Chapter 3 - In Your Shoes
On that tiring first day after the accident, Robert went back home later than usual. The sun had set at least one hour before he reached the front door of his two-storey house. He dragged himself like a zombie, movements slowed down by weariness and depressed thoughts. He grabbed the doorknob and hesitated a little before opening the door. He could almost see what loomed ahead, and his heart ached badly at the thought of it.
He found his family waiting for him, expectant for good news. He frowned. He was going to disappoint them.
He waved at them to follow him in the living room on the right side of the staircase and threw himself on the armchair, pretty exhausted.
When they were all sitting, Chris and Claire on the facing sofa, Lily on the armrest next to him, he took a deep breath, rubbed his tired face and, mustering every ounce of courage, he started speaking.
"What happened yesterday... the blast... was due to an overload of moscovium and its bad interaction with the beryllium crystals used in the catalyst parts. It reacted in a stronger way than expected... I told them... I... warned them not to change the settings but they just wouldn't listen! The machine wasn't settled to contain the energy produced by the combination of that amount of those elements with that high voltage..." he sighed heavily and rubbed his forehead before continuing "fortunately I pushed the team to install a better radiation screen last month and it really absorbed most of the radioactivity... if that screen wasn't... there... we all would be... dead by now" his voice shook a bit and his eyes started watering, the thought of his kids' narrowly avoided death pierced his hurt father's heart.
He cleared his throat hoping it would help wiping his eyes too. "Anyway, we all know what the consequences of the blast are... I've spent all day talking to engineers and other scientists from both the Neuro-research section and the Radium Team from the Arklay City branch. Listen, I don't want to give false hope to anyone here, nobody today told me the process is reversible but nobody said it is impossible either! There's a small chance the joint teamwork might lead to a solution... but it will take time to discover."
He raised his hand to stop any of the question he knew were coming from his beloved audience and kept talking "it's too early to say how long it would take, I can only assure you that a team of over 25 of the most genial minds in the Umbrella Corporation will work on it, including me. We have stopped every other current project to fix what occurred yesterday. Even Dr Miller and Dr Parker are involved. We won't stop until we find a solution. I promise."
The room went silent. What Rob had just told them wasn't much... they weren't sure he was giving them hope or just trying to convince himself he could make up. Still, it was better than nothing.
It would take time. That sentence was heavier than all the rest of their father's speech. Their fear had just been confirmed: they would have to deal with that situation for more than just a day.
"There's one more thing I have to say..." Rob started again, hesitating a bit before continuing "what happened... ought to be kept secret. Orders from above."
He looked right in his kids' eyes with a really serious gaze.
Keeping it secret.
That was another heavy sentence. Hard to swallow.
Chris and Claire exchanged a slightly startled look and real Claire reached for real Chris' hand and held it tight, careful not to squeeze it too much.
Ok. It would take more than a day, and they wouldn't be talking about it with anyone. Not even their closest friends. This complicated everything. Even more.
"I know this is scary" Rob said getting up from the armchair and kneeling down in front of his kids, cupping their cheeks in his palms "but this... switching thing... is not something to go talking around. I know it's cynical… I mean the Umbrella's head office's reasoning. They are only interested in not ruining the company public image with a scandal. But their "suggestion" is the right one... I mean... uhm..."
"... Who would ever believe us?" real Chris finished his father's sentence, with a stern look on his feminine face "everyone would think either we went crazy or are big liars making a fool of them."
Claire looked away. Chris was right. Again. They had no choice but keeping that awful thing a secret. Not Jill, not Rebecca, not Leon, not a single one of her friends should know that the boy in front of them was actually her and not Chris. Dammit. That's twisted!
Real Claire was laying in her bed, eyes locked to the ceiling reverberating the pale pink glow coming from the flamingo lamp. Her room was imbued in a rosy dim light, the furniture's shapes melting with the walls, dull sparkles of pink light reflecting from the sheer curtain of her closet entrance, timid moonlight filtering from the window, it all looked cosy and calming, but she couldn't sleep.
She wasn't spacing out though, she was actually pretty focused on feeling her heartbeats. They were slow but strong. She laid there with her arms alongside her torso, legs slightly spread open... in short, she was laying like a dead body in a morgue.
Nevertheless, she was alive.
Her heartbeats were there to prove it and were real. Though it was her brother's heart the one she was feeling pounding steady inside her chest (well, actually even the chest wasn't hers), she was alive.
She grinned a bit at the thought that her real heart was beating as well just on the other side of the wall in front of her bed, behind her walk-in closet.
Chris was alive too then. That sudden realisation, commonplace as it actually was, made her widely smile for the first time in the last 24 hours. Chris was safe and sound. His heart was beating too. As long as both of their hearts kept doing their job they were both alive. That's all that mattered.
Chris is fine.
She lifted a hand and placed it over her heart, where it indicatively should have been. She winced a bit for she still felt weird in touching those tight pectorals. She felt it, under her palm, the slow powerful pounding.
