A Question of Faith
"Faith is taking that first step, even when you can't see the whole staircase." -Martin Luther King
Silver Lake Montana 2017
She sat in the little red SUV staring at the massive house.
She'd made love to him that first time in that house.
It was, probably, where Faith had been conceived.
It was hers now.
The lawyer with the papers that morning had made sure she knew it. He'd left her everything. Every penny. Every acre. Every nook and cranny.
Alighting from the SUV, Rebecca eased around the back door and opened it. In the pretty pink car seat, her sweet faced daughter was sucking on her toes. Somehow, she'd nearly gotten the whole foot in there, sock and all.
She was three months old and precious.
She'd never meet her father.
But she had his eyes. And the slope of his nose. And that smile. And his hair. The gold of it.
She grinned around her feet, happy.
And his humor.
Rebecca's heart shuddered in her chest. She grinned back, stroking a finger down that soft cheek, "Faith – my girl – who's Mama's baby?"
Faith babbled uselessly, showing her the foot.
"I know!" Rebecca exclaimed as she took out the seat and carried it up the porch to the door, "It's a nice foot, to be sure. Does it taste like chicken I wonder?"
She keyed into the pad by the door and went into the enormous house.
Leon's house.
Leon's land.
Leon's baby.
Jesus. How did she do this?
In captivity, she'd held on to the idea of protecting Faith while she'd been in her belly and once she'd come into the world. Surprisingly, although he was soulless, Wesker had been a gentle captor to her when he discovered she was gestating.
Often times, when she was working on things for him, he'd stop beside her and touch her belly to feel the baby kick.
It was…almost fatherly or something.
The disgust in her had doubled each time he'd done so. But she'd taken all that Leon had spent so long teaching her about hiding her feelings and played the perfect little prisoner. She'd been amiable and easy going. She'd done what he'd asked. She'd never fought back.
In one hand, Faith had saved her.
Her pregnancy had likely spared Rebecca any undue torture.
They didn't hand her to Gomez, after all. Ada Wong had stepped in at the eleventh hour to spare her from that. Rebecca would never know why now.
And it didn't matter.
Whatever she'd done for Faith, Ada had put a bullet into Leon Kennedy and killed him.
There was no absolution here for her. None.
Faith was contently chewing her foot, so Rebecca set her seat down in the living room to watch the fireplace crackle. The housekeeper was happy to keep an eye on her while Rebecca wandered the palatial estate.
She was assuming Leon would want her to keep the staff on. She was going to do that for him.
The ranch was self-sufficient. It shouldn't surprise her to know he'd been producing an income off of it. She wasn't sure how to keep doing that now in his absence. She knew nothing of ranching.
But it had meant so much to him. His happy place. His retirement. He'd had it all lined up.
How did she keep it going for him?
Clearly, she should hand it down to Faith. It would be what he would want.
Aloud, as she often did now, she spoke to him, "You've left me this beautiful place and no directions on how to run it. Always a bit of a pain in the ass, Leon Kennedy."
Somehow, the talking out loud made her feel closer to him.
She'd laid him to rest on the estate where he belonged. The turnout had been enormous. He would have been amazed to see how many lives he'd impacted. There wasn't an empty seat or a dry eye in the house. A simple, elegant ceremony – a few speeches and plenty of stories that had laughter and light in them. A funny guy, was Leon Kennedy. His humor had touched everyone who'd known him.
The world was a sadder place without him.
Her world? It was darkness.
He'd always called her his "light". She wasn't sure what kind of light she was, really. Because she couldn't see anything but grief on most days. They'd had so little time together. She'd just begun to really know him. She'd loved him since the first damn time he'd opened his mouth, you HAD to love him, he was wonderful.
But she'd just begun to really know the real him. They'd just begun to really love each other.
How did she reconcile the end of that without being able to really let go?
She wanted more time.
There was no more. He was gone. He wasn't going to burst in the door and have her laughing. He wasn't going to roll on her in the middle of the night and made her cry out with need. He was just gone.
Poof.
Gone.
He'd been so thin, so hurt, so lost. He'd need a lot longer to be ready for what he'd done. He wasn't ready. He'd stormed the castle, literally, and died saving the girl.
