Resident Evil: The Recurring Nightmare of Hope

Chapter Two: Chasing Dreams

"We saved her, you know… We kept her as safe as we could, even risked our lives to cure the G-Virus in her blood. After we escaped Raccoon City, I had to find my brother, figure out where he went… Sherry cried for me to stay, Leon didn't take it well either but he understood why I had to leave… I left her in his care, trusting him to take care of her, positive that their nightmare was over…" Claire keeps her head in her hands as Jill sits down next to her, sitting a fresh cup of coffee down in front of her friend.

The two grew close once she joined the organization, seeing her as her own sister, but Jill doesn't really know where to start with this, "I honestly believe she doesn't hold you responsible for her situation…"

A sarcastic laugh fills the room as Claire punches the table, "Do you know how I felt when Leon knocked on my brother's door to tell me she was taken? I didn't worry for his safety, or her safety… I immediately hated myself for leaving her… If I had been there…."

Jill places a consoling hand on the female Redfield's back and replies, "It wouldn't have ended any differently… If they wanted Sherry, they were going to get her. Instead of a beaten-up Leon, we might've had two corpses to bury… You know, you should talk to Leon about this… I'm sure he feels responsible for her being taken. He probably beats himself up every night thinking you hate him for it."

Claire sighs and nods slowly, hating herself even more for making Leon feel terrible. How long has he carried the guilt of losing Sherry to the team that kidnapped her? Claire slinks farther into her own self-loathing as Jill stands up and straightens her outfit in preparation to leave. Sherry needs to be rescued, there are absolutely no doubts about that and that is what Claire will do.

A hand darts out to grasp Jill's arm before she leaves, "What would you do to make a mistake right?"

The gray eyes of Jill Valentine clash with the blue of Claire Redfield before a smirk crosses her lips, "Everything."

11

A crumpled dollar bill is tossed into the dry coffee cup in front of Claire, grabbing her attention as Leon enters the room, "What's this?"

"Inflation, remember, Redfield?" he takes a seat next to her and smiles as she unravels the note.

"I don't blame you, you know?" her voice is low as her eyes stare through the dollar he offered for her thoughts.

It's a nice thought, that he remembered her joke from her birthday, but Leon is just a walking nice thought, always has been. He tried so hard in Raccoon to keep a calm front up for her and Sherry, but she knew he was as terrified of what they were fighting as she was. He rubs his hands on his knees and takes a deep breath, which puts Claire on her guard for some reason.

A long silence before the breath is expelled, "Of course. The fact that you blame yourself is what kills me, Claire. You did what you felt was right. Finding Chris was more important for you. Keeping Sherry safe was my job after Raccoon City and I knew that. For a while I felt like it was all my fault, but then I saw the toll it was taking on you. We'll find her, Claire, don't worry. We'll chase down every lead we have until this is finished and she is in our care again."

"Why do you think they are using her to peddle the G-Virus on the Black Market?" Claire gasps as Leon's fingers clench tighter into the denim of his jeans, his eyes closed tightly as he remembers another nightmare from Raccoon City.

"I don't know, Claire… But we need to focus on the real mission at hand. There is a shady character out there with fresh documents and bio-ware that we need to apprehend. We can investigate the lead on Sherry while we are there, but Claire, our mission is that bio-ware deal."

Claire sighs and nods slowly, her mind finally registering again that there are things bigger than her own regrets and mistakes, "Do me a favor before we leave?"

"Sure?" Claire is apprehensive at what this favor might be, but smiles as the words leave his lips.

"Don't you dare dye your hair, red is a good color on you," and with that, Leon Kennedy heads home for the night.

11

How stupid can she be!? Leon speeds through the streets of downtown Tuscon on his way home, loud heavy metal blaring on the radio to keep him awake.

How could she even think I would blame her for what happened to Sherry? It was his fault, he should've taken her with him that day, and it was just simple errands, something to keep her mind busy. She wanted to go of course, both of them hated being alone, but he persuaded her to stay home, saying he wouldn't be gone long. A punch to the steering wheel almost sets off the airbag as Leon takes a sharp right into his neighborhood. Everyone at their Anti-BOW organization has demons they are fighting, which is why they need to rely on each other for support….

"Great," Leon steps out of the car and slams the door before hitting the lock button on his keyless entry, "I get to be Jill to her Chris…. Damn it…."

11

Chris lights another cigarette as Jill strolls into his office, her face trying hard to hide a smirk, "What's on that mind of yours, Jill?"

