In the Ashes
Read on Ao3 Masterlist
Warnings: none
Pairings: lethanfield, jill/carlos (not the focus)
Word Count: 7279
It sounds like a joke: three bioweapons, two former bio-terrorists, and five anti-BOW agents walk into a safe house… *** There comes a time where all there is left to do is talk. Wesker is alive. Chris and Jill battle with the reality sitting in front of them. Leon worries for the safety of the few lives they've managed to save. Claire rages against the injustice of corruption. Rose is tired and angry. Ethan is exhausted. If they don't manage to find some common ground, they'll crumble before the enemies looming on the horizon even reach them.
It sounds like a joke: three bioweapons, two former bio-terrorists, and five anti-BOW agents walk into a safe house…
The closest secure location had been an old storage facility the DSO had used several years ago. Mostly abandoned, offline enough that no one would come to search it, and nestled deep in the forest where the odds of someone seeing them on satellite would be slim to none. The rest of the Hound Wolf Squad had set up a perimeter and were pointedly told not to eavesdrop. Which meant there was a good chance that at least some of what was about to come was going to be overheard.
Which brings them to now. On one side of the room, Chris sits with Claire and Jill pacing on either side of him, Carlos sitting on a nearby table, Leon leant up against the remaining crates. A little ways a way, Ethan, Mia, and Rose sit on a few boxes in a makeshift huddle. On the other side, Wesker sits in a single chair.
There's a long stretch of silence.
Carlos, to everyone's surprise, breaks it first. "How in the hell are you still alive?"
"After the events in Kijuju, or the ones just a few hours ago?"
"Both."
"Uroboros is resilient. Its regenerative properties would not allow me to perish, even after being dropped into a volcano. I managed to escape into the ocean and swam to safety." His gaze, no longer hidden by the sunglasses, cuts to Ethan. The tensing of the agents' shoulders does not go unnoticed. "As for what just happened, I…believe I am not the one most equipped to answer that."
Ethan shrugs. "You probably can say more than I can. I just know what happened in the mold."
"And what did happen in the mold?" Jill asks sharply.
"I wasn't there for all of it. You—well, part of you appeared in the Megamycete, Eveline kicked your ass—"
"She did not."
"Yeah, she did," both Ethan and Rose say at the same time—Mia's expression does something complicated, Leon turns his head to stifle a snort, Rose continues— "then you guys went to that big house."
"'Big house?'" Carlos asks.
"Spencer Mansion," Wesker says quietly, and both Jill and Chris's heads whip around.
"The mold can draw stuff from your memories," Rose explains quickly when Claire and Carlos look confused, "it, uh, made the house look like what he remembered. Sort of. Some of it was wrong—I was in there, he and Eveline saved me—"
"Saved you?"
Rose's fingers curl into the edge of Ethan's sleeve at Jill's interruption. "Yeah. The, um, the sedative—whatever they used to knock me out when they t-took me, it…cut me off from the rest of the mold. I couldn't feel anything—I couldn't feel Dad or Eveline or anyone I normally can. It, um, it manifested in the Megamycete as me being in this like, test tube thing? Kind of like those old movies and shows where people are like, frozen for a really long time?"
"They're not that old," Ethan mutters.
"You're old, Dad."
"Hey, you and I are in mold years, we don't count."
"Anyway," Rose says in a hurry when Jill's expression darkens, "yeah. He and Eveline, they, um, they got me out of there."
"You were fighting off Uroboros." Heads whip around once more. Wesker's hands, still gloved, twitch slightly where they sit folded in his lap. "Your powers…they activate when you are in combat of some sort, yes?"
"Mostly, yeah."
"Your body would glow upon contact. Uroboros was trying to attack the mold in its entirety, and part of it was in you."
"Upon contact? Contact with what?"
Wesker's gaze flicks to Ethan's again for a brief moment. "I was the one who introduced Uroboros to the system. It stands to reason that it would try and seek me out again once it became clear that…"
"Shit wasn't going according to plan?"
"Quite."
"So you touched me, and it tried to get to you, and my powers killed it?"
"That it how I understood it to happen, yes."
Claire steps forward, her hands clenched into fists. "So you put her in danger on purpose?"
"No. I did not know what was happening at the time." His gaze flickers to Rose. "She wasn't waking up. Eveline was worried."
"Worried," Carlos repeats flatly.
"Yeah." A smirk tugs at the corner of her mouth. "Even though she's currently saying she wasn't."
"She's here? Like, right now?"
"She's a part of the mold," Ethan says, "so yeah, she's here. She can't do anything, though, she's just thoughts and feelings for me and Rose."
