Chapter 25 - Aftermath

December 3rd, 2007

Santa Rosa, New Mexico

2:13 AM

Inside of the RV, Chris, Regan, and Shannon were all trying to recover from their run through the lot and the street, and the scares that went along with it. Chris had checked on the ones driving the hummer, though Cecilia had been the main target of his curiosity since it had been apparent that Wesker wasn't suffering much after their ordeal. Though, Chris did wonder at his current durability and how much longer he could push on without taking a break for himself.

But he did know that Wesker would more than likely want to at least continue driving until daybreak because of the tyrant before he gave up the wheel for a while. So for now, Chris was more interested in finding out how his current companions were, and he turned around after getting off of the radio with the ones in the hummer to ask them the question.

"Hey Squirt," Chris breathed out, handing the radio back to Regan as he spoke, "what about you? Everything okay?"

Shannon was leaning with her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath, and she lifted a hand and gave him a silent thumbs up. When she managed to get her voice to work, she asked, "Let's not do it again, okay?"

Chris started nodding his head in silent agreement with a tired expression on his face, still getting his breath and the rush of adrenaline down before noticing that Cecilia had left the bags of goods that she'd managed to acquire at the store in the RV, which were laying on the floor near the sectional, but he didn't pay them complete attention in that moment. Instead, he asked Shannon something that was on his mind, which was the same thing Regan was just about to ask her.

"What was that on the roof with the licker back there? What happened?"

"That's what I was about to ask," Regan breathed out, also catching her breath, though it was coming easier to them all now.

Shannon looked back and forth between them as she stood up straight finally, then asked Chris, "You said it was blind right?"

When Chris nodded at her, she went on with an explanation. "Well, I saw it being all still, and I got scared. I was trying to be quiet, but then you guys had to shoot and it started moving. So I ran."

"Yeah, but you ran away from us," Chris pointed out, breathing completely regularly now, though he still felt a little wound up from all of the so-called excitement. "That's the part I don't get."

"I...I know," Shannon started. "I wasn't thinking, I was scared and I thought you guys had to keep shooting at the monsters, otherwise this wouldn't work," she explained while looking back and forth between them both. "I just ran so it wouldn't find you."

"Shannon," Regan started on a sigh of breath, and Chris looked down with a shake of his head over the story.

Shannon gave them both a scared look suddenly, asking reluctantly, "What?"

"Don't do that. Don't draw it toward you and put yourself at risk like that," Chris told her, his tone unhappy, but it didn't carry a completely angry edge. "You should've said something instead."

"But you told Alonzo—," Shannon started, but suddenly stopped when Chris shook his head head at her.

When she stopped speaking, he told her, "Alonzo has weapons, Shannon, and you don't. It was the the right idea in some cases, but that was the wrong plan. I don't want you getting hurt like that."

Shannon looked down, apparently ashamed of herself, and she whispered, "I just didn't want to lead it to you, and I was too scared to know what to do." She sounded heartbroken somehow, and she added, "I'm sorry."

"Hey," Regan started, kneeling down and pulling Shannon into a hug. "Everything happened fast, Squirt, and I know you wanted to do the right thing. But adult advice is different from kid advice, got it? You know I couldn't handle anything happening to you."

Shannon let a short groan, hugging her mother, then she stood back and reached up and tugged her bike helmet off. "I guess I...I didn't listen, did I?"

Regan didn't give a response because she'd noticed something. When Shannon had reached up to remove her helmet and pulled it off, Regan suddenly asked her, "Wait, what is this!" She took her daughter right arm gently and inspected her hand.

Shannon looked at her right hand to see blood running across her fingers and her palm. Regan let her eyes trail up to Shannon's jacket sleeve where there was a slice in the denim material not too far below her shoulder, and she went to tug the garment off with Shannon's help.

"Did something grab you?," Regan asked as they worked, and Shannon started shaking her head because even though everything had happened fast, she figured she would've remembered being grabbed. Once the jacket was gone, they saw a slice of skin on her upper arm, about two or three inches long, which was bleeding pretty freely but not too badly, and Shannon cringed suddenly.

"So that's what happened," she exclaimed. "I remember feeling something on my arm kind of sharp when we ran outside, but it happened so fast and I didn't know what it was. And now that I see it, it stings a little," she grumbled in addition.

"Looks like glass, probably from the window of that store," Chris spoke up, his tone confident. "Just needs to be washed off and wrapped up."

