Nevada Sands

by Awesome one

Alice is content with her lonliness. All Claire needs a damn cigarette. Neither realize how wrong they both are until they stumble across one another in the desert then they realize all they really need, is each other. AU. Oneshot.

2. Chapter 2

I am so grateful for all the positive feedback you guys gave me. So, to show my gratitude, I'm adding another chapter to Nevada Sands. I look forward to your critique of the piece.

Also, much like the first installment, this piece is an AU version of Extinction but I will also bring in bits of Afterlife. It will run loosely along the ending of Extinction and move into Afterlife. But it is very AU. So don't be offended by the huge differences.

My disclaimer for this is not unlike my last, I don't own anything except my original idea and a few characters thrown in to fill the gaps.

Sun shone through the windows of the Hummer, splashing across the two bodies pleasantly intertwined beneath a scratchy blanket. Two different pairs of boots lay forgotten in the front seat to accompany the array of clothes carelessly hanging over the backs of seats and resting on the floorboard. Bare feet pressed against the paneling of the H2's backdoor where they stuck out from under the blanket, the skin of both being warmed by the rising sun. Alice woke to the sensation of sun hitting her closed eyelids and Claire mewling softly in her ear when the sun woke her too. After being in a somewhat secret relationship with the convoy leader for over three months now, Alice knew that her lover hated mornings. Each time the sun rose to welcome the day Claire would adopt a sour disposition and growl frequently in Alice's general direction as the stoic blond would get dressed. This morning was no exception except that Claire seemed extra aggravated today.

Alice attempted to shift her body away from Claire, who was half lying atop the blond, half intertwined with her below the waist, but was stopped short when she felt Claire's palm slap against her abdomen and shove her back down against the vinyl of the seat. The same hand that had stopped her slid across Alice's bare rib cage to curl around her possessively and pull her tighter against Claire. A low assertive growl echoed through the Hummer, sending tingles down Alice's spine.

"Don't even fucking think about getting up." Claire grumbled in a sleep heavy voice, nuzzling her cheek against Alice's breastbone and placing light kisses along the column of the woman's throat.

"We have to get up darling." Yet despite Alice's insistence, the blond remained pinned under Claire's weight and savored the way her redheaded devil lavished hot kisses and nips to her buzzing skin. Even after 3 months of nights spent loving and days spent longing, Alice still couldn't get over how her body reacted to Claire's attentions. Just one look from the redhead was enough to send Alice's blond head reeling and one light caress, purposeful or not, did ungodly things in her pants. Alice knew it was love, as did Claire, but something still kept them from uttering the three little words to one another. Each time they tried, something would happen like Carlos coming over to hit on Alice or K-Mart sneaking up from behind to hug Claire, refuting both women's subtle attempts. Eventually Alice stopped trying and decided to just wait for when the time was right. Claire knew Alice loved her, they both knew it, so Alice found solace in that while she bided her time.

Warm air blew across Alice's neck and collarbone when the redhead puffed out hoarse laughter, "I love the way you talk. You sound like a gentleman straight out of K-Mart's books. No one I've ever dated has called me 'darling' before or after undead started eating everyone."

Alice closed her eyes with a small smile alight on her face; her fingers began tracing slow lines up and down Claire's spine. She delighted in the shiver she felt crawl under her lovers skin. Claire was always so sensitive to Alice's touch. Bare or clothed, just a light brush against the redhead's spine or neck made the woman rattle like a rusty old car. She had discovered she loved making Claire rattle the first time they had sex.

"What did they call you then?"

Claire hummed in thought sending jolts through Alice's body thanks to the vibration against her overheated flesh, "I had a boyfriend once who called me his old lady and of course I was called babe a lot. Babe or baby. Hmmm…when I started dating ladies I was called monkey by my girlfriend for a while but that was just her thing."

Alice released bouts of laughter into Claire's hair, clutching the woman tighter as her body shook, "Monkey? Whatever for?"

"Well," Claire lifted her head, shinning green eyes staring into glittering azure ones until Alice's laughter subsided, "because I was a mechanic before all this shit and she called me her monkey wrench a lot but I think that was just because she was a fan of the song and that was the only tool she knew the name of. Personally, I always hated the pet name."

Alice shook her head with a fond smile, reaching up to trace Claire's soft lips with the pad of her thumb, "You're no monkey wrench darling."

Claire kissed the thumb running across her lips and tilted her head down to press a tender kiss to Alice's awaiting lips, whispering softly against them when she pulled back a fraction of an inch, "I love when you call me that though. It's my favorite."

A blond eyebrow rose in question, "Really? Why?"

Claire lowered her body until every inch of her naked flesh touched Alice's, the hand she had resting against Alice's ribs sliding down to cup the woman's hip. Heat coursed through Alice that nearly matched the growing hunger for the woman lying atop her body. Her eyes caught Claire's every movement with eagerness matched to that of a toddler wanting sweets, hoping to not miss a thing the redhead did or said. Ever so slowly Claire wove the fingers of her free hand through Alice's choppy locks and leaned close enough that their lips touched and Alice could feel as well as hear each word her lover spoke.

"Because that's what you call me and I love-" A loud rapping against the drivers side window of the Hummer interrupted Claire before the redheads sentence, Alice had hoped, would end with the word 'you' could be finished. They both groaned in frustration at the unwanted interruption but not loud enough for whoever was outside to hear.

"Claire?" It was Carlos, "Are you awake in there?"

Claire shot Alice an accusatory look like it was the blonde's fault that the man had interrupted what was leading to be a wonderful good morning and another attempt at saying how she felt. Alice shook her head sadly, reaching up to cup her lovers cheek and press an apologetic kiss against her frowning lips.

Releasing a sigh Claire sat up and away from Alice, taking the blanket with her only to leave her naked lover lying sprawled across the seat. Tingles that made Alice's skin blaze wracked her body when Claire looked at her with such open want, a pout adoring her beautiful visage because she didn't get to act on that want.

"What do you need Carlos?" Though she addressed the man Claire's eyes didn't waver from her lover. Alice huffed quietly and sat up herself, reaching for her white shirt hanging over the headrest of the passenger seat and her shorts on the floorboard by Claire's feet. They both glowered as Alice began dressing herself, Claire more because she had wanted to devour Alice before the woman even had a chance of waking up but Alice's was still rather fierce in comparison.

"Oh, good, you're up. We have a bit of a situation out here that needs your assistance. I would have just gotten Alice up so you could sleep but I can't find her." Alice paused in the middle of pulling her brown over shirt on to give Claire a salacious wink that made Claire grin widely. Of course he couldn't find Alice, he never could as he looked for her every morning but never thought to check in his leaders arms within the confines of her Hummer.

"I'll be out in a minute Carlos."

"Alright. If you find Alice, send her over too."

The couple shared a look full of want and love, "I'll be sure to do that Carlos."

"Cool." They waited for the retreat of his footsteps before lunging for one another. As always was the case, their want for one another won out even in the face of whatever problem Carlos had spoken of. Normally, however, if it was a serious case Claire wouldn't allow such things and Alice would be wise enough not to try because she knew her lover. Yet they both knew that if it had been a serious threat Carlos wouldn't have knocked, he would have nearly ripped the door off its hinges with the force he threw it the door open with.

Eventually though, after Alice had mentally promised to make it quick, the blond had redressed and Claire had managed to pull on her clothes even with sluggish arms. Once dressed and strapped from thigh to shoulder with weaponry, the couple exited the Hummer. Morning sun warmed Alice's lit up face and touched the happy part inside of her, brightening it even further. Feeling happy was something Alice hadn't even realized she missed until she had met Claire. Now she feared she couldn't go a day without this warm fire she felt lights each day and night she spent with Claire Redfield. Nothing would ever feel right again unless she had her beautiful woman by her side and, that had scared her at first, now she had learned to except and love it.

From her side she heard her lover hiss and curse mornings, stomping her boots into the sand with deliberate roughness as she stormed off in the direction of the army Jeep. Alice chuckled fondly as she made to follow her redheaded devil though at a much slower pace so that she could enjoy the view.

Xx xX

Claire hated Carlos. She hated mornings because of Carlos. She hated mornings before Carlos but she especially hated them now. He always came knocking for Alice each and every morning either claiming he needed her help with finding Alice or just flat out asking if Alice was with her. Claire hated it. She was half tempted to tattoo the words 'Property of Claire Redfield' across Alice's forehead and ass to get the point across regardless of how Alice felt about the matter. Maybe then he wouldn't wake her up after a long night of physical exertion spent with Alice to see if her blond was anywhere to be found.

Today especially was the day she hadn't wanted Carlos to come knocking because today, if the calendars she kept in her dashboard were correct, was her birthday. She couldn't recall exactly how old she was even if she knew she was younger than Alice but she knew it was her birthday. She figured she wasn't exactly thirty yet but could only be a few years off, if this wasn't her 29th birthday. She, of course, hadn't told anyone about this being her special day because she didn't want to draw attention to herself and birthdays during an apocalypse weren't celebrated as a general rule. Though she had the sneaking suspicion that K-Mart knew and had told Alice. Neither of her girls had made any kind of show about it yet so she felt she was safe for the time being. That, however, did not change the fact that Carlos had interrupted what Claire had planned for herself as a gift of sorts. She was finally going to tell Alice how she felt without interruptions, inconveniences, or annoyances then make love to the blonde until neither of them could feel their legs. Things went how they normally do for Claire, normal being the complete opposite of what she wants. Carlos had shown up earlier than he usually does ruining all of her plans even if she and Alice did have a lightening round of morning sex. It hadn't been enough. She had wanted to take her time and savor Alice as well as enjoy their short lived time together. Of course Carlos had, as always, come knocking.

The livid redhead jumped into the back of the Deuce where everyone was gathered for a quick meeting save Alice who was taking her time showing up for whatever reason. Carlos was seated atop a box in the far corner of the truck, in conversation with Mikey who was sitting on the floor near her boots. L.J. was sitting close to Betty, their heads bowed together with large smiles on their face as they probably flirted. Claire honestly didn't want to know. K-Mart sat leaned against the paneling of the trucks canopy with one of Alice's journals cracked open and rested against her thighs while she read, ignoring everyone else around her as usual. If there was anyone who was a bigger fan of Alice than Claire, it had to be K-Mart. Otto was attempting to juggle three empty tin cans without dropping one or cutting his hands on the jagged edges. Surprisingly he was doing well. Chase was in the middle of cleaning his assault rifle he cherished so much. A few young ones were huddled around him to watch him as he worked, occasionally handing him something if he asked for it.

Claire made her way over to K-Mart and plopped down beside the blond, her shoulder brushing the teens. The slight touch was enough to draw the teen's attention to Claire and, upon seeing her leader, smiled beautifully. The bubbly blonde didn't even bother to mark her place before leaning over and engulfing Claire in a warm hug.

"Happy Birthday old lady." K-Mart whispered against Claire's ear then withdrew from the hug and resumed reading. The redhead grinned and shook her head affectionately. She knew K-Mart had known. The little devil had probably cracked into the dashboard of the Hummer and found the calendars with the marked date of Claire's birthday in them. At least the kid wasn't making a big deal out of it and had the decency to not say it loud enough for everyone else to hear. If K-Mart did know then Claire had probably been right to guess that she had told Alice as well. She wondered if Alice had something planned. A warmness filled Claire's stomach thinking of the blond. She probably did, Alice was perfect like that.

"Mornin' Redfield." Claire glanced over at Chase who had spoken to her and nodded when he tipped his hat to her.

"Morning Cowboy. How's the gun coming?"

"Just about finished. Where's that friend of yours at?"

"If you're talking about me Chase, I'm right here." Alice's husky voice that never failed to send shivers up Claire's spine sounded. Green eyes snapped to the left to take in the view of Alice gracefully climbing into the truck and saunter over to plop onto the floorboard beside Claire, their thighs brushing just slightly. Claire trembled as the touch dug up memories of those same thighs wrapped around her head just last night.

As if reading her mind Alice gave Claire a wicked grin, "G'morning Ms. Redfield. Sleep alright?"

Claire nodded in a daze, her eyes stuck on those lips she loved so much, "I slept alright I s'pose. You?"

Alice shrugged and looked away from Claire to nod her acknowledgement to everyone else present that had waved or nodded, "I did fine. Oh that reminds me actually." The blond leaned closer to Claire and touched the woman's hand with the tip of her finger, "I had something I wanted to tell you before we were interrupted this morning."

Claire's heart sped up hoping with all hope that Alice was going to say what she almost had said this morning, "What's that?"

Alice turned her head and leaned even closer to Claire, pressing her lips against the shell of the redhead's ear, "Happy Birthday darling." After hearing Alice speak and feeling the blonde press a tender kiss to the place her lips had just been she felt something touch her thigh that wasn't a part of her lover. Glancing down she saw a full pack of unopened cigarettes resting on her knee. A birthday present. Alice had found her a birthday present. Gently the redhead scooped up the cigarettes and slid them into a pouch on her thigh, smiling widely. She would definitely smoke these slower than she normally would so she could savor each one with the thought of who had given them to her.

"Thank you Alice." Claire shot the woman a loving smile that Alice reciprocated.

"You're very welcome Ms. Redfield."

"Okay," Claire adopted her business look and turned to face Carlos who by now had noticed Alice's presence and was staring at her longingly, "What seems to be the issue Carlos?"

The Latino man snapped out of his Alice coma and looked nothing but business with his back straight and face hard, "Well to put it simple, we need to do a run and not a little one either, a big one. We're clean out of food, water, and practically out of gas. We need supplies Claire."

Claire rounded her eyes onto Otto for confirmation. The man ran his thumb and forefinger across the brim of his hat and shrugged his shoulders. She watched him collect the cans he had been using for juggling and rolling them towards her.

"That's about the last of what we have right there and its gone. The box Carlos is sitting on over there is assorted cans of shit but its only one box. We are gonna starve."

Frowning Claire nodded and looked to Chase. The cowboy set his gun in his lap and took his hat off to set it on the head of one of the kids that had been helping him.

"Well Redfield, I've got about enough left in the tanker to get us to Las Vegas but that's it. 'Bout 30 miles worth spread between us all but probably 'bout 4 tanks worth for one car."

Claire shut her eyes tight and leaned back against the canvas of the truck canopy, mulling over the new information. With the severity of their situation Claire didn't have much choice other than to take the risk of hitting a big city. She wasn't happy about it in the least but she wasn't stupid and she had always done what was needed. The only issue she stumbled across was she couldn't decide upon who to send because it was clear she couldn't take the entire convoy there. That would leave them all stranded near a large city on the whim that they will find the things they need in that city. Thus, Claire needed to choose someone to go. Preferably two or three some ones to ensure that everything was done safely and she gets her people back in the end though she preferred sending as little people as possible. The real question was who to send.

"Alright. Any ideas?" Claire decided this was a decision to big to be just on her shoulders squarely and figured a few extra voices couldn't hurt anything.

"Whoever goes should take the Deuce," Carlos slapped his hand against the cab of the truck they sat in to signify which truck exactly, "and the tanker. So the tanker can be filled and they can fill the truck with supplies. That means two drivers."

Claire nodded sagely, what Carlos said only reaffirming what she had already decided. With a heavy heart and a loud sigh Claire looked around the cab of the truck at her gathered people and spoke to each, "Okay two drivers to go into a suicide mission. I need volunteers. I understand if none of you want to do this, it's crazy. I would do it myself if I could but I have to stay and make sure everyone gets taken care of. Maybe do a small run to one of these cities around here while the two of you are gone for short term supplies. So, please don't think you have to do this. Because you don't. It's fucking crazy but I do need at least two of you."

Silence. Heads dropped. Eyes strayed to the floor. Not even a breath was heard. No one wanted to do it. Claire had already known that and honestly she was tempted to just say she would do it and leave Carlos in charge while she was gone. Until someone spoke up. Someone Claire hadn't wanted to speak up.

"I can drive the truck. No problem." Alice smiled sadly when she received a glare from Claire for being the one to speak up. The glare carried something else that only Alice would recognize; dread. Claire had lost too many people as it was and if Alice went on this mission and didn't come back she would crumble. She couldn't lead these people without a heart and wherever Alice went her heart would be going with her. Simple as it was, Claire would cease to exist if Alice died.

"Knew you'd be the hero Abernathy. You always are." Carlos smiled at the blonde and the blonde smirked back.

"Someone has to right? And besides, I can handle it. Just an in and out job for me. I think its best I do it anyway since I've obviously got an advantage you guys don't have." Claire glowered when Alice turned to look at her, placing one of her gloved hands atop of Claire's knee, "Don't worry so much. I can handle it Claire."

"That's not my concern Alice." Claire mumbled, slapping Alice's touch from her before it could distract her from why she was mad at the blonde. Azure eyes flashed hurt at being rejected but Claire ignored it by jumping back into her duties as the convoy's leader.

"Fine. Alice drives the truck. I still need someone to drive the tanker."

"I got that part. If ya don't mind teamin' up with me Blondie." Chase spoke to Alice, not Claire, since it was between them now. Alice nodded her head, finalizing it.

"I'll come too!" K-Mart set her reading material down beside her crossed legs, leaning forward and grinning manically. All the color drained from Claire's face. Immediately she began shaking her head as was Alice.

"No. Absolutely not. You're staying here with me. End of story, understand?"

K-Mart frowned and drooped noticeably, "Claire you're not being fair! I'm not a little kid anymore, I can go with Alice! Right Alice!?"

Claire turned burning eyes onto the blond beside her, pursing her lips as she continued eye warfare with her lover. Alice huffed and folded her arms, glaring in no real direction other than at Claire.

"Not a good idea kid. There is only one thing I'm scared of on this entire damn planet and that is a pissed off Claire Redfield. Sorry but it's a no go for you."

K-Mart bit into her trembling lower lip, anger filling her eyes just as much as the tears were; tears that would not fall. Not in front of everyone else. She was just so tired of being coddled and treated like a child. She knew better than anyone the dangers of this new world yet Claire kept K-Mart wrapped up in a nice, cozy fantasy concocted of her own maternal need to keep her safe all the time. It was sweet and it made K-Mart feel unbelievably loved but she was tired of it. For once she wanted to be treated like the adult she felt herself to be. Sniffing, sullen and pensive, the teen rose to a crouch and, without another word spoken, jumped from the back off the truck into the sand.

Claire opened her mouth to call after the teen but no words seemed to be coming out. So she snapped her mouth shut and turned her attention back to the group. A tiny brush of skin against skin-Alice's fingertip against Claire's revealed lower back-released the tight knot in her stomach but didn't do much for the guilt she felt. She hated refusing K-Mart anything but sometimes she had no choice if she knew it would be hazardous to her health. In true typical teen fashion K-Mart was stubborn and refused to believe that Claire was doing what was best. Instead she took it personal and lashed out with ferocious silence that cut straight through Claire's heart. Was she this bad when she was K-Mart's age? Hopefully not.

Alice clapped her hands together, a dull sound without the snap of skin against skin because of the gloves she wore, "Chase. You and me. We should go get ready to leave-"

"Wait hold up," Claire leaned forward, cutting between the gaze lock between Chase and Alice, to glare at the blonde, "You'll get ready to leave when I tell you too. I haven't yet. You two plan to go to Vegas then?"

"Yeah," Chase spoke up, breaking the obvious tension between (not so secret) secret lovers, "It's the only real option. I mean, I don't know Vegas that well. Never been before so I suppose we're gonna have ta get a feel for the city and hope we find what we need before we get gobbled up." At the end of his sentence, the cowboy tilted his chin up and gave Claire a tilted smirk that infuriated the leader. How dare he joke about Alice's safety. She clenched her fists but hid them between her thighs, chuckling without any real humor along with everyone else.

"Whelp," L.J leaned forward, resting his elbow on his knee and grinned at everyone, "I can tag along. I dropped a couple G's back in the day there. Know my way around the place. Besides, the cowboy could use some company if he's gonna be traveling with Alice. Chillin' with that bitch is like chillin' with an angry grizzly bear. And just as fun too."

Alice rolled her eyes but smiled regardless of the jab, "You only say that because you know I can please the ladies better than you can ever dream. Don't worry, I'll give you tips on the way."

L.J looked indignant and ready to sprout off just how wrong Alice was about that but Chase stopped him short with a loud chortle and slapped the man on his back with his wide palm. L.J pitched forward from the force of Chase's 'friendly' pat on the back, very nearly banging his face against the truck bed. The two broke into easy banter after L.J recovered from the 'pat' about woman and their impending mission. Occasionally Carlos or someone else present would comment and that would drag them into the conversation. Alice smirked, pleased with the scene. Pleased until she felt Claire's stiff fingers jab into her ribs roughly.

"Stop smirking," Claire hissed directly into Alice's ear for only the blond the hear, "I won't be seeing you for at least a week. I'll be fucking worrying about the woman I love for 7 fucking days. Long. Fucking. Days. That is if you don't go and get yourself killed. And if you manage to survive? Don't expect sex for a long…" Poke, "…long…" poke, "...long…" another rough jab and another poke, "…long time."

Alice's eyes grew wider than the moon itself. Her fingers twitched. Her ribs ached where Claire's fingertips were still pressing into her side without remorse but she didn't quite feel it.

Alice's smirk turned into a full fledged smile and, as punishment, she felt another harder jab against her ribs. A jab that turned into a full fisted punch when she let out a gleeful laugh. Eyes turned to them but Alice couldn't pay them any mind. Not with her eyes glazing with happy tears and fitful, giddy sounds falling out of her mouth while Claire continued to leave punishing marks on her ribs. Somewhere during her laughing and Claire's beating Alice had turned and captured Claire's wrists in her grasp, stopping the physical abuse. She smiled directly at Claire and stared at the woman until Claire finally locked eyes with her. When she finally garnered Claire's undivided attention she yanked on Claire's wrists and brought Claire within kissing range.

