Chapter 15: Why now?

A/N: That's right, we're meeting Ethan…or at least hearing from him since he's calling. Why would he suddenly call Rachel out of nowhere like that? Why is their relationship so strained?

Let's find out!

Thanks again for all the reviews! I was having a crummy day and they put a smile on my face!

Just a heads up, this chapter might be a little choppy and rough. I have family over for the holiday weekend so I'm trying to get this out beforehand.

Disclaimer: I don't own Resident Evil; I just own my characters.

Enjoy!

/

She just stared at the screen and let her phone ring. So many thoughts were running through her head.

Why was Ethan calling her?

They barely talked to each other. It had been that way ever since their dad died. Ethan was 10 years older than her so it was hard for them to be close growing up. If someone were to ask her what her brother was like she wouldn't be able to give them an answer that was how distant they were.

She just let the phone ring until it went to voicemail. Letting out a heavy sigh, she went to put her phone back in her pocket.

Her phone suddenly rang showing it was Ethan calling again.

Now she was really confused. What was going on that he was frantically calling her like this?

Against her better judgement, she decided to answer. If anything it was for morbid curiosity.

"What?" she said tiredly.

"Rach! Um, hey, uh what's- what's up?" Ethan said.

"Nothing much? Why did you suddenly call me?"

"I-I saw something online about your college. I heard a few students were going missing. Just wanted to see if you were safe"

"I'm talking to you right now so that must mean I'm safe, right?" she replied tartly.

She shouldn't have been mean to her brother but how could you be nice to someone you hardly knew?

"If you just wanted to know if that I'm ok, I'm fine. I've got to go"

"Wait!" Ethan said.

"That wasn't the only reason I called. I'm actually coming into town in a few weeks for something with my work…I was hoping that maybe we could meet up? We haven't seen each other in a while…I wanted to see how you were doing"

Rachel just stayed quiet. She could hear her brother talking but her body just felt numb.

Rachel ran into the kitchen as she tried to get away. She looked around the room helplessly until she found her brother sitting by the kitchen table. Ethan looked alarmed when he saw the frantic look on his sister's face. She had tears streaming down her face.

"Ethan, help me" she sobbed.

Ethan didn't do anything. He just watched as his sister cried helplessly.

Just then a hand grabbed the back of her head and yanked her hair, causing her to scream out in pain.

"Bad girls need to learn their lessons. And you've been a very naughty girl" their mother's voice said icily.

Rachel cried as their mother dragged her away. She reached her hand out to Ethan helplessly.

"Ethan!"

"Rach?"

Rahcel snapped out of it. She quickly put back on a mask and put no emotion in her voice.

"I gotta go"

"Wait!"

She hung up and turned her phone off so Ethan wouldn't call back. Letting out a shaky breath, she tried to calm herself down so she wouldn't start crying. Damn him for bringing up those horrible memories.

Why was he trying to bond with her now? He could have easily done that when they were kids. Maybe then she wouldn't be this broken shell of a person.

She wasn't going to see him. Who cared if he was coming in for work? He wasn't even seeing her, she just so happened to be nearby so she was just an afterthought to him.

This day started out great and it just took a massive nose dive.

Thanks a lot Ethan.

/

The next few days turned bitter and bitter. It seemed Ethan didn't take the hint and tried calling her a few more times after that. He backed off eventually when Isabella found out about the calls and threatened to castrate him with a rusty scalpel if he continued to bother Rachel.

"If only he was this attentive back when you were guys were kids" she spat.

"Something must be up. There's no way he'd call you a thousand times just to see if you want to 'hang out'. Think he wants money?"

"Our dad set up hefty trust funds for us when we were kids. I seriously doubt he's hurting for cash" Rachel said dryly.

"Maybe he got that girlfriend of his pregnant! What was her name again? Gia? Leah?"

"It's Mia. And I don't think that's it either. I really don't know what he wants and I don't care"

"Wouldn't you be curious to know why your brother you haven't heard in years suddenly wants to talk to you?"

