4. Pedophobia*

Pulling the car door open, Jake leaned in to look over Sheva. She and Wesker seemed to have switched seats today. Wesker had sat in the passenger seat while Jake had driven to the coastline and Sheva was passed out in the back seat. It'd been about seven hours since she fainted and she had to yet to waken. Her legs were folded to the side while she clutched onto her bag that she had taken with her when she helped Jake break Wesker out. Jake shook her knee.

"Hey, sleepy head," he called. "Wake up. We have to get on the jet now."

Sheva mumbled something groggily, her head moving from the left to right in sleepiness. Unsure of what to do, he grabbed her bag and slung it onto his shoulder. He grabbed her legs and pulled her out, making her protest in slurs. When her legs were out, he grasped her arms and pulled her to sit up. When she did, she wavered, almost falling out of the car. But he kept her steady and brought her arm to his shoulders and pulled her to stand. She leaned into him considerably, her feet only holding a fraction of her weight. Jake didn't mind though, she was about the same weight as Sherry.

Sheva's eyes squinted open to see a jet only fifty or so feet away. It was ready to fly with all the engines turned on. She knew this because she could hear it when Jake had woken her up. Soon her feet were moving—more like dragging—as Jake pulled her along, going to the opening hatch to board the small aircraft. She looked up to the young man when he scoffed to find he was looking in the direction of the jet. She followed his gaze and landed on Wesker as he strode quickly to the steps of the hatch, not bothering to look back to see if Jake needed assistance with her.

"Have you told him yet?" she asked him, referring to the conversation he was supposed to have with Wesker about being his illegitimate son. Sheva started moving her feet in sync with his and could carry more of her weight, however, still needing Jake's aid.

"Not yet," he told her. "Part of me doesn't really want to. He's an asshole."

She chuckled despite her lethargy state. "What were you expecting?"

"I don't know," he mumbled truthfully.

Wesker looked around the space inside the jet. Everything was either black or grey, making the cabin look smaller than it actually was. His eyes searched for some type of radio or cellular, but he turned when he heard the click of a door behind him. His eyes locked with red glowing orbs of a gas mask. Wesker recognized the man dressed in black tactical gear immediately.

"HUNK," Wesker murmured, eyeing the agent. "You're still alive."

"The Death cannot die," was his cryptic response.

He couldn't help but chuckle at the man clad in black. Always the mystery, Wesker thought. The blond took a seat closest to the exit, watching as the boy he learned to be named Jake brought the Spencer spawn, Sheva, into the jet. He set her down at the end of the cabin on the widest seat, letting her lie down to sleep more if need be. Jake left her there and went to stand in front of the ex-Umbrella agent.

"You're the guy Tate sent?" he questioned.

HUNK crossed his arms and scanned the boy through his mask. He could see the only girl curl into a ball at the back. He recognized her from four years ago when he had flown Wesker and her to Elliot Spencer's mansion. She looked the same, he admitted, she just looked exhausted at the moment. Turning his head to look at Wesker, HUNK eyed him carefully, trying to decode any emotion he might show. But Wesker showed none besides annoyance; a look that was accustomed to Albert Wesker. HUNK was aware he'd been under arrest by the government and BSAA, asleep for four years, and that the boy that stood before him now was his son. It didn't take much to hint that Wesker didn't know that the young man had any relation to him.

"We'll be arriving in Ireland in approximately 7.5 hours," he told the boy and turned towards the door that led to the cockpit. He didn't answer Jake's question, but he didn't need to. There were no other jet's just sitting around here, so he was obviously the one sent by Isaac Tate. "You still have the key remote to the car, right?" he added, holding the door open. Jake nodded. "Press the lock button five times, unlock button three times, and hold down the trunk button for five seconds once we're airborne."

Before Jake could probe the masked man, HUNK had entered the cockpit, closing the door and began flipping switches. Jake shook his head once with a smirk. These people are so weird, he thought. Knowing the aircraft would be taking off soon, he thought it best to take a seat. When he turned, he was torn with decision to sit by whom. There were only two seats; one across Sheva and one across Wesker. Jake cracked his knuckles and chose to sit with the other male, slowly sitting while Wesker watched him carefully.