"You love me?" The whispered words were breathy and washed across Claire's lips in a hot torrent that sent shivers down her spine. Briefly she flicked her eyes to the other people who were, by now, all watching with interest the little display of Alice and Claire's. She swallowed hard, dry air burning her throat all the way down. Well, if they didn't know before they certainly do now.

"Claire," Alice spoke in that great voice that was hard and sharp, drawing Claire's eyes to her once again, "You love me?"

Slowly Claire poked her tongue out to wet her lips and nodded. Alice watched her intently, flicking her sharp gaze all around Claire's face, checking for something only Alice could find. Then before Claire could blink she felt familiar sun chapped but always lovely, plush lips pressing against hers. Her body acted on instinct. Molding against her lover, fingers raking through Alice's choppy hair, and tilting her head to better the kiss. They only broke when there was wolf whistles to be heard and clapping accompanied by laugher and a lot of mumbled words of 'told you' and 'knew they were fucking'.

Claire huffed and shot a glare at everyone, hoping to shut them up but only making their murmurs and knowing smirks grow in strength. Alice slid her palm against Claire's smooth cheek and asserted a gentle amount of pressure to tilt her head back towards Alice. The blonde was smiling, bashfully, and it was so uncharacteristically placed that it made Claire mentally stumble.

"I love you too." Alice hardly whispered it and if it weren't for Claire's supreme sense of hearing, she wouldn't have picked it up. But she had. Oh god, she had. Her heart thumped hard against her ribcage, very nearly breaking through the bone with its insistent clatter. She meant to lean in for another kiss but Carlos made a keening sound that was loud enough to startle her away from Alice. Fuck him; he was even interrupting them when he was in person.

"You guys are cute." Betty piped up before Carlos could bitch and moan like she suspected he would. Still, she leaned over to pat his knee apologetically and his pained face lessoned greatly. L.J slid his arm over Carlos's shoulder in a bro like manner, slapping at the shoulder his hand was closest too.

"Cheer up dude. Not everyone is a Lady Killer like me. Some of us are the Ladies-lady," L.J jabbed his thumb in Alice's direction, "Honestly, I don't even know why you thought you had a chance. It's not like she isn't bluntly obvious that she wants the pussy. Not the dick."

Carlos opened and closed his mouth multiple times in a floundering fish kind of way, "Yeah but...I thought…I just thought…"

Chase reached over to lay a hand on Carlos's shoulder, "We always do partner."

"But," L.J interjected, "There are just some girls we can't get with a good fuck. Like them over there. But fuck me if it isn't worth it just to watch! Totally cheers me up."

"Yeah right," Alice smirked at the brooding boys trying in their manly way to cheer each other up because, oh, the Woes of Lesbianism, "'Good fuck'. Good joke more like."

Claire chuckled and rested her temple against Alice's sternum, purring contently when she felt her lover's arms wrap around her shoulders and draw her close. Maybe everyone finding out this way wasn't so bad. Now she could kiss Alice and become treated to the woman's delicious touch whenever she felt like it. Public eyes be damned.

"So," Chase flashed his crooked grin, readjusting his hat atop his head before dropping his idle hands into his lap, "As titillating," He waggled his eyes at Alice and Claire after he said the word with such an emphasis, "as it was to discover your guys not so secret, secret we still have shit to do. Places to go. Things to kill. So if we're done here, I'm gonna go gas up the tanks and get ready to go. What's you say about leaving in an hour?"

Claire lifted her head, roving her eyes around the semi circle of people and gave a short nod in acquiesce, "An hour."

Alice grinned devilishly and leaned down to Claire's ear once more, "An hour is just long enough for a lightening round of birthday sex before I leave. Wha'da say? Sound good to you Birthday Girl?"

Claire blinked once, turning her head to give Alice a long, hard look, then, "Meet me in the back of the Hummer in 5 minutes. Don't be late."

Xx xX

An hour later, Alice was hobbling towards the Army Deuce, trying to cinch her belt around her hips with trembling fingers and walk at the same time. Her legs were still jelly and, even though Alice had intended for there to be no reciprocation, Claire seemed to misinterpret birthday sex as 'let me see how many times I can get Alice to orgasm before she leaves and I don't see her for a week-hope you don't mind being unable to walk!'. Alice barely even got to brush Claire's skin before the woman had turned into a sexually charged beast with an insatiable hunger for Alice. While Alice was staggering and stumbling on shaky legs, Claire was trailing behind with a haughty look in her blazing eyes and a smug smile. She was beyond pleased with herself and damn it if Alice didn't find it absolutely endearing.

Chase and L.J were waiting for them, dressed for travel and armed appropriately. Chase was lazing against the Tanker and L.J was busy trying to suck Betty's lips from her face. K-Mart, oddly enough, was no where to be seen. Alice sighed at that. She must have pissed the teen off enough she was going to say goodbye.

Claire sidled up beside Alice and twined their fingers together, palms lovingly caressing one another. Her eyes looked over the people waiting and, after noticing this was it, frowned. Her shoulder bumped Alice's and the blonde heard a quiet, "Don't worry, she'll come around" before Claire was silent again.

They were both feeling it now. Their impending separation that could sever their loving bond with a death if Alice wasn't careful. And they both knew Alice wasn't careful. She had gotten much better about it since she had joined the convoy, at Claire's behest but everyone knew that Alice had a hero streak in her that was a mile wide. Alice wasn't allowed to carelessly run headfirst into a horde just because she couldn't get infected. Claire had made it quite clear that immunity to infection didn't mean impartial to death and if Alice was going to be so stupid then she could find someone else to sleep next too. Alice wised up quickly. Very quickly. But that didn't mean she didn't do stupid acts of valor or simply do stupid things for the hell of it from time to time. Volunteering to be the one to lead this raid, for instance, was one of those things. She'd be careful, for Claire's sake and for the sake of the convoy, but that didn't mean she wouldn't take risks if she felt she had too. She almost always felt she had too.

The couple came to a stop by the driver side door, waiting patently with their hands still linked for L.J and Chase to migrate over to them. Alice craned her neck above the hood of the Deuce to see if she could spot K-Mart just once before she left but found nothing. When she felt a despondent sigh wanting to slip out, she felt Claire's hand squeeze hers just a little bit tighter and she didn't feel so sad about it after that.

"Ah there they are. We ready to go?" Chase strolled over, stuffing his hands in his back pockets. L.J came up beside him, rubbing a polishing rag along the golden skin of his beloved handgun. He paused only for a moment to wave at Betty who blew him a goodbye kiss.

"Yeah I guess," Again Alice glanced around for a head of blond hair and felt suspicion bubble in her gut when she didn't find even a hint of the teen, "If everyone is here."

The cowboy gave a hoot and clapped L.J on the back, throwing his weight off counter and nearly sending him toppling to the ground, "Alrighty, lets get this show on the road then!" He tipped his hat to Claire politely before turning on his heels and stalking towards the Tanker. LJ grunted and shook his head but followed dutifully, after saying his goodbye to Claire.

A smile flitted across Alice's face as she watched her companions walk away, knowing that they were giving her space to have just one last moment of time alone with Claire. The redhead turned into Alice's body and from the way she clung to her much taller frame, was trying to merge them. Her soft hands stroked the tender backside of Alice's neck, scratching lightly with her blunt nails, as her lips began marking a trail from Alice's sternum to her lush, waiting lips. The kiss was sweet and supremely soft, being more of a comfort than an actual act of intimacy. Claire's eyes fluttered closed and a tiny breath whooshed from her lungs when the weight of goodbye hit her square in the chest. She curled her fingers around the lapels of Alice's duster and pulled hard, knocking their bodies together in a desperate way and affectively breaking the kiss. Alice responded by wrapping both hands around the back of Claire's neck and rested her forehead atop of Claire's. Claire's forehead rested against the soft skin covering Alice's breastbone, her hot breath fanning across Alice's chest the harder Claire began to breathe to prevent the tears welling in her eyes from actually falling.

"I don't want you to go." The leader muttered fisting the lapels even tighter if that was possible. Alice rubbed circles into Claire's nape with her thumbs and planted a hard kiss to Claire's part.

"I wouldn't go if there weren't lives depending on us. If I had a choice, I'd never leave your side." The despair and emotion was painfully clear in Alice's voice and that left Claire with no sure way on how to respond. Instead she just slid her arms around Alice and hugged her as tightly as possible without injury incurring.

"Come back to me Alice," Claire pulled back to fix Alice with the most intense love and devotion Alice had ever seen in those green eyes, "Come back safe. Please. I need you to come back to me."

Alice slid her hands up Claire's arms to cover Claire's hands that were cradling Alice's cheeks, her gaze locked with Claire's and just as intense, "I will. There's nothing that could keep me from you."

Tears could be seen shinning in Claire's eyes but that didn't deter her seriousness nor the intermingled amounts of emotions flashing across her expressive face, "If you don't, I'll find you and I'll punch you for not keeping up your end of the bargain do you understand?"

Alice nodded and was shamed to feel tears of her own prickling at her eyes. She gave Claire a watery smile and sloppy kiss on the lips then two more on the cheek before she disentangled them. Their hands remained locked between the two of them as they just stared at one another, trying to memorize every line, every freckle that marked each others faces, as if this would be the last time they could. Claire let out a shaky breath and stepped away, letting their hands fall apart and the separation was already tangible in her aching heart.

"Hurry home baby."

Alice flashed a smile at the term of endearment and nodded shortly, "Tell K-Mart," Alice glanced around, still not sure how to express her feelings unless it was Claire.

Claire smiled sweetly, both her hands itching to reach for Alice but knowing if she did she'd never be able to let go, "I will."

After another second of just longingly staring at one another, Alice pulled a hunting knife from her boot in a flash. She flipped it so that the blade rested against her palm and held the hilt out for Claire. The redhead stared at it with pinched brows for a second before slowly closing her fingers around the smooth hilt.

"You be safe too. Don't make me come back to find out you got yourself killed."

Claire nodded and hugged the knife to her chest, careful not to cut herself on the sharp edge. Alice gave her lover just one last longing look then turned swiftly to yank the door to the Deuce open and climbed inside. The steering wheel under her palms was smooth and the seat beneath her was comfortable but she knew even with the niceties, this trip would be a miserable one. She looked out the window to Claire still standing there hugging the hunting knife and staring right back at her. A tiny smile came to her face.

"I love you."

Claire let out a choked sob and nodded slowly, a few tears rolling down her cheeks, "I love you too."

Alice raised two fingers to her forehead and gave Claire as mock salute as a cheeky goodbye, hoping to give the redhead one small reason to smile. Claire just shook her head and let out a quiet array of hoarse chuckles. The Deuce started quickly with a thunderous roar under Alice's hand. She couldn't bring herself to look into the rearview mirror for just one last glance of Claire as she drove away; the goodbye had been painful enough.

Behind her Alice could hear the answering roar of the tanker's engine, dutifully following her into the face of the unknown and uncertain all except for obvious danger. She knew she'd be grateful for Chase and L.J later when this anguish wore off but all she could think about was how she was leaving a home in Claire behind for probably and almost certain death. For years Alice had been searching for something lost to her and fighting for something unsinkable until finally Alice had stumbled across Claire and this rag tag band of a family. They were her home now. Claire and K-Mart. Her family. Her life. Leaving them, all of them, behind felt like jabbing a hot knife into her chest without the benefits of quick healing. That she knew would wear off in a couple of days, she had after all gone through things like this a hundred times before, but never had she felt it so deeply. Soon she'd be okay but not right now.

The Deuce flew down the deserted road, eating up the distance with a quickness, but still the minutes felt like hours and hours soon felt like days. Even before the apocalypse Alice had been a restless spirit. She couldn't do waiting or long car rides without something to keep her entire attention focused. She used to listen to music or screw with the people she was riding with but, with neither of those options available in this current state, Alice found herself growing increasingly bored as the time dragged on. Briefly she considered using the radio to chat with Chase or L.J but ultimately gave up on the idea, deciding to save conversing for when the use was important. Her hands continued drumming the steering wheel roughly and she found herself scanning the horizon for any undead to amuse herself with. That was a no go. There was nothing but tumble weeds and sand out there. By the time the sun began to set Alice's skin felt like it was made of crawling bugs she was so bored. Her foot tapped the floorboard incessantly, one of her hands banged on the dashboard, and she used her heightened senses to scan the dark for undead bodies stumbling about.

"You know, that's really annoying Alice."

The blond woman jumped in surprise and jerked on the wheel, swerving madly to the left. She cut a glance over her shoulder into the backseat to see K-Mart's mischievous face smiling at her. Blue eyes grew wide and turned back to the road, her body already reflexively correcting the vehicle back to the right side of the road. Oh god. Oh god. K-Mart was here. In the cab of the Deuce. She had hid, probably after Claire had told her that she couldn't go, and waited until Alice was to far away to turn back before making herself known. The clever little punk.

Before Alice could open her mouth to let out a flurry of reprimanding words, the radio crackled to life.

"Alice? Are you alright? We saw you swerve."

Alice sent a glare at K-Mart who was climbing over the seat into the front, clicking herself in with the seatbelt. The blond huffed and tore the radio from its hook on the CB.

"Yeah I'm fine Chase. I was startled by my stowaway."

Chase chuckled through the radio before replying, "Did Claire decide she couldn't live a week without you?"

Alice tried not to feel the pain that made her heart sting upon hearing Claire's name and swallowed the lump of emotion lodged in her throat, "No. K-Mart decided to go all teenager on us and defy Claire's orders. We got the kid now. We should drive through tonight and stop in the morning to sleep."

"You're the boss, boss. Over and out."

Alice hooked the radio back on the CB and returned her hand back to the steering wheel, gripping it to the point of it nearly breaking the hard plastic ring. There was the sound of cloth sliding against cloth when K-Mart scooted closer to Alice. A tentative touch of K-Mart's fingertips warmed the skin of Alice's arm and directed her attention from the road to the sad faced teenager.

"Are you mad at me Alice?" K-Mart's voice was quiet and unsure. The blond huffed angrily.

"Yes."

"Oh," K-Mart was silent for a few minutes the further they drove on into the setting sun, then, "I'm sorry. I just wanted to show Claire that I'm not a kid anymore Alice. I thought that if I….if I went on a run then-"

Alice sighed and glanced at K-Mart when the girl's voice died off. The teen was now staring at her hands folded in her lap and let her hair hang over to hide her face.

"K I understand. Really I do. But Claire isn't telling you no to keep you back, she's doing it to keep you safe."

"I know…" K-Mart mumbled, not lifting her eyes.

"K," Alice reached over to lift the teen's head with a finger beneath her chin, "You don't need to prove yourself to Claire. She is already proud of you and she already loves you. She wants you to be safe K and your safest when you're with her. Do you know what's gonna happen when she realizes your missing? She's probably going to have a literal heart attack and cry a lot. We both hate when she cries. This is going to hurt her K-Mart. Let's just hope we make it back alive or that may really kill her."

K-Mart made a pitiful sound and shifted in her seat for a long while but never responded to Alice. Long hours went into the drive and somewhere along the way K-Mart fell asleep splayed over Alice's lap, her hair falling clear down the floorboard between Alice's legs. The entire scene was terribly domestic, something that even before the world went to shit Alice wasn't accustomed too. Alice was the woman who had literally married her work and never wished for children, a husband, or a house with a white fence. Spence had been the closest thing to domestic bliss Alice had ever achieved and that was all a falsity that had blown up in her face quite stupendously. Strange how Alice managed to get all the pieces of a family after a world wide disaster that tore everything from all other humans including their mortality and humanity. Softly Alice placed her head atop K-Mart sleeping head lounged on her thigh, warming from both K-Mart's physical heat and the well of emotions that spewed from her heart.

Night burned away with the sun rising into the sky, peeking above dunes of sand and the occasional zombie riddled husk of a house they would pass. Weariness clung to each of her bones with a weight that settled not only in her body but in her mind as well. Despite the tiredness shared by both drivers, the convoy of two drove on until dawn had fully blossomed into morning and sunlight covered every stretch of the Nevada desert around them. Only then did they turn off the road to sleep for a few hours, blocking out the sunlight with coats over their faces. After the brief rest Alice instructed the group to continue towards their destination which they should arrive at by dawn the next day if they kept to the same pace and so they did. The Deuce and the Tanker rolled to a stop just outside the city limits of Las Vegas, both vehicles completely devoid of fuel. What was once a thriving city was now just a mixture of crumbling buildings beneath a blanket of dry, hot sand. None of that perturbed Alice since this was an A typical apocalypse type landscape now that there weren't humans around to do any upkeep. What bothered her was the fact that they stood at the edge of a city that once hosted thousands of bodies but didn't appear to have a single undead rambling around. One would think that this kind of rare sight would be comforting but if anything it made Alice even more anxious. Something in her was screaming about how this whole situation seemed wrong. Begrudgingly she tamped it down in favor of prepping her team of three for the task that lay ahead of them.

"Well," Alice pushed off the grill of the Deuce and came elbow to elbow with Chase on one side and K-Mart on the other, "Any thoughts before we storm the beaches?"

Chase let out a whistle and pushed his hat up the barrel of his rifle, tuffs of his scraggly brunette hair peeking out, "Am I the only one spooked about the low population here?"

LJ let out a dry laugh that held no real humor in it, "No way brother. This shit feels all kinds of messed up."

"Doesn't matter," Alice grinned at her company and slung an arm around K-Mart's shoulders, "It doesn't change the fact that you need to keep your guard up at all times and expect anything. LJ, Chase, you two go after fuel and food supplies. K-Mart and I will scrounge around for medical supplies and some cleans clothes, new shoes. If things get thick I don't want anyone to be a hero, I just want you to get out. Is that understood?"

Chase slung his rifle around his shoulder with a light chuckle, "Yeah, yeah."

Not shortly after that Alice found herself stalking the second story of a mall densely populated with anything other than toppled over mannequins and blood soaked plushies. The escalators had long since stopped running along with the power, surrendering the once thriving building to nothing more than a sparsely lit building full of lost treasures of a world long past. Lights hung from the ceiling that was still two stories above the one Alice stood on, a few even were crusted in dried blood from a benefactor Alice assumed to be the decaying pile of bones on the floor below, bits of tendon and cloth still holding it together. There had only been two undead bumbling about when Alice and K-Mart had entered through the back entrance, both of which were killed quietly with Alice's kukris knife. K-Mart had hardly flinched when the dark blood splattered clear across her torso onto her face, blooding her lips and nose, something Alice was both sad and proud of. There were a few seconds of panic over whether K-Mart had gotten any of the poisoned blood into either of her orifices but luck had seemed to be on the teens side as she came away safe. Alice had allowed the girl to wipe her face clean on the large scarf hanging around her shoulders and she aided in wiping every spec of the nasty stuff from K-Mart's surprisingly soft skin considering the conditions they lived in. Not another bumbling corpse had been spotted sense then and they had been carefully making their way through every shop in the mall until they had been forced to climb to a second story. As it would seem, this mall never had a store dedicated solely to health supplies that a person would easily find in, say, a hospital. They had mostly found clothes and strange Asian themed shops stocked full of imitation swords and incense. The only useful thing they had found was a 14' machete completely serrated on the side opposite of the sharp edge in a hunting store that K-Mart had immediately laid claim too. She held it out in front of her as she crept along behind Alice, her eyes shifting from left to right every five seconds. Alice held an old bolt action Remington rifle with a hunting scope attached to it in both hands, the 5 additional .30-06 rounds fit snug in the band wrapped around the wood stock. Another useful thing they had salvaged from the hunting store. It was meant only as a precaution but out of habit Alice kept it loaded, off safety, and at ready in her hands. A sharp nudge at Alice shoulder made her cast a glance at K-Mart who had stopped walking. The skin around her knuckles was pulled taught until it was white, gripping the hilt of her machete. The hazel of her eyes was very nearly engulfed by her blown pupils, both staring not at Alice but past her, towards a kiosk. Silently Alice followed her line of vision to see an undead trapped inside the kiosk, mindlessly walking forward to be knocked back over and over. The skin around its hips was worn down to muscle that bone shown through, indicating that it had been at this for some time now and had chafed through layer after layer of tissue. Understanding washed through her and instinct took over. Without a word she gave the rifle to K-Mart in exchange for her machete and approached the zombie with a quickness, stealth to each step. Milky eyes lifted to her as the glint of the blade caught the zombie's attention. Only a low gurgle could emanate from the dead creatures decaying vocal cords before the blade sunk clean through its skull clear into its nasal cavity. The only sound it made after that was the sound of its body colliding with the dirty floor and the wet noise made when Alice released the blade from its cranium, grey matter coating the once shiny silver metal.

"Alice…?"

The woman turned on her heal to make her way back to K-Mart, taking the rifle back and giving the teen the dirtied blade, "Your safe. Let's move. I want to look for a little longer."

"Okay." K-Mart regarded her new blade with a distasteful look, her nose scrunched up and her brows furrowed. As they passed the kiosk she lent down to retrieve one of the tacky orange and green Hawaiian shirts that had been up for sell to clean the machete with.

