Well, last time was a long chapter. hopefully, it's okay that this one is more in line with a normal chapter length. Thanks as always for your support by reading and enjoying my story! [also for those that are re-reading yeah I came back here and split out what used to just be January into two chapters. this was too much for one chapter]

Song Suggestion: Overwhelmed - Ryan Mac & Christian Gates [Remix/Mashup] (this one is a pretty specific one but if you copy-paste it into youtube you should find it)

Disclaimer: CapCom owns what CapCom Owns, I'm just a dirty rotten FanFiction writer who likes borrowing characters rather than being creative enough to work on my own books. Please don't sue me.


"Again?" Claire asks with a mortified tone.

"Yeah, so far, he's doing okay. It's been about a week now, but he's getting bored pretty quickly," Emma admits in return. "I'm almost glad they have his one leg tied up, he's been walking around on it anyways but he at least can't get very far." Emma quietly admits while pacing around the master bedroom. "The other day he was in the basement and trying to use the punching bag. With his broken arm."

Claire laughs a bit at that. "Yeah. That sounds like Chris. He's not good at letting himself rest."

"Yeah," probably because he's used to the BSAA pumping him full of chemicals, so he doesn't have to rest. She was still salty about that. "I know it's probably a lot to ask but, do you think you could call up his friends and see if they can visit? I'd do it myself, but I don't have their numbers and the doctor was saying seeing, and it might help with getting back older memories."

"I'll make some calls and let you know when to expect visitors. I'm sure they won't mind taking the time to help," Clarie agrees. "And I've been wanting to visit again for a while to see my little nephew. Though I guess I can't make fun of Chris now for that picture of him dress as Santa that he sent out with his letter."

"Thank you, it will be good to see you," Emma says with a tired smile.

"I'll text you when I have dates and flights scheduled. Until then, hang in there," Claire says with a sympathetic tone.

"Will do, talk to you soon, bye," Emma says and waits for a 'bye' from Claire before hanging up. Emma takes a deep breath before heading out of the room and down the stairs. The doctor said not to just give Chris information but sound and visual triggers to help him remember on his own were allowed.

This young new recruit fresh out of high school showed up with a mullet after watching Top Gun one too many times thinking he was going to be the next Maverick of the Air Force.

Okay, she could do this. Emma made her way back into the open living space where a pot of stew was boiling on the stove in the kitchen and Chris was sitting on the couch with a tired and bored expression. "Done with your phone call?" Chris asks more so to have a reason to talk than out of genuine curiosity.

"Yep, thanks for watching the kids," Emma replies as she makes her way back over to the stove. "...I was thinking after dinner, would you want to watch a movie?" Emma asks curiously.

"Movie!" Rose cheered happily.

Oh gosh, was Rose going to be able to handle this movie? Emma mentally winced. I mean it's technically rated PG, but it got that rating back in the 80s. PG was very different back then.

"oh? um sure. Which one?" Chris asks with a raised eyebrow. He really did not want to watch the Spider-Man movie for the 3rd time today.

"Top Gun," Emma suggests in return.

Well, at least it wasn't Spider-Man. "Not sure why I asked, I have no idea what that is," Chris admits.

Hearing this caused Emma to smile. "I have a feeling you'll like it," She says while checking the stew to see if it was done yet or not.

"I'll take your word for it then," Chris admits. The last week produced very little in the way of memories. even then he was having a hard time fighting the feeling that this was where he was supposed to be. The couch wasn't exactly comfortable but being in this place made him feel, comfort. It was hard to explain, so he didn't bother to try and explain.

Okay, dinner was just about done it needed a few more minutes, and the biscuits should be ready to take out of the oven in a few seconds. So, she'd just put those in a bread basket then move the stew over to the table and sure enough as she was going over what to do the baby started crying. Emma put down the ladle of the stew to go and pick up Piers. "Shhh, I know baby you're hungry too, just give me a few more minutes," Emma cooed as she goes to try and walk back over to the stove.

