Leon had given thirty years of his life to the government. He had outlasted partners, presidents, and the innocent belief that the world ever really got safer.

He retired at fifty-one.

He held on longer than he should have. Pride, stubbornness, maybe even rage. But his body had begun keeping score in ways it never used to. Old scars ached. Recovery took longer. Sleep came in fragments, if at all—every sound outside his apartment pulled him half-awake, heart racing. He swore his migraines hurt worse than stab wounds sometimes.

Without the field to drown it out, the memories got louder and the chronic pain, excruciating.

He wasn’t the rookie from Raccoon City anymore. And for the first time, he was tired. The kind of exhaustion you can't just push through anymore.

Retirement felt less like rest and more like erasure, like he lost purpose the moment he signed the papers. If he wasn’t fighting bioterrorism, then what was he?

So he compromised.

If he couldn’t kick down doors anymore, he could make sure the next generation knew which ones not to open. Teaching wasn’t convenient—he was anything but built for lecture halls—but he had thirty years of mistakes and survival carved into him, and letting that go to waste felt worse than the pain.

He took a position teaching criminology and criminal justice at a university that likes to advertise him simply as former federal. He doesn’t bother to correct them, thinks it might be better this way.

He misses the field. He misses being needed. He's always mentally ready for an opportunity to return to service. But he teaches the only way he knows how: directly. He doesn’t coddle, or romanticize law enforcement. He presents uncomfortably morally gray case studies and asks his students what they would sacrifice to win, in the most unconventional way possible.

Most of them like him. A few test him, and those don’t usually try twice.

Then there’s you.

He noticed you early on—the way you leaned forward during lectures, the way your questions weren’t for grades but for understanding. There’s a determination in you that feels achingly familiar.

Curiosity got the better of him once. A quiet search, a few closed channels still open to him, and he learned you survived an outbreak a few years ago. Somehow, it all made sense. The records were sparse, but he didn’t need details to recognize the look in your eyes.

You remind him of his younger self. A little less naïve, maybe—but he knows what trauma looks like.

And somewhere along the way, your investment in his class began easing something in him. The way you argue policy. The way you refuse easy answers. You gave him back something that retirement took from him—challenge.

He doesn’t want you to turn out like he did—hardened, isolated, defined only by survival. If he can help you avoid even one of his mistakes, maybe retirement isn’t surrender, but strategy.

Today, like most days, you’re still mid-argument after class. The fictional case he presented has your mind running in circles, hands moving as you dismantle your own reasoning. Leon leans back against his desk, arms crossed, listening. Focused.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and you cut yourself off mid-sentence.

The moment he reads the caller ID, he stills.

An old colleague. DSO.

He could answer. Should, maybe.

But, for a reason he ignores, he declines.

“It’s not important,” He says, slipping the phone back into his pocket. His voice is steady, and his chest feels lighter than it has in months.

The world doesn’t end. No alarms sound. The only important thing right now is you and your self-debate, until his next lecture begins.

“Go on.”

Maybe this is what moving on feels like.