The pair continued to move quietly along the walkway until they reached two sets of escalators, one that would take them back down to the first story and another that would take them up to the third. Alice stepped to the side and gestured for K-Mart to go first so that Alice could cover her back with the rifle, her old habits and new instincts driving her from the back of her mind. K-Mart said nothing but dutifully obeyed Alice's silent order, carefully setting her boot down with each step she took. The climb was slow because of K-Mart's extra sensitivity towards being quiet but that didn't bother Alice as much as it would if she felt this place were a real risk. She continuously surveyed the area around them with her trusty rifle in hand, only looking forward towards K-Mart when the girl suddenly stopped. Their bodies collided softly allowing enough time for Alice to snake a protective arm around the girls waist to steady them both before they could tumble backwards together down the flight of steal edged stairs they had just climbed.

"K-Mart, what-" Alice began but stopped when she caught sight of what had stopped K-Mart cold. Like before it was another undead but this one more grueling to witness than the last. The small size of the creature meant that it was a toddler, perhaps around the age of two or three before he had been bitten, along with his smallish features barely disguisable under the layer of dried blood ringing its mouth and soaked into his Iron Man shirt. Only half of him remained from the waist up, the rest of him was trapped in the belt where the escalator flattened and disappeared under the steal plate. A large pool of blood was nothing but crust around him, his hands continually scratching and pawing at it in a fruitless attempt to pull himself free so he could feast on the two adults observing him with a soul encompassing sadness. High pitched gurgles and growls came from his throat, dull as he was dead but it seemed to only sadden the pair more where it would have normally made them alert. K-Mart sniffed and turned wet eyes towards Alice who, despite the sadness in her heart, remained stoic with a stone face. Gently she prodded K-Mart in the side and gestured towards a store a few feet away.

"Go look over there. Don't go inside, just look through the doorway." They both knew Alice was sending K-Mart away so she wouldn't have to see what needed to be done. Normally, killing the undead didn't bother either of them, especially them. Alice had grown so accustomed to the task that it was not just a second nature to her but a life. All effects killing had on her had been dulled into a trained nothingness long before the undead came to be as she was a trained solider. K-Mart had been young when this had begun and her life before had been nothing of endless violence and beatings anyway. A life of death and blood was only a minor adjustment that she had easily gotten use to whereas most of the children in the convoy still couldn't bear the sight of the undead. For both of them, killing was not a problem and they both felt nothing for the undead as they both understood that they were no longer human and never would be. Yet still the sight of this small being, which had once been a mind who had yet to develop along with his physicality in this world, dead and as mindless as the others had perturbed K-Mart to the point of near tears. Neither of them would speak it but both of them were grateful for Alice's stone will and her care to send K-Mart away.

The teen took no notice of Alice deftly slicing the boys head from his petite shoulders, ending his cruel half life once and for all. She took care to clean the blood from her blade before sliding it back into its sheath and joining K-Mart. The store Alice had pointed out was a sporting goods store and by some luck just beside it was a medical outlet. They first cleared the sporting goods store to find a few canvas hockey bags, two good hiking back packs, and a sturdy wagon that they took with them into the medical outlet. On the way out Alice relived the store of an aluminum baseball bat sitting in a bin beside the doorway just so she wouldn't have to continuing using K-Mart's machete or dirty her precious kukris. Inside the medical outlet Alice was surprised to find it well stocked with a great many things that they probably didn't even need but she would take anyway just in case. They loaded both hiking bags and a hockey bag full of supplies that they had to deliberate on the need vs. the wish for. When they finished with that task Alice had them wander down the walkway of the third floor until they found a clothing store and filled four more hockey bags full of different sizes of clothes and shoes. Each full bag was placed inside the wagon for easy storage and once they were finished, Alice wrapped two bungee cords around the bags to keep them in place. Alice rolled the wagon behind her with one hand; her baseball bat gripped tightly in the other and kept her new rifle slung over her shoulder for easy access. When they had to make their way back down the escalators K-Mart held one end of the wagon and they carried it so the wheels wouldn't make loud sounds each time it hit a step. It was mainly a safety precaution that wasn't really needed since they retraced their every step out of the building and they had already killed everything they had come across. Something that still was nagging at Alice and her instincts but she continued to repress it. After all, why should she be foolish enough to look a gift horse in the mouth? She would think on it after they were on the road and heading back to the convoy.

Alice and K-mart found Chase loading wooden crates into the Deuce all by himself, his faithful rifle leaned across the massive tire of the truck within easy reach. A logo was stamped into the side of the crates but it was hard to make out under the layers of sand and dust coating it. Whatever it was seemed to be good and was pleasing to Chase because he was grinning like a fool and mumbling to himself about damn good fortune. Compared to the stack of 20 or more crates he had yet to load into the Deuce to accompany the 20 or more in the vehicle right now, Alice's supplies seemed meager. Typical K-Mart was beside herself with enthusiasm and bolted from Alice's side to bowl Chase over with questions. Alice followed more slowly, coming in at the tale end of the conversation.

"-and there they were! A whole fuck ton of them. There has to be hundreds more in that warehouse. LJ is still there, loading up more," Chase let out a warm chuckle and slapped the side of a crate, his eyes shinning with a mirth Alice had never seen before, "Claire is gonna be beside herself when we get back."

Alice squinted her eyes in the sunlight to get a better look at the cargo of the Deuce, trying to understand what all the fuss was about. The crates were made of a thick lightwood, study enough to withstand the sands of Nevada engulfing the state and large but not overly so, about the size of an old 38" TV. Even up close Alice couldn't quite make out what was stamped into the wood but something seemed so familiar about the way the crate was crafted. Unease gnawed at her belly and she couldn't help herself from stopping Chase when he reached for another box. He gave her a look as if she was crazy but she ignored it entirely, bypassing him to crouching beside the box. Large staples held the crate together in all four corners, making it simple for her to slide her knife into and pry open. The contents spilled out onto the sand and across her boots, each individually wrapped package proudly displaying the logo that had been unreadable on the crate. Alice's heart came to a shuddering stop inside her chest.

"What are those?" K-Mart's innocent voice chirped from behind Alice. It did little to stop the ringing in her ears or the fear that seemed to rise from nowhere inside her.

"Well those," Chase answered for Alice, cheer lacing his every word, "Are what we call MRE's honey. Meals Ready to Eat. The military uses 'em and we found a whole warehouse full of 'em. These things are gonna keep us well fed for months!"

With a trembling hand Alice picked one up and ran her thumb around the hexagonal shape that had seemed to haunt her for years now. An entire warehouse full of Umbrella MRE's could only mean that Umbrella had an entire warehouse's worth of men somewhere around here. That or…or something worst. Alice stood from her crouch and rounded on Chase, holding the package up and shaking it in the man's face. A gleam of madness was making her eyes shine in a way that struck fear into him in ways nothing had before.

"Where did you get these?"

K-Mart instantly picked up on Alice's distress and without much thought moved to her, wrapping her slender fingers around Alice's tense bicep, "Alice? What's wrong?"

At first Alice didn't even register K-Mart presence, her mind was still reeling with the fact that her worst nightmare could only be a little ways away from her, waiting to catch her like prey to use for another experiment. Everything she had done to preserve herself and those she had come to care for would crumble in the instant that Umbrella operatives got their hands on her and she'd be powerless to stop it. It was only the soft lull to K-Mart's sweet, familiar voice that brought her to the present and out of her dark memories of being a lab rat for the company she had devoted her life too. She dropped the package and took a massive step away from the crate of spilled contents like it were acidic. Her wiry arms wrapped around K-Mart's small form and crushed the girl against her chest as if to protect her from the very idea these crates delivered. Umbrella was near and they were in danger.

"We need to leave. Now. Tell me where you got these so I can get LJ and we can leave." There was a timber to Alice's voice that was alien even to her and she was astonished to find that it harbored on fear. K-Mart shifted in her arms to look up at Alice with eyes wide yet still trusting, always trusting in everything Alice ordered or asked of her.

"What's going on?"

"That's what I'd like to know." The joy in Chase's voice was long gone, replaced with bitter sadness but also his ever ready responsibility. Like K-Mart he trusted Alice without question and had sensed the urgency laced with absolute fear in her tone, reacting by grabbing his rifle and shoving a full clip roughly into the weapon.

"Those crates, the food inside, it all came from Umbrella. That's their insignia on the packages. And if their supplies are here that means they can't be far off. We are in serious danger here."

Chase's eyes grew wide, "Umbrella? As in the Umbrella who fucked the world up?"

Alice nodded, her chin brushing against the top of K-Mart's head, "And the ones who fucked me up."

"Oh shit. Oh fuck. I'll…oh fuck." Chase became frantic, wanting to load the rest of the crates into the Deuce but also clearly wanting to get away from Vegas as quick as possible. He moved his hat towards the back of his head and hurriedly threw the remaining crates into the Deuce with Alice's help along with the clothes and medical supplies she and K-Mart had salvaged.

Chase began to run towards the tanker but Alice stopped him to put the keys to the Deuce into Chase's hand. He eyed her strangely, his brows lowered in absolute confusion as to why Alice would be doing such a thing.

"I can't just leave LJ. I have to get him out of that warehouse but if I don't come back, you need to get these supplies back to the convoy. They will starve without all this and some of them really need the medicine here. It's up to you now. If I'm not back in 20 minutes, you take K-Mart, you leave, and you don't look back. Is that clear?"

"Alice no! Don't say that! Don't leave me!" K-Mart's voice was shrill and full of emotion but Alice blocked it out, she had too. Her eyes continued to hold Chase's, pleading with him silently.

"I understand Alice." Chase spared Alice no second look or word before he turned away, stalking over to the Deuce. He loitered around the door staring down at the magazine sticking out of his rifle like it was the answer to all his problems. None of the answers he was hoping for failed to make them apparent so he sighed and climbed into the driver's seat, slamming the door behind him with finality. A large breath fell from Alice's lips, leaving a void in her chest that felt so tight she feared it may constrict her ribs into oblivion.

K-Mart took two large handfuls of Alice's shirt and tugged hard enough that Alice's pitched forward, her back bowing slight enough for her to be eye level with K-Mart. The teen had a fierce look about her, hazel eyes a storm of many different emotions that seemed to be swimming around the dilated pupils just as much as the unshed tears were.

"You can't do this Alice! You can't leave me and," K-Mart bit into her lower lip hard enough that the soft pink of her lip turned white and she launched her body forward, colliding roughly with Alice so that she could wrap her arms tightly around that woman that had become just as close to family for her as Claire was, "you can't leave me and Claire! You can't!"

The slight tremble to K-Mart's body rattled through Alice's, tearing her apart inside like an earthquake would. Hot liquid was soaking through the thin material of her shirt and splashing across the skin of her chest, sinking through the tough skin into her heart like a poison, she was sure. With K-Mart she was always more gentle and caring than she had ever been with anyone else in her entire life, something about the teenager brought it out in Alice. Undoubtedly it was love that fueled it and oddly Alice didn't fight it at all even though she had trained herself to abhor any types of emotions for such a very long, lonely time. Slowly Alice raised her hand to gently cradle the back of K-Mart's head against her heart, the soft blond tresses tangling between Alice's fingers like even the hair of girl didn't want to let Alice go. Her other hand still held her rifle but she felt that even if it hadn't been she still wouldn't have used it to hug K-Mart because already the amount of feelings this was bringing forth in her was overwhelming. Soft sobs continued to filter through the lapels of her coat and float up into Alice's ears, tearing at her K-Mart poisoned heart each time. Feelings were so much easier with Claire because it was like firing a gun, easy and natural to her, but with K-Mart she was never sure what to do. Alice had never had a younger sister or a sister at all, in her human life nor had she ever mothered any children yet this love she had for K-Mart was a strange hybrid of those two types. It felt misplaced in her body in a welcomed way much like the T-Virus running rampant through her veins and just like the virus her body had adopted it and now lived off it. Yes it had taken Alice a long time but she had learned how to love K-Mart and to leave the girl now felt horrid. Letting out a shaky breath Alice turned her head and rested her cheek on the top of K-Mart's head, hugging the girl closer with the hand still woven into the hair on the back of her head.

"I'll come back K, I promise I will." Alice whispered into K-Mart's soft hair. A strange sensation was burning behind Alice's eyes, something she could not remember feeling ever.

"You're lying," K-Mart voice was muffled because she refused to bring it away from Alice, the entirety of it covered by the thick lapels of her jacket, "You're gonna be the hero like you always are and it's gonna get you killed. You're gonna leave us. We need you Alice…"

"I can't leave L.J K-Mart, you can't ask me to do that."

The blond girl lifted her head, her chin digging into Alice's sternum though the older woman couldn't be bother by it considering the ache of her heart outweighed it exponentially, "I'm not."

"You're asking me to stay though."

"Yeah because I know your gonna go in there and not come out. Don't try to lie to me Alice, I'm not stupid. I read all your journals, I know how you operate."

Alice remained silent for she had nothing to say to K-Mart that wouldn't come out a lie. Of course she was right, Alice had no intention of coming out of that warehouse if she knew there were Umbrella operatives there. She would stay and wipe out every single man with the logo stitched into his breast pocket. She wouldn't stop there either, no, certainly not. She would look through all their files, their research, their computers until she found information on where other sites like this one existed and then she would go there to deliver the same deadly hand she would deal to these men. After all, she was their beloved Project Alice, it was only right that she should be the one to take them down once and for all.

Stealing herself for the pain this act would cause, Alice pushed K-Mart away and shouldered her rifle, iridescent cold making the blue of her eyes seem like ice, "It has to be done K-Mart."

The teen growled and stomped her foot into the sand, her angry expression an almost exact replica of Claire's, "Your being stupid! What am I suppose to tell Claire huh? Did you think of that?"

Alice's barely beating heart came to a slamming stop against her ribs, lances of pains shooting through her limbs. Claire. Thinking about Claire would only make this worst and ten times harder than it had to be. Alice averted her eyes and dropped her rifle from her shoulder. Instead of looking at K-Mart or thinking of the question she took her time pulling one of the .30-06 cartridges from the sleeve on the stock and pulled the bolt back to slide the ammunition into place then shifted the bolt back. The click of the .30-06 vibrated through her hands and a small thrill ran up her spine to be holding a loaded weapon, the way it always had since the first time she ever took up arms. This was safe, this was something she could understand and this was something that wouldn't hold a grudge against her for doing what needed to be done.

Alice looked up and fixed K-Mart with a no-nonsense glare, "Claire will understand and so will you when you're older-"

K-Mart rolled her eyes and folded her arms across her chest, "Don't give me that shit Alice. I'm 18 years old, practically 19 and that makes me an adult. I get it now and I get that your being selfish."

"Bullshit! I'm being selfish by doing the right thing here!? By keeping you all safe!? What the fuck K-Mart!"

"No!" K-Mart poked Alice hard in the chest and glared up at her second favorite person in this entire damned world, "You're doing this for you! To settle something between you and Umbrella for what they did to you! I don't know how many times I have to tell you, I'm not stupid!"

Alice blew out a hot torrent of air and stepped back, gripping the rifle between her hands hard enough she could hear it protesting. Of course all of her anger stemmed from the fact that K-Mart was right and Alice knew that but she wasn't about to admit it in any kind of way. Alice genuinely didn't want to leave K-Mart or Claire to exact her revenge on Umbrella but at the same time she did and she also knew that Umbrella had to be stopped and she was the only person who could do it. She wasn't lying when she told K-Mart that she was doing this to keep everyone safe, K-Mart had just looked between the lines and saw Alice's vengeance lying in wait. Perhaps she was right by reiterating the fact that she wasn't stupid because Alice certainly wasn't giving the girl as much credit as she was due. Releasing a sigh Alice turned her eyes back to K-Mart's pensive stance and opened her mouth to calmly apologize but K-Mart beat her to it.

"I'm coming with you."

Alice's eyes bulged and she couldn't help the choked laughter she let out, because really, K-Mart had to be joking. The longer Alice laughter the angrier and more rigid K-Mart became. With a growl the teen pulled her machete free from the hard cloth sheath hanging from her shoulder and began stomping in direction of the warehouse shinning in the distance. All mirth drained from Alice replaced by a niggling parental worry that she finally could sympathize with when Claire went off on a tangent about K-Mart's behavior. She hurried after K-Mart, reaching out to stop her with a gentle yet firm hand to the shoulder but K-Mart dodged it. The agility K-Mart displayed quite surprised Alice but not as much as it surprised her when K-Mart broke out into a full on sprint.

"K-Mart! What do you think you're doing!? Get back here!"

"No! I'm coming with you!"

"K-Mart!" She was drawing near to the warehouse and Alice had been so surprised at K-Mart disobedience and display of speed she hadn't even reacted outside of yelling at the girl from the spot she stood rooted. Now, when her wits were finally coming back to her, she realized that even with her superior capabilities there was no way she would reach K-Mart before the girl burst through the doors of the warehouse. Fear, real fear, constricted Alice when she thought about K-Mart falling directly into the laps of Umbrella soldiers who probably hadn't seen a living human in years let alone a young beautiful female human.

"No! K-Mart! Stop!" She put all the power she possessed into running after K-Mart and reaching the girl who was still defying her stubbornly. The distance between them closed swiftly but not as swift as Alice would have liked. When she was finally close enough to wrap her fingers around a fistful of K-Mart's hoodie they were already at the doors of the warehouse. They both crashed into the tin sliding door as one mass of a body, a great racket clamoring around the area and echoing through the inside of the warehouse. K-Mart squeaked when her shoulder became trapped between the tin door and the sharp edge of her machete with all of Alice's weight behind her, driving her harder into the door and the blade. She slumped down against the door groaning and gripped her shoulder to stem the flow of blood steadily soaking into her hoodie from the laceration caused by the weapon still gripped tightly in her hand. Unfortunately she couldn't take a second to rest because Alice was sliding her arms around K-Mart and hefting her into the air and running around the building just as the door slid open. Four armed guards stepped out with M-16 military assault rifles in hands, completely covered in dark military gear from their combat boots clear to the black helmet and face mask hiding their faces. Alice held her hand over K-Mart's mouth with the girl crushed against her body while she peeked around the corner, watching the Umbrella soldiers. Each one of them seemed irritated that they couldn't find what had made the noise; they were kicking at the bushes growing around the warehouse and shouting the same order over and over in different languages.

"Stay quiet. Walk light K." Alice whispered near K-Mart's ear before removing her hand. The blond teen nodded with wide eyes and followed in Alice's footsteps. The older woman walked them around the entire side of the warehouse until they came up behind it. There was a stack of crates just like the ones Chase had been loading into the back of the Deuce. Thousands of them were stacked high throughout the fenced yard, nets and flame retardant blankets lay randomly draped over different larger crates that Alice made sure to guide K-Mart far away from. She wasn't sure what exactly was inside them but Alice could feel it in her blood that it wasn't human friendly. They worked their way around a few tall stacks, not actually looking for, but finding L.J whistling to himself as he worked on piling crates of MRE's and bottled water onto an elongated dolly. Relief washed over Alice at seeing him unharmed and still blissfully unaware of the danger he was in.

The man lifted his dark eyes to see two of his companions approaching and broke into a massive crooked smile that was strictly an L.J smile. He jumped atop a crate and held out his arms from east to west in a wide show of all that he had accomplished by finding the crates, obviously overly proud of himself. If they weren't in the position of possibly being captured and killed Alice would have been laughing at L.J's ever present cockiness. Instead she walked up to him and grabbed one of his ankles, yanking it forward and pulling the man from his feet to land directly onto his back. A whoosh of air left his lungs in a choked wheeze and the crate he landed on smashed open, dropping him into a pile of pre-packed meals. She didn't pause to let him catch his breath before she pulled him off the ruined crate onto the ground and crouched next to him. K-Mart followed Alice's lead and crouched just beside her, still looking pained from the rapidly swelling wound on her shoulder.

"Alice," L.J croaked, to dazed to even glare at the woman, "what the hell!?"

Alice maneuvered the rifle so that it was in front of her, looking through the scope to see if the soldiers had followed them around the corner of the warehouse. Two of them rounded the corner with their M-16 held against the cleft of their shoulders, aimed and ready to shoot should they find any disturbance. Alice had hoped they would dismiss it as a freak incident when they didn't find anything earlier but Alice should have known better.

The older woman gestured towards the soldiers kicking empty crates and stabbing their utility knifes into pile of stocking paper 20 feet away from their current location, "This is an Umbrella compound L.J."

L.J's face scrunched up and he barely lifted his head to glance at the black suited men bearing high powered assault rifles and let out a groan, dropping his head back onto the sand, "Fuck," He glanced over at K-Mart and frowned, pointing a questioning finger at her, "What are you doin' here?"

K-Mart huffed and folded her arms across her chest, looking every bit the petulant child she was being, "Alice was being stupid."

Alice growled and pointed a finger at the teen, "If anyone is being stupid its you and don't think for one second-"

L.J groaned loudly cutting Alice off, "Okay mother hen. Geeze, you get a girlfriend and go soft on me, it's gross," L.J slipped a hand underneath his back and let out a pathetic whimpering noise when it caught the rapidly forming bruise, "Help me up while you're at it."

He was helped to a crouch by the teen as Alice refused to help him because of his sniveling. A quiet plan was quickly formulated between the three of them on how best to avoid being detected by the Umbrella men while also escaping. L.J's only input was to pull out his Desert Eagle with a wicked grin and wiggle his eyebrows. He was ignored entirely by both females. The plan that was hashed out, without L.J's ideas, was for Alice to throw something a long ways off to distract them while they snuck around the left side of the warehouse and back to Chase. A plan that was admittedly rough with no finesse but plausible enough to work had the backdoor to the warehouse not slid open to reveal a group of Umbrella men moving outside towards the crates full of their food. Alice was tough and she could take out hundreds of men by herself but only if she was by herself. With other people, especially people she cared for like L.J and K-Mart, Alice would be too focused on keeping them safe to take out the sentries like she normally could. She dropped back onto the sand and smacked her head against the crate behind her in frustration.

