The fishing trip was suppose to a good way, to get away. A place to leave the politics of the B.S.A.A. behind, uninterrupted by their constant paperwork and nagging over the constant need to update their policies according to the U.N.'s charters. Away from the stress fighting B.O.W.s. The battle against the swimmers was supposed to be far easier than zombies, lickers, or even the bigger monsters that seemed to be spawning up now a days in the far east. It was also supposed to be relaxing. A place to get away from it all. The pressures of waiting for his phone to ring, and have Jill's rustic voice finally filling his ears yet again, but having to explain away his sins. If it could be done. Or waiting for the tiny black beeper on his hip to start buzzing with the command of his acting captain's request for him to come back for some last minute mission. No, fishing was in the very least, away from all the city, and the constant babble of human fallibilities. How could he? The B.S.A.A. kept Chris busy, either with training new recruits, or taking Alpha team out on missions. He had just gotten back from a mission a few days ago and left Piers in charge until he returned. He'd be safe there on his own, the kid had everything it took to be a leader, so that was a non-issue, but still. This was his first real day off since the garbage with Veltro. He was always Captain Redfield, rarely ever just Chris. It was in the silent neck of the woods, without roads or skyscrapers; just gravel, and of roads to get to the stagnant lake with wide open skies and the quiet of the mid-day sun. At least, that's what he thought. That was the intention behind leaving it all and joining the Burton's up north in Montana for a well deserved rest that might actually prove some good in his life, rather than having to deal with all the shit. Barry had gotten out of the game when he should have. He had a family to deal with and bio-terror was meant for the people who didn't have daughters at home tying a ribbon around the oak tree. Another reason Chris wasn't keen on beginning one of his own, whilst men like Albert Wesker were willing to exploit them, like had happened to his dear friend earlier in his life. Instead Barry lived in the backwoods now, with a huge house, and a happy family, designing guns for the B.S.A.A. when he wasn't making pancakes and helping build dioramas for the little ones. It was about three hours into the trip, having no words and just a few Oldstyles in the cooler, though the captain preferred a good Rolling Rock; this was Barry's trip though, and Oldstyle in exchange for a familiar face, was well worth the expense. It was that whole glorious, out in the wilderness with nothing but your hands kind of thing that made it all worth while...

"Damn it all to hell! Where's my explosives?!" Chris slammed his rod and reel down into the bed of fiberglass and aluminum of the sixteen foot Bass Tracker lofting over the surface of the dark waters; hook dangling tauntingly fishless and devoid of bait.

With a shake of his head and a hearty booming laugh that rattled in his chest, Barry couldn't stave off feeling sorry for Chris as he thundered about the boat, rocking it ponderously with his weight in search of their tackle box, flinging back the top. "If I knew you were going to be this loud," he starts to tease. "I would have let you go with the girls." The burly man chortled again, while reeling in the end of his own line plopped back in the swivel chair to rotated out behind the boat and cast and his line, the sinker carrying it down into the currant; red and white bobber staying aloft and ripples forming, sitting down to wait with a creek. The frightened fish would be back soon enough and when they did, they'd come right up to that grub. "Besides, I consider explosives a cheat, I wouldn't bring you. I take it that you haven't fished for years, nor remembered it took patience, hmmm? Know what the girls call my bobbers? A pokeball. What the crap is a damn pokeball? I don't know what the hell a Magikarp is, but I'll be damned if it's in my pond!" Chris snorted in retaliation, shrugging at Barry's revelation, as though it meant nothing. It didn't mean nothing, not to Barry, he was such a dad, but still. "What's wrong with you anyway man? You've been scaring the fish all day long with that grumblin' of yours. I know you better, than to pretend you came all this way, just to sit in my crumby little boat for the weekend. Better spill it now before you ruin our chances of catching anything."

As Chris bait his line, he sighed in resignment. "Maybe I have. It's harder than I remember it being…"

"Yelling isn't going to help either. You're scaring the fish away and you're getting on my nerves."

"Yeah, well its not just you." The man was teasing the Alpha Team operative, and Chris knew it, but it still hurt to hear it out loud. Chris never seemed to do much of anything right now a days. Even Barry could tell, but then, Barry Burton could always tell. When they talk about the best of friends, he was the kind of man you could go decades without seeing, and still come back in the same old rut, with the same old fish, and never get tired of it. That's how it was suppose to be, too bad too many of Chris' friends never made it. It made Barry's company all the more important.