"You just gotta go with it," Leon mutters to Carlos when the man doesn't look like he understands anything.
"So Rose wakes up," Jill cuts in, "and then what?"
"Then I saved them from the mold monsters and we escaped to a deeper stratum—layer of the mold," she says quickly. "Then, uh, you ran away from me."
"That is not what I did."
"That's literally exactly what you did. We were just talking and then you freaked out about being 'infected' or something and literally ran away."
Wesker's jaw works. "I had reason to believe the mold was…affecting me."
"What, just 'cause you were talking?"
"Yes." He glances at Ethan again. "That was when you appeared at the police station."
Claire's eyes widen. "The police station? In Raccoon City?"
"Why did it look like that? It had statues in the main lobby."
"It used to be a museum. But wait, why—"
"It was a museum," Rose interrupts, "and they turned it into a police station? Why? That seems like the weirdest—"
"You just gotta go with it," Leon says again, "trust me, Claire and I had the same question."
"Why the police station?"
"And why the mansion?" Jill scoffs, folding her arms over her chest. "Clearly they didn't mean that much to you when you were alive, so why—"
"They did."
The room stills.
Jill's glare meets Wesker's, both jaws clenched as the weight of his words thuds against the ground between them. For long seconds, it seems like neither dare breathe. Then Jill scoffs again.
"Sure didn't seem like it."
"The mold was remembering other places too," Rose says quietly, not meeting Jill's gaze when it turns to her. "Other first and last places. It…it remembered the ship where Mom and Eveline crashed, and our house in Romania, and the castle. It wasn't just the mansion and the police station."
"What do you mean, 'first and last?'" Claire asks. "First and last for what?"
"The first time something…happened, and the last time it was…" Rose swallows and Ethan takes her hand in his, squeezing tightly. "The last time things were safe. O-or the last time it was—where it wasn't just being a bioweapon and nothing else."
She pauses, frowns.
"Wait, what was the other place?"
Wesker stiffens. His hands clench into fists. He looks away. "No."
"There was another place—it wasn't there a lot—"
"No," he interrupts, louder this time.
"Rose," Ethan says softly, "don't."
"Why not? They asked what happened, it's not like it didn't happen, the thunder was really loud—"
"Be quiet."
"It's not ours," Ethan says, a touch firmer, "not that one."
"But Dad—"
"Spencer's Estate."
The two of them pause at Jill's voice. Her eyes are fixed on Wesker again, whose head remains turned away. She scoffs, mouth twisting. Her hands clench into fists as she paces up and down.
"I'm right, aren't I? You went back to Spencer's Estate. The night you killed him and kidnapped me."
Wesker's mouth presses into a thin line.
"First and last times, huh? What, you wanted to relive your glory days? The day you killed Spencer, became a god?" She takes a step forward. "You wanted to see me broken and bloody again? Powerless? At your mercy, ready to be turned into your fucking puppet again?"
"No."
"Oh, like hell that wasn't it," she spits, storming across the room, "you chose that place out of all of the—"
"I didn't choose it!" Wesker roars suddenly, the chair nearly flying backwards at the force with which he stands. Hands go to weapons. "I did not choose to return there."
"You expect me to fucking believe you?"
"Alright, stop, stop, enough." Ethan pushes his way between them—the others blink, they hadn't even seen him get up. "Wesker, sit down."
For a moment, Wesker doesn't move, chest heaving, fists clenched, eyes fixed on Jill's equally furious expression.
"Wesker." After a few more breaths, he looks at Ethan. Ethan indicates the chair and he slowly retrieves it, sinking back down. Ethan blows out a breath of his own and looks back at Jill. "I don't know everything, but I promise he very much didn't want to go back there."
Jill doesn't take her eyes off Wesker. "How can you be sure?"
Ethan glances down at him too before lowering his voice. "Because he was having a panic attack, and every time things got worse, that's where we'd end up. Thunder would crash, rain falling, all of that."
Jill's eyebrows nearly touch her hairline. "A panic attack. Him?"
"Yeah. Him."
"What the hell could he possibly have to panic about?"
Ethan's expression shutters slightly. He turns to Wesker again. "How much do they know?"
The man's shoulders do not relax, but there is a weight in the words he speaks. "If they do not know everything by now, then they are not who I believed them to be."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Wesker's jaw works. "That night…that place, is where I found out about Project Wesker."
Carlos glances back and forth between the others. Mia offers a small shrug. "What's Project Wesker?"
