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Optio	By : Ripsi Category: +M through R > Resident Evil Views: 8319 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Resident Evil fandom/franchise or any of their characters. I make no money from this fanfiction. It is merely a piece of fiction written by me.

Chapter List
- 1-Annus Novus
- 2-Domus
- 3-Calor
- 4-Posco
- 5-Ludus
- 6-Felix Dies Valentini
- 7-Desiderium
- 8-Dormientes
- 9-Curre
- 10-Gravatus
- 11-Vita
- 12-Vigilo
- 13-Arcanum
- 14-Phasma Phasmatis
- 15-Possessio
- 16-Mutatio
- 17-Anniversarium
- 18-Monstrum
- 19-Lues
- 20-Vita Post Mortem
- 21-Iterum
- 22-Eam
- 23-Fidelitas
- 24-Veritas
- 25-Pacisco
- 26-Mundus Novus
- 27-Febris
- 28-Chemia
- 29-In Aeternum
- 30-Frater
- 31-Historia
- 32-Familia
- 23
- 24
- 25
A/N: “Veritas” is Latin for “truth.”

Optio
Chapter 24: Veritas
January 20, 2002 Sunday 2:26 PM

Subject: Kennedy, Leon Scott
Location: Denver, Colorado
Status: Unsure
A lot of crazy shit went down in South America, yet I was sure that every part of it, including Claire’s presence and disappearance was real. Maritza was on the phone with her parents, which gave me some time to figure out if I was going to tell her that I saw her or not. I mean it was killing me keeping this bottled up to myself, and if I couldn’t tell my partner then what the hell were we good for? Nodding my head to myself I took back the last of my beer and set the bottle back down on the table. It wasn’t like Maritza was a spy, I said to myself, doing my best to convince myself that it would be okay if I just told this one person. Who else was I gonna tell, Chris? Ha, he’d throw a fit and probably hijack the nearest jet all in an attempt to head down to South America and sniff his way to Claire. It was bad enough that I wasn’t even supposed to be talking to him, but we had something in common right now, and it was the biggest problem we’d ever faced.
“I thought they’d never stop talking!” Maritza groaned, plopping down next to me on the couch. Noticing my nervous disposition she got up to straddle me, grinning mischievously and brought her face in to mine. “Don’t worry; you’ll still get to-”
“I saw Claire!” Okay, that’s not how I planned to do it.
With a nod she looked up. “What’s going on Leon?” She went from playful to business just that fast, but it was much appreciated that she seemed to care so much about a woman that wasn’t even her friend but mine.
For some reason I couldn’t get this conjured up scene of Wesker and Claire out of my head; I knew they were screwing, and it made me sick to my stomach to know that she could do something like that knowing what he had done. The way she defended him let me know that she was seeing something in him that she liked, some part of him was so profound that she wanted to cling to it and protect it. She wanted to shut out all the rest and wave a flag for that one part of him that she cared about, it was all too obvious. Her attitude shift towards him wasn’t because she owed him some great debt, but I knew that if I told Chris he would find some way to say that he tricked her. Thinking this way killed me but I knew that I couldn’t pretend nothing was happening with her, not when she had gone so far as to change her appearance. “Illyria” didn’t want to be found, which meant that Claire Redfield had to feel the same.
“Leon?” Maritza had climbed off of me, holding onto the front of my shirt, tugging in an attempt to bring me back from wherever I had gone. There was no point in trying to escape, not when even in my thoughts that unlikely couple still existed.
Grabbing Maritza by the head I whispered, “She’s fine.” I’m not sure why but I moved in for a kiss, probably trying to take my mind of the subject that I had abruptly brought up.
“Why isn’t she coming back?” she pressed, pulling out of my hold. “Chris is worried sick about her. You’re worried about her.”
“I…” My throat went dry as I tried to summon the words, but they just wouldn’t come out. “They… I think she loves him.”
Her eyes became wide. “I- Wesker? The bad guy who was responsible for Raccoon City being a crater?” My silence was enough of an answer to her, and she released my now wrinkled shirt from her grasp. “I thought her being pregnant was maybe from a mistake but you think she’s actually sleeping with him on a nightly basis and they’re… dating?”
Her incredulity was appreciated, almost making me laugh a little, because I knew that what she wanted to say was, “Well duh they’re gonna fuck if they’re together 24/7.”
Looking straight ahead with a grimace she asked, “Um, that’s… gross?”
“Look,” I began, causing her to look back in my direction, “you don’t have to pretend.” Before she could protest I grabbed her hands. “Maritza, maybe your eyes are the ones that I need to see with. I don’t understand what the hell is going through Claire’s mind, hell I don’t even know if she’s sane right now, but if you can find something normal in this chaos then let me know.” Hesitation kept her quiet, but I nodded to let her know that it was okay to say something if it meant that I could have some understanding.
