Chapter 37 Information
Claire led the petite Indian woman into her lab, motioning her towards the desk chair while she leaned against the counter, crossing her arms self-consciously beneath her breasts. They were silent for a moment, both of them remembering the last conversation they had had together, both feeling slightly uncomfortable and nervous.
Claire giggled with her, unable to stop smiling since Nisha's announcement. Nisha turned to look at her, a smile still on her lips. "I have seen the way you and Mister Albert look at each other too, my dear. When can we be expecting a darling little blonde haired angel to join our little one?" Claire instantly sobered, an icy stone dropping unpleasantly into her gut. She looked away from Nisha, suddenly finding the fountain very distracting. "Miss Claire?" Nisha asked quietly, sounding concerned. She grasped Claire's hand a little tighter in both of her.
Claire swallowed. "Uh, well," she began, refusing to look at the beautiful Indian woman beside her. "We've never really talked about it. I-I'm not even sure if I can have children…" she trailed off quietly, placing one of her hands against the cool grey silk of her short dress over her stomach. "It's been so long…" All those wonderfully long months she had been sleeping with Wesker and she had never gotten pregnant. She was suddenly away of the darkness surrounding them, the way the wind whistled through the small, decorative trees and rustled the leaves above them.
Nisha looked frightened. "I did not mean to cause you any worry, Miss Claire! Please forgive my rude questioning! Please, forget I even brought it up."
Smiling sadly, she turned to look at the distraught woman beside her. "Nisha, please, just Claire. And don't worry about it. Maybe one day there will be a small one to play with yours. I just don't know if I'm even capable of having children. It's something I'll have to discuss with Albert," she said quietly, the small smile still playing across her lips.
Nisha reached across and embraced her gently. "I know you will and everything will turn out in the end, my dear, you will see," she said, leaning back to look at Claire, smiling once again.
But that was before Wesker had told her that they were physically incapable of conceiving children. It had been him who had shattered her dream of a family together. And it was entirely his fault, not Nisha's. Claire cleared her throat.
"So, uh, how have you been, Nisha?" she asked, shifting her weight from leg to leg, her eyes focusing through the glass at the statues.
Nisha smiled slightly. "I have been well, Miss Claire, thank you for asking. Although, with this new virus sweeping the globe, I must confess that I am a little frightened for the future," she trailed off, looking slightly troubled, her hand covering her stomach possessively.
"What do you mean?" Claire asked, her brows furrowed as she watched her friend's agitation.
"What if Fraser or I contract this horrible virus?" she murmured, her face sad and faraway. "What if our child gets infected?"
Claire said nothing, shifting uncomfortably. She knew the virus was decimating the populous, but tucked away in her little corner of heaven with Wesker at her side, she felt invincible. There was no way he would let something happen to her. This was the safest place in the world. "Albert would never let anything happen to you, Nisha," Claire said, placing her hand on the smaller woman's shoulder comfortingly. "This is the safest place in the world for any of us. Albert is working on the cure and soon, we won't have to worry anymore."
Nisha looked up at her, her cheeks damp with tears, but a small smile stuttered across her lips. "Thank you, Miss Claire. I appreciate your kind words. I know Mister Wesker will keep everyone safe. He is a genius after all, is he not?" A real smile this time.
Claire smiled gently. "Yeah, he is."
They were silent for a moment, then Nisha spoke again. "I wanted to apologize for asking you such personal questions the other night at our home. It was presumptuous of me. I'm sorry, Miss Claire, and I wish you and Mister Wesker the best in everything you do." Her head hung slightly.
"Nisha," Claire began. "There's nothing to apologize for. You didn't know and I never told you. Albert and I are fine, there's no need to worry." She smiled at her Indian friend. "There's nothing anyone can do for us. Because of our viruses, we cannot conceive a child anyway. Besides, our world isn't safe. We are too different for this world." She trailed off, shuffling her feet beneath her as she leaned against the counter again.
Nisha smiled up at her, silhouetted against the dark-lit water of the observation tank behind her. "Different or the same, I would like to be your friend, Claire. We're women in a men's world. We must stay together to reach the top. With our men and our own skills, we will win." She said passionately. "This world will not stop us."
Claire stared at the woman silently for a moment. This speech was not like Nisha at all. There was something just a little too menacing in her voice. Shaking it off, she decided to switch topics. "So how is your pregnancy going?" She jumped to sit on the counter top, her long legs thudding against the cupboard doors slightly.
The other woman's face lit up and she instinctively put her hands over her belly. "I feel much better than I did on the plane, that is for sure," she said happily. "The doctors say I'm about nine weeks into my pregnancy and as far as they can tell, everything appears normal."
Claire smile but her heart clenched sadly as she saw the happiness bloom on Nisha's face. Forcing the pain down and locking it away again, she said, "I'm glad. Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?"
