"Brother and sister, together as friends, ready to face whatever life sends. Joy and laughter or tears and strife, holding hands tightly as we dance through… life."
"Poetry, Claire? Really?"
"You better believe it. Though it's been a long while since I've seen you dance, big brother."
1400, South Toliva, 2015
"You look like you've done this before. Have you?"
"Once or twice." Chris kept his eyes on the sea of thick, lush green moving by past the helicopter's cockpit pane. The wide tree canopies rolled like waves ahead of them, all the way until they broke against white capped mountains grasping for a spotless, blue sky.
Perfect weather for a picnic. Or a stroll down the beach. About anything, really. His brow pinched. Perfect nightmare weather.
"I've considered joining up myself a few times. And with how you're the third group I'm flying in now, seems the B.S.A.A needs pilots, yeah?"
His eyes cut right and his shoulder twitched up in a shrug that struggled with committing to anything but the pre-mission stir in his gut. Which was stirring pretty fucking insistently at this point, despite the brief having come with a reassuring repetition of Easy - Routine - In, Out, Home.
Except whenever was it any of the above?
When he didn't reply to keep the conversation above the water line, their assigned pilot flashed him a smile from under her helmet, and nudged a pair of oversized, tinted glasses further up on the bridge of her nose. She had M. Coronil printed below the Tolivian army aviation badge fixed just below her collarbone. M for Marcela, as she'd introduced herself before they'd taken off, her hand vigorously shaking his in a damn firm grip. A grip she could've probably let go a little quicker.
"Hmmmm." Her hum into his direction might have turned to more questions, hadn't their headphones come on to ramble orders in Spanish, prompting her to tilt her head away and listen. At least he thought that's what they'd received, being that they were a) Spanish and b) barely made it through thick static.
He blamed the mountain range. It ringed Toliva's wild heart in an almost perfect circle, trapping a bowl of valleys and thick jungle between its tall shoulders. Reception had been shit ever since they'd crested the peaks. Of course the cartels and their interfering with satellite coverage wasn't helping, but who was counting.
"Sí— Sí Señor," Marcela eventually confirmed, and turned her smile back to him. "Catch any of that?"
"New LZ?"
She arched a long, well tended brow at him and murmured her appreciation in Spanish. "Así es. There wasn't enough fuel left on evacuation site one, not to get us back the whole way. We've been redirected to site two instead. ETA in about ten."
The helicopter leaned, dipped its nose towards the trees. Chris' stomach followed, rolled with the familiar, weighty sensation of a sharp turn.
"That will put you maybe twenty minutes from Besília, think you and your boys will be okay walking?"
He grunted, and with a quick upwards slide of his hand unclipped his seatbelt. "We'll manage."
She didn't protest when he rose well before the helicopter levelled out, or when he hefted up the M4 secured to the back of his seat. Though he did feel an itch at the back of his neck when he exited into the main cabin. An attentive itch.
"Don't worry," she called after him, right as the heli gave a gentle buck. "You're just here for a pickup, right?"
Chris' gut knotted and his mouth slanted down without his explicit permission. Come on, Redfield. Get your shit together.
"Yeah, no sweat." He bobbed his head, put on a passable smile that he threw over his shoulder for her benefit alone, and joined his men in the cabin with the smile still half intact.
Marcela wasn't wrong. Not entirely. This whole deal was about as routine as they'd ever get. A warmup stint, barely worth setting his boots on the ground for. Theoretically. Realistically?
The smile crawled off his lips to die, while his mind thumbed through volumes of other routine operations that'd ended up as anything but.
In.
Out.
Back on a plane home before dinner.
Perfectly doable— and still the knot curled tighter and tighter. Pulled his fucking throat shut too, one hard twist at a time. Chris paused, a firm grip on an overhead strap keeping him steady. Because if he hadn't, he might have had to sit down, and there were eyes turned to him now.
His men, curious what their captain was doing back here with them. Curious and ready to go at his command, because that's what they'd come for. Well, almost all of them, anyway. At the back of the cabin, a harassed Piers Nivans was half across the aisle.
"Sutton, what the hell are you doing? Get that thing out of my face. Right now." The thing being the polaroid camera he was grabbing for, and with one quick snatch forward, got a fistful of the carrier strap.
"Aw, come on, Lieutenant. Give me a smile. Just one. Don't— heey— quit being a sourpuss, Nivans. Give it back. Man, not cool…"
A collective chuckle travelled up and down the rows, beginning at Oscar with a wide toothed grin, and ending with Eli and a quiet snort.
"You behaving, kids?"
Their spines straightened out all at once. Shoulders up, knees aligned, like he deserved their respect. On cue, the knot sank lower.
"Absolutely, Sir." Piers' lips hitched up, though Kerry Sutton didn't much share the amusement.
"Just trying to document the Silver Dagger's first official mission, Sir." Kerry held up his hand, three polaroids fanned out between his fingers. "Nivans' heart isn't in it though."
Chris huffed. Right. He rolled his shoulder up and threw a glance at his new unit's badge: a snarling wolf with a dagger poised across its neck. Fancy.
Every left shoulder in the helicopter— save for Marcela —bore its own wolf, while the right held the much more familiar B.S.A.A crest. And both were still painfully new, badges and shoulders padding and outfit and all. Chris shrugged, feeling the gear stretch slightly with the movement. Too new. Everything was new and fresh, from their boots to the Tolivan summer-fit combat vests, and even half of the unit's faces.
The latter? Unavoidable. Not with his track record, anyway. Whump- the knot in his stomach went. Shot right up to his heart and left a dent.
Piers cleared his throat. "What's the word then, captain?"
The helicopter jostled. Chris tightened his grip on the overhead strap. Tightened his grip on the unease and doubt. They'd become familiar companions, stubborn shadows that refused to leave his side ever since a long December day that'd cut short too many lives. Again.
Not this time.
He glanced out the narrow bullseye window, out across the sea of green and the perfect nightmare weather.
Not today.