Grayson found Alfred in his office, fighting off three zombies in tactical gear. One pushed him onto his desk, and Alfred gritted his pearly whites, his face flushing and mascaraed eyes bulging, and he used his rifle as a sort of bar—one hand on the barrel, the other on the stock— between himself and the zombie, pushing hard, trying and failing to shove it away.
Reaching for his gun, Grayson shot it in the head, and the zombie reeled back and splayed on the floor.
Alfred beat the other two back with his rifle, buttstroking one in the head until its skull cracked and caved, and it sank to the floor. And then he launched himself at the other one in a crazed fit, bludgeoning its head until the bone crunched into splinters and the squelch of brain-pulp filled the room, his face and the front of his uniform splattered in a Rorschach of blood.
The stock of his rifle was crusted with blood and clumps of hair. He stepped back from the bodies, sweating and panting, his smooth white forehead glittering with a film of damp. Some of his hair had come loose, curling over his sweat-browned hairline, and the makeup on his face was smudged and runny.
"How long?" he asked suddenly, without looking at him.
Grayson realized he hadn't lowered his gun; but what scared him was that he didn't want to. "Alfred?" he said, cautiously.
Alfred whipped around to face him, and Grayson thought he was going to charge, lunge at him like some kind of starved lunatic animal. But Alfred did nothing but stand there, trembling in rage. "How long?" Alfred screamed, the vein in his neck bulging, his voice spiking to the highest point of its falsetto and nearly cracking.
There was something profoundly jarring, Grayson decided, in seeing Alfred like that: crazy-eyed and make-upped, lost under a fresh coat of blood. "It started getting bad when you came to Rockfort," Grayson said, finally. "You didn't stick to your psychiatrist's medical regimen, man, and that's what happens. Shuttering yourself away on Rockfort, you developed this Alexia as a way to cope with the isolation. She was your only friend, right? Besides me. And there was no reason to pretend you were me, because who would want to?" He laughed sardonically.
"I've… been parading around as my dear sister that long?" Alfred said, as if he couldn't quite believe that. "Since I took over Rockfort?" He paused, his forehead creasing. Then he looked at him, something accusatory in his eyes. "How could you have let this go on, Grayson?"
"Because you didn't want help," he shot back, all of his anger suddenly bubbling up and spilling over. "You told your psychiatrist to fuck off, went off your regimen of meds, and took a fucking swan-dive off the deep-end. Your psychotic episodes were too much for dad, too much for me. I went to Raccoon City, Alfred, precisely because I couldn't take your crazy shit anymore."
Alfred suddenly swung on him, fist connecting with his jaw. "Then why did you come back?" he shouted, and swung again, this time smashing his fist into his temple, making stars pop and fizzle out in his field of vision. "Why not stay in the bloody United States with that slag, Jill?"
Grayson's jaw hurt, and so did his head. "Because I care about you more than I do her, Alfred," he said, and meant it. Actually, something with his voice said, my life and everything that had mattered went up in that mushroom cloud, not to mention the second love of my life had died. Where else was I gonna go? When he was sure Alfred had settled down, Grayson stuck his gun into his waistband, the grip slanted across his lower-back.
"I'm sorry, Grayson," Alfred said, suddenly.
"I've been hit in the head before," he said, rubbing his sore jaw, then his sore temple. "Nothing new. I used to be a bouncer at a pretty rough dive before the R.P.D."
"I mean for everything," Alfred said.
Grayson nodded. He wanted to say it was okay, but it wasn't okay, and never had been. He'd simply become accustomed to the situation, in the same way people from broken homes became accustomed to broken lives. "Will you get help?" he asked, after a lengthy silence. "You need it, Alfred. Not for me, but for yourself. What happened back there at the mansion's proof enough of that."
Alfred didn't say anything right away; he seemed to be absorbed in thought. Then, slowly, realization crept into his expression, as if he was gradually remembering the pieces of something important, and he smiled, not at Grayson, but to himself. "Yes," he said, finally. "I'll get the help." His pale eyes met Grayson's. "But I need to do something."
"If you say 'kill Redfield and Burnside', I fucking swear I'll deck you, Alfred."
He shook his head. "No," Alfred said, "I suddenly remembered something more important than that. What's the date today, Grayson?"
"December 27th," he said.
"Just a few more hours, then," Alfred said, and giggled.