She didn't move her hand, it raised and lowered along with her breathing but she kept it firm. She closed her eyes as she wasn't still at ease even at just touching her new skin.
She had hugged her brother a million times in her life, she was used to feel his warm touch, yet now it was... different. She felt like she was stealing, taking something that didn't belong to her, doing something wrong - she couldn't really describe it any better - and that sent through her whole figure an uncomfortable quivering.
She was inside that body... a body stranger to her. Not her skin, not her shape, not her gender and still she could feel her own touch. She thought she would get used to it eventually. It was just a matter of time.
She focused again on her heartbeats. They were still there. Same slow pace. It reminded her of the times she and Chris would curl up on the sofa watching a good movie or a documentary and she'd place her head on his comfortable thick shoulder, feeling Chris' blood pumping right under her ear. Those same beats. She smiled. It was like having Chris by her side after all. This was enough to make her feel safe and loved. He was protecting and caring even if he wasn't really there.
Best brother ever.
She cuddled herself in those heart-warming thoughts for a while, when a sudden thought came out of nowhere like a thunder on a sunny day. "The slippers!"
She'd better have switched the slippers with Chris', because, being the 25th of September, the floor was starting to get too cool to just go around barefoot.
She got up and picked her beautiful hairy fluffy pastel mint green slippers and laughed at the thought of Chris having to wear them. Too girlish for him.
She left her room and knocked at her brother's door. As she got in, she found Chris in a loose-fitting t-shirt and large shorts. Those were actually his real clothes and looked so oversized on her thinner and shorter body.
Real Claire playfully laughed "Hey why aren't you wearing my amazing unicorn bed suit, uh?" Remembering perfectly how Chris would wrinkle his nose at her one-piece colourful baggy pyjamas.
He laughed, the first real laugh of the day, and laughed even more when hearing it, because it was like listening to Claire's laughter and he had missed it.
Curling his full lips into a wide smirk he snapped: "no way, Claire! Christopher Redfield is not gonna step into one of those ridiculous things you dare calling pyjamas, not even if he looks like a girl who would to."
His eyes fell on the slippers hanging in front of his ex body and widened. Oh shit.
Now it was Claire's turn to snap. "You can wear your shirts, Chris, but you would stumble every two steps if you walk around with those big slippers of yours over there!" She said pointing at a pair of dark grey enormous slippers scattered at the foot of his wide bed.
She was the one being damn right now.
Chris's footwear was too big for his new feet to wear. Also, he noticed that real Claire was walking around only in her socks and this wasn't good for her. Smirking, he picked up his pair from the floor and solemnly made the exchange with Claire, who immediately wore them feeling her feet warm up quickly.
Grey. What an ugly stupid non-colour it is, she thought.
Real Chris looked at the fluffy pastel pair in his hands, shaking his head, and finally wore them too, under the amused gaze of his sister.
"Well... at least they fit!" He said giggling and, as to prove that, he took few steps towards his desk and back placing even a little jump in the end. They both laughed. They needed that moment of light-heartedness, even if it wasn't meant to last long.
"I think that I, and by 'I' I actually mean you, by the way" Chris said "I need a shower. You stink, Claire."
Claire was confused. Whose body was he talking about? Was he suggesting he'd soon be slipping out of those baggy clothes and wash her body, her very naked body? One way to discover. She raised her arm a little and sniffed her armpit.
Ew!
He was definitely talking about her boyish new body. She frowned.
"It's late..." She sheepishly said but was interrupted by a resolute Chris' stare.
"I know. But tomorrow morning the first thing you'll have to do is a shower." He said. "You cannot stink forever. Being a boy doesn't allow anyone to smell bad" he added with a quiet laugh trying to defuse the increasing uneasiness Claire was showing.
He got closer and tugged that big body in a warm embrace. Still felt totally out of place.
Claire hugged him back, nestling her brother in her wide chest and wrapping him with those mighty arms. She nuzzled her chin on her ex crown and breathed in.
The thought of the inevitable shower, who she managed to set aside during the day, dawned again in her. She wasn't ready for that, it would surely be uncomfortable but... she had no choice. That was for sure and established.
She placed a goodnight kiss on those auburn hair and parted the hug. "Ok, Chris. Goodnight". She turned to walk away but was stopped by Chris gripping her arm.
Real Chris wasn't used to be that short at all, but he would never abandon his habit in giving Claire a goodnight kiss on her forehead. He made her bend down and placed his usual kiss on... well, his own forehead but that wasn't the point.
The real point was that some things wouldn't change. He was Chris after all. His behaviour towards his sister was still his. He would never ever stop caring for her, no matter how shorter or more delicate his new body would be.
Smiling shyly she turned and went back to her room. For the first time ever Chris' forehead kissing didn't have a soothing effect on her. Her worries were stronger. She just wanted to rest and stop her thoughts for the night. She would think about that damned shower the following day.
UNLOCKED CONTENT: you can now safely read the first chapter of my other fic "Behind the Scenes Chronicles", which is a parody spin-off of this story. You'll get a similar note everytime you unlock a new parody bit.