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"Hey Leon, you want to come over for dinner?" Leon hasn't survived as long as he has by not being observant, but anyone could see the glaring neon signs that are Grace's attempts at being casual when she's anxious.
"Everything okay?" he asks, and he can hear something tip over and fall on the other end of the line, "Grace, are you okay?" They have a code word, goddammit Grace, use the fucking code word, he'll drop everything-
"Yeah, everything's fine! It's just dinner tonight, maybe six? That'll give us time to get everything ready."
He might just drive over now anyway, but he has to trust her. He closes his eyes and takes a breath. "Six o'clock, I'll be there. Need me to bring anything?"
"Just yourself," she chirps before hanging up, so he heads over to the wall safe to check the ammo in his concealed carry and the shoulder rig.
He doesn't do anything for the next three hours except pace the apartment like a caged animal, working himself up with worrying about what the hell might be going on. Grace would have said something, right? She would have used the code word, if something was wrong, and he would have been able to help. She'd said us, so Emily is with her, and she wouldn't put Emily at risk, but if someone was using Emily as leverage-
He does call Sherry, who tells him to calm the hell down, and that she isn't going to help him - in her words - be weird and paranoid. Maybe she's right. Paranoid is definitely a word that's been used to describe him over the years. Weird… a little less, but he can admit there's probably some basis in truth there.
He takes a shower, and gets dressed in something he can move in and won't mind getting blood on - his or somebody else's. Yeah he can admit that Sherry might be right.
The drive to Grace's leaves him even more tense and rattled, and he scans the street as he pulls up, but there's absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. No new cars, no strange movement, no one out that he hasn't seen before. He recognizes her neighbors from two houses down, out walking their Golden Retriever, and waves back when they wave first.
The lights are on when he walks up to the door, lights shining out of the windows, and he can hear pop music faintly playing from somewhere inside. Emily is there before he can knock, and she beams at him, throwing herself into his arms for a hug. "Leon!"
He catches her, and feels the tension in his muscles unwinding without his conscious decision. "Hey, kiddo. What's going on?"
"We made dinner!" she says, "I made the garlic bread and salad, and Grace made spaghetti. We got cake too!"
"Wow, we went all out, huh? What's the occasion?" Did he miss a birthday? Shit. No, wait- Grace's isn't for another few months, and Emily had picked the end of February for hers.
She blushes, but takes his hand to pull him into the kitchen. Grace waves from the stove, busy with stirring a pot of red sauce, and she quickly turns it off before she heads over to hug him too. She's the one that blinks when she feels the shoulder rig hidden under his jacket, and he gives her a sheepish smile. "I thought- You sounded worried on the phone-"
"Oh my god," she whispers back, "Leon."
"Sorry!"
"Go put it in the other room."
"Yes ma'am." He does what he's told, hanging his jacket over it on the coat rack, and the look Grace gives him is both amused and exasperated when he slinks back in to make a plate and sit down at the table with them.
Dinner is full of chatter, mostly Emily telling them what she's been learning at school, and Leon relishes it like he does every time he steals these moments with them. It feels dangerously happy, something he's never thought he'd be able to have, something he doesn't dare let himself get used to. He doesn't let himself think about why he'd panicked so badly before, when he thought-
"Leon?" Emily's voice is soft at his side. "I, um, I made something at school." She looks terrified, and he yanks himself back to the present.
"You did?" He shifts, and she holds out an envelope with his name on it. Oh- oh fuck.
"Yeah, it's Father's Day, and- I mean I know you're not my dad, but they said it could be for anybody, and I mean, you're the closest thing I have, I guess, and-"
He glances at Grace, who nods to him, and her eyes are shining suspiciously in the light of the kitchen. He's pretty sure his are too. "Can I open it?" he asks softly.
"Oh! Uh, yeah!" She hands it over, and he opens the envelope to pull out a card that he has to blink a few times to read clearly. He swallows hard, looking it over, and then sets it down to pull Emily in for another hug. He reaches out for Grace too, holding this part of his family as tight as he dares.
"Thanks, you guys," he whispers, and none of them let each other go for a long time.