"You sure?," Regan asked them both, and she looked over and up at Chris to see his face when he nodded at her as if it were no big deal.

"I've seen enough cuts and scrapes to know if it were something else. It's just a slice of glass that look worse than it is."

Shannon pursed her lips as her mother decided to trust his experience and went to the bag she had over her shoulder where Megan had told her some band aids were stored. Once she'd managed to pull them out, she asked Chris, "Do you have any antiseptics?"

"Yeah, there's a first aid kit in the bathroom behind the mirror."

Shannon took the box from her mother with her dry hand when he said that and told Regan, "He's right, so don't worry about it, mama. I need to use the bathroom anyway. I'll be back." As she turned around and moved on, her shoulders slumped and she muttered out, "Then again, I might've already gone in my pants. Good grief."

Regan frowned despite the humor in the child's last line because she'd sounded so downtrodden, and she watched Shannon walking off dejectedly, would've followed her if it weren't for her behavior now as well considering she knew for a fact that Shannon wouldn't want to take care of the cut on her own. Instead, she let Shannon go because she knew her daughter well enough to realize that if she were truly injured, she wouldn't be acting so sadly now. Following her right off the bat would've just made her upset, and after the events earlier, Regan didn't want that to happen. So she'd give the child a minute or two alone for the time being to hopefully let Shannon collect herself after everything that had happened.

As she thought about this, she heard Chris asking her, "What about you? Everything okay?"

"I...I don't know," Regan shook her head, pushing herself up from where she'd crouched with a sigh of breath. "Shannon was almost jumped tonight and then this. I guess I'm fine, but...yeah, it's going to take my heart a couple of days to start beating normally again." She then sighed when she heard the door of the bathroom shutting, and told him after a moment, "I'm more worried about her than myself though. I know she wanted to do the right thing, she's just too young to realize what that is all of the time, and she might beat herself up over what she did tonight for a while."

"Well, I wouldn't worry too much," Chris started in response. "Shannon's tough, maybe even tougher than we are. I knew a kid just like her once, the only difference is that when she was that age, there weren't any monsters. Still, she got into her fair share of trouble and always managed to work things out somehow."

"Who?"

"My sister, Claire," Chris replied, thinking about his memories for a moment of how Claire used to be as a kid, and even a teenager. After a minute, he smirked and said, "I never told you much about her, did I?"

"No," Regan replied, shaking her head with a curious expression. "Not too much anyway."

"Well," Chris started, deciding now was the best time of any, "she's five years younger than I am, and even though most brothers protected their sisters from boys and bullies themselves, I thought it might be easiest if I taught her how to fight for herself on top of that. Guess I did that too well though because sometimes I had to protect others from her. Hell, I even had to protect her from herself," he added, smirking in amusement.

After a moment, he pushed himself away from the wall where he'd been leaning and headed to the refrigerator to grab one of the last bottles of water that was in there as he added, "I guess I got what I asked for when I decided to try to do that by not telling her where I was going after everything in Raccoon City. I didn't even tell her about what Umbrella had done in the Arklay Mountains because I was afraid she'd get herself involved. I just disappeared without a word in the hopes that she'd never find out about it."

"What did she do?," Regan asked after taking that in.

"She tried to follow me there when she couldn't get in touch with me and walked right into an infestation."

Regan noticed he didn't sound very happy with the event, as if maybe he blamed himself for that. "This was during the outbreak there? She's one of the survivors?"

"Yeah, she made it out with a rookie cop named Leon, and not even that stopped her from trying to find me. She got a tip that I might've been in Paris, which was true, I'd gone to investigate the Umbrella Headquarters in the city," he told Regan as he tossed the cap of the water onto the kitchen counter, then took a drink of it before he continued with the story.

Lowering the bottle, he looked back over at her and added, "But I was long gone by the time she got there. Claire ended up being taken captive by their people in Paris and transported to an island prison."

Regan listened to the fairly impressive list of troubled accomplishments and lifted a brow. "You didn't know anything about this at the time?"

"Not at first," Chris shook his head. "I heard from Leon, the guy that helped her escape Raccoon City, that she was taken captive. He was in government training at the time and I met him when I came back to the states because I'd learned that my sister was missing. There was a rumor he'd been in Raccoon City, so I went to talk to him about it. Apparently, my sister had sent him a message saying where she was and what had happened not long before I came to ask him some questions, and I followed her there. By the time I made it to the island where she was supposed to have been held prisoner, she was already in Antarctica."

