Chapter 21: The Ode of the Mother

When Leon Kennedy opened his eyes, he became aware of two things at once: He couldn't feel anything below his waist and Claire was nowhere to be found in the space he occupied on the plane.

Uniformed American soldiers lined the row of seats toward the back of the plane he was facing. One of them looked up as Leon raised his head. There was a man sitting directly next to him in a small chair that looked to be designed for the flight crew captain; the chair faced the aisle instead of the typical forward-facing position for passengers.

In a moment, Leon took in the minor and major injuries he could feel. He lifted a shaking hand to his chest and felt the scrape of the gauze bandages that lay across his bare torso in a crisscross pattern; blood had slightly come through, but it looked to be a few hours old.

When the plane hit a patch of turbulence, Leon winced and felt the burned skin of one side of his face throb in the reminder of the body he now controlled again. That pressure in his chest he had come to know was absent and the feeling of dread and shame began to take its place as his mind began to roll over the last two months of actions he performed without a single note of advocacy.

Despair caught him and he struggled to breathe for a moment.

"Agent Kennedy?" The man in the flight captain's seat was standing now.

"I don't think I'll be holding that title much longer." Leon felt himself utter the words and he was still amazed that his thoughts could breach his lips. His knuckles were matching the color of the sheet covering the lower half of his body as he clenched them tightly.

"Look at me, agent."

Leon tore his eyes from his body and met the heavy stare of the man beside him. He was shining a light in one eye before he dipped the beam beneath his chin and shined it into the other eye.

"Surprised you're awake. There's no beating around the bush on this, I can't imagine what you've seen, but your blood pressure is rising. If you can't keep calm, I'm going to sedate you. We're entering American airspace now. We have another hour before we arrive at medical."

"I'd settle for alcohol." Leon quipped at the minor threat the presumed medic posed. When he considered the words, he wasn't sure if he wanted to be conscious anyway.

The medic leaned over Leon as he pressed a few buttons on a monitor beside him. When he pulled back, Leon stated, "I can't feel my legs."

"You most likely have severe nerve damage. Can't say I know much about the machine that girl used, but whatever she did got rid of your little problem."

"Where is she?" Leon's voice became harsh as he tried to sit up but was stopped by the large, calloused hand of the medic before him.

"She stayed behind to help the other agents."

"And you let her?" The monitor beside Leon began to beep again, this time a little more erratically.

"Agent Kennedy—"

"She's a civilian. She was alone—" Leon started as he watched the medic step back and reach for something in his bag.

"She also managed to survive in a hostile country, somehow stopped you even after the previous teams were decimated and was willing to take on whatever was coming when we came through that door. You didn't see her, Kennedy; she wasn't a woman you said no to." A man sitting in the chairs in front of him called.

Leon paused at the man's words and felt as the sedatives began to take effect. He cut his eyes over to the medic who was pulling the needle from the IV line.

"No, she's not." Leon conceded softly as he felt the world sway around him. "I myself would rather not say 'no' to her ever again."

"She said she'd come find you soon." The medic called through his chemical haze.

"She always does." Leon said before sleep began to drag him down. The blue eyes of the woman he had loved for the last six years filtered through his head and he wished he had more time to talk with her before he had passed out in that chair.

Claire Redfield had absolutely saved his life.

Leon was glancing back down at his legs before his head fell back again. The question was, what kind of life was it now?

"Smith," Orski called as the teams were moving back and forth across the deck of the USS Gladiator.

The island in the Bay of Biscay was lost to a stretch of blue across the horizon. They had received permission to dock in the Port De Saint Martin and from there they would organize.

Sebastian turned his head toward the older man but did not lift his eyes from the fixed point he had been staring at in the distance.

Orski seemed to fumble with words and instead was putting a hand on his shoulder.

Sebastian had been the only one to see Claire in the chopper. To see who held her captive now.

Sebastian stood abruptly from his leaned position against the wall, the hollow ringing in his ears had been steady for hours now. Something had changed in his demeanor when he watched Claire pull away with Albert Wesker.