"Shit."

K-Mart scooted closer to Alice and wrapped her hands around Alice's bicep the way she had taken to doing as if Alice were the teddy bear a child clings too when they are afraid, "What do we do now Alice?"

L.J held up his pistol and shrugged his shoulders, "My idea looking any better now?"

Alice eyed the piece warily and shook her head, smiling slightly, "A little. Okay," Alice leaned to the side to get a view of the men, forty of them at least if not more, and leaned back, gripping the barrel of the rifle propped against her neck, "here's the plan. I'll distract them while you and K-Mart sneak off. Same plan, different ideas."

"No," K-Mart immediately interjected, her face resembling Claire yet again and tearing at Alice's stupid heart, "Dumb plan. We go together."

Alice sighed and rubbed her thumb harshly into the bridge of her nose, aggravated over having this conversation with K-Mart yet again when they were literally about to be killed or worst. She didn't have time for teenage hormones making the girl a rebellious mess. It was a real shame Alice couldn't handle K-Mart the way Claire could. Just a single look from those green eyes would set K-Mart straight.

"K-Mart-"

"No Alice, don't! I know what you're going to say just…" K-Mart loosened her grip on Alice's bicep and dropped her head shamefully, her bangs falling across her face hiding her eyes, "You don't get it. Before all this, before the world ended, I never had a family. I mean I did but we didn't love each other, we just stuck around and put up with each other because we had too. After the world ended and I got separated from them, Claire found me. And she became my family, like real ligament family and that was huge for me. I've never actually been loved before Claire and then you came along and kind of filled in the gaps and made our family whole, made it really real. Please," K-Mart lifted her head and now Alice could see wet streaks cutting through the grime on K-Mart's cheeks, "I can't loose my family when I had to go through all of this just to get it."

Alice opened her mouth to respond to K-Mart touching impromptu speech but was interrupted by a girlish noise coming from L.J. Both women looked over at him to see him daintily wiping at his eyes with the corner of his sleeve. He caught their eyes and cleared his throat lowly, averting his eyes to the shimmer of his beloved pistol.

"I got something in my eye. Shut up. Or I'll shoot you or some shit, got it?" Alice and K-Mart shared identical grins but nodded their heads to which L.J nodded at, puffing out his chest to look manlier than he felt. He busied himself by checking the clip of his pistol and looking into the chamber while Alice pulling K-Mart into an affectionate hug and placed a light kiss atop her head. K-Mart smiled into the warmth of Alice's neck where she was being squished and almost giggled at the fact that somehow Alice managed to smell like Claire even when she hadn't been in contact with the redhead for over 4 days now.

"Okay, we'll go together. L.J?"

The man lifted his dark eyes to meet Alice's and raised an eyebrow, "Yeah?"

Alice jutted her chin to the left, "Lead the way. I'll take the rear. Stay low and stay quiet."

L.J slipped his gun into the hem of his low riding jeans and moved into a crouch, peering back to see if the woman were following in tow like they should. K-Mart sent him a thumbs up and a wary smile that somehow bolstered his confidence. Thankfully before Claire had picked him and Carlos up he had gotten use to running around with Alice and Jill who put him through enough crazy shit he had managed to pick up quite a bit of stealth tactics. Knowing how to crouch and move swiftly was something he never thought he'd need to learn in life until he came to be with them and now he was grateful he had picked it up quickly. Moving on the tips of his boots he shuffled silently between piles of crates, moving past unsuspecting guards still milling around chatting with one another. Behind him the only sound he could hear was K-mart's quiet untrained footsteps and hard breathing and from that he drew comfort. Too many times he had been in this position but with Jill and Alice who were so efficient in what they did he was never truly sure if they were still behind him or if he was moving along by himself.

He made them come to a halt when a pile of crates was knocked over by a boisterous Umbrella operative who had stumbled into it after being shoved by one of his comrades. The tall tower came crashing down directly in their path and blocked them in, leaving them no other option than to turn back. He glanced over his shoulder at Alice and gestured towards the pile of crates. Her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed while she though through their situation. He waited on baited breath for his leader's decision, hoping for it to come quickly with the bad guys so fucking close. The chance to find out never came. Alice had just barely parted her lips to speak with he caught a glimpse of black and saw the stock of an M-16 come crashing down into Alice's skull. An instant pool of blood came bubbling up from the head wound and rolling down over Alice's forehead, dripping from her brows onto her cheek. The blue of her eyes disappeared when they rolled into the back of her head and she collapsed into the sand, lifeless for all intents and purposes. K-Mart's scream echoed through the desert for what was probably miles, shattered the previous quiet. In a flash L.J pulled his gun and had blown a bullet through the man's skull and was rounding on another that was approaching, taking that man down as well. They were fucked now.

Bullets were instantly flying in their direction, peppering all around them in a deadly rain. He fell to his stomach and pulled K-Mart down in the process, covering her head with his body and covering his own with his arms. All he could think about was how he was going to get himself and K-Mart the fuck out of there without being turned into a human pincushion. His eyes caught sight of a route just ahead of them that lead towards a quad with sand tires on it still running from the Umbrella bad guy who had just drove up on it to join the fight. That was going to have to work. He grabbed K-Mart's wrist and hefted her into a sitting position but the girl was entirely unresponsive, her eyes staying trained on Alice's prone form beneath the weight Umbrella man L.J had just shot and killed.

"Hey," L.J shook her to get her attention and gestured towards the quad with his pistol, ducking quickly when a bullet buzzed past his head, "Hey! Listen to me! We have to go K-Mart. We have to get out of here before-"

"No! I won't leave Alice!" K-Mart screamed and ripped her hands from his grip and crawled over to push the dead man off of Alice. With the utmost care K-Mart combed her fingers through Alice's hair to get a look at the head wound still steadily oozing blood, a tiny grimace enveloping her face when that blood coated her fingertips. Slowly K-Mart lifted Alice's head and set it in her lap and bent her body over it to protect Alice and herself from the gunfire still flying at them.

"Are you fucking crazy!? If we stay we're as good as dead! And she's probably dead anyway-" K-Mart sent him a scathing glare that stopped him mid speech.

"She's not dead," K-Mart hugged Alice's head closer against her stomach, silent tears dripping from her cheeks to mix with Alice's blood in the sand, "She's not and I won't leave her. Run away L.J. Go."

Indecisiveness warred on L.J's mind. He had always been the type who looks out for himself above all others. Self preservation was his genetic makeup from the get go and it was never something he had been ashamed of. After all, it had kept him alive on many, many different occasions before and after shit hit the fan. Yet this was the first time he had been offered the easy way out that he had to pause to think about. The woman lying there, bleeding from the head was someone he considered a dear friend and someone who had saved his life more times than he could count. To just leave her here to die seemed so wrong that even he felt guilty considering it. On top of that was this 18 year old girl who appeared to have more loyalty and honor than he did and it shamed him. He wanted to stay, he really did, but as always his self preservation won out. He sighed and looked away, not able to stomach what he was about to do.

"What…what do you want me to tell her?"

K-Mart stared at the side of his head, pensive and sullen while she pondered over the right words to have delivered to Claire. She dropped her eyes to Alice's head lying in her lap, to the blood coagulating at her hairline, and the slow but steady rise and fall of Alice's chest. A tiny smile came to her lips and she looked back at L.J who refused to meet her eyes.

"Tell her we love her. Tell her," K-Mart reached for Alice's fallen rifle and slipped out from under the blond head to come over to L.J on a knee, "Tell her that we're sorry." She lifted the heavy weapon and propped it against the crate to steady it. A long time ago Claire had taught K-Mart how to operate and clean firearms from the smallest to largest size but K-Mart had never put any of the knowledge to practice. Claire and then Alice had always been there to keep her safe so she had never had any actual reason to take up arms.

"Tell her we'll be home soon." She lined her sights up with a man working on pulling a clip from his vest to reload his weapon.

"Tell her not to give up hope." She let out a slow breath and slid her finger across the cool metal of the taunt trigger.

"Tell her we'll be together soon." She squeezed down on the trigger and the weapon boomed in her hands, kicking back into her wounded shoulder and sending her sprawling across the sand. Pain spread throughout her already sore shoulder and continued to throb dutifully without any sign of slowing, new blood pushing up past the old congealing blood. She tried to ignore it and allowed L.J to help her back up. Again she took a knee and propped the weapon up. Her shaking fingers fumbled with another bullet and struggled to reload the weapon like Claire had taught her ages ago. The bolt slid back easily, the shell fell into place, and K-Mart moved the bolt forward. The trigger pulled taught with the bullet in the chamber. She grinned at L.J, a sad demure grin that very nearly broke his heart.

"Tell her to keep her shit together because she thinks better that way." Then she focused entirely on her next shot, another man who was constantly poking his head around a crate to try and get a fix on her position. L.J waited just long enough to see her take the shot, to watch her body rock from the force of the rifle, and the grimace of pain that overtook her face. She hurried to reload the weapon but her hands were shaking horribly from fear and pain that it took so much longer than it should. He simply couldn't watch any more. Gripping his pistol tight he ran past K-Mart and Alice, still in a crouch, towards the running quad. Because of K-Mart firing on the men he passed by completely unnoticed and got away without a hitch. K-Mart watched him go through the scope of the rifle until he became little more than a spec in the distance. Sighing, she dropped the rifle into the sand, her shoulder burning with pain like she had never felt before, and crawled over to Alice. Her trembling body gave out and she collapsed on top of the prone body, her temple resting against Alice's lower back. With the last bit of strength left in her she clenched her fingers around a fistful of Alice's shirt and slipped her free arm under Alice's torso, hugging her hips. The comfort was minimal with Alice unconscious but still there, beating slowly under her skin like the dying end of a song. Vaguely she registered that the gunfire had stopped and the sounds she was hearing was the combined beat of many boots moving across sand and the mixed hum of different voices blending together in conversation. Many hands began touching her, moving her, rolling her, pushing her, and throwing her but her mind was teetering so close to unconsciousness that the moment her body slammed into a hard metal surface, she surrendered to its grasp and fell away from the waking world. The last thing she felt was Alice's body being thrown on top of hers and hearing the sound of a metal door being closed. Then the world became nothing but darkness.

Xx xX

Claire was busy working on her Hummer when she took notice of the sudden excitement around camp. In her peripherals she saw everyone moving towards the side of camp nearest to the road they were parked alongside. Carlos was quite proud of himself for discovering the place and, after her initial unease about the closeness to a road, had agreed with him on it. It was a tiny roadside hovel that had once offered eatery while one filled their car full of gas. The undead populating it had been minimal as was the chance of being spotted here so Claire had allowed them to stay for a few days. During Alice's absence Claire had sent Carlos and a few others on a small run to look around the surrounding area for food or water so that she could break down without any specters. Being the leader meant always being brave and strong for her people, just the slightest hiccup in her appearance may chance their view of her forever and she couldn't have that. She needed them to believe in her strength to carry them and her bravery in the face the constant death they dealt with daily. But sometimes, sometimes Claire Redfield needed to break. After Alice had left 8 days ago Claire had put on a happy face to go look for K-Mart so that she could apologize to the teen for earlier, perhaps even allow the girl to come with her when she went on her next small raid. After searching the entire camp from top to bottom twice with not even a sighting of her, Claire was very ready to scream until her throat was raw and bloody but she drew from every pool of strength she had to keep it at bay. Her body was tense as a bowstring when she had strode across the camp and climbed into her Hummer to look for her cigarettes. Smoking away her stress had always been a nasty habit and it had only increased after the worlds end. But where she had expected to see nothing but the golden cylinder filters of her cigs neatly packed in a row, she saw a white slip of paper adorning a scribbled pink heart. With shaky fingers Claire had extracted the note and flipped it open to reveal K-Mart's sloppy script covering the pages in pink pen. Every word she read sent her deeper and deeper into pit of dread until it ended with K-Mart promising to come back safely alongside the wonderful Alice. The air in her lungs felt like glass and her pulse was burning through her body like acid yet she couldn't move or even think until someone knocked on her window. Without a single tear shed Claire slipped K-Mart's note back into her cigarette pack and moved the pack into her vest pocket so that she could resume her duties as the leader of these people. It wasn't until the next day that Claire saw an opportunity and seized it, sending Carlos away with Betty and Otto so that she could sit in her Hummer and cry while she smoked, and clenching K-Mart's note tightly in her fist as she did so. That had lasted a whole 15 minutes before she forced herself to sober and forget it, pushing it all down in favor of being Claire Redfield the convoy leader. Days had gone by and with each one that did Claire had K-Mart's note and Alice's gift close to her heart in a little pocket sewn inside her vest, waiting for them to come back to her. She didn't break down again, didn't shed another tear, she just waited.

A shuddering breath came from her when she looked over the hood of the Hummer to the Deuce and the Tanker pulling into camp. Finally. They were finally here. She pushed her ball cap up with the tip of her thumb and grinned at the people flocking to the vehicles, crowding around them before the doors had even been kicked open. Every muscle in Claire's body screamed to run over and rip the door open so that she could throw her arms around K-Mart and give Alice a kiss but she held her ground and she did what she had been doing for almost a full week now, she waited. The Tanker door opened first and Chase stepped out looking haggard from his long trip but ultimately happy to be among his people again. The two orphan boys who had taken an instant shinning to him came barreling towards the man and nearly knocked him over from the flying tackle hugs they gave him. Claire could hear their happy laughter from as far away as she stood and it brought a smile to her face. A smile that quickly disappeared when she saw the door to the Deuce swing open and L.J stepped out. It confused her at first that L.J would be driving when it was Alice who had been driving it when they left so she chalked it up as Alice getting tired on the way back and asking L.J to drive. That didn't settle the nerves that were making her back hurt from all the tingles running up and down it. Her eyes moved from L.J to stare at the passenger door, waiting for it open and reveal the two people she loved more than anything in this world. There they stayed while she waited. And waited. And waited. But the door never opened. Choking back a sob Claire looked away from the door to L.J who was looking directly at her and it was there that she saw all she needed to in his eyes. Alice and K-Mart weren't coming back. Numbing pain lashed at her heart, ripping it to minuscule shreds even as she remained stoic faced and turned to find Carlos. Each step she took she could feel her entire body hollow out to be filled with a void with two names, two names that weren't coming home to her. Her body felt numb, her mind felt numb, but her heart was teaming with every slice and crack it was undertaking and she was powerless to stop it. All she could do was keep a tight grip on the leader façade she was so dependent on.

She came to a stop outside the news van that Mikey and Carlos were sitting in playing cards. She stared at them lifelessly, clenching and unclenching her hands at her sides while she tried to desperately control her breathing and the urge to break down into tears.

"Carlos." The man lifted his head upon hearing his name and, seeing his fearless leading standing there, broke into a wide grin that made the dimples in his cheeks stand out under the grizzly beard he was working on.

"Hey Claire, what's up?"

Claire curved her fingers and dug her nails into the palms of her hands, hoping that the tiny amount of pain would keep the warmth in her eyes from spilling over before she could flee to the safety of her Hummer, "I need you to go oversee the cataloging of supplies while I take care of some business."

Carlos's eyes alit with sparkles after Claire's words. The raid team was back and that meant Alice was home and he could finally talk to her. Over the time that Alice had been gone he had time to think and he grew more and more apologetic towards his friend as time passed. He felt awful for pining over her for as long as he did when he had already known that she was involved with Claire. He wanted to explain to her that he was just fixed on her because of how close he had always felt to her and he had, as many people do, confused his feelings for love. After seeing Claire and Alice say goodbye the day the team had left for Vegas had opened his eyes to what love truly looked like. For days now he had been waiting to tell Alice how sorry he was and was waiting to ask for their friendship to remain intact because he didn't want to loose the feisty blond as an ally. Now they were finally here and he was brimming with excitement to see her again. This was why he didn't even complain a bit when Claire asked him to go watch over things nor did he notice the dejected way she slunk off to her vehicle.

Only after he jogged to the Deuce to find not Alice but L.J and Chase unloading different supplies did he piece together what happened. The smile slipped from his face and all happiness drained from him. He listened intently as Chase told his side of the story then listened to L.J's. He barely stayed through L.J's retelling of what happened because of the anger and sadness inside him making him tense. The moment the story was finished he left the men to their work, leaving Betty in charge, so that he could find the one person he knew would be suffering more than he was right now. Sadly, he heard her before he actually saw her. Terrible, heart wrenching sounds of anguish were coming from the Hummer, though muffled as it was by the doors; they were made obvious the closer he came. The windows were tinted dark but he could still make out Claire's form draped over the steering wheel, shoulders shaking from the force of her sobs. He had never seen her this way and it was as terrifying as it was disheartening. Without a word he tore the door open and stood there silently, looking at Claire's startled face. The woman had been so shocked she hadn't even been able to cry any longer, her eyes wide with horror at having been caught even as remnants of tears still rolled down her cheeks trailing along her sharp jaw line with her mouth agape.

"C-Carlos…I…I…"

Again he said nothing. He just fell to a knee in the sand and pulled Claire out of the Hummer into his arms. Comfort was good; comfort was something Carlos knew how to give to a grieving woman. Growing up in a house full of women, himself being the only son out of 7 girls, he had come home to find one of sisters crying about something like a breakup or phone privileges being taken away and had grown use to just pulling them into his arms so that they could cry it out. Seeing Claire this way had awakened his dormant nurturer, the big brother that had been put to sleep after he had forced himself to believe his family, including each one of his sisters, dead. Just as he did those many years ago for his inconsolable sisters, he wrapped his burly arms around Claire's shoulders and held her. At first the redhead fought him like a caged beast, thrashing in his arms and lashing out at him with nasty insults but he took it all in silence, never once easing up on the gentle pressure he asserted in holding her. Eventually her fighting turned into trembling until trembling turned into sobbing and sobbing became a full mental breakdown. In his arms she became just a lump of shaking flesh that couldn't stem the flow of tears coming from her nor could she stop the mumbled words of loosing the only people she had ever loved. He held her close and shielded her with his body from the sight of any convoy members who may happen to glance over. This carried on for a good ten or twenty minutes until he felt her press her palms into his chest and push him away, head ducked down so he wouldn't see her blood shot eyes and tear stained face. They remained in the sand on their knees, just an arms length apart, with the constant dinging of the Hummer behind them to remind them that the door was open.

Claire cleared her throat and glanced towards the convoy still gathered around the Deuce; in a line to get some newly acquired food they had been starving for, "Thank you Carlos."

The Latino dropped his eyes to the sand with nothing more than a nod. He wasn't sure what to say after something like that and it would seem that the feeling was mutual as the silence carried on between them. Eventually Claire stood to close the door and stop the insistent dinging and Carlos stood too but remained standing there, rather awkwardly.

When Claire turned to face him she was frowning, deeply, "We don't need to talk about this."

Carlos shuffled his boots in the sand, oddly feeling like a teenager again who was being scolded by a feisty Mamma Olivera, "I know."

"Then why are you still standing here?"

Now Carlos was frowning too, "I want to know what you plan to do."

Claire furrowed her brows and gave him a look that made him feel like he was stupid for speaking at all, "What do you mean 'what I plan to do' I don't plan to do anything. We'll stay here another night and leave in the morning. Simple as that."

Carlos shifted from one foot to the other, his awkwardness being replaced by irritation rather quickly, "Well what about Alice and K-Mart?"

Claire flinched at hearing their names and looked away, folding her arms across her chest, "What about them?"

"What do you plan to do about them?"

"I don't plan to do anything Carlos, they're dead! Why are you doing this!?"

"Dead!?" Carlos ran a hand through his hair and bit his lip to control his frustration, "Claire we don't know that yet."

The redhead narrowed her eyes at the man before throwing her arms out and making a huge sweeping gesture towards the camp, "Well do you see them Carlos!? They're not here are they so they must be dead. Otherwise where else would they be!?"

"What!?" Carlos shook his head in disbelief, "Claire did you even talk to L.J?"

"No. Why would I? It was written across her face what happened, I didn't…I couldn't hear the details…" Claire's voice broke at the end and she dipped her chin to her chest, hiding her face under the brim of her Good Times ball cap. Just like that the frustration was gone and Carlos understood why Claire had been acting the way she had. He laid an assuring hand on her shoulder and waited until she lifted her head to smile at her.

"Claire, they weren't killed. They were captured. By Umbrella's men."

Claire's eyes grew wide and her mouth fell open slightly in shock, "What?"

"L.J said they accidentally stumbled across a warehouse that was run by Umbrella and still had some men inside of it. Alice came to get him out of there but K-Mart was with her and they were caught in fire. K-Mart helped him get away but she refused to leave Alice because Alice was knocked unconscious."

"Oh god." Claire's head was spinning in more ways than one, both good and bad. Alice and K-Mart were alive but in the hands of the greatest evil this world has ever known. She pressed a hand against her forehead and stumbled backwards into the Hummer door, leaning all of her weight against it.

"So," Carlos began again, more positive he would get an answer this time, "What do you plan to do?"

Claire stared at him for a moment, stumbling over the mess of thoughts clouding her brain. She looked around the camp, eyeing every individual she had come to know and care for over the past 4 years. These people, this place she held among them, was the closest thing she had felt to home in such a long time and none of them realized that she owed just as much to them as they did to her. But even now as she looked at them all she couldn't help but feel the void inside her and remember the two faces, the two names, that were missing from this home of hers. Swallowing a cold lump of emotion, Claire stared up at Carlos and steeled herself for what was to come.

