RE: Inclination

A/N: Back closer to schedule. Thank you to everyone for the reviews. I appreciate them.

Remember, this is a Resident Evil story. Expect things to be somewhat more... Resident Evil-ly... or for there to be more Evil Resident in the character lineups.

May 2006

The day was a lot like what he had expected this vacation with Claire to be. Possibly slightly tamer than parts of his imagining, but it was good to be with her. Stupid couple things they had done that day stuck in his mind. Holding hands with her as they walked… the scooter they'd rented… the roadside stand with the overpriced drinks in what appeared to be recycled coconuts.

Ok, so the coconut drinks had been a little questionable, but the walk on the beach had made up for it. Perhaps a little too much sun, as Leon felt a craving for some sort of a sports' drink, but it was good. Claire, in the pair of jean shorts she had been wearing, even managed to get him to play a little in the saltwater surf.

All in all a much more pleasant day, and another full meal to the credit of his recovery, and Leon felt better. Claire had donned her bathing suit to get some sun on their balcony after they returned from the beach walk after lunch, but by that time Leon's survival self hadn't felt quite safe leaving the hotel room as the afternoon lengthened into shadow. It was almost as though washing the salt off their legs from the beach had returned the weight of the moment, the severity of their forthcoming departure, and the reasons for it.

Leon had joined her on the balcony, but spent most of the time standing and trying not to watch her scantily clad body on the lounge chair. She kept the gun handy as she had all day. While she was lying on the chair with her legs propped on the railing of the balcony, the Glock sat on the stones beside where she reclined. Leon's efforts to relax had mostly succeeded, but the tension in him, the alertness, prevented anything else from crossing his mind. Claire noticed, but didn't say anything more than an amused, "And here I put it on just for you," before she went to change.

As the sun sank outside the windows, the two of them watched television, ordering room service for dinner. He couldn't say what he ordered, but he ate it.

They lingered in awkward silence after the meal, both sitting on one of the beds and staring at the images on the television. Finally Claire turned it off. "We may as well sleep," she announced.

Leon couldn't argue about that. They would need rest for the trip in the morning, but…

Claire got up off the bed and looked over at him. "…will… will you indulge me something?"

Looking up at her, Leon saw an expression he'd seen before. It had been nearly eight years, of course, but he'd seen the look. Claire looked apprehensive. Nervous. Wary. There were a lot of adjectives he could use for it, but none of them seemed exactly appropriate. What did she look like?

"Of course."

Her question, actually, was a good clue to the right one. Before, when she looked like that, it was after Raccoon City. Running with Sherry… Leon pressed his lips together as he rose from his seat on the bed. Running afterwards, one of their precautions had been to push one of the pieces of furniture in front of the door.

His mind supplied their reasoning at the time, in a cold tone that he felt was his internal survivor. Zombies were much more dangerous if they burst through a door at you than if they were trying to reach through a window. Together they pushed the wardrobe in front of the door. Without the noise of the television, the noise of music from outside drifted softly through their windows, and the sounds of a small crowd.

"I'm going to brush my teeth," Claire said, heading for the bathroom.

Nodding, Leon allowed her to retreat.

Whatever romantic thoughts had been in his head twenty-four hours prior were gone. Laying down, Leon listened to the noise of Claire in the bathroom and the music and crowd from outside. No one out there seemed to know there was danger. Or if they knew, they didn't care. Heavy thoughts threatened his head, and Leon reached over to turn off the light beside the bed he was laying in, undoing the belt on his shorts and shrugging out of the tropical shirt he had on. He dumped both items on the floor beside the bed and settled in, trying to get comfortable.

Claire didn't even move to change clothes into pajamas, he noticed absently. Didn't change clothes, or take the gun out of the back of her jean shorts. She crossed to the bed he was on and got onto her knees on the mattress. In the mostly dark of the hotel room, Leon looked up at her as she pulled the tie out of her hair. A smile came to his lips, unbidden.

"Or should I sleep by myself?" she asked softly as she leaned down next to him.

"Like I'd let you," he replied, wrapping an arm around her, making himself comfortable. His hand rested against the small of her back, the gun tucked into her pants a welcome piece of safety.

