There was nothing left of Steve but a room full of gore. He'd hit him with the launcher, and Grayson had watched as the Steve-thing bubbled up like a souffle, then exploded, raining down on their heads like some macabre extinction event.
Alexia grabbed his hand, and they ran. The facility started to collapse on itself, beams tumbling down around them, supports toppling. An explosion almost took them out when a gas-line burst, and soon after that, he'd almost been decapitated by a cable.
She led him down into the facility, deeper than he'd ever gone, down staircases and hallways he'd never known existed. And the hallways and staircases went on and on, until the destruction of the facility was nothing more than a far-away rumble; and he wondered, idly, if that was how The Blitz had sounded for Edward in the London shelters as the Luftwaffe peppered the city with bombs.
They stopped at the end of a concrete corridor, in front of a shuttered door with a computer bolted on it. The door looked, he decided, like something that belonged in a bank vault. Alexia punched a code into the computer. Magnetic bolts thudded out of place, gaskets released, the door rattled open along its track.
Inside, it looked like a Victorian mansion, replete with all the comforts and luxuries that came with mansions. Alexia sauntered ahead of him, into a parlor. A set of antique couches arranged around a carved rosewood table stood in the middle of the room, upon which were several decanters and drinking glasses, and an unopened box of Cuban cigars. A chandelier glittered overhead; thankfully, its light was muted enough that it didn't hurt his eyes.
"I had no idea this place existed," he remarked, and paused, looking at Alexia. She was standing in front of the fireplace, an ostentatious thing of scrolled marble. Pictures cluttered its mantle: black and white photographs of a young Edward Ashford and his wife, taken sometime, he guessed, in the 1920s, and later ones from the 1950s of Alexander Ashford, when he was a grave-faced Harrow schoolboy. He didn't see any pictures of the twins.
"This place was built before Alfred and I were born," Alexia said, as if reading his mind. "For the same reason we're using it."
He found himself staring at her, wondering if she was always going to look like that, like some horny entomologist's dragonfly girl. Now that they were alone, and no longer in immediate danger, Grayson felt a strange revulsion, and then a shudder of fear. What if Alexia was stuck like that, forever? He turned away from her, helped himself to a decanter of whiskey. Just do what you always do, he heard himself saying. Drink yourself into a stupor, forget about it.
Alexia touched his hand. A woman's hand. He'd never felt more relieved than in that moment. "It's only temporary," she said, soothingly. "I can't maintain that form for long. The T-Veronica's too unstable." She paused. "Well, I suppose unstable isn't the word for it, else I would have wound up like Burnside. It's not," and she paused again, thoughtful, "quite settled yet."
"Please just be you," Grayson said, and looked at her. He wasn't sure how her mutation made him feel, other than vaguely disgusted, and sad. It almost felt like he'd lost the real Alexia, and had been given this alien shape-shifter instead.
She took the decanter from his hand and set it down on the table. "I'm still the same Alexia, Grayson," she said. "I still love Depeche Mode and New Order, and yes, I admit it, you did catch me dancing that one time," and she smiled.
"You danced more than one time," he said, and found himself smiling back at her. "Caught you singing along to Don't Stop Believin', too. In Arklay. You hit the high notes pretty good, actually."
"Guilty," Alexia said, and paused. Something sad in her eyes, then, a slight tremble of the lips—as if she wanted to cry, but not in front of him, because Ashfords were too proud for tears. But her eyes misted over anyway, turned pink and wet, and that veneer of Ashford pride cracked and fell away, revealing the sad woman underneath. "You were dead," she said, and pressed her face into his shirt so he couldn't see her crying, her shoulders shaking in quiet sobs.
"I'm not anymore, because of Origin," he said. "My guess, anyway." Grayson tried to look at her face, but Alexia wouldn't let him. "Dad's research. Where is it?"
"Gone," Alexia said into his shirt. "I'm a bloody idiot." She bunched his shirt between her fingers. "Left the case in the room with Burnside. I'd just wanted to escape with you, Grayson. To survive. I fucked up."
"Maybe it's for the best," Grayson said, and kissed the top of her head. "If Wesker wanted it, or whoever he was working for did, it couldn't have been good." And part of him, he knew, didn't really want to know the particulars anyway. Some things were, as his father often said, best left in the cupboard.
She hugged him, said nothing.
"We can talk to dad about it later," Grayson said, combing his fingers through her hair. "He'll want to see you."
