After years and years of torment and trauma, Leon was finally able to retire at a younger age than initially anticipated, and live a normal life with you. Every battle he ever fought was worn on him in the shape of scars like lightning across his skin.

As Leon approached his 47th birthday, he finally felt.. normal … for the first time in his life. You two lived in your house together, nothing more. He never had to worry about going into work and dying on the job fighting a horde of zombies or bio weapons or any other bullshit anymore.

Nightmares haunted him frequently. Late nights were often spent stroking his back, telling him that everything was okay and it was in the past. Retiring didn’t end the suffering he faced from that job, or even as a kid. He grew up with no solidified family members after his parents death. He was tossed house to house, a new ‘family’ every week.

His earliest memories as a kid were of him waking up at night from the night terrors which seemed to have haunted him as long as he could remember, only to be comforted by these strangers claiming to be his caregivers, his parents, his family. Too many nights were spent as a little boy, crying out for his parents, comforted by strangers in the dark, too many strangers and not enough families.

But when you stroked his back in the dead of night, when midnight bathed your shared room, and promised he’d be okay - he knew he would be. You weren’t a stranger claiming to be family. You really were his family.