Claire pulled his arm tighter around her, and the two of them pretended to rest. Leon didn't think he would be able to get any sleep, but despite himself, he both dozed. The situation, the tension, and the heat were too much of a reason to give in to sleep, especially given Claire against him as she was, and the soothing constant of the music and crowd outside coming in softly through the windows at the balcony.

It was late when the music outside died down. Common of a beachfront area, but not the dead silence that followed it. The music kept playing, but the voices went away. The change woke Leon from his doze. The lack of the familiar noise that had soothed him to slumber.

In the orchestrated silence, the first screams were barely audible. Somehow, Claire had managed to fall asleep. The noise, muffled by the closed door on the balcony, turned wakefulness into alertness for Leon. Wincing slightly, Leon slid away from Claire, carefully letting her body rest against the mattress, and went to the balcony. The door slid open easily, and he felt the sinking feeling in his stomach as he stepped out into the warm night air.

Leon slid the door onto the balcony shut quickly, hoping to keep the mounting noise from his sleeping companion's ears. As soon as he was out in the air he could hear clearly over the music what was happening below. This was the part he usually managed to miss.

In Raccoon he had simply missed this part, in Harvardville, he was rescue, he was clean up. Here, it seemed, he would play the role of witness. He would be victim or survivor. He pressed his lips together, glancing over his shoulder at the room behind him. Claire, sleeping on the bed. After a moment, when he felt the fierce protectiveness well in him, he turned his eyes back to the scene below. People were running. The spread of the infection seemed obvious, like a drop of ink spreading through a water glass. One hand went to his gun, but there was nothing to be done from this distance. His bullets would be wasted, useless, if he fired them down into the crowd.

Leon couldn't say why, but he made himself watch. The whole of it, until the street was empty of more than blood stained corpses of the ones who had been too eaten or fallen the wrong way to turn. It was as though the night had been draining the living from the island. Which would be fine, if not for the moon. In the silvery blue light, the blood stood out starkly on the pale sand. Dark splotches on the white, highlighted by mounds squirming or so still they must be in nothing more than parts. In his mind, Leon went over their options, and scanned the horizon.

He couldn't tell how long he'd been standing there, but he could hear when Claire came to join him. She stood beside him, and trembled.

"Just once, I'd like to go to an island I don't have to fight my way off of," she muttered. Leon let the corner of his mouth lift, and put an arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him.

"I really wasn't planning on missing any more work for rehab."

"You work?"

He didn't offer any serious response to that. It wasn't a statement that required one. "There's bound to be a police station somewhere in the vicinity. We can restock our ammunition there."

"But what's the way out? The airport will be crawling with them. They always are. Last time I checked, neither of us can fly a jet."

"Not without fuel, anyway," he replied.

"Besides, I want to be able to stomach an airport in the next six months."

Leon lifted a hand, pointing to the dock on the opposite corner of the island, barely visible from their balcony on the hotel. "We'll go by boat, of course."

Claire nodded. He liked that about her. Not that she agreed with him, but instead that she accepted what had to be done. She'd been doing it for years. In a way, it was really the reverse. He'd been working with her long enough to find the same answer that she would in a situation. "First light, we'll head down."

"So a fog can roll in? So they can see us better?" she shook her head. "Let's go now."

Leon shrugged. "We could go now, if you like," Leon offered. "But I see better in daylight than darkness, even with a laser sight on my weapon, which I don't have."

"Fine, jerk, we'll have it your way."

Leon squeezed her shoulders. This was what he liked about Chris, too. Not in the same way, or for the same reasons, but it was similar. Attack things head on until they're over. It was also a problem with the two siblings, but it was a better problem than the alternative of cowardice. In a way, he was glad that Claire had no particular training in the area. It would make her dangerous in a fighting situation, the way that Chris could be at times. Too confident.

"Pick a good pair of shoes, and get something with short sleeves," he said to her. "We're going to be running a lot, in the sun, and even though you redheads burn like bad chicken it's better than dehydration."

"Har, har, har," Claire replied, pushing at his shoulder. "Worry about yourself, convalescent."