"Mom Angie's hair is stuck again," Rose says as she hurries over to show Emma the now 2-year-old doll that's hair was extremely matted.

"Again? Okay, one moment I'll see what I can do," She tried to reply as the timer for the biscuits went off causing Duke to start howling and barking.

Chris winced at the mixture of sounds the harsh beeping, screaming baby, upset child and barking dog was a bit much and odd images started to flash through is mind of destroyed buildings limp bodies and crying families. What the hell was that? His breathing started to become more erratic as the memory persisted but as quickly as it started it stopped. The timer was turned off Duke was let out the back door to quiet the barking. Emma took the doll from Rose and the screaming infants slowly quieted back to an upset whining. It took a few moments, but he was able to get his breathing under control again and avoid the threatened panic attack.

Holding Piers and the doll with one hand Emma used the other to hold an oven mitt, so she could retrieve the baking sheet of biscuits from the oven and place it on the stove. 3 Bowls were retrieved from the cupboard and filled with stew and topped with the bread lump.

"Rose, can you take these two bowls over to the table? you can pick which one you want," Emma instructs as she takes the third bowl to the living room and offers it to Chris.

Chris accepted the bowl with his good hand and moves it over to the wrapped one, so he could hold it and eat. "Thanks," he replies quietly. Two kids, a dog and an injured tenant. She was doing all of this on her own... Where the hell was this so-called husband of hers? it has almost been a week. "He's chewing on your shirt." Chris says before using the spoon to gesture to the child Emma was holding.

"Oh dang it all," Emma says as she looks down to find that sure enough there was a spit stain forming from the infant impatiently trying to feed itself. Emma grumbles to herself as she hurries off to once more try and keep everything moving smoothly. a slight smile forms on Chris's face as he watches her walk away, but he catches himself and forced it away. Nope, no. bad. married woman. no.

Both children were fed, Duke was let back in and given dinner as well and by the time everyone had finished eating it was close to 7pm.

Emma did her best to wash the dishes with one hand while holding a contently gurgling infant before putting a bag of popcorn in the microwave.

"Movie?" Rose requests with a happy smile.

Right. How to handle this. "Yep, Movie. This one is a big kid movie though. Are you sure you want to watch it?" Emma asks in return.

"I'ma big kid," Rose rebuttals. she was bigger than piers at least.

"You are, but this movie has lots of kissing in it and it's gross," Emma warns

Chris stared with a concerned expression and a raised eyebrow as he listened to the description of the movie. I'm sorry what kind of movie was she holding him hostage to make him watch? Stupid bum leg.

"Ew..." Rose replied with a frown. "I'm gonna go play in my room," she says before hurrying to leave.

Phew, that worked. Emma was relieved in a way. she couldn't remember how bad this movie got, but she knew it did have some more suggestive innuendos that would be an issue if she repeated them. Also, it was a movie from the 80s, so their language was probably much more... colorful for lack of a better word. she put the DVD in and waited for it to get started as she put Piers down in his swing and went to get the popcorn bag from the microwave and picked up Angie from the counter. With the movie snack in hand she took a seat next to Chris on next to his good arm and put the bag between them so he'd be able to snitch from the bag as well if he wanted.

With all of that out of the way the commercials were done and the start menu was available so they could start the watched the rather cheesy movie though Emma wasn't sure if she could really call it that. 5 minutes in, and it was just a montage of footage of planes landing and taking off with 80s music in the background. Chris however, was rather instantly enthralled.

"So it's a kissing movie huh?" he asks with a now amused raised eyebrow before sneaking a few pieces of popcorn from the bag.

"It has its moments," Emma replies while she focused more on untangling the hair of the doll. "She's too young for it either way."

