Authors Note: Dear Readers, I am taking a break from my current work (Three Days In a Nightmare) to publish this work here. I don't quite know what inspired me to write it but here it is nonetheless. I hope you enjoy and look out for future updates of Three Days In a Nightmare soon.

Come Clean

Chapter 1: That Which Is Lost

Officer Leon Kennedy pushed open the doors to the 24th Lansing Precient and stepped out into the bone-cutting cold of the late November afternoon. As soon as he was outside he could already feel the frigid air setting into the skin of his face, stealing away the feeling and bringing out the red in his cheeks. He smiled, it was cold but he didn't mind. He liked the freezing wind, and the snow on the ground and the sun in the sky. He liked having his life back on track.

'I don't have to run anymore, I don't have to hide anymore.' The cop thought, descending the stone steps to the station with one hand gripping his duffel bag and the other clenched tightly in his pocket. 'That's all behind me now. No more evil corporations. No more walking nightmares trying to have me for lunch. No more squatting like a fugitive in some rundown, roach motel. I can just be Officer Leon Kennedy again. God, it feels good to be able to say that.'

As he hit the bottom of the staircase Leon supposed that his thoughts weren't entirely true. There would probably always be evil corporations, companies willing to go to any length to turn a profit. There was no doubt in his mind that corporations who imposed child labor and environmental damage were terrible things but they couldn't really hold a torch to those that bred bio-organic killing machines in their basement. He shook his head it didn't matter though they were gone now. They were gone and he was free.

'Six years.' The young officer thought with a smile as he fished his car keys out of his pocket. Six years since the United States government had helped the small band of rebels dismantle the Umbrella Corporation. Six years since a daring raid on the company's European HQ had signaled the end of Umbrella and their insane science. Six years...it seemed like just yesterday he had been holed up in that run down, cardboard box of a hotel in Mexico waiting to receive word from Chris Redfield and the other ex-S.T.A.R.S. that it was safe to join them in Germany. Six years. It seemed like sixty.

With a jingle the keys to his Jeep came out of his jacket pocket, followed by a sharp, fiery pain that cut through his shoulder like a drill. Grimacing, he slowly rolled his shoulder and waited for the pain to recede. After a moment it did, as it had always done, but it served as unpleasant reminder of something else that had happened six years ago during that same, daring raid.

'I was with John and David. We were walking down a corridor, cold and sterile. It reeked of harsh cleansers and it was giving me a headache. We all had weapons drawn, we tried so hard to be alert, to be on guard but we never saw the soldiers, dressed all in black, creep up through the hatch behind us. They cut us to pieces. I saw David drop first and then John was turning. He was down before he even got turned around and then I fell. It felt like someone had driven a spike of fire through my shoulder...just like when Annette Birkin shot me in the sewers below Raccoon.'

Leon had taken two rounds through the shoulder, re-opening and further aggravating the wound he had suffered during his misadventure in Raccoon City. John Andrews and David Trapp hadn't been as lucky. They'd both been killed in the ambush, cut down before they could even raise their weapons. It had been six years since that day and the injury to his shoulder still caused him a great deal of pain. Not as much as the memory of his two dead friends but close.

'It could have been worse.' The officer reminded himself. 'If Chris and Barry hadn't shown up when they did I wouldn't be standing here today to complain about it. That soldier was standing right over me, his sidearm square with my head, I couldn't move. Thank God for those two. I got lucky.'

The screaming pain in his shoulder that he felt each day, along with the raw scar that accompanied it, would never let Leon forget how lucky he had been. Sometimes good memories came with the pain though. Memories about how after the raid on Umbrella's European HQ, accomplished with the help of an American military strike team, the United States government had cleared the names of all the rogues labeled as criminals by the corporation and its underlings. Government officials, corrupted by the insurmountable greed of the Umbrella Corporation were hastily routed out of office and given lengthy sentences.

After cleansing its own ranks of the filth of Umbrella, the government had done its best to compensate the rebels for their losses. Leon still had a great deal left over from what they had deposited in his bank account. Money certainly didn't help relieve any of the pain and suffering he had been forced to undergo, and he gladly would have returned every dime if it meant being able to turn back the clock, but knowing that the government had purchased your apartment and helped pay for your new Jeep was still a pleasant feeling. So was the knowledge that you could wake up and just go to work instead of having to prepare for another day of hiding and espionage.

Leon hit the bottom of the stairs and started for the parking lot. The pain in his shoulder forgotten, he smiled when he saw a familiar figure standing by his brand spanking new, midnight blue, Jeep. The auburn ponytail and knee-high leather boots a dead giveaway as to her identity.

"Hey Big Red." He said, giving the youngest Redfield sibling a toothy grin before tossing the duffel bag containing his change of clothes into the back of the Jeep. Normally, he would have slipped out of his uniform at the end of his shift but he'd felt that a shower should be in order first and the state of the department's facilities was simply detestable. "You're here early. I thought we weren't going to Windy O'Neil's Pub until later tonight? Jake doesn't get off for another two hours and Donna won't finish her shift at the hospital until..." Just then, Leon caught sight of her face and felt his heart skip a beat. "Oh my God. Claire, is something wrong?"

Clearly, something was. Her face, usually jovial and beaming was streaked with tears. Her gray eyes, normally vibrant and brimming with energy were red and swollen, dark bags of flesh hanging below them. Her red-brown hair, which she always kept so smooth and well combed, hung out in tufts of unkempt strands. Claire's shoulders shook inside the jacket she had on and Leon knew from her face that it had nothing to do with the cold Michigan weather.

