The back passages of the museum were a safe haven compared to the chaos going on just a few offices over. Leon didn't know exactly who was after the sample this time, Umbrella, some cult revivalist, or someone entirely different, but whoever they were they weren't taking any chances. Gunshots and the subsequent screams could be heard with decreasing intensity as he followed Lise deeper into the bowels of the building. They'd gone down at least three flights of stairs, all blissfully empty so far – the stairwell apparently had no access to the outside where the rest of the employees and patrons were fleeing. Lise stopped short in front of an electronically sealed door and reached a shaking hand into her skirt pocket for her keycard. There were no sounds of a fight from beyond the door which, as far as he could surmise, was either a very good sign, or a very, very bad one. Leon grabbed her wrist, her arm trembling, before she could pass the card over the reader,

"I want you to wait here until I call for you, alright?" she nodded, clearly none too eager to run headlong into the basement of a burning building swarming with terrorists. He couldn't blame her.

"Do you honestly think you stand a chance against them?" he could hear the skepticism, the panic creeping into her voice. He himself had forgotten what it was like to really, truly, be afraid, to not have to deal with this kind of bullshit on a regular basis, and so the human body's physical reactions to fear had begun to fascinate him. He turned her to face him, gripping her arms in what he hoped was a gesture of reassurance. She was holding up well, for now, the adrenaline coursing through her system keeping her alert, and out of hysterics. But Leon knew all it would take was one small false move and everything would come crashing down on them both along with the building.

"I do this for a living, remember? We're on the same side here, just like you said, and I need your help to get that sample. When we're all safe we can figure out what to do with it, alright? But I need you to stay calm for now, okay?" She nodded, seeming to draw off some of his confidence. Internally his guts felt like they'd been through a blender before being poured back into him. He was cocky, but he wasn't stupid. He was good, but he was only one man. Worst luck in the fucking world he grumbled again to himself. "Good. Now after you open the door I want you to wait here and keep the door open while I make sure the coast is clear – is the storage room left or right?"

"Right. There should be two guards but who knows now after the explosions," she said as passed the card over the reader and the lock released with an audible click. The hallway was dim, and thankfully, if eerily, empty. The guards were either total amateurs, paid off, or already dead. The walls, lit with emergency lights, were reinforced steel with windows every couple of feet looking into offices and storage rooms. Shards of glass creaked under his boots from where several had shattered under the stress of the explosion. If the blast had been that intense they needed to get in and as soon as possible. He motioned for her to follow when he reached a fairly nondescript door with a disproportionately intricate electronic lock. She picked her way over the glass, her high heels, which, Leon had to admit, did wonders for her legs, not giving her much traction across the broken points.

"I don't know if my card will work on this thing," she said as she swiped it through the reader.

"It'll work," he said bluntly, watching for movement either way down the hallway. She punched in a few numbers on the keypad, quietly swearing so vehemently under her breath that Leon had to smirk; she had quite the repertoire for a bookworm. The door mercifully unlocked with a loud beep and opened into a tiny dark room. It appeared to have been a storage room at one point, revamped somewhere along the line to temporarily store potential biological weapons. Lise flicked on a light near the door and worked her way to the back of the room where an expensive looking stainless steel case was supported on a cart. She opened the latches quickly; inside lay only a single tube holding an all too familiar purple substance, an almost fully formed plaga suspended within.

Suddenly things became too quiet; Leon could hear the blood pounding in his head, felt bile rising in the back of his throat. She hesitantly reached for it, pulling the tube out of its protective padding. Instantly the plaga went wild, hammering itself against the side of the tube, hungry for the warmth it could sense just beyond. Leon felt all the muscles in his chest contract, remembering the pain of the fully formed parasite that had once thrived there.

"It's still alive," Leon whispered, swallowing thickly.

"It must be over two hundred and fifty years old," she said as they both stared mesmerized by the flurry of activity within, "it's been alive all of this time, just waiting."

"We, uh, need to get it out of here," he shook his head, clearing away the not nearly distant enough memories to focus again in the moment. She held the twitching sample out of him and he took an involuntary step back. Being this close it he could feel that familiar struggle against his internal organs all too vividly. "You better hang on to that for me, I can be pretty clumsy and I'd hate to drop it."

She was about to insist that it was his brainiac idea to take it in the first place so he could damn well carry his own parasite sample when she saw something in his expression behind the weak humor. It was something in his eyes deeper than anything she'd seen beyond genuine interest all day; even after the gunshots and explosions this guy was cool as ice. All that and he didn't bat an eyelash but bring this thing within 3 feet and those pretty blue eyes were flashing fire like all hell had broken loose.

"Okay, but I can't just be seen walking out with this thing, it's bad enough that they'll be able to track my card as the one that opened the –" a sudden shuffling at the end of the hallway caught their attention and she stuffed the sample in the pocket of her skirt. Nestled against her the plaga was having a field day, slamming itself against what she hoped was the thick, sturdy, impenetrable side of the tube.