Silently, he asked the night outside for some assurance that this time would be routine. That there would be nothing abnormal, that he and Claire would survive, uninfected. The dark, starless sky had no answer for him.

They waited.

The night, after that, seemed endless. Neither of them could rest, but neither were inclined to anything else. Energy, Leon knew, would need to be conserved. There was a struggle ahead. Thankfully Claire knew what she was doing. Thankfully Claire was good at this. It made her indispensable, and comfortable, and terribly dear to him.

It was before the sun began to rise that they both seemingly couldn't handle the stillness any longer. Claire rose from the bed and changed her shorts to jeans and then her shoes, pulling on a pair of boots that was in the suitcase she hadn't been allowed to take with her when they went to the airport.

"It's light enough," Claire asked as she moved, "isn't it?"

"Better than sitting in here on our hands."

Leon rose as well, checking the clip of his gun, and securing his spares. He pulled on his leather jacket. He got out the spare clip for the Glock he had handed to Claire, and lamented that he only had one. Claire was tucking something into the back of her jeans, and when she finished she turned to look at Leon.

Straightening his jacket on his shoulders, he nodded to his reflection and glanced at her to be certain she was ready. Claire nodded, gun at the ready. Leon shouldered the wardrobe from the door. He pressed his ear to it, and heard nothing immediate. He nodded, pulling back to hold his gun in one hand as he flipped the safety latch from the door. Then the lock.

Pulling the door open, he stepped quickly out into the hall, checking both ways. When he saw it was clear, he motioned. Claire followed him out and the two of them moved, as one, down the hall towards the stairwell.

A part of his mind thought that maybe there were others holed up in their hotel rooms. He glanced at his companion, and she looked back at him, confused. The thought hadn't crossed her mind. Yet. Quietly, he knocked on one door. Claire's expression cleared in realization. She hadn't thought of that either.

There was no answer.

"Check the other doors?" Claire asked him quietly. The two of them paused, sighting down the hall in different directions with their weapons.

"We may not like what we find," Leon reasoned back. "You decide."

Claire bit her lip, and Leon knew what was passing through her head as she did so. It was the same things that were passing through his. Compassion, concern. Survival. He knew what his answer was, but he wanted her to be able to live with herself, and hopefully with him after this. This floor would be relatively free of the infected, considering how poor they did on stairs. It was alright to check for other guests, this high up. It was one thing, though, to try, and another to get yourself killed while trying.

"Let's check this floor," she said. "Stair's on that end, let's do this side first."

Leon nodded in response. Her tone said things her words didn't. She was a little scared, despite the choice she'd made. He adjusted his grip on his H&K and motioned with his head. Claire fell into step with him, spreading herself to the far side of the hall, and turned so she was walking slowly backwards, covering their rear. It was a tactic she'd mirrored from watching Jill back up Chris during their Anti-Umbrella days.

One by one, they checked the doors. Most were locked, no response. One was slightly ajar. Leon ducked inside, and found only the curtains flapping in the breeze. Jumper, he thought to himself, without mentioning it to Claire. Another had someone who only screamed. The noise of the screaming was loud, and in the otherwise silent hallway, it was a deafening racket. The sound carried down the hallway past the pair.

Claire winced at that, moving more quickly to the next door.

"SHUT UP THAT SCREAMING!" the person in the next room crowed before they could knock. "I'd rather die in peace than that… than that… cut the racket, racket, racket."

Leon's eyebrows lifted slightly in response to that. Someone sane, barricaded in? He glanced at Claire, and she tipped her head to the number on the door. Well, given the speech pattern, mostly sane.

Shining letters proclaimed that the room was 1201.

An angry burning sparked in Leon. He could feel it in the pit of his stomach, and his muscles tensed around it. He stared hard at the numbers on the door.

"I want to know why," Leon said softly. Claire nodded, and shifted to stand behind him, gun pointed at the door. Swinging around, Leon kicked the door in.

"Not exactly a voice I care to forget, Townland. Long time no see."

The man who was cowering inside stumbled back from the entrance as Leon advanced, holding his gun aloft and staring down the barrel of it. "… Kennedy? You're dead… you're all dead, in the mountains…"

"Why is this happening here?" Leon growled.

*