A/N: Well, since English isn't my native tongue, there'll be a lot of mistakes, I'm afraid. I'm really sorry about that, but hopefully, you'll enjoy my latest story anyway.

Disclaimer: I don't own RE, not the games, not the movies. If so, Alice and Claire already would have been a couple in the first one.

Warnings: Blood, Violence, Sex, Death ...

Summary: Alice saves Claire Redfield's convoy from zombified crows and is allowed to stay, becoming friends with Carlos, L.J., Mickey, K-Mart and even Claire herself. But due to Umbrella, Alice is forced to leave them after a while. Never following somebody's drift, however, Claire and K-Mart are coming along with her, while Carlos is told to lead the convoy to Arcadia. They will have to face a lot of dangers; not just a transformed Isaacs, a crazed Wesker and a huge Axe Man, but also the most dangerous thing of all: love. Alice/Claire Carlos/Angel Chris/Crystal L.J./Betty

PART I

Chapter One: Abernathy's Story

Alice awoke with a start, utterly clueless about where she was. She knew, however, that she was lying on soft ground among the shades in a shed, or so it seemed. When she was about to reach for one of her 460V revolvers, the one in the holster on her right thigh, reflexively, Alice noticed the colored bracelet around her tanned wrist. While trying to remember the very last thing that had happened before the world had gone dark in front of her view, she went for a closer look at it. There had been people, including her old ally Carlos Oliviera, a former S.T.A.R. agent, attacked by infected crows. A cloud of raging fire, smoke, and finally a racking headache.

"I gave it to you last night," an agreeable voice sounded all of a sudden. "For luck."

Turning her head to the left quickly, ready to fight tooth and nail, Alice spotted a blonde girl sitting in a chair right next to the couch on which she herself was resting. Alice relaxed a little then, seeing that the teen apparently posed no threat to her. She diceded to act cautiously, though, because the last harmless looking woman Alice had met, had turned out to be a real psycho. "Thank you," Alice rasped and sat up. "What's your name?"

The girl gave a friendly smile. "K-Mart." Due to Alice's confused expression she elaborated, "That's where they found me. Claire and the others, four years back."

Alice didn't know Claire, but thanks to the transmissions she was aware of the fact that this woman was the leader of the convoy in which she had intruded earlier. Therefore, Alice was pretty sure about coming to know Claire Redfield soon ehough. "Do you have another name?"

"Never liked it," K-Mart answered, her smile fading. "Everyone I knew was dead. So seemed like time for a change."

Alice resolved on liking the girl. Before she had the chance to say something, another and much harsher voice than K-Mart's suddenly lifted. "K-Mart, what do you think you're you doing here? I told you to-"

"Claire, keep your shirt on," the teen interrupted the redhead, who had just appeared at the door, and rolled her eyes.

Alice was kind of impressed by K-Mart's boldness, for she herself became more scared of this woman than of any infected she had ever seen. In some way, she expected her to yell at the girl, instead her expression softened as well as her voice did. "Listen, K-Mart, I appreciate that you took care of our ... new member, I guess, but I need to talk to her now. And Mickey's already missing you, so-"

"Oh shut up, will you!" K-Mart was huffed with the redhead's words. Yet, Alice observed the teen containing her laughter, and Claire hiding a grin. She assumed them to be on a rather friendly footing with each other, and watched K-Mart finally standing up from the chair. "Fine, I'm off. But Claire, you have to promise me to be nice to her, okay? After all she probably saved your ass today."

"I don't promise anything."

Whereas K-Mart strolled out of the shed, Claire came in. While leaving, the girl turned around one last time and shouted to Claire, "And like I said, keep your shirt on, lesbo! You don't know if your latest victim is vibing with you!" And after that she was gone.

"Some day I'll kill her myself," Claire uttered under her breath, causing Alice, who then found herself under the redhead's gaze, to grin. "What's so funny about that? I am in deadly earnest."

Claire created the impression of being severe and hard-hearted for now, but Alice suspected that it was simply an act to spell out her role as a leader. She was likely to be a very kind and loveable person. Alice was positive that she was, because otherwise K-Mart wouldn't look up to her the way she visibly did. "There's nothing funny about that, ma'am. I'm sorry for grinning."

"Whatever," the redhead said, wondering if Alice actually jerked her around or if she was just teasing her. "I'm Claire Redfield."

"I figured as much," Alice replied with a sly smile, while Claire sat down in the chair, face to face with her, and held out her hand to the brunette. "I'm Alice," the latter introduced herself, shaking Claire's hand, somewhat perplexed about the gesture.

