CLAIRE REDFIELD
Chris didn't make any attempt to shield himself from the rain. Even if it was just drizzling he felt as if he was in the midst of a raging hurricane. He wished the walk to his car had taken him longer. He wanted to start the car, but he didn't know where he would go. He ran his fingers through his hair a few times to dry it out and wiped his hands on his pants. Pedestrian and inauthentic? Jill had seen right through his ruse. Leon had pegged him for a coward. Barry thought he was a bastard. He pressed his forehead onto the steering wheel, wishing the car would just drive itself.
His phone hummed in his pocket.
"Hello?"
"Chris, are you watching the news right now?" It was Claire.
"…No…"
"It's amazing! They send the entire Eastern BSAA stationed in the Asia to explore a 'possible bio- terrorist' threat but couldn't send ONE team to a confirmed location in the Middle East? When they finally do, oops! 'Turns out there was nothing in the abandoned bunker but a rest stop for sheep herders.' How convenient for a country that has oil."
Chris glanced over at the digital clock in his dashboard. "You're up kinda late, aren't you?"
"I am. And why are you so blasé about this? This will eventually affect you?"
Chris sighed. "Not in the frame of mind to be outraged, I guess."
Claire narrowed her brows suspiciously. "Are you in your car? I can hear your seatbelt chiming."
Chris turned off the battery from the ignition for her sake. He didn't even realize it was chiming until she'd said something. "Yeah," he admitted, "I'm in my car."
"What's wrong?" She prodded gently, sensing the forlorn nature in his words. They carried a sigh in them, and ended without inflection.
"I'll tell you Claire, but promise me you won't react. At all."
Claire had already wound up with the phone practically swallowed into her ear. It wouldn't help to make a promise she already knew she couldn't keep. Expecting the worst had her frozen in place. She shot out a hand for the TV remote and turned it off.
"What's wrong?" She insisted, voice barely above a whisper.
Chris pinched the bridge of his nose. "Sheva just told me she was pregnant."
He may have heard her shuffle. Other than that she was dead silent. He had to test the water.
"Claire…?"
"I'm here…"
"You didn't say anything."
"I know. You told me not to react." She was hyperventilating. She tried to hold the quick breaths she was taking in but it wasn't helping. She wanted to explode with a reaction.
"Oh my God, Chris. How am I supposed to feel? Tell me how you want me to react."
He shrugged, frustrated. "Just go for it. I don't care anymore."
"Is Sheva with you?"
"No."
"Oh my God. You're going to be a father. You're going to have a baby. You guys are going to be parents…"
He heard her sniffle. "Are you crying?"
"I am," she admitted, congested. She swept away her tears with her fingers. "I'm crying because you sound so depressed."
Chris felt a lump rising in his throat. Depressed. He sounded depressed. His chest tightened. The next time he tried to speak, he choked on his own words. Before he knew it, his face was wet with tears.
"I didn't want this…I'm not prepared to be a father. I didn't want this." He confessed.
His startling admission helped to compose Claire. She had only suspected, but hearing him confirm the source of his depression was sobering. It made her nightmares real. She went beet red the next instant.
"What did you think was going to happen, Chris?!" She fired, flaring her arm. If he was in front of her she would have slapped him. Or shove him. Or punch him in the arm. She didn't know what she would have done but it would have been something. She was too upset to be decisive about a hypothetical situation.
"Why, Chris?"
"…I.."
"Why?!" She insisted, cutting him off. She wasn't going to let him spoon-feed her any bullshit. He could hate her later.
"I don't know what I'm doing, Claire! I don't know how to be a father! When mom and dad left us, I was sixteen!"
"You took care of me…"
"Took care of yo—I joined the Air Force! I didn't take care of you, I ran away!"
"Oh my God, Chris…Oh my God…have you been harbouring resentment for yourself all this time? That was over twenty years ago! Do you need me to forgive you, is that it? What do you think is required of you to be a father?"
He didn't answer. He put the phone on speaker and dropped in it his cup holder to free up his hands. He didn't want his sister to hear him sobbing. He covered his face with his hands to muffle himself and just listened. Maybe he needed to hear her diatribe. He certainly felt like he did.
"Sheva didn't have the greatest upbringing either. Didn't she lose both her parents younger than we were when our parents died? Raised in a war torn country somewhere behind God's back by Guerillas? Do you think that disqualifies her from being a mother? For the love of God, argue about a name or a college, Catholic or Protestant, Democratic or Republican, normal shit, but not this! Have this baby. Babies aren't accidents. If not now, then when? If not her, then who?"
She took a moment for her point to drive home. Her eyes were brimming with tears again. She couldn't believe her brother didn't want his own child. When she didn't hear him, she started up again.
"Why don't you want to have this baby?"
Chris sucked in a staggering breath. He knew he couldn't hide the fact that he was crying if he spoke. But it needed to be said. He knew he would stutter. He knew he would break composure. He knew his tears would come tumbling down his face again faster than he could mop them up. The truth was about to explode out of him.
"I-I do want this baby, Claire! I want it more than anything else I've ever wanted. I want it to have t-ten fingers, and ten toes. I want it to be everything I'm not. I've been exposed to Uroboros, The T-Virus, the C-virus and you name it. Sheva too. I dunno what to expect. I dunno what to do if it isn't all right. I'm scared to fucking death and I don't know how to tell anybody that. Sheva thinks I'm fucking Superman, but I'm not—I'm just Clark Kent."
Claire got up and went to the bathroom. She was surprised that her gelatin legs could even get her there. She snatched up a few tissues from the box top her vanity and dabbed at her eyes. She skipped looking at herself in the mirror.
"Superman isn't real. You are. You're a great brother."
He may have been. Her compliment made him even more emotional than he already was.
"You're a great man."
He had enough accolades to attest to that. Honors, privileges, rank, status, appreciation. It didn't really amount to much now. That wasn't the true measure of a man. He pulled the tail of his dampened shirt up over his face, his shoulders shrugging with each heaving breath.
"You'll be a great dad."
They didn't share another word for a few minutes. The timer on his cell phone ticked away the seconds of a voiceless conversation. Claire was only gulping up the last bit of tears while Chris was trying to breathe through a congested nose. He dragged down his shirt and took a look at himself in the rearview mirror. He couldn't remember the last time he'd cried like this. Maybe never. He plucked the phone out of the cup holder and took it off speaker.
"What do I do now? I fucked up everything earlier."
"Chris, I'm sorry, I know you said it earlier, but do you really want to have this baby?"
"Yes." He answered unwaveringly. "I do."
"Good." She muttered. "Good." She needed to hear it again. The Chris she remembered was speaking again. "If Sheva needs to hear that, then go tell her."
He nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I'd better go do that."
"Chris?"
"Yeah?"
"Is it okay to be happy now?" She sniffled.
He chuckled lightly. "Yeah, sis. It is."
