Archive of Our Own ^beta

The rain showered heavily late that night. A young woman, shrouded in a large hooded raincoat and a backpack, carefully opens the door to the faded-yellow cab.

Elongated strands of strawberry-brown hair stick out of her hood.

"Pretty late for a cab ride, eh, miss?", a cab driver with a foreign accent and a rounded face greets her.

The woman is silent as she sits down on the vaguely cigarette-smelling seats.

"Take me to the airport", she says, her voice monotone and emotionless.

The cab driver responds with a simple nod, and without hesitation, they speed off into the night in silence.

...

Two Months Earlier

"You're pretty good at this, actually", A young man by the name of Leon chuckles tiredly.

Claire raised an eyebrow playfully as she finished wrapping his wound with bandages, "What makes you think I never learned first aid? It's an essential, you know"

"I dunno", he replies "You just seem very experienced for someone so young"

Claire smiles wistfully as she thinks of her dear older brother, who'd gone missing after last night's events, "Learned it all from the best, I suppose..."

Leon nods, "I'm sure you did" She quickly cuts the bandages and ties the ends into a tight knot.

"Okay! All set!", Claire steps back to admire her handiwork.

"Awesome", Leon yawns. "Well, it's pretty late, I'm gonna try to get some sleep"

"Sounds good. I think I will too", Claire replies. The two quietly exited the crammed motel bathroom, as so not to wake Sherry, who had already long-since claimed one side of the double bed.

Leon walked over to the old, antenna-style television that had been playing cartoons for the past two hours or so and switched it off. The room was small, and with few amenities, but it was all they could afford. Claire glanced over at the singular bed that occupied the room, and suddenly her face grew warm. "So, um...", She began.

"Are we, uh.."

Leon smiles, practically seeing right through her,

"I can take the couch. It'd probably be more comfortable for you two anyway" Claire looked back over at the little girl who had sprawled out, taking up a good portion of the bed.

"Sure, that's fine"

Leon laid back onto the side of the couch, "Alright, then. Good night"

"Night"

...

Claire prowled cautiously, her body shivering against the creaking floors of the R.P.D. The hallway was as dark as a tunnel with no light at the end, her flashlight, that was dim and had nearly run dry of power, being the only source to guide her through what seemed like an endless void. She continued forward nonetheless, scanning the perimeter of the halls for any odd or terrifying creatures, until she noticed a tattered sign located in between a fancy wooden door and a splatter of god-knows-what on the wall.

The sign read "S.T.A.R.S Office"

Surely, this was where Claire would find him, right?

With little hesitation, she opened the door.

The room had to have been the only room in the entire place that still had lights on. Not only that, but it looked like the place had been completely and utterly ransacked, at least in comparison to the normally tidy upkeep it had when she'd surprised her brother at work previously. She scanned the room, the walls still filled neatly with all sorts of awards and photos of the team.

Claire almost felt a sadness of sorts as she looked around at all the desks left behind to seemingly rot along with Raccoon City. A picture of Jill's beloved childhood dog, her brother Chris's guitar, a hobby that he'd picked up after the death of their parents just a few years prior.

As she further approached the desk where her brother worked, she noticed that his favorite leather jacket--one that he had bought to match Claire's--had also been left behind.

She picked it up from his desk, her fingers carefully caressing over the design and lettering on the back of the jacket with her thumb.

Suddenly, a heaving groan erupted from an unsearched corner of the room, one that made Claire immediately drop the jacket onto her feet and raise her weapon.

She watched as a man with familiar dark brown hair, tattered, bloody clothes, and skin that had turned to a muddy grey rise up from the ground.

He turned around to face Claire, who recognized him instantly as her missing brother.

"Chris?"

The man breathed heavily, his chocolate-brown eyes--now clouded and foamy-colored, stared into hers with a supposed longing.

"It's me, Claire...I was looking all over for yo-"

Suddenly, the man slumped forward like a ragdoll as he shuffled out a step, and Claire's heart dropped to the pit of her stomach.

No...That's not him...he wouldn't have-

The man then made a retched, guttural sound, shuffling out a leap towards her, pinning the young woman down to the ground.

Claire was shaking, she felt like she was going to be sick. Her eyes were blurry with tears as she attempted to pull her brother, who was much taller and muscular than she was, off of her.

The man's breaths grew into a child-like whimper and Claire opened her eyes.

Heavy tears fell from the undead man's face onto her own.

"S..Sorry...C-Claire"

Claire's eyes widened, she'd never heard one of them speak before, but unfortunately for her, she knew it was her brother's voice.

"L...Love y..ou"

Then, he gnawed savagely at her neck, causing her to scream out in agony. However, Claire, for some reason, didn't feel any pain. Instead, she heard an echo of a man's voice. One that was unlike her brother's.

"-laire"

"Claire!"

...

Claire immediately shot up from where she'd been laying, her breath uneven and her forehead caked in sweat.

