A CURE FOR HOMESICKNESS

The truck crunches over the gravel slow enough to tell Scott the driver’s either exhausted or nervous. Maybe both.

He’s already standing on the porch before the headlights cut across the fence line proper, arms folded tight against the cold evening air, old habit more than anything. The house feels too quiet without Frank. Has all week. Too much coffee gone cold in the kitchen. Too many people bringing casseroles neither of them asked for. Too many memories packed into a town small enough that grief keeps knocking on the door wearing different faces.

And now K's finally coming home.

A year late.

Scott tells himself he isn’t angry anymore. Mostly because anger takes more energy than he’s got left. The engine dies. For a second, nobody gets out. Then the driver’s door opens.

Scott expects the same picture he’s been carrying around in his head since the academy graduation: long blond hair tied back loose at the nape, narrow shoulders swallowed by borrowed jackets, that uncertain higher voice trying so hard to sound older than nineteen. K standing in the driveway with one duffel bag and a smile too tense to be real, talking about Raccoon City like it wasn’t six hours away and dangerous as hell.

Instead—

A young man unfolds himself from behind the wheel.

Broad shoulders first. Short blond hair. Lean frame built harder than Scott remembers, though not filled out all the way yet. Thicker brows, a jawline just a bit sharper, or maybe the face is thinner. The face is still the same underneath it all—same eyes, same nervous mouth, same habit of looking braced for impact even standing still—but it hits Scott hard enough that for one ugly second he forgets how to breathe. Looks just like Liz.

K shuts the truck door quietly, like she’s afraid too much noise will start a fight.

And Christ, the voice.

“Hey, dad.”

Lower. Rough around the edges. Young. Scott feels something twist painfully in his chest. Not because it’s wrong, but because suddenly a hundred things make sense at once. He remembers the 'bubblegum incident` that had always seemed just a bit intentional to him and left K with a lopsided pixie cut that made her light up like the sun for weeks in the second grade,

The silence stretches just a little too long. Then the passenger door opens, and Scott’s attention snaps sideways. A girl climbs out after him, hesitant but familiar in the way she moves around K already. Not clinging. Not shy exactly. Just careful with him. Like she knows he startles easy when it comes to home.

Leon glances toward her automatically before looking back at Scott, and there’s something protective in it Scott notices immediately. The kind that says this person matters.

That softens him faster than he wants it to. Because K only ever looked at people like that when he trusted them. Scott exhales slowly through his nose and steps off the porch at last.

Up close, the changes are even harder to ignore. The deeper voice. The shape of his shoulders. The way he carries himself now—still anxious, still too polite, but sturdier somehow. Like he built this version of himself piece by piece with nobody around to help hold the parts steady.

Scott thinks about all the missed phone calls. All the short answers. All the times he almost got in the truck and drove to Raccoon City himself. And underneath the hurt, underneath the confusion, all he can really think is: You should’ve come home sooner. He watches the two of them stand awkwardly beside the car like they're expecting him to turn them away, and it almost physically aches. He makes the first move, walks down the old wooden steps to greet them, pulls Leon into him for a quick hug and a too-firm-clap on the back.

“Door shuts easier if you quit standin’ in it,” Scott mutters, already bending to grab one of the duffel bags before Leon can stop him.

“I got it,” Leon says automatically.

“Yeah, and I got two functioning arms. Humor me.”

The girl beside him gives Leon a quick look Scott catches out of the corner of his eye. Something amused and fond. Like she’s seeing a version of him she’s only heard about. Scott pretends not to notice that either.

He starts to turn and immediately scowls over his shoulder when he sees Leon letting the girl keep hold of hers.

“Oh, hell no.”

Leon blinks. “What?”

Scott jerks his chin toward the bag in her hand like it personally offended him. “You better take that from your girlfriend before I die of embarrassment. You let her carry the heavy shit while you stand there empty handed in Raccoon City? Thought it'd take more than a year to undo the manners I spent so much time on your ass about."

The poor girl looks startled. Leon goes red straight to the ears. He takes the bags from the girl quickly. "Sorry."

Scott stops in the middle of setting the bag down. The silence hangs there. Slowly, he looks back at Leon, then at the bags, clear warning in his gaze. Same upward quirk of his brows that had shut down a bitch fit since he was in the first grade. "...mhm."

The haircut. The voice. The something flattening his chest under the academy sweatshirt now that Scott’s actually looking for it. The awkwardness every time a sentence gets close to touching the subject directly... Scott exhales through his nose. “…Alright,” he says after a beat. “I need to get my head on straight, here, kiddo.”

Leon looks like he might actually throw up. And suddenly Scott feels mean. Not intentionally mean. Just old. Wrong-footed. Trying to catch up to a conversation that apparently started years ago without him. He rubs a hand over his jaw.

“You uh…” He points vaguely at Leon. “You my son now? Or is this a... lesbian thing?”

The question comes out rougher than he means it to.

Leon’s face does something complicated at that. Defensive instinct first, then fear, then something smaller underneath Scott recognizes immediately from when he was young. Hope.

“…son,” Leon says quietly, "Leon," he introduces himself.

Scott nods once like he’s filing away practical information.

“Okay, Leon."

That’s it. Just okay, like Leon told him the truck needed new brakes. Scott points toward the girl again, "Show her the room, then wash up for dinner."

Something helpless breaks across Leon’s face then—not quite a laugh, not quite crying. Scott doesn't know if “Leon” is permanent. Doesn’t know if “son” is forever. Doesn’t know if asking outright how the hell any of this happened is gonna sound insulting after a whole year of silence. But looking at Leon now, Scott’s gut tells him this isn’t dress-up. Isn’t rebellion. Isn’t confusion. The kid standing in his foyer looks terrified, exhausted, and more comfortable in his own skin than Scott has ever seen him.

Which means this matters.