Happy Halloween everyone, well, hopefully I manage to post this during Halloween lmao XD that would make my day. We're still counting down to baby Piers but in the meantime here is some much-needed fluff after the last sort of heavier chapters.
Song Suggestion: Sunflower by Post Malone & Swae Lee
Disclaimer: I own nothing, Resident Evil belongs to Capcom who I am not affiliated with.
September passed by like a blur and so did the more of October. The trend for his work continued, 3 weeks in the field 1 week at home to rest and give the analysts time to go over the data they collected.
"Here we thought that veronica chick was a slippery bitch, whoever this is, they don't want to be found..." Canine says with a slight frown as he picks at his meal. The squad had been running in circles for half a year at this point, and it felt like there was no end in sight.
"Language," Tundra points out while glancing at Rose who was sitting with the group in the lunchroom, happily smiling while eating a messy peanut butter, Jelly and banana sandwich.
"Right, sorry,"Canine says as he spares a glance at the child who was smacking her lips as she ate.
"Rose, chew with your mouth closed," Chris says with a tired sigh. Rose grumbles something about wanting to eat like pop cat, but does as she's told before taking another bite.
"On the bright side, at least we're home for the annual Halloween party," Night howl offers though he knows it's not much.
"dweres ah pwartfey" She says excitedly.
"Don't talk with food in your mouth," Chris says while pinching the brow of his nose.
Again Rose grumbles at this and does what she's told, but Lobo just smiles and starts smacking his lips as he ate instead causing the child to laugh.
Chris points at Lobo with an unamused expression, "Don't start with me."
The heavy weapons specialist laughs at this "So are you entering the costume contest this year or nah?" Lobo asks as a diversion.
"I donno, I don't think this one would place well," Chris admits with a shrug.
"There's a contest too?" Rose asks with an excited expression.
"yeah people usually wear costumes to work for the party and bring in treats, and people vote on things like who has the scariest costume or the cutest costume and the best one over all to try and win a prize."
"My costume's cute" she says with further excitement, she wanted to win a prize. "Can I?"
"Fine," He replies with a nod, he was honestly going to let her wear her costume for the day anyways but since she knew about the 'party' aspect of it he wasn't going to say no. He kinda wanted to keep quiet about that since it probably wouldn't be what she was expecting. A kid's party is very different from an office party. People just keep working and there's food on a table.
"I'd say we should put another bet on it, but it looks like we won't be home for thanksgiving this year," Lobo points out.
"Okay, so we can just put money in a pot then, winner gets the pot," Umber eye points out casually.
Rose watches as the adults took out their wallets and each put a $20 bill on the table. Rose hesitates a bit before digging through her own pocket and pulling out a dollar. She mimicked the others and put her dollar in the pile.
"Where did you get that?" Chris asks with a raised eyebrow.
"I found it in the couch," she says with a smile. She kinda wanted to save it for a candy bar from the vending machine, but she also wanted to be like the adults.
So, that was probably his... On one hand, Emma would probably be annoyed if she found out he let the six and a half year old gamble, but on the other hand seeing the crumpled one dollar bill in the pile of twenties and her content happy face made it hard to tell her no. "Okay. Guess that makes 7 competing, winner gets the pot."
Rose smiles excitedly and happily finishes her lunch, so she could go back to tests and workbooks and finish the day. Halloween was coming soon, and she wanted to tell Emma about the party.
Her excitement causes the rest of the day to fly by. One of the scientists nods as they watch her manipulate a few pieces of metal in the air.
"Alright now place the third block on the 8th peg" the scientist says as they write notes on the page attached to their clipboard.
Rose concentrates as she starts to move the cube and place it down like she was told.
The scientist nods again "You can put the remaining pieces down for now. You're free to go for the day. Have a nice weekend."
"Wohoo!" Rose hurries over to gather her stuff into her book bag and uses her powers to open the door for herself, so she could run down the hall to the elevator. Down a few floors and around a few more bends she eventually made her way to the gym.
"Well dang, is it 5 o'clock already?" Tundra asks surprised as she sees the kid making her way over to the group.
"Yeah," Rose says happily, "It's time to go home now." she adds as she's eager to start the weekend. There were toys to play with and cartoons to watch like the spider movie.
Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five. Chris put the weight down after finishing that set and cleaned off the equipment. "Okay, now we can go," he confirms only for the child to already start running to the door. "Don't run in the gym you're going to get hurt," He says with a slight frown. She was at an age where she needed to start being reminded about rules, and she was testing all of them to see if he'd remember that the rule even existed.
Rose stayed by the door and waited for Chris all the same while hopping around to get energy out. While he was glad that her aches weren't as bad as they initially thought they were, the energy levels needed to calm down, he was too old for this.
Rose continued to lead the way through the building, hurrying to each door like a check point and waiting for Chris to catch up who was rather insistent that he was not going to be rushed. The two made their way out to the parking lot where a new car was waiting for them. It was similar to the old one since it was another black SUV, but it was a notably newer model, complete with upgraded safety features, and new car smell in place of cigarette ashes.
Chris got rose set up in her seat before getting in as well. The car was not the only change as the box of cigarette had also been replaced with a different thinner box that held bandage like patches. It turns out those had a learning curve with them, but he very quickly learned not to put them on an area with arm hair because it hurt like shit to get them off after.
The child watched curiously as Chris got a patch set up on his forearm. "Can I have a sticker too?" Rose asks curiously.
"No, These aren't stickers." Chris corrects as he gets the car started, so he could start driving them home. How to get her to leave them alone... "They're medicine. It will make you sick if you take it and don't need it."
"Oh," Rose replies with a slight frown. What a weird sticker... "Are you not feeling good?"
"I'm fine" Chris replies in return.
Confusion plagued the child's face upon hearing the answer. This felt like a 2 +2 = fish scenario... "Then why are you taking medicine?"
"It's complicated," Chris answers hoping she'll drop it.
"Why?" Rose asks with continued confusion and curiosity. If her Chris wasn't feeling good, then he should see a doctor.
"Because it is," He replies as he didn't want to explain cigarettes and addiction to the child.
That was a boring answer, Rose pouts a bit upon hearing it, but she knew well enough that was the answer she got when she wasn't going to get an answer.
The remainder of the car ride home was filled by questions about what the child learned today. They went over what she'd have to do over the weekend for homework and the like. The second they were home and Rose was free from the seat she hurries over to go inside.
"We're home!" Rose says happily as she quickly takes her shoes off, so she could make her way over to the sticker chart to wait.
"Welcome home," Emma says through laughter as she sees the child bouncing on her heels in an attempt to patiently wait. "Did you behave today?" Emma asks with a raised eyebrow as she looks over to Chris who wobbled his hand to signal 'kinda'.
"Yes," she says confidently "I did all my worksheets and I listened to the tests, and I ate all my lunch," she lists off her accomplishments for the day with a note of pride.
"Maybe we should look into sugar-free jelly for sandwich day," Chris says after.
"Were you a bit hyper today?" Emma asks which causes Rose to pout.
"I'm just excited is all," she says still antsy as before.
"Okay, well, you've been really good for a while now, so I'll take your word for it," Emma says with a nod and puts the sticker on the chart. "so you can pick a few cookies from the bakery if you want."
"Can we make treats for the party on Monday instead?" Rose asks with a hopeful smile.
"Party?" Emma asks confused.
Chris moves to hold his face. "The office Halloween party is on Monday."
"Ah," Emma says as she starts to understand the request. "Is it a potluck set up?" she asks figuring she should check before agreeing to the child's request.
"It's allowed," He admits with a slight nod.
"Alright then, I don't see a problem with doing that on Sunday instead of getting cookies at the bakery then," She agrees while thinking over what to make. She'd be lying if she said she didn't want to try and show off a little bit if these were going to go into the office. Let's see something sweet but not too sweet, that shows some technical skill but isn't too showy... "What if we make croissants and call them croissant moons to go with the Halloween theme?"
"Moon bread?" Rose replies curiously.
"Yeah, we can split the dough into three sections to make a few flavors. Chocolate, Cherry and Almond," Emma explains "So there can be dark moons, blood moons and light moons."
The explanation causes her to smile and nod excitedly. "Yeah!" Rose says as she gets onboard with the idea. This was gonna be so awesome. "I wanna chocolate one."
"I'm sure you do," Chris says while shaking his head. Seriously, how did she end up so hyper today?
"I'm gonna go try on my costume," she says as she hurries up to her room. She never thought she'd want the weekend to pass by so quickly.