"A eugenics program run by Spencer, designed to breed a race of highly intelligent super humans. Programmed with his values and built to serve him as the god of a new world order, with a built-in failsafe to seek him out when the time was right." His face twitches. "Pawns."
"And then you killed him and took it for yourself." Jill scoffs again. "Doesn't seem like something to panic over."
"Yeah," Rose says suddenly, her voice cold, "finding out you were secretly being controlled and monitored by someone that wanted to use you as a living weapon because of shit you didn't have a choice about, what's there to panic about that?"
It hits the room like a punch. Jill's gaze flickers to the ground. Leon makes a soft noise. Mia reaches out with a soft call of Rose's name but she pulls away, staring at the floor, jaw clenched. Carlos clears his throat.
"Were there others? From the program?"
"Only two of us survived to the final stage and only I fulfilled Spencer's vision."
"Who was the other one?"
"Alex. Alex Wesker." He glances at Rose. "My sister."
"Sister? You have a sister?"
"Had. She's dead now." He nods to Claire. "Courtesy of the younger Redfield."
Claire folds her arms. "Give recent events, I'm not so sure she's still dead."
"She is. The prototype virus only succeeded in curing the illness she had developed. It did not provide her with any additional abilities. She perished on Sein Island." His expression twists. "She knew more about the program than I did. She and Spencer were…close."
"But you ended it," Jill says, "you stopped the program."
"No."
"No?"
"There were no more candidates, but Spencer's programming did not disappear. His failure was to anticipate that the failsafe would render itself useless once fulfilled, but the other parts of it…" and here he looks up at Ethan, who nods, "I did not realize that Uroboros would take Spencer's place."
"What does that mean," Claire asks, stepping forward, "'take Spencer's place?'"
"Spencer sought to end the world, create anew from the ashes of the old. Uroboros was…hungry."
"So we're supposed to believe that everything you did," Jill spits, "was because of this 'programming?' Spencer and the virus made you do it?"
"No. My actions and choices were my own."
"But not entirely," Ethan says, not unkindly, and Wesker's shoulders tense even further.
"Enough."
"Yeah," Jill agrees, her voice hard. "Enough."
"It's still in you, then," Claire says, "Uroboros, Spencer's programming, all of it. If you knew that's what it was, why did you still follow it? If you hated it so much?"
Wesker's brow raises. "Is that a serious question? You would ask why someone would seek power, control, the ability to reshape the world as they saw fit? Put aside the how, the what, your hatred of the world I would have made, you're telling me that if you could, if you had the power to remake the world, to better it, if you could make it the way you thought was best, free of strife, of pain, of suffering, to be a god, you would turn it down?"
Nearly every mouth in the room falls silent, pondering the question. The world they know does not lack for individuals who crave power with every waking breath, who seek to control every aspect of life as though they would write and rewrite time at will. The ability to make the world safe, free from those who would chase that power and use it for ill, to reshape it, Wesker's question is a persuasive one.
Well, for nearly every mouth.
Rose huffs. "Yeah, no thanks, I've begged enough to be believed."
All eyes turn to her. She looks up, looks at all of them. Even Wesker's brow is furrowed.
"What? That's all godhood is, begging people to believe you. Haven't you ever noticed that? Gods don't have power unless people believe they do, and people won't believe in you unless you're giving them something they want. You don't get to pick what you're the god of, people are gonna pick that for you and then you have to do what they want or they stop believing in you." She gestures to Ethan. "Look at Dad. The Black God is so desperate to live, it'll latch on to whatever the strongest consciousness is in the mold. It used to be Miranda, and she did all that crazy stuff in Romania and was super powerful, and I'm not saying Dad's not powerful, but Dad doesn't want to be crazy the same way Miranda did, so the Black God is different now. It doesn't really have a choice. You don't live anymore, you're just—you're just whatever flat thing people decide you are and you don't get to change. Ever. You just have to keep convincing people to believe you. Why the fuck would I want that?"
Ethan's features soften with something like pride. For Chris, Leon, and Mia, something much heavier, sadder, at Rose describing herself as begging for someone to believe her.
"Well," Wesker says quietly after a long pause, "therein lies the difference between the virus and the mold."
"Is that why you wanted the mold?" Claire asks. "Because it's different?"
"The mold is easier to survive," Leon mutters, "easier than the virus."
"The Connections wanted to see if the mold could be combined with Uroboros to increase its efficacy. The E-series, Eveline, that strain was more infectious but more destructive. They wanted to use the mold from the Winters family because it was the most stable and showed the most promise."
