Disclaimer: I do not own Resident Evil or any of its associated characters.
I.
Had he any shame at all? It wasn't particularly one of Albert Wesker's longest contemplated questions, as it had become blatantly evident -rather quickly, in fact - that he did indeed possess none.
However, perhaps coming to such a simple conclusion wasn't entirely fair. After all, her undoing seemed to have only been a matter of time; he hadn't done anything he believed any other man wasn't capable of. If it wasn't him it would have been made the task of someone else. But - that 'someone else' may have at least felt a shred of guilt afterwards, as she was only young, practically a child and near enough twenty years his junior; probably sooner mistaken for her father than her 'lover'.
All of this, he had taken into consideration and still felt very little remorse for what had occurred. It wasn't completely his fault; for attempting to resist an enchantress often exhibited a significantly low probability of success, which was excellently demonstrated by the extensive list of admirers she had managed to acquire in such a short period of time. Though, among the many names and faces, only one truly stood out to him.
Frederic Downing. They had become acquainted a while ago, sometime in his youth. He had only been a very minor character in Wesker's life. Until the girl came to him one day, all bubbly and rosy cheeked, believing Downing loved her with a passion undying. It had been extremely difficult to keep a straight face.
Apparently, no one had ever explained to her how the world worked. Downing's acclaimed adoration for her wasn't real. He wasn't 'different' nor 'special', he was a liar, a deceiver, like every other mortal. Surely, what he had truly been in love with was the idea of exploiting a young girl's desperation to experience what is so often fondly referred to as 'love' for his sick off the clock 'art' projects.
Claire. That was her name, the name bestowed upon the teenage girl that kept him so entirely captivated. She was fitting of such a name, it was expressive of things 'bright' and 'clear' and she seemed to possess a radiance much like a goddess of the sun. Child of Apollo. The lantern in his dark room.
These were the sickeningly mawkish analogies that were beginning to convince Wesker, that if things between the two of them were to carry on in a similar fashion this girl might end up turning him insane.
Currently, Claire lay asleep in his bed, a golden ray of light managing to seep through a gap between the curtains and onto her skin. What a beautiful sight she was, in her short, white dress, her ivory legs - still stained scarlet with the blood of her murdered innocence - tangled up in the sheets and her auburn coloured tresses left loose to spill out over dark pillowcases.
Last night, he had her commit to him. In a way in which she had not formerly known how, made her open her knees for worship, fucked her until she'd forgotten all about the false idol and found her faith, her god.
Right now, she seemed so peaceful. He sighed. As letting her go after this had the potential of putting his entire career in jeopardy. Why did she have to cost him the one thing he couldn't possibly afford to lose? It would be practically effortless just to end her here and now. He'd save himself everything with the cost of hardly anything. He'd left no evidence that he had taken her, he'd leave none when he disposed of her.
He even reckoned her neck and his hands were a perfect fit for one another. But was it a hypothesis he was willing to put to the test?
Fortunately, for the young Claire Redfield - who had found herself awake shortly after this sinister plot - it wasn't.
She gazed up at him with a smile, seemed oblivious and entirely at ease, while he returned her looks rather intensely with his amber eyes.
"Albert..." She started with a whisper, as though the mere sight of him had left her breathless.
"You mustn't tell anyone about this...little affair." Was the first sentence he spoke to her that morning, appearing even more stern than usual. He couldn't possibly think she was that much of a moron, could he?
Claire rolled her eyes playfully before shifting her gaze onto the ceiling, then saying, "I'm not as stupid as you think I am, you know?"
"Have I ever called you stupid?"
Come to think of it he hadn't, not explicitly.
"No." She'd give him that much, "But you sure do treat me like an idiot."
She only received a grunt of dismissal in response, clearly he wasn't in the mood for a debate. His weight soon left the bed; with the presumption that he had moved to the bathroom to get dressed she didn't sit up to watch him.
She let a moment pass, listening to the shower turned on in the background as she shuffled nervously about in the bed. Eventually, though she did get up to collect her things scattered about the otherwise tidy bedroom. Mentally, she made a list of what she had been missing and checked them off as they were found: her hair tie, bag, boots and underwear...