“She lied and ran off with him.”
“Yeah.”
“There’s no real reason for her to have done that except maybe fancy living.” Before I could sigh she added in, “But I don’t buy that.” An extreme increase in sympathy became noticeable in her eyes, letting me know that she was trying her hardest to come up with something.
Remembering something Chris let slip I whispered, “She was protecting him.”
“What?”
I rubbed my eyes tiredly, wanting to beat myself over the head for not realizing this sooner, and I only hoped the eldest Redfield didn’t come to the same conclusion as me. “Wesker was vulnerable at the time Claire chose to run off with him.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” At this point Maritza was beyond confused. “Leon why the hell would Claire help him instead of kill him?”
“They made some sort of deal.” My mumbling was lost into my hand while I racked my brain to come up with a very plausible explanation for why she’d help him. What did Wesker have that Claire needed so badly other than funds for a broke college girl? Money couldn’t have been a good enough reason, the girl qualified for plenty of grants and loans, and though student loans were hell it was better than owing a debt to the devil. “I don’t know,” I conceded, cradling my head in my hands in defeat. “What I do know is that Claire is still with him and that he’s the only thing keeping her safe at this point. She’s not pregnant anymore and I don’t know what hell is going on with any of that.”
“So you think it’s better that she’s with him?” Even though her voice was calm I knew that she probably saw me as losing my mind.
A little hesitant to speak so boldly about my employers I thought for a moment, daring to say what I had been thinking ever since I was under the US government’s employ. “After I found out the US tried to buy the G-Virus off of Birkin? I know she is.”
In a possible attempt to keep me from saying anything else like that she hugged the left side of my body, kissing my cheek before resting her head against my shoulder. The smell of her shampoo was strong, like berries, and for a second I was tempted. It was probably better that I allow Claire’s situation to run through my mind rather than me run from it, especially when I knew I’d only bring it up later in the day. I could only hope that she would get in touch with me to make some sense of this insanity instead of letting me stay shut out in the dark. My people had no idea that she was with me on the mission, and Krauser swore not to tell a soul. He knew there was no point in sucking up to the US now that he was no longer any good to them, or maybe he knew how she felt. Jack was only wanted because of what he could do for them and now he couldn’t do a damned thing. Claire was wanted because of what they could have done with her child, and had they got what they wanted from her she would have been useless.
Though I meant to think it I said out loud, “I hope she’s valuable on her own.”
January 20, 2002 Sunday 3:11 PM

Subject: Redfield, Chris
Location: Denver, Colorado
Status: Disappointed
The movers weren’t very fragile, although there was no need for them to be since they were only taking Claire’s clothes into storage. There was no point in keeping her apartment free if she was… I stared down at the engagement ring, thinking about giving it to Jill but that would have been so fucking cheap of me. Kind of sick too seeing as it was a gift from him. A part of me said to just hand it to the roughest looking mover but instead I just swallowed and tucked it back into my pocket. Why the hell was I putting any of this shit into storage in the first place? It wasn’t like she was going to come back for anything, and it hurt me to admit that my only family left in this world probably didn’t care that she had just left me all alone. Claire had done a lot of things I didn’t like, drinking, smoking pot, getting a failed naval piercing, but never did I think she’d disappoint me so badly that I would contemplate letting her go for good.
“Chris we need you downstairs!”
The exclamation snapped me out of my bought with my depressing thoughts. Leon was gripping the door frame so hard that I thought it would crack, and his skin hugged his veins so tightly I was sure a vessel would burst. Without knowing if I would even follow he darted off down the hallway and Maritza passed by the door, arms crossed over her chest and a sad look on her face. Instead of continuing to stew in my misery I jogged out of the room and downstairs where she led me into an apartment. Leon looked nervous as he ushered me inside, and the feeling became contagious once I heard them shut the door behind me.
“What’s going on?” I wasn’t so sure what was interesting about an empty space, unless they were suggesting that I move into it, but I had no intention of remaining in Denver for much longer.
Instead of answering me, Leon walked to the middle of the room, scratching the back of his neck, and Maritza followed him at a much slower pace. For some reason I think she was more bothered than him, and this was a shock to me because I had never even witnessed her frown.
As he stared down at the floor, the brunet took a deep breath. “The first time I talked to this occupant he gave me a mouthful about Claire.” The sound of her name almost made me flinch; I really didn’t want to think about her anymore. “Last night when your movers came I expected for him to complain.”