"Antarctica?," Regan asked with surprise in her voice. She was starting to believe Chris was right about her getting into trouble now, asking, "How the hell did that happen?"

"Some asshole working for Umbrella managed to ship her down there. It's a long story. But I finally found her."

Regan smiled over the thought that Chris found her instead of the other way around because he'd gone missing in the first place from her point of view. "Was she alright when you did?"

Chris snorted, "Yeah, she was fine. Strung up in a web sort of and more pissed off about it than anything else."

Regan couldn't help but smirk at him over the comment because somehow it seemed fitting, saying, "Sounds like she picked up a lot from her big brother after all then."

"Good thing too," Chris groaned, shifting his fingers through the back of his hair. When he did that, Regan noticed he could use a trim and a shave, looking a good bit rough around the edges—they could all use a shower anyway for that matter. As if his mind were in the same place as hers, he sighed out the words in a change of subject, "Too bad there's not a barber shop around. This is starting to get irritating."

Chris couldn't help it, feeling as if the strands up front were too long and the ones on his back were tickling his neck too much.

"If you want, I've got scissors in my suitcase packed in the back."

Chris glanced over at Regan in consideration. "You ever cut hair before?"

"I mostly cut Shannon's hair, but I used to give Clyde and his son haircuts too. My mom was a stylist, and I never got much along the lines of a complaint, but I wouldn't call myself a professional at all."

"Sounds like I might have to take you up on that before too much longer then. I don't care how it looks, as long as it's off my neck and out of my eyes."

Typical man, Regan thought with a smirk, though she couldn't blame him for that kind of thing considering the world at large now. With a sigh of breath, she let the thought go and looked into the back at the bathroom door, then mentioned, "Well, I think Shannon's had enough time to herself now. I'm gonna go check on her, get that cut cleaned up."

Regan took a few steps toward the back and then slowed down with the words, "Oh no." She could hear something in the back of the RV, and she stepped in more quietly, listening. Chris gave her a curious look over it, and when Regan heard the sniffling more clearly, she sighed. "Shannon's crying. It's not the cut either, she just needed a minute, or so I thought. I shouldn't be surprised with everything that's happened though."

Chris listened and heard the sniffles himself, then suddenly had a thought. "Wait." He started as Regan had began to head into the back, getting her to stop and look over at him. He walked past her when she did and added, "I'll go talk to her. I have something I need to give her anyway. It might make her feel a little better."

Regan watched him heading toward the bathroom door and she asked curiously, "Have you ever consoled a little girl who's crying before?"

"My sister," he replied. "Granted, she'd usually punch me if she didn't want to be bothered though." He stopped when he was about three feet from the bed and looked back, asking Regan, "Any advice?"

"Heh," she shook her head, "just don't assume there's not some secret reason for the tears that she's not talking about. She'll tell you 'it's nothing' a lot, so you have to prod a little bit. But if she says it more than once though, she's probably not going to tell you either way it goes."

Chris took that in, then smirked and nodded in understanding before he walked on to the door. Once he was there, he lifted his fist and knocked, asking, "Hey, Shannon? You busy in there?"

"No," came the girl's voice softly through the door after a moment.

"Mind some company?"

"No, it's unlocked."

Hearing that, Chris took the knob and turned it, then poked his head in. Shannon looked up from where she was settled on the lid-covered toilet and wiped her red, tear-streaked eyes silently.

"Hey," he started. "I'm not bothering you, am I?"

"No, I'm not using the bathroom, I'll let you—," she stopped when Chris lifted a hand as if to say she didn't need to get up and watched him step further inside of the room.

"No, no need for that. I don't have to go." He shut the door behind himself and then looked back over at her, seeing that her hand and arm were still streaked with blood. He remembered Regan said she probably hadn't worked on it yet, but he figured she might've at least cleaned it off.

"You haven't patched that up yet?"

"I...no," she sighed out softly. "It doesn't hurt. I was just...I just wanted to be alone for a few minutes."

Chris gave a slow nod or two, letting the thought go for the moment as he stepped over and tugged something out of his pouch. Shannon looked as he held out his hand at then item laying in his palm. "Maybe these will make you feel better. I hope they're the kind you needed."