He surmised then that he hadn't ever known what real fear was before he had allowed himself to feel the way he did for Claire. He'd heard it spoken about among his men when they passed stories around in the barracks. He hadn't paid them any mind before because one had to have something to lose to be able to connect with something like that. Sebastian only ever had his life and that never seemed to be a factor that garnered his attention.

Aside from a few personal effects, Sebastian never cared once for what was replaced around him. Men and women always took the places of those who were lost. Gear had been swapped out and took only a few weeks before it settled in as familiar.

Fear had been viewed as weakness just like anything else that could impede a mission, and Sebastian had discarded that as a small boy that stood before the training grounds in Rockfort for the first time. He hadn't understood then why Rabbi Torgmant had sent him away. It wasn't until much later that Sebastian realized the man had no choice nor a chance under the power of Umbrella. Monaco was the city of money after all, and all men bowed fast under the weight of its power. Even one of God.

Especially one of God.

When Sebastian said nothing, he heard Orski's scuffling steps as he moved away.

The Spanish military was reigning control over the country once again. The line of succession for the power of government was still being decided as the military tried to figure out who was alive and who wasn't infected. The terror that Osmund Saddler had caused was seatless now, but it was not without teeth. The parasites would need to be eradicated and that meant there were still bodies to burn. Some of those bodies were still walking around.

The mission in the mines and the boat had been successful but came with its losses. Blue Umbrella had taken the lead in quarantining the boat before they had left the docks. It would stay afloat in the sea until the teams could assure its absolute safety to marine life and then begin deconstruction.

Sebastian felt himself stiffen as another person approached him from the right. He was a man of control, but it was slowly slipping in his time he had spent in the last few hours waiting to be debriefed before he could leave.

Before he could find her.

Alexandra Becker and Robert Giles stopped a few feet away as they met his gaze. Becker and Giles, the two other Blue Umbrella soldiers Claire had met previously. Although the pair knew him best from the days before Umbrella's fall, they knew the mask he wore the most. Still, there must have been something more in his face than usual as they seemed to hesitate.

"Sir," Becker said firmly. Sebastian swore he saw the soft emotion of sorrow cross her features briefly as she seemed to take in the absence at his side. It was gone as she met his eyes again. "Orders?"

"Mission complete; I am no longer your ranking authority." His voice sounded off even to him. The force behind it was empty and cold. He never tolerated idle chit-chat before, but he always beheld his team to a better level of regard than anyone else around him.

"Tam has been considered MIA by command. You are ranking authority until we return." Becker said with a lowered voice as she dared to step closer.

"Orders," she said again. "Sir?"

Sebastian allowed the first large pull of air to enter his lungs since Claire had been taken.

He hadn't seen Tam grab Claire, nor did he have the vantage point to Tam's presence within the dark chopper. For all Sebastian and Blue Umbrella knew, the previous Alpha Team Leader had succumbed to the injuries that Claire had reported hours earlier.

"I want a full report on anything we know about the flight path of that chopper and all other choppers that entered the airspace of the surrounding areas." He said then before he looked over at Giles.

"I also want Chris Redfield contacted."

"Chris Redfield has been reported to be back in the states." Giles responded quickly.

Sebastian narrowed his eyes at the man and stepped forward into his space as he said lowly. "And why is that?"

"Federal Bioterrorism Commission incident. You heard about the ruins of Terragrigia. Command followed that closely as we also followed the movements of Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine closely." Giles replied. To the man's credit, he didn't shift under the stern gaze of his new Alpha Leader.

"There was a resurgence at the site, and Chris Redfield had gone missing on a mission to the mountains. They found him at sea along with the Queen Zenobia. Command has been analyzing the reports to keep track of the T-Abyss." Becker added with a nod.

"Return to command when we dock," Sebastian said then. "I have one more thing to check out before I get debriefed by the U.S. agency. I'll meet you there."