"That's your call either way, doesn't seem that bad so far," he says and gives a one-armed shrug. As the movie progressed older memories of his young teenage years started to come to mind. Embarrassing ones at that. the time when he flipped of the neighbor kid because he wanted to be like maverick and got his ass handed to him by his parents for it. Another where he tried to learn guitar, so he could sing with a friend of his to try and get the attention of a girl in middle school because that's what maverick did.

"Why are you making me remember this?" he says while trying not to smile. Memories of his 13-year-old self skipping school and sneaking into the theater to watch this movie. Playing the VHS until the tap snapped from being wound and rewound over and over again. Collecting model planes from the craft store and putting them together to try and get a better idea of how each plane worked. Bold proclamations that he was going to be the best pilot in the world. Joining the Air force since he'd have a better chance to work with planes and hoping to get a cool nickname like Maverick only to get a stupid one instead.

"A birdy told me this was important to you," Emma answers the question though she knew it was rhetorical.

Chris continued to watch the movie with a smile as more old memories came back to him. The little birdy was right, this was important to him. It was tied to so many memories. How he wanted a motorcycle and the bomber jacket he got while in the air force, how it was his pride and joy. Oddly, a more recent memory came to mind too. This wasn't the first time they did this. Watch a movie together that is. He didn't remember what movies they were, he was reading a book in the memory so that's probably why, but he remembered being happy. That she'd text him or vice versa, and they'd spend time together... they were neighbors? at one point at least. So, how did it end up like this?

He got about halfway through the movie, Maverick was once again trying to romance the female instructor who had invited him over for dinner.

He felt a light pressure on his good shoulder causing him to look over and find that Emma had fallen asleep while holding the half untangled doll. The pacing of the movie was, not great. It was either soft-spoken scenes with quippy comments and 10 second pauses of Tom Cruise smiling at the camera or flying montages with little to no commentary. That was pretty clearly not her thing.

Plucky synth music picked up as Take My Breath Away by Berlin started to play in the movie as the two characters quietly talking to each other.

"This is going to be complicated," the female instructor says with a playful smile while messing with her necklace.

"Yeah, you can say that again," Chris says under his breath. While he wanted to move to pinch his brow, he also didn't want to wake up the sleeping woman next to him... he needed to get out of here. Once his cast was off. What the hell was his past self thinking, staying here. The scene continued on the screen as the two characters after a high-speed chase admitted to having feeling for each other. He didn't want to watch this anymore.

"Emma," He says while gently nudging her to get up.

"Hm? Oh gosh. sorry," Emma says as she corrects her posture while yawning. It had been a long week.

"Get some sleep," He replies with a slight nod. "You can turn the movie off, I'm thinking I'm going to call it a night as well."

"Sure," Emma says as she gets up and walks over to turn off the TV which shuts down the DVD player as well. "Good night," she adds before heading over to the swing to pick up baby Piers and take him with her up the stairs.

"Night," he says in return while watching her leave. Emma turned the lights off as well as Duke followed her up the stairs.

A tired sigh crossed his lips. Just a few more weeks. Then he could leave.

'*'*'*'*'

Time continued to pass and with it Chris was very slowly but surely starting to get memories back. random ones though there were times when disturbing images would flash in his mind. They didn't make sense, so he tried to ignore them. At this point, he was just counting down the days to when he'd be able to walk properly again. In the meantime a routine started to form. Emma would wake up at the crack of dawn, take care of duke. come back and shower before waking up Rose. She'd make breakfast for everyone before loading up the car taking the two kids with her to work, leaving Chris ample time to explore and dig for clues to try and remember. After digging around for clues and eating whatever lunch she left behind for him, she'd eventually come back. make dinner. clean around the house, take care of due and everyone would go to bed.

It had been 3 weeks now since he started staying with Emma. well. 3 weeks of solid memory he wasn't sure how long he'd been here before that. Still no sign of her good for nothing husband. Curiosity had gotten the better of him, enough so to try and make his way upstairs and look around for something that might trigger any sort of memory of what happened. It was like she was married to a ghost because despite his best efforts he couldn't get a single memory to appear of whoever this mystery bastard was.

