Notes: I've had this story in my head a while and decided to work on it for NaNoWriMo. I tweak it a bit before I post it but it will still be a bit sloppy due to this. Also, I am looking up things best I can but for the sake of moving forward I am occasionally taking liberties with RE lore as well as how police and other things work. Feel free to correct me on anything, because even if I can't actually fix it in the fic I can take notes for next time.
Cover image by Pelissa of tumblr.
Part 1: The Boy
The first time Chris noticed that something was wrong was when he couldn't find his truck.
In hindsight this was probably not so bad a thing, considering how drunk he was, but in his stupor he convinced himself he was only going to sleep it off in the truck, not drive it. Still the damn thing wasn't where he was sure he parked it a couple of hours ago. He decided to crash on a bench until a cop chased him off and hopefully by then he'd be sober enough to remember where he parked.
He glanced at his phone: it was past two in the morning and there was an unread message from Jill, hours old and asking where he was. She was worried about him and that just made Chris feel worse. After everything that had happened, what she'd been through, what Wesker had done to her, he should be the one taking care of her, yet here he was. Stumbling around in the street looking for a bench because he was too drunk to find his truck.
The guilt only made him feel worse and increased his need for another beer. He knew he was spiraling and yet couldn't seem to stop himself.
They'd won. Wesker was dead. After ten long years that bastard was finally dead. He should be glad, he should be relieved, he should feel something. They'd escaped, he'd gotten Jill back, that fucking monster was dead and as they flew away he felt the euphoria of survival, of triumph, of…
And then the euphoria faded and he was left with nothing, not even the drive that had pushed him forward for so long. BOW were still produced, new viruses being created, and he would keep fighting but…
Wesker was dead and yet things continued to get worse.
It was such a waste.
The BSAA managed to uncover what few records were left of Project W from Spencer's mansion and the true insanity of Umbrella was revealed. A new breed of humanity and the quest for immortality. Albert Wesker had been part of that plan, raised by Umbrella to serve their purposes and bent and twisted to their world view since childhood.
Chris didn't pity the man, but the implication itself. These highly intelligent children had all been raised for supposed greatness and then sent off to die for nothing. Only Albert survived the T-virus and in the end accomplished nothing in either his life or his death.
The only good that had come from him had been a farce, and that was STARS. It was only two years of Chris' life and yet at the time STARS had been everything to him; his second chance after the Air Force discharged him, and Wesker's hand in that second chance was undeniable. Barry scouted out Chris but it was Wesker who officially swore him in.
The STARS captain had been distant but not unapproachable, expecting the best from his unit and getting them there through guidance or the proverbial kick in the ass when they were anything less, while at the same time he was lax enough in anything he deemed unimportant to functionality. He didn't care that they didn't have official uniforms and let STARS members wear whatever they wanted so long as their gear was up to standard. He didn't care how the offices looked or how individual desks were organized or disorganized so long as the place was swept up and dusted now and again, records were where they were supposed to be, and sensitive materials were properly secured at the end of the day. He didn't say anything when Joseph brought his guitar to work or that Brad seemed to come and go at random so long as his work got done. It created a relaxed atmosphere that, after the rigidity of the military, Chris could appreciate.
In turn none of the members of STARS mentioned that it was obvious that the magazines Wesker was reading during breaks was porn hidden in a Jane's Defense Weekly cover.
(Just another part of the lie, or proof Wesker had indeed once been human? Chris never figured that one out.)
And that was the worst of it: it was a lie. Wesker was just an agent dropped into the RPD to protect Umbrella assets and eventually walk STARS to their deaths for the sake of combat data.
But how much had been a lie? What was Wesker the farce and what was the truth? After everything it shouldn't have mattered but it did. His position was assured by Umbrella, he could have gotten by with the bare minimum and let Enrico pick up the slack and yet Wesker seemed to work just as hard as any of them if not more so. He worked long hours; he was there in the morning when Chris came in and he was still there when he left creating a running gag that Wesker lived in the RPD. He organized multiple sessions in the mountains and fought tooth and nail for access to their helicopters for extra training that could last days until Chris could repel from the air and catch and cook a squirrel in his sleep.
It was mostly Wesker who kept Chief Irons out of their affairs. Chris had been notorious in the beginning for ignoring orders during a mission and striking out on his own. Most of the time his instinct served him well and things turned out alright but he'd still get near-endless lectures from Wesker on the matter, but that was all that ever happened. It was finally Jill who pulled Chris aside and demanded to know how long he thought Wesker could protect him if he continued to act recklessly. Chief Irons hated Chris and was hounding for his removal due to this behavior but Wesker continued to intervene and claim Chris had been following his orders all along or even just taking the blame.