"Nope"

Nathan stayed hidden behind his computer and continued to work on a code he was putting together.

"I'll never understand the drama that is sibling rivalry" he sighed.

"This isn't sibling rivalry. In order to have a rivalry with someone, you need to have a bond or connection with that person. Ethan and I have never had that so we can't be considered rivals" Rachel clarified.

"Why are you so bitter about your brother anyway?" Nathan asked.

Rachel did her nervous tick of biting her lip. Like the president's son could handle hearing about a horrific past. Isabella had the same thought as she banged on the table a few times and glared at him.

"Hey, hey, hey! The only 20 questions you get to do is reading off the ones from our upcoming test in a few weeks. Now get back to hacking or I won't pay you"

"You didn't pay for the last one" Nathan muttered.

"What was that?"

"Nothing!"

Isabella composed herself and looked at Rachel. She knew how her relationship with Ethan was. She remembered Rahcel would go up to her brother begging him to play with her and he would just brush her off because she was annoying. He wasn't being cruel, he was just acting like teenager. If only he had acted like an older brother when Rachel needed him the most. A brother who would protect his sister from harm. Sadly that never happened.

Instead of having a sibling that would protect her, she had a best friend who would step into that role. And Isabella was going to stay in that role until the day she died.

"You want me to talk to my dad and have him tell Ethan to leave you alone? You know he'll do it" she said.

Rachel shook her head.

"He'll get the hint soon enough" she said.

"I'm not going to worry about it"

Isabella narrowed her eyes. Something was up with Ethan and she was going to find out about it.

No one messed with her sister from another mister.

She pretended to see someone over Rachel's shoulder and squinted her eyes.

"Is that Marcus?"

Rachel paled and whipped her head around.

"Where?!"

"I dunno. I swore I saw him walk past that pillar just seconds ago. Seems like he's looking for someone. Did you do something again?"

Rachel quickly gathered her stuff in her bag and sprinted off.

"If he asks, you didn't see me!"

She hurried away before 'Marcus' showed up. Isabella smirked darkly. Worked every time.

She turned her attention to Nathan and looked serious.

"Hey four-eyes"

Nathan sighed and glared at her.

"I have a name you know"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. So how good are you at hacking things?"

"I'm hacking the university's system for those test answers you were looking for aren't I? Hacking into the school's database is child's play"

"But what about main network stuff? Like stuff out on the internet or in police records? Can you find stuff that might be impossible to find?"

Nathan scoffed at the insult.

"The only thing I haven't been able to hack into is in the Pentagon. And that's only because I really don't want to know what my dad has been up to while running this country…why do you ask?"

Isabella looked serious.

"I think I know why Ethan suddenly wanted to catch up with Rachel. And I'm scared that I might be right"

Now Nathan was curious.

"What do you need to know?"

/

While Leon wasn't fond of bodyguard duties, he would admit that it was a walk in the park compared to chasing down terrorists who wanted to recreate the T-virus. The only thing he had to do was make sure Nathan was safe and kept out of trouble.

Keeping him safe was easy it was the staying out of trouble part that was difficult. Since the kid was a wizard when it came to hacking into things he had to have security at his dorm 24/7. Part of it was to keep him safe in case someone found out where he lived, the other was to keep an eye on him and make sure he didn't find things that were meant to be hidden.

That was what his night was going to be like. It was his turn to keep an eye on the boy. Oh joy.

He went to Nathan's room. As usual, he was glued to his computers as he typed away at something and pulling up files. Leon knocked on his doorframe to let him know he was there

"Lights out in an hour"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm almost done" Nathan muttered.

Leon shook his head and turned to check the rest of the apartment. He paused when he caught something on Nathan's screen and turned back to have a better look. Sure enough, he saw that Nathan had a few of Rachel's files pulled up.

Something inside of him snapped.

"Why do you have Rachel's files up on your computer?" he asked seriously.