They watched each other as the jet began to move and then took off, saying goodbye to American land. When they were high enough, Jake did as HUNK told him and clicked the buttons on the key remote to the car they had been in prior. He had little faith the car would get the remotes signal, but he did it anyway. He kept from jumping when he heard a loud explosion below. Looking out the window, he saw the car he had been driving in for the past long hours in flames, revealing that he had just set off a bomb inside the metal box.

Jake rubbed his lips, hiding the grin to watch the vehicle burn. It was like those cheesy action movies. All that was needed was a silhouette of a man walking away from the burning car with some old rock song drumming in the background. He turned to look back at his father to find that Wesker was looking on at the automobile below like he had been, but Wesker had no expression as he looked on. Soon the car was just a red dot in the distance.

"Do you remember Kayla Muller?" Jake suddenly inquired with no warm up conversation or warning. He wanted to get this conversation over with.

Eyeing him suspiciously, Wesker wondered what Jake could possibly know about his past with Muller. She was just another person he had included in the short time he faked the life of normality. By this time in his life, Wesker had forgotten about her, considering her insignificant.

"What about Muller?" he quizzed.

"What do you remember about her? I'm curious," Jake replied, settling into his seat.

This was just the mundane beginning to some discussion Jake wanted to have, Wesker knew. But he himself was curious about this topic, so he went along, bitterly answering the boy.

"She was insecure about everything she did. She had no confidence in herself. Ironically she liked to be around people and she talked a lot. Quite naïve, she never wanted to see when others sabotaged her, which was often," he listed with a quick quirk of his brow. "She was rather easy—"

"Watch what you say," Jake warned quickly, his fingers curling in his lap.

Wesker chose not finish that sentence. What he was going to say was that she was easy to like, but he undeniably enjoyed seeing this young boy irritated. Gave him pleasure to know he was so easily ticked off.

"It's my turn to ask you a question: why do have her with you?" Wesker interrogated while pointing at Sheva in the back.

Jake looked back to see Sheva was sitting up with her knees to her chest. Her head rested on her knees with her eyes closed while she leaned slightly on the arm rest. He had yet to learn her name, but he didn't really think it was all that important until now when Wesker asked about her.

"She helped me get you out of the BSAA building. Why do you look so pissed about her?"

Anger was evident on his face. "The BSAA? That ghastly paramilitary company founded by…Redfield?" he hissed with disdain.

"Yep, that's it. You've been locked up there for four years. You're welcome, by the way. If it weren't for me then you'd still be in their hands. And if it weren't for her," Jake gestured to Sheva, "you'd probably be put right back into the cylinder you were sleeping in."

Wesker growled lowly and in parts, reminding Jake of an angry dog. "I've been under Chris's watch for four years?!"

"Technically you were under the BSAA's watch. You've been in—what do they call it?—oh, right. Cryostasis," Jake tapped his chin. "I'm still waiting for the thank you to me and her."

"I would not thank you in a million years," the eldest snarled. "Do you know who she is?!"

What a show, Jake thought. All he wanted was an apple to eat while he watched his father fume. "Nope."

"That's Sheva Alomar, Elliot Spencer's offspring," Wesker informed with a scoff.

"Shev—Sheva Alomar?" Jake repeated dumfounded. He scratched his cheek, thinking things over. "Well that changes things," he said while staring at his feet.

"Why do you say that?" Wesker asked, his head pounding with a headache, something he hadn't felt in years—decades. The pounding in his skull was getting louder and more violent.

Jake gave a nervous chuckle. "Well, it means that Chris Redfield's going to be very, very angry with me. I mean, I took you so he's gonna be shitting himself anyways. But since his fiancée came along… Let's just say he's probably smashing watermelons, imagining they're my head."

"His what?"

Though he hated that pathetic Redfield, he wanted to rip his head off to know that he was marrying Spencer's child. On the other hand, it was rather funny; Redfield marrying a Spencer. But still. She belonged to Umbrella. No—Umbrella is gone. She belonged to Spencer. No—Elliot never cared for any of his kin and Oswell was dead. Was there anyone hunting her? He couldn't answer that question with his spotty memory, but he knew she certainly didn't belong to Chris. That was just silly.

"I wonder if Chris knows she's a Spencer," Jake mumbled to himself, leaning to look at Sheva again. "Man, if he doesn't, I'd love to see his face if he ever finds out."