"Carlos, I need to ask you to do something for me."

Xx xX

Whether her eyes were open or closed all that she could see was inky blackness that for a while made her wonder if she was really awake or not. The only sure confirmation of her consciousness was the pounding inside her skull, drumming on her brain over and over. Everything about her ached horribly and it only fed the nausea rolling through her in waves. Hot recycled air that reeked of rust, blood, and sweat assaulted her senses. Nearly masking the scent of another being intermingled somewhere in this darkness with her. Distantly she could hear the sounds of waves lapping against a metal haul and the many footsteps of men or woman patrolling outside of the dark prison that she was in. If she really dilated her senses and closed her eyes she could make out the sound of a frantically beating heart and escalated breathing coming from a few feet away from her. It put her into defensive mode until she caught the scent of K-Mart's familiar feminine musk. The relief she felt that they hadn't been separated was almost overwhelming.

She struggling to clear her throat because of the parched condition it was in and raised herself to her knees, gripping her stomach to quell another intense bout of nausea, "K-Mart?"

The heart rate she heard slowed just a fraction but the hyper breathing the girl was doing only seemed to speed up, "Alice!? Where are you!?"

Alice furrowed her brows and flinched at the pain just the small action caused her. It was so strange that she was still experiencing pain and that the concussion she was sure she had sustained when that bastard hit her over the hit hadn't healed yet. Usually these types of wounds went away within the span of an hour or two. So maybe she wasn't passed out for as long as she thought she had been. That could be a good thing; that would mean Umbrella hadn't had time to do anything to her yet and most importantly, to K-Mart.

"I'm over here K."

"Where!? Alice!" K-Mart sounded absolutely frantic. Alice had never heard K–Mart sound so utterly terrified. She battled with the rising bile burning up her throat to crawl over to K-Mart, biting the inside of her cheek each time she put weight onto her left hand and felt her wrist explode with pain. It must have been sprained when she fell unconscious and landed on it. In the dark Alice had nothing to go by except the sounds of K-Mart's breathing getting closer and closer until her fingers brushed the underside of K-Mart's knee. In an instant K-Mart's arms were suddenly around her neck and the girl was curled up in her lap, every muscle in her body shaking. Alice wrapped her arms around the trembling teen and held her close despite not knowing what exactly was wrong.

"K-Mart? Are you injured?" Unconsciously Alice ran her palm along the length of K-Mart's back and across her shoulders to check for any wounds while she asked the question. K-Mart shook her head, bumping her forehead against Alice's jugular.

"I don't like small spaces I can't get out of."

Oh. "You're claustrophobic."

K-Mart squeezed Alice closer and pushed her face into Alice's strong neck, her rapid breathing heating and making the skin there slick with moister, "That's what the doctor told me, you know, before."

Alice had dealt with a few people in her company who had suffered the same phobia. During their training exercises that Alice led them through she would lock them inside cargo containers and force them to starve themselves of any kind of outside contact, food, water, and even speaking for weeks at a time. She could vividly remember one of the men getting so frightened that he began screaming and clawing at the side of the container until Alice had to send him out and eventually get rid of him. A man like that was no use to her at the time. Now, with K-Mart near hyperventilating in her arms, she had wished she had taken the time to train that boy through his phobia.

Alice cradled K-Mart's head against the crook of her neck with her palm, scratching at the nape of her neck lightly in a soothing manor with her blunt nails, "Breath deeply K-Mart. In and out. In and out. Like this." Alice moved one of the girl's hands away from her back and pressed K-Mart's knuckles against her ribcage so she could feel Alice pull in a deep breath of air and let it out slowly. Likewise she pressed her own knuckles against K-Mart ribs and felt the girl's panicked heart beating madly beneath the muscles and bones, her chest fluctuating rapidly from each short intake she took. If she couldn't get K-Mart to relax she'd soon hyperventilate and pass out and that was not something that was good for ones health. Frowning Alice's pressed K-Mart's knuckles harder into her own ribs and took another deep, slow breath that she pushed out through her nose.

"Do it with me K. In and out." Alice continued to breathe in demonstration until she felt K-Mart's breathing slowed against her knuckles, their intakes completely in cadence with one another. A proud smile flitted across Alice's face but she knew K-Mart couldn't see it.

"That's it. Good girl. Keep doing it."

K-Mart flexed her fingers against Alice's ribs and pressed her forehead harder against the older woman's throat, "If I keep my eyes closed and don't think about it….its not so scary." The sudden acceleration in K-Mat's heart rate showed the lie behind those words. Alice continued to scrape her nails against the soft patch of skin that soothed the trembling teen curled up into the tiniest ball possible in her lap.

"I'm afraid of spiders."

K-Mart shifted minutely and that was the only reason Alice knew K-Mart was looking at her because in the dark they couldn't see one another's faces. Alice didn't know much on how to be kind or gentle; everything she had learned was from Claire. Being with her and around her had restored the little piece of humanity that had been hidden away in her heart. But Alice knew how to take care of wounded soldiers and she knew how to keep her men sane and right now, K-Mart was one of her soldiers. Like with so many others that had been under Alice's charge, the teen was in a state of shock that, if not properly treated, could mentally stunt the girl for the rest of her life. So she was trying to get K-Mart to forget about the small, dark space they were locked inside of while simultaneously sympathizing with her.

"Ever since I was a little girl I've been absolutely terrified of spiders. They are probably the only thing I'm afraid of. I'm just glad it was a zombie apocalypse that happened and not a freak mutant spider invasion because I would have ended myself years ago." K-Mart giggled softly into Alice's neck, warming both the skin and Alice's unease.

"Really?"

Alice nodded, "Oh yeah. If I saw a spider I kid you not, I'd scream like a little girl."

This time when K-Mart laughed it was brighter and fuller, close to how she normally laughed at Alice's jokes, "I'd love to see that."

Alice patted K-Mart shoulder lightly, "For my sake lets hope you don't." Warm wetness surprised Alice when she pulled her hand away from K-Mart's shoulder. Flashes of what happened in Nevada went through her mind at a fast rate until she recalled exactly when K-Mart wounded herself on her machete. At the time of the accident Alice hadn't had time to check the wound or properly treat it so she truly had no idea how bad the wound could possibly be.

"K I need you to move so I can check your shoulder."

"Okay…" K-Mart whispered shakily and allowed Alice to gently pry the girls locked limbs away from her shoulders and lift her away from her lap back onto the cold metal floor. Without her eyes Alice had to go by feel, starting at her delicate jaw down against her slender throat and finally to the wounded shoulder. The machete had cut cleanly through the hoodie and the t-shirt below into the soft flesh and muscle cording K-Mart's small shoulder. Alice probed the wound with the tips of her fingers to search how deep it was and the length of it, neither being drastic, thank god. Just a shallow knick that was the length of her index finger and just happened to bleed profusely but was beginning to harden shut, thankfully. K-Mart flinched and hissed quietly from Alice's questing fingers against her wound yet, despite the pain it caused, Alice was proud to notice she took it like a champ. Alice curled her fingers around the tear in the fabric and was about to rip the sleeve from the jacket to use as a tourniquet for the deepest part of the gash that wasn't going to close on its own but the sound of groaning metal suddenly filling the room startled her still. K-Mart jumped from fright and automatically flew into Alice's arms for protection as light spilled into the room and the door to their prison fell open. Alice blinked at the painful transition from pure darkness to overwhelming brightness, her eyes watering from the stinging. Four armed guards and a smaller female body in a lab coat stood in the entranceway of what was now made apparent as shipping container that Alice and K-Mart had been kept in for who knows how long. K-Mart whimpered into Alice's coat and moved further into the strong woman's body to escape the woman and the guards entering the container. All four guardsmen pointed their M-16s at K-Mart and Alice, forming a square formation around the two humans curled into one another on the floor in case they got any ideas about running. Alice glared at each one in turn even as she hugged K-Mart's head to her chest, protecting the blond from even the sight of guns being pointed at her like a rabid zoo animal who may turn on its owner at any given moment. K-Mart was the only reason Alice hadn't attacked and killed these men yet. The short olive skinned woman in a lab coat came to a halt just a foot away from Alice's hip, her black sleek stilettos giving the woman an extra boost to her intimidation factor. Alice looked up into her small heart shaped face framed by a messy black crop cut of hair and glared when her blue eyes met the dark eyes of the Umbrella scientist.

"Hello Project Alice," The woman's voice was a low timbre for a female and highly accented with a Spanish lilt, "I'm Esmeralda. I've come here to welcome you to Arcadia. As you have noticed we chose not to separate you and your young companion." At that K-Mart pulled her head up to catch Esmeralda's dark ominous gaze scanning K-Mart as if she were a new pair of shoes she wasn't sure she wanted to purchase or not. A little tremor rocked K-Mart's body and Alice hugged her tighter for it.

"That is our insurance Project Alice. You see, with her here, we can insure that you won't act out. Because if you do?" Esmeralda grinned wolfishly towards one of her entourage who let her gun fall to his hip, hanging from his shoulder by a thick canvas strap, and stepped forward. His gloved hand shot out and fisted K-Mart's hair for leverage to pull her out of Alice's arms, screaming and kicking. Alice shot to her feet to snap the neck of the man roughing up K-Mart but she halted when he pressed a combat knife against the tender underside of the girls chin. Esmeralda leisurely strolled up next to Alice's tense figure and peered over the top of her thickly framed glasses at K-Mart frightened face.

"Well, if you act out Project Alice something simply horrible may happen to the girl and her body just might be lost to sea. And neither of us wants that, do we?"

Alice clenched her fists at her sides, fighting the impulsive urge to kill the pompous woman beside her, "What do you want from me?"

"Oh nothing at all! Finding you was nothing more than a pleasant surprise, I assure you! In fact, until recently, Umbrella thought you dead! But having you here will make my work so much easier that is for sure." Esmeralda stepped away from Alice and snapped her fingers to prompt one of the men behind Alice to step in. He shoved a folded pile of pristinely white clothes in Alice's chest and held them there until Alice took hold of them. A pair of white cotton pants and a white cotton long sleeve shirt coupled with clean white underclothes. Another pair of clothes exactly like Alice's was given to K-Mart after she was shoved back towards Alice who caught her before she could fall. Esmeralda waved at them to insinuate that they put the clothes on, right there in front of the men who were eyeing K-Mart suggestively. The girl turned helpless eyes to her guardian, hugging the Arcadia outfit tightly to her chest. Alice guided K-Mart to the corner of the shipping crate, shoving one of the Umbrella men out of the way, and stood in front of the teen while the girl stripped out of the dusty, dirty clothes she had been living in since Alice had met her. All of the men present tried to get a look around Alice at the beautiful young woman's body but Alice did well to block out almost the entire image save for K-Mart long legs and the occasional flash of blond hair. Esmeralda smirked at the way Project Alice protected the young girl's innocence from the hungry sex deprived men but not out of any real care for the girl herself, just that Project Alice showed such a weakness by doing it.

"Okay. I'm done." K-Mart whispered and stepped around her guardian's prone form, clad in pristine white. The man closest to them stepped in to take K-Mart's old clothes including the girl's boots and socks, handing the skittish teen clean white socks and a pair of white flats as a replacement. All eyes turned to Alice expectantly still standing there holding her clothes and running her thumb along the lapel of her coat fondly. She'd miss these clothes. The jacket was one that she had so many memories of taking off to lie across sun heated sand so that Claire wouldn't burn her naked body on it when Alice simply had to have the redhead regardless of where they may have been. Claire herself was equally as fond of the jacket and she was prone to stealing it from Alice to use for herself on cold Nevada nights. To give it away now was to be giving away Alice's last piece of Claire she possessed in person. Sighing, she slipped it off and draped t over the shoulder of an Umbrella agent nearest to her. Unlike with K-Mart, Alice had little regard for her modesty and stripped of her attire right there for everyone to see. The men eyed Alice hungrily with every piece of cloth that fell away to reveal more and more beautiful alabaster skin while Esmeralda eyed Alice with a disoriented pride at the great Project's development. K-Mart was the only one who averted her eyes out of respect for Alice, looking instead at her new shoes that were just a hair to big for her.

"Excellent!" Esmeralda boomed, slapping her hands together excitedly, when Alice finished dressing herself, "Now we can begin."

As was becoming custom in this new and terrifying environment K-Mart migrated to Alice and took the older woman's hand between both of her own for the comfort Alice's intimidating presence offered, "Begin what?"

"Why the integration process of course! Having our subjects form a bond with one another is crucial to the process it takes to prepare you all for testing," The woman's eyes glazed over with the thoughts of past subjects playing through her mind, a twisted smile on her face, " It truly was blessed timing that you arrived when you did. We were just putting away our old subjects from last year's tests and pulling out new ones when I received word of your capture in the Nevada outlet. With your brilliant timing I can place the two of you with this years test subjects instead of storing you in cryogenics." Esmeralda laughed with delight and turned on her heels to walk out of the storage container. The men she had brought with her pushed the barrels of their rifles in-between their shoulder blades to prompt them forward. K-Mart clung to Alice's arm for dear life, her hazel eyes roaming around the great many storage containers stacked high across the deck of the Arcadia. As they weaved between containers following wherever Esmeralda was leading them K-Mart had to wonder if each one of these containers had people in them or were simply containing crates like the ones L.J and Chase had found for food. She hoped that it wasn't people. Humans shouldn't be forced to live in small dark places like that.

"Usually we pull only five subjects for testing once a year then we switch them out," Esmeralda paused in speech to push open a heavy metal door into a brightly lit white room, spotless as everything else Umbrella, "If the subjects survive that is. We have an integration period for the subjects to become acquainted with one another then we test on them. You follow our rules and we'll allow you to live comfortably. If you break our rules, well, then you'll find yourself extremely uncomfortable. It's that simple." Esmeralda came to a stop in front of another large metal door, this one a clean white, and turned to face K-Mart and Alice.

"This will be where you stay from now on," Esmeralda gestured to the door behind her, "provided you follow the simple rules. Meals will be provided for you twice a day and you'll be taken out to bathe three times a week. When the testing begins you'll be expected to participate when I come to collect you. Am I understood?"

Alice glanced down at K-Mart who was staring straight past Esmeralda at the door barring them from what would be their new home and sighed, "Just what do you plan to do to us?"

The doctor eyed both women thoughtfully, snickering to herself, "I just haven't decided yet. The possibilities are too great!" Esmeralda stepped to the side to allow one of her cronies to open the door for her through whom she gestured for Alice and K-Mart to enter. The pair did so only because of the insistence of the cold metal jabs given by the guns of the soldiers behind them. Esmeralda mumbled some form of goodbye then the door was slammed shut, leaving them alone in a room of strangers.

Not unlike everything else on this goddamn ship the entire room was white including everything inside of the semi-large rectangular room. Bunks dressed in white sheets and comforters lined one wall opposite of the door, a few being occupied by people garbed in the exact same white outfits as Alice and K-Mart. A lone book shelf housing different sized books and board games sat beside a shelf of folded white clothes. One circular table sat in the middle of the room covered in a white tablecloth and a deck of cards for what looked to be a very serious round of slap jack at play. A boy that couldn't be older than fourteen was looking very serious at the deck of cards sitting center in the table, occasionally reaching up to twist his long fingers through his shaggy russet curls. His competition, clearly a woman from the slender shoulders and long legs straddling the backwards chair, had her back turned to Alice but something about the way the woman held herself seemed so familiar. Slowly the boy reached out and took hold of a card, gulping, before he flipped it over. In an instant the woman's hand shot out to cover the exposed Jack of hearts just a second faster than the boy could.

"Not again," The boy's voice cracked pitifully from the obvious distress puberty was having on his vocal cords and he sagged in his chair, arms folded across his chest petulantly, "You always win."

"Well I keep telling you, Runt, I'm the best there will ever be." The woman's voice was laced with mirth and something that was incredibly familiar to Alice. A sense of haughty attitude and self entitlement like that could only come from one person.

Stepping more into the room, Alice came up behind the short haired brunette and spoke a name that hadn't touched her lips in over a year, "Jill?"

Jill Valentine turned around in her seat with a massive grin lighting up her face, brown eyes twinkling in the light. The chair scraped against the floor just before it was knocked over onto the white tile by Jill's knees to get to Alice faster and wrap her in a bone crushing hug despite Jill being a full head shorter than Alice.

"Alice! Oh my god, you bitch, I never thought I'd see you again!"

Warm laughter bubbled up from the pit of Alice's stomach and she couldn't help but affectionately hug her best friend back, lifting the short petite woman off her feet, "Well I can honestly say Valentine, I never thought I'd see you again either!"

K-Mart watched the exchange curiously considering that all she knew about Jill was what she had read from Alice's journals and according to the prolific writing; Alice was hugging a dead woman. The camaraderie between the two women was honest as it was palpable; warming even K-Mart's saddened heart to see the joy written all over both their faces. The others in the room that had been scattered around doing their own things abandoned whatever it was to come see about Jill's obvious friendship of this newcomer and wait to be introduced.

Jill breathed out a laugh and pulled away from Alice to retrieve her chair and her place at the table. Alice followed suite after she pulled out a chair for K-Mart to sit in beside her, smiling foolishly for the first time since they had been separated from Claire. K-Mart eyed the other test subjects taking places around the table, specifically the one that took a chair beside her. There were five of them in total including Jill who was happily chatting away with Alice about old times on the run together, completely ignoring everyone else present.

Across from K-Mart was an elderly woman with silver streaked blond hair piled atop her head in a messy bun, her blue eyes looking tired behind the thin wire framed spectacles perched on her nose. Wrinkles fanned out from the corners of her eyes and her lips, mapping across the entirety of her face giving her that weathered look that wasn't as entirely unattractive as it would have been years ago before the world collapsed. She held two long blunt plastic needles in both hands while she knitted something made of electric blue and teal yarn, perhaps a small sweater by the rough shape of it. How the woman managed to get something from Umbrella that wasn't strictly white had to be a miracle in and of itself.

The sweater was most likely for the small girl sitting beside the elderly woman who's chin barely surpassed the height of the table. Her chestnut hair fell in rumpled waves around her tiny shoulders, brushing against her well rounded cheeks. Eyes the color of honey glittered with the happiness of youth as the peered up at the tall, strange woman that was Alice. Stranger yet was the way the girls eyes remained solely fixed on Alice's lips while she spoke, her little fingers twitching and twisting against the tabletop as if she were trying to translate Alice's spoken words into a silent communication of the fingers. And it was not just Alice she did this for; it was Jill as well when the conversation switched from Alice speaking to Jill. Those honey eyes held an intelligence K-Mart had never seen in a child before.

On the other side of the young girl was the curly headed pubescent boy Jill had beat at cards. He had a sharp face full of angular shapes, his cheek bones being the most definite K-Mart had seen on a boy before. Freckles dotted all across his face and the back of his hands, even on the small patch of collarbone showing from the v-neck of his shirt. For being so young K-Mart found him to be rather pretty, especially when he caught her gaze and gave her a lopsided smile that made his green eyes twinkle. She blushed hotly and averted her gaze to the statuesque beauty beside her.

This woman was probably the closest to K-Mart's age out of all the people in the room, around the age of 20 or 21, and that eased her a great deal since this was the first live human the blond had been near in years that wasn't either a child or an adult past 30. Intense azure eyes contrasted greatly against the pale clear skin of the woman's smooth and beautiful face. Jet black hair fell to her shoulders in straight but messy, unevenly cut waves, pieces of it caught behind her small ears to show off the somewhat large gauges still in her eyes despite the time for those to be in style having long passed. There was a tiny scar just above the perfectly pink cupid bow mouth that showed no hint of a smile or a frown. She was tall even sitting down but that could be from the way the girl remained ramrod straight, her back perfectly parallel to the back of the chair she sat in. She had the lean, chiseled musculature of a Greek goddess that closely rivaled Alice's in allure. Where the young boy had been pretty this stranger was simply breathtaking. K-Mart had to quickly turn her eyes toward the table for fear of blushing so hot she start a fire. She was not a stranger to attraction, she was a teenage girl after all, but she had never felt it as strong as she was feeling it now.

"-and that's how I got separated from you and captured by Umbrella. Great story right?" Jill finished proudly, leaning back in her chair and throwing her feet up on the table, legs crossed at the ankles. The elderly woman glared at Jill over the top of her glasses, pausing in her knitting of the tiny bright sweater.

"Jill Valentine, get your feet of the table this instant." Despite the threat, the woman's voice bled warmth and comfort that only a grandma could manage. A tiny pang of hurt attacked K-Mart's heart as she wondered if the woman's grandchildren and children had made it this far or had been killed with everyone else when the outbreak took over.

Alice chuckled at Jill's reaction to being scolded and received a glare from the brunette even as Jill was putting her feet back onto the floor where they belonged. K-Mart smiled too but because of Alice's happiness not because of Jill's sour look, as amusing as it was.

"Yeah, yeah," Jill rolled her eyes and jutted her chin towards the woman who had happily resumed her knitting, "That's Sylvia. The house grandma. That little one," Jill gestured towards the child who perked up in her chair with a bright grin under Jill's attention, "is Becky. She's deaf so you can't yell to get her attention. She reads lips though and can speak but she prefers to use ASL which is annoying because the Jarhead is the only one here that knows it."

Alice raised a blond brow and eyed the curly headed boy skeptically, "You're a Marine?"

The boy chortled loudly, his eyes squinting and his shoulders shaking, "Me? No way!"