Claire said he'd died twice on the table before that.
Apparently, the third time was the charm.
She was the girl who'd killed Leon Kennedy.
Rebecca pressed a fist to her belly to try to stop the snakes the curled and coiled and killed her there. Under the grief, a rage and guilt burned and boiled. It nearly choked her on a good day. All her speeches to him about finding his peace and seeking his truth…and she was a hypocrite. Because she was lost without him.
And she couldn't find her peace any more than she could find the answers to what to do with this massive ranch he'd loved so much.
Rebecca stepped into the bedroom where they'd laid together, where'd she'd watched him take off his armor and lay down his sword, where she'd stood and listened to his music and knew she'd love him forever.
The guitar was sitting by the rocker where he'd sat countless times and strummed, feeling his pain and playing to give voice to it. It was beautiful, shiny almost, and untouched for so long.
Her fingers brushed the strings and fill the room with pointless chords.
Just that touch, it was enough, it hurt like she'd burned her fingers.
Her hand curled into a fist, shaking. She said, aloud, "How do I do this? How do I exist in a world where there is no Leon Kennedy? How do I live with knowing it should have been me? Leon…it should have been me who died on that rooftop…"
Not the hero. Not the HERO. What became now, of the world that needed a hero?
She'd taken the hero. She'd gotten him killed.
And all that was left was his guitar.
She couldn't run the ranch. She couldn't play the guitar. She wasn't Leon Kennedy.
She was just the girl left behind to raise his baby…and mourn him the rest of her life.
She came the down the stairs to the sound of talking.
Her ears perked up at the familiar timbre of the man's voice. She turned into the huge living room to find Chris Redfield holding her baby. He did it…effortlessly. It was sort of impressive given the massive size of him and his discomfort in the beginning.
And yet…it shouldn't surprise her. After all, he'd been the one to deliver Faith into the world. And become her staunchest ally and her best friend while they'd been prisoners in that god forsaken castle.
Schloss Wiedereinführen, Germany- 2017
The pain started on her daily walk through the grounds.
It was nagging at first. Just lower back. It was annoying. Like most pains these days, it came and went and was mostly tolerable.
Wesker always had Chris escort her around the grounds for her walks.
Another way of punishing Chris, another way of punishing her. He forced them together and expected them, no doubt, to plan their escape.
They were doing that, no lie there, but never in full view of the castle. Never where anyone could hear. And NEVER on her walks.
She knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Chris was only alive because of her pregnancy.
She'd never forget the moment she'd been thrown in front of him. Bloody, panting, he'd been fighting so hard. It was all over him. He was naked and abused, scarred and shaking. What had they done to him?! Her heart had broken to see him there.
She'd risen to her knees, he'd seen her big belly, and he'd dropped his knife. Just like that.
Done.
What did it take to make Chris Redfield submit?
A pregnant lab mouse, apparently.
He'd begun to play the game. So had she. It was months and months of careful maneuvering. It was months and months of careful subterfuge.
She'd gotten good at sneaking between guards at odd hours to meet him. He'd gotten good at occupying Alesio with things to keep his eyes off his favorite toy. Each time Chris met her in the dark, in the moonlight, he was a little more haunted and a little more scarred. A new slash, a new bruise, a new series of burns…the nasty monster that was Alesio had tortured him within an inch of his life.
She'd heard, once from Maria while the nasty bitch had brushed Rebecca's hair and hummed happily, that Alesio liked to burn the genitals of his toys. That he tried to castrate the ones that disobeyed him. She was horrified to think Chris was no longer…a man? No longer functional? She'd NEVER asked.
As she walked beside him, she wondered what he'd given up to still be here with her. Her stalwart protector, her companion, her friend. He was all these things. He never let her give up hope. They could beat him everyday, cut off every piece of him, and he'd still be Chris Redfield – the man who didn't know how to give up and lie down and die.
As they walked, Rebecca put her head on his arm and cuddled it to her. He stiffened and then relaxed, softening, as he always did, to show her enough affection to keep them both sane. It was so hard to feel human in the castle of death and pain.
They clung to the idea of their humanity like desperate mourners holding on to ghosts of dead loved ones.