Nathan looked at Leon then shrugged before going back to digging up information.

"Her friend wanted me to look into something for her. Apparently Rachel's brother suddenly called her out of nowhere and Isabella thinks there's something going on"

He didn't see the pissed off look on Leon's face. He just pulled up a few more files and looked at them curiously.

"Nothing seems out of the ordinary though. I thought he was in need of money or something but his record is squeaky clean. Something popped up for their mother though. It looks like she-"

SLAM!

Leon had stormed over and slammed Nathan's laptop shut. The tech student jumped a little when he saw the serious, pissed off look on the agent's face.

"You're not supposed to be going through people's personal information" he snapped.

"This is what got you kicked out of your last college. What do you think your father is going to do if he finds out you've been spying on people again?"

Nathan was complete dumbfounded by Leon's reaction. He had known him for a few years through his dad and not once had he seen the calm, collected agent act like this.

"Why are you so worked up on this? You've never freaked out when I was looking into someone's files in the past-you even turned a blind eye sometimes. What's wrong with me looking at this file?"

It suddenly clicked why Leon was freaking out. A knowing smirk appeared on his lips as he lean back in his seat.

"Ahhh, I get it. You like her don't you?"

Leon's eyes widen a bit.

"W-what?"

Nathan chuckled at Leon's expression.

"I get it now. You giving her a ride in one of my dad's cars-something you refuse to do, you went after her to check if she was ok with that incident with Jeremy, you being on duty at my campus nearly every day when other guards can take over, and now you're helping her with her midterm? You like Rachel"

Leon gave Nathan a hard glare. He might have been computer smart but he sucked at jumping to conclusions.

"It's not that. I'm just doing what your father ordered me to do and keeping an eye on her"

"You can keep an eye on her from a distance like you do with your other missions" Nathan pointed out.

"Just admit it. You have a thing for little Miss. Med student"

"Nathan" Leon warned.

"What? It's not that big of a deal…although maybe the age gap might be. You're like what 35 and she's 24?"

"There's nothing going on between us. We just happen to keep running into each other because I'm your bodyguard. And I'm helping her with her project because she was about to study some random crackhead that's camping out near her friend's apartment so I really didn't have a choice" Leon said.

"Oh you mean Colin?! I read his file that Isabella managed to put together. I swear half of the stuff that was written was made up but she found medical documents to back it up. The human body is amazing"

"Why did you read that?"

"Same reason why I hack into people's files and read their personal records: I'm smart and I'm bored. I pass my classes without even trying to and I need to find something to keep myself entertained"

Leon held the bridge of his nose. He didn't get paid enough for this stupid babysitting job.

"You want to be entertained? How about you find out about Simmons nephew" he said.

Nathan raised an eyebrow.

"Why would I do that? Especially when you just said not to look into people's personal info?"

Leon gave the tech a serious look.

"Because you and I both know something is wrong with that guy. Why else would Simmons want to take care of him himself?"

Jeremy set off a lot of red flags in Leon's head. Aside from that whole ordeal where he grabbed Rachel and threatened her, something seemed very off. There was also that meeting he had with Benford and Simmons. The president wanted to reprimand Jeremy for being a threat to his son but Simmons was adamant that he didn't want anyone involved with punishing his nephew except himself. There must be something off about Jeremy if his uncle didn't want the president involved.

He wanted to know why this prick was able to still walk around the same college at Rachel and get away with it.

"Simmons made it seem like Jeremy has done these things in the past when you explained what happened outside of campus. If I found out my nephew was acting like an ass to a woman, I wouldn't give him just a slap on the wrist. Something isn't sitting right with all of this"

When those videos of him manhandling Rachel went online, the college should have suspended him or even kicked him out. And yet nothing happened.

Why?

"Look into this and I'll pretend I didn't see anything when your father asks what you've been up to when not in class" he bargained.

Nathan wore a shit eating grin on his face.