(Of course, Chris would realize later this was hardly the protective act it seemed to be. Irons too was in Umbrella's pocket and could make no moves against Wesker and frankly the hatred of Irons and the need to spite him was universal in the RPD no matter how evil you actually were.)
Despite this, or perhaps even because of it, Wesker took an interest in Chris and made him his unofficial protégé. While Chris was the best marksman in the entire police force his hand-to-hand combat skills were not to Wesker's standards and so Chris received the benefit of one-on-one training from Wesker several times a week. His combat skills had been no joke even before he became a tyrant.
It was the most invested lie Chris had ever seen. The most sincere. Had it all been false? Had that Wesker been pure construct, or a patchwork of truth where the lies came when needed but otherwise Wesker acted as himself?
(And yet that fucking smirk as he aimed his gun at Chris and revealed his betrayal. That smug tone as he took credit for the deaths of his own men. "My little piggies", he called them…)
Wesker trained them all to the best of his abilities. He not only improved Chris' combat skills but encouraged his tenaciousness, honed his insight, commended his bravery.
Skills Chris would rely on years later to bring it all full circle and kill Wesker.
It was a lie, a farce, fake. Two years following a man who wanted to kill him.
And yet Wesker was a good captain. He pushed Chris to his potential and Chris in turn looked up to him. Began to admire him.
It was such a goddamn waste.
Chris barely began to doze on the bench he'd found when a police car slowly rolled by. He didn't wait for the confrontation and merely waved when one of the cops glared at him through the window and moved on. The car had certainly looked funny but Chris' alcohol-addled mind couldn't figure out why.
He gave up and pulled out his phone. The truck was a lost cause and Chris wasn't going to risk walking all the way home in his current state. He needed to call Jill or anyone for a pick up. Jill would be so pissed off at him, but perhaps that was what he needed. She would pull up and give him that look of disappointment… no, disgust …and in his shame he'd stop this destructive coping mechanism.
(Coping for what? The nightmares of his dying teammates in a mansion long ago and far away had finally started to fade. The memory of his partner crashing through a window and falling to her death for his sake could be put to rest. The dread of his sister in torment at the hands of a monster began to soothe. Wesker was dead. What was left?)
No service.
What? Chris dialed again and received the same error. What the fuck. He'd had near full service back in the bar and he hadn't gone that far. Now he had no bars whatsoever. No data and no wi-fi which to try to connect.
He cursed aloud and shoved his phone back in his pocket and walked on, trying not to stagger too blatantly. It really wasn't his night; not only could he not find his truck but he was lost now too. The street was unfamiliar even though he was certain of his location.
When he came across a small motel he'd never seen before he went in. If he was that drunk he needed to sleep it off. It was a sleazy, cheap place, the kind frequented by prostitutes and drunkards… like himself. The man behind the counter didn't look concerned about Chris' appearance and didn't ask any questions until Chris tried handing over his bank card.
"This place look like a four-star restaurant, buddy?"
"What?"
"Cash only."
Chris frowned but started thumbing through his wallet. Fortunately he had enough on him because this place was cheap even by cheap and sleazy standards. Maybe it was best he didn't have his stay here on any bank statement.
The man took his cash and slid him a key without another word. Chris went to his room and first thing went to the toilet to throw up. He felt better, but only slightly due to the state of the bathroom. The room wasn't much better.
Holy shit, the décor. How old was this place?
With what foresight remained to him Chris managed to down some water before he collapsed onto the questionable bed and passed out. It didn't help and he woke to morning light with the wish for death as his head tried to split open. Another bout of puking, more water, and a shower helped and he managed to stagger downstairs to return his key. An older woman was behind the counter now, unimpressed by Chris' "good morning" and reading the local newspaper.
She lay the paper down to check him out (paper records, no computer) and he glanced at it. His glance turned into a stare.
NIXON WINS PRESIDENCY!
"What the hell?" Chris said, spinning the newspaper around for a better look.
"I know, I voted for Humphrey," the woman said.
"But he's dead!" Chris blurted.
"What, already? Assassination must be a good business."
His eyes moved up to the top of the paper, to the date.
November 1968
1968?
"What the fuck?"
She snatched the paper back and gave him a look that clearly said pay for another night or get out, so he did. Staggering into the daylight that made him suffer for his hangover, he hurried down the unrecognizable street to where he knew he left his truck.
