A/N. Ain't it sad when it takes so long for someone to update? Even when they have the chapter written out? But thank you soooooo much to those that reviewed! I'm trying to improve my writing and ya'll help!

World Of Make Believe- Chapie 2-

A breath…than nothing. No air came into her lungs, no life filtered though her body. Was she dead? Could she really be dead? After everything? Her body felt so lifeless, so cold…yet she could feel, almost taste, her pulse beating in her throat. Her heart was speeding away yet she could not move nor breath.

Darkness…it was all she saw. Even though Claire's eyes shined in beauty everything around her was black.

Warmth. A sudden rush of heat spread over her flesh. It washed over her skin, allowing the ice she was encased within to melt away. It flowed into her heart, allowing heat to be pumped through her veins… Her senses returned, a strong bitter sent filled the air. Her fingers slowly touched the warmth that freed her, it slipped from her grasp, she felt a rippling substance covering her skin. Claire brought her wet hand close to her face…

…Blood…

She was covered in blood. Waves of it washed over her body. She wanted to move, she tried to run away but her feet failed her. She wanted to scream, the blood's temperature was dropping, the substance was turning cooler as each second passed. She opened her mouth to scream but nothing came out, not even a breath. Her body was sinking into the cold crimson liquid, one last chance, she tried one last time to scream. It was too late, the blood covered her face, and she was lost.

…Life…

As the world of dreams left Claire's mind her eyes shot open. She actually thought to see nothing but red in her vision. She half expected to see her bedroom's white walls to be stained with the blood she had seen in her dream, but no, she was right where she had been hours ago. Funny how much a dream can influence you.

She turned to the alarm clock on the nightstand. The glowing 2:46 AM was the only source of light in the room, aside from the moonlight that flowed from the window above her headboard. The rest of her room was bare, a small desk & and dresser stood near the door but other than that the room was empty. She never did get around to give her room personality, Chris had always told her to use money for personal things after she paid for the essentials. She was no Martha Stuart, so living in a white square box didn't really bother her.

'Quarter of Three? Damnit.'

Sighing, she plowed her face back into her pillow as if it were a way to allow her to fall asleep faster. Than she laid there, her mind and arms open with an invitation for sleep to take over again. What seemed like hours went by, Claire would switch between fumbling with her blanket and replacing her pillow to a more comfortable position. She looked back at her clock and groaned.

'2-fuckin'-fifty five.'

When she was about to give in and just spend the rest of the early morning staring at her ceiling, an eerie 'creaking' sound was heard outside of the room. Of course she thought nothing of it, as a child she had always made a big deal of bumps during the night. In the end she had always been faced with humiliation of just hearing the wind. Over time she eventually learned that most homes and buildings make sounds that can only be heard when everything else is silent.

Creeaaaak! Another creak followed the first one. Again, Claire was going to let it slide but the second sound was accompanied with a soft 'Click'. She recognized that 'click', it sounded like a door closing. It would be impossible for her to hear any of the doors of her neighbors…it had to be a door in her apartment.

'What the hell?'

By this point she had sat up in her bed, bed sheets half peeled from her body, her ears were at full attention now. Her eyes were glued her bedroom door in front of her. She listened for anything, any voices, as each second passed she felt herself slip back into her frightened childhood self.

Crash! Metal, glass, something of that sort could be heard breaking in her living room.

'Shit!'

Claire's body scrambled from her disheveled bed. She no longer focused on any more noise from the room over, all she cared about was getting to her dresser. She grabbed open the middle drawer, she could feel her pulse quicken in her throat.

'Gun, gun, gun, gun!'

It took a few seconds of searching through clothing, but she eventually came upon a small handgun. Even after the incidents with Umbrella Claire still insisted to have a loaded gun somewhere in her household. Sure the handgun wasn't a rocket launcher, but as long as the person in her house was human, she didn't think she'd have a problem.

Silence…Claire moved to the closed door and pressed her ear to it. Her body trembled as she heard what was on the other side. There were moments of muffled steps, of fabric brushing against whoever wore it. Claire could almost picture a shadowy figure moving towards her bedroom door, opening the door and taking her into the dark. Then she heard nothing…no steps…nothing at all. Only the sound of her quickened breathing filled the room.