Chris was heading back down the stairs after another failed search when he heard the creeking sound of the door to the garage. Shit shit shit. he tried to hobble faster but to no avail as he got caught standing in the main entry way. as usual when he did get caught, there were no cross accusatory words. Just a tired disappointed sigh.

"You're getting better at that," Emma says while shaking her head. "I know you're getting antsy, but please try to rest," she adds as she leads the kids into the living room so she can put Piers down on his usual blanket for floor time and starts working on putting together a meal. "Oh, we should be expecting guests later today as well. Old friends of yours that want to see you."

"Old friends of mine?" Chris asks confused. That sounded like a promising lead for memories. If it could fill in any of the numerous gaps he was more than happy to try it.

"Yep," Emma confirms hoping it would at least be enough incentive for him to sit down and rest a little.

This seemed to work as she didn't have to constantly remind him to stay seated. Dinner was prepared, served and cleaned up as the day continued on. for a while Chris was starting to wonder if this was a con to get him to behave, but eventually a knocking was heard at the door.

"Rose can you keep an eye on Chris while I get the door, make sure he doesn't try and get up okay?" Emma requests while heading over to the door with Piers on her hip.

"Really? I'm being supervised by a child?" Chris asks with mild annoyance which causes Rose to giggle. "You think that's funny?"

Rose nods while smiling widely while continuing to giggle as she climbed onto the couch to sit next to him and watch him. "I'm the top dog now, Awoooo" she says while pretending to howl in the same way that the members of hound wolf squad would when they were joking around.

Hearing this caused him to smile, he wasn't sure why, but it did.

While this was going on Emma checked the door then opened it. Standing on the other side were two welcomed faces. Jill Valentine and Barry Burton.

"Hey, it's good to see you," Emma says and smiles at the two.

"Good to see you too," Jill says with a nod.

"How's he holding up?" Barry asks curiously. "Last time was. a mess." He admits, he didn't see it personally, but he'd heard about it from a few people.

"So far so good," Emma replies with a slight nod.

"Not aggressive?" Barry asks with some concern. Injured or not Chris could do some damage if that was his goal.

"No, I've been keeping him away from alcohol. We'll see how he does once he's mobile again," Emma says with a slight frown. that cast had been a bit of a blessing in its own way.

"If he starts acting stupid and shit you let him go, leave it to the BSAA to wrangle him," Barry warns.

"How are you holding up?" Jill asks figuring a change in subject would be appreciated.

"I'm hanging in there," Emma replies, the bags under her eye were a bit worse than usual even though Piers was starting to sleep through the night at least enough to only wake up once or twice instead of every 2 hours.

Jill nods before movement behind Emma catches her attention. through the hallway that lead back to the shared living space she could see Chris. He'd somehow managed to pick up Rose with his good arm and was acting like he was lifting a weight over his head causing her to laugh and giggle each time she was hoisted into the air. Seeing this, seeing him smile, he looked normal. Until he remembered what he'd been through he would have the chance to be normal. He was in a much safer and stabler environment this time...

"I don't know if I can do this to him again..." Jill thought back to the BSAAs attempts to help Chris get his memories back. How they were nervous about how he'd react to the point they put him in one of the investigation rooms and would stay on the other side of the one-way glass. he didn't realize she was there, but she was. She knew this would most likely work, and she knew what would most likely happen. "Are you sure you want us to jog his memory... If we leave now, if he forgets. he could be a civilian," Jill points out quietly. In Its own way forgetting could be a mercy.

"I think, that's his choice to make..." Emma hesitantly replies. As much as she wanted to be selfish and take up Jill on that offer, turn them away and keep all the bad things out to protect him. that wasn't her choice to make, and she knew it. The memories were still in there, and they'd come out eventually. "Let's go talk to him."