Nisha chuckled. "It matters not to me so long as they are healthy with the right amount of fingers and toes. But I will love it regardless. Fraser is hoping for a little girl though," she said, giggling slightly. She had noticed the flash of pain that crossed Claire's face though.
The two women were silent for a while, each lost in their own thoughts. Claire's eyes idly traced the grotesque faces of the statues, each one already memorized. The silence stretched longer, the dull sound of the men's conversation echoing faintly through the lab.
"So where did you find these magnificent statues?" Nisha asked, her dark eyes tracing the figures in the water. She crossed her arms as she sat in the chair at Claire's desk, still studying the statues.
Claire smiled faintly and shifted slightly. "Albert showed them to me when we were still on the island. There was an underwater cave beneath the water filled with murals like that one." She pointed a slender finger at the stone anchored in the water. "The corridor leading towards the inner area was lined with these statues. Albert knew I was infatuated with them, so he had some of them brought here."
Nisha smiled at Claire, touched by the show of affection from the woman's cold mate. Her eye caught on the strange creatures in the tank behind the red-head and her eyes widened slightly. "What are they?" she asked quietly, her eyes scanning the twenty rock-shaped creatures. The lichens attached to them waved slightly in the simulated current.
Claire smiled and chuckled slightly. "They're actually alive. They look like rocks, but they're not. They're a type of filter feeder, I believe. They filter feeders and very closely resembled the piure, found in Chile and Peru, but they're not quite the same. I'm studying them to find out why. These ones seems to have barbs as a defense when they feel threatened."
"How strange," Nisha murmured. "They sound very fascinating. I majored in biochemistry when I was in school. If ever you would like some assistance, I would be more than willing to lend a hand." She straightened and smiled.
Claire nodded. "I would like that."
"I'm concerned that we won't find a cure and that my wife, my unborn child, will die," Fraser said quietly. Wesker nearly sighed aloud with annoyance as their conversation turned personal and emotional. Emotions were for Claire only. "What will I do if i lose my family? Wesker, you must do this thing. You must find the cure."
Suppressing the urge to roll his eyes behind his sunglasses, he took a sip of his whiskey. "Mister Fraser, I am doing what I can, as fast as I can. The only time I worked better was back in Raccoon City, with my partner, William Birkin." He took another sip. "I'm doing the best I can. Rest assured, your family will be safe."
Fraser nodded quickly and took too big of a gulp of his own whiskey, coughing loudly. He was beginning to grate on Wesker's nerves as he took another sip, watching the Indian man's face turn red with the effort. When he could breath again, he sat up and wiped his streaming eyes on his coat sleeve. "My apologies. I let my fears get the better of me." His voice was colored with embarrassment.
"Indeed," Wesker drawled, readjusting his sunglasses. He wished the man would get to the point of his visit and leave so that he could return to his vital research. How was he supposed to save these ridiculous fools if they kept interrupting his work?
"What about you two, Albert? What if your woman becomes with child in this dying world?" Fraser asked quietly, staring into his whiskey glass.
Wesker felt an icy rage build within himself. "What happens between Claire and I is none of your business, Mister Fahd. I would ask that you don't ask about it again." His voice was like cold iron, his eyes blazing crimson beneath his dark glasses. "It is none of your business."
Fraser looked distinctly uncomfortable as he finished off the whiskey in his glass. "Again, my apologies."
The blonde said nothing as he emptied his own glass. Reaching once more into the bottom left drawer of his desk, he pulled out a bottle of old whiskey and refilled both glasses. Silently, he put the bottle back and snapped the drawer shut. Taking another swig, Wesker set his glass down and fixed the slightly pudgy man in front of him with a piercing stare. "Mister Fahd, have you ever heard of the man named Alex Wesker?"
Fraser was silent for a moment, swirling his refilled glass thoughtfully. He repeated the name under his breath for a few moments. "I'm afraid the name does not sound familiar to me, Albert. Is he a relation of yours?"
Wesker was silent for a moment. "Of a sort."
Fraser gave him a questioning look. "And I'm assuming you want this man found, do you not?"
"I believe this man is the man who has started this global pandemic. I believe he was working an old associate of mine to stop the progression of age. And, yet again, it backfired and he ran away," he muttered, emptying half of his glass. "I'm ending this, once and for all. There can only be one of us."
He fixed Fraser with a glowing, bloody gaze. "Let the best man win."
Just then, the women heard the sound of footsteps as Fraser came into Claire's lab, Wesker a step behind him, adjusting his sunglasses. "Come along, darling," Fraser said, holding his hand out to his petite wife. "Mister Wesker has work to do. We should leave him to saving the world, don't you think?"
Nisha nodded, a small smile on her face as she took her husband's hand. "Indeed." She turned towards Wesker and bowed slightly. "Thank you, Mister Wesker, for saving humanity."