Sebastian was pushing through the teams of agents as he made his way toward the stairs of the deck. He paid no mind to the stares he received, nor did he care when he could hear the whispered words of the agents that always seemed to keep their distance. His thoughts were preoccupied with the memory of Claire Redfield before she had slipped through his fingers. He kept seeing her hand reach for him before the chopper pulled away.

Regret along with fear was not something Sebastian knew how to handle together, but his only course of action came with the work he knew best.

"You are paradise, Sebastian. It's who we chose to protect and love in our lives; paradise is love."

As Sebastian descended into the ship, he could feel the familiar cloak of cold wash over his system; hardening into something that would stop at nothing to achieve the objective. Only this time, at the very core of the hardest material he had learned to shield himself with, sat the beating desire for something that was his. Claire Redfield was not a sample to be obtained, or a simple mission to complete.

God help anyone who stood in his way of finding her.

Claire had been dreaming.

The twist and pull of the golden hazel eyes in front of her transferred to the feel of hands running up her sides. With a breath of frustration, she tried to bring herself closer to him, but he seemed to always be one step further. Or maybe he was moving away? She couldn't be sure when she shook her head and found his expression different.

When Claire looked down at their feet, she frowned to see the water that was rising around their ankles. Lifting her eyes back to Sebastian's, she gasped when he opened his smiling mouth and water began to gush from his throat. Before she knew it, she was being submerged and his hands released from hers.

"Sebastian!"

The waking world was a blur when Claire came to the awareness of the tank around her bobbing form. Her lips opened to gasp, but the plastic tube down her throat stopped her from making a sound. The water did too.

Claire's eyes were wide open, peering into the darkness beyond the glass around her. Looking down, Claire could make out the pale skin of her nude body. Around her were tubes that connected to her arms and the one that was rammed down her throat. The water was cold, and slightly off colored; an aquatic prison that spanned only a few feet wide.

Lifting a hand, Claire pressed her palm to the glass before her. Her red hair wavered slowly in front of her face as she leaned forward to look out to the semi-darkness beyond. Lights from machines flickered across the room and she had the thought of eyes staring back. Someone was watching her.

Claire felt a prickling sensation run up her arm. She suddenly felt very slow as she tried to turn her head to look down at her limb. Before her head could fully rotate, her eyes were closing, and she was dreaming once more.

When Claire woke again, the confusion weighed heavily in her mind. A light caught her eye, and through the glass of the tube she thought she could make out a doorway with the warmth of light spilling through.

Claire paused for a moment when she thought about her surroundings.

Albert Wesker. Spain. Leon. The Las Plagas. Sebastian.

All of it came rushing back with a click to her hippocampus. Anger, sadness, and relief pulsed through her trembling body as she processed her last day in Spain before she had been caught by Tam and subsequently, Wesker. The memory of Tam's betrayal caused her anger to rise above the rest.

Claire's moan caused bubbles to softly release from her mouth and from around the tube. She placed both hands to the glass on each side of her as her mind began to fully wake. The nightmare in Spain had finally come to an end, but she supposed hers was truly just beginning. Her thoughts snagged on Leon's pale face in the labs, and she felt her chest constrict.

Had he survived the journey with the soldiers? If he had, what would the agency do when they reviewed the crimes in Spain? By any lawyer's book, Leon was guilty of countless crimes. Would they punish a man for the atrocities of a body he couldn't control?

Claire hung her head as she thought of Leon. He would blame himself. She could almost see him now sitting on that porch. The images of Ashley and Ada would haunt him on a scale that Raccoon hadn't even scratched the surface of. She imagined he would still visit and pick himself up for Sherry, but when Sherry would ask for Claire, he would blame himself for that too.

Claire was pushing her hand into the space between her breasts, as if she could stop her heart from breaking apart. Leon would never know what had happened to her. Would he think she ran? Or that she perished sometime on the island?

Sebastian.

More bubbles released around the tube as Claire remembered those eyes staring back into hers when the chopper had lifted away from the island.

Sebastian had seen her. He knew who had her, and instead of the fear she had seen in his eyes when she mentioned Wesker in the shower of the hotel, she had seen anger. The mercenary known as Death had stared at the blonde man holding her in the rotorcraft, and she had seen him mark Wesker with something deeper than a promise. In hindsight, Claire smiled softly to think of how beautiful rage looked on a man who had only been tender with her.

