During the following few weeks, Steve spent a lot of his time with the timid little girl he had now come to know well as Sherry Birkin. Although naturally very quiet and shy, her attitude would change completely when she was around Steve, when there were no doctors around. To his relief, she had warmed to him instantly, and he always enjoyed her company thoroughly, as she seemed to enjoy his.

Steve didn't have any siblings. Being an only child, he had never really known what it was like to have a brother or sister, and so the thought never really crossed his mind. When he was little, he'd had a lot of friends, and they had served to fill the gap he may have noticed otherwise. Regardless of his lack of experience with siblings, he was quite sure that Sherry was the closest thing he'd ever had to a little sister. Being able to make her laugh was the best feeling in the world, and he was determined to protect her from the worst of what she could be exposed to.

He always went with her to her examinations. Sometimes he held her hand, when he was allowed to. The doctors didn't seem to pay much attention to the fact that he came with her. They simply continued with their work as though nothing had changed at all. Steve did his best to distract her from whatever experiments the doctors wanted to perform, keeping her attention away from the needle by telling her jokes while she was having blood taken, or showing her how to fold scraps of paper into animal shapes while the doctors poked, and prodded, and were generally feigning ignorance to any amount of pain or discomfort they may be causing her.

She had asked, after one of her check-ups, if she were allowed to accompany Steve to his, but after seeing the way her tests were performed in comparison to his own, he had decided it best not to let her be exposed to the more harsh and invasive tests that were regularly performed on him. He wasn't sure whether the difference in treatment had anything to do with age, or gender, or the fact that they were infected with different viral strains, but it didn't really matter what the reason was. He didn't want her to see it. That was all.

They ate their meals together in the canteen every day, talking about carefree and unimportant things, like books, and movies, and songs. Steve made sure to carefully avoid any topic that would lead them to discuss family, or friends, or anything to do with viruses. He didn't know very much at all about Sherry's past; about where her parents were or how she ended up in a place like this, but if she didn't tell him about it herself, then he would never ask. The fact that she never spoke about those things herself indicated that she was hiding something horrific about her past…things that were too painful to talk, or even think about. Steve understood it all too well. It was much better that they stayed distracted talking about trivial, light hearted things. So they did.

"So, you wanna be a doctor, huh?" Steve asked her, as they were sitting in the canteen, eating lunch, "I think you'd make a pretty amazing doctor. If I ever get sick, I hope I can come to your hospital."

Sherry laughed, "You don't own a hospital if you're a doctor, Steve, you work at a hospital."

"I know that." He chuckled, "But you may as well own the whole hospital, because you're gonna be the best doctor there."

She laughed again, sipping some orange juice through a straw, before looking a little melancholy, watching her hands on the table.

"I want to help people. That's what I want to do."

He watched her, smiling and nodding slowly, before she continued.

"I want to help people…the way Leon and Claire help people."

Steve froze slightly, taking a while to register what she had just said, his brain working overtime to process the information into something that made sense in his head. She couldn't possibly be talking about the same Leon and Claire that he was thinking about, could she?

"Leon and Claire?" He questioned, his brow slightly furrowed.

"Mhm." She nodded, still watching her hands, or the table, "Leon and Claire saved me…from Raccoon City."

…Leon was in Raccoon City…he was in Raccoon City with Claire…and Leon had told him that they saved a little girl…

"You…you're the little girl. You're the little girl they saved." He said quickly, talking to himself more than he was talking to her.

She looked at him, confusion clear in her expression.

"I…I know Leon and Claire." He continued, feeling both slightly nauseous and excited at the same time, "They both saved me, too…not at the same time, but…"

"Really?"

"Yeah." He nodded quickly, unable to stop the laughter that escaped his lips, "I can't believe this. This is like the freakiest and yet best coincidence ever…I knew I'd heard your name somewhere before!"

Sherry continued to watch him for a while, still looking slightly puzzled, before she, too, began to laugh.

"Well, there is no one in the world whose footsteps you should be prouder to follow in." He smiled brightly, unable to contain his enthusiasm.

"Claire was happy, too. When I said that I wanted to be like her."

"When did you see Claire? The last time, I mean."

"Last week."

"Last week? How?"

"She visits me all the time."

He almost forgot to breathe for a second.

"She visits you? Here?"

"Yes. Every week. People aren't usually allowed to visit, but Claire is a special exception."

He stayed silent, unsure of how to act, or what to say.

"You can come with me next time…if you want to."

"Y…yeah…yeah, I want to."

Was it the best idea? After all, Claire probably still thought he was dead…was it better just to leave the past in the past and let her forget about him?

"Then you should come with me. She visits me every Sunday."

But surely, it was better to let her know that he was still alive, and that he was okay. It didn't mean that she had to involve him in her life, or that they'd ever even see each other again after that, but he couldn't bear the thought of her carrying the burden of his death on her shoulders.

"Okay…yeah." He said softly, nodding. "We can both see Claire."

And he smiled.

And so did Sherry.

And at that moment, so many pieces in the great puzzle of his shattered life were beginning to come back together.

Sherry was an avid reader, and spent even more time in the library than Steve did, the irony of it being that she always did so in the corner opposite to the one in which Steve would always sit himself. It was quite remarkable, therefore, that they had never crossed paths, or even seen or heard each other before. It was a big library, though.

Sherry liked to read fantasy books the most; fairytales and such. In this respect, she was every bit as innocent and naïve as any other little girl. Since they had begun to go together to the library, snuggled up in the corner at the table where she would usually sit, Steve would sometimes read to her. She was a very intelligent girl; astonishingly intelligent, actually, for someone her age, and so she didn't need to be read to. She loved it, though. She laughed at the way Steve playfully exaggerated the voices of the characters, and stayed silent during the more sombre scenes, her beautiful blue eyes transfixed on Steve, mesmerized, as he told enchanting tales of princesses, and castles, and happy endings.

One particular day, during the countdown to Claire's next visit, as they were huddled side by side at the table in the corner of the library, Steve was teaching Sherry how to fold a piece of paper into a rose. Such a skill had been acquired, one wintry afternoon, during a fourth period English literature class, in which the teacher had given up on regular lessons in preparation for the Christmas vacation, and instead, taught her students how to fold animals and flowers out of the pages of 'Romeo and Juliet'.

He folded several roses using pages from 'Cinderella', 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'Sleeping Beauty', tying the 'stems' together with a small blue ribbon, which was actually a bookmark that he had carefully pulled from another novel, before holding out his makeshift bouquet to Sherry, her face lighting up as he did so.

"Here. These are for you." He chuckled, delighted at the little sparkle he saw in her eyes as she took the roses, "Every princess loves roses, right?"

She stared at the roses for a while, holding them tightly between both hands, as though afraid that someone was going to steal them away from her, before he saw her little eyes cloud up with tears, and she dropped the paper bouquet onto the table, throwing herself against Steve's chest. After an initial moment of statuesque shock, he wrapped his arms around her tightly, smiling softly.

"Don't worry. You'll get your happy ending."

…We both will.