'Choices…go out there…see what it is. Or stay in hear and wait for it to come in here…or leave her alone. Oh yeah right, what if it's a rapist? If a rapist were to break into a house to find a victim would they really search every room, but say "Ah fuck it." when they reach the bedroom? No!'

She didn't know when it happened, but her slender finger reached down to the door handle. After taking one more deep breath, she slowly turned the handle, saying a prayer in doing so. It had been so long since she pulled a gun trigger.

In one swift motion she swung the bedroom door open; gun pointed forward, mentally ready to pull the trigger… there was nothing there. No burglar trying to carry off with her TV, no creepy man trying to sneak into her room, no monster getting ready to pounce on her. There was nothing, just her small, lonely apartment.

She stepped away from the doorframe and started counting down from 10, she needed to calm herself down and she had once heard that counting helps calming the nerves.

'10...9...'

She took another step away from her room.'

'…8...7...6...'

Even though the curtains were pulled away from apartment's windows the room was still hauntingly dark. Claire reached over hoping to feel for the familiar touch of the light switch.

'…5...4...3...'

Her fingers found the switch, she slid it up….and no light came into the room. Her heart began to pick up more speed as she repeatedly tried to turn the light on...

'…2...1...'

If the light was on maybe she would have seen the figure behind her, the figure who clung close to the wall in order to hide from detection, the figure clothed in the shadows. It wasn't until the figure took a step forward that Claire spun around. She had heard the step, and was prepared to point her gun at whatever came up.

A flash of movement happened before her, a piece of shadow reached out and knocked the gun out of her hand. She hadn't even seen the movement. She saw that the gun fell back into her bedroom. She gasped and tried to retreat back into the room but the figure reached out and grabbed her by both arms.

"Let me go!" She gasped out, but the figure did not let go, two strong hands gripped her flesh. Claire tried to kick the attacker away, but before she knew it the was pushed onto her couch. Her persistence was still alive and she continued her attempts at escaping. No good, it was useless, even though she refused to think that way, "I said let me go!" She screwed her eyes shut, she didn't want to see the evil that held her.

"Claire!" The figure said.

"No!"

"Shhhh, Claire it's me!" The man said. The deep voice spoke to her softly, she began to realize how softly his hands really gripped her, "It's me." He said again. This forced Claire to slowly open her eyes. Her vision was blurred from the trail of tears that poured from her eyes, but that didn't stop her from realizing who held her. He looked different than when she had last seen him. Older, taller, she could barely belive that it was the same man she had once known. His eyes. She remembered the bright shining blue eyes that Leon once had, she had always enjoyed looking into them. Now the blue eyes had a mixture of gray, she wondered what he hid behind those eyes. He had the same hairstyle; the length ending below his ears and parted away from the gray orbs.

"Le- Leon?" The young woman could barely speak, hell, her heart was still doing laps from the rush of fear that had just passed through her body moments ago.

"Yeah. It's me Claire, it's me. Calm down, please calm down, I'm sorry Claire, I'm-" He was interrupted with the sudden hug he received from her. She gripped his shoulder blades as tight as she could. Small rivulets of tears continued to pour from her face.

"I didn't know who you were!" She coughed out, "Leon, Leon I could have shot you! What if I shot you!"

She felt his arms hold her in return, all she wanted was to be held and be away from danger and he recognized that need, "Than that would've sucked. Don't worry about it."

A long moment of near-silence passed between the pair. The only sounds were of Claire letting the last of her tears out and of Leon trying to just calm her down. Every time she tried to close her eyes and stop the tears a new batch began to flow down her flesh.

'He's back…he's back'

Those words kept repeating through her mind as the moments passed.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

'Nice going Kennedy, you nearly gave the girl a heart attack!'

"Are you okay?" He had let go of the girl and sat next to her on the couch. He hadn't meant to break into her apartment and scare her, the whole situation was blown way out of proportion. He had been hoping that she would be sleeping and that they would have met more "peacefully" but it was too late for any of that.

She was wringing her hands, but she had stopped crying at least, "Yeah, I'm fine. God Leon I'm sorry I…I-"

"No, no, no…" He put up a palm to stop her, "Claire I should have known better than to sneak into your home at night. You were smart to assume I was someone trying to hurt you."