"Batteries?," she asked, and then saw the label said Double A. Suddenly she remembered her PSP and gasped before she cast a pair of wide green eyes up at him. "Where did you get them!"

Chris settled them on the counter of the sink and then grabbed some of the toilet tissue, an item which he randomly hoped Cecilia had managed to get a new pack of in the store because they were running low now. With it in hand, he opened the cabinet behind the mirror and grabbed the first aide kit inside, then turned around and sat on the side of the tub before he answered her.

"They had some at the school and Alonzo gave me a pack of them. I just forgot to give them to you before we left. Guess that didn't matter with everything that happened."

Shannon started nodding her head, and she started to say, "Thanks, Chris," but then got quiet and looked down into her hands. Suddenly, she started sniffling more than she had been, and Chris frowned over the sounds and gave a perplexed expression when she wasn't looking. He'd hoped the batteries might make her feel better, but now she was crying even more than before. Had he done something wrong?

Being bad at this kind of thing, he turned to sit the first aide kit down next to himself while Shannon let a hiccup out, and then grabbed another wad of toilet tissue, handing this one to her so she could use it to blow her nose. After she'd taken it in her left hand, he gently took her right wrist and began to wipe up the blood trails before he attempted to say anything at all.

"Don't cry, Shannon. I know you got into trouble back on the roof, but—," and he stopped when she started shaking her head.

"That's not why I'm crying."

Chris wad definitely confused, unable to help that, but he then remembered what Regan had told him about the fact that she was probably crying over something not-so-obvious that she might not want to talk about. With the notion in mind, he asked her, "What is it then?"

"It's kind of stupid," she said, dabbing her eyes with the tissue he'd given her before adding, "and you might not get it."

"Try me," Chris challenged her, wiping up more of the blood on her arm. That kind of line usually worked with Claire, so he hoped it would have the same effect on Shannon now.

Shannon hesitated, watching him wiping the blood away from her arm, obviously deciding whether or not she wanted to take him up on the offer. Finally, she let a low sigh of breath out, giving in before she pushed some of her red locks of hair behind her ears with her left hand, and then began to speak.

"Before we left the school, I asked mama about my real dad. I...had a dream, and it made me curious. But Mama wouldn't tell me anything."

She hiccuped and blew her nose into the tissue with those words spoken, then tossed it into the trashcan near the end of the counter where the sink was located and added, "I...I think it's because she doesn't want to tell me that he didn't want me either, like my grandma and grandpa didn't want me. Only Clyde and Linda wanted me, and my mama," Shannon's voice broke on a sob, and as she tried to control her emotions, she added, "and she's all I have left now."

Chris finished with cleaning her arm up by the time she was done talking, and took in a deep breath. Knowing what happened with Regan and Shannon's father, it wasn't his place to tell Shannon and he knew the girl wasn't likely to understand it anyway. But he didn't feel right about just saying well, she'll tell you when you're older, and not giving her something else to try to make her feel better, so he attempted to do that.

But first, he grabbed the peroxide and wet some gauze from the first aid kit with it, then pressed it over the cut on her upper arm gently. Despite that gentleness, Shannon cringed and started to kick her legs a few times where she sat on the lid covered toilet seat while hissing out the words, "I hate you I hate you I hate you, you suck!"

"Sorry, Squirt," Chris apologized, continuing to hold it there despite his apology since it had to be cleaned up.

"Not you!," she gasped out. "The cut! It stings! Ah!" She cringed, then rushed out the words, "Mama told me to cuss it like it's cussing me, and sometimes it helps!"

"Oh, right, got it," he nodded, trying not to smile too much over the way Regan told her to handle the pain of a cut. Sounded like it made sense, and Chris would know. He'd done it enough times himself in the past.

Still holding the peroxide soaked gauze in place over her cut and trying to keep the blood from running out so freely, he got his mind off of it and decided on what he wanted to tell her in response to her worries about her real father, well, once she was done dealing with the stinging pain in her arm. After a moment, he pulled the reddened gauze away to replace it with a fresh one.

As he did this, she seemed more relieved, and he wet another gauze with the peroxide and said, "I'll be honest Shannon, your mom told me about the guy who's, well, technically your father. I can't tell you for her though, she has to make that decision because it's her story to share with you herself, and she's your mother."

