Welcome to the final chapter of Optio. It has been a hell of a ride and I haven't even finished construction on past chapters. I'd been struck by inspiration despite my long work hours and exhaustion though, and I had to remind myself of why I was even doing this job in the first place. I hope to reach a point where I can afford to hone my skills when I can become my own boss and allow myself the necessary time. Too much time is being allowed to pass without me updating. I've even gotten married since then. That's how bad it is. Don't miss the A/N at the end of this. I also want to thank everyone that has hung in through these eight years of inconsistency. We've lost a few people over the years, but I don't blame them. I have finally now begun to once more write Optio for me and to get this out, although any reviews are appreciated. It seems fitting to end Optio on chapter 37 as my birth date is 3/7, and I guess that's the sign that I need to move on from this part of the story. So here is the end of the story of Claire's choices.

Optio

Chapter 37: Apocalypsis

Sometimes she would stare out at the yard. A pained expression casting a shadow over her delicate features that were nothing but the memories of Umbrella's presence in her life. In those moments, I would go to her, taking her small hand into my own. She would only give me a crooked smile and squeeze reassuringly, but I knew that I had had a hand in the utter destruction of her peace. The little she'd had that is. Amongst the foliage, there lay nothing, but I was certain that she had been mentally placing her issues within piles of leaves and dirt. Packing away the worst of her thoughts and feelings into a place that she hated. So one day, I'd ordered for the gardeners in hopes that she'd come out to see that just like they had done the natural mess, I too would come in to clean up the wreckage in her life. She stared out the window a little less long that day, but she seemed sadder.

The twins began to comprehend a rudimentary form of compassion, bringing her stuffed animals that she took with that same sad smile, and when they'd felt an unaccomplished sense of triumph they'd bound off to return to their activities while her smile faded. She became blank in those moments. Discarding of the toys either on the couch next to her or simply dropping them to the floor. Jack attempted to rouse the fieriness in her that had been doused by Sergei and the effects of his torture, and Sherry would silently plead that Claire talk to her.

"I'm just not in a talkative mood," she'd declare, that crooked smile appearing for a brief, obligatory moment. I had no choice but to give her the world now; because I'd already destroyed hers. For that, I would be forever apologetic. Claire, forgive me.

Wesker

February 19, 2003, Tuesday 5:13 PM

I could feel the gentlest strokes against my head, caring, loving, soft, and seemingly unending. For a moment, I was tempted to open my eyes, but then I was reminded of what I'd seen in my previous moments of consciousness. Would I be seeing another hallucination that was brought on by the threatened starvation of Aceso, or would I be seeing something real? As my eyes fluttered open I was met with a Victorian scene, a room furnished with deep, red, cushioned lounges and chairs with gold accents and shining, marble floors, and cream-colored walls that eased the change in color on the eyes. Squinting, I could see half of a black-clad torso, instantly recognizing it as belonging to Wesker, but I was not too quick to believe my eyes when they'd so savagely lied to me before. Then, I felt him caressing my arm, just above my elbow as another hand crossed my body to wrap around my other arm.

Now frowning, I turned my head slowly, already knowing that it would be impossible for me to lift myself from the bed beneath me that was so soft that it almost threatened to swallow me whole.

Unguarded eyes, brightly burning orange and red stared down at me, almost displaying an eagerness that Al never had shown before, a fear that was not previously known to lie within his character. His lips parted slightly, his chest falling with the release of abated breath that almost sent me into a panic. Had he not expected me to wake up?

Though I knew that it would pain me to do so, to ease his worry, I shot up from the pillow that was beneath my head, throwing my arms around his neck and pulling him into me. My muscles, bones, and skin all seemed to burn as though I'd been scorched by flames that I attempted to extinguish by squeezing Al with all my might, and I ignored it all until it dissipated into a dull throb that reverberated throughout my body.

His arms then pulled me into an embrace so warm that I now knew that he had expected me to die. His chest rose as he inhaled deeply, and I felt my eyes begin to burn now as tears sprang to them. As though he sensed it coming, he grabbed my face, pulling me back to kiss me like he hadn't in months. This wasn't a man that I knew. I'd seen him worried for me before, but I'd never seen him this vulnerable before. One of his hands caught a fistful of hair on its way to cradle the base of my skull while the other fell to my left hip.