"It's kinda cute watching the two of them dance around their feelings… Think that's how we were after the Arklay Mission?" She sits down on top of his desk and crosses her legs, knocking his feet off the desk in the process.

"Maybe, think I should lay down some ground rules for dating my sister?" a large cloud of smoke circles into the air, startled slightly by the slow-spinning fan overhead.

The woman with the chocolate pony-tail chuckles and leans over toward her partner, "She's a grown woman, Chris… I think it might be a little late for that at this point…"

"Ah," the male Redfield stubs out the cigarette into an ashtray before locking eyes with Jill and smiling, "I can still smack Leon around if he hurts her, right?"

A heavy sigh from his female cohort makes his smile widen more as she replies, "Sometimes I wonder why I love you…"

11

A hand wipes the steam from the mirror in the small bathroom, a coy smile greeting the returning red roots to Claire's hair, "There you are…"

In Claire's college before she ventured to Raccoon City, there was a lot of stigma and hate pointed to redheads, as they were so rare anymore. To better hide and be who she needed to be, Claire decided going with the same shade of brown as her brother was a viable alternative to not being able to really set foot on the campus she was attending. During the Raccoon Incident though, with all the sweat and dunks in sewage, the brown washed out, revealing to Leon and Sherry that she was a natural redhead with brunette undertones.

"Why did I keep dying it after?" she knows the answer though as she asks the question to no one.

It was her attempt to regain some of the normalcy of her life before Umbrella stomped on it with a foot clad in the blood of everyone who they killed. She has to admit though, seeing the red again makes her feel better, like she can finally turn the page and start being the person she was meant to be: A Redfield.

Leon… Claire begins running her brush through her wet hair as her mind starts to wander from Sherry's whereabouts for the first time since she saw the photo.

After she left Sherry and Leon outside Raccoon City, Claire always wondered what he was up to, how Leon was doing, whether or not he was dealing with the stress better than she was able to. In their few emails and calls while she was chasing Chris down in Europe, he mentioned a few times the woman, Traitor… Ada… She couldn't understand his attachment to her; they knew each other for even less time than she knew Leon for.

As Claire brings her towel up to start removing the rest of the water from her hair, her blue eyes focus on one of the scars above her collarbone, "Steve…"

When she shot out the spotlight on Rockfort Island and heard that voice scream out at her, Claire didn't expect to have found someone she could connect with so quickly. As they made their way through the prison and Claire learned more about Steve Burnside she began to see how it was possible for Leon to almost be in love with Ada Wong, even when she turned out to be a spy… As he died in her arms, Claire felt a part of her die and wondered if this is the weight that Leon always carried with him?

"Face facts, Claire… Even when you were falling for Steve, Leon was never far from your thoughts," she huffs at her own remark as the towel is tossed over the rail of the shower curtain.

Before long though, as Claire is now sliding into bed in fresh pajamas, her mind drifts to one of her great mistakes: leaving Sherry. The little girl was counting on her, saw Claire as a big sister, maybe even a surrogate mother, and she just left the little blonde child. As Claire slowly falls asleep to the sounds of her own sobs, her mind drifts to a single thought.

The three of us are bound by our love and betrayal…

11

Chris jolts up with a start as a small file is dropped loudly to his desk, helped by a heavy hand from his partner, "What the hell is that?"

"All the files we have combined with Claire's notes on the G-Virus and its antigen," the brunette drops down into the chair opposite his and starts perusing the files contained within.

A gloved hand is run across the furrowed brow of the male in the room, who then yawns out his next question, "Why? What does this have to do with Wesker?"

"Nothing," Valentine never looks up from the file she picked up. "It has everything to do with your sister though."

A huff from her partner and lover brings a smile to Jill's lips as he gives in, like he always does, "Guess I can have DeChant take over the hunt for Wesker. He's earned a little more power over the team I assume… Where do we start?"

"Well we need to find out why Sherry is appearing at more and more Umbrella Bio-Ware deals. Claire said they cured her G-Virus infection, right?"

Chris quickly thumbs through the loose papers from his sister's stack and stops as he reads something about a devil, "Here, this might be… Oh my god…"

Jill reaches for the paper to read it herself, but his calm voice begins to spill forth words that weigh down her heart, "The duration of time for the process to run its course will vary from subject to subject. In the early stages of cellular invasion, it is possible to halt progression of the metamorphosis through administration of the G-Vaccine Antigen."

"Halt progression? So it's not really a cure?" her mood darkens more as Chris affirms her suspicions.