"Again with the grumpin.' "How are you and Jill doing, anyway?"

Chris glanced at the other man for a second before casting his line out again. Brows furrowed, and shoulders splayed, Barry sending the world wide 'what' symbol. There was another few minutes of a non-verbal war between the two, just as though they were little kids, battling with a swat of a hand across the chest, only for Barry it was a hurtling forearm colliding with immense pectorals, thudding against his flesh and knocking Chris backward into his own swivel. Relenting with a final fist throw into Barry's burly mounded shoulders, earning a chuckle. "Jill left." Frustration worked over his features, ignoring the quick snap of friendly demeanor into worry. "I don't know what to do about it, Bar. She was the love of my life, and there she went, right out my front door while I wasn't even home."

Barry couldn't believe what he was hearing. "What?" He took a deep breath before scratching the back his head with a huge mitt, grimacing for Chris even if he wouldn't have. "Look, if you want to talk about it, I'm here. I couldn't guarantee that I'd be able to give you any advice but I'm good at listening. You know that."

"I cheated on her, Barry. Me. I cheated on my wife. And the problem is, it wasn't..., he isn't some one night stand."

"That kid they recruited for you?"

"That'd be him... I always knew I loved Jill, Barry. We've been through more shit together as partners than most citizens have in a lifetime, but Piers? Goddamn him for being a soldier I so completely understand. Have you ever met someone so..., so certain, so much conviction? Someone who believes in you so much you almost feel... The kinds of things he says, Bar. The arrogance in this guy is unbelievable. He actually believes I'm some goddamn superhero. Like I can be the same person I was before Kijuju. The kind of shit we believed when we joined S.T.A.R.S., he honest to God believes it too, Bar. And I swear, when he... when he says those things, I gotta believe it. I can't not believe it. With Piers, I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. He's half my age Bar, and could be a captain if he really wanted it, but the stupid kid insists that I'm the captain. Then he starts questioning me, my authority, pushing me, saying shit like, I'm a better man than this. "This", this is who betrayed Jill's trust, betrayed my own morality, it's worse than when you found me, Bar. Despite all that? It makes me want to fucking prove it to him, to me... that guy is still somewhere deep in me, I feel it. But then I'm that guy.., and he'll look at me like that and the next thing I know I'm... I royally messed up with her. If I were my past self? I'd shoot the older me right between the eyes for doing that to her. When she gets back, she wants to have a nice long talk about it. The thing is I don't know if I can stop. Piers is… I guess you can say he's an addiction." A small flush rose to his cheeks that many people couldn't see. "Can you believe the shit I still get myself into?"

Barry looked at the water nodding as Chris went on to tell him everything about Piers. He seemed like a good man. He'd never had the luxury of meeting Piers in the flesh before, but he knew the sound of people like that. The feeling of being believed in. Barry started scratching his head as he sighed, watching the bobber floating along behind the boat, unmoved. "Sounds like one Hell of a situation to me… I wouldn't know what to tell you to do… Where to even start other than, Jill is... well she's Jill, Chris. You know who she is. You've never needed anyone else before when it came to knowing your woman. You two were the couple we always thought would make it. Always in the field together, always talking, or not talking about the same things. Heck, if Jill were a man, she would be you. Never had it in me to think you two wouldn't make it. If someone was, it was going to be you." Scratching his neck, then a large paw rounding to rub through a full beard that Barry had grown. Resembled a lumber jack in that sense, with his big red puffer vest that he refused to take off, even in this muggy weather, and sleeved rolled up to his elbows to sport his tick forearm, covered in hair. It was a conundrum that was for sure, one that had stuck his best friend in place, because they both knew damn well how Barry felt about Jill. She was the perfect one for him. Heck, Barry was the best man at the wedding, and wouldn't even let anyone talk of bachelor parties with the idea of Jill's honor in mind. Chris had already ruined that when he meant to give his A.T.L. instructions on taking care of the crew while he was gone, and instead wound up holding him down over the desk, and making sure he'd kissed every inch of those beautiful lips he'd come to miss over the last few weeks. Just the idea made Chris groan, burying his face in his palms while his friend grumbled on about never having understood men in the sense that Chris did. Then again, that wasn't always true, Barry understood men plenty, honestly he could see him getting along with Piers; despite the younger man geting along with no one in particular, very well. "Women are simple. You give them the time of day that they want, and Kathy, she's got that ten thousand watt smile. I mean they aren't particularly complicated, not that the girl's ever make any sense. Moira keeps going on about wanting me to let some boy over. She's only fourteen now, can you believe it?" A nod. "Apart from loving Jill, you aren't much of a family man, Chris. Never have been interested in that sort of thing. I remember when the girls were just tots, and you came round. First thing you did was ask me where the scotch was so you could drum out Polly's squawking. Always were the lifer, I'd never be. Tell me this. Just what is it you've got yourself caught up with, that is making this so hard for ya, huh?"