Just as she had appeared to have sorted herself, he emerged from the bathroom, completely dressed, eyes hidden behind his signature dark sunglasses.
"Do you think Chis is worried about me?" She asked.
"Probably." He returned rather bluntly, waiting for her to finish tying her hair up before tossing a packet of Kleenex in her direction which she caught quite clumsily, " Have you any idea as to what you'll be telling him when you return?"
With the tissues she proceeded in wiping the blood from her thighs, "I stayed at a friend's." She then looked at him with a grin, something sparkling in those pretty blue eyes of hers.
Her response seemed a fairly satisfactory one.
"Come, I'll take you home."
II.
Before March 20th 1996 Claire could never have said she'd ever been hospitalised. But now that she had been given the chance to experience it first hand, she could comfortably conclude that it sucked and was not something she would enjoy repeated. This was primarily because she was being cooped up in a small room that was indeed as depressing as it looked with an IV stuck in her arm and nothing particularly very interesting to do.
Though when the nurse had informed her that her brother had finished work early to come and visit her, she felt her day brighten a even if it were only little bit. He arrived still in uniform, the three stars on his shoulder officiating him as the newest addition to the Raccoon City Police Department's S.T.A.R.S alpha team.
"I'm sorry, Chris." She muttered, as he pulled up a chair to sit at her bedside.
"What for, Kiddo?" He asked, not sounding as troubled as she had initially expected.
"I can't help but feel I've ruined your first day." She replied, propping her self against the headboard so that she had a chance of seeing him better, as he offered her a smile of reassurance and ruffled her hair with his hand.
"Quit your worrying, you'll make yourself sicker than you already are. It's really not your fault. My main concern is you." He took a breath, "Nearly gave me a heart attack, when your school called saying you'd collapsed and you were being taken to the hospital." He run his fingers through his dark hair, " So, have they figured out what's wrong yet?"
"You mean, they haven't told you?" Chris shook his head and so she continued, "The doctor said it was anaemia, something to do with not having enough iron in my diet."
"I see. Did they say when they'll be able to discharge you?"
"I didn't ask." She admitted,"...so tell me, how's work been for you so far?"
"I'd only been working about four hours before I got the news, but from what I can tell it's going to be a lot of hard work."
"Nothing the almighty Chris Redfield can't handle though, right?" She pressed a hand against her forehead, like she was trying to check her temperature, before letting out a long overdue groan and falling theatrically back down into the pillow, "Argh, head is killed me! I think I might be dying, Chris."
He laughed, and patted her shoulder, "I think you're being a bit dramatic."
"Easy enough for you to say."
They hadn't released her until Friday evening, two days after her initial hospitalisation. The car journey back to Chris' apartment was a quiet one, if you didn't count the rattling of Claire's iron supplements as she held the glass bottle to her face so that she could inspect their contents. The doctor had told she needed to take three a day, suggested that she might want to try taking one after every meal.
"Don't you wanna put the radio on?" Chris broke the unmotivated silence; with his eyes still fixed on the road, on hand on top of the steering wheel.
"No, It's okay."
"So Claire..." He continued trying to engage her.
"Yea?"
"If a tree falls down in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?"
"I...I don't know." She said, sounding slightly subdued, "Why are you asking me that anyway?"
"It's just I was having a little bit of a debate with Jill earlier today and..."
"Jill?" She repeated, "Is she a member of S.T.A.R.S too?"
"Yeah."
"Hmm. So, what do you think; does it make a sound?" She asked, suddenly interested in making conversation, as she turned her eyes away from the bottle, letting it and her hand fall into her lap then casting her gaze out of the passenger side window.
"Well yeah, it should. I just don't see any reason why it wouldn't, y'know?"
She said nothing for a while, giving the question a bit of thought herself, "You know what, come to think of it I don't think it would make a sound."
From the corner of his eye he watched her resting her head against glass, "Why not?"