"They have found a way to use Sherry Birkin as a living petri-dish for G-Virus samples…"

Before Jill can ask a question, Chris drives a hard-thought nail home, "We can't tell Claire…. She already blames herself for Sherry's predicament enough… If we reveal this to her, she might fall apart during their mission…"

"Think it's about time you and I get back out in the field and kick over a few rocks to get to the truth?" Jill smiles as Chris clenches a fist in agitation.

11

"Now boarding flight 7722 nonstop service to Paris."

Leon taps Claire's leg and slowly stands up, slinging his carry-on bag over his shoulder before leaning down to shake the sleeping woman he is about to fly to Paris with, What I wouldn't give to be in Paris without a gun, mission, or goal…

"Come on sleepy… The other dwarfs are waiting for us…." he smiles as she swats him away and groans.

"Okay, Dopey…." She chuckles as she hears Leon groan and help her up.

Nothing like a flight at one in the morning to really get the blood flowing as the team walks up to the airport worker and scans their tickets to gain entry to the plane. The woman smiles politely at the two of them before looking down at Leon's bag with a frown.

"I'm sorry sir, but new airline regulations state that any bag that can't fit in the overhead compartment must be checked at the gate and handed over to the loading crew to be stored under the plane."

Leon frowns and replies, "Ma'am, I have a lot of very sensitive documents in here… Personal files of my clients, medical histories, payment histories, stuff I would rather not have someone snooping through."

The smile on her face immediately vanishes, "I assure you sir, your privacy and those of your clients will be protected. The bag is too big and will need to be handed off to airport personnel to be loaded into the cargo bay."

Before Leon can explode on the woman and possibly get them in trouble, Claire steps up and replies, "I am so sorry for the aggravation, but we have a young woman in Paris with a medical condition that is very time sensitive… If we don't look over her files on the way to Paris, we might slip up somewhere in treatment and she will die. I don't know if you can live with that on your conscience, but we can't, not as doctors…"

A growl from the woman, a concerned look from the airport guard, that tingle of excitement before something drastic happens, then a smile is beamed at them, "Of course, doctors. My apologies and welcome aboard."

11

"Look! It fits perfectly!" Leon beams with pride as he sits down in his seat next to Claire, oblivious to the dirty glares from the other passengers who were held up by his five minute fight with the cramped compartment space.

"Tell me why we risked being arrested for that bag? You did just pack the essentials, right?" blue eyes cut into the Skymall magazine in her hands as Leon chuckles and pats the space above his head.

"Our files on the mission in Paris, cameras, encrypted phones, bugs of all sizes…" Claire doesn't exactly like the sound of that.

"And how did you get that through the X-ray scanner?" Claire sighs in defeat as Leon holds up a Press Badge he had the organization make before they packed up for the airport.

"Told them that my camera and film are sensitive to radiation of any kind. They did a quick physical examination and waved me through."

As the stewardess speaks over the paging system about the safety protocols of the plane, Claire just shakes her head and snaps back, "One of these days you are going to get us in trouble with those fake badges, Kennedy…"

"Enjoy the flight, heard our in-flight movie is the new Walking Dead movie."

"Seriously? Zombies? Ugh…." Claire presses a pillow into her face to squelch the scream.

"Could be worse," Leon opens a bag of peanuts he found in the pouch in the seat in front of him, "imagine a virus outbreak in an airport…"

A laugh from his partner, "Yeah, what would they do? Seal the place and keep everyone inside until someone takes a small team inside?"

"Probably be some stereotypical badass too with a cheesy one-liner," Leon shares in the laugh as the plane quickly begins to take off down the runway.

11

"No…. Why would they go to the CDC office? Common sense dictates that to be one of the first places you go for sanctuary…. Your first goal should be getting OUT of the city!" Leon has to duck as some of the other passengers toss pillows and other small items at him for another outburst about the movie.

Claire rolls over from the window and smiles at how angry he looks while watching the movie, "Stop getting angry… He's just trying to protect his family and do his job as a police officer.. You can relate right?"

"Oh yeah I can… Still though… He needs to accept that most of the county is probably infected by now…." Leon shakes his head as another zombie is killed by the Sherriff's large caliber weapon.

"Leon, instead of looking at the movie with the eyes of a man who has survived a few outbreaks… Watch it with eyes of the man I met in Raccoon City, the one who wanted to brave every danger to rescue any survivor he could find," she places a hand on his shoulder before rolling back toward the window.

"And keep quiet or I'll throw you out the emergency exit I am sleeping next to…" A laugh from her companion lulls Claire to sleep as the jet engines hum outside her window.

END