This is was a quick exercise to get me back in the flow of actually writing shit again. I was going to go straight to the sex but I figured I'd explore Leon and Claire's relationship first. I think I've managed to give myself a few decent ideas for some of the prompts I've received.

Anyway, sorry if it's sloppy and doesn't flow very well.

Resident Evil and all corresponding characters © Capcom. I do not profit from this writing.

On nights like this, I could never sleep. Everything was totally silent. No wind in the trees, no rain on my rooftop, no crickets chirping.

On nights like this I miss him the most.

Sometimes I think about what a quiet life I live compared to Leon. Sometimes I wonder why he was chosen by the government, and why I was left behind. And sometimes I'll even shed a tear for Sherry. Goodness knows where that sweet girl is. She'd be, what, somewhere around 14 or 16 now? I know he tried to protect her. But at 21, a rookie cop like Leon didn't understand what was going on. How could he? No one is trained for that kind of thing.

He was out there somewhere, safeguarding the first family, accompanying them on visits to other countries, assuring they were out of harm's way. I wished I had a man to keep me out of harm's way. I wished I had him.

I glanced at the stars outside my window. In Hollywood, everyone paints this perfect picture. "I know they're out there somewhere, under this same sky, maybe even watching the same stars," they say. For all I knew, he was assisting on a diplomatic trip across the Atlantic, looking at a completely different sky.

On nights like this, it was his face kept me awake. My brother tells me to have a shot of scotch, that that'll knock me out good. But alcohol was never really my thing. I thought about watching TV, but it was four in the morning, so the only thing to watch would have been infomercials.

I heaved a sigh and shifted under the covers. I couldn't shake his face from my memory. The image of him in the S.T.A.R.S. office, covered in blood and trying to conceal fear, haunted me when I closed my eyes and sometimes even in my dreams. I was just as scared as him, if not more, and he had tried his hardest to comfort me. The emotions that passed between us in that office were things I would never share with anyone else. It truly felt like we were the only people alive in the entire world.

When I look back on it, I'm shocked by how young we were. How high the odds were stacked against us. How miraculous it was that we even made it out there. When I look back on it, I realize that had I been forced to find a way out on my own, or with anyone else other than him, I probably would have died.

And I wished he was here now. To protect me from the things that go bump in the night, from the monsters under my bed, in my closet, and everywhere else in the world. For him, I didn't have to put on a brave face. And all I wanted was to sink into his arms and cry the memories away.

On nights like this, it was his face that finally lulled me to sleep.