Like a jackhammer, the ramming in Wesker's head was constant and painful. Why do I feel this? I shouldn't feel a thing. He held back the need to scream as the throbbing worsened. He was about to stand when movement made him sick. He looked out the window, only to have his stomach churn to see blue water's below. Before he could reattempt to stand again, Jake told him to wait.

"Before you changed subjects, there's something I was getting at," he started.

Wesker wanted to rip the boy's head off, but the pounding in his head was so loud that it kept him paralyzed. However, his vocal cords worked fine and so he decided to attack Jake verbally. He leaned forward in his seat despite his entire body feeling sick.

"Something about Muller? I have no desire to talk about that pathetic, forgotten woman."

The pain in his head increased majorly when Jake's palm hit Wesker's chin, sending the older man back in his seat. He couldn't hold back the groan when he could feel his heartbeat in his head. He was about to shout at the boy, but Jake stood and grasped Wesker's throat in a choke.

"I'd be careful what you say about her. I'm her son and guess what? I'm your son, too. That's what I was getting at. I don't know what I was expecting my father to be like, but it definitely wasn't you," Jake sneered, letting go of Wesker's throat and standing tall to look down at the man.

"That's impossible," Wesker whispered, holding his head in his hands.

But as he squeezed his eyes shut, the math in his head seemed to do itself and soon he matched dates together. He and Kayla met in late '90, had a relationship, then she left after they broke up to go home in Edonia, and Jake was about twenty or twenty one, meaning Jake would be about the right age when he and Kayla were sleeping together…

"Oh, God," was Wesker's only reaction words before he shot up from his seat quickly and rushed to the lavatory at the back of the jet, slamming the door behind him and heaving the acid's in his stomach into the toilet.

Jake laughed without humor as he stepped around to sit across from Sheva, who was now awake, starring at the closed lavatory door. She set her feet on the ground and sat straight, looking to Jake with raised eyebrows. He told her to guess what just happened.

"You told him that you're his son," she predicted.

"Bingo," Jake nodded. "He reacted better than I thought he would."

"I'm sorry that he said all those things to you," she said softly.

She reached over and patted his knee, not letting her hand rest there so it didn't seem terribly awkward. She could hear Wesker practically coughing up his stomach in the small room behind her, making her cringe every time he gaged. It was odd, she thought, that he should have gotten so sick. But from what she wasn't sure in the slightest.

Jake shook his head, dismissing the apology. He had no desire to let his father's words concerning his mother affect him anymore than they had. As Sheva dug around in her bag, she pulled out one of those compact hair brushes that folded into a tiny rectangle. She pulled it apart, bringing the plastic bristles to comb out the tangles in her hair. Jake watched her, staring at the rock on her left ring finger. Initially when he met her, he didn't notice. But now it was all he could stare at. Boy, was Redfield gonna hunt him down.

"So," Jake started, leaning forward a bit, "you're marrying Chris Redfield, huh?"

Sheva stilled her movement for a second, scanning Jake's features to find he was calm as can be. She pulled her hair into a low ponytail, fixed her pale yellow blouse, and sat back.

"Yes. We were supposed to marry in March—our four year anniversary since we met—but he had gone missing and hadn't been found until two weeks ago. He was coming home yesterday and I was going to be at the airport waiting for him, but..." she trailed off as her voice went to a whisper and her eyes stared at her hands.

It was Jake's turn to pat Sheva's knee, letting his hand rest on her denim pants for a few seconds before pulling away. Though it wasn't his fault, he did feel a small twist of guilt to have put her in the position she was. However, he didn't pout over it because she did choose to go with him and he didn't exactly favor Chris, so he let the guilt go. The only thing he would apologize for was his father's rudeness towards her since he'd woken up outside the motel.

"How well do you know Wesker?" Jake asked.

A sigh escaped her as she noted Wesker had stopped gagging and she could hear the sink's faucet in the lavatory. She turned her attention to Jake with a small frown.

"That's a long story for another time, if you don't mind," she told him as kindly as possible.

He nodded, looking out the window to see they were above the fluffy clouds. When he spoke, it was in a voice so soft that he had no idea he could speak such a way. It was like everything that had been happening to him lately had even modified his voice, let alone his faith.

"You know, I had never been on a plane until I came to America a few days ago." He cocked his head to the side for a moment with a smirk. "Well, as long as you don't count when my mother was pregnant and she flew to Edonia almost twenty two years ago or when I was on that helicopter with Sher—I mean, someone."