Without each other, the other was very aware they'd have died long ago.
Chris said, softly, "How's the fetus today?"
Rebecca, shifting, put a hand on her big belly, "Restless. Kicking my bladder and ribs so much that I think I've been to the WWE to wrestle with John Cena."
Chris laughed lightly and shifted his other hand to rub her belly. It worked like a charm, like it always did, the moment he spoke to the baby – it calmed. It liked his deep voice, clearly, "Hey in there fetus."
Fetus. Such a funny man. So up tight. To call a baby -fetus. It always made her laugh.
"Be good and be quiet. Give your incubator a break, would ya? Take a nap or something."
Rebecca patted his big arm, smiling lightly at him. "It likes your voice, I think. It always goes so still when you talk."
"Clearly a smart fetus, it knows the voice of command."
"Hmm. Maybe it's because you sound like a golden retriever talking or something. You grumble when you talk, low and gruff."
"Oh, yeah? You prefer Kennedy with that girly squeal of his huh?"
Rebecca laughed again, unoffended, "You sound jealous."
"Not jealous. I can sound like a girl too if I have you stomp on my testicles real hard."
She giggled lightly and squeezed his arm in a hug. "What an image. Some guys pay big money for girls to do that to them."
"…some guys pay big money for girls to take a dump on their chest too."
"….what?"
"Oh, yeah, it's a big thing I hear. What do they call that here? A shizer film or something? Or is that where the guy shits in the girl's mouth during sex? I can't remember."
She was watching him owlishly. He was just rambling. He did that when they were walking. The man of few words, he had plenty during their travels. He enjoyed talking to her. She was funny and soft and always making him feel relaxed.
Rebecca was quiet for a long moment.
Chris glanced down at her to see what she was thinking. Her face was pressed into his arm as she started shaking.
Afraid he'd disgusted her, he tried to backpedal a little, "I'm sorry. That…sorry. I forget sometimes you're not Jill. I have as much delicacy as a wet fart. I'm sorry, B. Seriously."
Rebecca shook her head now, and he realized she was laughing. She leaned back shaking with laughter, "I'm gonna take that as a compliment. A big one. Watch a lot of shizer films with, Jill, do you?"
Chris laughed now, unoffended. "Not a lot, no."
"But at least one huh?"
He managed to look sheepish and adorable and said, "No comment."
"….pretty gross, Redfield. And not usually what friends watch."
"In my defense, the person the film was a suspect we were tracking. And the film was a shizer/snuff film."
Rebecca stopped walking and stared at him. "…that's the most horrible thing I can think of."
"Right? Disgusting." Chris shuddered, "I've seen some horrible shit in my day. And nothing as bad as that. I'll take the undead any day of the week over a girl swallowing feces and then killing the guy who shat in her mouth."
Rebecca shuddered and made a sound, "Oh, god. This is the grossest conversation two people ever had. EVER."
Chris laughed and looped his arm around her shoulders, "True story there. Sorry. Again, I have no filter."
"I adore it, so I forgive you. Too many people treat me like I'm fragile and can't handle a good dirty convo. Par for the course when you perpetually look fifteen years old."
Pregnancy had made her softer, fuller, and utterly feminine. She looked like a woman well contented with her place in the world. Hard to do as a prisoner in a nightmare, but Rebecca did it with aplomb.
She didn't look fifteen. Truthfully, she looked beautiful in a way he'd never seen her before. He'd spent a long time overlooking her, which was true. It was easy enough to do when she worked so hard to be plain and simple. She blended, she hid, she didn't bother to dress up to attract your attention. It was easy to forget about her when she stood in the shadow of someone like Ada Wong or Jill because they were so very good at stealing the show.
Rebecca didn't bother to steal the show. She just sat back and let the show go on around her.
Her hair had grown out since they'd been here. It was a pretty little bob that curled and swirled around her chin. The twenty pounds of baby weight she was carrying was all belly and boobs. It was hard not to notice, in one hand, as he'd gone a long time without a woman.
The boobs were plush and perky. The belly was adorable and basketball cute on her tiny frame. Her butt was a little heart shaped treat in her stretchy pants she was always wearing.
