AN: I just got into Resident Evil, and played all of 7 and 8 with my husband. Needless to say, the ending of 8 BROKE ME. So I needed to fix it. So here ya go. It's fixed.

Ethan could barely control his trembling as he held his precious Rose in his arms. After everything he'd been through in the past, what, thirty-six hours? Fuck, how could it only have been thirty-six hours since he and Mia were standing in the kitchen, preparing dinner? But wait, that hadn't even been Mia. It was Miranda, for who knew how long. He needed Mia again, he needed his wife.

He moved on autopilot as Chris helped him out of the ruins and across the bridge, ignoring the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as he glanced at his crumbling hand. He was falling apart, literally. Whatever was keeping him alive, or undead, or whatever he was, was failing. Ethan could feel it, he'd just sustained too much damage this time. He didn't have much time left. He closed his eyes against the tears as he realized he wasn't going to see Mia again. He wasn't going to see Rose grow up, say her first word, go to school, get married, none of it. Ethan was dying, permanently this time, and there wasn't anything that he could do about it.

But there was one more thing he could to do protect his family, and Chris too. He could save them the horrific image of him turning to filth and dust, and permanently destroy the megamycete in the process.

Ethan stumbled at the end of the bridge, getting up the courage to do one last thing to save his precious daughter. But Chris was holding onto him, holding him upright. When Ethan stumbled, so did Chris.

"Hey, come on, you can do this," Chris grunted out. "We're almost there."

"I'm not gonna make it," Ethan replied, his voice shaking. For the past thirty-six hours, all he'd felt was fear. That fear was finally dissipating, now that Rose was once again in his arms, but it was being replaced by a bone crushing grief at the certainty that he was never going to see Mia again, or watch his daughter grow up. "We both know it." He gestured to his right hand, which was already calcifying and turning to dust.

"You've got time," Chris practically growled in reply, dragging Ethan another few feet. "But we have to hurry. We can't blow this thing until we're in the air."

"It doesn't matter," Ethan said, refusing to move another step, forcing Chris to stop. "I can't let Mia see me die like this. I don't want you to see it either."

"You're not gonna die."

"I've been dead for years-"

"Ethan, it might have been the mold keeping you alive since Louisiana, but it won't be for much longer. Did you not think that we would have been synthesizing a cure?"

"You don't even know if it'll work," Ethan replied. They really were wasting time now. He needed to grab the detonator from Chris and force him and Rose out of there. Ethan looked back down at the perfect baby in his arms. He wasn't going to get much more time to look at her again. She looked so much like him, with Ethan's own crystal blue eyes and blond hair, but she was more perfect than he could even dream of being. The precious life he held in his arms was the only thing, aside from Mia, that Ethan would've gone through such hell for. And he would do it all again if he had to. He would do anything for her, his precious Rosemary.

"Of course I know it'll work," Chris said, sounding almost offended, but completely certain. The grip he had on Ethan tightened, and Ethan once again felt himself being pulled along. Ethan was tempted to let him, the thought that maybe he wouldn't have to die overriding anything else for a moment. "It was developed by an old friend of mine, an actual genius in biochemistry who's saved thousands of lives with her work, and that's gonna include you too, whether you like it or not." Chris dragged him along further, his ridiculously muscled arms wrapping tighter around him, making it impossible for Ethan to stop them once again. "You're gonna be okay, I promise," Chris continued, sounding more sincere than Ethan had ever heard him. "We have the cure with Mia. You might lose the hand that's already calcified, but we have access to the best prosthetics in the world."

Despite himself, Ethan let out a brief laugh. "I'm no stranger to losing hands."

He could feel Chris picking up their pace as he scoffed at the lame attempt at a joke. They'd wasted time with Ethan trying to argue that he should stay. He held Rose tighter against him and tried to walk faster, knowing that Chris was doing most of the work.

The grief that was gripping his heart as tightly as Chris gripped his arm and waist was loosening, being replaced with a cautious hope, that maybe it really was all going to be okay, that he would be cured, that he would get to see Mia again and watch Rose grow up. He let that hope fuel his every step, and distract him as the calcification grew to his wrist, where not even a day earlier, his hand had been severed. Maybe Ethan should've known something was up when that first aid med had been able to completely reattach the severed hand and bring it back to complete health, but in his defense, he'd been a bit more concerned with finding his daughter and escaping the ten foot tall vampire woman who'd done the severing and her cronies. At the time, he'd been perfectly fine taking that one win and moving on.

But maybe it had all ended up being a win. The massive helicopter or whatever it was had come into view. Maybe they really were going to make it. Maybe everything was going to be okay after all.

"We're almost there," Chris said. "Mia's waiting for you, and so is the cure."

Ethan couldn't stop his sob of joy from escaping as Chris helped him into the helicopter thing and his beautiful wife was beside him once again. The helicopter immediately took off.

"Mia," he cried. The last time he'd seen her - or at least, seen someone wearing her face - she'd been riddled with bullets, lying dead on the floor of his kitchen. But she was here now, and she was okay. He fell into her arms, careful to keep Rose secure in his own. "Mia," he repeated like a prayer.

"Oh, Ethan," Mia said, her own voice thick with tears. "Rose." She pulled away just enough to pull Rose up and into her own arms. Ethan was hesitant to let her go, illogically afraid that if he ever let her out of his arms, he'd never see her again. But Chris was there, and Chris was pulling him to sit down.

"There'll be plenty of time for your emotional reunion later," he said, his voice gruff as always. "You gotta take the cure right now, unless you wanna turn to ash."

Only a moment later, Chris was sitting next to him, injecting something into his neck. Ethan grimaced at the pain, but immediately felt that pit in his stomach disappear. He didn't quite feel stronger, or like he hadn't gone ten rounds with vampire women and werewolves and a creepy demon doll and a mutated fish person and a Magneto wannabe and all their minions and whatever the hell Miranda had been, but he did feel more whole. The calcified remains of his right hand fell off his arm, hitting the floor and turning to dust, but Ethan found that he didn't care. Once you've experienced your hand being severed twice before, the shock value was gone. He would take learning how to write left-handed over dying and never being with his family again.

"Thank you," he said, turning to Chris. "Without you, I wouldn't be here. I owe you everything."

Chris smiled back at him, but it was full of pain. "Don't mention it," he said. "Without me, maybe none of this ever would've happened. Now go hold your family." He abruptly stood, and walked away.

Ethan felt the shock wave rock the helicopter almost immediately after hearing the explosion. Chris had detonated the bomb. The megamycete was gone, hopefully forever. No family would ever have to suffer like the Bakers did, like Ethan and Mia and Rose did, ever again.

Mia sat next to him, with Rose in her arms. Ethan wrapped his arm around her, holding her as close as he could.

"I love you so much," Mia said. "I'm so sorry."

"It's alright," Ethan replied as happy tears filled his eyes once again. "We're okay." He pulled his wife and daughter impossibly closer. "It's over. We're gonna be okay."

No matter what was going to come in the future, no matter what Rose really was and what that meant, Ethan knew that everything was going to be alright. He'd saved his family, and that was all that mattered. His family, always and forever, would come before anything. They were all that mattered, and Ethan would die for them a million times. He was just glad that this time, he didn't have to.