Sebastian had been gentle, possessive, and constantly had asked for her to release her control. It was a safety Claire didn't know she had needed, but most of all, he had given her his rage. In more than one circumstance, he had come for her when she was in danger. The wrath she had seen in his eyes had been on her behalf; someone fighting for her when she couldn't any longer. An extension of justice that she thought even surprised Sebastian at times.

The hand Claire had against her chest began to curl into a fist as she beheld his eyes in her mind. Against the odds, she had managed to survive a mission to a fallen country, multiple captures, a virus—two viruses—in her system, rescued Leon, and somehow managed to find love all in the span of a week. She wasn't sure if she should be described as ambitious or stupid when they carved her tombstone.

A solid form passed in front of the glass, making Claire jerk her head up. She watched as the form grew closer to the tank; the water making it hard for her to discern the complete shape. Claire blinked furiously, hoping to catch more detail in her limited vision. The form drew closer, and the face started to come into clarity as it pressed closer to the glass.

Red, uncovered eyes looked in, and Claire's back slammed into the back of the tank. The tube in her throat felt like a gag. Claire's own wrath began to push beneath her skin, the soft pulse becoming a roar in her head as it had when Leon had taken Sebastian.

The water and the sedatives reduced her punches to no more than wasteful thrashing, but the bubbled screams that pushed out from the sides of the tube in her mouth must have concerned Wesker.

Claire watched as he turned away from the glass and moved to the side of the tank. With limited vision, and crippled defenses, Claire observed as he fiddled with something beside the watery prison.

"Remarkable, still resisting." Wesker's voice filtered faintly through the glass.

Anger had been an old friend to Claire. It was an emotion she held within her breast as the last resort. In Raccoon and Rockfort her fear had been undeniable, but in the small moments in between the nightmare, anger had served her best. When she had fought Birkin, Mr. X, Nosferatu, the Plane Tyrant—all of them—she had been furious. So many wasted lives under the guise of progression from Umbrella.

Much of it at the hands of the man before her.

The tingling sensation in Claire's hands could not create a fire within the water, but as the feeling drew up her arms and down into her chest, she felt her heart begin to pick up in speed and seemed to burn through the poison that sapped her strength. Claire lifted her hand again and slowly closed it into a fist. With a sharp pull in the limited space, she threw it forward and struck the glass.

The tank tipped slightly forward before it slammed back down, causing the water to slosh back and forth around Claire; the strands of her hair lifting above her head in a halo of fury.

The glass before her became a spider web in design. From the corner of her eye, Claire could see Wesker turn toward her from the side of the tank. She struck the glass again and water began to pour from the tank when it cracked open.

Claire was yanking the tube from her throat with a grunt, the water around her lowered to her shoulders. When she took her own, unassisted, first breath, she could hear the crunch of glass under boots outside the tank. Wesker was looking in at her with a twisting smirk that lifted the left side of his face.

Claire was grabbing the sides of the hole she had made in the glass. She pushed and the opening began to widen as the glass and water continued to pour out onto the floor. Her first climbing steps outward was halted by the tubes in her arms that stretched out behind her like great wings.

Claire turned her head back to Wesker and sneered as she yanked her arms forward. The needles were ripping from her arms with the flowing flourish of her bloody fire. The flames blazed on her upper arms like the pauldrons of armor from Atum, a self-created deity from Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdoms of Egypt. The first being to emerge from the darkness and endless watery abyss that existed before creation.

Claire's naked form was pushing out of the final portions of the tank and she didn't stop there. Her advancing steps toward the blonde-haired tyrant didn't seem to intimidate him. In fact, he seemed to stare at her with reverence that she had seen in Sebastian's eyes once or twice; the responding look of dangerous men who admired supple challenges.

Claire tilted her head as fire erupted in her upturned palm. With Wesker, it didn't seem to be the same type of hunger in his eyes. He was a man admiring an arsenal.