Yeah…a LONG TIME since he'd had a woman.
He figured Leon Kennedy would poke his eyes out for even doing it now.
He'd never spent much time looking at her before this. For years, she'd been just another person in the fight against bioterror. In all truth, he wasn't a man who did a lot of looking anyway. Never had been. He was almost a joke in the community because he simply didn't look, didn't bother, didn't flirt, and didn't care. Girls LOVED working with him because he was such a eunuch.
Men speculated he was gay, blind, or retarded.
He didn't care. He never had.
But he'd come to look forward to their daily walks together a little too much. He was aware, entirely; he'd developed feelings for Leon's woman. It was there, like a dirty secret, in his chest. It was harmless as she wasn't interested or even aware. But he enjoyed her company and spent a good amount of nights thinking about her perky boobs.
Chris excused himself. He did. He was a prisoner. He had a pervert always breathing in his ear and trying to make him do depraved things at his command. He wasn't ready to think about the number whips he'd wielded or blood he'd spilled. He'd been able, so far, to avoid raping in Alesio's command. Clever use of pain to push aside the pleasure had spared more than one victim. If he picked up a whip, he saved them being raped.
Pain for pleasure.
It was the way they lived now.
The only pleasure he got was taking walks with Leon Kennedy's baby mama.
Lord.
She was telling some story about being a girl. She liked to tell him stories about growing up. He loved listening to her talk. Rebecca was so carefree about it. She just mentioned her family and her faith and her hopes and dreams in a way that left you enthralled. She simply didn't hide her feelings on anything.
She laughed. She loved. She was hope and light and feelings. She didn't let you hang around in the dark for long; she was always there with little things to make him laugh. For a man that didn't dwell in regret, she was the perfect friend. Because Rebecca was always pushing toward the future. If there was hope, she grabbed it with both hands and dragged it screaming with her to the finish.
A funny thing to find someone he had so much in common with that he'd known forever…and never really known at all.
She was telling a joke now about a cat and a dildo and something to do with farting. He was kinda listening. Kinda.
She tripped on something and he grabbed her arms to hold her up right.
Laughing, she lifted her head to him, "Can't fight the clumsy that comes with this big gut right? I look like a bus in this yellow shirt."
Her eyes were twinkling as she lifted her head to grin at him, "Fat as a house huh? I thought pregnant chics were supposed to glow and be beautiful. Pfft. I'm clumsy and fat and oily. Even this classic girl stuff I get wrong."
She giggled a little and realized, after a moment, he hadn't let go of her arms. "Chris? I'm ok, I promise."
After a moment, she realized he was looking at her mouth.
Something in her big belly tightened, and she murmured, "You ok?"
Her internal alarm said, "He wants to kiss you." Her brain said, "You kidding? This is Chris Redfield. THE HUMAN TANK. He doesn't kiss girls. And he doesn't kiss lab mice. You're being fat and lonely. You ever heard of him kissing girls?"
She tried to remember when she'd ever heard girls and Chris Redfield in the same sentence. The stupid Jessica Sherawat had gone around crowing and claiming she was going to screw him, of course, when she'd first come on board at the BSAA. But he'd shut her down so fast it had almost been comic.
Again her mind, queried, "What makes you think, after all this time, he's going to look at you like that? You spent years looking at him without a single return glance."
She'd always kind of assumed he was gay. He just, literally, never looked anyway. Rebecca thought maybe he was looking at Jill and that was why. Maybe he'd always had Jill and didn't bother to look elsewhere. It made sense. They were inseparable.
Hell, Rebecca had looked at him plenty in all these years. If he'd been interested, he'd have looked back long before now. She'd spent a lot of time with him lately. She'd looked a few times. Hard not to, she was in love with Leon Kennedy – not dead.
Scarred or not, Alesio had him keep in outstanding shape. He was muscled and hard and clean shaven – there was nothing Alesio hated worse than a beard. It was a good face atop all the muscles, always had been, handsome and full of beautiful features.
And, in fairness, they'd been trapped here together for a long time: there was no harm in looking.
