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Partners	By : onionbelt Category: +M through R > Resident Evil Views: 5488 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Resident Evil or any of its characters and make no money with this story. It's just for fun.

Chapter List
- 7
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- 9
Three days after the loneliest Christmas of his life, the phone rings in his hotel room.

"Chris Redfield? I'm a friend of Claire's."

He's in this hotel as Joseph Speyer. "How the hell did you get this number?"

"Claire gave it to me."

"...and how did she--?"

"Umbrella has you under surveillance," the guy on the other end of the phone says, "and apparently has for months. My name's Leon Kennedy. Your sister's in trouble."

"Start at the beginning."

Leon does, and by the end of the conversation Chris has passed through confusion to self-hatred to anger to determination. Leon's a cadet in STRATCOM and Chris still has a few buddies in the Air Force, and between them, they're able to figure out a way to get Chris to southern Argentina with a bag full of guns and enough money in his pocket to hire a boat. Chris starts packing.

Claire's in the co-pilot's seat of the Harrier and she's burst into quiet, relieved tears. Chris only has the barest idea of what she's been through, but what he knows includes an overnight stay in post-outbreak Raccoon City and ten days as a prisoner of Umbrella. She's been through a lot and most of it's his fault for not picking up the goddamned phone.

Chris wants to dwell on that, really get his brood on, but he's a little distracted.

For one thing, now that Claire's safe, it frees him up to think about the issue of Wesker. He'd talked himself into chalking up their encounter on Rockfort to his imagination, like maybe that first punch rattled him more than he thought and the rest of it was the head trauma talking, but about an hour ago he saw Wesker take a falling I-beam to the face and get right back up. The whole world just changed on him in ways he's only beginning to process.

For another, and more importantly, Chris is about to crash this fucking plane.

Alfred Ashford's decommissioned Harrier practically flies itself, and under other circumstances, Chris would be having a lot of fun with this. It's got a lot of bells and whistles that seem to be aftermarket installations, extra systems and automated processes to make the flight easier or more pleasurable for a civilian pilot. On the other hand, he's flown it from South America to Antarctica once today already and he hasn't refueled. He probably could've done it in the Antarctic facility's hangar, but he'd been so worried about Claire at that point that it had never occurred to him.

He lets Claire weep for now and gets on the radio. He has no flight plan, no call sign, and he technically stole this plane. Chris points it in Australia's general direction and hopes for the best.

About nine hours later, Chris is sitting in an Australian naval base, the jet's sitting on an aircraft carrier, and he's decided to tell the truth. Claire's next to him, and every stern-looking official they talk to goes from blank to confused to incredulous in the same, nearly predictable order. Yes, the same international corporation that produced most of the medical supplies and toiletries in this building abducted my sister to a secret torture camp on a small island in South America, after she killed maybe twenty-five people in self-defense in their Paris offices; to be fair, she only started killing people after they pulled out the fucking attack helicopter, so if you view this situation in the same calm light as I, it's their fault; yes, she got in touch with me for help then escaped to Antarctica, which was not her idea, because really, who the fuck would escape to Antarctica; yes, we caused that explosion yesterday, the one that everyone thought was a nuke for the first few hours and which probably accelerated global warming by a measurable fraction and which scared the shit out of everyone in your research station, but we had a really good reason.

Fortunately, this time they've both got a fair amount of hard evidence, in the form of papers and photos stolen from Rockfort and Alexander Ashford's Antarctic hideaway. They can prove a lot of what they're saying, and that means that most of the people they talk to obey an old and universal rule of law enforcement: they decide it's above their pay grade and hand the Redfields off to someone with more authority.

After thirty-six hours and maybe fifteen retellings of the same story, the U.S. ambassador to Australia comes strolling into the room, accompanied by Jill Valentine and a lanky Mexican guy Chris doesn't know. Chris instantly gets to his feet and sweeps Jill up in his arms, more enthusiastically than he'd meant to, and the Mexican guy looks upset for all of a second before he hides it.

"How'd you know?" he asks.

"I found your safehouse a few days ago. Then a guy named Leon Kennedy got in touch with me," Jill says, "and said you were here. This is Carlos." She gestures towards him with her head. "He saved my life in Raccoon City."

"A few times."

"Yes, a few times. You ass."

Chris lets go of Jill so he can shake Carlos's hand. "Hey, man. Thanks. Seriously."

"Don't mention it," Carlos says. His handshake's firm and his accent's inconsistent as hell, like he's trying to get rid of it. "The pleasure's all mine."

Chris picks up on Carlos's body language about five seconds later. He's right on the edge of Jill's personal space and Jill isn't moving. Chris puts two and two together, hides a flare of jealousy, and sits back down at the table.

"Okay," he says to the ambassador, "how much do you already know?"

"So I guess that's my sister-in-law, huh," Claire says.

Chris frowns at her.

They're in the U.S. consulate in Canberra, waiting for them to provide Claire with ID and a passport. They're both wearing loaned sweats from the naval base, they've been allowed to shower in one of the ambassadors' suites upstairs, and Claire's inhaling a submarine sandwich. Chris just has coffee.

"Oh, please." It's encouraging that she can make jokes at all, but mostly she's just glad to be able to focus on his problem. "It's all over your face."

"I'm pretty sure she's got something going on with that Carlos guy."

Claire gives him a look that says she cannot believe how stupid he is.

"We had a fight," Chris says, "right before I left Raccoon City. She was there, you know, probably about the same time you were."

"Leon told you about that?"

"I may have grilled him on how exactly he knew my little sister."

"Chris, I'm not dating him, I--" She shakes her head furiously and holds up a hand. "Never mind. Your problem. Go."

"It's not a problem. We had a relationship, sort of, and now I guess we don't."

"She flew to Australia," Claire says slowly, "because she heard you were here. Whatever the fight was about, she clearly doesn't hold it against you."

"Look, Claire, don't worry about me. It's not a big deal."

"No. You don't get to go all weight-of-the-world on me anymore." Claire pokes him in the sternum. "When you have a problem, you need to talk to people about it instead of suffering in manly silence. Otherwise, bad things happen, like, say, your little sister getting thrown in zombie prison."

"I'm going to be paying for this for the rest of my life, aren't I."

"I love you, Chris, but you make the worst personal decisions of anyone, anywhere, ever." She picks up what's left of the sandwich and takes a bite. "Talk to Jill."

"I really don't think that--"

"Zombie prison."

"...fine."
- 7
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- 9
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