Little did she know, the sight of a tyrant stepping out from a tank had been what started it all for Wesker before.

"So much potential, Ms. Redfield, but I wonder," Wesker said as she neared. His drawling tone filled the room. "Do you know what to do with it yet?"

Wesker moved and even with Claire's heightened perception, she was slower than him when she tried to dodge his grab. Cold gloved hands were clamping down on her shoulders and tossing her to the floor. Claire rolled onto her side with her head lifting to follow him when her momentum slowed, but he was suddenly behind her in a crouch. His voice tickled the shell of her ear.

"I think not."

Claire was twisting around, the muscles beneath her skin singing, and she was wrapping a hand around Wesker's chin. Her knees were sinking into his chest as they both collided with the floor.

Blue met red as Claire panted above him, her wet red hair tickling the man's face as she leaned down and ripped his glasses away.

His gloved hand was wrapping around her bare hip and only then did Claire recognize her nude state again. She hesitated a moment as disgust filtered through her features.

"Tyrants," she breathed then, unable to stop the thoughts that crossed her mind next. "Is that what we are?"

Wesker's other hand was wrapping around her throat, causing an angry squeak to escape Claire's lips before he stood from the ground, lifting her easily along with him. He tossed her to the floor again; scraping steps were bouncing off the walls around her as she slid through the glass of the tank.

"That's right," Claire whispered as she lifted her head to his approaching figure. "You fancy yourself a god. My mistake."

"Playtime is over."

"Have you ever wondered why you don't mind seeing those around you suffer while you seek out what you want?" Claire asked as she ground her palm into the glass around her.

Wesker was reaching for her again when she flung her blood.

"You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see." She quoted through her teeth.

Wesker had attempted to dodge, but a few droplets had caught his arm; he was trailing fire as she rolled away and flew through the door on her left where the light had first caught her eye.

Claire broke into the next room and was startled by how bright the fully functioning lab was as she lifted a hand and stumbled in her steps. When she blinked and took in the other tanks that lined the wall, she felt her breaths turning into a scream in her lungs.

With the bright lights reflecting off the tanks in the lab, Claire took in the full-grown Plagas, and what she assumed were the younger versions of the Plagas in the far-right corner. From the left all the way down the wall of the lab, the other tanks displayed different variations of mutations; viral or parasitic, she couldn't tell. Some looked to be in the fetal stages of development in a human, where others were a twisted mass of nightmares, teeth, and claws.

"No…" Claire breathed, forgetting her flight for a moment.

Wesker's slightly burnt arm snaked around her waist and hauled her backwards. The skin of her back scraping against the rough material of his clothing.

"Oh, my dear, you really haven't changed at all, have you?"

Claire was breathing faster as her situation was truly dawning on her.

He had put her in one of those tanks. Much like the fate he promised Steve Burnside, she was going to become another subject along with the rest of his collection.

Her blood was still dripping from her burning palm and out of the corner of her eye, she could see Wesker's boot step forward, grinding the flames down to nothing more than ash and smoke.

"Please don't do this." She said with a gasp. "I deserve a lot of things but being in a cage isn't one of them."

It was a struggle for Claire to remain calm, but she managed as she set her uncut palm on the warm skin of his arm around her waist. Turning her head to the side, she looked up at him from over her shoulder.

"Please, Wesker."

Wesker's laugh made her flinch as the threatening sound caused her flesh to prickle. Even without the protection of clothes, standing in the presence of him fully naked hadn't put her on as high of alert as this response had.

"Such manners, and from a Redfield no less. I don't think someone's spoken to me so gently in years. I'm almost impressed and touched." His grip around her middle became bruising. Claire let out a weak scream and stood on her tiptoes to alleviate the pain elsewhere.

"I wouldn't keep you in a cage. You're no use to me there." His other hand curled around something at her neck. "No, you have much more potential. Do you want to know what I have learned in my short time studying your blood?"

Claire glanced down and realized his fingers had braided through the necklace Sebastian had given her. Wesker had left it on; left it on for her to watch him destroy.