Staring at the ripples in the waves, deep mahogany eyes tracked one from his bobber to the shore. It took it long enough, but neither of them was going anywhere. Probably why this was what he'd rather be doing. Talking it out with a friend who understood him, rather than flapping his gums at some shrink who didn't get this shit at all. It took him that long, and in that amount of time they both managed to say nothing, just float on the water and let the fish nudge their bait. Seemed once something might have come up to give a nibble, but a tiny bob, and it was gone again. "I guess its just..., I'm use to people needing me, Barry. I'm a soldier, its what I am, what I always will be. Its not likely people are ever going to not need me in this lifetime, not with all the bioterrorist fads going around. They'll never stop needing soldiers like me. And then I go home, and Jill, she needs everything I've got left, and I can't tell her. I can't share what I've seen, even though she's seen it too, because she's out now. I don't blame her, just like I don't blame you for getting out when you did. But everyone needs something, and I've got nothing left to give her."

"And boy wonder?"

"Jesus yes, and then there's Piers. And he doesn't want shit. I have to pry it out of him just to get the kid to talk to me, even then he won't do it. He says what he thinks I should hear. Things like, I have to do what I think is right. Yeah, right. Like I know what that is. He doesn't ask me for anything, hell I'm the one waking him up at night, asking to come in at two in the morning. I don't even know what to do about him. At least Jill I understand. Piers couldn't give two shits about himself. He's quiet and endlessly holding me up to the bar, and makes me want it more than I have felt in years. I want to be the hero people constantly claim I am, is that so wrong?" Barry's shoulders boggled back and forth, nodding his head from side to side in appreciation of knowing that feeling all too well. "And so I get convinced I'm this goddamn hero, and all I can see? Is my partner drowning. And he won't reach out and let me pull him back."

"So you can't walk away..., I got ya." There was a prolonged silence, both of them considering the problems set forth before a hearty slap to Chris' back, never having noticed the man had gotten up to begin with, a grin on his face as broad as a summer sun. "I've got your back, no matter what happens."

Chris nodded looking at the tip of his pole, going back into the recesses of his own head, rather than laying it all out there with his best friend. It wasn't right making Barry a part of his problem. They had all been the best of friends. Jill Valentine, Albert Wesker, Forrest, Barry, and Chris. Well now Barry was out of it, Forrest was dead, Wesker was a psychopath turned volcanic ash, and Jill was his wife. Maybe his shrink was right, that he had some kind of hero syndrome, where all he really wanted was to protect those he loved and keep them under his wings as long as he possibly could rather than lose her like everyone else And now he was suffering those same feelings now for his A.T.L. He hadn't, not at first. Piers was a fully capable soldier, much to his own chagrin. Trying to defend a full grown, effective soldier. It wasn't as though Piers couldn't handle himself, he was capable of a lot more than Chris ever gave him the chance to do because he was just overly protective of the younger man. He was possessive, and protective. He knew that even if the twenty odd year old man was the best in his field, someday something would happen. It was just a matter of time. On top of that, he was just starting to understand the man. To put pieces of the puzzle together, and he liked the picture that it turned out to make. The problem was, if he wanted to keep Jill, he couldn't be in that picture. It was too heavy. They weren't here about this, they were here for some good old fashion time away. Time to get down to it, and whip out the heavy duty lines. Reaching over to the box, Chris plucked up a grub the size of his thumb. Yip, time to get to the real work. Several hours later, and Barry's snores lofted into the air, hands wrapped around a beer and the other around the rod of his fishing line. Taking up the hint, Chris had tipped his own head down, his old S.T.A.R.S.'s cap in place over his head lids. About time he had a real vacation, get the rest he sorely needed. The sun was kissing the horizon sending orange ripples on the waves, dancing over the lake in a perfect picturesque manner.