"It will be a while before the recovery team finds us," Alexia said, finally regaining some measure of composure. She drew back, looked at him. She wiped her face, then said, with a slow smile, "After I've fucked the life out of you, I'm getting dressed. And when that's done, you can tell me about Raccoon City." She narrowed her eyes, the blues hardening to ice. "About everything you've neglected to mention."
They landed in Buenos Aires. Chris was hauled away by the paramedics to the nearest hospital, leaving Claire and her stranded in Ezeiza, looking like crazy assholes in their tattered arctic gear, standing in the warm rain and trying to flag down a cab.
"I just wanna get to the hospital before any reporters show up," Jill said.
"Makes you think reporters are gonna show up? We're in Argentina," Claire said.
"We're a couple of Americans who flew in on a plane that wasn't ours, for one, with an injured man. Not too mention a fucking internet search will turn up my name, and Chris's," Jill said, trying and failing to flag down yet another taxi. This one, however, didn't just ignore them; the driver had the audacity to splash her with water. "Fuck, this sucks," she said. She cursed, peeled off her gear until she was in nothing but her S.T.A.R.S fatigues, shoving the jacket, the gloves, and everything else into the trash. "The cops are gonna be showing up to ask questions."
"Maybe if we wait around, we can get a ride with them to the hospital," Claire joked, and grinned. She started peeling off her clothes, stripped down to her red vest and jeans, and stuffed her arctic gear into the trash, too. "Wait a second," Claire said, and pulled something from inside her vest. A disc. Her grin widened, and she turned to her and said, waving the disc in her face, "This is it, Jill! I'd forgotten all about it. Holy shit. I was so focused on not dying that—holy shit, I can't believe I still have it. Look!"
Jill took the disc, raised an eyebrow. "What is it?"
"Steve's last fuck you," Claire said. "His dad and him stole data from Umbrella. Why they were on Rockfort. And that's it. Right here, on that disc." She looked at her. Then, "We owe it to them, Jill. To bring down Umbrella for good."
Jill nodded, put the disc away. "We owe it to everyone who died in Raccoon City," she said. A moment to reconcile her ghosts, and then she said, "And I owe it to all my guys who died in the Mansion Incident."
Someone honked a horn. A familiar man poked his head out the driver-side window, and Jill couldn't help but smile. He hadn't changed at all in the three months since Raccoon City. "Hola, supercop. Heard you were in town," Carlos said. "You foxy ladies need a lift?"
Alexia had taken the Raccoon City story pretty well, all things considered, and now they were finally back in civilization. They'd said good-bye to Nikolai in Heathrow, and were taxied from the airport in a company car, driven by a Yorkshire spook from the London branch of Umbrella Europe.
"If I have to listen to that bloke talking the whole bloody way to Wales, I'll go bloody mad, I swear," Alexia confided, as they stepped out of the vehicle, into rain. "Bad enough we've got to go to sheepshagging country, but now I've got to deal with some tyke from Shipley, too? Madness."
"Wow, Lex. Not even a day back in England, and it's like you'd never left," he joked. "Just because you went to Oxford doesn't mean you're better than everyone."
"Yes, it does," she said, and smiled.
Grayson had never been happier to jostle his way through a busy Westminster thoroughfare, lined with the sort of boutiques where the cheapest thing cost as much as some people earned in a month. Alexia, courtesy of Umbrella, bought a new designer suit on the company's dime, and a pair of designer sunglasses, as well as a new suit, for him.
To Alexia's chagrin, their driver liked to talk, and he talked for most of the four hour trip to Wales, only pausing to eat or sip his coffee, or to fiddle with the radio. Even more to Alexia's chagrin, most of his talk was leveled at her; their driver seemed particularly interested in the fact she'd been a child genius, and he kept asking her how she'd gotten a job with Umbrella so young, and if being so smart had made her life easier or harder, and whether or not Oxford was really as great as everyone said it was.
Spencer's family home, it turned out, was a castle on the Welsh coast, in the middle of nowhere. Their driver drove them up a narrow, winding coastal road, and parked in front of the mansion. They were greeted at the door by Patrick, Spencer's butler, who was a good friend of his father's.
"Grayson, I haven't seen you in quite some time. You look different." Patrick was a tall, slim man with a salt-and-pepper mustache, and dark gray hair. Crow's feet scored the corners of his hazel eyes. He wore a sober black suit. "How is Scott?" He spoke with a light Welsh accent. "Lord Spencer's been keeping me quite busy; I haven't had the chance to ring him."
"Not so good, honestly," Grayson said. "And how do I look different?"