Wesker's hand yanked and the chain broke apart with ease.

"No—"

"Antibodies." Wesker breathed as he leaned in close to her neck, the Hamsa necklace slipping from his fingers and plunking to the ground at their feet. "And some of the purest forms of Virions I have ever seen. When Saddler injected you with that parasite, the dormant cells of the T-Veronica Virus and the mutated forms of the T-Virus reactivated to the threat. Both live within you, and the viruses protect you."

The skin of Claire's previously cut hand was closing, and the flames at her fingers died out as she began to tremble from the cool air of the lab in her nude state, and the man at her back.

"Imagine my surprise when I learned that Chris Redfield's little sister may be the answer to the salvation of this world."

"You're a monster! I don't know what you think you're going to do, but they will stop you!" Claire swore with malice as she tried to break free from his grip.

"Mm, we shall see. Now, since you like your stories so much, do you know what you really are for me here?" His deep voice became a purr of amusement while he was pulling her backwards, deeper into the lab. "You are knowledge and power itself. Mímir's Well."

Claire was thrashing in earnest, her breathing becoming hysteric as she fought the single arm of the tyrant behind her. The flames on her arms didn't catch on his clothing, as if he had prepared exactly for this.

"One of three wells located beneath the Nordic world tree, Yggdrasil. Bestowing knowledge to all that drink. What I will take from you will be more than you could ever imagine, and if you're a good girl, maybe I'll consider letting you see when this world transforms."

The door at the opposite end of the lab opened, and a stern looking woman in a white coat entered with a sour look on her face. Claire jerked her head toward her and gave her a pleading look. The woman turned her eyes away from her toward the ground.

Terror was over taking Claire's thoughts as the woman in front of her silently bowed to the will of circumstance; there would be no help anywhere in this lab for her.

The only salvation Claire could see for miles were the memories of those who had protected her previously; her eyes were on the rusty chain laying on the floor of the lab.

The woman, the other researcher, was walking up to the chain. She picked it up while looking over at Claire's frightened gaze.

"Please!" Claire shouted. She heard the door behind her open as Wesker dragged her into the darkness.

The woman narrowed her eyes at the necklace and Claire watched as she slipped the Hamsa Hand into her coat pocket before the woman met her eyes again.

The weeks with Wesker passed without much hope. Claire would lay in a drug induced state at the end of the day and imagine different people coming to her aid. Sometimes it was Leon, sometimes it was her brother, and when her mind was being especially kind to her, it was Sebastian.

In those quiet moments, in between the draws of her blood or otherwise, the various injections she received while being restrained had Claire theorizing that she was exactly where fate had always decided she needed to be. She was no longer an innocent bystander that just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She had walked through the blood of many on her journey to save Leon.

Maybe purgatory was a place after all.

When the weeks dragged well into the second month, Wesker had begun to notice her docile state. Restrained under much stronger drugs in her system, Claire was barely fighting his iron grip as he would lead her to the hall. Her scathing remarks had turned into soft breaths and down turned eyes. The fire that lived beneath her palms hadn't emerged for over a week and her last spoken word felt even longer.

"I think today calls for something different." Wesker called over her shoulder as she sat on the table, her white gown was open at the back as he pulled the needle from her spine.

Claire glanced back at him as he took his sample over to the counter, depositing into a machine.

"I'm beginning to think this gift has been wasted on you. You rely too much on your emotional state to recognize what you have."

Claire huffed and pulled her gown tighter around her body. The drugs in her system made it hard to even come up with a retort.

"We'll have to test that of course. Are you feeling pain, dear heart?" Claire jumped when she realized Wesker was beside her again, his gloved hand wrapping around her wrist. She instinctively flinched, but his grip wasn't harmful this time around.

Claire hunched over further as a reflex to the question. She'd been feeling physically off for about a week now, but she assumed being held captive did more than just give the average person nightmares.

"Answer me." Wesker's grip tightened.

Claire lifted her eyes to his and softly said, "Yes."