"Sounds like a plan." Barry agrees.

"Alright," Jill agrees, while it wasn't something she wanted to do, she was willing to acknowledge the logic in leaving the choice to the one the memories belong to.

The two walk into the house and Emma closes the door behind them so the three of them could make their way to the living room.

"Emma, could you take the kids upstairs for a bit?" Barry asks as a precaution.

"Sure," she says as she walks over to get Piers. "Rose, come one, we're going to let Chris talk to his friends for a bit okay?"

They looked kinda familiar... all the same Rose quickly went over to Emma and followed her upstairs.

"So, heard you lost your memories again," Barry says as he moves to take a seat on the other couch. "Rotten luck. how are you holding up?"

"again?" He asks before his first memory came to mind. right. this happened before. he was at least smart enough to build in a fail safe memory with Emma but he had no idea who these people were.

"Yeah, you've had a pretty rough string of bad luck... we were around for some of it," Barry explains.

Chris stares at Barry for a bit. "I think. I remember you." He hesitantly admits while reviewing some of his earlier memories. it was hard to be sure since so much time had passed.

"That's a start," Barry admits. "We can try and help you remember more..."

"but there's a good chance what you remember will not be, happy memories..." Jill says offering the caveat to their help. If Chris wanted the good memories of their time together it came with a lot of bad ones too.

"Anything has to be better than nothing at this point... I barely know who I am," Chris replies, he needed some sort of direction in life, so he wasn't just sitting around doing nothing for the rest of what he had left. His plan was to get out of here, so maybe some new memories would help him know where to go. "Please."

Jill hesitates but she eventually speaks. "Okay. let's see if this works then..." she says and with that, she taps her phone's screen. The beginning of a soft melody being played on a piano could be heard. what was initially a very simpler rendition of the Moonlight Sonata quickly became more intricate and haunting.

Chris could hear the ticking of a grandfather clock in his ear, footsteps against marble floors, the flames of muzzle flash, the ringing of bullets and the scent of blood in the air. haunting moans of pain and dead eyes staring back at him as untold creatures were found at every turn. creaking iron gates of a graveyard and the smell of smoke.

His breathing became quicker as the images played in his mind like a movie he couldn't look a way from. The flashes of death and decay that had occasionally appeared when he'd blink. things he thought were nightmares and products of stress... they were real? they were all. real. they were memories. He moved to hold his face with his good hand as the panic continued to build while staring off into space only seeing the memories that replayed in his mind. An attempt at a panicked shout was made, but it was as if something was trying to keep him silent making it a more pathetic and meager sound instead of a mighty roar.

"Turn it off," Barry instructs and Jill does as she's told.

"Chris?" She asks quietly while waiting for him to come back.

No reply came as he tried to fight back the vision he was seeing. It had to be fake it couldn't be real. "What the hell did you do to me?" he accused, while trying to reject the memories.

"Walk us through it, what's going on," Barry coached, he couldn't see what Chris was seeing, so he needed to understand to help.

"Biting and scratching and blood. STARS... so many dead. we used to work with them," Chris explained to the best of his ability at the moment while fighting back his fight or flight instinct that was telling him to run. "What happened?" he asked as for the first time since the panic started he was able to move, just enough to turn his head to look at the two who brought these nightmares back.

"There was a pharmaceutical company that started doing experiments on humans using viruses..." Jill offered since he seemed to more or less remember what happened.

A red and white emblem came to mind. "Umbrella," Chris says as the fight instinct was starting to win in the battle of fight versus flight.

"Yeah," Barry confirmed. "We worked for STARS back in Raccoon City, we got a call, Beta team was sent in first then when they didn't come back. We got sent in to find them..."

This continued for some time. Chris when over what he was able to remember while Jill and Barry filled in the remaining blanks. before long Barry made his way up the stairs to knock on the open door frame of Rose's room where Emma was keeping Rose and Baby Piers occupied.