Not knowing where she was, she reached for the small butter knife that had been on the end table next to the bed leftover from the takeout the group had gotten the previous night.

"NO! Don't touch me!!", she shouted, pointing the knife defensively at the young man standing in front of her.

"Whoa, easy, Claire!", the man grabbed her wrist fearfully.

Then, like the snap of a finger, Claire came back to reality. The man standing in front of her, his chest heaving with caution, a bandage tightly wrapped around his shoulder, that had come loose from moving around in his sleep, was Leon. The young rookie policeman she'd met in Raccoon City.

Right. She wasn't there anymore. For the time being, she was safe.

"Bad dream?", he asked her. Claire quickly placed the knife back onto the bedside table, just slightly humiliated by her sudden actions.

"Yeah", she croaked out.

Leon simply nodded, "It's okay. I had actually just woken up from one too when-"

"I see", she replied.

Leon glanced behind the woman and chuckled, "At least someone seems to be sleeping well tonight"

Claire turned around and smiled amusedly at Sherry, who was somehow still fast asleep amongst all the chaos.

"I don't blame her. She's had a long day...we all have"

Leon made a noise in agreement.

The room was quiet for a moment before he suddenly spoke again, "Do you, uh..."

"Wanna talk about it?"

Claire thought for a moment before giving him his answer, "Sure"

...

"It was my brother", Claire began as she sat stiffly on the rim of the bathtub.

"He had been in the S.T.A.R.S office after all..."

"And...when I called out to him, he-"

Her voice trembled as she began to feel a lump in her throat.

Looking up at Leon, tears sprung out from her already-wet eyes, "He was one of them"

Leon immediately yanked her into a gentle hug, his burly arms wrapped softly around her shoulders. The two stayed like that for a while, taking in the pure scent of each other and listening to each other's steady breaths.

"I know he's out there somewhere, Claire", Leon finally spoke.

"I hope so...", she replied, her voice muffled by his embrace.

"He is", he muttered out, soft but insistent.

Claire lets go first. Leon doesn't expect it so he holds on, making it look like a "slow dance" type hold.

"Hey, can I ask you something?", she blurts out all of a sudden.

"Yeah?"

"Could you stay and talk with me for a bit. Might, um, help me get my mind off things?"

Leon blinked. She sounded pretty desperate, but he remembered how much his younger self just needed someone to talk to after the death of his parents.

"Sure", he says, finally letting go.

They begin to talk. It starts in slow increments, and then they gradually find things to talk about with each other. They bonded over similarities that they'd had, like losing their parents, for example. Though it would often go back to those "slow increments" after a particularly heavy topic such as their parents.

"Do you think that old mini fridge in there has any beer?", Claire asks, breaking the rather tense silence.

Leon squints playfully, and crosses his arms, "How old are you?"

"19. Doesn't matter though. Besides, I'm sure we could both use a drink after all of this"

Leon opened his mouth to protest, but quickly closed it. He had waited until the perfectly-ripe age of 21 to start drinking, but he also didn't look forward to being teased by Claire for being an innocent goody-two-shoes.

Speaking of Claire, she was back as quickly as she left the room, along with a pack of freshly cold cans of beer in hand.

"Oh wow. I didn't think this place had that decent of an upkeep", Leon said.

"Yeah, well, It's the cheap kind of beer, but who cares"

Geez, how much underage drinking did this girl do?, He thought.

After popping open a cold one or two (and then another), the two chatted about various things. From their lives back home, to things about themselves--their hobbies, their interests, and everything in between. After an hour or two, Claire found herself laying her head on his non-injured shoulder. Claire felt like she was so connected to him in a way she couldn't understand, especially not after a few beers in.

Leon chuckled, "Aww, is someone getting sleepy?"

This made Claire smile, the way he said it felt so intimate to her--but then again, maybe it really was the alcohol.

She looked down at the floor, where her loosely-fit pajama pants covered her feet. She then looked back up, and swiftly kissed his cheek.

Leon looked like a ghost--if a ghost's cheeks were beet red.

"You're a good man, Leon"

A few seconds of silence pass.

"S-Sorry, I really shouldn't have-"

Leon swiveled over before she could finish her sentence and kissed her softly, this time on the lips.

"Mm, I like that a lot", Claire mumbled as the two gazed into each others eyes.

"I like you a lot, Claire", Leon smiled almost goofily.

The two practically bumped faces clumsily as they both kissed each other once more, warm from the alcohol and each other's embrace. They leaned slightly backwards, and the two ended up ragdolling on top of each other into the bathtub.

"OW! careful", Leon muttered through gritted teeth.

"Wouldn't want to wake up Sherry"

Claire looked behind her at the closed door.

"Definitely not. Let's do this", she smirked seductively.

Leon let out a half-drunken giggle before the two began to reel each other back in.

...