As he lowered me back, I noted the feel of satin rising against my thigh, the realization that he'd cleaned and clothed me almost making me cry again. Rather than give in to that desire to crumple into a heap beside him and sob until it hurt, I pulled him into me with my hand at the nape of his neck.

I felt a hot and surprisingly damp hand make its way to my thigh, catching the slip as it made its way back upward. Then, before he could reveal what lies beneath the soft and cool material, he froze, ceasing kissing me as he stared down into my confused gaze with his worried one. "Did they…" he trailed off, refusing to speak such words, and his refusal to speak them told me exactly what they were.

Simply, strongly, I responded, "No."

The grip of his ghostly, white hand tightened on my thigh. "Good. If they had, I would have raised them from the dead and killed them all over again."

His words elicited a gasp from me that was quickly muffled upon his lips once more meeting my own. I couldn't remember the last time that he'd taken me with such desperation. I'd tugged at his hair so much as he pleasured me that I could see his scalp was turning red, yet he did not let up in his vigor to please me. Although, that same vigor told me that he was finding a pleasure of his own somehow. With every stroke, I felt him fighting the urge to mercilessly fill me until he could go no further. My unexpected wetness had only further enticed him as well as caused him to struggle to prolong our lovemaking.

In his attempts to hold back, he would pull out, holding his erection, slick with the juices of my arousal. The platinum shine of his wedding band glinted in the dying sunlight that peeked at us through the sliver of space between the curtains. His chest rose and fell quickly with short breaths as he struggled with a scowl to prevent himself from coming.

Assuring, I brought a foot to his chest, another grazed against his shaft as I stared into his burning gaze to tell him that it was all right. I had not expected this to be my first activity after waking up. I hadn't known that I would wake up.

His blond head shook no. He brought his body back down to mine, his shaft still in hand as he rubbed his pink head against my clit, slowly, firmly. He pulled back further, his head kissing my entrance, taking with it what I'd judged to be an abnormally thick amount of my evidence of arousal. Rather than stop with our combined knowledge of what it meant, he merely continued to slip his head and shaft between my swollen lips.

I wanted to beg him to fuck me. To fuck away the pain that I'd endured at the mercy of Sergei, to fuck away the fevered nightmares that had plagued me, to fuck away the memory of six months of him not fucking me. I wanted him to swear to me that he would never go that long without fucking me again. And though I'd regret allowing him such an early release, I wanted him to fucking come inside of me to remind me that I was his and forever would be.

"Please," I whimpered, so engorged that I couldn't possibly go much longer without my own release.

With regret, but an unmistakable enthusiasm, he thrust himself into me with the force that he'd previously held back, causing me to writhe beneath him in a combination of pain and indescribable pleasure.

My nails dug into his arm and the nape of his neck, and I soon felt a warm and sticky substance pooling around my fingers, collecting beneath my nails. I cried out, "YES, YES, YES," so loudly, that whoever was around surely heard me as he reached a space inside of me that had seemingly gone untouched before. My moans may have been screams as I felt myself tighten around him, while something higher in my abdomen seemed to release a weight that I'd previously not noticed.

Then, he began to grunt loudly, almost crying out himself as he buried himself as far as he could within me, his seed spilling in a continuous flow that was unending. His cock noticeably throbbed as he reached the end of his climax, his hips attempted to buck against mine, but he could go no further. His eyes fell closed, and he blindly found my lips to begin once more kissing me. This was Red Lodge, this was Mayo, this was New Mexico. This was all of them rolled into one. He whispered, "I love you," dozens of times, not giving me the chance to say it back once, perhaps because I'd said it so much that he felt he owed me for all of those unreciprocated declarations.

I wanted to tell him never to go so long without saying it to me again, but I soon realized that it was an unnecessary warning. As we stared into each other's eyes, I felt myself dozing off, appreciating the feeling of knowing that consciousness would be escaping me, and I didn't fight it. I was home, wherever this was. He was home. Or so I'd told myself in this moment of bliss.

We'd awoken in total darkness, the red shine of his eyes not bothering me as they moved through the dark and he turned on a light above us.

I sighed, feeling less exhausted than I had before. The light that was embedded in the ceiling up high barely illuminated the rest of the room, and I realized how dark it had to have been outside. "Where are we?"

As he laid back against the impossibly, white sheets, he rested his forearm atop his forehead, exhaling deeply. "Belarus."

