Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Resident Evil characters. There's gotta be something I can do about this. Can't I just rent some of them for a while?

Summary: Piers has been saved by Ada, but surely, it can't have been out of the goodness of her heart...? Seems she has a use for him, or maybe it's just her new employer that does...

A/N: Shit's gettin' real. Or something. Actually, I don't think so. This feels like filler. Whoops. Pretend I'm setting up for an awesome next chapter. (I am. Pretending, that is.)

United States,
Unknown

Sherry Birkin was small. Always had been, and from the looks of it, always would be. Light as a feather, too. Ada hadn't had to use much of her own strength—she'd had the grappling hook and momentum on her side in that moment on the water, back in China—but it was clear she was arm-in-arm with a pint-sized agent. Ahem, former agent, and one whose skills weren't to be questioned. Ada could claim she helped those two out solely because they were young and needed it... Oh, and the world needed Jake Muller and his magical blood... But was that it? Really?

No, there was no denying Sherry Birkin's worth. Especially now.

Why else would Ada be here, with her? Why else would Ada have initiated contact with her?

It was late, and dark; no one else in sight. Secret meetings tended to go that way. Moonlight, whispers, narrowed eyes, and crossed arms.

Ada didn't need to say much more in her message to Sherry than Piers' name and she had little Miss Birkin, hook, line, and sinker. She wouldn't play her trump card unless absolutely forced to. She didn't anticipate it would come to that. Sherry must've had so many questions about Piers... It was unlikely they'd even broach the subject of Wesker Jr.

"So Leon was right," were the first words out of the petite agent's—ah-ah, ex-agent's—mouth.

"Was he now?" Ada cocked her head to the side, refusing to give anything up.

"About you," Sherry added. She wrinkled her nose and frowned slightly. "To a point."

There was a little sizzle behind that one, Ada mused. A little bit of anger.

She offered her next thought out loud. "It really is a shame we couldn't have gotten together sooner. We could've set things straight once and for all."

"My thoughts exactly," was Sherry's attempt at a stone-cold response.

Ada supposed the hostility was justified; Sherry was another victim of Carla's with no way of knowing who she'd actually been dealing with. She was probably convinced she was face to face with her captor right now.

"You said you had information on Piers Nivans." Sherry seemed ready to get on with things.

"Quite the understatement, in retrospect," Ada said, shrugging slightly.

"Good. Something else we're in agreement on. How did you even find out I was in China looking for him?" Sherry asked. She crossed her arms. "As far as anyone knows, I have no connection to Piers Nivans."

A valid point. Verbally, at least. But it was an out-and-out lie and they both knew it. Sherry had been brought along with... Team Redfield in their failed attempt to rescue Piers from Ada's evil clutches (such misinformation, though leaving them in the dark was probably for the best). It was during that time she'd undoubtedly found out some of her blood was coursing through his veins now and... Hmm...

"Oh, you're... connected, alright," Ada said. She matched Sherry's gesture of a moment before and crossed her arms.

Ada could play the part of the standoffish woman, too. The one who knew more than she was letting on, who wanted to spill some of those secrets, but couldn't risk it, and was really just crossing her arms to try and hold it all in until the time was right.

"Is that why you came to me with this? Why not Chris Redfield? Or Leon?"

"Your connection to Piers... It's why you accepted my invitation, isn't it? I thought you could use the work," Ada said, simply.

"Is this some attempt to blackmail me into cooperating with you? I'm still an agent of the U.S. government. Putting me on leave was as much for my safety as anything. It's procedure, because I spent so much time under Simmons. Not that it's any of your business—I mean, you shouldn't even know about any of this."

"Little bit after the fact, wasn't it?" Ada asked, adding, just a second later, "The decision to bench you? Almost like there's a much larger game afoot—"

"If you're suggesting I knew something about what Simmons was up to, you're not the first. By a long shot. And I've already answered to anyone and everyone who actually had cause to ask me about it."

"I'm closer to knowing the truth than anyone and everyone you've been dealing with, both by choice and otherwise," Ada told her. Or was she reminding Sherry? She wasn't entirely sure.

"Then tell me why I'm here."

Washington, DC, United States
D.S.O. HQ

"Did you take a look at this watch-list?" Helena asked, with a stack of papers in hand. She was half-leaning, half-sitting on the edge of Leon's desk.

They each had one, for what it was worth. Neither of them spent much time at their desks, though. Helena's was practically empty. It'd recently been relocated to its position just behind Leon's. They were partners now, after all.

Leon's desk seemed to be about as barren as Helena's, but it didn't stop him from agitatedly and needlessly digging through his drawers for something.

She and Leon had their orders. It was just a matter of making sure the higher-ups had dotted every "I", crossed every "T", and given them one last pep talk before sending them out to infiltrate Colette Simmons' 'most likely place of residence'.

"What watch-list?" Leon finally asked, as a box of 9mm ammo was slapped onto the desktop, followed a couple of seconds later by an open bag of M&Ms.

"Gonna take that as a 'no'." Helena reached for the candy and popped a couple in her mouth.