"I know." Claire withdraw her hand. "Carlos and L.J. told me a bit about you." Alice wondered what exactly they could have told her since she didn't tell them much about herself, not even a significant detail. "What's your last name?"

"Abernathy," the other woman answered. "I'm Alice Abernathy."

Claire remained silent for a while, finally breathing a sigh, "Not really sure if it's nice to meet you, Alice Abernathy. Please, don't get me wrong. I am ... we all are very, very grateful to you for helping us, but the others saw what you did out there, ... causing such fire by sheer force of will." She was desperately searching for the right words, and Alice gave her great credit for that. "I mean, these people are scared enough already, you know."

"Don't worry," Alice said quickly and free of emotion, "I'll leave as soon as I know where to go."

Alice was astounded when Claire resolutely shook her head all at once. "Hey, wait! No!" The redhead leaned forward, almost cracking a smile. "I never said that you gotta leave. Carlos told me, you are a good person, and you did save my ass today. So ... welcome to my convoy, Alice."

"But what about the others?" The brunette was wise enough not to raise any hopes, for even if Claire allowed her to stay with them now, she would have to banish her eventually. Or else people might lose faith in Claire and dismiss her as their leader. "You don't owe me anything. You can send me away, it's okay. I can take it."

Feeling a dash of sadness, Claire realized that Alice wasn't trying to arouse pity but that she was absolutely serious. Carlos had told her that the brunette had parted with them after the incident in Racoon City. Alice had probably been alone on the way since then, getting accustomed to being lonely. "No, I won't send you away. I can't force you to stay, of course, but I'd be glad if you did. The others are certainly going to accept you once they'll see that Carlos, L.J., K-Mart and I are not afraid of you."

"Thank you, Claire," Alice said deeply affected. For a long time she hadn't experienced something like kindness.

The redhead wore a sweet smile for the first time during their conversation, and meant to notice Alice's baby blue eyes coming back to life somewhat. "But Alice," she spoke sternly, "I demand you to be honest with me. Completely. I need to be able to trust in you, to rely on you. Alright?"

"Alright." Now it was Alice, who was holding her hand out to the other woman. And Claire was pleased to see that Alice seemed to take the demand very serious, seizing Alice's gloved hand. The brunette was determined to show herself ready to collaborate with Claire, who was taking such a great risk by letting her stay.

"Maybe we could start straight away?" Claire asked surprisingly careful, waiting for Alice's permission, a nod of assent. "Well, Carlos told me that Umbrella messed around with your ... your brain. Can you even remember much beside your name?"

Grinning a little short of mischievously, the brunette answered, "My name is Alice, and I remember everything."

"In that case, Alice, tell me everything."

Alice licked her chapped lips, took a deep breath and started to narrate her story, "I was once a security operative, working for the Umbrella Corporation. When I took the job, I had no idea what these people were really doing in secret. But when I found out, I approached a woman named Lisa Trevor, who was kind of an infiltrated spy, instructed to blow the lift off Umbrella's countless crimes against humanity. I was able to assist her with it since I knew a lot of access codes and such."

"What went wrong?" Claire questioned, leaning back in the chair. "Was your cover blown?"

"Just let me circulate," Alice requested. The redhead apologized, making the corners of Alice's mouth twitch before she continued, "Umbrella operated a top-secret genetic research facility called The Hive, which I was supposed to protect and was located beneath Racoon City, below the mansion I lived in. Due to possible viral infection by the T-Virus The Hive had been sealed by The Red Queen, a Computer System. My memory was wiped, and along with a guy named Matt, who-"

"Wait a minute," Claire interrupted her with a furrowed brow. "Why was your memory already wiped?"

The brunette remarked that Claire never seemed to overlook any details. "Because of the nerve gas I inhaled that day."

"But of course ... "

"Anyway," The brunette went on once more, "along with an arrested guy named Matt, Lisa's brother, I was led underground into The Hive by a small team of Umbrella Corporation commandos. Whilst trying to find out what had happened, we ran across Spence Parks, my fake husband, and made a fatal mistake eventually. We released the re-animated corpses of Umbrella's workers. I'll never forget the face, or rather what remained of it, of the very first infected I ever saw."

Claire nodded knowingly.

"As we attempted to escape The Hive, an Umbrella test object called 'Licker' was hunting for us, and we found out that Spence was responsible for the viral outbreak." Alice narrowed her eyes to slits. "I killed him soon afterwards. When we reached the train that would lead us to the surface again, the Licker attacked us and scratched Matt before I was able to kill it." The brunette paused, obviously wallowing in memories. "Ten people went down there that day, only two of us came back. Matt and I. But back at the surface, Matt was taken away by these Umbrella bastards. I tried to fight them, but I fainted eventually. And that's when they fucked-"

"With your brain and your body," Claire concluded bitterly.