"Your body will be rid of it soon. Curious thing to have happen in the middle of a deadly rescue mission. Considering the candidates, I'm almost curious as to who it was."

Claire's eyebrows cinched as she took in his words.

"What do you mean?" She uttered, her voice rising for the first time since she had woken from the tank.

"Were you raped, Ms. Redfield?"

Claire jerked back on the table. She tried to pull her wrist from his hold, but his vice like grip returned in force.

"No!" Claire hissed.

"You're pregnant."

Claire felt her heart give a great thump, and the room seemed to come directly into focus. The fog she had allowed her survivor's mind to fall into shattered away with a crack. Her memory called to her coupling with Sebastian in the shower. They hadn't used protection.

Claire hadn't received her period in over a month. Given how much weight she had lost in a short amount of time, she hadn't thought much about it.

Wesker seemed to be studying her carefully, the tilt of his lips was a cruel slash on Claire's heart.

"The mercenary then. How very interesting." He said as he released her arm. "That would explain his activity."

Claire's arm was coming around her stomach protectively as her lip lifted in disgust at the blonde man. "You will not touch my—"

"You will not be able to carry to term, Ms. Redfield." Wesker was turning away from her again and Claire found herself standing to her feet. The legacy in her blood cracked open its eyes.

"Your body sees it as a threat; you are miscarrying." Wesker's tone dropped down to something Claire might describe as soft. As if the biologist in him still understood the gravity of a mother in distress. "You will never be a mother."

Claire wasn't sure how she got across the room so fast, but when she came back into her own raging thoughts, Wesker's angry face was below her as her flaming hands cupped his face and slammed his head back into the white tiles again. The torn sound of howling was ripping through her throat.

Wesker was ignoring the burns to his skin as he finally managed to wrestle her hands away from his face. He lifted his head and brought his gaze directly in front of her swirling one.

"There you are." Wesker said with a thrill lining his tone. Unknown to Claire, he was observing her pupils dilating and contracting feverishly.

The skin of Claire's arms erupted in fire along with her hands as she began to struggle with Wesker. She had recognized his strength early on and all attempts of fighting him had only brought her to heel under his ability to navigate the virus in his own system with more experience.

Now, though, Claire knew what was further at risk. Whether he spoke the truth or not about carrying to term, Wesker wasn't a man who allowed any genetic material to go to waste. The embryo in her was hers to protect, even if it didn't make it.

Wesker was reaching into his pocket as he tried to hold her back with one hand. The glimpse of a syringe was Claire's marker to release her hold and tear from Wesker's grasp. Her body felt fully engaged again, and she began her streak toward the door she knew to be unlocked. The slap of her bare feet thundered through the white halls outside of the lab.

Claire was looking for a window, or an exit sign as she tore through hall after hall.

"How big is this place?" Claire had the frantic thought as a door to one of the labs opened on her right. The paling face of another researcher flashed in her peripheral as the door slammed closed again. An alarm began to sound overhead.

Claire heard a loud crash behind her, and she darted a glance over her shoulder to see the black clothed form of Wesker stalking after her in shuddering streaks. A smile was stretched over his features; he didn't even give her his full speed in the chase. As if he knew there was no true escape.

Claire was throwing the doors closed behind her as she continued. Causing Wesker to briefly lose sight of her as she pushed herself to move faster. After she closed the third set of doors behind her, she leapt into a room that was thankfully unoccupied. It looked to be some form of a break room for the researchers.

Empty cups of coffee sat on a tiny circular table in the middle of the room. Lockers stood at the back end of the room with shoes and bags neatly lined up near the sidewall. A local newspaper caught Claire's eye and she caught the words staring up at her in French. A sound jerked Claire away from the paper and she quickly moved into a connecting storage room near the lockers.

Stacked boxes and another set of lockers greeted Claire in the dimly lit room. With quiet steps and the frantic beating of her heart, she climbed into one of the lockers and shut the metal door with a soft click. Leaning back into the rusting metal, Claire began the task of slowing her breaths and willing her heart to settle. A hand unconsciously wrapped over her flat stomach, and she bit the inside of her cheek as she considered her next move.