Patrick shook his head, then looked at Alexia. "Dr. Ashford, it's a pleasure to see you." He stepped aside, swept his arm out in a gesture of welcome. "Welcome. Please, follow me." He took her coat, neatly folded it. "Lord Spencer is waiting for you in his study."
Alexia inclined her head. "Thank you, Patrick."
Grayson started to follow, but Patrick stopped him. "Lord Spencer wishes to speak with Dr. Ashford. Alone. My sincerest apologies." He smiled, then took Grayson's coat. A middle-aged maid materialized beside Patrick, and he handed both coats to her and said, "Fetch Mr. Harman a coffee once you've put these away, Agnieszka. Thank you."
Agnieszka bowed her head, then bustled off.
Patrick turned to Alexia. "If you'll follow me, Dr. Ashford." They left, vanished upstairs.
Grayson drank his coffee and smoked cigarettes outside, watching the gray sea churning under a chilly, leaden sky, gulls wheeling over the shoals of foam. When Alexia had finished meeting with Spencer, she came outside, handed him his coat. She seemed to be in good spirits. "Here, put this on before you catch a cold. That said, the old bastard's practically on his death bed."
"You sound excited," he said, taking his coat and putting it on.
"Why wouldn't I be? He's given me the Chief Researcher position at Nest 3 in Arklay City. Life is quite good, Grayson." Alexia looked at him. "He wants me to save him," she said. "And I'll save him, certainly. Save him from the trouble of running my bloody company."
"And the Raccoon Trials?"
"Spencer wants me in the court, as you'd said," she said, and sighed. "It's going to be fun, explaining why I was 'deceased' for fifteen years to the government both Stateside, and here in England."
"Wales," he corrected.
"Same bloody thing," she said, and rolled her eyes.
"Don't let a Welsh person hear you say that. Anyway, what about Sherry?" Grayson looked at her. "You promised me you'd help me find her."
"I will. Remember that cousin I'd mentioned? The one in the American government? Her husband is Derek C. Simmons, the National Security Advisor. We'll find Sherry, but it will take time."
"So you're okay with it?" Grayson asked, grinning.
"If only to stick it to William." She glanced at her watch, a silver Rolex. "We'll be flying out of Heathrow tomorrow morning to Arklay City. I have to attend a meeting at Umbrella USA's headquarters regarding the Raccoon Trials. The legal team is going to prep me for a deposition. Spencer wants me to testify."
"What about your own legal problems, Lex? You were officially dead for fifteen years."
"I'll handle it, Grayson," she said. "I'm a big girl."
He wanted to argue that yes, she was an adult, but an adult with a fifteen-year-long gap in her life experiences. Still, Alexia was smart, and she'd probably planned for this anyway; if it was one thing he'd learned about her in his years of knowing her, Alexia always covered her bases, and made plans for plans. "All right," he said, and put his hands up, pacific. "You got it, boss."
"A few other things I need to handle, too. Like getting a bloody license," she said.
"You're smart. You'll pick it up easy," he said.
"Need to open a bloody bank account. Set all that up. Lot of work to do in the coming months, Umbrella aside."
"You'll be okay, Lex. I'll do what I can to help."
"Oh," and she looked at him, put her hands on her hips. "You're not joining the Arklay City Police Department." Alexia paused, furrowed her brow as if conflicted about something. "Unless you want to, I suppose."
"I'm done with law enforcement," he said, and meant it. "Don't even wanna join the USS anymore. I just want to go back to being a butler."
Alexia looked relieved. "Oh, good. I was worried—I wouldn't trust anyone but you with my personal property." She stopped, then said, "Our property."
Grayson ducked his head, smiled. "All right, enough. You're making me blush." He slipped his arm around her waist, and it felt good, he decided, walking with his soon-to-be-wife like that, like a normal couple. "So," he said, and opened the door for her, "we gotta place to live, right? Or we gonna sleep in Arklay International?"
Alexia laughed. "We'll always have my family estate here in England, and we'll buy a bloody house in Arklay City. I'd like a nice townhouse in Arklay City, I think. I'm quite over living in the middle of nowhere, after suffering Antarctica for the whole of my childhood."
"So we're gonna be like the Sheffields. Except you're Maxwell, and I'm Fran."
"Who?"
Grayson shook his head, went around the car and got in beside her. Their driver was reading a newspaper, which he begrudgingly put down on the passenger seat. "TV show," Grayson said.
The driver pulled away from the Spencer estate, and drove.