"Do you miss your mother?" Sheva inquired with the same softness he had in his voice.

He looked as if he'd laugh, but as soon as his lips curved up, they fell into a thin line. He looked to her with not really any emotion but maybe a teaspoon of nostalgia in his gaze.

"That's a long story for another time, if you don't mind," he repeated her words, not meaning for it to come across offensive in the slightest. She didn't seem to take it that way, fortunately.

They didn't say much for some time and Wesker seemed to refuse to come out of the small room. He was probably trying to figure out how Jake's conceiving even happened, trying to replay in his mind the times he had been so irresponsible to have unprotected sex with Kayla Muller. Sheva didn't entertain the idea. She had not one ounce of desire to think of the man that was treating her badly. Let him puke out his innards for all she cared.

"How do you know Isaac Tate?" Jake suddenly sprung the question, making Sheva shift with a furrow in her brow.

"He's my brother," she told him straight. "And I'm going to have a talk with him when we get to the mansion. I tell him everything. He didn't tell me a thing about this whole breaking Wesker out of cryostasis. How could he keep that from me?"

"He probably didn't want to get you in trouble," Jake tried defending her brother.

Sheva agreed, but she still was angry with Isaac. He better prepare himself for a lecture when she landed and stood in front of him. She could just imagine his expression when he sees her arrive. It'll be something to remember, Sheva thought with annoyance.

Author's note: If you're thinking to yourself, "has HUNK become a chauffeur? WTF!" I see where you would think that, but no, he has not. HUNK is one of my favorite characters from the games and I'm still holding my breath until Capcom comes out with some sort of game that features him as the main character. (I'm going to be holding my breath for a long time if not forever.) But because I want to feature him in this story somehow, like the last, he'll just make the lone cameo in here.

As for the surprise Wesker got, I don't blame you if you think it was really underplayed or rather blah. But I did it that way because I don't see Jake as a guy who says stuff like "I'm your son, Papa! Hug me!" I don't think he's one for big celebrations or the major hoopla. I think he'd just lay the cards on the table and wait for Wesker's next move. Agree or disagree, that's just how I see it.

littlevamp: Haha, most certainly not our typical criminals on the run. I don't know why, but when I read that in your review, I imagined them in those striped shirts with black beanies and masks like how burglars were depicted in silent films… Anyways, I'm getting off track. Thank you, I'm excited for you to see what's gonna happen, too. :) Oh, and I just wanted to say that I really like your Claire/Wesker story. Sorry, I haven't made it a favorite yet but I promise I will. I've made it like a fourth through it so far. :)
Sasusakui: Haha, Sheva passed out for the win. Jake's gotta be sweet to make up for Wesker's grumpiness. I'm gonna keep going, I promise!
Comix777: Haha, that's how I see Wesker half the time! As a little brat. Oh, you know, with Wesker he has to have that sharp, witty tongue of his. Then it's not Wesker anymore.
Aukotber: It's ok! Oh really? How does Jake remind you of Wesker? Oh Isaac. I feel like he wouldn't know what to do with Wesker if he wasn't given orders. Like he's too insecure of his decisions… I like that you said Wesker is his "usual butthole self" because that is so accurate, haha. I wish I could tell you what's going to happen in here. I just want to spill details so badly! But I must contain myself. :(
REFan: I haven't decided if Wesker is going to recall his memories, if Sheva will help him remember, or if he'll stay left out of the loop… What do you think? Maybe a mix of the first two.
Ulimolu: Hmm, Wesker human, you say? *scratches chin* I don't know… Really, I don't know yet, haha. I haven't decided. Oh my, when Chris discovers the scandalous affair of Sheva and Wesker, the guy's gonna have a hissy!
Lollipop Lolli: I like Jake, too. And really, someone needs to give me one valid point why you wouldn't jump Wesker's bones! I'm being serious. No, I'm kidding, haha. Girl, I felt like a balloon (as I do every year) after Thanksgiving dinner. So, totally, it's normal to feel like that. :)

Sorry for the long A/N! I think I have a problem with talking too much on here. But besides my rambling, let me know what you think in a review, please! How do you think Isaac's going to react when Sheva show's up beside Jake and Wesker? What will Sheva do?

-Sarai

*"Pedophobia" is the fear of children.