In vain, I looked around. "Is this ours?"

"It is a Spencer Estate," he supplied, not a hint of remorse in his tone.

It almost stung to hear him say that, but I had no desire to raise an issue. Instead, I turned my body slightly towards his, letting a few of my fingers dance against his arm, the blood-stained nails not bothering him at all. "What happened to me?" I almost whispered, hoping that maybe he didn't hear the question. Surely, he could give no answer that would please me, and to possibly lure him into softening the blow of his answer, I followed up with, "Aceso did things to me that I'd never experienced before." Chris's horrified face flashed before me, followed by another, and then another. I could not recognize either of the last two.

Without looking to me, his gaze directed at the unnecessarily high ceiling, he said, "It appears that Aceso has changed to compensate for what happened to you. It has adapted to a more violent life."

I was silent. Aceso had been thriving in a previously, relatively peaceful environment, only tested a handful of times before. Something in Russia had pushed it –and me- to the limit.

It was a betrayal. Albert Wesker had betrayed me. Failure was a betrayal. Right?

Right.

Ok.

Not right.

I think I wanted to hate him, to blame him for my own decisions, and how my life had come to such a sharp and deadly turn. I'd always thought that I had everything figured out, that I could ride in and save the day on a whim. I'd treated the events in my life that had been touched by the shade of Umbrella as child's play. It was like that job that you're really good at, but you shrugged off for so long, and then one day you show up and decide to work. You remind everyone, your bosses, your consumers, and your coworkers why you got the recognition that you did, the leeway to get away with whatever you wanted, and the title of being the best. My problem was that I was not that good at this. I was the entitled employee that thought I could rush in and save the vets, I was the hardheaded little girl with an unearned arrogance that believed that I could show up people like Chris, Jill, Leon, and Al.

As undisciplined as my brother had proven himself to be, I could never claim the accomplishments in military training that he had. I could never pretend to be as cool and calm and resourceful as Jill Valentine, and I could never allow myself to be blackmailed into indentured servitude as Leon had. Al… I could never be Al. A doctor. A genius. A ruthless monster.

My husband was everything that I'd previously fought against, or had he been? Why did I ride into Raccoon City that day of the outbreak? To save my brother, of course. Why did I run to Paris? To save my brother, once again. When had I thrown myself into the fray to fight against him and what he stood for? Never.

My tenacity and stubbornness had stemmed from a desire to protect what was mine, and the only thing that I'd had in this world worth fighting so fiercely for. Why wasn't I doing that now? I'd been broken. Sergei had broken me, perhaps irreparably, and Al had let me down.

"You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting."

Yes. I had. And now I had more to deal with. It all started with a curiosity I'd had. I had been previously cured of my habit of invading Al's workspaces, but his most recent failure had once more aroused my dormant suspicions. It all started with an open laptop, and an abandoned disk. Without pause, I placed the disk into the drive, and I had almost been prompted to click on the second to last video file. I wanted to throw up. An unnervingly clear video of me, soaked in blood, naked, and being torn apart from the inside began. No audio was included, and I didn't know whether to be thankful for that or not.

Four windows, four different angles appeared, all displaying me as something…

Aceso.

…ripped from within me before tearing two frightened men with useless guns limb from limb, and then pulling those very same appendages into the gaping cavity within my chest that was filled with tentacles and talon-like teeth. I felt my arm raise without command, my hand reaching into my plaid shirt to rest a hot, sweaty palm against my chest.

"I was waiting for the right time to show you."

At the cool voice, I jumped up from the chair, hearing it roll aside noisily as I almost fell over the waste bin beside me.

Remorsefully, Al stood at the doorway, hands in his pockets, and nervousness that was previously foreign etched into his face.

"I can see why."

I think that surprised him; his brow was raised now.

"So that's what you meant when you said that Aceso had to adapt? That's why my body felt like it was on fire, but I wasn't hungry?" I'd already eaten… I walked off to the side a bit, running a hand through my hair as I felt sweat dampening my scalp. My anxiety was well-deserved at this point. "What else has changed?"

Honestly, he responded, "I'm not sure with Aceso. However, particular legal matters have certainly changed."

I looked back to him, afraid to get my hopes up.

"We've been removed from the Most Wanted list and granted immunity."