"Are you sure you're up for this? We could just buy something from the store, You're due any day now," Chris points out a bit concerned by the idea of Emma being on her feet for so long when she should be resting.
"I'll be fine," She replies confidently. "I managed to keep making dinner this long, I should be fine to add a bit of bread making."
"So no movement?" he asks though there was a silent question along with it that Emma understood well enough.
"Sorry... Nothing yet," She replies with a sympathetic smile. "We still have a few days, and these things tend to happen rather suddenly so who knows."
"Well, hopefully this kid isn't too comfortable, I'll be flying out on the 5th," He says with a slight frown.
"Whatever happens, happens," Emma says as she moves to give him a peck.
"I just don't want you to be alone..." the agent admits with a note of guilt in his tone.
"I won't be," Emma affirms, hoping to comfort him. "I already worked things out with my parents, they're going to be here on the 5th to help out while you're away."
"Yeah..." He replies though it does not help him feel better, if anything it made him feel worse. What kind of message was that sending? Hey in-laws thanks for having me as a part of a family and accepting me, but I'm not going to be around for the birth of my own child, but hey I'm definitely not going to be an absent father. The only thing missing was some jazz hands to really sell it.
"And on the bright side, once you're back, we'll be able to move you out of the basement," Emma says hoping that might help at the least, being so separated during all of this wasn't easy for either of them. A short chuckle crosses her lips. "Not that we'll be getting much sleep but." She bobs her head while trying to figure out where she was going with that.
Chris moves to hold her so he could give her a gentle kiss. "Soon," He says in return. Soon they'll have a son, soon he'll hopefully catch whoever it was that started making bioweapons, and soon he'd hopefully be able to return to being by her side.
Emma nods in return.
'*'*'*'*'
Saturday came and went, and so did most of Sunday and still no movement. Time was ticking by and it made Chris anxious. He tapped his foot while sitting on the couch and reading another book. While his nerves made him want to go down to the basement and work things out with the punching bag, he also wanted to be nearby since Emma and Rose had started baking for the evening, in case something went wrong.
"Ready Rosey?" Emma asks with a smile as she pokes at her phone to turn on a bit of music for while they worked then put that down on the counter so she could head over to the fridge.
"Yuhs~" The child replies excitedly as she watches Emma take the dough out of the fridge.
While Emma knew Rose wanted to help, she also knew the child did not have the attention span or patience to wait 8 hours for the dough to chill as a part of the lamination process, So she got that taken care of ahead of time.
"Okay I'm going to roll and cut the dough, do you want to help with the cherries first?" Emma asks as she puts the plastic wrapped dough on the counter.
Rose nods in return, she wanted to help make the treats.
"Okay can you go and get the cherries out of the fridge?" Emma asks as she gets a bowl for the little girl.
Rose hurries over to the fridge and opens it before looking around for the bag of cherries and hurries back to climb into the chair that was set up next to the counter for her.
"Very good, I need all the stems removed. Can you take the stems off and put the stemless cherries into the bowl?" Emma instructs and once more the child nods as she carefully takes each one out of the bag and plucks the stem off.
Emma was content that the child would be busy for some time with that task and got to work with the rest of the lamination process for the dough. Roll and fold, roll and fold, the process repeated until the dough was soft again. It took a while but by the time she was done so was Rose.
"I did it!" she happily cheers.
"You did! Now you need to wash them. Can you do that for me?" Emma asks as she moves to wrap the dough in plastic once more, so it can chill for another 30 minutes.
"I can do it," Rose says confidently as she climbs down from her chair and moves it over to the sink before realizing she forgot to take the bowl off the counter with her. While she was tall enough that she was at eye level with the counter top her arms were still a bit too short to reach the bowl that was further in to the counter. Rose looked over to see that Emma was still distracted with gathering items from the fridge and while she wasn't paying attention rose used her powers to pick up a metal spoon from the dish of cooking utensils, so she could scoot the bowl close enough for her to reach. Once she had the bowl in hand she put the spoon down on the counter and went to carry the bowl back over to her seat, so she could wash the cherries like she was told to.