He got drunk, got lost, and the old woman liked history, that's all. He was sober and thinking clearly again, so he'd go home, get cleaned up, and try to face another day of a shitty, infected world. Wesker's last little gift, he supposed. He tried to ignore the boxy, large cars of yesteryear that drove by him.
His truck wasn't there. Nothing was there. The city had shrunk and where there was once a parking lot was just a plot of land.
Panic set in. This wasn't an elaborate joke someone was playing on him.
His cellphone didn't work no matter where he went. The payphones on the street were real and worked, but Jill's number didn't. All the cars were old models, even the brand new ones. The city was just a town. Chris even bought a bus ticket and went to the next town to find the same thing.
Absolutely losing his mind was far more likely than him somehow being back in 1968, so he went with that for a while. He needed a drink, badly. But if anyone took an actual look at his cash they'd realize it was wrong for the time period.
No! Don't believe it! Don't believe in it or it might become real…
His memory of this transitional period was fuzzy at times. Chris finally accepted that, for the moment, he might be back in time. Real or not, he had to manage. Survival kicked in and Chris was slapped back into sobriety.
He needed cash, he needed a place to stay. He needed a plan.
He needed to figure out how to get home.
Chris managed to get some proper cash through casual betting and playing pool at the bars. He'd always been a decent player but Jill taught him to be an excellent one through the years. He wracked his brain for games or events of the time he could predict. It was harder than he thought; remembering game facts in case he ended up back in time wasn't exactly a priority in his life.
What he wouldn't give for a sports almanac.
With the money he was able to settle into a motel several towns over from where he started and buy food to hunker down for a bit. He needed to figure out how he got here. Drunkenness aside he remembered nothing. There was no flash of light, no woozy-time-travelly feel, no blackout he could recall. If he didn't know how he got here then how would he get back? What was he supposed to do?
God, 1968. He wasn't even born yet.
Fuzzy, a blur. Days made of panic and just getting by. Of loneliness. Chris was a survivor, he knew he had to take all options into account in such situations, and, horrifying as it was, he had to accept it was possible he wasn't going to get back, at least no time soon. He needed to prepare for the long-haul. He needed an ID, a permanent place to stay, something to do.
Wet, slushy snow fell from the sky as he went for groceries. Chris had to be thankful that he'd been wearing his heavy jacket whenever he time-traveled but he was going to need better soon as winter settled in. A hat would be good.
A woman hurried by, her umbrella tilted against the snow and wind to protect her nice clothes.
A red and white umbrella.
The world cleared and Chris knew what he had to do.
It was a timely process. Chris couldn't just go buy a gun and storm Umbrella alone, even in its infancy. He needed support, he needed a plan, and to do any of that he needed to exist in this time.
He saved up the money he was continually earning through his betting and performing odd jobs here and there for locals who didn't ask questions and managed to get a forged identity. He should have changed his name, it was the smart thing to do, but he had no intention of crossing paths with his family (no matter how badly he wanted to see his parents) and the man he hired to forge his ID thought his name was fake anyway. He actually rolled his eyes when Chris told him.
An identity and a new background, and Chris began the long process of getting himself back into the police force. It couldn't be anywhere, he had to be where Umbrella was, more important, he had to know what he was going to actually do. He couldn't just point at Spencer and yell about how he was going to create BOW and viruses and other such nonsense, there had to be something to stop, something he actually could, legally, stop.
Chris felt a presence behind him as he sat at the little desk in his motel. Someone who leaned close and whispered, as though ten years hadn't passed and he was still sitting in the STARS office miles away:
Once again, the answer is right in front of you, Redfield.
Wesker. Chris turned around as though someone was there but as always he was alone.
That was the answer: The Wesker children. Kidnapped from all over and held by Umbrella in a secret project even the other two founders Ashford and Marcus didn't know about. If he could somehow prove that Umbrella had those children then it could be stopped before it truly started. The children themselves would be freed from its influence.
Albert Wesker's entire future would change and with it so would the fate of the members of STARS. He would not create BOW and flood the black market with weaponized viruses that decimated entire cities.
Chris had to remember what he'd read about Project W in the files they'd recovered. It wasn't easy. He'd skimmed some, more in a vain effort to try to understand Wesker, to bring him down, but nothing had really stood out and the following battle and alcoholism muddled even that. Still, there had been one fact that he could recall, and that was that the children had been trained in the mansion in the Arklay Mountains before the construction of the laboratories below. They'd been released out into the world soon after that.
It always went back to that damn mansion outside Raccoon City.