"That candy's been in my desk longer than you've been an agent," Leon nonchalantly remarked."Of course that's a no. Why?"

Helena spit the candy back into the bag and offered, "Uh, because it's directly related to our mission."

Leon shrugged, fazed by neither her words nor her actions. "How do you figure? We're not on babysitting detail. We're going in after Colette Simmons. Someone else can worry about a few names on a list while we pursue the actual threat. The government wants to waste manpower spying on Derek Simmons' old secretary, fine by me."

"Even if one of those names is Sherry Birkin?" Helena dared to ask.

Leon was on top of her in a second, and had snatched the papers from her hand just as quickly.

She smirked just a bit. The situation wasn't at all funny, but his reaction was. And, she had to admit that teasing him had a certain appeal, too. Not to mention owing him one for those petrified M&Ms she'd almost ingested. She also had a feeling things were about to get dark—real dark—so she was going to milk every opportunity she got for anything resembling a lighthearted moment.

How bad were things going if someone like Sherry Birkin was considered a threat?

Helena had a sneaking suspicion that she and Leon were gonna be working on the fringe again. She'd anticipated as much.

She hadn't anticipated Leon's next reaction, though. Instead of flipping his lid, or doing that creepy silent fury thing he sometimes did, he... gave up. He said simply, "It's my fault."

"What?" Helena couldn't mask her surprise. "None of this is your fault. It's not even all Colette Simmons' fault, much as she'd probably like to take credit for it. These are things that were put into motion long before any of us."

"Yeah. But Sherry... What happened to her is my fault."

Yup... Leon was one of those 'fall on his own sword' kind of guys if Helena'd ever seen one.

She insisted, "We had to tell her what Simmons was up to."

"Not talkin' about Simmons," Leon muttered. He wouldn't look at Helena, just that paper, and undoubtedly, Sherry's name on it.

"How are you not talking about Simmons? That's the only reason she's on this stupid list. She reported to him. Everyone who reported to him is under the microscope right now. We just happen to know that there's no way Sherry has anything to do with any of this, and that there's no reason anyone needs to be keeping an eye on what she's doing."

That wasn't entirely true, Leon thought, if their last little mission together was any indication... Hell, his name should be right there with hers, if that was the case. His, hers, Chris's, Jake's...

"I'm the one who turned her over to the government," Leon finally said. He tossed the papers to the desk in front of him. Let them fall to the desk in front of him was more like it.

"What?" Helena managed to ask. It was a justifiably betrayed sounding question—no, demand. "When?"

Leon explained, "After Raccoon City."

"You can't blame yourself for something that long ago. You can't really think it's related to this...?" Helena tried to protest.

"I know it is. Because Simmons is the one who hid her for all those years. She's not on that list because she worked under him as an agent for a couple of years. She was in the custody of the government from 1998 to 2009, and he was her benefactor the entire time. On paper, no one outside of his family was closer to him than Sherry."

"You don't believe that."

"Doesn't matter what I believe."

"She turned on him the second she saw he was dirty."

Leon nodded. "And we're the only ones who saw that."

Well, they weren't the only ones... Jake Muller was there, and Simmons' lackeys... But Leon's point was well made.

Helena sighed. "Damnit."

"Yup."

"Then we get her cleared to come with us," Helena suggested, excitement and eagerness in her voice and eyes.

"That is never, ever going to work," Leon insisted. He did manage the slightest chuckle, though.

"You said it yourself: on paper, no one outside of the Simmons family was closer to Derek. She also has extensive knowledge of recent events." Helena paused, cleared her throat, and decided to try her sales pitch out on Leon. "It's for that reason that we believe she'd be an invaluable asset and that we can't complete the mission without her."

"You think we're gonna convince the new Chief Security Advisor of that?"

"We don't have to. Just Hunnigan."

Frederick, Maryland, United States
Chris's Apartment

A beer bottle was placed on Chris's sort of cleaned up coffee table in front of Piers, followed by the instructions, "Start talkin'."

Piers reached for the bottle, turned it around and looked over the label, but didn't lift it from the table. "You think my blood alcohol content's gonna have an effect on what I say?"

"I didn't until now." Chris sat down. He had a beer as well. "I guess I'm not that devious. Didn't think you were either."

Piers shrugged.

Devious, or flippant, the smug little shit.

Chris raised his bottle and motioned that he intended for Piers to do the same. Piers did.

"To—" Chris began to toast and stopped, seemingly, when it dawned on him he had nothing to toast. 'Here's to you not being dead, even though I didn't do shit to save you' just wasn't something he could bring himself to say in that moment. He settled for, "Fuck, I don't know."

Piers gave him a stern glance—stern, but not angry. "To the truth." He paused. "Whatever it may be."

Chris nodded, understanding his partner's meaning and somberly agreed, "Alright, I'll drink to that. Let's hear it already then."

Their bottles clinked, once, and they were done.

Piers put down the beer bottle and reached for something in his pocket—a phone. He popped the memory card slot open and checked that his SD card was in place then proceeded to access whatever he intended to show Chris. That so-called proof of Ada Wong's innocence he'd come upon, most likely.