Maritza looked up at me and supplied me with the explanation Leon failed to give. “He had a problem with people making noise. Last night we didn’t hear anything.”
“Mr. Sidorov saw who Claire was running off with,” Leon asserted, one hand on his hip and the other pointing down at the floor. “I came down here last night and no one answered the door.”
My patience was growing short, and I wanted to give him a smartass answer to what he seemed to believe to be a mystery. “So, he moved out a while ago.”
Face set serious as a heart attack, Maritza placed her hand on the agent’s chest, and if it was to keep him calm I gotta say that Leon didn’t intimidate me in the least bit. Lean or not he was still scrawny in comparison to me. “Chris, we saw Mr. Sidorov that morning bringing groceries into his apartment.”
“I still don’t see what’s so interesting about this whole thing.” I took a step forward. “Now, I know we’re all upset and worried about Claire but there’s nothing we can do if she made a decision for herself. I don’t have time for conspiracy theories.”
“Management said a Sidorov never lived in this apartment!” Leon’s words filled the apartment, and they almost made me fall back.
“Terry’s been here for sixteen years,” Maritza added, looking angry now, and this attitude must have surfaced due to her knowing what went on in the shadows. She wasn’t the naïve little woman that just thought my sister ran off, she was now involved. “Sidorov complained to him almost every day, and Terry complained about it more than that. So why in the hell would he pretend like this guy hadn’t been here for a few years?”
I should have been able to piece things together from the part where Leon mentioned that Sidorov saw Claire leaving. “You think Wesker had him killed?” Fingering Wesker meant that I was also implicating my own sister, but would she really agree to have a life taken to keep them safe. No. Though I said I was at the point where I was willing to believe anything about her, I just couldn’t imagine her doing something so selfish.
“I don’t think so.” Leon walked over to the window and peaked out of the cheap, yellow curtains that only served the purpose of keeping undesirables from knowing this space was vacant. “He wouldn’t be that dumb, and Claire wouldn’t let him be. She knew he’d been here for a while. Whoever it is, it’s someone who doesn’t know him so well.”
“But why kill an old man who probably couldn’t remember how to tie his shoes?” It made no sense to get rid of someone so close to a natural death, so close that a good scare probably would have done it. Hell they could have poisoned the guy and no one would have done an autopsy to check, I mean who was he to even suspect foul play? “I think I’m gonna need to check this guy out.”
Holding herself, Maritza muttered, “His first name was Alexei.” With what was possibly sadness she looked around a blinked a few times, “Excuse me, I can’t be in here right now.” Before I could ask her any more questions she swept out of the room.
Leon sighed to himself. “Chris you gotta think it’s scaring her that something like this has been going on not just downstairs but across from her apartment.”
With a nod I walked over to him, taking my time as I was a bit unsure how to approach him in such a situation. Patting him on the arm a few times seemed to lessen the wrinkles in his face, and his frown finally disappeared. “Maritza has done everything she could to help us. It’s only right that I help to figure out what’s going on here. If this guy was killed for spotting Wesker there’s no telling whether or not what she knows will have her next on the list. We’ll figure it out.” If anyone was getting to Wesker that meant they’d get to Claire as well, and if anyone was punishing my baby sister for being linked to him, it was going to be me.
January 20, 2002 Sunday 3:20 PM

Subject: Arti, Maritza
Location: Denver, Colorado
Status: Anxious
“Sir, Alexei has been killed.” Usually my job didn’t have me nervous, but right now I was absolutely terrified that this whole thing would blow up in our faces. I truly believed it would eventually though, and nothing Wesker said could make me think otherwise anymore. I heard silence on the other end of the line, and I figured that he was stepping out of the bedroom. How nice it must have been to have this mess be a few time zones between them, while I was here pretending to be calm all the while sweating like a priest in a whorehouse. I should have never taken up employment with him, but I had to stick it to my colleagues and show them that I had what it took to work for and survive this madman’s jobs.
His voice was like ice, not uncaring, but he certainly wasn’t bothered at the news of losing a seasoned employee. “About time.”
As much as I didn’t like Alexei, he was my partner in this, and we were supposed to look out for one another.
“Do Leon and Chris know?”
“Now they do!” I hissed, peeking around the corner.
“Let them find out for themselves.” He was definitely not concerned with what any of this meant for me.
Licking my lips, I inhaled deeply as I dared to disagree with him. “Sir this will implicate me!” The tone of my voice was pleading, something I had not intended, but the knowledge that he was apathetic about what I had built here struck a nerve. All I could think was, I have Leon here.