The city was smaller, even more isolated than he remembered, with a quaintness and feel of a small town that had been only remembered in newspaper articles that he used to read back in his STARS days, lamenting the loss of old Raccoon City landmarks and other markers of progress. Umbrella was the boom that had made the city expand.
The RPD was still stuffed into a small building in town, the art museum either abandoned or on its way out, Chris couldn't remember. He used most of his savings to rent a small space above an old couple's garage while he established himself and then made himself known to the RPD. They seemed impressed by his credentials (he had his constructed background made as close to his real one as manageable) and, after going through the police academy (the RPD was not privately backed like STARS and he couldn't just get brought in) Chris was sworn in.
His work and getting promoted took so much more time than he wanted. Umbrella was out there now, preparing to or already doing terrible things and he hadn't yet made a move. But he had to be patient. He needed to locate the mansion and get proof of the kidnapped children. He needed a team that could help him infiltrate.
He moved out of the apartment above the garage and bought a small single-story house in the suburbs. The space and privacy was relieving but also just reminded him of how alone he was.
In a still-small town, the RPD was more relaxed than Chris remembered and making friendly acquaintances was easy, and yet he couldn't allow himself anything closer than that. He didn't belong here. And yet training and working alongside his team every day was forging a bond whether he wanted to or not, but it was lies. He was a lie.
Oh god, was this what being Wesker was like?
No. He was trying to save these people. He was doing it under his own initiative; there were no orders to obey. But time was moving forward.
He watched the moon landing live on television, surrounded by his astounded teammates and had to remember to keep his mouth shut about what was to come. In fact he remained as passive as he could for any and all historical events, claiming a lack of interest in politics and other such things. It didn't make him favorable to some, considering the civil movements of the time and the Vietnam War, but he was going to change enough when he brought down Umbrella. That was his sole purpose here. Once that was done he would dedicate all his efforts to getting back home and to whatever he would find there.
One year since his unexpected arrival to the past. Winter approached and stripped the trees bare. Chris managed to convince a few pilots to fly their helicopters out near the Spencer mansion, hoping to spot something untoward. He had to stop when the winter weather worsened and couldn't start again until spring. Time was running out.
Worse, the chief of police was not happy about Chris' distractions and helicopter 'joyrides' and called him to his office for a good dressing-down. Chris stood there and took it, yessir-ing and agreeing to not hijack their very expensive search and rescue vehicles for his own ends.
"What the hell are you even looking for out there?" Chief Lowe grumbled after he finished his tirade.
Chris opened his mouth to speak the lie he'd made up for this reason, but hesitated. Oh, hell with it.
"Oswell Spencer, who owns the mansion deep in the mountains, is holding thirteen kidnapped children there. I was hoping to get proof of this so we could get them out."
Lowe stared at him, eyes narrowed. He reminded Chris of Irons in superficial ways, the man was heavyset from deskwork with shrewd eyes and an unkind expression, but unlike Irons the Chief earned his position and took it seriously. He gave a shit about this town and his men and was respected in the RPD.
"And how do you know this?"
"An anonymous tip."
"Bullshit."
It was a serious accusation. The Chief had a family, he'd just become a grandfather this year, and he seemed to take cases involving children personally. Moreover, while reclusive, Spencer was one of the founders of the newly budding Umbrella, which was offering Raccoon City prosperity in the form of jobs and industry. As is usual with such things, there were a few who were not happy with the prospect of the city changing and becoming reliant on one company for its success. It had already failed Raccoon City once when the mines dried up. An anonymous tip like that could be fake, someone desperate to discredit Umbrella before any deals were made, but either way it would have ended up on Lowe's desk and he would have made the call, not Chris.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, sir."
"Then I won't believe the tip. You're to go nowhere near that mansion, understand?"
"Sir… I can't. I have to get those kids out."
Lowe was glaring now, annoyed, but despite his dour demeanor he trusted his men and Chris had proved himself not only to be capable but reliable over the last year. He rubbed at his temple.
"Then give me something else, Redfield. If you genuinely believe there are kids involved then don't pussyfoot around it!"
Chris sighed. He already put his foot in it might as well go all the way.
"I know there are kids out there because I came back in time from the year 2009 and we'd recently uncovered that Umbrella had conducted human experimentation on thirteen children, all of whom eventually died due to those experiments except one. Umbrella will establish itself in this city and then go on to develop biological weapons, one of which breaks containment and infects the whole city."
Lowe stared at him, silent for a long moment, before he dropped his head in his hands and said, "You should've stuck with the anonymous tip bull, son."