Heya here's that bonus chapter I was mentioning from before lol. I'm going to try and keep my chapter sizes reasonable at this point and I really wanted to get an anniversary chapter in, so rather than tacking that on to the end of last chapter it gets its own space with a little bit extra that I wanted to include last chapter but cut out. woot woot~! All the content =v=
Song suggestion: Living My Best Life by Ben Rector
Disclaimer: I own nothing Resident Evil belongs to CapCom
A tired sigh crossed Emma's lips as she put Piers down in his crib for the night before heading over to the calendar on the wall and put a small X through the box for Monday March 11th. While part of her was glad they were able to get Rose back home and that she was safe, the stress of the past few hours still had her reeling. Hell, the stress of the past few days. The motherly woman shook her head to try and ride it of the thought before changing for the night and crawling into bed next to Chris.
"... What are we going to do," Emma quietly asks as she shifts to lay closer him.
As she did so, Chris put an arm around her to hold her close. "We'll figure something out," He says in return before giving Emma a gentle peck on the forehead.
"Yeah," Emma agrees though the offered comfort didn't seem to work as well as he'd hoped. "Its just. What are we doing wrong?" Emma asks quietly. "She keeps running away. Once we can write off as a tantrum, but it keeps happening." She points out. "And her aging is getting worse. The doctors have said she's practically 12 now. She wasn't supposed to reach that milestone for 5 more months. They're saying she'll be closer to a 17-year-old by the end of the year. What if it keeps getting worse? We're running out of time."
Chris listens while gently running his hand along her back. "She's about 3 years ahead of schedule, but all we can do is focus on what is going on now and have faith in Rebecca." Chris quietly replied and to his surprise when he shifted to look at Emma, while concern was evident from her expression her eyes were free of tears. "It's not much, but she does still call once a month. She's making progress, and she's doing everything she can." He says, while choosing to leave out that the funding Emma worked so hard to get, was pretty much spent at this point.
"I know..." She replies with continued quiet resign to the truth of their situation. "It just feels like everything's spinning out of control..."
"That tends to happen with teenagers," Chris replies with a short huff of a laugh. "Hey," he says while giving a slight tug to get Emma's attention. "It's going to be okay." He says to try and offer further reassurance, even if he didn't know what the future would hold. "You've done well raising Rose. Between the two of us, you have way more experience working with kids than I do," He says to gently lead the subject. "But, I think it's time you rely on me a bit more for this..." He hesitantly requests while thinking over how to say what was on his mind. "I know I don't talk about it much but, Claire was around the same age Rose is mentally, back when we lost our parents." He says while thinking it over and the struggles that came with that.
Being 17 and losing everything in one phone call in the late hours of the night. Having to figure out how to plan a funeral while grieving and comforting his sister because he was the adult now. Having to figure out finances and taxes so young. Realizing there wouldn't be enough money from their parents for him and Claire to have a home and for both of them to go to college. Choosing to give up that opportunity, so she could have it. Joining the air force as soon as he got out of high school and the lost childhood that came with all of it. Even now, over 30 years later, he still hated answering the phone at night because he knew nothing good ever came from late night calls.
"I know a thing or two about raising a rebellious teenage girl who's doesn't like that I'm in charge," He says, which finally causes Emma to relax slightly. "We're asking for a lot, it's not an easy task to stop a person from aging," Chris says, though the words caused an old memory, one he thought he buried, to slowly surface as he found his words began to mirror the words of another.
"I've created a way to increase cellular regeneration of a human host permanently, and it only took feeding what you call a virus a few stem cells. This could revolutionize what we know about medication. We can cure death,"
"... I'll call her tomorrow. See how she's doing," Chris says while thinking over the memory. That. It couldn't be that easy... could it?
"Thanks. Let me know what she says? It will help just to have a better idea of what's going on..." Emma admits as she shifts to get comfortable and hopefully fall asleep as they talk. "At this rate, it won't be long until she hits puberty..." Emma drowsily points out and it took a few moments for those words to really sink in. Once it did her eyes opened wide once more. "Oh shit."
"What?" Chris asks as he started waking back up. Why was that concerning? why was she panicking now?
Emma shifts so she can look at Chris more directly. "She will be hitting puberty soon." Emma repeats.
"Yeah. And? That's a normal thing people experience," He replies with a confused expression.
She flops back over to lay on the bed while holding her face. "Ooohhh this is going to be difficult." Emma says through her hands. "You thought the toddler phase was bad? Try telling her to control her emotions when she feels like there's an invisible knife twisting around in her gut and she's waffling around between intense depression and deep rage to the point she feels like she could punch a god and win." the motherly woman says in an attempt to point out her new concern. Rose's rebellions were going to get worse as her mood swings kicked in.