"Stay behind me until I get out of the door. Make a break for the stairwell we came through as fast as you can – I'll be right behind you."

She nodded once and he opened the door a crack and peered down the hallway. It was one of the museum guards, approaching from the far end of the hallway, a TMP slung around his chest. The other guard was closer, the door to the stairwell separating them. They appeared to be taking their time, checking each of the rooms for survivors/witnesses as they made their way toward the storage room. Lise waited until the closer guard stepped into the next room before bolting into the hallway, the clack of her heels on the floor attracting the attention of the TMP-wielding guard. As the man turned, Leon used his full weight to tackle him to the ground, wrestling the gun away from him. The guard was well trained but inexperienced; he fought back with all the creativity of a textbook. He landed a solid hit to Leon's jaw, splitting his lip against his teeth while they struggled on the floor.

Over the sounds of combat, a shriek pierced the air before it was sharply cut off. Leon grabbed the guard by the hair, smashing his head against the concrete floor until the man's grip went slack. He stripped the guard of his gun and ran for the stairwell, slamming the door open with his weight. Lise was on the floor, the other guard straddling her, one hand wrapped around her neck as he searched her for the sample with the other. She was thrashing like a fish out of water, pummeling and scratching the man as she writhed beneath him. Leon pulled the guard off, taking the man by surprise, and threw him to the floor on the other side of the stairwell. Somewhat stunned, the guard struggled to his knees and Leon landed a couple hard kicks to the man's ribs before grabbing the guard's head in the crook of his elbow and pulling sharply, effectively breaking his neck.

Lise had half scrambled, half crawled back out into the hallway, her shins and knees painfully grating along the broken glass and other debris on the floor. She propped herself up against the wall, her breath coming in panicked gasps and her hands clutching her own bruised throat. She'd never felt so close to death in her life. In the span of a few minutes life had become a nightmare, flashing forward at break neck speed while her brain sluggishly tried to make sense of what was happening. It felt like she was living via satellite, experiencing everything through a two second time delay. She just wanted to live, to get out, to run home and hide and not come out until absolutely necessary.

But it could never be that simple. The hard cylinder of the sample in her pocket and the dead guard down the hallway could attest to that. His glassy eyes were boring into her from where he lay in a dark pool of his own blood, his mouth slack and open. Neither of them would be going home anytime soon. A calm, cryptic resignation settled over her as she stared at the mangled guard. He had met his fate at the hands of Leon Kennedy, the same man - the same hands - she was now forced to put her own life into.

Lise had managed to get her breathing back under control as Leon crouched down beside her. The alarmed sounds of emergency could still be heard from above, although at a much lower frequency now.

"He's dead," her voice was raspy, red welts visible on her neck. Leon felt his blood pressure rise; there was something about damsels in distress that really got his dander up. Claire Redfield had said it was his 'knight in shining armor' complex, but looking at the young man's corpse and the fearful reaction of the woman next to him certainly didn't make him feel particularly gallant.

"I know," he wondered if this was the first time she'd ever seen a dead body, it certainly seemed to be. Leon couldn't remember the first dead body he'd seen anymore, he'd seen so many that they had eventually just become one giant, goretastic, blur. At some point all the blood and bone fragments and entrails had stopped affecting him; it was a necessary mechanism in his line of work. Having moved in such closed circles for so many years he'd almost forgotten that there were still people in the world affected by that kind of thing.

"You killed him," she looked at him for the first time, her eyes full of accusations. He realized how it must seem: his leading her down here, killing both the guards, and taking the sample, but he didn't have the time to explain.

"Yes," he had stopped apologizing at some point as well. The Government paid people to write apologies on behalf of people like him. He took her hand and gently guided her to her feet, wrapping an arm around her and guiding her back to the stairwell, up the stairs and out the emergency exit. Despite the harsh look in her eye she went willingly, even leaning into him from time to time as they made their exodus from the burning wreckage of what had once been an architectural masterpiece.

Once they were out in the open, outside and away from the building, he pulled off his suit jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders, pulling the collar up to obscure the marks on her neck. There were plenty of other victims grouped outside the museum; he was counting on the chaos of the situation to be able to slip by the emergency personnel back to the hotel.

He knew he should let her go, drop her off at one of the First Aid stations, take the sample and run for it. But with the museum and its artifacts now a smoldering heap, she was suddenly an expert on the Illuminados cult and his best chance at figuring out a way to destroy the sample.

For now however, keeping them both alive was the top priority. Whoever had paid off those guards was not going to be pleased that the sample had escaped from right under their noses. He'd get them both cleaned up and then finally, maybe, have a moment to sit down for a minute and think about just what the hell he was going to do now.