The sun fell in heavy patches through the pearly swirls decorating the mid-afternoon sky, tempering the vivid blue with breathy summer breezes that ruffled the freshly mown grass. A folding card table had been set out in the shade of the handsome two-story house, pristine white lawn chairs gleaming as the last of the water from the washing dried in the fresh air. Some fifteen feet from the table - laden with homemade lemonade and a selection of sandwiches - two girls were hard at work planting a row of begonias lining the walkway to the side door. The girls, aged nine and ten respectively, both had darker shades of hair and a strong resemblance to the couple entertaining their guests at the table; the two guests were actively chatting and recounting their recent activities to the couple, who were also busy trying to supervise their children. On the opposite side of the spacious backyard, a girl with black hair appearing to be in her mid-to-late teens was lost in the engine of a beat up old jeep. Easily the oldest one there, the girls' father kept shooting glances over his friends' shoulder as he watched the young mechanic work.
Despite the earthy smell of ongoing yard work and metallic banging and clanks of repair, the house was already on its way to looking like something out of a cherished memory in a storybook; the active ecosystem of the nearby river sent many a glittering dragonfly and feathered friend in the vicinity. One such insect had flown by the head of a feminine figure fanning herself off with her hand as her companion took over the narrative; grazing a pale green wing by her drink, the dragonfly earned a half-startled involuntary twitch of the hand. It had been three years already, but the sight of four-winged anything still triggered the nightmarish memories of 1998...
Voice carried on the wind as a wrench fell off the edge of the hood and onto her foot, an irate voice broke through the fuzzy haze of time, making everyone stop what they were doing to glance around at the scene of the accident. Swearing like the offspring of a sailor and a trucker all whilst looking rather comical, the girl with sable hair hopped in place, holding her foot in her gloved hands. Jumping to their feet, both parents acted - concerned for what they might overhear, the mother ushered her younger girls inside to look for medical supplies if needed, and the father was at his daughter's side for support and anything else she might need. Both the woman that had been lost in her memories and the guy seated facing away from the vehicle knew that the teen would survive, but at the same time they too were worried about the girl.
Three years ago they had all gone through their fair share of unspeakable horrors, and it would be lying to say that any one of them was the same person they used to be. Claire Redfield, the woman in pink that had been fanning herself, had not only outlived the decimation of an entire metropolis but had also endured capture and an extended stay in the Antarctic, all without sufficient provisions; having experienced both in a span of only three months, as well as the loss of a dear friend, she was still trying to come to terms with her ordeal. Chris Redfield, Claire's older brother and the lean silhouette in a simple dark t-shirt, had saved his sister from the snowy expedition (where she had ironically been imprisoned trying to find him), but six months before that he had stumbled across a corporate conspiracy that involved the creation of horrible monsters. Barry Burton, the man of the house, had been one of Chris' surviving partners during that fateful mission that had triggered so many horrendous atrocities; for the sake of his wife and two daughters, the bearded officer had been forced into turning traitor, but thankfully his friends had figured out the truth and had forgiven him: too bad he still couldn't forgive himself for betraying them to this day. Barry's wife Kathy, as well as girls Moira and Polly, had been taken hostage; Kathy would still jump at even the smallest of sounds, and the girls continued to have nightmares, although thankfully they were lessening in number with time.
Not the only survivor of the same cleansing, the ponytailed redhead had known two children to survive the catastrophic events of Raccoon City, both of whom had became orphaned; the younger of the two she had saved herself, so she knew first-hand everything the child would have to work through, but this girl's story was known to few others, so Claire could only hazard a guess as to what she had to overcome. Sherry Birkin had been relentlessly sought as a breeding tool by the mutated remnants of her own father, and Robin had come from a larger home, so now she wouldn't only have to adjust to a completely new environment that included new siblings, but she had to learn to call others family. It wasn't for anyone to say which fate was worse, but at least Robin got a chance at happiness, while Sherry had been put in a situation that basically made her the equivalent of a government lab rat.
Speaking of rats, at the same moment that the girls had been ushered inside the house, a particularly fat and unpleasant gray rodent scurried across the freshly waxed wooden portion of the floor. Any other time it might have gone unnoticed by the busy housewife, but because her ears were now strained for the slightest disturbance, she had heard it squeaking as it darted across the room to hide in the scuffed-up baseboards. The outside of the house was a big enough project to take up most of the summer, so it had been agreed upon by the family that a thorough job would be done on the inside during the fall; knowing that school would hamper their efforts, Barry and Kathy didn't expect to finish the job until sometime late into the winter, if not early next year. All the same, they should have been keeping the house clean enough so things like this didn't happen, waterfront property or no.