Emma made her way back to the counter and stared with a confused expression at the metal cooking spoon that was sitting there. Weird. She didn't remember moving that. The woman shook her head as she put down the ingredients she gathered and moved to put the spoon back. If she said anything now than Chris would get upset. He was rather adamant about Rose not using her powers in the house. Not that she could use them outside either.
"How are the cherries doing?" Emma asks as she sorts out the ingredients and gathers a few measuring cups from the cabinets.
"All clean," Rose says confidently.
"Let's see," Emma says and walks over to check them. Yeah, they looked clean. "Nicely done," Emma praises causing the child to beam. "I need to cut these up, can you move your chair back and do some measuring for me?" Emma asks as she strains out some leftover water from the bowl.
"Yeah, I'm good at numbers now," Rose says as she climbs down the chair to move it again causing a scrapping sound of wooden legs rubbing against the hardwood floor.
Chris winces as the sound came to ear and Duke got up to walk away, likely to hide in the master bedroom. Lucky dog.
This continued throughout the evening Emma would take care of the more technical tasks and anything that required the use of a knife, while giving Rose the easier tasks like measuring ingredients and mixing things together. The cherry compote was made along with the ground almond frangipane. Emma made the chocolate spread ahead of time since that was another more time-consuming process and before long they had their triangles of dough and pastes for the fillings.
"Okay Rosey do you want to put the filling on the dough or do you want to roll them up?" Emma asks with a tired smile. This had been a more labor-intensive process than she originally gave it credit for. Maybe she should have stuck to one or two fillings and not three, but they were done now and Rose was happy and distracted for the day and would likely sleep well tonight.
"Hmmm yes," she replies with a nod.
"Rose you have to pick one," Emma says with a laugh.
"But I wanna do both," Rose says while pouting a bit. How could she say she made them if she didn't do both?
"Oh alright," Emma relents, "pick a spread and let's get started." The woman says as she gets the oven warming up while rose looked over her options. Rose picked the chocolate and started to put healthy spoon fulls onto the triangles and spread them around.
"Remember, don't put too much, or they'll end up flat," Emma warns as she could tell the child was already being a little too generous in her portions of chocolate spread.
"I can do it," Rose says still confident in her work while Emma focused on the almond and cherry spreads. Thanks to having a couple extra years of experience Emma was able to move a fair bit quicker than Rose and got those two done in the time that it took rose to spread and shape the chocolate ones.
"We need to wait for these to finish rising," Emma says as she sets a timer, "so I think that means it's bedtime for you."
Rose made a bit of a face at that suggestion. "Jam time?" she asks instead.
"Aren't you tired?" Emma asks surprised.
sure enough Rose shakes her head no, and giggles before repeating herself as she moves to hug the woman. "Jam time~ I wanna help still"
"Alright, but after the chocolate ones come out of the oven you have to go to bed, okay?" Emma says in return. It was getting a bit late for Rose but if she still had this much energy, she probably wasn't going to sleep anyways.
"Okay," Rose says with a nod as she accepts the deal. At this rate, she'd get to stay up a whole hour after bedtime. Wohoo!
Emma turned up the music a bit as Rose happily dances around. However, after three or four songs she was already tuckered out and curled up on the couch to fall asleep.
The woman chuckles a bit as she turns off the music altogether. "I figured she was tired," She says under her breath as she smiled at the little girl who was snuggled up next to Chris.
"I'm surprised you're not here next to her, you have to be exhausted you've been at it all day," Chris points out. While Rose only started helping after dinner, Emma had already made the dough which spent 8 hours chilling and made dinner after that.
"If I sit down I'm not going to be able to get back up," Emma replies with a short laugh. "They won't be ready for the oven for another 45 minutes at best." and then it was 15 minutes a tray to bake them, with 6 trays total and yeah, she might have gone a little overboard. She could tell her feet were already swollen at this point.
"I'll take care of Duke's walk, try and sit down for a few minutes?" The man requests, though his tone suggested he was not going to take no for an answer.
"Alright," Emma caves, if she gave herself the full 45 minutes to sit it might help enough that she wouldn't regret sitting down.
Emma takes Chris's place on the couch as the man walks over to the door to get the leash off the hook.
Chris gives a sharp whistle to get the dog's attention from wherever he ran off to sleep. it only took a few moments before thundering paws could be heard flying down the steps and Duke was at his side and staring up at him. There was only a single thought between those doughy eyes. walk.