"I..." Claire began and faltered, sniffing. Her tone sounded so strained, so hoarse. 'So broken'. Leon thought as she opened her mouth again. "It's my brother. He's...he's sick again."

"Shit." Leon breathed, shaking his head sadly. Chris Redfield had been a casual smoker almost all his life, lighting up a butt whenever his nerves started to wear thin. Ever since the disastrous mission to the Spencer Estate though, it had become a regular habit of his, only growing worse as the crusade against the Umbrella Corporation grew longer and the team of rebels came closer to bringing about the titan's downfall. In the time Leon had spent with Claire's brother he had never once between without a cigarette between his lips.

A week before the raid on Umbrella's base in Germany the ex-S.T.A.R.S. marksman had been diagnosed with lung cancer. Everyone in the small group had recommended he sit the mission out but Chris would be damned if he'd let them finish what he had started. While he had survived the raid it certainly did no wonders for his condition and the man steadily grew worse. For six years he fought off the cancer running through his lungs but recently the visits to the hospital had become more and more frequent. Whenever the young cop had gone stopped by to check on him Claire had been at his side every time, looking torn but nowhere near as ragged as she did now.

"Is he back at Saint Jude's?" Leon asked giving the name of the hospital Chris Redfield had been receiving treatment at lately. If he was back there then things were bad. Saint Jude was the patron saint of lost causes and the patients the hospital took on certainly reflected that. There were more cancer wings in that building than he could remember.

"Yeah." Claire gave a week nod, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Her voice was thin and terribly rough, like sandpaper scrapped over stone. "Jill called me a few minutes ago, she said he was having another coughing spell and then he just fell over in the living room so she called the paramedics and they're taking him back to Saint Jude's. I...I think she's there right now." Claire looked up at her friend, her gray eyes welling up with new tears, her voice cracking. "I...wouldn't bother you at work like this but my bike's in the shop and I knew I couldn't catch the bus in time and everyone left and...and...oh God! I know this is going to be it!"

The girl broke down, gripping the front of his uniform and pressing her face against Leon's chest as sobs shook her delicate shoulders. Leon didn't say he word, merely held the young woman against his chest by the same slender shoulders that shivered with each new sob. He smoothed out the wrinkles in her ponytail and tucked errant strands of auburn hair behind her ears. After a minute or so she inhaled deeply and dried her eyes with the palm of her hand.

"I'm sorry." Claire said weakly, pushing herself away. "I just wanted to know if I could bum a ride. I didn't mean to get so...so...I didn't mean to get snot all over your uniform." She offered him and weak smile.

"Hey, no problem." Leon chuckled. "I could use a change of clothes anyways, I bet you smelled me coming a mile away didn't you?" He sniffed one armpit and his nose crinkled with mock disgust. He was relieved to see Claire smile, even if it was just a slight tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"So...could you just drop me off at Saint Jude's?" She asked timidly. "You don't have to stay or anything. I...I just need to get down there quick. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to show up like this and bother you."

"Claire," Leon said sternly, holding the girl by the shoulders and lowering his face so that his eyes were level with hers. "You are not bothering me and I would be more than happy to give you a ride. Climb in."

Unlocking the passenger side door Leon gave his friend a hand in climbing up before circling around the vehicle and pulling himself into the driver's seat. Within moments they were cruising down the road to the opposite end of town where Saint Jude's Hospital lay. Leon glanced over and saw Claire nervously tugging at the hem of her skirt, eyes fixed straight ahead. He reached over with one hand and touched her shoulder, giving her as reassuring a smile as he could muster when she looked his way.

"Everything's going to be fine, alright?" He said, trying to sound soothing but afraid that he probably sounded just as worried as she had. "No matter what, everything's going to be fine."

Claire just nodded before turning her eyes back to the road and Leon knew that nothing he could say would give her any comfort. Not until she saw her brother at least. The youthful cop felt his heart go out to the girl as they drove on and she fidgeted with her skirt more.

In the six years he had known Claire Redfield he had always thought of her as his better. She was more intelligent than him, more quick-witted, more articulate, more...more everything. He often wondered if her heart was not composed half of gold and half of stone. She was always willing to offer you a shoulder to lean on or some kind words to keep you going and nothing you could do or say to the girl would wear down her resolve. Nothing could crush that spirit.

At least, that's what Leon had thought up until five minutes ago when she'd shown up leaning on his Jeep looking as if she hadn't slept in a week. Claire had survived the necropolis of Raccoon City with him. She'd nearly been captured and killed at the Umbrella facility in Utah. She had been captured at the Paris facility but, still, she'd managed to escape the horrors of Rockfort Island as well as the terror that had awaited her at the Antarctic base. Every time she had come back she'd greeted him with a warm smile and a warmed hug but now – now she was different.

There had been frailness in the way she had desperately clung to him, weeping against his chest. Her voice was stretched and weak. Nothing about the Claire Redfield he knew was weak. She was unbreakable. At least, he had thought so up until five minutes ago. 'Everything will be alright.' He repeated the mantra to himself and pressed harder on the gas but he couldn't shake the remembrance of that desperate, pleading look in Claire's eyes.

He knew what that look was, he had worn it once after he dropped Ada while trying to escape the Umbrella labs in Raccoon City. It was a look of helplessness, of knowing that you were going to lose something and there was nothing you could do to stop it. It was the look one would wear when one knows that they are useless, when they know that they are about to lose something precious to them and that which is lost can never be reclaimed no matter how hard one might try.

'Everything will be all right, Claire. You'll see.' The words played over and over again through his mind as he drove on. After a moment though they were pushed away by a darker mantra. 'That which is lost can never be reclaimed.' Doing his best to ignore the voice, Leon drove onwards.