Leon found her at the edge of the woodline some distance off the highway, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. Tendrils of hair that had escaped her ponytail clung to her face and she winced, taking in a deep breath despite the stitch in her side. Dark soil caked her palms, her pale skin stained with the earth.

"What are you doing?" He couldn't, for the life of him, guess why Claire was digging through the dirt with her bare hands. In response, she flashed him a crooked smile.

"Burying Sherry's parents." She said it matter-of-factly, as if her intentions were obvious. He gave her a bewildered look, brows furrowed together and lips shifting sideways as he studied her. She held his stare, confident in her explanation.

Sherry was sitting beside her, legs crossed as she laid an arrangement of flowers out on the undisturbed ground beside Claire's improvisatory gravesites. She looked up at Leon and nodded emphatically, concurring with the woman's explanation.

Leon wasn't sure how to describe the scene, but he knew something wasn't right about it.

"Claire..." He wondered if she had possibly lost her mind. It's not like he would have thought less of her if she had. They'd been through a seriously bizarre ordeal together and most people might have snapped under the pressure. In fact, he was a little surprised that they hadn't yet. Claire had seemed particularly well-adjusted, so it was only a matter of time before she cracked, he figured.

He wanted to say a thousand things, but with Sherry as their audience, he felt compelled to hold his tongue. Claire, what the hell? He wanted to say. Claire, there are no bodies! That's the whole point of a funeral, isn't it? The body?

Leon surprised himself with the morbid thought. Claire seemed unperturbed by his reaction and had returned to her work, this time kneeling down on the ground to scoop the loose dirt away in fistfuls.

"Do you want to help me pick out flowers, Leon?" Sherry asked, tilting her head to the side. Claire paused her shoveling to shoot him a hard look, a nonverbal don't-you-dare-say-no that reminded him of his mother. He nodded and shuffled towards the pair, a little reluctant.

"I think my mom would have liked this one." The girl held up a stem that contained a cluster of small purple flowers that grew along its length. He could only assume she had picked them herself.

"That one is pretty." He said, voice soft. Truth be told, he wasn't sure what to say. Honestly, he wasn't even sure that he could handle the impromptu funeral. It was heartbreaking to watch.

Sherry smiled and nodded, setting it aside from the others. She continued to pick up the other flowers one by one, holding them between her thumb and forefinger briefly to scrutinize them. As she systematically worked through each one, she appeared to grow progressively more frustrated.

"Hey, Leon?" She asked with a sigh. "What kind of flowers do boys like?"

He had been idly kicking around a piece of gravel to keep himself distracted and was forced to pause his assault on the rock.

"Well…" Leon struggled to muster a reply. He looked over at Claire, who had finished her digging and was now seated beside Sherry, slightly flushed in the face. Even with the smudge of dirt across her nose and her messy hair, she managed to make his heart skip a beat. It winded him a little.

"Boys like pretty things too." He advised, eyes locked with Claire's. She beamed at him and it struck him square in the chest.

Sherry accepted the answer. She let out a little gasp and held up a finger, rifling through the flowers with her other hand. The girl produced a wild daisy, its yellow center surrounded by messy clusters of white petals. "What about this one?" She tilted her head to the side.

Leon nodded, "That one looks good."

Satisfied, she stood, holding each flower in hand. She peered down at the small holes Claire had dug, each roughly the size of a shoebox, and then nodded definitively. "I'm ready."

Claire rose beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder, gesturing Leon over with the other. With Sherry preoccupied, he mouthed in Claire's direction, a what the hell evident on his lips. Claire only rolled her eyes and and beckoned him once again with the curl of her index finger.

Leon surrendered, standing in place beside Claire.

"I'm supposed to say something, right?" Sherry asked.

Claire gave her shoulder a careful squeeze. "Only if you want to, Sherry."

The girl placed the flowers on the ground and then closed her eyes, pensive as she clasped her hands together. A moment of silence was shared between the three of them until she began to speak.

"Dear God," Sherry's voice quivered, "Or...anyone who is up there."

She cracked open a blue eye, peeking up at the cloudy sky above before closing her eyes once more. "Please don't be mad at my parents. I know they did bad things, but...I know they are sorry for it, too."

Leon felt like he had been sucker punched in the gut. He wasn't sure what hurt more: listening to Sherry's monologue or being smacked across a hallway by the Tyrant? Maybe, he thought, he would have preferred the latter at that moment.

"We didn't get to do a lot of things together, but I still loved them a lot. I'm glad they took care of me and helped me meet Claire and Leon." A small smile graced her face. "Please take care of my parents for me now. Tell them I will see them when I'm grown up!"

Sherry seemed amused by the thought, a giggle bubbling into the air. "Thank you for listening to me today. Um...amen."

Claire gave the girl a pat on the head. "That was really sweet, Sherry."

Leon watched the two bury the flowers from behind, vision blurred and chest aching.


Claire sat on the steps outside of the motel and watched the night sky as Sherry slept. She didn't move as Leon approached her. Instead, she kept her chin rested on her knees and searched the stars.

"That's Pleiades." She said, pointing towards a particularly bright cluster of stars in the distance. "The seven sisters."

Leon sat beside her, stretching his legs along the length of the staircase. He looked up at the stars she pointed out. "You're a woman of many talents."

Claire laughed. "The seven sisters were the daughters of Atlas. After he was condemned to carry the world on his shoulders, Zeus put them in the sky to comfort him...or so they say."

"That's a sad story." Leon wasn't sure where she was going with it, but he waited for her to continue.

The chirping of cicadas in the distance filled the silence between them. He surveyed the parking lot below for any signs of life, a habit he had picked up during police training. Safety always came first and motels had a reputation for drawing in sketchy people. There was no way he'd let them survive the zombie apocalypse only to meet their fate in a dingy motel.

"My parents died when I was young too." Leon wasn't surprised. Claire was tough as nails, and one doesn't become a bonafide badass like Claire Redfield without enduring some type of trauma.

"I'm sorry." Leon cringed at his own cliche, and Claire shook her head.

"No, it's okay...I had my brother, Chris." She smiled, reminiscing. "He told me that Pleiades was my parents, that they had become stars so they could always watch over me."

She laughed, a surprisingly wet sound, and Leon was too afraid to look at her in fear of seeing tears. After their makeshift funeral, he was sure the sight would make his heart shatter into pieces.

"I was five. I believed it."

Leon shifted uncomfortably beside her, feeling a little out of place. He couldn't relate. "It sounds like he was a good older brother."

Claire placed a hand on his knee and leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. He stiffened slightly in surprise, but relaxed into the gesture, instinctively wrapping an arm around her. It felt like the right thing to do.

"We had a funeral for my parents too." She continued. "Like the one today. It helped, so don't think I'm crazy."

Leon tightened his hold on her, pulling her just a smidgeon closer. "Claire, I think you're crazy for a lot of reasons, but that's not one of them."

She giggled, a light, tinkling sound that warmed him despite the October chill. "You're one to talk, Mr. Kennedy."

Claire lifted her head from his shoulder and craned her neck to press a soft, chaste kiss to the side of his cheek. He felt the skin of his face begin to burn and convinced himself that it was from the heat of her lips, not the fact that she was Claire.

"Thanks for being my five-minute therapist." She whispered before nuzzling back into him.

Claire Redfield was an enigma, of that he was certain, but Leon found that he was enjoying the thrill of unraveling her secrets with each day that passed.

He hoped for many more to come.


Thank you so much for the warm reception. A special thanks to CaelumStrife, Vince Basile Jr, Knight of spear, and ladywinder for the kind words. There are no words to express my gratefulness!