The face that appeared on Ingrid Hunnigan's computer was unfamiliar. As was the source of the call. The standard trace showed multiple points of origin, and that sent up red flags immediately. Always the professional however, Ingrid stayed calm and polite. "Who is this please?"

"I need to speak with Leon Kennedy," The blond woman replied. Her tone was no nonsense, and expecting to be obeyed. Well, two could play that game.

"I'm sorry, you probably have the wrong number. There is no Leon Kennedy here." The last thing in the world Hunnigan would do was confirm any information about the agency or anyone who worked within it to some hacker. But the simple fact that this hacker was very well informed and very slick was a little daunting. The trace couldn't find the source, and it was the most advanced of its kind. Who was this girl?

"That's all right, Ms. Hunnigan." The girl smiled as Hunnigan's brows shot up in surprise before she could stop them. "You don't have to worry about confirming or denying anything. Just tell him Sherry is calling. I'm sure he'll want to speak with me. I can wait. And it will give your little tracer time to see if it can find me."

Hunnigan was left speechless. Who was this woman? How did she know Leon, or herself for that matter. This information was more than classified. "Just a moment." She put the call on stand by and called Leon. In a few brief moments, the caller was patched through.

A short while later, Leon sat across a conference table from a girl he thought he'd never see alive again. Sherry looked healthy and well for a girl in her early twenties. She'd let her hair grow out of its short cap to lay in a smooth fall to her shoulders. She sat straight in her dark blue business suit and looked a world away from the child he remembered.

"Am I so different, Leon?"

Her question surprised him with its pointedness, though his training kept the expression to a minimum. "How can I be certain you are who you claim to be?"

Sherry smiled almost sadly at him, and in that expression Leon saw the child he once knew. Older than her years, that sad smile spoke of long lost innocence that could never be reclaimed. "You don't. I became a ghost a long time ago."

"So what are you doing here?" It was obvious that she hadn't come here to talk about where the hell she'd been for the passed decade, so he wasn't going to dwell on it.

"Claire has been taken." She said it so matter of factly, like it wasn't any more pressing than a flat tire.

"I know. She's been missing for over a month. What do you know about it?"

Sherry smiled almost affectionately at him, that sadness still at the edge of her smile. She reached for her brief case and popped the locks open. She took out two files, one slim, one much thicker, and passed it to him over the polished table top.

"Her initial disappearance was actually two weeks earlier. She came with me to Africa after someone attempted to either abduct or kill her. After the most recent developments, I favor abduction. She was wanted alive. The mask of attempted murder was just a ploy."

Leon looked through the files, assessing the information as Sherry laid it out for him verbally. He controlled his expression with a firm will as the information registered with him. He was looking at things he was probably never meant to see. This information was what his agency and many others had been looking to find for a long time.

"Claire accompanied me to Africa after a confrontation with this person." Sherry reached across the table and flipped one of the files open to a picture of a young child, maybe ten years old. But what was truly shocking was she was a near copy of Claire, but with blond hair and eyes of a different shade of blue. "Alexia Ashford."

"Alexia Ashford died in Antarctica." He said it out of disbelief. She didn't even look like the same person Claire and Chris had both described years ago.

"That is actually true, and yet not." Sherry sat back and folded her hands in her lap. With a calm reserve she related the full story of what had transpired ten years ago. She outlined Claire's infection and subsequent turning to Wesker for help. All Leon could do was sit and listen in a stunned silence. "Eventually, Alexia's plan to be reborn was realized. She entered a fertilized egg in Claire's womb and insinuated as much of her own DNA into the fusion process as she could manage. Her focus was to keep the awareness and memory that her cells were retaining. Her physical appearance wasn't as important, so she does resemble her biological donors."

"A fertilized egg? Wait, who's the father?" Sherry didn't respond. She just tilted her head and kept her eyes on him, waiting for him to say it himself. "Wesker."

"If it makes you feel better, neither of them had a choice. They were both manipulated on a chemical level with no warning. But," She sat forward, placing her folded hands on the table. "Now you see why I came to you first, instead of going to Chris." She tapped the slim file with a fingertip to draw his attention back to the matter at hand. "Here is everything I've managed to piece together on where Claire may have been taken. It isn't much though, I'm afraid. My resources have been limited since the Africa incident."

"Do you think she's even still alive?"

"Oh yes. Alexia's obsessed with Claire as her mother figure. Alexia never had a mother, and now she does. Claire will stay alive as long as Alexia can keep her that way. Whether or not she remains Claire, that is what we have to worry about."

"You think she's going to experiment on Claire." He made it a statement, not a question.

"Leon, I can nearly guarantee you that Alexia has already begun."

It was the most difficult thing he'd ever had to do, letting Sherry walk out of the building. He wanted to keep her close by. But he knew that she'd come to him for a reason, and there was more she hadn't told him. He needed to keep the trust between them alive. So he let her walk away.

As he watched her drive away, he lifted his cell phone, dialing Chris' direct number at the BSAA. He had to know what was happening. But shit, how much should Leon tell him?

Apparently, he was about to have to deal with a series of the hardest things he'd ever have to do in his lifetime.

Sherry drove for a while before she felt that Leon hadn't put a tail on her. She pulled into a McDonald's and while she had herself a wildberry smoothly, she checked for any gps devices on her vehicle. Nothing. It seemed Leon was smart enough to play it straight with her. Good. That attitude would be key in finding Claire before there was nothing left of her to save.

She fired up her laptop and connected to the satellite. Wesker's face greeted her, hard and unmoving as always. "Leon will communicate the information to Chris. We'll have them both looking for her within the day I think."

"Any problems?"

"No. They still believe you're dead."

A/N: This one came out fast and was vying for attention with my Fable fan fiction. Look who won!

Thanks for the reviews and please keep letting me know if you like what you're seeing, or if you don't even. In a constructive way. Hope you enjoyed!

Eve