Chris chuckled, listening to Piers come to his office full tilt over the training session he had just come from; railing on about the rookie, Steven Peterson. He said it with not so crude of words, but the gist of it was this guy sucked. Grated on his very last nerves. For a man with such high integrity and conviction, Piers had one of the shortest tempers he'd ever met. His A.T.L. was right of course, he could judge people without so much as spending any time with them, but it was that same ill-tempered man who judged him constantly. Still, Steven's endurance was pitiful. "He won't last the month, Piers. We'll give him a a few weeks and if he doesn't shape up, we'll ship him out." His sniper nodded such in a huff, and the Chris couldn't not enter his personal space, snapping a hand out to stop his pacing. one hand caught in his mesh netting. All that rage pent up in one person. He was suppose to be there to talk about leaving for a few days... "I know what you need..." That look, that husky tone, and those lips. A large hand jerked them closer, took hold of that fine body he'd grown so attached to, feeling dexterous sniper's fingers taking hold of his own obvious need. "Right now, soldier." Shoving him to the side, hands cupped the edge of his captain's desk. Damn it, why could he never control himself around this kid. Chris didn't wait, didn't question; fighting with rigs, pulling down his A.T.L.'s fatigues, and what lie beneath. God he would miss that tight heat while the sniper did everything possible to be silent, biting those perfect full bow-shaped lips-

"Chris!" Jill?! "Chris!" No that's wrong, she wasn't there. No, Jill had never seen them together. "Chris!"

"HEY! Daydreamer!"

"Jill?"

"No you daft punk, your line!" As the rod starts to bend, Chris was jerked from awake. "Whoo, got one!" Quickly, he whipped the pole up to set the hook into the fish's mouth. The battle begun to bring in prize. The fish fought, slack, the reel her in. Almost a good ten minutes straight. "Get the net Barry! I've got a huge one on the line!" Hell of a way to wake up, but damn this was the way to do it. He was going to yank this baby over the rail and, and... Barry smiled pulling the net from the back of the boat hanging it over the water. Leaning on the side of the boat waiting, a bellowing laugh echoing out over the water, chuckling over the first sight of the fish.

"Oh, that's a big 'en all right. At least you have dinner tonight Chris." He catches the fish in the net then holds it up, buckling over as he laughs. "It's a white perch!" A white perch..., and maybe three pounds. If Chris wasn't fishing, and just yanked it out of the water he would have catapulted the damn thing out of the water, and yet? "Come on cap, it's not that bad. Least you caught something, my lines still empty."

Chris, disappointed with the fish in tow, punching his friend in the arm. "Very funny, Bar."

Chris dangled his fish with annoyance, holding it up to his friends face, as the sound of the motor from the boat over, came to join them. It wasn't even a moment until a little girl's voice could be heard. "Daddy!" The homely woman, Barry called his wife, dangling their fourteen pound, large mouth bass a pleased small mouthed smile on her visage. "Look at what mommy helped me reel in! I caught a real live Magikarp! Lookie, its even got a big mouth, just like in my game."

Barry laughed, nudging Chris's shoulder, climbing from the side of their boat into that which held his girls and their mother, hoisting Polly up onto his shoulder with a barrel laugh, his youngest squealing with delight. "Take her picture with it Kath." Handing it over to Barry, the ex-Air Force pilot bellowed as he held it up, Polly's grin a mock up of her father's. The flash of the camera going off, as the girl squealed, being plopped to the deck of the boat, boggling the slimy fish around. "Haha, maybe she'll share with you, Chris. I doubt she'd eat the whole thing. We'll have better luck tomorrow."

The little girl took one look at Chris's fish and smiles. "I beat Uncle Chris!"