"Oh Leon"

He pulled open his laptop and showed a few files he had up on his screen with Jeremy's name on them.

"I told you: looking up people's personal information is my favorite past time"

/

Next day

Leon leaned against a wall in one of the court areas of the campus. He needed to have a word with Isabella about prying into information that was none of her business. She might have been Rachel's best friend, but she should have respected her boundaries.

It wasn't hard to spot the brash med student. She seemed to have just gotten out of class based on the drained mood she was in.

When she was about to pass him, he grabbed her arm and stopped her. Isabella was about to cuss him out but stopped when she saw who it was.

"What do you want?"

Leon gave her a serious stare.

"You have a minute to give me a reason why I shouldn't have you arrested. Care to explain why you paid to have the president's son hack into your best friend's personal information?" he asked.

Isabella sighed and yanked her hand away.

"It's not what you think" she said.

"I'm trying to look out for her. Her brother suddenly called her out of nowhere and I find that worrisome"

"Shouldn't this be Rachel's problem? She's a big girl, I'm sure she can find this out on her own" Leon said.

Isabella let out a bitter laugh.

"She doesn't want anything to do with Ethan. That dickhead stopped talking to her shortly after she had to move in with me when their dad died" she said.

"He goes radio silent for years and then out of nowhere he calls wanting to hang out? Something is very fishy about this and I don't like it. Rach has been hurt enough and I won't let any more harm come to her."

Leon crossed his arms and gave her look.

"She's not as fragile as you make her out to be. She gets freaked out when scary situations come her way but she doesn't cower in fear. She didn't do that with the whole incident with Jeremy. It might have been scary and embarrassing but let herself be posted online so everyone could see what kind of person Jeremy is. If she was timid and delicate as you think she is, she would be hiding right now. She doesn't need you to protect her from everything" he said.

Isabella raised an eyebrow. Why was Mr. Stiff Ass acting like he knew Rachel so well?

"You a Rachel expert now?"

"I just think she's showing a side of her that not a lot of people take the time to see" Leon said.

Isabella smirked a little. Well, well. Someone was able to find a way past the walls she built around herself.

Leon stuffed his hands in his pockets.

"You're a good friend to her. Asking Nathan to hack into files was going too far though"

"You gonna arrest me then?" Isabella joked.

"Since you weren't asking for classified information pertaining to the White House, I'll turn a blind eye…this once" Leon said.

"Gee thanks. Now that you're done interrogating me, can I go? I have a very packed schedule of studying and not having a life" Isabella said.

"Who am I to get in the way of your education?" Leon asked.

Isabella rolled her eyes and walked away.

"One more question"

Isabella stopped and looked over her shoulder. Leon seemed curious about something.

"Why do you think it's odd that her brother suddenly called her?"

The med student gripped her bag tightly. Her eyes turned icy as she stared at the agent.

"That is none of your business" she said.

"If I tell you why then you'll know about her past. And I know for a fact that Rachel does not want anyone to know about that. Sometimes she wishes that I didn't know either"

She spun around and walked away without any further explanation.

Leon crossed his arms and watched Isabella leave. The one thing you don't tell a federal agent is that something wasn't their business. By saying that, then that was for sure their business. Seems like Isabella didn't realize that he could look up Rachel's files and find out what was going on. He did it before when he tried to see if she was a threat.

What kind of secrets was Rachel trying to hide?

/

A/N: Sorry if this was an all over the place kind of chapter, kind of had a rough time trying to figure out where I wanted this chapter to go without giving a bunch of spoilers. Don't know if I had Ethan in character but we'll be seeing more of him so I have time to improve his interactions with Rachel.

Leon seemed to get a little angry that Nathan was showing an interest to Rachel (or rather her files). Why was he ok with Nathan looking into Jeremy's files but not Rachel's?

Why is Isabella freaking out that Ethan wanted to meet up? Still so many questions and still not a lot of answers.

Hopefully this was an ok chapter. Please let me know what you think!

Take care!