Leon smiled faintly at Helena, watching her leave and go down the stairs. Her feet sounded quiet on the hard wood floors as she descended the stairs and entered the kitchen, approaching the stainless-steel refrigerator. Helena browsed through the food that they had been supplied with to start out and eventually settled on something easy, taking a container of tortellini to the stove and bringing a pot of water to boil.
She had started cooking the tortellini and started the sauce in another pot, not noticing Aliya approaching her.
"So how long have you been in this kind of work?"
Helena jumped as she heard the girl, accidentally brushing her hand against the hot pot.
"Jesus Christ!"
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare you!"
"No, it's alright. Uh a couple years, I started out working for the CIA and then the USSS and then I transferred." She explains, running her burned hand under lukewarm water so that it wouldn't blister.
"What's the USSS?"
"United States Secret Service. I uh helped protect the president."
Aliya nodded, "oh. So where were you when he died? Everyone in the lab was talking about it for weeks after it happened."
"On vacation," she says quickly, "let's talk about something else." She adds, turning off the water and going back to cooking the food. That was one of many parts of her life that she didn't want to visit.
"Okay uhm…Do you have parents?"
Helena shrugged, "everyone has parents. How else would they get here?"
Aliya rolled her eyes, "that's not what I mean. Like are they alive? Any siblings?"
"My parents died in a car accident when I was eighteen. My sister died a few months ago."
"Oh. What were your parents and sister like?"
Helena sighed, "why don't you ask me something else?"
Her childhood was another thing that Helena didn't want to visit. She grew up very close with her mother, but their father was a drunk and when he drank too much, he became violent. She often found herself protecting both Deborah and their mother from his fists and by the time she had turned sixteen, she had broken almost every bone at least once as a result. She had tried not to, but despite being so close to her mother, she had harbored resentment at her for not protecting them more. Leon didn't even know about that part of her life, she sure as hell wasn't going to tell a twelve-year-old.
"Okay, are you and Leon together? Like more than just coworkers?"
"No, just friends and coworkers." She explains, draining the pasta and mixing the sauce in with it.
"Yeah, okay."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Helena asks, putting her hands on her hips.
"Nothing. All I said was okay."
Helena rolled her eyes and scooped some food onto some plates and bringing them to the table, calling for Leon as she did.
"You made tortellini? I love tortellini!" Leon says excitedly, as if he was a little kid, making her chuckle as he got some grated parmesan and put it on his plate.
"You know it already has cheese in it, right?"
"Listen, things don't have enough cheese. The Italian in me loves it and there's never enough." He says, going on a tangent and making them laugh.
"So, Helena told me she worked for the secret service before. Have you worked for this place the whole time?"
"No, I was a cop for a very very short amount of time and then I was recruited for the place I'm at now."
Aliya nodded as she started eating, eating faster than the two had even seen before.
"Slow down. There's plenty of food." Leon chuckles.
"Sorry. They used to make me go days at a time without food. Said that I needed an empty stomach for tests."
Leon and Helena frowned, sharing a look.
"Well, you won't have to go without food for as long as you're with us. You can eat as much as you want, whenever you want."
Aliya nodded, the three continuing to eat in silence until Helena got up to start the dishes.
"It's okay, I'll clean up since you cooked."
Helena nodded and yawned, just now realizing how tired she was as Aliya started up the stairs to get ready for bed. Helena went up to hers and Leons room, getting changed into her pajamas and climbing into her side of the bed.
Her heart skipped a beat when Leon came into the room, only getting changed into a pair of gray sweatpants and climbing in on his side. Leon made sure that he gave Helena enough space so that she wouldn't become uncomfortable.
"Well, goodnight." She says awkwardly, turning onto her side.
"Goodnight, darling." He says jokingly, also rolling over onto his side.
"Call me that again and you're going to regret it, Kennedy."
Leon chuckled and didn't say anything else as the pair drifted off to sleep.
At some point in the night, Helena ended up curled against Leon with his arms wrapped around her. Neither one was aware of this until Helena woke the next morning, silently wishing that it could be like this all the time since this was the best sleep she had gotten since China. Helena groaned as she heard a knock on the door, wondering who could be visiting at 9 am.
Quietly, she went downstairs to see that Aliya had already been awake and opened the door.
"Aliya, who is it?"
"Oh, it's the neighbors, mom."
Helena tried her best not to show how weird she felt at being called mom. She was only twenty-four and if anything, she could be considered the kids sister. Helena approached, ready to put on the act of convincing the neighbors that she was this girl's mother. Helena stood in front of Aliya protectively, Leon now coming down the stairs after putting a shirt on and following suit.
"Hello! I'm Carla and this is my husband, James. We live across the street, and we figured that we would come and introduce ourselves. We made this pie as a welcome." The older woman explains, handing the pie to Helena, who was taken aback. Was introducing yourselves to the neighbors normal? Should they have gone around introducing themselves?