I could tell from the silence that he was thinking, but not about what I wanted, more like how to tell me off without screaming. “Miss Arti, you were sent there to distract, not become attached. That means that if you are implicated you are to come to me. That is a direct order that if you choose to disobey, will result in termination.”
He didn’t mean I’d be killed, just that I’d be on my own. The funds, the resources, they’d all be down the drain and I knew better than anyone that being a free agent was a dangerous game that only one woman had managed to pull off for so long. I hated to admit it, but she was better than me at my job, and she knew better than to pledge allegiance to Albert Wesker.
“If you must nudge the investigation along,” he began, “do so, but all that matters is that the one responsible for Sidorov’s death is revealed, even if your name is dragged through the mud.”
Reluctantly, I said, “Yes sir.” The line was cut, and I wanted to throw my cell phone down the hallway. If Leon and Chris found out who’d killed Sidorov, then who’s to say that in retaliation and as a means to hurt Leon, that he wouldn’t reveal my true motive for being here? It was bad enough that I really was who I claimed to be, and so my name- my real name would be forever tarnished. Just maybe though, I could use the fact that I never used an alias as a reason to trust me; I had never wanted Claire to be hurt, and I certainly never intended for her to be in the situation she was in now. No, I was making sure she was safe if anything, and I was actually doing them all a favor. The problem was if I had trouble believing that myself, then how could Leon? If the truth came out, I was done.
March 7, 2002 Thursday 4:02 PM

Subject: Krauser, Jack
Location: Sylt, Germany
Status: Nervous
Never had I felt self conscious in my life, until that fucking thing took my arm, and thus ended my career with the military. I wasn’t sure why I had on a dressy coat, not when I had this goddamned sling on my arm. For all I knew, I was heading for my death and people were laughing at me on the inside. Hell, he’d probably laugh at me while killing me for actually finding him. At least I got to go to my grandfather’s motherland…
However, maybe the man I came to see would understand that I was on his side, that we both wanted the same thing: power. He had a lot of it, and at this moment I needed just an eighth of it. As I neared the massive structure it had just dawned on me how well off this man must have been. The house had a thatched roof, as was apparently typical here, but it didn’t have a beach-feel to it like the other houses. This one was bricked, a light brown color with a black door in the front and glass block windows of equal size on either side, and the material prevented anyone who might be gazing inside from getting a clear view. The lights were on in what was probably the foyer, but save for what was possibly a small table, the room was empty. Something else I couldn’t help but notice was that this particular home was as isolated as possible from the others. For good reason I suspected. As I took in a deep breath I told myself it was now or never.
As if it would shock me I quickly jabbed the doorbell, hearing a few simple dings that were too humble for this place. While I waited I found my eyes wandering, not really finding anything out of the ordinary like a booby trap. And in this search for something that was not there I failed to notice any figure walking to the door from behind the clouded windows. The door flew in and I almost slipped back into my training for a moment, only to be met with the sight of a familiar face that I wasn’t sure I’d see ever again.
“Jack?” Claire looked like she had seen a ghost, and I probably looked somewhat surprised as well, although I knew that there was a connection between the two of them. I just didn’t expect for her to be answering the man’s door in what was definitely not her black tee. I let my eyes wander down, taking in the sight of her smooth, white legs, and apparently she took notice; she stepped behind the door and cleared her throat. “What are you doing here?” Her frown showed that she was not comfortable with my presence in the least.
“I’m looking for Albert Wesker.”
Her frown became a grimace. “You need to leave.” She moved to close the door but my right arm shot out to keep it open. Her strength was no match for mine.
I twisted my body, realizing that she had managed to look over my sling, and once she spotted it she almost gasped. “I need help.”
Her blue eyes seemed to soften as she grappled with the decision to leave me out in the cold or to let me take my chances inside.
I let up on the door, and she stopped pushing.
“Come in.”
With a nod I thanked her, stepping over the threshold and noticing just how much cooler it was outside. I guess the fear of rejection had me sweating, and now I felt disgusting on top of worried. She shut and locked the door behind me, ushering me to the left, where it looked like I had stepped into a different world. It was safe to guess that Wesker had reconstructed the house entirely on the inside to look completely modern. Since she led me to the kitchen I could only guess that I was interrupting her midday snack or something, but when I saw a bunch of ingredients laid out on the slim counter with a stainless steel sink that interlocked with a much shorter breakfast counter, I understood that she was prepping for dinner. That was the last thing I expected to ever catch this chick doing, honestly I thought she was the type of girl to call a sandwich breakfast, lunch, and dinner while planning her spare time around her next nap.