After he said that, he saw Shannon looking up at him curiously, and he added, "I know you probably feel cheated that I know when you don't, but don't be mad at her for it. There's some things that this guy did to your mom that she doesn't want to tell you about when we're all hanging on for our lives and heading to Dallas. She knows it'll take you a while to really understand it, and you don't need to think about it while we're still out here."

Shannon looked as if she understood what he was trying to say to her, watching him working on her cut while she let his words sink in. After a moment, she asked him, "You think she'll tell me when we get to Dallas then?"

"I don't know," he replied honestly, leaving the gauze on her arm for a moment so he could grab some tape when he realized it wasn't bleeding all that much anymore. "I don't know if she'll tell you then, or when you're old enough to understand, and as for whether or not he wanted you, I honestly couldn't say. I never met the guy, and I don't know anything about him besides what Regan said to me. I also can't imagine how your grandparents gave you up without feeling guilty about it."

As he taped the bandage in place on her arm, Shannon told him, "Mama said she was too young so they made her give me away."

"Maybe, but they took her choice from her, and that's not right, even if she was young when she had you. She said she didn't want to give you up."

"That's what I thought too," Shannon whispered and nodded at him. "I guessed they just didn't like me. Then, I did what I did on the roof, and it was wrong," as she said those words, a few more tears started to gather in her eyes that she bravely tried to control before she added, "I should've run to you both instead of running to the helicopter. And now..."

When Shannon trailed, Chris let her have her newly bandaged arm back and narrowed his brows at her. "Now what?"

Shannon nearly started sobbing again and she shook her head, whispering, "It's nothing."

Chris reminded himself that she was young and either too scared or embarrassed to just spit it out right away. Not to mention Regan had said she'd do this and that she needed a little prodding. So he reached over and put a hand on her back slowly, asking, "You sure?"

Shannon bit her lip, then looked at him. Finally, she wiped her eyes and said, "I told you at the school that I could listen, but I made a mistake. If I keep doing that, you won't..."

Chris got a knowing look on his face. He didn't need her to finish. He did it for her. "I won't want you around anymore."

She started nodding her head and wiped her cheek again. Chris couldn't help but shake his head at her in turn, and he let out a little breath and then smirked when he made up his mind on what to do next. Now that she was all patched up, he reached over and grabbed a new tissue from the roll for her, then grabbed her sides and lifted her to pull into his lap, saying, "Com'ere, Squirt."

Once she was settled there, he handed her the tissue and then looked at her for a few minutes while thinking about what what he needed to say. Shannon waited patiently, and dabbed at her eyes again with the tissue he'd grabbed for her. She didn't have to wait too long before he started speaking.

"I'm not your father or anything, Shannon, and hell if I know how to be one honestly, I won't lie to you about that. I've spent most of my life fighting and trying to survive, and I don't know if that makes me a good person to be around children or not. My sister's the one who's good with kids, not me, and you remind me a lot of her when she was your age. But I don't see there coming a time when I won't want to have you around anymore. You're a good kid, and if I had a daughter, I'd want her to be as smart and tough as you are. "

Shannon looked embarrassed over the lines, which didn't seem to suit her personality too often, but she'd reached up and rubbed her cheek, cutely drawing out the word, "Stop it," lowly.

He chuckled in response to the way she'd said that, asking, "What?"

She hesitated, but then finally said, "Chris," and slowly looked up at him. It took her a minute, but she finally admitted softly, "It's kinda embarrassing, but...I kinda wish you were my dad. You'd be really good at it. You remembered my batteries and everything. Taylor always forgot stuff."

"Taylor?" Chris couldn't remember hearing that name before.

"Yeah, he was my mom's boyfriend for a while. He was nice, but forgetful. So you'd make a good father."

Chris sighed out a breath over the insinuation, thinking about it for a minute. The words made an impact in a flattering kind of way. What he'd told her was true too—if he had a daughter, he'd like for her to be like Shannon was, but he'd never gotten a chance to decide on having a kid or not yet. Hell, for that matter, he'd never been serious enough about a girlfriend to even ask to get married to begin with. Work was always in the way, and in recent years after his last relationship ended when time between them was stretched too thin because he was always gone off somewhere on some kind of operation, Chris had resigned himself to the idea that he would probably never get married because he was just too damned busy.

So having kids? Even less likely a possibility, and somehow, he felt like this, sitting with Shannon and talking to her about things now, was probably as close as he'd ever get to being an actual parent.