I sighed so deeply that I almost fell to my knees from a lack of oxygen. I could travel freely. My children wouldn't lose their mother if the wrong person saw me on a stroll. Knowing my husband though, I felt it would be better to ask now. "What are the stipulations?"

His hands remained in his pockets, and it was so out of character that I couldn't help but continue to notice. "I testify against Umbrella to the United States Government."

Puzzled, my brow furrowed. "You'd be ruining them financially. How could you take over if…" My eyes wide, I asked, "What did you do?"

He took a step forward, producing a translucent disc from one of his pockets. A small Umbrella emblem somehow rotated in the center, almost mesmerizing me for a moment. "I have everything the United States Government wants, but I was under no such stipulation to render myself of such knowledge upon handing it over to them."

I think I wanted to hurt him. "So none of this has changed you?"

He appeared to flinch at my words. Albert Wesker flinched.

"You have a real life now," I said a bit too loudly. My chest heaved as I fought back tears and to keep my voice from cracking. "How am I supposed to trust you now that you have the very thing that you'd been chasing in the beginning? Sergei took me because of you, and you want to go back to that life now? You have control and access to Umbrella's innermost workings and you think that because you're safe from the good US of A that you're safe from everyone else?"

His jaw now taut, he released a sharp breath through his nose. It was becoming obvious that he was also trying to reign in his emotions, but I couldn't feel sorry for hurting his feelings when he stood there with the summation of the world's nightmares on a compact disc. "I assure you that my intentions are without mal-intent."

"Who's there to stop you, Al? When you go too far?" Silence began to settle between us, and maybe he thought that I'd brush past him and let it all end there. "It'll be me."

Behind his shades, I could see his eyes dart back up to meet mine.

"I will keep the world safe from the things that you and others in your line of work would rain upon it."

"If I were so evil, I would have killed Chris after he ran you through with a combat knife. You knew that I had recanted my promise not to kill him, and yet I honored an annulled oath."

My eyes fell to the floor. Truth would be the only thing to fix what had now been broken here. "I was really only on Sergei's radar because of Chris." The strength in my voice had surprised me, and I dared to further test how much more of it I possessed by returning my gaze to my husband's. "My love for my brother endangered my life in the beginning, and he even tried to hurt me because of my allegiance to you." I began to close the space between us that should have never been there. "Do what you have to, but I want one more meeting with Chris. Then I'll decide whether or not fight for him still, or to let the chips fall where they may."

We both knew the outcome of this, which is why my face remained blank, while Al's lips curled into a smirk. He would have all of me soon, and I would only have him. We would forever play these twisted games.

The helicopter engine would not be killed, an order issued by myself. Krauser and two other men were to remain seated, his weapon holstered, and his mouth shut. I walked away from the landing pad to escape the noise by just a tad as the constant whirring only began to add to my anxiety that was beginning to affect the beat of my heart by strengthening each pump of blood. Before my head could begin swirling though, I saw a Humvee coming up over a snow-covered hill, disappearing before ascending again. I removed my gloved hands from my pockets in an attempt to prove that I had come with no other intent than to speak. Al being in court wasn't enough as I had to appear in the middle of nowhere with a minimal entourage. The vehicle reached the top of the hill about a hundred feet away and skidded to a sideways stop, and soon after a large, burly-bodied man clad in military fatigues jumped out.

I felt my body jump forward until I reminded myself that things were far too different now and that I wasn't exactly sure where we stood. "Chris," I whispered into the cold, crisp air, his name being carried away by a cloud of fog.

He barked back at the driver of the Humvee keep it running, tucking his hands into one of the many pockets of his camo jacket. His stubble was close to becoming a full-on beard and his eyes appeared to begin to hollow from either stress or lack of sleep. Whichever it was, I know that I was the cause. The only thing about him that was imposing was his scowl that was fueled by disappointment and disgust towards me, the only blood he had left in this world besides the niece and nephew that he never did, and probably never would know. I could not think that way…

To keep from having to yell, I approached him slowly, leaving about seven feet between us if things went bad. "Thanks for meeting me," I said more strongly than anticipated. If anything, my choices had built that in me. "I know you have questions."

"Just one," he responded with surprising promptness and containment of the one emotion that the entire population that had come into contact with him was familiar with. "What were you thinking?"

With a sad smile, I dropped my gaze to the disturbed snow beneath my feet. "I thought that I was helping you."