She pulled out a chair for me and went over to the glass paned cabinets to pull out a deep blue glass for me and I took a seat in the chair that I didn’t expect to hold me. Stone-faced, she set it before me and went over to what I thought was a pantry set into the wall and opened one of the beige doors to reveal one side of a refrigerator. Returning with what was obviously –at least to me- a margarita pitcher, she set it next to my glass for me to help myself.
I stared at the deep red liquid and inquired aloud, “What is it?”
In annoyance she said, “It’s Kool-Aid, okay?”
Somehow I managed to keep my chuckle to myself as I poured myself a glass. Hell I wasn’t gonna lie, I loved Kool-Aid.
“Stay. Here.” As she walked off to the left of the refrigerator I scoffed at her treating me like I was a child, and watched her silhouette pass behind the blurred and blocked windows surrounding the refrigerator.
I’d never seen a more confusing kitchen in my life, with its stainless steel oven to the left of me, sandwiched between a dark brown cabinet beneath and two above. All of those were between four beige cabinets, the top two on either side ran the length of the two dark brown cabinets and the oven, while the bottom beige cabinets were only as large are the dark brown one they flanked. The floor didn’t have tiles and was a very light blue color, giving a reflection to anything it could capture. The electric stove top right in front of me was held up by five beige cabinets and above it was the dark teal fan that was flanked by two cabinets that held what I saw to be necessities when preparing dishes.
“‘Can only imagine what the rest of this place looks like,” I grumbled taking a sip from my glass. I nervously looked back and forth at things that I had previously analyzed, desperate to make time go by faster if it could. It felt like I had been waiting for an hour until I finally hear some footsteps, but according to my watch it had been ten minutes. It was Claire, who had put on some black sneakers, red yoga pants, and a white tee with some stupid band’s logo sloppily written diagonally across the front in what was supposed to look like black spray paint. The shirt sucked, but the yoga pants on the other hand…
Right before I could finish that thought I caught a dark figure in the corner of my eye that appeared to sweep into the room. Once my eyes landed on him and focused I jumped up out of my seat, yelling at myself to do something like salute or show some sort of reverence. I had seen pictures of him from newspaper clippings and databases, and just as every picture I’d seen him in not counting the ones from his S.T.A.R.S. days, he wore black. Since he was around the house I guess he felt comfortable enough to wear a black shirt specifically meant to hug his body and give hints of the muscles that lay beneath, however, I wasn’t tooting my own horn when I thought to myself that my build was much more impressive. However, since my injury my body was slowly beginning to lose muscles mass and it was getting to the point that I’d drop seven pounds in a few days. Damn I needed this man’s help, I was going to end up being a pathetic, average Joe living on government assistance for the rest of my life if he turned me away.
“Mr. Krauser,” he said smoothly, staring at me, probably looking me over but I couldn’t tell because of those unnecessary shades.
I looked to Claire who had tied her black hair into a ponytail as she chopped away at a bell pepper. I had forgotten that there was probably a reason that she didn’t want to stare at me; I had a freaking scar running down my face. Hell, she could have been polite and asked what happened instead; then again it wouldn’t have been a great story if I were to say, “Well, I got it in the helicopter crash I used to fake my death.” I think the best way to get Wesker’s sympathy to help me out would be by me reminding Claire that we fought together, while trying to keep the cogs from turning in her head. Women came up with the craziest shit, and my biggest fear was that she would turn into a hypocrite and say that this was a betrayal to Leon. I dared her to say her situation was any different than mine. At least she knew why I wanted Wesker’s help just by looking at me, then again she didn’t even bother to ask what happened to my arm.
“Sir,” I began, hoping that my manners would win him over, but he interrupted me.
“How did you find me?”
“Those in the dark part of the world can always spot someone who’s sincere.”
As he crossed his arms he smirked a little at me, and he turned and leaned down to whisper something in Claire’s ear, something that made her stop chopping. She looked shocked by whatever it was that he said, but that sassy mouth of hers sure wasn’t firing off at him if she disagreed. Quickly she racked the contents of the chopping board into a large, blue bowl and she covered it with a dish towel before leaving the room. Oh shit I didn’t like this.
I felt my whole body clench as he made his way around the counter to me, still smirking, even when he stopped before me. When I saw him finally move again I flinched, but he had only done it to take a seat. Confused, afraid, and feeling just a bit faint I almost fell back into my chair.
“Now Mr. Krauser, tell me what I can do for you.” In one swift movement he removed his shades from his face, his eyes remained closed until the moment they touched the counter. Whatever my reaction was, it made his smirk become a grin that shook me to the core, and it was almost as frightening as having what I believed was hell staring straight from his eyes.
I hope this isn’t a mistake.
- 23
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- 25
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