She nodded and stared at her lap; smoothing out the wrinkles across her loose fitting sleepwear. Her long, chestnut hair was completely dishevled and hiding her face, "It's okay Leon." Her head raised up, knotted locks of hair fell away, revealing her face to him, "Are you okay?"

He laughed a little to try to lighten the mood, "Yeah, yeah don't worry about me."

Another long silence passed between the pair, Leon couldn't think of anything that might make the situation easier, he wondered if Claire felt too uncomfortable with things.

"I'm sorry…" Claire cleared her throat, she lightened her voice as if the pair was having a normal chat, on a normal day, "What does bring you to my home at this time of night Leon Kennedy?" She paused again, "Or should I say Agent Kennedy?"

Leon formed a smile, "I'd prefer Leon. Hey, I said I'd meet up with you, and so I came here to do just that."

His own smile was met with her own, "Ah, correction. You said you'd call me."

"…I guess I did didn't I. Well again I'm sorry to cause you trouble."

"Don't say 'Sorry' anymore, I understand." Claire stood up and began to walk away from the couch and into her kitchen. Leon watched her go, and soon got up, hoping to join her. That was until something caught his eye.

'…Shit.'

On his way to the kitchen he noticed the pieces of glass that lay scattered across the apartment's carpet. He stopped at the site and called over to Claire who had begun to fill a glass of water, "Will you accept one more apology?" He kneeled over to the mess and carefully began picking up the remains of the lamp he had broken in his entry. In the darkness all of the shards looked black or at least dark, but as he inspected a piece closer it was clear that the glass was a variety of translucent colors.

Claire's voice could be heard behind him, "And what would it be for?" Leon could hear her soft footsteps as he continued to clean up the sharp glass. He found himself cleaning up as fast as he could, as if he was a child who feared getting in trouble, "Leon? What happened?"

He half turned to look at her, "It happened when I came in, sorry, I couldn't see well in the dark." Again he turned back to the mess and continued to clean.

"Oh, so that's the crash I heard!" She exclaimed, "Thank god I thought it was something else." Before he knew it she had knelt beside him to help. Soon Leon had gathered every shard of glass, Claire finished the clean-up by taking the pieces of metal that had encased the light bulb.

"So you've already got into my apartment," She started to say as she directed him to the waste basket beneath her sink, "scared the shit outta me, and broken my lamp. I see you know how to act like a roommate."

Leon followed Claire's actions of disposing the trash, "I hope I having been implying anything…" He leaned back against the kitchen counter, "I have no problem leaving if you have a problem-"

"No!" Leon was shocked at her sudden answer, he noticed that she seemed a bit embarrassed after speaking so quickly. He didn't realize that she was relieved to still have the darkness to hide her reddened cheeks, "…Leon it's perfectly fine if you stay here. The couch folds out into a bed, you can get my room." She walked back into the living room and over to the couch.

"Hey, no, no you can keep your room. I'll take the couch!" He met her at the couch and started to assist her in folding out one of their sleeping quarters.

Of course the 'ol Redfield stubbornness still ran through her veins, "No way, what kind of host would I be if I kicked you to the couch?" They had succeeded in unfolding the mattress, now they were checking to make sure everything was stable.

"A smart one." He laughed while leaning over the soft cushions, "I really don't think you want me alone in your room with all of your things." He winked at her and smiled. Claire rolled her eyes and turned away, It was a feeble attempt to hide the smile that curved up her lips. She had failed.

'You just got here, now's not the time to flirting, she probably doesn't even appreciate it!'

"I see." Said Claire, still hiding a smile. She strolled over to the nearby closet and took out several blankets and pillows. "Well, fine then. Get some sleep now, but when morning comes 'round I want to hear everything that you've been doing." She tossed the pile onto the bed and put her hands on her hips, "Are you sure this is okay?"

"This will be fine. Go back to sleep Claire."

"Right," She said almost uncertain as she , "Sweet dreams Leon. And…I'm glad that you're here." He watched her hurriedly make her way back into her room and couldn't help but smile.

'Sweet dreams. I wish.'

A/N. Uhg, I feel like I rushed that chapter. Well……..yeah that's chapter…..2.…--Crickets Chirping--…..hey it's 11:30 PM and I just feel like typing periods!…..