Hearing this was concerning to Chris for multiple reasons. "... do you get that way?" He asks with a raised eyebrow. She was saying all that pretty confidently.
Emma nods as she finally moves her hands away from her face allowing a more deadpan expression to be visable. "I have 30 years of experience managing it. Why do you think I had a punk phase? I had very little control over my mood swings back then, so everything was an extreme..."
At this point Emma's concern started to make a bit more sense. Sure he had some experience dealing with that because of Claire, but she couldn't control magnetic fields, or grow fangs, move objects with her mind or turn into other people. Yeah, now sees the issue. "Oooh we're screwed." He says as he tried and failed to think of a way to counter that effectively.
"Yep," Emma says with a defeated sigh. Not that she liked being a Debby downer but, if they were going to make it through this, they needed to be realistic about their situation, so they could prepare for it rather than get blindsided again.
Okay. How to prepare for that inevitability... "For now, we should probably think of a way to tell if she turns into one of us," He suggests, since he'd already seen Rose use his form to get out of trouble in the past.
"Agreed," Emma replies with another nod.
'*'*'*'*'
A little over a week passed since that conversation. While Rose was unaware that it happened, she certainly knew the fall out of her actions. She frustratedly closed the door to the cramped apartment as she made it home first and flopped on the couch. While she wished the long lecture she got from Chris about being responsible with her gifts and how being special meant being careful and blah blah blah, it unfortunately wasn't the end of her punishments. She rolled over to lay on the couch and pulled out her phone as she struggled to try and get around the updated parental settings that cut her off from her games.
When her efforts proved fruitless, she frowned at the phone and simply laid there dejected for some time. Normally, she'd just go and raid the fridge to pass the time, but that was punishment number 3. No junk food. Emma always said meals aren't a privilege and those aren't something she'd take away, but snacks apparently were not held to the same standard...
"No fair," Rose quietly whines to herself as she shifts to lay on her side. It was bad enough if she knew it was just the normal food in the house, but she happened to know Emma bought some fancy mini tarts for dessert, and she knew she wouldn't be allowed to have one even though there were 4 of them... they looked so good, though. Maybe if she just snuck into the fridge? It's not like anyone would be able to prove it was her.
As she thought this, her plan was quickly foiled since Emma walked in with Piers. "I'm home," Emma says as she puts Piers down and allows him to hurry around the house and explore. Not that there was much left for him to find.
"Welcome home," Rose grumbles with a pout as she continued to lament her lost dessert as she watched Emma head back to the master bedroom to change out of her work clothes. It took a second, but a new thought came to mind.
Chris gets to have snacks still.
A slight grin crossed her face as she got up and turned into Chris, clearly not learning her lesson in the slightest, as she made her way over to the fridge. Let's see now, where did Emma put them. Rose dug around the fridge a bit until she found what she was looking for. She happily opened the plastic container to take out the tiny tart. Weird, she remembered them being bigger than this. Oh well. With that, she happily started to munch on the treat with a content smile. Even if Emma did see her, it's normal for Chris to go in the fridge. He-he, so smart.
Sure enough, Emma walked out of the master bedroom and saw 'Chris' hunched forward into the open fridge. Huh. "Oh, hey. I didn't hear you come in." Emma says as she shifts to try and see him only to find him halfway through eating one of the desserts. "Christopher!" Emma says with a clearly annoyed expression, which caused Rose to jolt slightly.
Wait. Chris got in trouble with Emma too? Rose remained quiet, but moved to put the rest of the tart into her mouth.
Seeing this caused Emma to hold her face. "Goddammit. Chris, you couldn't wait another hour? I got those for everyone."
Yeah, everyone except her. Rose remained quiet as she slowly chewed to try and buy more time to think of how to reply. What would Chris say?
As Emma shifted to Cross her arms, movement from the doorway caught her attention that 'Chris' didn't see thanks to having his back to the little window in the kitchen wall. "Mongoose," Emma says with a deadpan expression.
"Huh?" Rose replies as Chris.
"Rattle snake," Chris replies as his tired expression quickly turned to annoyance as he closed the door behind him. "Damn it Rose. Really?"
"Oh shoot..." Rose quickly changed back, having at least learned from last time that it was better to give up when they figured out her game rather than draw it out.
"You're grounded," Chris says with a frown.
"But I'm already grounded," Rose points out in disbelief.
"Well, congratulations," Chris replies as he moves to take his shoes off. "You're double grounded now."