Jill snorted and reached across the table to shove the kid for no other reason than to shove him, "That's Timothy. The only thing he amounted too in life before the shit storm was many, many stints in juvi for theft, grand theft auto, and robbery. Right Timmy?"

The boy held up his hands and wiggled his fingers, a mischievousness burning behind his green irises, "I've got the gift."

Alice huffed out a laugh, amused at the boy's pride in his talent for being bad, "Then who?"

Jill made a finger gun out of her thumb and index finger, pointing it at the tall, jet haired beauty staring at Alice blankly, "That one. Lance Corporeal Skylar Lombardi or as I like to call her, Lady Jarhead. She really likes it."

Surprised, K-Mart lifted her inquisitive hazel eyes to Skylar's scowling face, "A female Marine?"

Skylar turned her head towards K-Mart and lifted one thin black brow, "Problem?" The gravely sensuality raw in Skylar's tone of voice sent an unwarranted shiver up K-Mart's spine that she quickly ignored. She had heard Claire go on about how sexy Alice's voice was but she had never fully grasped how a voice could manage to be sexy until she heard Skylar open her mouth.

Shaking her head with a vehement blush burning at her paler cheeks, K-Mart dropped her eyes to the glint of silver poking out from beneath the collar of Skylar's shirt, "Not at all I'm just…surprised. I didn't know that Marines could be female."

"There aren't many of us," Skylar confirmed, brilliant blues remaining trained on K-Mart even though the blond couldn't bring herself to gaze upon Skylar's face for another second without turning into a blushing idiot, "And there are even less of us now, I'm sure. The Marines only want the best and you have to be even better than the best to be a female Marine."

Alice whistled lowly, catching Skylar's emotionless attention, and leaned forward in her chair, "And you have to be a real badass too. How's your MCMAPS?"

Skylar shrugged, a tiny smile tugging at the corner of her lips, "I'm a black belt."

Alice nodded, looking as pleased as a toddler in a toy store, "And your shooting?"

"I graduated from Boot with Marksmen for both my rifle and my sidearm. Best of my company, that's why they made me squad leader."

Grinning, Alice nodded her head slowly, "Nice."

K-Mart cleared her throat and glanced up at Skylar through her long lashes, "Is that where you learned how to sign?"

Skylar looked over at Becky who was predictably watching K-Mart's mouth, her eyebrows low over her eyes in a hard concentration, "No. I learned ASL in foster care," At the revelation to her past Skylar shrugged but K-Mart could plainly see the bitterness behind the shrug as everyone else in the room could, "When you're handed off from one family to the next you pick things up. In one of the houses they put me in there was a deaf boy that was always signing things to his parents about me that made them laugh and I got sick of it so I learned the language."

Jill seemed just as interested in the story as everyone else was, clearly having heard this story for the first time, "And you joined the Marine Corps the second you turned 18?"

Skylar nodded, "I figured they would treat me better than the system did," A dry chuckle came from deep in Skylar's chest, sounding more like a throaty purring sound than an actual laugh, "The beatings were about the same though."

Timothy jutted his thumb towards himself, flashing his crooked smile towards Skylar, "You should have joined forces with me instead. You'd have made more money. Plus, you're hot and I'm hot so naturally we'd make an awesome team."

Skylar looked at the boy as if he were a bug she couldn't quite figure out how to step on, "Tim, you're barking up the wrong tree."

The boy shrugged, his grin growing wider, "Why?"

"You mean aside from the fact that I'm 7 years older than you? Perhaps the fact that I hold zero affinity for the male species as a whole?" Skylar drawled in a bored tone, breaking perfect posture to rest her elbow on the table and lean her cheek against her fist. The bow in her posture allowed the shirt to ride up in the back, showing off a strip of pale flesh clear from one hip to another. Dark black ink could be seen beneath the skin on the hip closest to K-Mart but with the shirt on, it couldn't be made out as more than that.

Timothy stared blankly at Skylar for a few moments before shrugging and reaching for the deck of cards still sitting in the center of the table, "I dunno what that means but I'm gonna assume it means no. That's fine; Jill totally has the hots for me anyway."

Jill snorted loudly first but then, unable to hold it in, outright laughed, "You wish kid! I like my men a little more…well…manlier. With hair, you know, down there." Jill wiggled her fingers towards the crotch of her white pants, smirking. Timothy bristled and jutted out a lip before getting up and stomping over to a lower bunk that he threw himself onto rather dramatically. With her advanced hearing Alice could hear the boy muttering to himself about stupid puberty and woman's stupid need for body hair. Both women began laughing at the boys expense, even old Sylvia smiled though she didn't lift her eyes from her knitting. Becky moved to sit on her knees in the chair so that she could see the people at the table better, resting her elbows on the table. She looked into the face of the stranger who were having fun with the pretty lady and the nice old lady, observing the slight crinkle near her eyes and the flash of her white teeth. The lady with blond hair seemed nice but Becky wasn't sure enough to trust her yet so until she could, she wouldn't speak to her. She looked to the other blond stranger that had come, this one younger and more demure than the one who had hugged the pretty lady. She seemed to like Becky's friend, Skylar, and that made Becky happy because Skylar always seemed so sad. She turned her eyes to the face of her friend and smiled when Skylar's blue eyes caught her gaze. She lifted her hands and began weaving her fingers between one another deftly to speak with Skylar. Skylar watched Becky's small hands closely with a tiny smile and nodded to Becky's silent question. She turned her head to the young blond stranger and lightly touched her shoulder to get her attention.

K-Mart jumped so hard she nearly fell out of her seat, eyes wide and heart hammering in her chest. Skylar felt a touch of fondness brush her heart at the girl's adorable nerves and retracted her hand to gesture towards Becky.

"She wants to know what your name is."

"Oh," K-Mart moved her hazel eyes to look into Becky's questioning honey orbs, "I'm K-Mart."

Jill stopped mid speech in her conversation to give K-Mart a funny look and Sylvia picked her head up to stare at K-Mart just as strangely. The blond girl shifted uncomfortably in her seat, fiddling with her hands in her lap.

"Truly?" Sylvia asked.

Jill snorted out a laugh, "Did your parents hate you or something?"

"No," K-mart paused and back tracked, shrugging one shoulder, "Well, yes. But K-Mart is just a nickname. A new name. I hated my old name and since everyone I knew was dead I figured a new change wouldn't hurt."

Jill was still looking at her like she was crazy, "Yeah but K-Mart?"

A wistful look crossed both K-Mart and Alice's face, both of them thinking about the same person behind the name, "It's where Claire found me."

Jill pondered the name over but couldn't think of anyone she knew that was named Claire that could elicit such an emotional response from her friend, "Who's that?"

"She's…she's kind of my mom sister type thing." K-Mart looked at Alice who was staring intently at the tablecloth with her bottom lip firmly caught between her teeth.

"She was moving all across the US picking up survivors and adding them to this convoy that she took care of," Alice's voice was warm and full of all the love she felt for the redhead though her heart was cold with ache, "That's who I was with when Umbrella picked us up."

Jill glanced over her shoulder towards the closed door that Esmeralda had lead K-Mart and Alice through a little over an hour ago, "She's here too?"

"No thank god. Just me and K," Alice smirked and looked over to catch K-Mart's eye, "But I'm sure, if I know Claire at all, she will be soon."

K-Mart giggled and nodded her head, thinking only fond thoughts of their redheaded leader, "Nothing on earth will stop her from getting us out of here. I just feel sorry for Umbrella thinking they are safe from the Redfield Wrath."

Jill whistled and ran a hand through her closely cropped head of hair, "This chick sounds like the real deal."

With a laugh Alice nodded, "You have no idea."

Becky wasn't really interested in the turn the conversation took so she hopped off her chair to round the table towards Skylar. She placed one of her little hands on the woman's thigh, using the other to sign a question to Skylar. The black haired woman used both her hands to respond, continuing to pose questions that Becky shook her head at until Skylar chose a question that made the little girl beam and hop from her excitement. Laughing in the way that made it sound like she was purring Skylar stood from her chair and told Becky to go choose the game she wished to play with a quick flick of her fingers and wrist. The young girl skipped over to the shelf to scan over each game there until she found Operation at the very bottom of the pile.

"Becky wants to play a game," Skylar informed the table, "Any of you guys want to play?"

Sylvia waved Skylar off with a clack of her knitting needles and smiled warmly at the tall lithe young woman, "No, you young ones go have fun. Leave us old ladies here to talk."

Skylar purred out another quiet laugh and looked to K-Mart, "You wanna play? I won't cheat, I promise. I can't say the same for Becky though. Jill has been teaching her that the best way to win is to cheat."

Alice raised a brow at Jill who shouted indignantly, "What!? It's true!"

K-Mart ducked her head bashfully under Skylar's attention but smiled and nodded. Alice watched with great interest the way Skylar offered K-Mart a hand that the blond bypassed with a blush and bolted towards Becky who sat on the floor assembling the game by herself. It would seem that K-Mart had developed a little crush on the long, lean Marine. Smiling to herself, Alice wondered what Claire would think of the situation if she were here. She would probably give Skylar a speech about hurting K-Mart with a Glock on the table between them, just as an incentive to obey Claire. If Claire even entertained the thought of K-Mart being allowed to date at all, chances were that K-Mart would be to innocent in Claire's eyes to be considered old enough for dating. The picture she had in her head of Claire shaking her head disapprovingly at Skylar made a deep pang of longing shoot through Alice, sending her deeper into the sadness steadily building inside her the longer she remained away from her love.

Jill jabbed Alice in the ribs with her elbow to get the blonde's attention, "Do you really think this chick will come to save you?"

Alice thought back to Claire's promise in the desert before she went off to Vegas in search of food for the starving convoy. A promise made by a Redfield was as solid as titanium was and she knew it. Smiling Alice nodded and leaned back in her chair, watching K-Mart giggle at Becky as the girl nudged Skylar's elbow each time the black haired woman attempted to retrieve a piece out of the man's body with the tweezers.

"You can count on it. Claire will show up and there will be hell to pay."

Jill studied the look on her friends face and the passion burning in her eyes, "You have feelings for her." It wasn't a question, it was a statement, and they both knew it.

"I love her, yes."

"I see," Jill looked at the table in deep thought, the only noises in the room being that of Sylvia's knitting, the occasional buzz followed by laughter coming from the girls, and Timothy shuffling the cards where he lay in his bunk, "And do you plan to wait here for her to come and save you, or what?"

Alice's eyes came alight with mischief, "Not a chance."

Jill cracked a grin that was identical to Alice's, "That's what I like to hear. What's the plan?"

"I'm not sure yet," Alice glanced around the room at each person individually, stopping longest on the happy face of K-Mart, "but I'm sure together we can think of something. What do you say?"

Jill set a hand on Alice's shoulder and nodded, "You can count me in. Just like old times eh, kicking Umbrella's ass all over the fucking place."

"Just like old times Jill. Except," K-Mart lifted her head and smiled at Alice, "A little different this time."

Xx xX

Weariness filled every muscle in her body and had seeped deep into her bones but she pressed on. The early morning light was doing very little to warm the frigid Alaskan air that burned her lungs going in and burned her throat going out. A fire was burning through the muscles in her thighs telling her to stop, slow down, and stop this impossible sprint she had been holding onto for so long now but she didn't stop, couldn't stop, with what was behind her. It was not just her life that depended on her survival; it was Alice's and K-Mart's life too. Groans and the grotesque sound of broken bone sawing against taunt decaying flesh echoed through the still morning air intermingling with Claire's hard breathing. Fire still lit the blackened heap of metal that use to be Claire's beloved yellow Hummer a long distance away from where Claire was sprinting. When she had woken up this morning, she hadn't thought it would end this way.

3 weeks prior to this morning, Claire had been with Carlos in Nevada after she had just broken down in his arms and had asked him to take over leadership of the convoy so that she could go search for and bring back her two girls. There had been a huge dispute when they had informed the convoy of the new management change but Claire had done what she does best and eased her people's fears. They had calmed the instant she promised them that she would return and retake her position as head honcho around her so Carlos shouldn't get comfortable. The goodbyes she shared between her friends were tearful, especially Betty who blabbered and hugged Claire as least 6 times, though they weren't desolate as they believed that Claire would come back to them. After she finished with her goodbyes Carlos helped her load the Hummer with enough supplies to last Claire for a month including ammo provisions and the few weapons that could be spared. Initially she had been against the idea of both taking supplies away from the convoy and her Hummer but Carlos has insisted and she caved under his thoughtful wishes. Thereafter she had headed straight for Las Vegas to search for clues regarding Alice's and K-Mart's capture though she had been hoping that she would find them there instead of the clues. She hadn't been that lucky considering all she found were a group of rouge Umbrella men she swiftly took care of. The warehouse was used only to safeguard crates of Umbrella food and, occasionally as Claire found on the files of a laptop stored in a desk, the solders stationed here were to bring live human captives to a ship called the Arcadia. According to the records in the computer that was exactly where Alice and K-Mart had been taken, for testing purposes it had specified, a week before Claire had got there. The logs didn't say where exactly the ship was currently docked but it did say where the Arcadia frequently stopped, it also said where K-Mart and Alice had been taken to board the ship. Alaska.

That was how Claire had ended up driving for over 2 weeks clear across the West Coast through Canada and into Alaska in search of the damn ship and that was how Claire's morning had gone down this way. The night before Claire had just pulled into a tiny provincial Alaskan town that had more planes sitting on the abandoned runway than actual houses. After a quick search of the town that came up clean of undead Claire had parked on the edge of the runway and gone to sleep for the night. She had been woken to the Hummer being violently shaken by a great many undead that had surrounded the vehicle. All she had time to grab was her boots before the undead clawing at her windows forced her to escape through the sunroof and start running. Briefly she had glanced back to fire a sure shot at the gas tank of the Hummer and sent it ablaze only seconds before it exploded and took out a bulk of the horde.

Now, she was running, hard and fast away from the undead chasing after her. There was no sure direction she was pushing herself towards except, far away, and the faster she got there the better. The bullets had run out quickly and, unfortunately, everything else Claire had brought with her had gone up into flames with her means of travel. She glanced over her shoulder at the closing distance between her and the undead, dreading when she would run out of energy and they would catch her without any means of saving herself. Growling, Claire gripped the hunting knife Alice had given her tighter in her hand and pushed every last drop of strength she had into reaching the Umbrella helicopter at the other end of the grassy airstrip.

Cold, clammy hands curled around Claire's shoulders and pulled her back into the body oozing bodily liquids onto the clothes she wore. Panic flooded her system and instincts kicked in, sending her into a frenzy. She hooked her foot around the ankle behind her and pulled forward to give herself enough leverage to turn in the zombies arms and shove her hunting knife up through the undead jaw straight into its brain. The knife came away with a sickening wet sound and the undead fell away, completely dead now. Silently she thanked her lover for leaving the knife behind or she'd really be dead now. Another six were coming at her but from a much further distance, they were further away from her than the helicopter was and though she was so tired she could simply collapse right there and sleep for days, but she knew she had to keep going. So with a sighs he cleaned the knife off on her pants with a few swipes and turned to sprint the rest of the way to the helicopter wheezing from exhaustion. Her boot caught on a rock when she was just a foot away from the chopper and she slammed into the side of it roughly, her entire left side coming alight with pain.

"Ah shit," Claire lolled her head to the side, gripping her ribs that had taken the brunt of the fall, "Shit." Dark metal caught the sunlight and Claire's attention from just inside the chopper. Stuffed between the seat and the wall was TEC 12 pump auto shotgun, 12 gauge shells lying scattered all over the seat and the floor of the chopper. Glanced at the advancing horde, Claire scrambled into the chopper and grabbed the TEC 12 along with the shells on the seat, pushing in the maximum holding rate of 7 shots. She stood and moved back to the door of the chopper and, after switching the gun from semi-automatic to pump action, she took each zombie out with one shot left to spare. A crazed breath of a laugh vibrated up from her chest and filled the quiet Alaskan air accompanied by the thump of her ass hitting the steal flooring of the chopper.

"That was…that was fucking close." She fell to her back, feeling the cold of the metal through the wet back of her shirt, and draped the Tec 12 across her torso. If that gun hadn't been inside the chopper Claire would be dead right now no question about it and there would be no one left to go rescue K-Mart and Alice. Her ribs hurt, her entire body felt like one massive weight, tiredness was pulling at her consciousness, but she had made it and now she was another step closer. With a lazy smile Claire lolled her head to the side, looking at the cockpit of the chopper, and spotted another Umbrella laptop sitting in the co-pilots chair, not unlike the one Claire had gotten all of the old information of off. A pure white Vaio with a company logo stamped into the lid of the laptop except that this computer, unlike the last, was covered in a fine layer of blood. Moving to her knees Claire crept closer to peer across the seats and was forced to rip her head back, gagging and coughing. The pilot was still sitting slumped over in the seat, a magnum revolver gripped in his hand only because of rigor, and the sunlight shone through the quarter sized hole in his skull through which his brains had been blown out and onto everything in the co-pilots area including the computer. The stench of his rot was fresh and not like the rotting smell of the undead but worst in a way since it was all human and it triggered Claire's stomach. She jumped out of the aircraft to pace in the grass with her nose pressed into the crook of her elbow and her eyes tightly closed. The sight of a dead body was still something that bothered her. Not the mutilated undead bodies that still walked around, those she had grown quite accustomed too, but seeing human dead bodies still bothered her. If not for the reason that they were like her when they died but because there were so very little humans left to spare that seeing another death made her despair grow a little more prominent but this was life now and she had to get use to it whether she liked it or not. After a few calming breaths Claire set into action, coming over to the pilots door and yanking it open so she could tug and pull at the already bloating dead body of the pilot. When he fell from the seat to the ground the bones in his shoulders crunched and snapped under the forceful impact, the elongated bone in his upper arm snapping completely and puncturing through the quadriceps. She swallowed the acid rising up from her stomach back down and continued to drag the body a safe distance away from the chopper, not bothering to bury him as he meant nothing to her in life or death and the fact that he had worked for Umbrella made her believe he didn't deserve any type of a eulogy. Before she went back to the chopper she relieved him of his Magnum and the baggy of .9 casings. Inside the chopper she spent time combing through it from one end to the other for anything more useful than what she already found. She found a military style pack that she stored the surplus of 12 gauge ammunition she found lying around inside along with the two other service pistols, a variety of knifes, and a canteen of water. The packages of crackers she found became her breakfast while she poured over the laptop's information regarding Arcadia. Alice and K-Mart had been brought here a little over a week ago in a shipping container to be boarded on the Arcadia before it sailed back down the West Coast where it was planned to stop near California to stock up on supplies, an ample opportunity for Claire that she had every intension of taking advantage of. Now that she had the chopper she'd be able to fly down the coast with only a couple stops to refuel in a matter of days. Days. She was only days away from holding Alice in her arms again, kissing Alice's sweet lips, and seeing K-Mart again, hugging K-Mart. Smiling; Claire closed the laptop and tossed it in the co-pilot seat next to her new bag and began flipping toggle switches to bring the chopper to life.

The flight down the coast moved quickly with only a brief stop in British Columbia for fuel and a change of clothes as she was in desperate need of after the fight in Alaska and the traveling she had been doing through Nevada, something thinner, and cooler than what she had been traveling in to prepare for the muggy heat of California. She found a grey cotton razorback tank top to wear beneath a thick red leather vest with brass zippers and a pair of tight black cargo pants to match the heavy duty black combat boots she kept her hunting knife in. She couldn't even remember the last time she had been wearing clean clothes, let along new clothes, and reveled in the soft fabric rubbing against her skin even as she sat behind the controls of the chopper. Her last two stops were made in Vancouver and Eugene for fuel, the former being a near death experience when undead spilled onto the runway, and the latter being a breeze save for the 400 pound zombie that had taken a keen interest in Claire's going ons. Now she was flying through the City of Angels, overlooking the town to see if she could spot the Arcadia from the air but soon became more fascinated in the fact that not a single zombie could be seen. That is, until she flew around a high rising building and spotted a prison that was absolutely surrounded by thousands upon thousands of undead. Claire couldn't make out much of the building except the large white print proclaiming HELP ME atop the roof and a few people standing out against the stark white. Coming here, she only wanted to get Alice and K-Mart then leave to catch up with the convoy but every part of Claire, specifically the leader in her that wanted to save every human life left, told her to set the chopper down on that roof.

Sighing, Claire reached up and pushed the button on her headset that she had originally only put on to buffer the noises of the blades. Static crackled in her ears from the empty airwave being transmitted so she waited until she heard what she was hoping for; a signal from the people down there.

Claire flipped the toggle that would allow open communication between the survivors below and herself, "This is Claire Redfield, I repeat, this is Claire Redfield. Is there anyone down there that reads me?"

"We copy! This is Angel Ortiz and we copy!"

Claire grinned and peered over the brim of her aviators to catch a glimpse of the man she was speaking to but couldn't from where she was at in the sky, "Mornin' Angel. Lovely day for flyin' wouldn't you say?"

The man laughed through the airwave and Claire found that she quite enjoyed it despite his being a stranger to her, "That it is. You weren't planning on stopping by to visit us were you?"

"Actually Angel, that's exactly what I was planning. I was thinkin' I would land right on that roof there, what do you say about that?"

"You have the clearance. Just come around. Over and out."