This oughtta be good. Chris stifled a snort over the thought. Or at least not as bad as the last time Piers had shown up out of the blue, shoved a smart phone in his face, and made him take a long, hard look at something.

"You really need a computer," Piers muttered, offering up the phone.

Chris squinted then complained, "What is this? What the fuck am I supposed to be looking at?"

"My point exactly." Piers shook his head. "Detail's not what it would be on a larger screen, like a computer monitor... But you should still be able to see her clearly."

"Her?" It wasn't much of a question, and Chris already knew the answer to it anyway. He played the video.

It was her alright. And she just hatched out of one of those fucking cocoons.

"What the hell was that?"

"Neo-Umbrella leader Ada Wong, of course," was Piers's reply.

"Bullshit."

"Exactly."

"This doesn't prove she's innocent, Piers. You better have a hell of a lot more than... whatever the fuck that was."

Piers was quick to insist, "I do."

"Good."

Piers took his phone back and accessed his next piece of... evidence then offered the phone to Chris once more. "Might have to put your reading glasses on for this one."

Chris grumbled a little but didn't say any actual words. Instead, he read. An old file—had to have been highly classified at one point. Probably still was, which begged the question: how the hell did Piers get his hands on it?

When Piers figured Chris had read enough, he chimed in, "Your agent friend was right: Derek Simmons was really behind it. Behind this, at least. I doubt that's all, though. If he was hatching his own people, I don't think there's much he wasn't willing to do."

Chris attempted to protest, "Just because she was created to be... whatever she actually is... That doesn't make her innocent, Piers."

Unfazed, Piers simply said, "The next one goes into a little more detail on the process."

After a moment, Chris murmured, "...A clone."

"Bingo."

"...Made from a full-grown human being, who's forced into becoming another person—" Chris seemed to be catching on.

"That's right. The Ada Wong we were pursuing was actually a woman named Carla Radames. She's the one who developed, discovered, created the C-virus—whatever you want to call it."

"Okay, fine. So, there's two Ada Wongs. Maybe the good twin wasn't out there trying to infect... hell, all of us, turn us into inhuman monsters—" Chris stopped himself suddenly.

Piers simply said, "Go on." If he was offended, it didn't show.

"But she was on their radar. Something put the idea into their heads to clone her, didn't it?"

"I didn't have the chance to ask." Piers reached for his phone. "She took off almost as soon as she realized I knew she was innocent."

"Doesn't exactly sound like something an innocent person would do," Chris muttered.

"She had a plan and this isn't it," Piers insisted.

"Yeah? Then what was it?"

"If I had to guess," Piers began. He smirked just a bit, and continued, "And I do. She was trying to play everyone against each other and slip away unnoticed while they fought it out."

Chris echoed, "Everyone?"

"The BSAA and whoever she was hired by to come after me."

"Come after you?" Chris repeated, his eyes narrowing as he spoke.

Piers shrugged it off. "I'm sure she—they—just wanted the sample. They had no way of knowing what had happened. They probably thought I still just had the vial. She could've just killed me as soon as she saw me, or left me behind."

Chris didn't say anything but he was thinking it.

"I think she thought you'd bring the cavalry with you, after hearing from her." Piers smiled, but his expression quickly turned serious. "I told her you wouldn't bite."

Chris tried to play it off, but he couldn't completely hide the wound caused by Piers's words—hearing that Piers was, apparently, of the mindset that Chris hadn't come for him, and had no intentions of doing so. "Well, it wasn't exactly the cavalry..."

Piers got an odd look on his face, somewhere between confused and amused. It was the first he'd heard, seen—anything—that Chris had been looking for him.

Chris very calmly explained, "We were too late. You were already gone by the time we got there. The mission failed. No... I did."

"Captain, that's not what I meant at all." There was a pleading tone in Piers's voice. First time he'd dropped a 'captain' in a while, too. And he was usually good for a lot of them.

"You sure you're okay to fight?" Chris asked, suddenly.

"Of course." Piers seemed certain of himself.

Without access to the equipment or personnel to examine him—not without hauling his ass to HQ and exposing them both to a world of trouble, at least—Piers's word was all Chris had to go on. In the past, that would've been more than enough.

Still, with equal certainty, Chris said, "Good."

Piers cocked his head to the side but asked no questions.

Chris offered his explanation anyway. "We're going after her, and we're gonna find her. And we'll do it your way."

"Why?"

"What do you mean, 'why'? Isn't this what you wanted?"

"I don't want you agreeing out of pity."

"Pity for who?" Chris asked, with a bark of laughter. After a moment, he continued, "She hasn't failed you yet. That's a hell of lot more than I can say for myself. So, let's go find Ada Wong."

A/N: Has it really been almost a month since I updated? Crap. XD Sorry it took me so long to get back into the swing of things. And that Jake didn't make it into this chapter. I love him. :) He'll be around soon enough. I mean, he's not gonna be happy to hear about what's going on with Sherry, especially if she totally goes off the radar and tries to take care of things alone because of whatever she hears from Ada...