Helena looked at the other couple. Carla was a woman of around thirty-five with curly blonde hair and a tan complexion. She was shorter than Helena by a few inches and was wearing a sweater with faded blue jeans. James on the other hand was lankier, about Leons height with dark hair and a paler complexion wearing a plaid flannel and a pair of black pants.
"It's nice to meet you both. I'm Leon and this is my wife, Helena." Leon says, putting his arm around Helena as he spoke, "and this is our daughter, Aliya."
"That's such a pretty name!"
"Thanks, we named her after my older sister."
"We have a son named Trevor who's also her age. Maybe we can arrange for them to meet? Get Aliya jump started on making some friends?"
"That would be great to set up," Helena starts, turning to Aliya, "you hear that? Someone in the neighborhood who's your age." She adds, finally able to speak as she looked at the raven-haired girl.
"That's awesome! Maybe we can go meet him later, dad?" Aliya asks, looking at him. Leon couldn't see her eyes through the sunglasses she had put on, but he could only imagine she was begging and giving puppy eyes.
"Maybe another day. We have a lot of unpacking to do."
Aliya frowned and sighed.
"Well, that's alright! Plenty of time to meet. I'm sure they'll be attending the same school." James says, speaking for the first time since arriving.
"Yes, they will. She starts school on Monday." Helena says with a nod, forcing a smile as she put a hand on Aliya's shoulder, just wanting these people to go away.
"Well, we don't want to keep you so we will be on our way." James says, gesturing for Carla to follow him, understanding that they were busy. Leon and Helena bid the couple goodbye, closing the door as the couple went down the steps.
"Okay, Aliya, we want you to be as normal as possible while with us but for that to happen, it's time to setup some ground rules." Leon says after closing the door.
"Like?"
"Firstly, no opening the door without me and Helena present. Not unless it's an agent like Hunnigan or Chris and Jill." Leon starts, "you're allowed to have friends over once you make some, but me and Helena have to be home." He adds, his blue eyes staring into hers.
Aliya nodded, "sounds simple enough."
"This especially goes for boys. No boys here without either of us present and if there are some here, your bedroom door is to always remain open." He says, ignoring Helena's eye roll about the boys.
"Also, if people are over, no going into mine and Leon's room. We have our guns in there when we aren't at work, and we don't want anything to happen." Helena explains, crossing her arms as she leaned against the wall.
"Okay, sounds fair enough." Aliya says, turning finally to run back up to her room.
"The boys rule? Really?"
"What? I know what goes through boys' heads."
Helena chuckled, "they're twelve. What do you think is going to happen? Ninety-nine percent of them think that stuff is gross."
Leon shrugged as the two went about their Saturday morning, Helena eventually going out to the garage to see a package left on the steps with a note attached.
Things to make it more believable-Hunnigan
Helena took the package and went inside, setting it down on the granite island where Leon was standing, opening it to reveal photoshopped pictures. The first few pictures were Helena and Leon's pictures photoshopped together, taken directly from their files. The next ones were Helena and Leon photoshopped together in wedding attire.
"Damn, who knew Hunnigan was good at photoshop?" Leon asks, partly wishing that it was real as he looked through the pictures. Helena looked through the photo album next, which had smaller versions of all the photos, eventually seeing baby pictures.
"Hey some of these are pictures of Lizzie. She's Chris and Jill's daughter." He says, noticing the pictures ranged from her as a newborn to the age she was now, which was three. Then the pictures turned into that of other children aged up until the age Aliya was now.
Helena smiled at the various pictures, "I didn't even know Chris and Jill had a daughter."
"Yeah, I wouldn't have expected you to know that yet anyway. I'm not quite sure if they trust you just yet."
"Can't say I blame them." Helena shrugs as she took the pictures and placed them on the various walls and tables.
Meanwhile, Chris and Jill were down the street in their car, keeping the house in their sights in case anything happened.
"Those two really need to grow a pair and admit that they love each other already." Chris says as he watched out the driver's side window.
"You say that they've loved each other for as long as they started working together?" Jill asks, looking at her husband.
"Oh please, I could see it in both their eyes in China."
Jill chuckled, "Well, I agree. It'll happen at some point. There's only so long you can work together and live under the same roof before you start fucking each other."
Chris gave her a look, "what makes you say that?"
"It happened with us." She shrugs, remembering when she had been mind controlled by Wesker for five years. Chris had her move in with him to help her get back on her feet since she had no where to go at the time. It wasn't long before they had admitted their feelings and five years later here they were, married with a little girl.
"That's true. I give it a month flat. For fucking each other and getting together."
Jill scoffed, "no, I give it two weeks before they fuck, and then another two weeks before they stop being pansies and get together."
"Should we make this interesting?"
Jill raised an eyebrow, "what did you have in mind?"
"Loser gives the winner fifty bucks and has to wake up with Elizabeth for the next two weeks and cooks' dinner."
Jill smirked, "deal."
A/N: Let me know what y'all think! Please review!