"Copy that. See you soon!" Claire flipped the toggle off and flew the chopper back around the building for a clear view. She could see people running around the roof like crazed individuals trying to move things out of the way so she'd have a safe place to land. They'd have to hurry because she was already slowing the engine for decent, halving the speed that the rotor spun the blades. A man dressed in Air Force camis waved her down with great sweeps of his short arms back and forth while all the other people on the roof scattered in every direction to escape the blasts of wind the propellers created. With ease Claire set the chopper down on the large H that spelled out help, smirking to herself over the irony of it.

The people of this prison turned safe house were on her before she could even finish slinging her bag over her shoulders bombarding her with questions about the outside world.

"Is there anyone else coming!?"

"Where did you come from!?"

"How'd you get here!?"

"Did Arcadia send you!?"

She glared at all of them, shoved her way through the small crowd, towards the Air Force man she assumed to be Angel though the group followed her, even more ruffled by the fact she had simply shoved them aside. Angel straightened from the crouch he had dropped in when Claire had been landed and ran a hand through his thick black hair to flatten the mess it had been blown into. She sized him up in silence with a hand around her bag and the other holding the TEC 12 by the hand grip at her side.

He cleared his throat awkwardly and shot a hand out for her to shake which she did after glaring at it for a few silent moments, "Angel Ortiz. That is Bennett Sinclair over there and his intern Kim Yong," Angel pointed towards a greasy looking man frowning at her and a short, slim Asian man standing beside him with wide eyes, "And that's Crystal Waters." Lastly he gestured to a frantic brunette woman with flushed cheeks and a brilliant smile illuminating her entire face. Claire eyed them warily, already disliking the look in Bennett's eyes and his constant looks sent towards her chopper.

"Are you from Arcadia?" Crystal asked again with just as much enthusiasm as she previously had intoned.

Claire narrowed her eyes though it had little effect considering she still wore her sunglasses that hid her eyes from everyone, "What do you know about Arcadia?"

Kim Yong wrung his wrists and spoke in a tentative voice, "Well…they send out these transmissions that say they offer shelter and food and water and it's free of infection. So we were wondering if you were from there and you were coming to get us."

Angel nodded and gestured to a box sitting on a paper laden table, "We've been sending flares off round the hour to get their attention but no one has come yet-"

Claire's skin crawled from her scalp to her toes and she couldn't stop herself form interrupting him, "How many days have you been doing this? Have you seen anyone? Is the Arcadia close?"

Angel's dark bushy brows furrowed and he parted his lips to give Claire some kind of retort but the sound of metal banging against metal interrupted him. All eyes turned towards the door of the roof to the tall muscular man standing in the doorway looking startled and defense. His dark eyes matched the dark color of his skin that was mostly on display because of the skin tight tank top he had on, the hem of it tucked into his loose fitting jeans. Tribal tattoos circled around his massive biceps and looking at them and his surprisingly well manicured beard, Claire couldn't help feeling that he seemed vaguely familiar somehow. He lowered the high caliber pistol in his band when he made the connection between the helicopter sitting on the roof and Claire standing beside it. He grinned broadly and stuffed the pistol into the hem of his jeans, something Claire cringed at because all her life she had been trained the proper way to handle weapons and that was definitely not the proper way to store a loaded handgun.

"Hey! I'm Luther," The large black man bellowed in a cheery tone, hurrying over to give Claire's hand a rough tight gripped handshake, "Luther West."

"Oh," Now she could understand why she recognized him, "My brother use to watch you play, him and my Dad. Dad thought you were the worst player on the team."

Luther took it in stride, smiling even brighter if that was possible, and gave Claire an indifferent shrug, "You can't please everyone."

Claire nodded with a little smirk, "That's true. My brother liked you though."

Luther laughed warmly and gave Claire a wink that made the redhead bristle instantly, "Well kudos to your brother's tastes."

"Right," Claire took her glasses off and hooked them on the front of her tank top, glancing at the four other eager faces staring her down, "You're in charge here?"

Luther chuckled awkwardly, running his fingers through the thin, nearly trimmed facial hair coating his defined jaw, "Well yeah I suppose. Angel helps out a lot."

"Great. I need to talk to you," Again Claire glanced at the four other people, "Alone."

Luther understood what Claire was asking of him and sent his people away, Bennett angrier than the rest, to go their separate directions. Only Angel remained on the rooftop with them, going over to the small station set up so he could look over the pile of papers stacked up there. Claire led Luther back towards the still warm chopper and invited him inside to sit in one of the passenger seats in the back, taking the seat opposite of him. He looked at her strangely but remained silent to hear out whatever she was about to tell him and he could tell it was important just by the look on her face, even if he knew her for a grand total of 5 minutes now, he could tell. Luther West was a people kind of person after all.

"Your people told me that you have been trying to get the attention of Arcadia with flares," Luther nodded, not sure where this was going, "You need to order them to stop immediately. The Arcadia is a trap. Umbrella owns and operates it by luring humans in to use as experiments there. If they notice you are here they will come to collect you and I can't tell you what exactly happens after that but I can tell you it's not good."

Luther let out a shaky breath and fell back against the plush leather seat, rubbing his hand up and down his smooth head, "Fuck me," He stopped suddenly and looked at Claire with thinly veiled mistrust, "How do you know this?"

Claire pulled the Umbrella laptop from her bag and tossed it to the man, "They took my family from me. I've been trailing them for almost a month now from Nevada to Alaska and now finally here. All the information you need to believe me is right there on that computer." She waited for Luther to boot the computer up and go through the great many stored files that she herself had already gone through twice now, watching his face slowly grow more pensive with each word he read until finally he let out an aggravated sigh and tossed the laptop back to her.

"Damn it. This changes everything now. With all these fuckers hanging around here, our only option was to have someone from over there come save our asses. Now I'm not sure what we're going to do," He glanced around the inside of the chopper, noting the number of seats, "Could you fly us out on this?"

"Sure but I wouldn't get you very far before it ran out of fuel and I was forced to make an emergency landing."

"Shit!" Luther banged his fist against the metal paneling of the chopper and slumped in his seat, defeat written all over his face. Claire could sympathize with him being a leader of the last living humans on earth herself. If it were here stuck in his position with the convoy in this prison instead, she would be just as upset as him if not more so.

She placed a hand on his knee and gave him an apologetic smile, "Sorry Luther."

He let out a long breath and shrugged, noticeably collecting himself before he went back to face his people, "What can you do right? Hey, you hungry? Crystal makes a mean post-apocalyptic mac and cheese."

As if prompted Claire's traitorous stomach growled loudly, "I won't say no to that."

Luther smiled warmly and jumped out of the chopper, "Follow me then."

Xx xX

A month had gone into planning their escape. A month that had been full of excruciating tests Dr. Esmeralda had overrun with sadistic glee. A month that had been cruel to old Sylvia until the woman's old bones couldn't provide for her any longer and the woman had passed away during one of the stamina vs. the undead tests. A month in which they had time to bond and grow overly fond of one another, as well as overly protective of one another. A month they used to learn one another's weaknesses and strengths so that, should one person be lacking in something, the other could make up for it. A month had been spent learning the ship and its crew even while they played the part of Umbrella's puppets without a peep from them. A month of planning that had been foiled the second Alice heard the guards talking about a rouge radio communication they had picked up that day from someone calling herself Claire Redfield.

She had been sitting on her bunk reading with K-Mart as they were apt to do now to pass the time when the normal lunch man came in with someone new beside him, both of them talking about the latest ship gossip but doing so quietly so that only Alice could hear them with her superhuman senses. Timothy had raced to the table to be the first one to take pick of the assortment of food brought to them, as he always was, and Alice would have continued reading without a second thought to it if she hadn't heard Claire's name come up. One man was talking about hearing the communication himself and how his Captain had gone frantic when this woman's voice had cut through their transmission waves before he could send out their usual mantra for safe harbor and the like. The man carried on to explain that the woman seemed so casual when she spoke, even having the gull to talk about it being a lovely day for a flight. The lunch man had scoffed and told the man he heard that the Captain was searching for which roof this Claire Redfield had landed on so that they could find her and bring her here to which the man told her they had and they were just waiting for the right moment to lay seize to the prison they were holed up in. The lunch man had questioned him on that to which the man had laughed boisterously and told the lunch man that every single undead within a thousand miles was crowded around that building leaving anyone inside trapped there unless they could find a way out and Umbrella was taking their time to make sure that there would be no way out. During the entire exchange Alice had fought herself to remain calm and seated instead of charging the men and getting off this ship as quick as possible so she could get to Claire. The second they left she jumped from the bunk to begin pacing back and forth, back and forth, without showing any signs of stopping even when Jill came over to ask what was wrong. Jill had eventually grown tired of Alice's pensive silence and ordered Skylar to help physically stop Alice so they could get a straight answer from the woman. This was how they had come to gather around the table they fondly referred to as the Round Motherfucker after Jill had come back from a test one day and ran into it. Alice picked at the table cloth with her blunt nails, frowning, and growing more agitated by the second at her shaggy brunette hair falling into her eyes constantly. Staying aboard the Arcadia had allowed for Alice's naturally dark hair to heal from the sun bleaching it had undergone in the desert and fade back to its original color which surprised both Jill and K-Mart as they had never seen it as anything other than blond. She liked it better this way except that the uneven cut she had been giving herself was healing as well which left her bangs to fall into her face and force her to push out of the way every minute or so. That and the fact that their plan, their beautiful perfect plan was going to be useless now because Alice couldn't wait another month to set their plan into action, she needed to get off this ship now. Umbrella knew where Claire was and where Claire was happened to be an extreme danger if being completely surrounded by all the undead inhabitants of Hollywood meant anything. Claire needed her now. She ran a hand through her hair and let out a shaky sigh, looking up finally to look at her five companions.

K-Mart was looking extremely anxious to figure out what was bothering Alice so greatly. She constantly shifted in her seat and was frowning deeply but never removed her eyes from Alice for more than a second. Likewise Jill seemed upset over Alice's sudden freak out, frowning with her arms folded across her chest. Skylar remained as straight faced as ever but after spending a month with the girl Alice had learned to pick up on the silent ways she displayed her emotions. Timothy didn't seem bothered at all and was only sitting at Round Motherfucker because the food was there and he was not done eating. Becky had come around to sit in Alice's lap so that she could play with the longest ends of her hair, humming softly to herself even if she couldn't hear it. After the first week spent aboard the Arcadia Becky had become glued to Alice's hip and practically worshiped the ground she walked upon. At first Alice had been perturbed by the hero worship until days had passed by and sweet little Becky had managed to worm her way into Alice's heart the same way that K-Mart had. Now Alice wasn't sure what she would do without the constant Becky provided for her right alongside K-Mart.

"Well," Jill prodded in an irritated voice, "You gonna tell us what the fuck that was about?"

"Claire is here. Well not here but close and Umbrella knows where she is and they want her. They have her located in some prison that is being mobbed by the undead."

"Shit…this ruins everything."

"I know."

"I suppose you wanna go charging after her huh?"

"I have to save her Jill."

"Fuck," Jill propped an elbow on the table and ran her hand across her face, rubbing the tips of her fingers roughly into her temple, "We spent a month on this plan Alice."

"I know."

"So…what? You expect us to just blow this plan off so that you can go save your girlfriend?"

Alice sighed, "I don't expect you to do anything Jill but I can't stay here. I have to get off this ship tonight."

K-Mart leaned forward, her hazels eyes sparkling with unshed tears, "Alice…you can't leave me here…"

Alice's stoic face softened and she meant to speak but Jill beat her to it, "No K-Mart is right Alice, you can't leave her here and you can't leave us either."

"Jill-"

"So we'll just have to come up with a new plan, won't we guys?" Jill smirked at the other three people sitting there, her words eliciting smiles from them that matched hers, "After all, Alice got pretty damn lucky to actually find someone who would put up with her dumb ass, we can't let her get killed or Alice will be alone forever."

Timothy chuckled, a much deeper sound now that his body had finished its transition into manhood, "I'm always available Alice."

Alice flashed a smile at the boy that was equal parts playful as it was annoyed, "I keep telling you Timmy, my woman is one of a kind and you'll never replace her."

He waved her off dismissively and went back to munching on the large pretzel stick in his hand. Skylar shifted in her seat, catching Alice's attention and caught Skylar's intense blue eyes. Alice raised a questioning brow and waited as she had come to learn that Skylar never spoke her feelings or concerns unless someone openly told her she could. Steadily Alice had been wearing Skylar down on her old habits and useless mannerisms but some of them were just so hard to break like this one.

"Yes Skylar?"

The jet haired woman sat forward in her seat to set her arms on the table and gave Alice a tiny half smirk, "I have an idea."

"Well share with the class." Jill drawled with the flirtatious smile that always disarmed Skylar's cool collected demeanor and sent K-Mart into a tizzy. Not long after they arrived here Alice found K-Mart atop Skylar's lap making out with the older woman furiously and ever since then Jill had made it her personal mission to be as much of a nuisance to the young fledgling couple best she could. That usually consisted of Jill blatantly flirting with Skylar in front of K-Mart and telling K-Mart many, many stories about her past sexual encounters until K-Mart was blushing so hard even her chest had turned red. Both K-Mart and eventually Skylar had come to Alice for help in getting Jill to stop but she had merely smiled at them and turned her back because she knew that Jill's teasing was the STARS member own way of showing that she approved of them.

Skylar warily looked over at a glowering K-Mart before clearing her throat and pressing on, using all of her trained power of will to ignore Jill's snickering, "With the three of us," Skylar gestured between herself, Alice and Jill, "We have enough fighting power to force our way out but the trick will be getting the guards to open the door."

Jill furrowed her brows and glanced over at the door, scanning it for any ample weakness but instead of seeing any her eye caught the camera mounted above the door and in turn, all the cameras mounted in each corner of the room. Slowly she smiled and shoved Alice's shoulder to get her attention then pointed at the camera. A seconds worth of confusion clouded Alice's eyes before a knowing smirk crossed her face and she began nodding eagerly. Both women turned their mischievous eyes towards a straight faced Skylar.

"How would you like to be the lucky lady who gets the crap beat out of her by Alice Abernathy?" Jill asked in a tone that was bleeding amusement, her eyes shifting from Alice's grinning face to Skylar's furrowed brows.

The Marine frowned at both the older women but showed no other hint of an emotion that would express any kind of fear towards the proposition, "I'm not sure I'd like the crap kicked out of me by anyone."

K-Mart nodded vehemently in agreement, leaning into Skylar's shoulder and hugging the woman's wiry arm against her, "Why would you want to beat Skylar up Alice? I thought you said you liked her because she was good for me."

Alice waved her hand around dismissively, "I'll go easy on you."

For once a strong wave of emotion washed through Skylar's eyes, the very thing both Jill and Alice were hoping for out of the proud Marine, and the dark haired woman slowly stood after carefully prying K-Mart off of her, "I don't need anyone to go easy on me. I can handle myself in any fight, superhuman or not."

Alice came out of the chair with a lazy swagger and a cocky smile, eyeing Skylar purposefully for the Marine to see and, liked expected, the woman bristled under the inspection, "All I'm saying is that I am the supreme badass and I have powers you couldn't imagine. I just don't want to hurt you Skylar."

"I'm a trained killer Alice, I'm not afraid of anyone or anything."

Alice chuckled derisively and looked at Jill who was rolling her eyes at Alice's whole act to get Skylar riled up, "Well come over here and prove it."

That was all it took and in a flash Skylar was at Alice's throat. High kicks and low kicks came in a frenzied but a trained flurry that Alice easily blocked because of her inhuman speed but found herself impressed that the young woman could keep up. Her punches came in rounds of punishing blows that, despite all the strength powering them, did little more than aggravate the skin on Alice's forearms each time she stopped the punches with quick outside blocks. Something in Skylar's eyes dimmed from righteous furry to calm understanding and the girl disappeared around Alice's blind side, delivering a surprisingly strong blow to her ribs. When Alice turned to give Skylar an amused glance the woman was already gone and delivering another strong blow to the other side of her ribcage. Very quickly Alice grew tired of the annoying tingle Skylar's kicks and blows left and used her super abilities to grab hold Skylar's clothes and toss the girl at the wall like a rag doll. K-Mart yelped and covered her mouth with her hands when the sound of her girlfriend's body slapping against steal wall resounded through the room. For a brief second Alice felt guilty for letting her aggravation get the best of her when this entire fight was only meant to be a ploy to get the guards to rush in and leave the door open but after a silent minute or two Skylar jumped to her feet looking a little rumpled but otherwise unharmed. She was glaring at Alice, anger over being manhandled seeping into her every breath, but beneath all that Alice could see a deep, age old hurt that was making her shake more than the rage was. She approached Alice on slow steps, her open fists held out in front of her in a defensive stance that was remarkably strong for someone who wasn't even a legal drinking age. Before another blow could be dealt from either party the door to their quarters came bursting open and black suited men poured in with weapons raised, screaming orders to lie down face first on the floor. Alice raised a brow at Skylar who was standing there looking confused, chest heaving, and tilted her head towards the men still screaming at them. Understanding washed over the Marine's face and she smiled devilishly before turning and grabbed the barrel of the M-16 pressing against her. Using quick movements to disarm the man, leaving him dazed from the massive blow he had taken to the head, she spun the weapon around and dotted his forehead with a bullet. K-Mart understood what was happening after that and spun around to wrap Becky in her arms while dragging Timothy to the corner of the room, hunkering low over both of them to block out the sight of death and keep them safe from any stray bullets. Jill came alive with delight and cleaved her way through the men with the tactical knife she had pulled from one of the soldiers boot. Alice snapped the neck of one man and used the rifle slung around his shoulder to kill another three men pointing their guns towards Skylar and Jill. She tossed the man's corpse onto another life man and snapped his neck with her foot when he became pinned under the dead weight of his comrade. Blood stained the white of their clothes and the white of the walls and the floor, finally giving the room some color, though even Alice had to admit that the paint scheme was a bit morbid. When the last man lay fallen both Jill and Skylar made quick work to strip the men of their bullet proof vests and their ammunition. The vests were distributed among the six of them, Skylar helping put them on K-Mart and Timothy, while Alice pulled one over Becky's much too small body. Her wet eyes were staring up at Alice with a mix of fear and trust that warmed the woman's heart. She sweetly ran her fingers through Becky's hair and placed a tender kiss against the young girl's brow.

"It will keep you safe in case we run into more bad guys and they shoot at us, okay?"

"Okay…" The girl whispered meekly into Alice's shoulder and wound her arms tightly around Alice's neck.

"Timothy you stay with Jill," The boy nodded with fear blown eyes and flew to Jill, securing a hand around Jill's who took it without a question, even going as far as to give the kid a comforting smile, "And K you stay with Skylar." K-Mart was already tucked under Skylar's arm while the Marine hung the strap of the assault rifle around her shoulder and caught the handgun Jill tossed to her.

Frowning, Alice came over to stand in front of the dark haired woman and caught the azure gaze staring up at her, "Keep her safe. I swear to god if she gets hurt because of your recklessness, I'll kill you myself."

Skylar didn't even flinch at Alice's words, just nodded and lifted her chin high, "I understand."

They continued t o stare at one another until Becky shifted and mumbled something about more bad guys showing up. Alice patted the girls back and turned on her heal to stride past Jill and Timothy, who fell into step behind her with Skylar and K-Mart taking up the rear. Above them the metal grate was rattling with the great many steps of the reinforcements coming to subdue them but the way ahead of them was clear so Alice took off in a full sprint, confident that the people behind her could keep up. She weaved through narrow passages with Becky's small body hugged close to her, avoiding the shouting men that could be heard all around them. Sirens flared to life and resonated throughout the haul of the ship, accommodating the flashing red lights posted on every wall in every hallway. Each shot that was fired, whether from her small team of people or from the enemy, made Becky jump with fright and cling tightly to Alice.

"Alice!" Jill's voice screamed even over the noise of gunfire, sirens, and shouts of dying men. She looked over her shoulder to see Timothy being dragged away by the ankle and Jill pinned against the wall.

"Skylar help Jill!" Alice handed Becky over to K-Mart and sprinted after Timothy's capture. Behind her she could hear the sound of bones being broken and knew that Jill was safe leaving Timothy as her only focus. He continued to scream and kick until the man dragging her grew tired and kicked at the boy's head, knocking him unconscious. Alice growled at the man and sped up, kicked off the wall and crashing into him. They tumbled on the floor until Alice got a hold of his head and smacked it against the wall splitting it open like a watermelon.

Alice slung Timothy over her shoulder and hurried back to her group, noting that Jill was leaning heavily on Skylar's shoulder. A small spot of blood was spreading from a knife wound on Jill's thigh Skylar was wrapping in a tourniquet made of her ripped shirt.

"You alright Jill?" The brunette gave her friend a thumbs up and a shaky smile, "Skylar you need to help Jill. We're close to the hanger bay."

No one questioned Alice's authority on the matter they just continued following her fast pace through the passageways into the hanger bay. There were little to no men inside the bay allowing the team to pile into a shuttle that, thankfully, Alice had learned how to fly during the time she worked for the company. With Jill being tended to in the back by Skylar and K-Mart was strapping Becky and Timothy into the seats before she came to join Alice in the cockpit. With a smile, Alice flew the shuttle from the Arcadia into the early air.