"How is he?" Emma asks as she moves to get up and walk over.

"He's going to need a break for a little while. For the rest of our week here, Jill and I will take turns keeping an eye on him while you're at work." Barry offers which gives Emma some peace of mind. "Try to let him have a break from remembering for a bit." Barry says, though he knew she didn't have complete control over that. "It was stressful but, with enough time to process it all... he should be okay..."

"Thank you," Emma replies with an attempt at a smile. having them here for the week would be a nice break for her too.

"Not a problem... Jill and I are going to head back to the Hotel for now though, we'll be here first thing in the morning." Barry says.

"Alright. Thank you again and take care," Emma replies. She walks the two to the door to see them off before cautiously looking between the stairs and the short hallway to the main living space. While she wanted to check on him, she went upstairs first and took care of the kids tucking Rose and Piers into bed before going downstairs to check on Chris.

Emma half expected to see him standing and rummaging through the kitchen searching any drop of booze he could find but to her surprise he was sitting where she left him and was staring blankly at the wall ahead of him.

"Hey," Emma says quietly to get his attention. "How are you holding up..."

"Not good," Chris admits in return as he continued to watch the wall as if looking away might cause the house to crumble around him.

Oh dear... Emma cautiously walked over to get a bit closer to the couch. "Is it okay if I sit with you?"

It took a good second before Chris replied. "Yeah."

Emma took a seat next to him and simply waited with him. Time dragged by as the two sat in silence. "Rough day?" Emma asks.

"Little bit, at the end there," Chris admits with a vacant nod as he was still getting his feet under him again. "I guess I kinda asked for it though," he adds with an attempt at a laugh. "God I need a drink... I know I said I wanted to remember, but now I just want to forget again..."

"You can't have alcohol," Emma says turning down that request. "I can give you a hug," she offers as an attempt at a replacement.

The offer caused him to give a short cynical laugh. "Yeah, that will fix everything," he says sarcastically.

"It's helped in the past," Emma quietly offers. the answer only pissed him off that much more.

"Well I don't remember that," he snapped back in response with a sneering frown, he'd finally broken eye contact with the wall enough to turn his head to look at Emma. After what he just went through he wasn't sure how much more he wanted to remember.

The pointed response was disheartening. She waited a bit to give him time to calm back down again. "I guess, in that case you'd just have to trust me..."

Silence returned as Chris went back to staring at the wall. Part of him wished that his shouting had been enough to scare her off, but another was glad she stayed. While they waited for nothing Emma would occasionally glance over. eventually she moved to lean a bit and rest her head on his shoulder. while it felt selfish, she was kind offering before because she wanted one. It was hard being this close to him and feeling like he was still thousands of miles away. Maybe it would help, maybe it wouldn't, but she just wanted to be close to him for a few seconds.

Chris allowed himself to glance over to see that Emma had purposefully rested her head on his shoulder this time. She was stubborn that's for sure. He allows himself a calming breath and against his better judgement allowed himself to put his good arm around her waist in a rather pitiful attempt at a side hug.

Emma wasn't sure if this was permission or not but all the same she moved to hold him in return.

The gesture felt strange to him but, to his surprise, she was right, and it was kinda helping. Not enough to make the memories he just got back fade or heal but, it was enough to give him respite at that moment. A few flashes of still moments came to mind, nothing concrete enough to call it a memory, he was too tired to remember anything else right now but it was enough to know she was telling the truth. She'd been there to comfort him before.

He allowed himself to rest his head on hers... this was not good. he really. really needed to get out of here... he just needed to survive another week.


also as a fun aside. My head canon for Chris's Air Force 'nickname' is Dumbo, after the flying elephant. because he was Young, dumb, stubborn(like an elephant) and could fly anything far better he should be able to for his age. His 3-D character models from when he was younger, gave him ears that stuck out a bit as well so that could add to the 'dumbo' factor too because, large ears.