Leon awoke the next morning and got up, ready to start the day. He showered and got dressed and gave Helena a kiss on the head and went to Aliya's room to wake her for their trip to the zoo. Leon opened the door and almost started panicking when he saw that Aliya wasn't in her bed. Her bed had obviously been slept in, but she wasn't there. Leon went downstairs, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw Aliya making herself cereal.
"You're up earlier than normal," he says, moving to the area by the microwave where the coffee pot was and starting to make coffee for him and Helena.
"Couldn't really sleep. I was too excited," she says as she sat at the table with her captain crunch, "can I ask you something?"
"Depends. If it's about boys, that's Helena's department," he says jokingly as he poured his coffee and went to sit at the head of the table.
Aliya giggled, "nothing like that. Besides, boys are gross."
"Oh, you won't be thinking that in a few years. Anyway, what's your question?"
"Do you think we'll be able to tell Trevor the truth about his dad one day? He's my friend and I hate lying to him."
"One day, but not anytime soon. It's too fresh right now and he's still grieving. He isn't going to understand."
"I know. Lying to him just sucks."
Leon leaned in close to her, "tell you what; when the time comes, he should hear it from me. I don't want you involved."
Aliya nodded and continued eating her cereal while Leon waited for her, the two eventually bid Helena goodbye and set off for the zoo.
"Alright what animal do you want to see first?" he asks, chuckling as he saw Aliya bouncing excitedly in the passenger seat. She was so excited that she was able to play hooky and do normal kid activities.
"Do they have lions there? What about Cheetahs? Polar bears? Regular bears?" she asks, talking a mile a minute.
Leon laughed, "I'm sure that they have every animal that you can think of."
Aliya smiled as she looked out the window, watching the scenery go by as they drove down the suburban streets until they pulled into the zoo's parking lot. Aliya excitedly got out of the car, bouncing up and down as Leon greeted her and she followed him to admissions and waited for him to pay for the two of them. Since Aliya was only twelve, she was able to get a discount on her ticket.
"Alright, what's the first rule about going out in public?" he asks as they went through the entrance, letting the worker scan their tickets.
"Don't wander off and don't talk to strangers," she says, looking around at the crowd of people. She had never been in such a crowded place before and it felt overwhelming. She felt as though people were staring when all they were really doing was trying to get from point A to B.
"You want to see the lions first?"
Aliya nodded excitedly, looking at the map they were given and immediately dragged Leon down the path towards the lions, carefully following the signs, making him laugh at her eagerness.
"Look! The lions have a baby!" She says excitedly as she ran to the viewing window where she saw a pride of lions with a group of females, a single male, and a single cub. Leon watched as the lion cub bounded over to the viewing window and stared at Aliya in curiosity.
"His name is Toto. It means 'little child' in Swahili and he's usually shy, but he seems to really like you." The female worker, wearing a light gray shirt with the zoo's logo and khaki shorts, says, noticing the cub following Aliya's every movement.
"I have a question," Leon starts, waiting for the young woman to acknowledge him before continuing, "I know in the wild, the male lions are kicked out of their pride. What do you do with them in captivity?"
"That's a good question. What we do is we send them to other zoos where they have unrelated females looking for a male."
Leon nodded, looking back to where Aliya had been only to notice that she was now gone. Leon tried not to panic as he looked around the exhibit for Aliya, fearing that maybe she was being dumb and trying to find a way into the exhibit like all the incidents he had read about.
"Sir, are you okay?" The worker says, gently touching him on the shoulder.
"Yeah, I just need to find my daughter," he says, brushing her off and starting to look for Aliya.
Leon called Aliya's phone only for it to go right to voicemail. Leon cursed under his breath as he tried to remain calm while looking for her, trying to see if he could spot her black and magenta highlighted hair through the crowd, finally breathing a sigh of relief when he found her looking at a bunch of flamingos in a pond.
"Leon! Come look at these!" She called excitedly, waving him over.
"Aliya, I told you not to wander off," he scolded her, trying his best to sound angrier to mask his relief and knelt to her height.
"I'm sorry I just got excited."
"I know and that's fine, but it's crowded, alright? Anything can happen. Now next time I'm going to get one of those backpack leashes for you." He says, making the last part sound more like a joke.
Aliya giggled, "what are these things?" she asks, turning her attention back to the flamingos.