Xx xX

"Seriously!? This is it!?" Claire growled under her breath. Luther was laying out the guns and proper ammunition on the table for the tiny amount of survivors to arm themselves with. Banging in the pipes and the walls could be heard all around them and under them from the undead burrowing their way into the prison. She had only been here an hour when she had heard a scream echo through the prison. Luther had gone to investigate and came back to inform everyone that the dead had breached the prison. The man had done a splendid job of rounding up his measly group of four and working them up with a small speech about survival and fighting their way out. Honestly Claire had hardly been paying attention, all she could think about was how close she was to Alice yet she would remain so far away now that she was trapped here with no real way out except to die or try to escape on a helicopter that was out of fuel. Somehow she needed to get out of here alive and being Claire Redfield she was bound determined to do just that but looking at the meager amount of weaponry and the obviously untrained fighters here except for Angel, she wasn't sure how she was going too.

Running a hand through her hair she stepped forward and pointed at the handgun Luther was handing over to a weary looking Crystal, "Is this seriously all you have? I mean we're in a prison for Christ's sake, shouldn't there be an armory here?"

Angel laughed morosely without picking his head up from the Walter PP-K he was inspecting for damage, "There is but we don't have the pass code to get in and Luther won't let me get the pass code from the guy who knows it."

Claire whirled on Luther and jabbed the man roughly in the chest, "You mean there is someone else in this prison that has internal knowledge here and you haven't told me!?"

Luther brushed Claire's hands away and took a giant step back, looking petulant, "He's lying! The man is locked up in a holding cell and dressed in a convict jumpsuit and you expect me to just believe that he's telling the truth?"

Claire huffed, "Who the fuck cares!? We are all going to die unless we get more stopping power than a few handguns and if this guy knows, then we need to trust him. If it turns out he's lying, I'll shoot him myself. Deal?"

It took a moment but Luther finally agreed and lead Claire down a dark set of stairs. They lead into a large room housing nothing more than a freestanding holding cell in the center of the room, torching ringing the rectangular room. The sounds of undead clawing at the inside of the walls echoed through the room but aside from that, the only sounds that could be heard were Claire and Luther's footsteps. Once they came close to the cell Luther banged the end of the torch in his hand against the cell door.

"Today's your lucky day, someone paid your bail." Luther drawled and stepped away from the cell after handing Claire the keys. Movement inside the cell stirred around in the darkness until a face appeared between the bars, gloved hands gripping the bars on either side of his face. Claire's gasp echoed throughout the whole room.

"Chris!?" Her brother's face that was all too serious when he had first approached the door broke out into a massive grin, dark eyes twinkling with mirth. The redhead fumbled with the keys, her hands trembling from her joy and excitement, until she managed to get the door open. Instantly Chris flew out of it and wrapped his little sister in a bear hug that lifted her off her feet.

"Claire!" The siblings laughed with joy and began playfully punching one another the way they always use to after not seeing one another for a long stint. Luther watched the entire exchange awkwardly, shifting from one foot to the other while he continued to stare at the ceiling.

"Oh my god Chris! I can't believe this! I thought you were dead!" Claire gripped her brother's shoulders and stared at his face, looking at the dirt streaks and the small abrasion on his left temple. He chuckled heartily and swung Claire around by the hold he had on her hips eliciting a girlish squeal from the redhead.

"You wish! I just knew if anyone would make it, it would be you Claire. Fuck it's good to see you!"

"I bet it is after you've been-" Claire stopped mid speech and whirled on Luther again, advancing on him with fire in her eyes. Lucky for him Chris already knew about and was experienced with the Redfield temper and stopped Claire with a burly arm around her hips before she could get her hands on him.

"You left my brother locked in a cage down here in the dark!? Are you fucking crazy!?"

Luther gulped and looked at Chris for help, "Now Claire, I didn't know he was your brother…I thought he was a convict."

"Does he fucking look like a convict!?"

"Well…kind of."

"Claire," Chris cut in, pulling his sister further into him and giving her a one armed hug, "It doesn't matter. I'm out now and we're together again. Let's just focus on staying alive long enough to get out of here."

Claire huffed and yanked her brother's arm away from her, glaring at Luther but listening to Chris's logic, "Angel said you told him that you know the code for the armory. That true?" Chris nodded, "Good. Go with Luther and pack everything you can then meet us back in the mess hall. Understood?"

Chris smirked and gave Claire a mock two finger salute, "Yes ma'am."

His sister smiled warmly at him and gave him a gentle pat on the chest, "Be safe."

The three of them made their way back upstairs though Claire remained in the mess hall with the four people left in the room. Bennett was going out of his mind and Kim was trying to sooth him but it was to no avail, if anything it was riling him up more. Crystal was sitting at the table with her head between her legs and Angel was patting her back soothingly, working the woman through her panic attack the way he had been trained too.

"It's okay. We're going to be fine." She promised in her commanding voice that stilled everyone's movements. Calmly she made her way to the table and dumped the contents of her bag then tossed it away having no more use for it. One by one she stood the 12 gauge shells on end in a neat row of five accounting to a total of 100 shells. 7 of them she loaded into the TEC 12 and checked to make sure it was still set to pump auto. She gave everyone a casual smile and shrugged.

"It's a walk in the park. We're going to make it out just fine, I promise."

Bennett pointed a finger at her, his eyes wide which highlighted the large black bags beneath them, "You're fucking crazy. I'm getting out of here. Come on Kim."

Crystal lifted her head and sniffed, looking at Bennett like he might be the savior she was looking for, "How?"

Bennett flung another finger in Claire's direction, "Her chopper. I can fly it."

Claire didn't even lift her eyes from what she was doing, casually tapping a K-BAR to the barrel of her TEC 12, "It's out of go juice Bennett."

"No you said it would run out of fuel soon and you'd have to make a landing. If it can get us away from here we can get in a car and drive out of town. There aren't any of those fuckers anywhere else except here."

Crystal turned large watery blue eyes to Claire, "Is that true?"

Claire lifted her head and regarded Crystal then Bennett, "Tell you what, if you want to take your chance with the chopper and try to get out of here on the fumes in the tank, be my guest. But you won't get far and if you survive the crash landing then you might make it to a car or you might be mauled by the undead. Both ways it's your life to gamble and I don't have the time or the fucks to give to you people right now. So here," She dug the starter key from her pocket and tossed it to Bennett, "Go."

They didn't wait to be told twice. Bennett scurried off with Kim and Crystal following after him like lost sheep being herded by the great Shepard. Little did they realize he was leading them to their death and a part of her felt bad about it but a bigger part of her didn't care when all she wanted was to get out of here alive so she could get to Alice and K-Mart before it was too late. Chris and Luther came barreling into the room, shoving past the disgruntled group of three making their way to the roof, and tossed two large duffle bags full of weaponry onto the table.

"Where are they going?" Luther pointed to the swinging door left in their wake.

"They are gonna take off in Claire's chopper," Angel answered for Claire, looking peeved by their stupidly, "Get themselves killed more like."

Claire let loose a suffering sigh, "Well, you can't save everyone."

Just then the doors to the mess hall burst open and the undead began poured in body by stinking body, arms held out in reach for the four very alive humans. Claire began fired at the exact moment Chris and Angel did, spraying lead all across the room, and taking down masses of the wave of undead but doing little to stop the siege. Luther worked the pin out of a grenade and tossed it into the bulk of the horde. He had just enough time to flip a table on its side and usher everyone behind it before the explosion rocked through the prison. Shrapnel and blown off limbs flew in all directions, banging against the table top they were hunkered behind, mixing in with the thick blood raining down.

Chris gave a wicked grin and punched Luther in the shoulder, "Nice!"

Luther grinned and bumped his fist against Chris's. The fact that they were acting like best buds when only an hour ago Luther was willing to leave Chris for dead in that cage astounded Claire. Men could be so stupid sometimes. Angel rolled his eyes and turned around, moving to a knee, and fired the entire drum clip at the advancing horde, taking out the front line and adding to the grotesque pile that the undead were being forced to climb over in order to reach the humans. Claire sprang up next aiming at the closest zombies and unloaded all seven shots within rapid recession. When the last empty shell sprang from the TEC 12 she fell back down to her ass and propped her back against the table, already working more shells into the chamber. Chris stood to his feet brandishing a camouflage KSG compact tactical shotgun loaded with twin 12 gauge 7 shot magazines. Beside him Luther stood as well holding a Russian Mouser pressed into the cleft of his shoulder, using the weapon without much precision but managing to take down quite a few of the undead before his clip ran dry. The killing continued to go that way with two people shooting while two reloaded and continued switching off and on building the pile of corpses to a good 5 feet in height. For the four humans, things were looking like they might actually survive this thing; they had plenty of ammo to last through the night and the stamina to keep at it until they ran out of ammo. Yes things were looking good until a 10 foot tall creature holding a meat tenderizer that doubled as an axe. The burlap sack over his face was punctured through with a handful of nine inch nails, as if they were keeping it on his head in place of bobby pins. Even the dead parted for him when he moved through the horde of them, his destination the four suddenly very frightened humans.

"Holy shit…"

"Adios mios…"

"What the fuck is that thing!?"

"Just shoot it!"

The four of them jumped to their feet and began fired on it in cadence, the sounds of their weapons drowning out even the mass collection of groans coming from the sea of undead filtering in through the busted down double doors in the far corner of the room. Every bullet they fired found its mark in the giant but it did little to faze him outside of blowing gaping holes in his body, oozing congealed blood down his front. He let out a menacing growl just before he drew his arm back and swung the hammer end of his axe towards the humans. They barely had time to roll out the way before the large weapon struck the table and smashed it into pieces, taking most of the ammo and weapons they had stock piled behind the table with it. They continued firing at the monster as they backed away from it until the weapons in their hands began dry firing and they had run out of clips to replace the empties.

"We're so fucked." Chris mumbled to himself. All of their backs were literally against the wall now and without any way of defending themselves all they could do was submit themselves to the beast advancing on them.

Across from them the door that lead to the roof flew open and where Claire expected to see more undead coming for their throats stood a tall, lean brunette holding a 50 Cal. with the mounting dock still attached to the bottom of it. Claire's heart nearly leapt out of her chest when it became clear to her that this attractive brunette was her attractive brunette.

"Alice!"

Alice smirked that insufferable, sexy smirk of hers before leaping up onto the banister lining the stairs and began open firing on the massive creature still lumbering towards them at a surprising speed for something so large. The high caliber rounds from the massive machine gun were doing well to tear the thing apart; ripping fist sizes holes through its body from its ankles up. The first two shots that hit its head blew the thing clean off its shoulders and sent it careening towards the floor with a massive thud. Bones cracked, skin split, and guts spilling out between the two onto the dirty grey floor of the prison, mixing with the piled up bodies of the undead. Alice grinned and hefted the large machine gun up onto her shoulder, the barrel of the thing still smoking.

"Nice place you got here," Alice called down playfully, tripping Claire's heart up and wetting her eyes after so long of not hearing it, "I really like what you've done with the décor."

Behind Alice K-Mart entered through the door dressed in black Umbrella military fatigues, grinning down at Claire and wiggling her fingers in a greeting, "Did someone order a rescue to-go?"

Overwhelmed by the sheer amount of happiness Claire felt upon seeing the two women she loved with all of her heart, Claire barely managed to make it up the stairs to meet them. The TEC 12 fell from her grip as did Alice's 50 Cal. and she collapsed into Alice's waiting arms, tears of joy falling from her eyes and soaking into the hemline of Alice's black shirt, the military corset she wore rubbing against her stomach in a way that would have been unpleasant if she weren't so happy to just be in Alice's arms. Alice wrapped both arms around Claire's hips and lifted the woman into the air, forcing the redhead to wrap her legs around Alice, and crashed their lips together. The sounds of the undead stumbling and groaning as they advanced slowly towards them, the resounding gunfire coming from beside them even though Claire knew they had run out of bullets to fire, didn't even register to Claire now that she had Alice's lovely mouth against hers. She slid her palms across Alice's face and cupped the woman's cheeks, pulling her closer as she tilted her head. She could taste the combination of both their tears slick against their mouth and now coating their tangled tongues, somehow adding to the sensuality of the moment.

"Seriously!? You two can't wait until we are at least out of danger to try making babies!?" Claire tore her mouth away from Alice's to glance over her lovers brunette head towards another pallid brunette clinging to the doorframe, a ghost of a smirk playing against the pained expression on her face. She parted her lips to question on the name sake of this stranger when gun fire rang in her ear to her right. Looking over she saw a dark haired woman that was only an inch or two shorter than Alice which was a surprise considering Alice's height, dressed in baggy snow camouflage pants and a loose fitting razorback tank top that the dog tags hanging around her neck lay over the top of. She was a surefire shot, taking down everything moving below with the large sniper rifle in her hand except for the three men steadily making their way up the stairs to join the party. A tug at the back of her shirt reminded Claire to the other person she had been waiting weeks to hold again. Alice let Claire down with a fond smile, watching K-Mart tackle Claire in a hug and nearly squeezed the life out of the redhead. Chris watched the exchange through narrowed eyes, especially the part where his baby sister had been lofted into the air by a stranger and had a tongue stuck down her throat.

Claire hugged K-Mart's head to her chest and placed an array of kisses over the top of the girls head, "I missed you so much!"

K-Mart giggled and pulled away to place a large sloppy kiss on Claire's cheek, "I missed you too."

"Hoo-fucking-ray. You guys missed each other," The brunette in the doorway growled, looking more pained and white by the second, "Can we get moving please?" Behind the woman a russet haired boy came to a halt beside the woman, breathing hard, and shook his head at her. She shrugged with a grin and moved form the door to lean on him, allowing him to turn them and take them back in the direction they came from. Claire furrowed her brows and looked to Alice for answers who smiled at her.

"That was Jill. She's a people person if you can't tell. The kid was Timothy," Alice hefted her machine gun back off the floor and propped it on the banister to help the other woman with cover fire, hollering overtop the noise, "This is Skylar, K-Mart's girlfriend."

Claire's eyes went wide, staring at the black haired girl as she reloaded the sniper deftly, "Girlfriend…?"

Skylar glanced over and cracked a small, playful smile, "Don't kill me?"

Claire didn't get a chance to answer because K-Mart had started pulling her by her hand up the stairs to the roof. Luther and Chris followed closely behind her with their weapons held out in front of them as if expecting undead to come spilling onto the roof top from all directions. Considering the amount still down there the idea wasn't as highly unlikely as it should have been. K-Mart pushed Claire into the shuttle and strapped her into one of the seats lining the inside, setting herself into the seat beside Claire and doing the same for herself. Chris and Luther were just stepping foot onto the shuttle when Alice, Skylar, and Angel came bursting through the door tailed closely by a mob of the undead. Angel made it in first, heading straight for the pilot's seat of the aircraft and started the thing up. It was already lifting off the ground when Skylar and Alice both jumped onto the shuttle, sitting on the edge of the open sides of the plane, their legs dangling in mid air with the weapons between them, still firing at the undead quickly bombarding the rooftop.

Alice's beautiful laugh carried in the wind and she gave Skylar's shoulder a playful shove, "Nice job kid! We'll have to keep you around after all."

Skylar rolled her eyes and slid the weapon across the floor of the shuttle towards the tail end to free her hands for pulling herself into a crouch and moved to a seat beside K-Mart. She barely had the harness over her shoulders and snapped closed before the blond teen was kissing her, her hands cradling Skylar's face similar to how Claire had been cradling Alice's earlier. The redhead beside K-Mart, who had raised K-Mart since she was a little girl, could do nothing more than sit befuddled while K-Mart locked lips with a stranger. So much so that she hardly noticed Alice's approach until the woman sat in Claire's lap and wrapped her arms around Claire's neck. Green eyes lifted to catch amused blue ones just before Alice too was kissing Claire. Well she attempted too anyway. Their lips briefly touched before Claire's fist collided with Alice's stomach, knocking the air clean from Alice's lungs and doubling the woman over.

"Claire…what the hell?"

"I told you I would punch if you didn't come back to me."

Alice took a deep breath and straightened a little, wincing at the pain that fanned across her abdomen, "Yeah but-" Claire cut her off with a bruising kiss, her fingers weaving through Alice's hair and pulled on it each time Claire nipped at Alice's lower lip with her sharp teeth. Alice groaned in the back of her throat and pressed the entire length of the body against Claire, sensuously rubbing against the woman much like a cat.

"Ew gross stop that! You're scarring the kid!" Jill's voice cut through the haze of their reuniting also effectively breaking the kiss between them. Claire glanced over at K-Mart as she assumed that's who Jill was referring to but K-Mart had her eyes closed and was contentedly lounging against Skylar, her arms wrapped around Skylar's bicep and her head rested on her shoulder. A sudden force knocked into Claire's lap and painfully forced Alice's hip into her abdomen though she could hear Alice giggling and wasn't sure why until she looked back at her love. Sitting in Alice's lap was a smiling young girl, waves of chestnut hair blowing around her face and her bright honey orbs were staring up into Alice's smiling face.

"Claire," Alice introduced, hugging the child against her chest and placing a light kiss to the crown of her head, "This is Becky. Becky, this is Claire."

"Hi Becky." Claire took the girls tiny hand that she held out to the redhead and gave it a light shake. Instead of letting go Becky moved in closer and wrapped an arm around Claire's shoulder in a one armed hug. Over Becky's shoulder Claire could see Alice smiling; her eyes alight with all the feelings coursing through her at that very moment.

"I suppose this means we'll be needing rings?" Claire joked after Becky pulled away and curled up in Alice's arms, bright honey eyes shinning over the top of Alice's forearm so she could watch Claire's mouth moving. Alice broke into a loud peel of laughter that made her body shake from it, startling young Becky. When the laughter finally died off she leaned forward to rest her forehead against Claire's and nuzzled their noses together sweetly.

"For the record, the kids get my last name. Since it's obvious I'm the father, right K?"

K-Mart giggled sweetly and moved her head from Skylar's shoulder to Claire's though she kept their fingers tangled, "Definitely."

Claire snorted indignantly, "Why can't I be the father?"

Alice moved herself off Claire's lap into the empty seat beside her, shifting Becky around so that the girl would be more comfortable and she'd have a free hand to grab hold of Claire's, "Because you're the Mom."

Claire rolled her eyes but couldn't fight off the affectionate smile coming on, "I guess it's too bad I'm not the marrying type of woman, isn't it Alice?"

Alice raised a brow and moved the hand that had been holding Claire's upwards to hook a finger through the V in Claire's tank top, yanking the woman forward until their faces were only a breaths width apart, "Are you saying you wouldn't marry me?"

Claire's eyes dropped to Alice's supple lips so close to hers, transfixed by the sight of them smirking at her like that, "It would take some convincing."

"I can be very persuasive…" Alice placed a light kiss against the corner of Claire's mouth before pulling away, grinning like a fool because of Claire's dazed look.

"Is," Claire cleared the lust from her voice and licked her lips, "Is that your way of asking me to marry you?"

Alice shook her head with a mischievous smile, "I'm not really the marrying type Claire." At that Claire burst into laughter joined by K-Mart and an eavesdropping Jill sitting across from them. Chris, who had been silently watching the way Alice spoke to his sister, found himself smiling despite not knowing if he approved of their relationship yet. Luther was to busy eyeing an unaware Jill's cleavage to hear any of the conversation going on. Timothy glared and stomped the heel of his combat boot into the top of Luther's foot, hard. The bulky man yowled in pain and doubled over to grip his shoe between both his hands, tilting his head to glare at Timothy.

"What the fuck Kid!?"

"Don't look at Jill like that! Have more respect for her."

Jill turned her head towards Luther's hunched over figure then to Timothy's furious face, "What's going on here?"

Timothy puffed out his chest, "Don't worry I got your back Jill."

"Crazy kid." Luther mumbled.

Jill just continued giving them a skeptical look and leaned back in her chair, adjusting her wounded leg so she could sit more comfortably without it giving her grief. From the front of the shuttle Angel leaned over in his seat to catch Claire's gaze.

"Where are we headed?"

Claire smiled, "Kansas."

"Kansas?" Alice repeated, one of her thin brows rose higher than the other.

"Yes, Kansas. It's where we are supposed to meet up with the convoy."

Angel shrugged, "Kansas it is then," He glanced over at Chris well muscled figure and smirked, "Hey you, wanna be my co-pilot?"

Chris missed the obvious flirting tone in Angel's voice and moved to the front of the plane without a word. Claire smirked at her brother retreating figure because her brother always was very dense when it came to people who were interested in him. Never the less she knew Angel would be right up Chris's ally. Their parents use to tease them about the fact that Chris ended up liking men more than Claire ever had until Claire came out, then they would always mention how Claire ended up with Chris's preferences and Chris had gotten Claire's.

Alice leaned over and pressed a light kiss against Claire's neck. Claire turned her eyes towards Alice who was smiling a bright, loving smile at her with her cheek rested against the top of a dozing Becky's head. Claire had been through a lot to see that smile again and, now that she had, she wouldn't trade it for the world. She'd do everything over again a hundred times for that smile. Leaning forward she captured Alice's lips in a slow, sweet kiss that ended only when Becky shifted beneath Alice and yawned cutely against Alice's breastbone.

"Thanks for rescuing me."

Alice smiled and pecked Claire's nose, "Thanks for finding me."

"Always," Claire leaned over to rest her head on Alice's shoulder and, after a moments deliberation, draped one of her arms across Becky's back, "Just don't make a habit of getting abducted kay? I don't think I can take it."

"Sure whatever you want," A pause, "Wifey."

"If you call me that again I'll kick you out of this plane."

"Okay….wifey."

Claire wanted to be angry but she couldn't bring herself to do much more than laughed into the crook of Alice's neck. Yep, she wouldn't trade Alice for the world.

Whelp…that's all folks. I really hoped you enjoyed it after all the work I put into it but if you hated it or you loved it? Let me know. Also, if there was an award for whoever can make Resident Evil the gayest? I think I just won.