"That's not fair!" Rose says as she once more storms off to her room to get some space. They can't ground her if she's already in her room, so ha.
A tired sigh escapes Chris as he made his way over to Emma and gave her a peck on the cheek. "So, what'd she get to?" he asks with disappointed curiosity.
"I think she just ate one of the tarts. I bought one for everyone, so, no harm done there. She just got hers early, but she can't keep doing this." Emma says with a slight frown. "You could have gotten in real trouble if she tried pretending to be you on campus. What if the new director saw her doing that?"
"I'll talk to her. Just give her a bit of time to cool off, or it's just going to be a screaming match," Chris says as he moves to head back to the master bedroom and change out of his uniform. His frown remained as he walked over to the dresser to start digging out a change of clothes before rubbing at his temple to try and relieve a headache that was starting to form.
When he looked up from grabbing his clothes, the calendar caught his attention. It was already the 20th of March. He frowned slightly as his eyes slowly trailed down to the 30th. His and Emma's first... Second anniversary was only 10 days away. They missed their first back when he had amnesia. Rose ran away then too.
"No wonder she was so worried..." Chris says whiles still staring at the day on the calendar. This was proving to be a trend, and A day that should have been happy for both of them was missed. He looked away as the thought of Emma crying by herself as she tried to shoulder more by herself than she should have to came to mind. Something that probably happened more than he'd like to admit.
His shook his head while pressing his lips together to force a neutral expression as he shifted his attention back to the task at hand. Once he finished changing into his civvies he made his way out of the master bedroom and went to take Duke for a walk while Emma worked on dinner. By the time he came back, he figured enough time passed that he could try talking to Rose.
With that, he made his way over to the pre-teen 3-year-old's door and gave a gentle knock. "Rose, I'm coming in." He says rather than asks, since he had a pretty solid hunch that she wasn't exactly agree to let him in on her own. Emma was better about that, respecting Rose's boundaries, but sometimes you gotta set them too. And right now, the boundary was that as her guardian, he had some override privileges when she acts out in a way that could put her in danger.
All the same he gave her a few moments before opening the door. To his surprise, he actually was able to open the door, and he didn't have to talk to her through a magnetically sealed door. Instead he found Rose laying on her bed with her back facing the door as she hugged her pillow. Chris closed the door behind him before making his way over and taking a seat.
"Hey," He says and waits for a response that never came. Instead, she scooted closer to the wall and away from him. Chris shook his head. Yeah he was used to that one. Claire would do the same thing when she was pouty. "Alright. Ripping the band-aid off. You're in trouble because we know you know better than that. You only just got in trouble for doing the same thing a few weeks ago."
Rose hesitantly glanced over her shoulder before looking back at the wall.
"Getting in trouble for something you did do sucks. I get that. I get in trouble my fair share as well." He says, still frowning. "So when you pretend to be me. I can get in trouble for something I didn't do. Let's say Piers when and threw, I donno. Paint around the apartment, but you got in trouble for it. That would suck right?" Chris asks while allowing Rose to continue to keep her back to him. Her ears still worked so that's what was important.
"...yeah," Rose agrees as a sense of guilt started setting in. she didn't really think about it that way before. She was just thinking about how she wouldn't get in trouble.
"There are consequences for my actions. So if you choose on my behalf those consequences are still set in stone for me, even if you don't have to deal with them," Chris explains "That's why you're in trouble. Because we would rather make sure you understand that problem when the consequence is just an early dessert and not something much worse."
Rose rolled her eyes at that while trying to ignore the gnawing guilt.
"You got a few options here though. We can either extend your current punishments which. But that doesn't seem to be teaching you the severity of the consequences of your choices." Chris says before continuing. "Or, we can keep those as they are and instead. You do something helpful to make up for it."
To be honest, she didn't like either option but, the second seemed like it might not be as drawn out of a punishment. "Help how?" if he was going to make her clean around the BSAA he could forget it.
"Instead of 2 more weeks of all of your punishments. If you're willing to watch your brother from 5 to 10 next Saturday, we'll call it even," Chris offers. "In the end you didn't cause too much trouble. You just ate your dessert an hour early." Chris admits, which surprised Rose. "But seems only fair that if you cause trouble, that you help out the people that you caused trouble for."
"... Do I still get twenty buck?" Rose asks as she shifts a bit to look over her shoulder at Chris.
"No," He answers in return. "Either 2 weeks are added, and you watch him for money. or you avoid the two weeks and you watch him to show you're sorry for causing trouble."
Two extra weeks of no snacks and no video games seemed like torture, but at least he was letting her choose... "Fine. I'll watch him."