Alerted by the scream of mother and child, Claire went off to answer the second distress call, leaving Chris alone at the table; feeling awkward and slightly idiotic to be sitting by himself when everyone else was otherwise occupied, he checked the open back door, catching a sliver of hallway occupied by bustling bodies, a coat rack, and a small end table with a simple unlit lamp (a notepad, pen, and cordless phone were all stacked around the light source). The girls clung to their mother - making it next to impossible for her to do anything but point and offer instructional advice - leaving Claire to do all the work of getting rid of the critter. He knew that she wouldn't mind though, since an ordinary rat was no problem after everything she had gone through, and besides, they both viewed the Burtons' to be a part of their family, so there wasn't even a second thought about helping out. It was with that very thought that Chris stood up and walked to where Barry was tending to Robin, who despite the foul language was no longer hopping in place.
"...Ice pack?" In the middle of asking if he should get one for the girl, Barry nodded over to Chris, speaking to him in his gruff voice as he approached, "Chris, would you mind staying here with her while I go fetch something for that injury? Anyways, I have the feeling that I'll be needed inside sooner or later."
Nodding mutely as the teen was put in his care for the time being, Chris traded spots with Barry as the older man left to do what he needed to do. Watching him as he started to leave up the dirt path to join everyone else inside, Chris wondered vaguely if it was really necessary for that many people to be inside, or even if this accident was worth the fuss; wearing sturdy boots known for their ability to withstand heavy wear, he found it shocking that the wrench had even registered. "Do what you have to, we'll be fine."
Breaking into a wide smile that she had only just recently began to show, Robin stood up perfectly straight, as if she had never been injured in the first place. "That's right, we'll be fine out here while you go away - Chris can take care of me, so need to worry! In fact, he'll be more than enough to... ...advantage... ...me. Relax, we'll be... ok? I know that you love me like a daughter, but Chris loves me more... a friend."
Words breaking up as if coming through a bad stereo, the image of Chris and Robin began to ripple and fade, blacking out in a dark shimmer to be replaced with a human-sized chicken sub sandwich and six-foot hunting knife; whereas the knife was unadorned, the sub was wearing a long violet ribbon that stretched on forever, the fabric darkening steadily. "He's not the first ripper to take a stab at carving my bun," Tittering to herself, Barry could tell that she was blushing, "but he will be the first lance to impale my juicy tomatoes and lightly roasted bird thighs."
"ROBIN!" Screaming the name of his adopted daughter at the top of his lungs, Barry Burton jumped up so quickly that he had almost gave himself whiplash in bed, startling his wife so badly that she also woke up. Pulling at the edges of her silken sleep mask, Kathy fixed a weary bead upon her spouse, half curious to know why he had disturbed her otherwise peaceful slumber and half reproachful that she had been roused for no real reason. Married to the woman for many years, he didn't need to reach out for the lights to see the frown on his other half, the darkness of the room leeching her of all color but blue. "...What a nightmare!"
Sighing as she sat up and pulled the cool strip of cloth to the top of her forehead, Kathy was just grateful that it wasn't one of the girls having a nightmare this time. "What is it?" While her husband had had a number of reoccurring nighttime visions, lately a number of them had included their teenage daughter; most of the time it had just been her getting older and starting to slip into the normalcy of other girls her age, but ever since Chris and his partner (another good friend of the family that they had met before all of the nastiness of that horrible mission) had been waiting for their next job to come in, Barry had become paranoid of the relationship Robin was developing with the pair of them, or rather just the one of them. Jill had yet to make a single appearance in any one of these new dreams. "Was it the one where Robin came back home one rainy night in tears?" That dream was one that she herself often feared would become a reality.
Shaking away the vivid perception of his mind, Barry didn't quite meet his wife's eye as he gazed back from the clock on his side of the bed; this one actually had a seed in real life, since just that day Chris and Claire had arrived for their week-long visit, and Robin had in fact been working on her old man's eventual graduation present for her - not that she knew what she had been working towards. Knowing Chris the way that he did, Barry would have said that it would have been impossible, and yet for just a fraction of a moment, he thought he had seen something there between his friend and daughter. The dream hadn't been so far from the truth at its start, but if Robin had dropped the wrench at all, no one had known about it, and none of them had gone inside for a rat that didn't exist...
If he told Kathy he thought he had seen something suspicious about Robin's behavior once, he had told her a thousand times; that girl had never shown any sort of interest in anyone since she had come to live with them - not all that surprising given the fact that she had just lost everything and everyone she had ever known - but once she had started to come out of her shell and accept her new beginning, everyone he had ever noticed her take an interest in had at least one thing in common with Chris. Chris was a good guy, so he could see why any woman would want someone like him, but not his little girl. He didn't care if they had only met three years ago - that girl was like a daughter to him, and like any father, he didn't want to see her interested in any guy, no matter who it was. Kathy kept telling him that he was just being overprotective, but he had it from two reliable sources that she was attracted to an 'older guy with brown hair'. Perhaps that was vague, but Chris fit that description a little too much for his liking.