Trying to make light of it again, Rebecca added, "I have food on my face? I'm always eating these days. Like a pig at a trough or something. Real pretty huh? Fat and covered in food. I'm a Fat Albert joke somehow. I probably should cut back on the fo—"
He tugged her a little into him and stole her breath. Her brain said, "SEE!? He's looking at you, you stupid girl. What now!?"
An interesting moment for her.
Part of her wanted to know what it was like to be kissed by a human tank.
Her fingers curled into his black silk shirt. Her eyes sorta fluttered closed. One half of her said, "What about Leon?" And the other half said, "You see him here?"
And then?
The baby in her belly decided it was time to come out.
There was no kissing anyone. Because she let out a cry and had him lowering to her to the ground.
There wasn't any time to go get Maria or the nurse on staff that Wesker had employed. Rebecca's body said PUSH. And she was jerking at her pants.
Chris Redfield, the Human Tank, the scourge of the undead, the ogre of the bioterrorism field looked like he might pass out in fear as Rebecca gasped, "Help! Help me? Please!"
And what did he do?
What Redfield's ALWAYS did, he rose to the moment. He snapped his focus back and helped her out of her pants. He put the blanket from their picnic blanket under her body and whipped off his shirt. Huffing and puffing through the worst pain she'd ever known, Rebecca was still very aware that it was a helluva show. He was HUGE, it was insane how muscled he was, who needed to be that big?
She gasped, "What do you bench?"
And had his brow quirking. He was poised between her legs while she puffed and gasped and grunted. It was, admittedly, pretty amusing for him.
But he laughed and answered her, "Three twenty if I'm feeling lazy."
Huffing, Rebecca laughed lightly, "Wuss. Deadlift?"
He grinned a little, shaking his head, "Four-fifteen. Why?"
"Lord. Why?" She went quiet as she puffed and breathed through a contraction. She grabbed his hands and squeezed. Her little face went tomato red.
Tough little thing, he thought, not a peep of pain.
And he answered her again, hoping to distract her, "The things we fight? Doesn't work if I'm skinny and weak, does it? I come up against a hunter; I need to be able to hurt it without a gun."
Rebecca finished breathing and eased her grip on his hands, "You gonna punch a hunter, big guy?"
He grinned, watching her and timing her contractions. "Why not? I should have punched that one that had you cornered in the office that first night."
"Lord," Rebecca laughed and huffed through another contraction. "That was cowardly for me, right? You big hero. I had the…biggest crush on you then. Baby faced, skinny kid that you were. Bet you didn't even know."
Chris held her hands as she huffed and puffed through another one. "Nope. Didn't know," He admitted, watching her sweaty face, "But it's a little late now, Chambers. You're squeezing out Kennedy's spawn here. You telling me I still have a chance?"
She laughed. She just laughed.
She kinda loved him.
And he said, "Ok. It's time for me to check your progress."
Her eyebrows winged up, "You delivered a baby before?"
Amused, Chris said, "I did paramedic ride alongs after Raccoon City. I don't like being unprepared for anything. Saw a few live births in the process."
He was something alright. Admittedly.
Rebecca quipped, shaking a little with pain, "You just want to put your hand between my legs."
And had him laughing. He grinned at her, eyes twinkling, "Not with Leon Kennedy's kid in the way, darling. I promise you. Not the most ideal way of putting my hand up a girl."
She was laughing while he checked her. Good man that he was, it was as medical as one could get.
And he said, "Baby's crowning, B. You ready?"
A few more huffs and gasping, a few more laughs – and Chris Redfield delivered her baby while she was laughing. Her daughter was born into the universe on laughter.
It was hard for a woman who believed in signs not to know that meant good things.
Gasping, shaking, Rebecca had asked, "How does she look?"
And he'd been holding her in his silk shirt. Small, sweet, she'd looked TINY against him. And, Rebecca was still convinced; he'd had tears in his eyes as he'd looked up at her and said, "Like a greasy turd…and beautiful. You have a daughter, Rebecca."
So, Chris Redfield became the man who'd delivered her baby and the first person to ever hold her.
Silver Lake, Montana – 2017
The first few weeks had been so humorous. The huge man and the tiny baby. He'd been a mess with her. Never tightening her diapers enough so that they fell off her when he'd pick her up.