'*'*'*'*'
The 30th arrived quickly after this. On one hand Rose was grateful that her punishment seemed a bit more reasonable, but on the other, being punished at all suuucked. All the same she watched as Chris and Emma made their way around the apartment. Dinner was ready for the two and served a bit early so they could help with making sure there were no issues with feeding Piers.
Emma still felt as nervous as the first time she left the two kids on their own, but despite how much she'd been acting up, the last time did go smoothly. It would be a good way to show they still trust Rose. The motherly woman makes her way over to Chris who was waiting by the door. "Okay, I think that's everything. Remember if anything comes up call us, and we'll be right back." Emma says.
"Got it," Rose agrees with a shrug. It honestly wasn't much different from when they were around anyways she was just going to sit around bored. Only now she had to be bored while watching Piers try and put a square peg through a circle hole.
"We'll be back by 10," Chris says before nudging Emma to try and get her to leave the apartment.
She didn't need much more prompting than that, and so the two were on their way to the parking lot. "What are we doing anyways?" Emma asks curiously. It was their anniversary, she knew that much, but she had no idea where they were going.
"We'll know when we're there," Chris says with a slight smile as he moves to put an arm around her.
The answer was a bit confusing at first, yet slowly but surely a gentle smile formed as they made their way away from the BSAA and back to familiar roads that led to a parking garage by a small apartment building. She couldn't help but chuckle as Chris parked in his usual old parking spot out of habit.
Seeing Emma smile caused Chris to smile as they got out of the car. As they walked away from the car he offered his arm, which Emma happily accepted.
As the couple walked past the old apartment building, they both spared it a passing nostalgic glance and continued on their way down the road, past the park to a small mom and pop shop where the sign read 'Bite and Slice'.
"This looks like a good place," Chris says while gesturing to the door. It wasn't much but, the more he thought about it, the more something said this was just the right place to be.
"You're sure?" Emma asks amused to which Chris nods.
"Yep. Pretty darn sure," He answers.
She wasn't sure why, but hearing that made her happy, and the two walked in. Sure enough, the place looked like a time capsule. Hardly anything had changed.
"Take a seat dearies, we'll be right with you," says a woman's voice from the back.
The two chuckle upon hearing this and move to take a seat at one of the open booths, and they both take a seat opposite to each other as they took off their coats to keep from getting too warm. They both picked up menus that, unsurprisingly, didn't change except for the prices.
"So what are you thinking about getting?" Chris asks curiously while looking over the menu.
"I think I might get a burger," Emma admits with a slight smile. She did have to admit, the one chris got before was pretty good. "What about you?" She asks in return.
"I think I'll just get a slice of Pizza, and a beer"
"Original," Emma teased with a grin which cause Chris to laugh under his breath a bit before gently nudging her leg with his foot.
"Now don't you go and give me a hard time," He jokingly chided as a waiter approached the table to drop off two red plastic cups of ice water.
"Hi, My name is Earl. Welcome to bite and slice, are you ready to order?" Asks a young teenager who was likely just got their first job.
"Yeah, I'll take a burger with buffalo sauce and a coffee," Emma answers.
The waiter nods and writes that down before looking to Chris. "And I'll take a slice of Pepperoni with a beer. Whatever you have is fine."
Again the waiter wrote that down. "Okay I'll be right back with that. if you need anything, just wave to get my attention," he offers before hurrying off to enter the order into the system.
As soon as the waiter was out of sight, Chris felt a soft tap against his neck as he was hit by a paper straw wrapper while Emma was trying to hide a coy smile.
"I taught you well," Chris says amused before retaliating in kind with his own straw wrapper which caused Emma to laugh.
"I guess we'll just have to call this one a tie," She offers.
"Hmm well you did strike first," Chris offers in return. "Suppose you can have this one."
Emma's cheeks felt were starting to sting a bit from how much she was smiling at all this. To anyone else this was a little date to a no name mom and pop shop but for them, it was revisiting what could arguably be their first date. He remembered. Knowing that made her happier than any overly posh hipster restaurant they could have gone to instead.
The two talked about anything and everything as they waited for their meals to arrive, and after some time they did. A coffee and buffalo burger was placed in front of Emma, while the Pizza and Beer was set in front of Chris before the Waiter went on his way.
"That smells pretty good," Chris admits as he watched Emma pick up her burger. He almost kinda wished he went with a burger too now. "Can I snag a bite?"
"Hmmm, No," Emma says playfully before taking a bite for herself.
"Stingy," He says with mock shock.