Silence as he locked eyes with me.

"Al- Wesker," I quickly corrected myself, still afraid of his rage, "came to me and made a deal. My help for bringing down Umbrella."

"So you put your ass on the line for him."

I nodded. "For you. I just wanted for you to be able to stop."

For a moment, his gaze fell, and he exhaled. His face softened at my explanation and the sentiment within it. "Did you have to marry him?"

I could tell that he was holding back the desire to shout, but I boldly put one foot forward, snow crunching beneath my boot. "None of that was supposed to happen. I was supposed to go home and wait, but then…"

Chris's eyes narrowed, forcing me to reevaluate my retelling of the events. My newfound strength was slowly dissipating.

"What happened at the hospital was unplanned." I'd brilliantly glossed over the pregnancy with that long-almost-forgotten abomination. Bringing it up would do me no favors. "He saved my life that day Chris, and I knew that I could never go home after that." Almost pleadingly I followed with, "Believe me, I wanted to. I wanted to hear your voice and see your face, but I was just as wanted as him."

"You were infected," he recalled.

To skim over the ugliest parts of it, I simply nodded and said, "My body was rejecting it. I died. He did what he had to." What he had to do seemed to be bound to have the largest impact on my life than anything else, and I almost laughed at the fact that the one decision that was not my own was the one that would completely shape my future.

"So when I…"

Stabbed me?

"I'm still me." I would never be the same though. Physiologically, I was changing, and it was now changing me psychologically as well. There were other differences that I knew existed, but I couldn't identify them just yet. It was like it –Aceso- spoke to me, encouraged me, and praised me. It didn't speak aloud, but the feeling it gave me was so intense that it felt like it had a voice as it sent vibrations throughout me, touching every nerve with its signal that it was active and here.

Never will you be alone.

"And the pregnancy? Was that not supposed to happen?"

My eyes grew wide at his question. I'd danced around the topic for what? "It wasn't. I swear I didn't know, Chris, and I thought that I was dying that day! At the hospital, when they said it… I had no idea that I was going to hear that and then lose it and my life on the same day."

His brow furrowed as a corner of his lip tugged upward. "So you got pregnant by him and it kills you, and you do it again?" That Redfield rage was slowly bubbling to the surface.

Almost warningly, I said, "Things are different now."

"Yeah," he responded quietly, "they are."

"I wish you could meet your niece and nephew…" I felt a fluttering within my chest as I prayed for a miracle. I prayed that he would magically be softened.

Instead, the corners of his mouth turned down, his forehead wrinkled as he frowned, and he slowly began to shake his head as he backed away. "It should have killed you. You'd have been better off dead if I'd killed you."

His words stung so that my bottom jaw almost dropped, and the tears that sprang to the corners of my eyes almost instantly fell, but the brisk cold of the air wouldn't allow that. With the decision to leave now before things became worse, I said, "Take care of yourself, Chris. I only wish that you loved me as much as I loved you." I did not linger to catch his expression; instead, I turned on my heel, walking back to the chopper with my chin in the air, hands balled into tight fists in my pocket. The physical pain hurt far less than what he'd caused me to experience, but I could not dwell on it. Just as I was about to reach the landing strip, I heard the sound of tires coming towards us, and as I turned to see what the commotion was, a bullet pierced my shoulder with such force that it turned me back towards the helicopter to see the shocked face of Krauser. Blood stained the snow around me, and I heard a jumble of yells and sounds that became indiscernible from each other.

The ground was suddenly coming up at me, and as I fell face-first into the snow, I could feel a somehow familiar tingle within my chest. I saw black, heard gunfire, and a yell to retrieve me as the rotor of the chopper started up. Then, I felt my body begin dragged away from the direction that I remember walking towards. I wanted to speak but I couldn't. I think I was bleeding too much and for some reason, I would have rathered just to sleep. I could wake up later, right?

WAKE UP!

Immediately, I felt myself rotate until my back was now in the snow.

A surprised man in military fatigues was standing over me, both of my legs in his hands, but something about the sight of me made him drop them.

With a familiar mix of rage, hunger, and confusion, I bent my knees as I ground my heels and the palms of my hands into the ground to propel myself up and onto him. As he screamed in shock, I tightened the grip of my legs around his waist and exposed the flesh of his neck. Far off behind us, I could see Chris staring in confusion, and my lip twitched as I thought angrily to myself, You did this. With a scream that did not seem to be my own, drove my face into his neck, teeth bared, and I took a chunk of flesh back. His screams grew louder as I released him from my grip, and I marveled to myself at how easily I swallowed such a large piece of flesh.