Never wanting to hold her without supervision. "What if I crush her Rebecca!?"
And she answered, laughing, "She's a baby, not a bomb, Christopher. Just hold her."
He'd barely patted her to burp her. It was like he was afraid she'd snap in half. Rebecca had watched him try to figure out how to hold her, burp her, and not drop her. She'd stood there once and saw him carry a man on his back, shoot an assault rifle, throw a grenade, kick a bad guy, and manipulate a missile defense mechanism all at the same time – she'd never met anyone that could multitask like Chris Redfield.
But he couldn't figure out how to hold a tiny baby.
It was utterly fucking charming.
Rebecca stood watching him as the baby munched on his finger while he held her. He was talking to the house keeper. He was in a white t-shirt and jeans. A green hoodie was thrown over the chair beside him.
Rebecca moved into the kitchen, smiling a little, "What brings the Human Tank to the middle of nowhere?"
Amused, Chris turned to smile at her. Faith was gumming his knuckle to death.
He replied, easily, "I heard you inherited this place. I had to come see for myself. How you doin, B? Seriously."
She shrugged a little and moved to take the baby when she was sound asleep in his arms. Rebeca laid her in the seat again to snooze happily and they moved to the huge porch so Chris could light up a cigarette.
Sighing, Rebecca looked over the beautiful wide open horizon. "Surreal. It's all surreal. What the hell am I doing here, Chris? I don't know a damn thing about ranching. And I don't know what the hell he was thinking. What do I do with all this?"
Chris inhaled and watched her face. She'd lopped her hair off the moment they'd come back to civilization. It was pixie short again and left her pretty face unadorned. She wore no makeup, but in all the years he'd known her, he couldn't remember three times that she had anyway.
It was likely why her skin was so flawless after all this time. The freckles were cute and dusted over her nose.
They were echoed on the baby. He'd touched them on Faith's nose while he'd been holding her.
"I think he was thinking he loved you." The truth winced on her face, surprising him. A curious reaction. She didn't like knowing that, "And wanted you to be taken care of if something happened to him. He didn't know about Faith. But he knew about you, B. And this? This is how Leon Kennedy showed you what you meant to him."
A hard truth.
It hurt her to hear it.
Because she didn't want the house or the land or the legacy of him.
She wanted him.
And he was dead.
And she was lost.
She said, "I don't know how to do this all without him. I don't know how to do any of it. All the ways I thought this would end, I never thought I'd end up alone. He's Leon Kennedy, Chris. He doesn't die. He rises. But I'm the girl who got him killed. And now I get to stand here alone with his memory."
She leaned on the railing, watching the sun crest and shiver, offering a gold and orange spill across the horizon. The coming night loomed, pretty and peaceful.
And she said, softly, "I don't want to be alone. I don't want to do this alone. He came to save me and died, Chris. And I don't want his house. I want him. And he died on me. I'm alone. I don't want to be alone."
Lord.
Her voice quivered, hurting him.
Chris flicked the smoke off into the grass. He took her arm and turned her. She went, easily, never a girl to deny the comfort of it.
His arms wrapped around her and made her breath hitch.
And he said, quietly and with a purpose that steadied her, "You're not alone, B. Not now. Not ever. You have Faith. You have Claire. You have Jill. You're not alone."
Against his chest, she murmured, "What about you? Will you stay? For a little while, will you stay here? I don't think I can get up tomorrow and face his ghost. I can't. I'm not strong enough."
His hand lifted to stroke her hair. The ghost of Leon Kennedy was all over her. If you closed one eye, you could almost see him there like a shadow.
And Chris knew, in his guts, that he'd stay. He'd stay here. Because they'd stood together in the rain that day in Italy and Leon had asked him to take care of her. If anything happens, he'd said, take care of her for me.
So, he'd stay and help her until she was ready. Even - if the guilt of wanting her chased him around the huge mansion where the pain of failure lingered every time he thought of that little girl growing up without her father.
And the regret of being unable to save him rolled in his chest like heartburn that never ended.
He'd stay.
Because he might be a fool, but he'd never been a coward.
And he'd be damned if he ran away from the ghost of Leon Kennedy.