"That's not what you said in the mold." Rose frowns. "You said you wanted more people to survive virus."
"That is what the Connections wanted with the two of you."
"Then what did you want?"
"As you said: to make virus easier to survive."
"Isn't that the same thing?"
"It's killing you," Leon says suddenly, "isn't it?"
A long pause. Wesker's hands flex beneath black leather. Jill's hand twitches.
"…yes."
"That's what you meant," Claire says quietly, "when you said it didn't end. Uroboros kept Spencer's programming alive and you…"
"There was not a lot left of me after Kijuju. Even before, the concentration of Uroboros present in me required regular injections to keep it stable. Afterwards, its regenerative properties kept me alive, but…"
He reaches for his glove. Jill's hand goes to her weapon but Ethan holds out a hand to keep her at bay. "Wait. Please."
Black leather slowly reveals a hand partly of metal, partly of flesh. Entire fingertips are missing, flesh growing haphazardly over metal armature and leaving parts of blood vessels exposed. Where the skin and muscle scrabble for a foothold, the metal nearly burns as though acid touches it instead. He flexes his hand and the entire thing ripples, flesh pulling away from the metallic bones and latching back on a moment later. Close to his wrist, his blood turns black and slick. Claire claps her hand over her mouth and Carlos mutters a curse. Even Jill looks pale.
He replaces the glove and flexes his hand again. "The prototype virus that was a part of Project Wesker, the one only I survived with any meaningful results, made me more resistant to infection, but Uroboros is something else entirely. It will consume anything, even if it means killing the host's body."
"So you needed something other than a virus to stabilize it."
"Yes."
"Did it…work?"
Wesker nods. "Uroboros is quiet."
"But not gone."
"No."
"So the programming, or whatever you want to call it, it's still—"
"No. That part is gone. The mold eliminated it."
"The mold is dead, as far as the virus is concerned," Ethan says when Claire's brow furrows. "When he attacked us, Uroboros went to try and eat the Black God, but there wasn't anything for it to latch onto. It's—okay, I'm not gonna know all of it, you should ask Dr. Placia, she went on a whole rant about how viruses are basically just mean screwdrivers that don't do shit—"
Wesker makes a noise that could be affronted.
"—but basically, there wasn't anything keeping it alive so the Black God just…absorbed it. Got rid of it, basically. I don't really know what it's doing now, he's not—" he turns back to Wesker— "you're not infected the same way Rose and I are—or even how other people were, I think it killed enough of it when you were in the Megamycete and now what's left of it in you is trying to kill whatever part of the mold got in you."
"So basically, the mold is the virus's chew toy so it doesn't eat him," Leon says.
Wesker grimaces. "Crude but not inaccurate."
"Great. So're you still trying to kill everyone?"
"No."
"And we're supposed to just take your word for it?"
"You've already taken Ethan's."
Ethan, still standing between Wesker and Jill, doesn't say a word. Jill glares at Wesker for a moment longer before she looks at Ethan. Ethan just nods, ever so slightly. Jill scoffs and turns her back, marching over to sit next to Carlos, who leans a little so their shoulders press together. Rose holds out her hand and Ethan lets her wrap her arms around him, snuggling into his side as they sit back on the crates. After a moment, Mia reaches out and rests her hand on his shoulder too.
Claire watches the three of them for a moment, an unreadable expression on her face, before she turns back to Wesker, arms still crossed. "So. You were working with the Connections. What were they doing?"
"There was a sect of Spencer's Umbrella researchers devoted to attempting to control memories and will using the T-Virus."
"Led by Victor Gideon," Leon says, "they worked out of ARK in Raccoon City. They were after Elpis."
"Yes." Wesker scowls. "Elpis."
"What, not a fan?"
Slick sounds fill the air. Something writhes underneath Wesker's sleeve and he clenches his fists, eyes closed, breathing in deeply. The agents tense, Rose and Ethan clutch each other, but Wesker just blows out a breath and opens his eyes. Still blue.
"Perhaps we best move on," he says through gritted teeth. "Regardless, Elpis was not the answer that the Connections had hoped for, so they turned elsewhere, believing the concept to be possible even if not through use of the T-Virus. Given the mold's abilities as demonstrated by the E-series and the resurrection of Ethan Winters, they decided it would be fruitful to investigate the effects of the mutated T-Virus in conjunction with the mold."
"That matches up with the research found at ARK and the Rhodes Hill Care Center," Claire says, "but then why risk introducing Uroboros?"
"The Connections were a means to an end for me, as I was for them. I had no plans to test whether the mold would be compatible with the T-Virus. My goals were solely to see if the mold would solve the issue of Uroboros's aggression."