Emma finished her bite while trying not to laugh. "Vulture," she replies but after a few moments of enjoying the joke she put the burger down and cut it in half, moving the unbitten half over to Chris's plate as he did the same. Cutting his pizza in half and moving half to her plate. Fair was fair after all.
This was nice, Chris thought as he happily enjoyed his shared meal. Once each half portion was polished off He shifted to get up. "I'll be right back," he says as he heads over to the main counter to pay for their meal.
Emma finished up her last few bites as he did this and collected their coats from the booth and put her's on while she waited for Chris to come back.
"Ready to move on?" Chris asks as he accepts his coat from Emma and dawned it once more as well.
"Yep," Emma agrees and the two made their way back out to the sidewalk. To her surprise, When she went to head back toward the parking Garage, Chris hooked her waist and redirected her to walk with him.
"Figured maybe we could see if anything good is showing," He says with a slight sense of pride. It was barely 7. If he was going to do this, there wasn't a reason to do this half-baked.
"Alright," Emma agrees further tickled by the gesture of the trip down memory lane. The theater had a bunch of Squeals available. Some new mission impossible film, another lord of the rings film and a 3rd avatar film. "So. Mystery rerun?" She asks with a curious smile.
"I can agree to that," He says with a slight nod before the two got in line to get their tickets for a showing of Source Code. While they weren't sure what they signed up for thanks to the ambiguous title, the two made their way to the theater with a bag of overpriced pop corn all the same and settled in. This time around, Chris didn't wait for Emma to fall asleep to move the cup holder out of the way and the two snuggled up to watch what ended up being a very strange movie. Half of the time the story was focusing on how a soldier was being sent back in time to try and prevent an attack on a train where he'd only have minutes to figure out new clues. instead of sending him back even further in time, since they have time traveling technology? It was weird, but Emma didn't question it too much, since the other half of the movie showed the soldier slowly falling in love with a civilian passenger as he got to know her 8 minutes at a time.
This time around both of them managed to stay awake, life was still stressful but at least it felt like they were doing a little better now than they were the last time they were here. That in and of itself brought a sense of peace as they enjoyed the film. They were doing okay in spite of everything.
Before long the credits started to roll signalling that it was time to leave the theater. the couple shifted to get up.
"That was a strange one," Chris admits with some amusement.
"A little yeah," Emma agrees with similar amusement as she stretched a bit before walking with Chris to leave the theater. "Ready to head home?" She asks curiously.
"Yeah," he agrees before noticing a newer photo booth in the place of the old one. "Almost." He corrects before giving a gentle nudge. "One last thing. You like using these photo booth things. Right?"
"Oh yeah, it's been a while," Emma admits with a slight chuckle as she followed him over. the newer machine was set up to take card payments and sure enough it didn't take long for the machine to start printing as they walked out. Two glossy photo stripes plunked into a holding tray, with each stripe showing the same three pictures. One of two older smiling faces. One of Emma making a goofy face as Chris laughs, and the last one showed both of them kissing.
Emma smiled at the pictures before gingerly storing them in her purse for safe keeping. "I really need to pick up scrap booking or something. we have so many pictures. I would have been easier to protect them if they were all in one place." She says as the two left the pop corn scented building.
"Probably," Chris agrees while bobbing his head sightly. "I donno, seems a shame to hide all our pictures away in a book though, maybe keep the originals there but, I wouldn't mind having a few pictures of the family around the house." He admits. It just felt so, defeating that they needed to have everything ready to pack up and run now. It was their home, and he wanted that to be evident.
"True," Emma agrees in return. It was a fair enough request.
The peaceful, still, early spring air made the walk back a comfortable journey as the two took their time and walked through the park. Allowing themselves the luxury of leisure for the first time in a while. A luxury that eventually came to an end as they made it back to the parking garage, into their car and back to their temporary home at the BSAA.
It was a little before 10 when they opened the door to the apartment. Chris was about to announce their return with the usual greeting, but his voice fell short as he noticed Rose contently asleep with Piers and Duke on the couch. Instead, he motions for Emma to be quiet.
The motion caused her heart to sink at first, fearing that silence was required for stealth, but that was soon remedied as she saw the same scene. Their earlier conversation about family pictures came to mind as Emma quickly took a picture of the sleeping kids. Once that was taken care of, she made her way over with Chris to help him. She picked up Piers as he scooped up Rose to put the kids to bed for the night.
Wow, this is the shortest chapter in a while x'D and by that I mean it's actually a reasonable length. All the same, this was so much fun to write. Chapter 11 still holds a really high rank for me when it comes to favorite chapters, so getting to show their progression since then was a joy. Hopefully, you enjoyed it too ^v^