Finally, he looked back at her, and something in him couldn't stop him from smiling at her. "I'll take that as a compliment."

Shannon finally smiled back, then she leaned up and hugged him. He smirked, returning the hug to her without qualm. It was nice, and he was glad to have something that simple and real, something that proved not everything had gone to shit just yet. She'd said he'd make a good father, and maybe someday he still would. Chris definitely felt like that was a compliment.

The hug was meaningful, and after a moment, Chris let Shannon sit back. When she did, she informed him, "That's what I dreamt about actually. It was weird. We were playing poker and talking about who my dad was."

"Poker?," Chris asked, sounding genuinely amused over the thought of her doing such a thing.

"Yeah!," Shannon nodded. "Clyde played all the time. It was like you were him, but still you."

"That does sound weird. But I dream about a lot of weird," he stopped, then substituted his impending foul language with the word, "stuff myself."

Shannon snickered as if she knew what he'd been about to say, and she shrugged her shoulders as if it were no big deal. "Yeah, it happens. By the way, do you really play poker?"

Chris nodded at her in response. "Yeah, I've played it a lot before, but not too much recently. Why?"

Suddenly, Shannon grinned at him. "If we ever get a deck of cards, it's gonna be on!"

2:55 AM

The bathroom door opened up after Chris and Shannon had been in there talking for a short bit, and Regan looked from where she'd been sitting on the bed with a photo album in her hand and saw Shannon emerging from the bathroom with Chris not far behind her.

Smiling when she saw that Shannon wasn't crying anymore, and in fact looked pretty content, she asked, "How'd everything go? Is your arm alright?"

Shannon held out her hand and showed Regan the batteries Chris had given her, saying, "It's good, and look, mama! Chris got me some batteries so my PSP will work. It'll get me out of your hair when you're busy," she nodded knowingly with a grin on her face.

Regan started snickering over the insinuation. "I see that. More game time huh?"

"Yep! Not that I have many games, but the two I do have are fun."

Shannon had walked over to the bed and sat down on it next to her mother, letting out a yawn. When Regan saw it, her motherly instincts kicked in and she said, "You know, we all need to wash up and get some rest. It's extremely late."

"Yeah, I know," Shannon nodded her head. "Should I get our pajama's, and you can get some water?"

Standing and settling the photo album that she'd been looking through down on the mattress, Regan looked at Chris and asked, "You think there's enough water left in this thing to go around?"

Chris, who was starting to feel weary himself, replied with the words, "Yeah. I never used the bathroom in here much before you guys came along. There should still be a good bit left to go around before we have to stop using it. I'll check the meters tomorrow when I get the chance to."

"Good, because I feel grungy," Regan replied, deciding not to mention that their companions probably did as well just then because she didn't think it was completely necessary. "Alright, Squirt, get us something out to sleep in and I'll get the water started up."

"Okay," Shannon replied and went over to the suit case that was open on the bed, where the photo album Regan had been looking through came from. The book was still open, and Chris looked at the picture to see a man and a woman standing side by side with two children in front. The man was tall with a balding head of dark hair and a slender pair of glasses on his refined face. The woman next to him was blonde, and shorter with shoulder length, curly hair and a thin stature, almost as thin as Chris's Aunt Tracy was.

They were both smiling and had a young man standing between them with short black hair who was holding onto a redheaded toddler that was wearing a light blue dress with flowers printed on it and had an big, open mouthed grin on her round face. It was one of those expressions a child could give that could make almost anyone crack a smile.

Chris did just that, telling Shannon, "You look like you had too much sugar that day."

Shannon looked back at him suddenly, her expression confused until he pointed at the picture. When she looked down and saw it, she pulled the book up and gave the picture a once over before she exclaimed, "I do not!"

Chris just grinned at her, and when she saw the look, Shannon rolled her eyes as if to tell him she knew now he was teasing her, which got him to chuckle. Rather than continue poking fun at her over it though, he asked, "So, those are your foster parents?"

"Yeah, that's them and me when I was three I think. Oh! And that's my brother Tommy too, he's a lot older than me."

Regan had walked back in, the sound of running water coming out of the bathroom now, filling the tub up for their baths. When she saw the picture Shannon had just settled down onto the bed, she smiled, saying, "Tommy wasn't in Edgemont when we got there. We heard he went to Las Vegas for a weekend stay, so we're hoping maybe he managed to get somewhere safe."