Carlos snorts. "And they let you get away with that?"
"No one at the Connections knows viruses like I do, let alone the T-Virus or how to properly handle interactions at that level. They asked for my expertise, and I said I would advise them, provided they in turn gave me access to one of their facilities for my own needs."
"So why'd you give them your DNA?"
Wesker frowns. "What?"
"If you weren't going to actually do what they wanted," Leon asks, "why'd you give them access to your DNA?"
"I used my own samples in my experiments to see if I could produce a viable solution, therefore I suppose my DNA would be on file, but I didn't just give them my DNA. Why?"
A nearly manic grin crawls across Leon's face. "So you never met him."
"Met who?"
Claire snorts. She turns her head and tries to muffle it but she keeps laughing. Even Mia and Ethan have to hide smiles. Leon's smile just gets bigger. "Zeno. You never met Zeno, huh?"
"Zeno?" Rose looks at Ethan, then at Jill and Carlos, who also don't seem to know what's going on. "Who's Zeno?"
"Zeno was the Connections operative in Raccoon City, the one who worked the closest with Dr. Gideon," Leon says, almost gleefully as Claire grabs her phone, "that's funny. I could've sworn the two of you met at some point."
"What are you talking about?"
Claire clicks on something on her phone and wordlessly holds it out to Jill and Carlos. Jill looks at it as she goes to take a sip of water and promptly spits it everywhere. Carlos's eyes bulge out of his head and he nearly grabs the phone, trying to get a better look. Rose scurries out from Ethan's side and leans over to see it too.
"What the fuck? Is he still alive?"
"Oh, no. He's dead. Very dead. Gideon killed him after he injected himself with Elpis and he lost all his powers."
"Stop, stop," Jill nearly wheezes, "you're gonna kill me. Oh, fuck, I needed that."
"That's, uh—" Carlos lets go of the phone as Claire giggles— "that's…a choice. We sure he wasn't programmed as well? 'Cause no sane person I know is choosing that."
"Is that a dangly cross earring?"
"Sure is."
"What is that?"
"Will one of you explain," Wesker interrupts, "or am I to wonder what you all find so amusing?"
"I don't know, you were the one who said you wanted to move on from talking about Elpis and stuff," Leon starts, only for Rose to snatch Claire's phone away. "Rose, wait—"
"Come on, he has a right to know. It sounds like they basically stole his DNA without him knowing about it." She pauses, phone still facing her chest. "Uh, just to warn you, it's…it's bad."
Wesker holds out his hand. Rose hesitates for another moment before she gives him the phone. He looks down at the screen.
A pause.
Pieces of the phone scatter across the room as Wesker crushes it.
"Yeah, you know what, that's fair."
"Rose," Ethan says warningly as his sleeve ripples again, and Rose backs off. He glances at the still-snickering others. "Maybe let's try not to piss him off so much?"
"It's fun, though, Dad."
"I'm not saying it isn't, I'm just saying it's maybe not the most productive thing we could be doing right now."
"It's not like he's much better, he looks like a reject from that really old movie series you guys tried to get me to watch."
"You gotta stop describing stuff like The Matrix as really old, Rose," Leon groans, "you're making me feel ancient over here."
"Holy shit, he does dress like he's in the Matrix," Carlos mutters.
"Enough." Wesker pinches the bridge of his nose. "The Connections are capable of advanced cloning technology, then, alongside their progress with the mutated T-Virus. That means they're closer to their goals than I thought."
"What does them making a clone of you with the worst fashion sense ever have to do with them achieving their goals?"
"Clones like that do not just happen. They were able to produce a clone of me, complete with the abilities from the prototype virus, and it was stable, in less than half of the lifetime required for it to look like that. That does not just happen. The only other stable bioweapon with an altered growth rate is standing next to you."
Leon reaches out and pulls Rose closer, tucking her into the lea of him.
"That means that whatever process they're using to produce said clones, it's advanced enough for them to closely affect and control the virus in the lifeform as it grows."
"And Spencer's research was about using infected blood to transfer specific memories and abilities into other host bodies," Claire finishes, her eyes growing wide. "And now that they have the mold—"
"It's only a matter of time before they reach some form of success, yes. And the failure to properly balance the mold with the virus's mutagenic properties…the consequences would be disastrous."
That effectively saps the remaining humor in the room. Rose reaches for Leon's hand and holds it tight. He looks at Ethan, who watches the two of them closely.
"Can you control all of the mold?"
"What?"