The solder continued to scream as he attempted to stop the spurts of blood.

Then, I saw it: Chris began to reach for his weapon, either to shoot me or to join in the gunfight that was nothing more than background noise to me.

Jack let out a swear behind me, and I was brought back, but not completely.

I grabbed the arm of the screaming solder to hold him still as I unholstered his handgun, and disengaged the safety just to put an end to his misery with a single bullet through his head.

It took Chris only a second to then raise his weapon. In his nervousness, he missed the first three shots, landing the fourth in my abdomen, but I couldn't feel a thing.

I started towards him, promptly feeling another round enter my chest, which slowed me for a moment, but I did not stop. He had two more bullets, and I knew that from personal observation of his skills that he could make them count. I raised the fallen soldier's handgun just in time to hear two men approaching from either side. Then, I somehow heard a bullet come from behind me, stopping the one to my left in his tracks. Before the other solder could reach me I turned with my right foot dug into the ground and landed a punch so hard in his jaw that I heard the bones break. Exhilaration seemed to flow through me as his limp body fell to the ground, and then, just as I was ready to hand this fight over to the power of Aceso, what felt like fire pierced my temple, and I once more saw black.

Headshot. Ugh, this is gonna take a minute.

"What the fuck do I do until then?!" I asked.

Pray that Chris isn't the one to retrieve you.

I felt myself panic. "Wait, what?"

We eat the first person who comes by.

"Not Chris! Not Chris!" I shouted into the darkness.

Shhh. We smell someone now.

All I could do was wait in the darkness, feeling nothing for what seemed like an eternity, until I felt my chest begin to burn with that same fire I'd felt when I woke up in Belarus.

There were screams, flashes of gunfire, and pain that I was sure was caused by my body being ripped open. Orders to retreat were given, to give up on retrieval, but I couldn't remember much else. I suddenly woke up coughing, wanting to cry from the pain that was taking hold of my whole body and not just my chest.

"Shit, Claire!" The gruff voice of Jack grew close and as he knelt beside me, he shrugged off one of his coats to begin putting it on me.

I winced and ground my teeth as he forced my arms into the sleeves, and my eyes saw what he was trying to cover so desperately: my bare torso. I should have known that most of my clothes would be ripped to shreds, but thankfully my pants and shoes were intact. Against my better judgment, I tried to look around, seeing nothing but random spatters of blood. Weapons and helmets litter the area and the only bodies left belonged to our pilot which was being pulled out of the chopper, and one of the soldiers that had come with us. Then I remembered why this happened. "Chris?" was all I could get out as even my throat and jaw hurt.

Seeming pained to say, Jack confessed, "He took off when he saw you decimate his team."

I could have fainted again.

"But Claire, you have to know…"

"What?"

Remorsefully, he ducked his head, tightening his grip on my arms as he conjured the strength to tell me, "Chris is the one that delivered that shot."

That was it, all I needed to hear. If Chris would do this to me, what would he do to my family? Now I must protect the consequences that I fought so hard for, and should Umbrella once more rise, I would be there not to stop it, but to oversee it all. This was the consequence of my choice.

A/N: In the coming weeks, look for the sequence under the title "Sequela." In this, Claire tries to find herself as she realizes that she is on a separate path than her husband, even after their names have been cleared. However, with a new rage from the events of this chapter, she finds herself toeing the line frequently. Wesker will also face his issues in his attempt to sate his ambitions while keeping Claire, and we may begin to see the unraveling of Albert Wesker. And do you guys mind that Aceso is "alive?" It just reminds me of The Darkness, but let me know what you guys think about that.

I'd forgotten what all I had planned for part two… this fucking job. There's a lot to deal with for the sequence though: the kids, Aceso, Ada's betrayal, and a lot more. I would also like to know if I should switch to third-person? I used to write exclusively in third-person, however, it seemed that first-person had picked up popularity, and I felt a sense of informality and comfort. However, I think that that comfort can lead to becoming sloppy in some cases for me. So I'm asking if it would be better for you readers if I stay in first-person for the duration of Optio and the Optio universe, or switch to third-person?