Her thoughts were snagging on the words Wesker had uttered when he had spoken of Sebastian. Was Sebastian still looking for her? He had Blue Umbrella at his arsenal now, but the thought almost seemed like a joke within itself when she considered the remnants of Umbrella fighting for her freedom from Albert Wesker.

"There's no point in hiding." Wesker's cultured drawl called to her from the next room.

Claire could see the door to the storage room open through the slits of the locker, and she held her breath as the glowing red eyes of her captor came through the darkness. He knew where she was.

Wesker stopped before the lockers and crossed his arms over his chest. Claire took note of the healing skin from his previous burns on his face and arms.

"You won't like it if I have to pull you out, Claire."

Claire shuddered as her first name rolled off his tongue with the familiarity of a teasing lover. She always preferred the distance of her surname or the pet-name he called her. After a pause, Claire was pushing the door open with a shaking hand as her hardened gaze met with his.

"Did you really think you could run? Your presence here is inevitable. If it wasn't with me, it would be under the thumb of the United States." Wesker was sneering down at her as he looked around at the lockers. "Feeling patriotic, hm?"

"There are people looking for me, aren't there?" Claire was relieved when her voice came out strong and didn't reflect the fear she knew was thrumming her system.

"I do hope so." Wesker replied as his smirk lifted his face again. "As we discussed a few years previous, where one Redfield is, the other follows."

"You now have the attention of the United States government, and Blue Umbrella." Claire stated carefully. "I hope I'm worth the effort of your impending capture."

Wesker released a laugh and shook his head before he was pulling the syringe from his pocket again. He pulled the cap off and took a threatening step toward her.

"I've had their attention for years, Claire." Claire's teeth felt like they would crack under the pressure of her jaw. "As for Blue Umbrella, who do you think they get their orders from?"

Claire's breath caught and Wesker was suddenly in front of her again, slamming her into the lockers. She felt her own threats die along with her hope.

"Oh, yes. An unnamed benefactor that continued the mantle of those dedicated souls at Blue Umbrella. People will forget faster when the money mounts. If you think about it, it's me you should be thanking for the assistance in Spain. To think the mercenary would call in such a favor, well…" Wesker let the words hang in the air as he jabbed her arm with the needle. "Let's say I'm starting to understand that even Mr. Death has motivations that can be bent by more than just money."

Wesker was carrying her back out to the hall bridal style as Claire watched the lights overheard blur in a fog of white. The pit of despair in Claire's gut opened like the maw of a creature and threatened to truly swallow her whole. Sebastian was in just as much danger as she was, and Wesker would make sure the corporation led him further and further away from her each time.

"No one is going to find you, dear heart." The words above her sank down into her skin and tears began to gather in her lids before something caught her attention.

Whispers began to float to her ears; a frantic gathering of voices that were familiar and foreign all at the same time to Claire. She managed to lift her head and take in a sturdy looking door with the words LAB 38-02 above the door frame.

Claire sucked in a great breath as she tried to lean forward to hear what the voices were saying. The tones were frantic, but as Wesker neared the door with her in his hold, the voices began to transfer in a lilting tone; like children that bleated for their mother's answering call.

"Wait," Claire uttered as Wesker seemed to move quickly from the door, and toward the next door in the hall. Claire took note of his urgency through her medicated state and gripped the material of his vest weakly in her hands.

"The children, they were calling to me." Claire whispered before her eyes fell closed and the darkness she was becoming to know so well enveloped her again.

She didn't see the small look of what could be described as fear cross Wesker's features when he locked the hall behind him. When she would wake again, she would take note of the different room he placed her in, but she wouldn't know how much further he had placed her away from Lab 38-02.

A/N: Hello my lovely readers! Happy Friday. I hope you enjoyed the chapter as we touch on what Claire's role will be filling soon enough. It should be somewhat familiar to you already, but with a twist.

Leave me a wee review with your thoughts. It does wonders for my soul as I slog through July. See you next week.