"Well, I mean...I don't think a sound is a sound until the vibrations reach someone's ears..."
"Guess that makes sense."
"Since we're asking hard questions..." She thought to change the conversation, "Can I ask one?"
"Go ahead. Shoot."
"What are we eating tonight?"
"Right." He acknowledged, "You must be hungry...maybe if you'd just eat what they'd given you at the hospital..."
"The stuff there was unfit for human consumption and you know it." She insisted.
Chris shrugged, "Well, what do you want?"
"How about...we get burgers." She looked to her brother for confirmation, but his mind appeared elsewhere, "Chris?"
"Claire." He spoke with a hint of concern in his voice, "Do me a favour and open the glove compartment."
She did as he asked and waited for his further instruction.
"Are my house keys in there."
After a bit of shuffling through a bunch of paperwork crammed within the space for a moment, she could finally conclude that:
"No, they're not in here."
A long exhale of frustration escaped him, "I must have left them on my desk..."
"Guess that means we're taking a detour?"
"Yeah, I'm sorry. If you want you can wait in the car. I'll only be a minute."
"Actually, I'd like to come in too."
"Why?"
"I don't know. Just curious..."
Ten minutes later Chris made his way back into the police department, with Claire following slightly behind humming in an undertone a song that seemed oddly familiar.
"Trying to make it rain, Claire?" He joked.
"Shut up." She whined, catching up to him so that she could thrust her elbow into his ribs.
"Ow." He cried, clutching his side, Claire wasn't sure if he were about to laugh or cry. "What was that for?"
Placing a fist where her heart would likely be, she pouted, "That's for hurting my feelings."
He laughed.
"Come on, Claire. You know I'm only teasing."
"Whatever."
"Forgotten something, Redfield or are you just that eager to start work again?" This other voice was foreign to her, rather refined; the type of accent one might associate with the adjective 'fruity'. It didn't take much discovering on Claire's behalf to locate the source, as the owner of this voice stepped in front of them and into the light, out of what appeared to be a records room.
"Captain." All of a sudden, Chris seemed to fumble his words as if this new presence had made him almost nervous, "Well-err-yeah-no!...I...um left my keys on my desk. I had to come back and get them."
"And it takes the two of you to recover them?"
"Oh, that's right! Sorry - Captain this is my sister Claire. And Claire this is Captain Wesker. Claire here was just curious about where I worked."
"A pleasure." She held out a hand towards him, and he obliged by shaking it.
"I take it you're feeling better?"
"What? Oh! Yes, much better."
Chris' Captain was a handsome man; she'd give him that much, even if he was probably more than twice her age. She observed that he was also very blond and tall; taller than even Chris. Quite imposing in stature.
She found him a mysterious character, and strangely drawn to him with this inclination to learn more, like what colour his eyes were, as she could not see them behind his sunglasses - which she might add he was wearing inside like a complete douche.
"So Captain..." The following question was asked so innocently, she may not have even thought it through before she asked it, "What's your first name?"
This earned her a look from Chris which she believed to have perhaps been a way of asking, 'What do you think you're doing?"
"Albert." Wesker's expression didn't change.
Giving the newly obtained information a second or so to settle in, she cocked her head to one side and smiled. She supposed he did kind of look like an Albert, not that she knew very many Alberts to begin with.
"Anyway." Chris decided he ought to cut their conversation short, "Claire, I thought you wanted to see the office."
"I do but..."
"Come on then." He took her by the wrist, leaving her no choice but to follow, "I guess I'll be seeing you tomorrow, Captain."
"I suppose."
"I'm sorry, was I embarrassing you?" She teased, when the two of them were finally out of earshot and they had entered the S.T.A.R.S office.
"A little bit." He approached what Claire observed to be the messiest desk in the whole room.
"Why? I was just making conversation."
"Seemed more like flirting to me."
"I was not..." She said, trying to look as if her attention was on something else in the room so that he would not see her blush.
"Sure..." With his recovered keys now in his hand, he ceased his interrogation, "What is it you said you wanted to eat again?"