Grayson started awake, sweating. Naked, he sat up in Alexia's bed. As the last vestiges of REM fizzled out, subsumed by the slow wash of cognizance, he remembered that he was in Antarctica, not Raccoon City, not in the RPD fighting for his life, or down in NEST, watching Annette walk away for the last time. He didn't dream about Raccoon City often, but when he did, the nightmares came hard and unrelenting like fists punching at him from all sides.

His throat felt like sandpaper, his mouth like cotton. Sliding out of bed, Grayson left the room and followed the hallway down to the bathroom. The bathroom was tiled in antique marble, and there was a clawfoot tub and shower, a pedestal sink, a beveled mirror. He turned the crystal knobs on the sink and splashed lukewarm water on his face, staring at his reflection in the fly-specked glass: dark-haired and gray-eyed, his skin the color of Alexia's tea, which was more milk than actual tea…

Alexia. "Shit," he said aloud, and hurried away.

Grayson dressed, found her nowhere in the mansion. She could be anywhere, he thought: the Antarctic facility was huge and sprawling, a concrete wasp's nest under the arctic permafrost with uncountable chambers. He decided to start with her laboratory; that seemed the likeliest place, as she'd spent hours there, shuttered away with her research. His gut-feeling turned out to be correct.

In this part of the facility, an expansion-grate cat-walk ringed a cavernous chamber, and an enormous, bulbous ant-hive that looked less like a hive, and more like an egg-sac that belonged to some alien species of spider. Its texture was that of dry cardboard, of the sort used in fast-food cup-carriers and egg cartons, and on it skittered mutant ants of some large Amazonian variant, fat and winged, some red, the rest black. He spotted a large ruby red ant crawling sluggishly among the drones, and knew that was the Queen.

"This particular species of ant," Alexia said, leaning on the handrail of the cat-walk, "reproduces asexually. Every ant that you see is a clone of the Queen. All working in harmony through a complex language of pheromones to do as their Queen bids. Beautiful, isn't it?"

"Where's Burnside, Alexia?"

She looked at him. "Disposed," she said.

"Where is he?"

Alexia shook her head. "I don't know whether or not I find your newfound heroism attractive, Grayson, or dreadfully annoying—inconvenient, even." She tipped her head on one side. "I'm leaning toward the latter, I think."

"Alexia," he warned.

She grinned with white teeth, and said, "Oh, I like that fire in your voice, Grayson." Alexia approached, holding her gaze on him, her eyes stabbing down into his soul and shuddering it. "Burnside," she said, "is in BOW Storage, and once he mutates completely, bio-hazard contingencies will trigger, and P-Epsilon gas will fill the chamber, killing him. But he won't be mutating soon, oh no." Subtle craziness made her eyes gleam. "I made certain that the dose of T-Veronica I gave him would drag on for as long as possible. Something I learned from my mistakes with father. I didn't prolong his suffering enough."

You're insane. "What the fuck happened to you in that tank?"

"Improvements." Alexia touched his face, her fingertips exploring the cuts of his cheeks, the slight dip in his chin. "You're upset with me," she said.

"Are you fucking kidding me? You killed a kid, Alexia."

"Who killed my brother," she said, pastels of irritation in her voice. "You were a cop, Grayson. I simply meted out justice. Surely you understand." She stared at him for a moment, then said, "I kept my word about Redfield. I haven't harmed her, nor will I harm her—unless she leaves me no choice. I do that for you." A smile touched her lips, just barely. "Though," she said, "I can't promise the zombies won't kill her."

Grayson knew he had no right to be angry. He'd stood by while Alfred tortured and killed people. He'd stood by in Raccoon City while scared kids like Steve died, because his focus, his only concern, had been Annette and Sherry. Yet here he was, feeling as if he had some kind of moral pedestal to stand on, pretending that he actually gave a shit. And maybe he did give a shit, but not enough of one. He turned away from her and said, "I'm no better than you and Alfred."

"No," she said, with surprising candidness, "you're not."

"There are some things I care about," Grayson said, almost defensive, and turned to face her again. "For whatever reason, you're one of them. So is Sherry. And much as I don't wanna admit it, I can't deny that part of me hates Steve for killing Alfred." He avoided her eyes, feeling ashamed, stripped naked by her assessment. "He would have killed you, too, maybe. I'm not entirely sad that he's gone. But his death? That's gonna haunt me for the rest of my life. Seventeen-years-old…"

Alexia regarded him blandly. "All this sentimentality is making me nauseous," she said sharply, her words like tiny knives. "Have you finally picked your side?"

"My loyalty's to you, Alexia," he said, surprised at how quickly the words left his lips. "It always has been. That hasn't changed."