The pooch was always excited on days when Chris would take care of his walks because they were usually much longer than what Emma could manage in her current state.
The two walked around for a good while in the Crisp autumn evening and eventually, when he made it back he found that Emma had fallen asleep next to the already knocked out Rose. Chris smiles at this while shaking his head. He quietly walks over to gently pick up Rose and carry her to her bed with Duke following closely behind. The agent tucks her in to bed, so she could dream of candy and costumes and bread shaped like moons and duke climbs up to curl up next to the child.
Chris made his way back down the stairs and over to the couch where Emma was still sleeping so he could lean forward to give her a peck on the forehead. the action caused her to stir as a deep inhale signaled that she was waking up giving Chris time to correct his posture and avoid getting headbutt.
"What time is it?" she asks while looking around for a clock.
"It's almost 10," Chris replies as he moves to sit next to her. As he sits down Emma winces and pushes herself to get back up. "You're going to hurt yourself." he warns as he keeps a hand ready to catch her.
"I'm fine, just a bit sore. If I don't get those into the oven rose will be disappointed," Emma says "And I didn't spend all day working on it to leave them unbaked."
Chris lightly shakes his head again and pushes himself to get ups as well since she seemed set on this. "Then at least let me help you." he says as he follows her over to the kitchen.
"Now that I think I can agree to," She says with a content smile. it took until midnight, but the 6 trays were finished, and the rolls were wrapped up with an index card that had neat handwriting on it that read
Croissant Moons
Cherry-Chocolate-Almond
From: The Redfields
With the platter put away, so it wouldn't go stale overnight, the two adults went to try and get a few hours of sleep before the busy day to come. Six and a half hours later Emma's alarm went off.
Emma grumbled to herself "Next time I'm just making cookies," she says quietly.
"Thank god," Chris replies grateful that she only needed to do this once to learn not to over extend herself again. Even if it was probably going to happen again anyways given their last thanksgiving of 22 guests. "It's a good thing we're doing easy costumes this year." he says quietly.
Emma nods but pushes herself to get up with a yawn so she could go and take a shower.
The morning routine continued as normal from there with the addition of changing into costumes instead of regular day clothes. Breakfast was had and Rose carefully monitored the platter of baked goods the whole ride to the BSAA. While she wanted to run into the building, she curbed her enthusiasm and carefully carried the tray while keeping an eye on it since she didn't want to drop it.
A little red cape fluttered behind her as she made her way to the break room where a fair few of the BSAA agents were mingling while in costume, along with the hound wolf squad.
"Hey Rose," Canine says who was dressed as a male version of Cruella. there was $121 buck riding on this contest. he was going to try to win.
"Hi! look at what I made!" Rose says while holding out the tray to show off the baked goods.
"Very nice," Canine says with a short chuckle. "I like your costume."
"Thanks. I'm Little red riding hood," Rose says happily with a beaming smile.
"Oh my gosh you're the woodsman" Tundra says as she puts two and two together as she looks over Chris's costume which consisted of a flannel shirt, blue jeans and overalls, and he was carrying a foam ax. Tundra was dressed as a 1920's flapper though, like last time it looked like a quick purchase from what was left at Walmart.
"Wait so what's Emma?" Umber eye asks with a raised eyebrow as he realized there was a theme. The sniper went a bit more on the nose and dressed as a werewolf.
"... The wolf that ate grandma...you know, cause of the stomach," Chris says while making a gesture around his own to motion out her
"Oh my gosh that's so cheesy that it's adorable," Night howl says while holding his face. He tried working his glasses into the costume and dressed as Clark Kent with the superman uniform peaking out of his button-up shirt.
"Tough competition, but I think I got this in the bag again this year," Lobo says confidently while dressed as a zombie.
"Seriously?" Chris says while staring down Lobo. Dressing like a zombie in the BSAA headquarters was a good way to end up getting shot.
"What? It's called irony, look it up," Lobo says in return. "I'll have you know I already got several compliments." He says confidently. "And you're going to need to go collect little Red to get entered into the contest, she's wandered off," Lobo adds while pointing over Chris's shoulder.
Sure enough Rose had, in fact, wandered off and was talking to two other agents while offering them the platter.
"I made them. Here, you should try one," She says not realizing that it would probably be pretty obvious that she was too young to have made the treat on her own.