"These are flamingos. A couple of weird looking birds, aren't they?"
"Can they fly?"
"No, they can't," he chuckles as he stood and glanced over at the pink birds before the two made their way to the cheetah enclosure where they saw a lone cheetah with a dog.
"Woah, they have a dog in there too. And the cheetah doesn't eat him?" she asks, her eyes going wide as she saw the fluffy white dog while Leon looked at the sign on the railing.
"It says here that Cheetahs are anxious animals, so they're raised with dogs."
"That's so cool!" She says, not noticing Leon taking pictures of her looking at the two animals in the enclosure on his phone and sending them to Helena before moving on to the next exhibit. The two spent most of the morning and afternoon wandering around looking at bears, tigers, and even getting to pet some goats in the petting zoo. The pair only took a brief break to get lunch at the café before continuing for another few hours and ending at the gift shop for Aliya to pick up a souvenir.
"Dad, can I pick something out for Trevor too?"
"I think he'd like that."
Aliya nodded and looked through all the options, deciding on a beaded bracelet with a giraffe on it, remembering that he had told her that giraffes were his favorite animal and then chose a stuffed cheetah for herself.
Leon looked around, wanting to get something for Helena, knowing that she still felt sad with a broken arm and the experience with Phil was still fresh in her mind. Leon smiled as he saw a mug with two otters on it and the quote, "you're my otter half" taking the mug and the items that Aliya wanted and brought them to the front and paid for them, thanking the cashier as he took the bag and went to head to the car.
"Did you have fun today, kiddo?"
"Uh huh I can't wait to come back again." She says as she put her seatbelt on.
"Well, we can come back one day and maybe Helena and even Trevor can come with us too."
Aliya chattered away happily as they drove back to the house, and it was the happiest that Leon had seen her, and he hoped that it stayed that way. Aliya was such a good kid and she deserved to be able to act like a kid. Leon looked over when he didn't hear her chatting away anymore and saw that she was out cold by the time he pulled into the driveway. Leon chuckled and grabbed the bag of souvenirs as he got out of the car and moved to her side, picking her up gently and bringing her inside.
"How was the zoo?" Helena asks, smiling as she saw Leon carrying a sleeping Aliya.
"Oh, she hated it if you couldn't tell," he chuckles, bringing Aliya up the stairs to her room so that she could continue to sleep and tucked her stuffed cheetah under her arm.
Leon returned downstairs with Helena and took the mug out of the bag, going up behind her and giving her a kiss on the cheek, wrapping one hand around her waist and the other placing the mug down on the table in front of her.
"You're my otter half? Oh my God you're so corny," she snorts as she read the mug, "but I love it."
"Leon smiled, "I figured you would. How was your day?"
"Not terrible. Sherry and Jill came over and we watched movies and Chris took Jake out for some drinks."
"Really?" he asks, looking at her in surprise as he knew that Jake and Chris weren't particularly fond of each other, so he had to make sure that he was hearing correctly.
"He did it for Sherry and Chris did it for Jill," she shrugs, "I guess it went well because they're going out again next week."
"Well, good for them," he says as the two went to settle down on the couch.
"Hunnigan also called me, and she sent a team over to the boy's house that she had bitten. He was infected."
Leon ran a hand through his blond hair, "Jesus Christ. Should we tell her?"
Helena shook her head, "no not yet. Maybe we can see about the labs getting a vaccine made so that if she bites someone again, we can get on top of it."
"She's just a kid. She shouldn't be having to go through this."
"I know," she says, putting her head on his shoulder.
The two stayed like that for a while until it was well into the evening, and they had to turn in for the night, stopping by Aliya's room to find that she was still sound asleep. They knew that she'd have to be told eventually, but for now they needed to keep it between them.
At C.A.T. Co, Natalia was fuming when her agents told her of the situation. She sat at her desk, sitting back in her chair, and drumming her fingers on the mahogany.
"So, she can infect people," she says, scarily calm as she looked at her two henchmen that stood in front of her."
"Yes ma'am. The D.S.O had to cover it up."
"That changes things," she says, letting out a heavy sigh, "forget terminating agents Harper and Kennedy."
"Ma'am?"
"Those two just don't know what they're getting into."
The agent raised an eyebrow at his boss, hoping that she wasn't implying what he thought she was implying.
"You don't mean…?"
"I do. We must bring her here and terminate her ourselves."