She giggled. "Shall I knight you?" she teased, and took his hand. "In seriousness, however," Alexia said, brushing a few curls of hair from his eyes, "I'm relieved, Grayson. Pleased. I don't know what I would do without you. You've been the only friend I've ever had besides Alfred, the one thing, I think, that keeps me grounded. Without you, I think I'd go completely mad."

"You mean you haven't?" he joked dryly. "You're stuck with me, Lex."

Alexia grinned. "I can think of far worse things than being stuck with a tall, handsome, and absolutely fit man," she said, walking alongside him, holding his hand, the normalcy of the gesture striking him as strange, somehow uncharacteristic of her. "But," Alexia continued, leading him toward her office, "I think we should make it official, once we leave Antarctica."

"You mean marriage?"

"I'm glad I don't have to spell it out for you."

He'd only thought about marriage when Annette had been alive, and he'd spent so long picturing himself with Annette that it was hard to imagine himself with anyone else, even Alexia. Still, Grayson loved Alexia, and he didn't hate the idea of marrying her. "No, you don't," he said. "Beneath all the dumb brawn, there's a brain. Kinda." He poked her in the head, adding, "Maybe 'bout a quarter the size of yours."

"I don't believe you give yourself enough credit, Grayson. You may be awful at maths, true, but you're quite the creative." She flashed him a smile as they entered her office, into the soft glow of a Victorian lamp, and said, "Remember all those little poems you used to write me?"

"Don't remind me," he said, sitting on the edge of her desk. "They were shit."

"Considering you were only a boy when you'd written them, they were quite good." Alexia rounded her desk and plucked a large leather-bound book from the bookcase, opening it. "Scott's research notes," she explained, and looked at him. "I had his notes bound."

"Holy shit," he said. Grayson stretched out his hand. "Can I see it?"

Alexia shrugged and passed it to him. He couldn't read any of it; it was written in some kind of cipher. "Scott destroyed the original notes after he'd transcribed them in code. I helped him devise the code, a heavily modified Ottendorf cipher."

"So where's the key?"

"Safe," Alexia said.

"You can't tell me?"

"I promised Scott that I wouldn't tell anyone, dear Grayson. Including you. And you know I always kept my promises to you, Scott, and Alfred."

Grayson nodded and closed the book, passing it back to her. "So what now?" he asked, looking at her. "We just wait around in Antarctica and hope the supplies come, so we can hitch a ride back?"

"Supplies won't be coming, darling," Alexia said, tucking the book under her arm. "With zombies milling about, this facility is a bio-hazard. Umbrella won't send anyone, not even a cleanup detail, I'm sure; this facility has been in decline for years, a negligible loss for the company. They won't even send the USS or UBCS; it wouldn't be cost-effective."

"So we're fucking stuck here?"

"Goodness, so quick to lose faith in me," Alexia said, and leaned against her desk. "I've already arranged for a way out, my dear. They simply seem to be behind schedule. Unsurprising, really. The conditions are quite bad this far into the Antarctic interior."

"You just said Umbrella wasn't gonna send the USS or UBCS," he pointed out.

"They aren't," she said. "They're sending a team handpicked by Spencer."

"Spencer knew about you?"

"Of course," Alexia said. "I'm Spencer's Jesus Christ, returned from the mountain to heal the leper. Him."

Grayson snorted. "I thought you weren't religious."

"I'm not in the least," she said, giggling. "But Scott's biblical anecdotes stuck."

"Alexia," he said, and rose from her desk, "we can't just leave Claire here. If nobody is coming, she'll die. The non-perishables won't last forever, and neither will the power; Umbrella's gonna shut it down once you're gone. No reason to pay the bills on a ghost facility."

"That's hardly my prob—"

"You said you always keep your promises to me, right? And you promised you wouldn't kill Claire."

"What are you suggesting, Grayson?"

"I thought you were a genius."

"It was a rhetorical question," she said, frowning. "You want me to bring the girl with us."

"You promised, Lex."

Alexia sighed, pinching the slender bridge of her nose. "Fine," she said, after a moment. "Redfield will come with us, if she must. But once we're back in the United States, she's no longer our problem."

Grayson hugged her. "Thank you," he said, meaning it.

"You're lucky I love you," she grumbled. "But," she said, "Redfield might not want to, Grayson. If Burnside meant anything to her at all, I doubt she'll want to come along with his executioner."

"She won't have a choice if she wants to live."

"As I said," Alexia said, "when we're in the United States, Redfield is no longer our problem. Understood? Bad enough that you want Sherry Birkin with you. We're not rescuing every bloody stray child you happen across."

"Wait, you're actually considering Sherry?"

"Considering," she said pointedly. "I haven't arrived at a decision yet."

"She's a good kid, Lex. I think you'd like her. You're more alike than you'd think."

"I haven't arrived at a decision," she repeated, and left it at that.