"Rose," Chris says with an annoyed tone as he hurries over. "How many times do I have to tell you not to wander off like that." He chides before looking to the two agents who had accepted a pastry from the tray to appease the child. "Sorry about that, hopefully she wasn't too much of a handful."
"Morning Captain," one of the two replied. "It's not a problem."
"Right, well," He nods "Have a Happy Halloween Kai," he adds before giving rose a gentle nudge to signal for her to follow him.
"Happy Halloween, enjoy the moon bread!" Rose says before following Chris.
Chris helped Rose drop off the platter on the table of other treats. While Rose was reluctant to leave her hard work behind and out of sight she followed Chris to the main lobby where they had their picture taken together for the costume contest. It was technically for employees and Rose was not one so she needed to be with Chris to enter.
The poll was sent out by 9:30 and by lunchtime at 1pm the results were announced.
Hound wolf squad gathered together to read the results as a group and Umber eye took the prize pot out of his wallet since he'd been safe guarding it for the weekend.
"Alright, let's see how we did," Lobo says as he opens up the email on his phone and scrolls through it.
"3rd place with 21 votes was the director's secretary with her Mrs. Bellum costume," Lobo says, and the group nods in agreement with the vote. It was a solid costume.
"2nd place with 28 votes is some guy Steve from IT who was wearing some fancy Star Wars costume that he spent far too much money on," Lobo says which earns a few snickers from the group.
"And 1st place with 32 votes i-hold the phone," Lobo says as he stares at the phone a second longer, "you goddamn cheater," Lobo says while staring at Chris.
"What how?" Chris says annoyed by the accusation.
"You had Rose in your picture. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, including kids makes you look sensitive and emotionally available, and it's probably the reason you won," The heavy weapons specialist says with a halfhearted frown. "New rule going forward you can't have the kid with you for the contest that's absolutely cheating."
"no it's not, she entered the pot," Umber eye points out as he holds up the single dollar bill.
"Fine, whatever," Lobo says annoyed as his competitive nature was getting the better of him. "Let's see how many votes did I get at least." He says as he scrolls down to the overall vote count. "two?" he says with a disappointed frown.
Umber eye shakes his head and takes out his phone since Lobo seemed distracted. "Hmm. I think this does actually belong to you now," He says as he hands Rose the hand full of money. "says here 1st place goes to little Red, doesn't mention the woodsman at all."
"HA!" Lobo says accepting this as a partial victory.
Chris stared nervously at the excited child who was now 120 dollars richer... How was he going to explain this one to Emma...
Emma is [38] weeks pregnant [2] weeks remain.
For those that are reading the timer and doing the math... yep. Get ready for a 'fun' chapter. As a fun aside, I like to think rose would enjoy 'into the spiderverse' because she'd connect with Miles. He found out he had powers he didn't know how to control, it caused him to grow really fast, and there were times when his lack of control made it, so he accidentally hurt people he cared about, but they still loved him and in the end he had lots of friends that were like him, and he learned to control his powers.
I put a tiny-ish ref to The Surwata Agreement by Silver Efflux [Hopefully that's okay, I wanted to have rose give Kai a lil present X'D if it's not let me know, and I'll take it out. totally understandable, I probably should have asked first, but I also wanted it to kinda be a surprise so yeah. moon bread.]
Review Responses:
dahellraider - I'm so glad that you enjoyed it :) welcome back to the world of fan fic! I totally get that, life absolutely comes first. This story definitely still has a bit of life left in it lol, and it's a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine to work on it. So long as I have ideas to work with, I'm more than happy to continue writing. It's definitely nice to see more appreciation for Resident Evil. I noticed it was mostly for the newer characters though and had to give the golden boy a bit of love haha. Thanks again for the support U if there's ever anything that you'd like to see included in the story let me know and i'll do my best to work it in.
starrat - thanks u always happy to hear that you liked the chapter
Guest1995 - lol hey mum or mom the meaning is the same =v= I'm so glad you liked the moment with Lobo x'D he is the best Chaos uncle a tiny bioweapon could ask for and I will stand by that lmao. Baby time is going to be fun, I have one more 'arc' of sorts in mind for after piers arrives. a while ago i listed Emma vs the BSAA on my list of plot points to watch out for. I haven't forgotten about that. the clock is ticking.