Reading the hesitance in which her mate was taking to answer her question, she figured out exactly what the gist of the dream was, and that it had something to do with the way that Chris had looked at Robin during lunch that afternoon. Kathy wasn't stupid, and though she might not have been as close to Robin as she would have liked after all this time - she understood that the girl hadn't had the best relationship with her biological mother, so naturally she wouldn't be so quick to bond with another female - the adult could still figure out that the teen was developing a rather strong connection to Chris. So far as she had known, it had started out rather platonic - after just narrowly escaping death could it have been anything else? - and more importantly the growing fascination had been one-sided, but today she had caught the most peculiar expression of Chris' face, as if he had just seen Robin for the first time.
But surely it must have been in her imagination, because not only had Chris known Robin for three years now, but he was just the kind of guy that would have respected the boundary of her being his friend's child, no matter how much the child was developing into such a lovely young woman. Blood or not, Kathy still viewed that girl as her own daughter, and therefore she had seen her through the eyes of a parent, the same eyes that only saw her girls as beautiful, amazing, and perfect. Accepting Robin had been the easiest part of the last few years, never mind that they were just the kind of people that loved so easy and were so quick to open their arms, so it hurt to think that she could have come to love someone else before them. But whether or not Chris reciprocated the feelings, was whatever Robin feeling love? Maybe she had misread the lines and what Robin had been trying to communicate was not romantic love but the kind of chemistry between truly good friends. Maybe, but that seemed rather naive to think.
Coming back to Chris' part in all of this, Kathy had thought she had seen him steal a sideways peak at Robin as they sat down to speak and enjoy the summer sun, but he had taken the seat facing away from her, and even before he had sat down, she had been buried in that rusting old heap of junk, so she had her back to him the entire time. Could it have been possible that they had purposely chosen to take such stances, or was it just coincidence? Chris really wasn't the kind of pervert that ever looked twice at a girl he even suspected to be a minor, so it stood to reason that he wouldn't be interested in Robin, and besides, if he had shown any inkling that he had looked at her in that way, everyone around him would have ripped his throat out of his backside, no matter who the kid was. So it must have just been her imagination.
Although if she honestly believed that, why couldn't she shake the momentary expression on her friend's face? Her younger sisters kept insisting that while Robin liked a certain kind of guy, there wasn't anyone that was holding her fancy, however momma bear was worried enough about the situation that when she did stumble across the teen's journal, Kathy only skimmed enough to see that Robin had been telling her siblings the truth. And she might have also stumbled upon a passage that detailed how much it shocked her that she could warm up so quickly to the girls, although she simply attributed that fact to her beloved younger brother (who had apparently been one of the first victims of the outbreak). Kathy felt terribly for that invasion of privacy, but she had to know that she was justified in saying that anything suspect between Chris and Robin was purely in her husband's mind.
In her own mind, she had believed the evidence up until today, but maybe there was some merit to what Barry was saying, and that there really was something to be concerned about; the more thought Kathy put into the situation, the more convinced she became that Barry was right: there was something strange between Chris and Robin.
Author's Notes: I'll put it out there right now - this is a reboot of a reboot of an old story of mine. For those familiar with any of the old stories, some elements remain, some do not. So far as the title goes, I have stuck with the musical inspirations of the past, and in this instance, I went with a song that fits like a glove: Between the Raindrops, by Lifehouse feat. Natasha Bedingfield. I couldn't fit it on the summary due to the limited space, but this is rated more for later chapters. And yes, this is an OC-heavy story, as in a main original character, not that there will be a lot of OCs. I am not adopted, have never been held hostage, nor have I personally survived the decimation of an entire city, so I can only guess at how much time would be needed to pass for the characters to be on the mend, although for the purposes of this story, three years seems sufficient to me. And yes, this will be a ChrisOC pairing story, so yeah, that means that there might be a considerable age difference (technically eleven years). I imagine that Chris wouldn't be so quick to yield to that though, so keep in mind what kind of a man he is as you read this.
Anyways, please review! I'd really appreciate it!
Music: "Gehenna", by Slipknot. I was reluctant to pick this song mostly because I thought the song fit better for a chapter actually about Chris and Robin, but I think that most of the beginning lyrics fit seamlessly with the chapter anyways, so here we are.
Disclaimer: Resident Evil and its characters are the intellectual property of Capcom; all I own is the plot, Robin, and all other OCs within the story. Also any music or branding mentioned or used belongs to their rightful owners.