Chris briefly wondered if the young man might've still been alive somewhere when Las Vegas was one of the targets of the missiles so the infection would've spread pretty fast there, but that was anyone's guess really, just like with his sister. He pushed the thoughts out of his head however, feeling oddly relaxed in that moment somehow, and focused instead on Shannon when she climbed off the bed and asked, "Mama, did you want the blue tank top or the pink? Which one's more comfortable?"

"The blue one, Squirt, thanks," she smirked, then took the clothing choices from her daughter and turned to head into the bathroom while Chris decided to go stretch out on the couch and let the ladies soak for a bit, telling them on the way that he'd be there incase they needed something.

Chris sat down on the sectional, thinking about things, and it didn't take too long before they were done with the tub. When he heard the words stating the bathroom was free, Chris decided to use it. After all, like Regan had mentioned, he felt, well, funky was a good word for it as any for it, and he knew he wasn't going to sleep that easily anyway. He usually never did after getting out of a tight spot like they had earlier. So he went into the bathroom and started getting himself cleaned up.

The water cascading down from the shower he opted to take rather than a bath was relaxing, and Chris just stood there for a long while without moving, back against the wall, hair being washed straight down over his forehead in the streams the shower created with nothing in mind but memories, some distant that seemed recent and easy to recall, and others he wanted to remember that were just too vague for his tastes.

The mirror above the sink was fogged over from the heated water until he swiped his hand across it, ready to shave and brush his teeth. Looking down to find the electric razor he'd had in the RV since the mandatory vacation he'd taken when the world went to hell in a hand basket, he noticed two toothbrushes that weren't his, including a tube of toothpaste that was for children and was starting to get low, bubblegum flavored apparently.

He smirked over it and continued with shaving and brushing his own teeth, considering himself fortunate enough to have survived the outbreaks so far with a toothbrush to use at least. Hell, maybe being on vacation was what had saved his life this time around. If no one else had even the slightest inclination the attacks were coming—the BSAA, CIA, or any other agency—then he would've been just as lost as the next person over what the hell was going down. But he was at a lakeside retreat instead. Now that he thought about it, he'd probably been sitting on the lake fishing when the damned missiles had been fired.

If he hadn't gone on vacation, he would've been investigating some reports that had come in from Europe about possible bioweapons smuggling, maybe even been there when the missiles were launched. Italy, he thought. Probably the only place in the world he could go to and feel like he was on vacation while he was working. He'd say it was nice this time of year, but hell, Italy was nice year round as far as he was concerned.

The bathroom door opened to a dark bedroom a few minutes later, and Chris quietly stepped out in a clean pair of gray cargo pants and a white t shirt, his chin a good bit more bare than it'd been before, though his hair was still in need of a trim. Quietly, he looked over at the two women asleep in the bed to make sure he hadn't disturbed them, and noticed they were both passed out. Or at least, Shannon was definitely asleep, otherwise her mouth wouldn't have been hanging open like it was, a sleepy expression that amused Chris. She was laying next to her mother on her back, and she looked comfortable enough.

With Regan, it was harder to tell, but she didn't move when he'd opened the door and then turned out the light in the bathroom, so maybe she was asleep too. It was a nice sight, the two of them safe and well, and after everything that had happened that evening, Chris was happy to be able to see it. He'd lost too many people over his lifetime to not appreciate something that simple, and he walked into the kitchen and headed to the sectional with those thoughts in mind.

God knew he'd gone through worse aftermaths than this, such as the one after he'd thought Jill had died. He didn't consider that now either because he was feeling tranquil on the inside just then and didn't want to ruin it with guilt or anger. Besides, he'd find Jill soon enough now, and those particular ghosts of his past could finally be put to rest, or at least, calmed for a bit.

Laying back across the sectional, he closed his eyes and let his mind drift, knowing he was either going to sleep hard, or he wasn't going to sleep at all after the events earlier. Maybe it was because of how much he'd been through numbing him, or the quiet ride with the hum outside of the RV as the hummer it was hitched to pulled it across the road, or maybe it was the company he was keeping with Regan and Shannon being so peaceful, but he fell asleep without too much trying and slept like a rock.

It was something that Chris was thankful for because it seemed like the aftermath of an ordeal could be harder to deal with than what he'd gone through beforehand. Soon they'd cross into Texas finally, and he hoped that the ride to the border in the very least would go smoothly before anything else popped up for them to deal with.