Chapter Text
They meet when the first Raccoon City survivor shows up dead. She’s the FBI’s liaison because of the nature of the death and because there are so few survivors. She’s skittish and petite, her eyes dropping to the ground whenever someone speaks to her. She’s got a service dog with her, a black lab she fondly calls Davy, and Leon understands why almost immediately.
Grace struggles with her anxiety, and whenever she starts to get wound up towards a panic attack, Davy leans on her, her fingers twine in his fur, and he doesn’t move until she calms down.
Leon’s careful not to be too intense (Sherry says he can be, but Leon doesn’t really see it), and Grace seems to appreciate that he keeps his voice low and calm.
They grow closer when the second body appears. She brings him a coffee, able to meet his gaze for longer, laughing at more than one of Leon’s bad jokes. Leon sees the steel underneath the anxiety for the first time when a local officer starts to talk down to her.
Good Ol’ Boy bullshit that you don’t see in newer cops. A type of arrogance that a part of Leon is glad he never had to put up with.
Leon opened his mouth to tell the bastard to fuck off, but Grace actually beat him to it. Voice quiet but firm when she tells him that he has his orders, and traipsing around her crime scene isn’t one of them.
It shuts the prick up real quick, because what can you even say to that?
When he walks away in a huff, Leon sees Grace’s hands shake, and he carefully puts his hand on her shoulder as Davy leans his head against her thigh. “Nice one.”
He asks her out when the third body appears. Even he can admit his timing’s not great. But…he kind of likes the look of surprise on her face, eyes wide behind her glasses, blue latex gloves on and a flashlight in her hands.
“I—You’re asking me out?”
“Yeah…is that so surprising?”
And yeah, okay, maybe it was. Leon was almost twice her age and twice divorced. What the hell would she want to go out with him for?
But if he didn’t go for it now, he had the feeling he’d never have the chance again.
There’s a warmth in his chest when she agrees with her pretty, shy smile. “I’d love to.”
Their first date was casual. A quiet cafe for breakfast and a walk through a nearby park. Davy’s there, but he doesn’t have to calm down Grace even once.
Leon takes a lot of pride in that.
Means Grace is comfortable with him.
By the fourth body, they’re spending nights together at each other’s places, and he’s confiding in her about his infection.
“That’s why you and Sherry are so invested in these deaths.”
“Yeah.”
She looks thoughtful (and cute as a button in one of Leon’s t-shirts), hands wrapping around the mug of coffee Leon hands her. She’s not wearing her glasses, squinting a little because she isn’t wearing her contacts either.
“Where do you think they’ll lead you?”
“No clue, to be honest, but it beats sitting around waiting to die.”
And yeah, there are definitely better ways he could have said that. But Grace, to her credit, doesn’t panic like he half expects when the words first leave his mouth.
Her pale eyebrows furrow, and for a moment, Leon thinks she’ll scold him (and maybe the thought of a scolding does something for him).
She surprises him, though, “Whatever it takes, count me in.”
“God, I love you.”
There’s that look of astonishment he loves again. It takes Leon a second to register why she is.
Oh. Right. That’s the first time he’s ever said the words out loud.
She doesn’t say anything right then, smiling into her coffee.
Grace whispers the words in his ear that night, fingers carding through his hair as he sucks a mark onto her collarbone, still flushed pink from their recent exertions. And the warmth he was now so used to settled in his chest again.
When the hell had he gotten so lucky?
By the fifth body, Leon’s asked her to move in with him. His little house outside of town might not have been ideal for her commute, but neither of them could deal with her nosy neighbours in her apartment anymore.
If her next-door neighbour asked them one more time if Leon was Grace's sugar daddy with that stupid little smirk on his face, Leon might be going to prison for homicide.
So his place it was.
Grace wasn’t even annoyed by her 40-minute commute. The privacy alone was worth it.
The closest neighbour was almost ten miles away and Grace actually felt like she could breath.
Leon hadn’t lived with anyone since Ada, and he had been prepared for an adjustment period.
Maybe he hadn’t really considered just how much time they spent together already because the ease at which the meld their lives together fully startles him.
Him.
Leon Scott Kennedy.
A man who isn’t even surprised when a nemesis shows up during a fight.
He had forgotten how nice it is to live with someone who cares about him. Someone that cares whether he eats take-out six nights a week and who’ll stitch him up when he comes home injured. Someone that welcomes him home and holds him when the weight of the world tries to crush him.
When Grace is sent to the Wrenwood Hotel after a sixth body is discovered, Leon’s stuck at the site of the seventh. He knows her history, knows that’s where her mother was murdered. Don’t even get him started on why the hell that bastard Dempsey was sending an FBI analyst into the field with zero backup.
When the cop assigned to the Hotel goes missing, Leon arrives just in time to see Victor Gideon making off with his unconscious girlfriend over his shoulder.
Leon is too slow.
Struggles to accept that his Grace is being taken from him.
Doesn’t help when Victor starts spreading a little infection strain to slow Leon down further and disappears in the resulting chaos.
Sherry’s already on it.
Fuck if Leon’s gonna let Grace go that easily.