Wesker was silent for a moment. Claire looked at him with a slightly startled look on her face. "Miss Fraser, I have hardly saved humanity. Not yet. Thank me when it's over," he said coldly, stepping back so that the Fraser's could step through the door.
Nisha didn't look deterred. "Regardless, I thank you for helping." She paused. "Even if it doesn't help in the end."
Claire waved goodbye as Nisha was swept out the door by her husband, moments later they heard the thud of the door sealing shut behind them. She slipped to the floor silently and made her way towards Wesker who was leaning against the door frame looking irritated. She slipped her fingers beneath his glasses and set them on the desk behind them, then turned back to stare up into his crimson eyes.
"What's wrong with you?" she asked quietly, taking his hand in hers.
Wesker fixed her with his stare, meeting her liquid emerald gaze. "Nothing is wrong, dear heart. That man irritates me is all," he said, tangling his fingers in her flowing hair as he pulled her closer. "He's much too nosy for my liking."
"They are strange," she whispered, slipping her fingers up his arms to tangle in his well-kept hair.
"Indeed," he breathed as he ran his nose against the length of her throat before placing a kiss beneath her ear. His grip tightened when he felt her shiver. His hand slipped beneath her shirt to caress the bare skin of her back, sending shivers racing over her skin once again.
"What did he want to talk to you about?" she murmured as his lips pressed against her skin again. Wesker pretended to not hear her as he picked her up in his arms and whisked them through the labs, pausing to swipe his key card to the house and to lean down to kiss her, cradling her face in his hand as his lips slowly and gently pressed against hers. Then whisking her into their bedroom, he deposited her on their bed, stretching himself above her.
He looked down at her spread beneath him, his eyes glowing golden. Slowly, he brought his lips to hers, rubbing them against hers with a deliciously slow friction. She felt warmer and warmer as he kissed her. Her arms came up around his shoulders as she pulled him down closer to her burning skin, but he resisted. Claire frowned up at him, breaking their kiss. "Wha..." she began, but his hands were working the knot in her shirt, pushing it off her shoulders, pushing her tank top up over her head before she began helping him remover her clothes. When her jeans and panties hit the floor beneath them, she rolled over on top of him, pressing a kiss to the sensitive spot beneath his ear. "Let me," she whispered as her fingers flicked the buttons of his shirt through their holes, baring his flawless skin to her molten gaze. Her fingertips raked down his stomach gently, slipping beneath the top of his pants. She grazed her fingernails over the sensitive skin of his hips before she worked the button and fly and yanked his pants off to puddle forgotten on the floor.
Claire ran her tongue over the v of muscle that disappeared into the waistband of his tight boxers with its ever growing bulge, then hooked the bottom hem and tugged them down to join the rest of their clothing. She locked eyes with his burning ones as she slowly crawled back up his body, flicking her tongue over his throbbing length making him shudder and grasp her arms. He pulled her to his lips, hard and hot and heady. Slipping one of his legs over hers, he flipped her onto her back, pinning her beneath his weight as his tongue begged entrance to her mouth. Readily she granted it, a soft moan escaping her lips when she felt his bare fingertips trace up the length of her ribcage and cup her breast in his burning palm.
His lips left a burning trail down the side of her neck as he made his way down her pale flesh. Claire was soon lost in a haze of fiery passion, entwined with her scorching golden god.
He sat in the darkness of his office as the small clock on his desk chimed three o'clock in the morning, swirling a glass of expensive cognac, the bottle at his left nearly empty. The computer screen in front of him flickered with light as he waited for the results of his search. Minutes passed before there was a muted bleep and the computer pulled up three files.
All three were labeled top secret and were encrypted. Sighing heavily, Fraser cracked his knuckles and set to the task of decrypting the files he had found. His fingers ticked over the keyboard effortlessly, despite the amount of alcohol he had consumed this evening.
An hour later, all three were decrypted and waiting for his inspection. Hesitantly, he opened the first one. Much of the file had been blacked out, but the words Progenitor Virus 1966, Professors Ozwell E. Spencer and Alex Wesker were not. The few words that were not covered made little sense to him. The other two files were the same, most of the words blanked out. One read Arklay Laboratory, Raccoon City. 1967 Professors Ozwell E. Spencer and Alex Wesker, and the other Reclamation Project, 1998.
Fraser was not entirely sure what use this information would be to Wesker, but he transferred it onto a flash drive and locked it in the gun safe in the bottom of his desk for safe delivery tomorrow.
Just so everyone knows, I hate everthing about this chapter. It has taken me a long, LONG time to write this terrible thing and I'm almost ashamed to publish it. Don't be too harsh. I apologize for taking a hiatus, life hasn't been very nice lately. But hopefully soon, I will be able to get back to writing, and hopefully nothing as bad as this.
Lady Anwe