"The mold. You can feel it, right? Can you control it?"
Ethan's expression contorts. He shakes his head, pulling away from Mia. "It doesn't work like that. I can feel it, sure, but I can't—I'm not—Eveline could. I can't. I can barely feel Wesker at all, there's not enough mold in him. If it's gonna be like that, then I can't—no."
"I had to ask."
"I know. It's fine."
Rose clutches his hand a little tighter and looks to Wesker. "What about the BSAA? What does this mean for—for how you were able to get me?"
His voice softens, almost imperceptibly. "I don't know the extent to which the Connections has infiltrated BSAA, or how much it's been compromised. For better or for worse. the BSAA is fractured across the globe, with only a few people knowledgeable about the extent of its reach and capabilities. That is the main reason why it was so difficult to reach you and your father. That and the fact that you were very well guarded."
"But I wasn't," Mia says.
"Not as well guarded, no. But the Connections underestimated you. I did not make the same mistake."
"But someone at BSAA HQ is working with the Connections," Jill interrupts, "that's why you were able to attack the base, and why they've been shutting me out from investigating Romania."
"Wait, what? Why—why were you investigating Romania?"
"Because BSAA's using bioweapons now. They used them in Romania. Chris wasn't the only person trying to take down Miranda or save you and your parents. And the one bioweapon he was able to recover disappeared like it never existed as soon as he touched down."
"BSAA's using bioweapons?" Rose's eyes dart from Jill to Ethan to Wesker. "Like—actual bioweapons? You weren't lying?"
"No," he says, voice still soft, "I was not."
Rose's lip trembles. Leon wraps his arm around her shoulders but she pushes him away. "Did you know about this?"
"Rose—"
"You did. You did know and you didn't tell me."
"I knew they were in Romania, but I didn't—" she pushes him away again. His jaw works. "I didn't know until after we'd met."
She doesn't look at him.
"They are not mold-based," Wesker continues, as if that would be some form of comfort, perhaps, "only virus based. They learned their lesson after the events of Louisiana. The latest generation uses a modified version of the T-Virus to enhance the clones."
"Clones of what?"
"Of the only viable option," he says, and here his eyes land on Chris.
Chris, the only person yet to say a word since they boarded the helicopter and flew away. Slowly, the rest of the room turns to look at him too. He remains silent, staring at Wesker.
"Wait," Claire says, "what makes Chris the only viable option?"
"He alone has survived without infection from any of the threats he has faced. His DNA is uncorrupted by the touch of any virus, any parasite, any infection. He is the most experienced warrior in the BSAA's crusade against bioterrorism, his abilities as a soldier and a leader make him an invaluable asset. He is determined, stubborn to a fault, relentless in his pursuit of what he believes is right. And despite all of what the world has thrown at him, he remains a good man." Something almost like pride colors Wesker's voice. "Who else would they choose?"
Chris's jaw works. His gaze flickers to Ethan.
"So what do we do," Ethan asks, "how do we stop this?"
"We need to go to the press." All heads turn to Claire. "We can't let them just get away with this. We need to expose BSAA for what it's become."
"Whoa, whoa, wait a minute," Jill says, getting up, "what exactly are you going to tell them?"
"That BSAA's using bioweapons, that they're working with the organization responsible for the disasters in Raccoon City, Louisiana, Romania."
"Do you have any idea what a broadcast like that would do to people? The panic that it would cause?" Leon shakes his head. "BSAA is the world's only global anti-BOW organization—"
"And people deserve to know it's been corrupted! If they're putting their safety in the hands of people who caused these attacks—"
"But it's not everyone in BSAA, that's the point. Good people, good soldiers, people fighting the good fight, that's BSAA too. If you release a story that BSAA is no better than the organizations it's trying to fight—"
"It isn't!"
"That's not true, Claire," Leon says firmly, "look at Jill, look at Chris, look at Carlos. Yes, there are corrupt people in BSAA, sure, but—"
"Yeah, there are, at the highest levels. Sure, maybe not everyone at the highest levels, but people high enough that they can stop Jill, stop Carlos, hell, even stop Chris! If we keep it quiet, it'll just get swept up under the rug in another cover up. We need to blow the lid off of this thing so they can't hide in the shadows anymore."
"I'm not saying we let them do that, I'm not saying we keep it quiet, but we can't just leak this to the press and expect it to work out! BSAA is trusted by the UN, if we're gonna expose this in any meaningful way, we need to know everything beforehand. I'm saying we get names, we get locations, we figure out who all is involved, and then, when we have that, we go to BSAA HQ and we—"
"And what if they find out what we're up to before that? Then they kill us and frame us as the corrupt ones. The longer we let them hide, the more shit they'll do and the more time we give them to come up with another story to cover their asses. You want boots on the ground to fix this? We need as many people to know about this as possible." She throws her hands up. "But I guess you wouldn't know anything about that."
