lips together.

Angela leaned back, turning her eyes away.

Leon knew that look. He'd seen it before. It usually came after he got the annoyed call about where he was, which was usually a hospital. It was usually just before…

"We need to talk."

"Then I guess you'd better come up." She started to touch his jacket, something about the tone of his voice must have alerted her… but it was his turn to lean back, to politely usher her past him.

They headed up to his apartment silently, and she waited as he opened the door. She went in, turning on the lights in a familiar manner. He resented that. "Still pretty empty in here."

"I'm still not home a lot," Leon replied.

"You're home now."

"I'm also tired now," Leon said. He put his keys down and shrugged out of his jacket. "Would you like something to drink?" He looked up at her from where he headed into the kitchen, and saw a look on her face that was vaguely accusing. "I'm not an alcoholic, Angela."

"You're not," she said in a voice that was half question. "Are you sure?"

Leon casually opened the refrigerator and showed her its contents. There was some spoiled milk, some canned soda, and a few questionable looking pieces of fruit and bologna. "You can check the place if you want."

"That's not what I want, Leon," Angela said.

"It's also not what you came to talk about, I'd bet. What's up?"

"Is this…" she sighed, pausing. "Leon, are we… does this do anything for you?"

"I'm too quiet," he said, summarizing her thoughts. He'd heard them before. It was sad, it was annoying. Almost like a play he'd read in high school, or an episode of television he'd seen before.

"That's not what I said, and you didn't answer."

"Who is he?" Leon asked softly, turning to the fridge. This was when it would hurt him. To hear her talk about whomever else it was. For a moment, he thought Angela might disappoint him. She paused.

It drew out.

"Nicholas," she said with a sigh.

Leon hated being right. Or at least being right about that. It didn't do him any good, and it only ever made him numb himself further. What he would have liked when Angela showed up on the doorstep was to put his arms around her and sag into her touch, let the weariness he felt sink into his bones and take him. But she had to speak, to break the spell that her presence might be a balm on his wounded self. So instead, here they were.

"How long?" Leon asked.

Angela wasn't tearing up. That, at least, was new and different. She took a breath, turned to cross past him to get a glass of water. "Six months, since the last time you called. It was… just dinner at first…"

"Stop," Leon said softly.

"But then when you didn't answer… he did. And dinner was a movie and a movie was…"

"Angela, stop."

"He's there, and you're not. Not when I need you. Not without your phone. Not when it's normal. Leon, is anything normal in your life?"

He slammed the refrigerator door shut harder than he meant to. One of the cans popped out of the door and onto one of the empty shelves, maybe it hit an old piece of fruit. He could hear it through the door of the closed machine. "It's normal enough," he said, taking a deep breath.

"That means no," Angela said. "If you… if you don't want something normal, Leon, you shouldn't do this to people… to women. If you don't want…"

"I said stop, Angela." Leon's voice, he knew, was low. He was fairly certain it was menacing. This part of him Angela had always found attractive, before. She was never scared of his intensity. She joked about it, didn't take him seriously. She was more real to herself than he was. Perhaps, he thought, she didn't know more than what she wanted to know about him. She'd taken what she wanted and… what she needed so…. There wasn't anything left but what was physical and that was apparently being handled by Nicholas, now.

This time, she shrank back from his voice. It felt good to be angry for once. "I know I'm hard to talk to, and that I'm hard to get hold of. And that I answer my phone a lot. I work for a specialized branch of the government. I have to do that. All of it. I have a mission, and I'm sorry you're not more important than that."

For a second, she looked like she was going to cry. Tears were common. He was used to tears. He understood them, in a strange way. Not really understood them, but he knew what they meant. What they could mean – sadness, frustration, anger… but she went straight to anger and passed right over tears. Her fist balled and flew, landing square in his stitches.

Leon let her hit him, let her feel angry. He could taste blood. It didn't taste like blood, but he knew that's what it was. It was leaking from the inside of his mouth and coating his tongue. Had his teeth cut his cheek? Or was that from his stitches?

"Oh god, Leon!" Angela grabbed a towel, one hand bloody, and moved towards him.

He lifted a hand. "That's enough help, thanks. If you don't mind, could you go?"

"Leon…"

"Please, Angela."

The towel dropped from her fingers. She turned, heading from the kitchen, but paused in the doorway, looking back over her shoulder at him. Leon turned his eyes towards her.

"Let's break up," Angela said. She turned her face back to the front and headed out of the apartment. He bent to pick up the towel, covering his face as the metallic taste made the tendons in his body shiver angrily. His tongue felt thick. He swallowed a little and felt the bile rise in his throat.

Leon didn't know if it was from the breakup or the punch. He locked the door behind Angela and leaned his head on it. He looked down and watched the red fall on the floor at his feet. It pooled.

More blood.

Better get that patched up, he thought to himself.