"For the first time, yes." Alice sighed heavily. "I finally woke from a coma to a ravaged Racoon City after the viral outbreak, contracted with the T-Virus." Pausing, the brunette waited for a possible reaction from Claire, who remained silent, however. "In an effort to contain the infection, a Major named Cain sealed all exits to and from the city."

Claire bowed her head now. "Carlos told me about it. They even fired at the people."

"Yeah, they did," Alice proved her right. "I saved some people, Jill Valentine, amongst others, from a group of Lickers that escaped The Hive. Soon after we were contacted by Dr. Ashford, who claimed to know of an evacuation point in the city in exchange for the rescue of his daughter Angela. She was trapped in Racoon City Elementary School."

"According to Carlos, Ashford contacted him too," the redhead said. "He told him about Umbrella's plans to incinerate Racoon City to get rid of the T-Virus."

Alice cleared her throat, ready to continue her story, when Claire held a water bottle out to her all of a sudden. After thanking the redhead, Alice took a big swig of it. "On our way to rescue the girl, Matt, who was transformed into Nemesis, attacked us. At the school, we burst upon Carlos and L.J., and after Angela's rescue, we made out way to the evacuation helicopter. But we were confronted with Nemesis and Cain, who forced me to fight against Nemesis by threatening to kill all the others."

"He killed Dr. Ashford."

Alice answered with a nod. "Matt, however, recognized me and changed sides, helping us." Her voice saddened for a split second. "He died. We flew away from Racoon City as it was being sanitzed by a nuclear bomb. I guess, Carlos told you what happened then."

"The helicopter crashed in the Arkly Mountains," Claire confirmed,"and you were deadly wounded. But you were taken to the Detroit Umbrella research station where you were healed by a guy named Isaacs."

"Dr. Sam Isaacs," Alice told her. "He fucked with my mind the second time. However, I attempted to escape, and was eventually driven away by Carlos, L.J., Jill and Angela. I knew it was too dangerous for the others if I stayed with them, so I left and moved on alone. I met some people once in a while, but even though they weren't infected, they were barely human anymore. If you know what I mean. I stretched all the way across America-"

"And finally came upon my convoy." Claire gave a bland smile, watching Alice nod. "Well, that's a story worth a movie or two."

Alice couldn't help but chuckle softly at Claire's words, until she realized that she had just told somebody her incredible story for the first time. Now, Claire Redfield was the only one, who knew almost all of what had happened to Alice over the years.

There was only one thing Alice had not told her, the worst thing she had ever done. She was damn sure that if Claire knew about it, she would have been on the road again by now, with the redhead's gun at her back.

The brunette felt a strange sense of attachment to Claire on a sudden. "What about you? What's your story?"

"I don't really have one," Claire replied, shrugging her shoulders. "I was in search of my brother Chris, and ended up being this convoy's leader. Fin."

"There has to be more behind it," Alice inquired.

Claire sighed. "Well, there were a lot of undead and dead people, chaos, weapons, more undead, K-Mart-"

"What's her real name by the way?"

"Dahlia," Claire answered. "But don't you ever call her that. She'll be angry at you, and then she'll be angry at me for telling you."

Unsuccessfully, Alice tried to suppress a grin, when Claire suddenly leaned forward, deadpan. "Alice, there's one more important thing I need to ask you."

"And what would that be?" Alice was puzzled as to why she remembered K-Mart's lesbo-line now of all times, wondering if Claire was indeed gay.

"Have you got any cigarettes?" the redhead requested. "Marlboro, Memphis, John Player ... I'd take them all by this time."

Alice simply had to laugh at Claire's adorable desperation, causing the latter to raise an eyebrow, and started to look for the saddle bags of her scrapped motorbike. She eventually spotted them on the floor, directly leaning against the couch. Claire almost beamed with joy when Alice grabbed one of the bags and pulled out a cigarette pack and a lighter.

"Oh my God," Claire sighed with pleasure. "I love you, Alice Abernathy!"

Alice really did wonder.

The brunette held one cigarette out to the other woman, who took it gratefully, and lighted it for her. After a moment's consideration, Alice decided to light herself a cigarette as well, the first one in months. "Have you found your brother?"

Claire inhaled a cloud of smoke and released it slowly from her lungs. While the redhead tracked it with her eyes, Alice discovered the hidden sadness in them. "No."

"You will," Alice heard herself say. "I'll help you."

"I thought you've got your own problems?"

"One step at a time."