"What the hell's that supposed to mean?"
"I'm saying this isn't your first time participating in a government cover up, so maybe—"
"Oh, for fuck's sake, is this about the Mad Dogs?"
"So what if it is? You knew the public had a right to know what the US government was doing, how there was a private bioweapon army being run out of the US military, but you helped cover it up!"
"Yeah, 'cause Jason wanted it released!"
"What?"
"Jason. He wanted the information released because he knew it would spread terror. He thought that if he showed the world the truth of what Wilson was doing, it would prevent something like that from happening again but it doesn't work like that and you know it, Claire. Not only would it not stop anything from happening, it would make it worse by causing public panic. I wasn't going to give you the chip because it would've done what he wanted and spread the fear."
Claire scoffs. "Since when do we care what bioweapons want?"
Rose flinches. Hard.
Claire's ire drains away in an instant. "Rose, I didn't mean—"
"Yeah, you did."
"I didn't mean it like that."
"Yes, you did." Her hands curl into fists. "But what does it matter, anyway? I'm just a bioweapon."
"Rose—"
Rose pushes past Claire, her head down, Ethan already on his feet to meet her halfway and wrap his arms around her, holding her protectively against his chest. He tucks her chin over his shoulder, his own resting against her temple. Claire watches them, her hand outstretched, guilt heavy on her features.
"No one else knows about them," Leon says quietly, his eyes on them too, "no one outside of BSAA, not even all of BSAA knows. If we blow the lid off of this without any other consideration, we expose them to the world and leave them defenseless. I won't be able to protect them, and neither will you. Nor Chris, nor Jill, nobody will. Them and everyone like them we've ever managed to save, everyone, they won't be safe. And if the Connections doesn't have anything to lose? They'll just take them, Claire, again. And everything we've sacrificed to keep them safe will be for nothing. I can't let that happen."
Claire swallows heavily. "So what do you propose? We just find somewhere to hide them while we try and gather all the intel you want, and just hope they don't find them again?"
"If I may," Wesker says, tearing his own gaze away from the father and daughter, "you might have more time than you think."
Leon frowns. "What do you mean?"
"The reason the attack on the base was successful is because only a select few BSAA members outside of the base knew about it. The same goes for your attack on the facility. The BSAA can't risk openly searching for you without acknowledging its own role in putting you at risk. Neither can they search for me without revealing they knew I was still alive. The Connections can pursue you more openly, this is true, but…they have been remarkably futile in their efforts so far."
"So you're saying they can't come after us any more than we can go after them right now."
"Yes."
"Why are you helping us?" Jill asks suddenly. "You were hell bent on destroying the world again less than a few hours ago, and now, what, you're just…on our side?"
"Is it truly so hard to believe?"
"Yeah. Yeah, it really fucking is. Your eyes changing color and Ethan's word isn't good enough for me, no offense, Ethan—" Ethan just shakes his head— "so if you want me to believe that you've changed, that you've beaten your programming, or whatever it is you want us to believe, I'm gonna need something a little more concrete than that."
"What sort of proof would you like? Shall I tell you all the locations of the Connections facilities that I know of? Perhaps the names of the officials at BSAA that I've corresponded with?"
"We can start there, sure, and you're gonna give them to us anyway, but what do you want? Why are you helping us?"
A pause. His head bows slightly, and his hands flex. "For the first time in my life, the only voice inside my head is my own. I would have thought that you, of all people, might understand why I would choose to embrace it."
Jill's fists clench. "Not good enough. You expect me to believe there's secretly been a decent part of you all this time? Prove it."
Wesker's expression twitches. Slowly he starts to reach towards a pocket in his coat. In a flash, Jill's gun aims at his head. He holds up one hand, the other still moving slowly. He reaches inside and retrieves something small, held tightly within the black leather of his glove. There's an almost imperceptible tremor in his hand. He holds it out to the side and his gaze shifts.
"Chris?"
A long silence.
Then slowly, Chris stands up. Jill moves instinctively to cover him as he crosses the floor, coming to a stop near Wesker's outstretched hand. Like this, he towers over the man in the chair. Wesker looks up at him for a brief moment.
"Be careful with it."
Chris nods once. Wesker's hand slowly opens to reveal a small, round keychain.
Chris's breath catches in his throat.
"What is it, Chris?"
Eyes wide, almost unseeing, Chris reaches for it. He picks it up, its familiar weight settling in the palm of his hand. He holds it up for the rest of them to see. Jill's mouth drops open, her gun lowering.
"Is that…"
"No fucking way."
"He—the whole time?"
"How—"
Jill just stares, her eyes as wide as Chris's, as the Tamagotchi swings gently from his fingers.
"That's impossible," she mumbles, "that was—that went missing decades ago, how…?"
"The four of you were out on a call," Wesker says quietly, "Chris had left it on his desk for safe keeping. You did not return before it was time to feed it again."
"Time to…are you telling me it's…"
Her eyes flick to Chris. Chris presses a button. A series of familiar beeps rings out in the still room.
"It's still alive. You—you've kept it alive since 1998?"
"No, no fucking way," Carlos mutters, "those things die if you forget to look at 'em for too long, it can't be the same one."
"It is," Chris rasps, his voice hoarse from disuse and heavy with memory, "it's the same one. The pixel in the corner's dead and the scratches on the case are the same. It's…it's ours, Jill. It's the one we had."
"Is that proof enough for you, Captain Valentine?"
***
Jill runs her fingers over the split ring at the top of the Tamagotchi. The metal catches on a callus over and over and over.
Chris sits in Wesker's chair, his elbows on his knees, his head bowed.
The others have left. The Winters, to see their wounds taken care of, Leon and Claire to verify the information Wesker offers, Carlos to discuss next steps with the rest of the squad at the perimeter.
The two of them remain in the quiet room.
Neither speaks.
She could lash out at how reckless this is, point out how trusting Wesker has gone in the past, how terribly foolish it would be to do so again when they have seen the destruction he's wrought.
She could scream that he has no idea what it's like to see him again, after he reached into her body and pulled her out of it, after he forced her to take actions that made her want to rip her own hands from her arms and throw herself into the volcano, to have to sit and talk with him like he hadn't unmade her.
She could taunt him for his inability to let his desperate search for their Captain's approval go, bring up all the other stupid things he's done just to get him to look at him, seethe at whether or not his feelings have once more gotten in the way of his thoughts.
She could point out the very real possibility that this is a trick, that he's just biding his time, that he's waiting for them to let their guards down and make his real move.
She could name half a dozen people that would feel as betrayed as they once did, if they found out that they let him live, rescued him, and now sought to work with him.
She could dig deep into the wounds she knows they both have and point out how easy it would be, now, to make them bleed out this time.
She doesn't.
He could point out that this is what they do, they save people, they give them second chances, they have to be better than those they fought.
He could reason with her about their tactical standpoint, that they had an advantage the Connections wouldn't see coming, that there was no other person, alive or dead, that had as much of a reason to get back at those that started this war so long ago.
He could say that if anyone had shown their willingness to do anything, it was the bastard that made their lives a living hell for decades, both on the earth with them and from beyond the veil, and they'd be fools not to at least consider it.
He could say that somewhere, she already knew he was right, and she was pissed at the circumstances and the truth of it, but she knew, and that pissed her off more than anything else was ever going to.
He could scream so what, so what if his emotions were high, this is the man that made and unmade all of them, that built them just to break them, of course his emotions were high, it would be far, far worse if he felt nothing at all, but his feelings wouldn't change their position any more than hers would.
He could confess that deep down, somewhere, they both know he had longed for something like this, a chance, just a chance, and so had she, that maybe, just maybe, if all those years ago, they had been told the truth, they had been asked for help, things would have gone differently, and perhaps they all could have been spared so much anguish.
He doesn't.
They both know already.
The silence stretches across the room.
Jill presses a button.
The Tamagotchi flickers to life, beeping and dancing on the pixilated screen.
With movements rusty from disuse but worn with habit, she feeds it. Plays with it. Puts it back to sleep.
She turns, picks up a water bottle, and crosses the room.
Chris looks up as she holds it out.
"I'd get you a real drink if I could," because he hadn't lost it after all.
He swallows, manages to crack a smile. "'S okay. I won't make you pay me back."
The water bottle crinkles slightly in his grip and the two former S.T.A.R.S. stay there, holding the plastic water bottle and the tiny little pet that should have died decades ago.
"This is about to be some bullshit, isn't it?"
"Oh, yeah."
Jill sighs, grins, and for a moment, they're both in their twenties again, ready to run into danger with nothing but each other and the determination to survive it. Chris stands up.
"Let's do it."
"Wouldn't miss it for the world."