Claire wakes up to the sound of someone crying. She lifts up her head, barely even able to open her eyes, and her head is throbbing in pain. A bedsheet had been placed on top of her body, and after a few seconds, she realized that Leon wasn't there either.

Where was Leon? And why was she sleeping in the bathtub? 

Then, reality set in.

Wait...

The last thing Claire remembered was drinking and talking with Leon, and then things began to get a bit fuzzy from there. She remembers his warm embrace, the feeling of his breath against her own. She thinks they may have kissed or even...

No...we couldn't have, could we??

The crying sound starts to register in her head. Sherry. Sherry was crying. 

Wait, why was Sherry crying?

Claire then heard a low voice comforting her quietly, and she could just hardly make out another voice in the room. Then, that registers too, and then she remembers that the TV had been left on overnight.

I hope that won’t cost us anything…

She listened to the voice on the TV for awhile, trying to listen through the CRT static.

The United States military...order...the president...complete decimation...the city

"Complete decimation...", Claire muttered to herself.

She then sits up with a gasp, hurling herself out of the bathtub, her head spinning wildly from the supposed hangover. She swings open the bathroom door, which had been left ajar prior to her getting up.

Leon sat at the edge of the bed, his head hung low. He has his arm wrapped loosely around Sherry, who was sitting beside him and appeared to be inconsolable.

That’s when Claire turned to look at the TV. The news had been switched on, and when she saw what the headline read, she felt as if she were going to be sick.

“Raccoon City Destroyed By U.S Military Amid City-Wide Outbreak”

She raised her shaking hand to her mouth, watching the dark, smoking remains of once was the midwestern metropolis.

”Oh my god…”, Claire sputtered out in the form of a whisper.

There was a deafening moment of silence, but this time, nobody spoke, just watched.

Little did anyone know that the silence would only be the beginning of the end for the trio.

…

November 29, 1998 - 7:54pm

A lot had happened in the nearly two months to the day of the three of them escaping Raccoon City. Spending a good portion of that time hopping from one motel to the next, using a various array of fake names to check in with. They'd had their fair share of pleasant memories together, even while in hiding from the government, but of course, the bad tended to outweigh the good. 

For starters, all three of them continued to be plagued by their fair share of nightmares. That, and the stress of never being able to settle down in one place for months on end was taking it's toll. While Claire had taken after her brother in being the "suffer in silence" type when it came to this type of thing, Sherry had seemed to grow more and more comfortable with her two older companions, as Claire had noticed she'd seemed just slightly happier in recent weeks, but she also knew that could only be because of the brave face they both had to put on for her sake.

Leon, on the other hand seemed to sink deeper and deeper into guilt and depression as time went on.

The truth was, he thought of death, and not just the ones of his many colleagues at the police station, or the innocent civilians of Raccoon City, or even Ada. He thought of what it would be like if he were dead. It plagued his mind constantly. More often than not, he'd find himself staring deeply at the bottle of ibuprofen in the bathroom each time he would go in to take some for his now-bruised and aching wound, or the gun--the same one he used to terminate the undead wandering lost among the ruins of what once was a bustling city--that he'd now kept securely in a drawer on the bedside table. 

He almost felt selfish thinking about it--the sweet release of death. How would Claire and Sherry feel? If he died, would he go to heaven? Or hell? Was there even such a thing?

Quiet, low music from an infomercial on TV sounded as Leon stared into space, watching the unmoving pattern on the ceiling, a bottle of alcohol in hand. Then, the click of the doorknob snapped him out of his thoughts as he quickly hid the open bottle under a large throw pillow.

"We're back!", Claire called out, carrying plastic bags of grocery store food with Sherry skipping in energetically alongside her.

"What'd we get this time?", Leon stood up from the couch, resisting the urge to tip over.

Oof...guess I've had more than I thought...

They looked as if they'd been carrying enough groceries to feed a family of five. Little did Leon know, they may have been going to need it...

"Oh, I know", Claire scoffed playfully.

"Never good to shop when you're hungry, I swear...", she lied right through her teeth, staring down at the less-than-empty pocket of her oversized sweatshirt. 

"Uhhh...I got us stuff to make mini pizzas!", she spoke up, her voice caked in fake enthusiasm, trying to get her mind off of what was to come.

"Oh, nice", Leon muttered, sitting back down on the couch.

Claire's expression fell into a slight grimace, barely looking away from Leon sulking almost pathetically on the couch, "Sherry. Do you mind putting some of those groceries away? Leon and I need to talk"

Leon glanced up at her, his face resembling one of a guilty dog. He hauled himself up off the couch once more, but not before Claire practically yanked his good arm out of it's socket and dragged him towards the bathroom.

He tried playing it off as Claire slammed the door behind them, "Geez, you trying to ruin my other arm too? I mean-"

"Can you at least try to hide it?!"

"Hide what?"

"Don't play dumb!", Claire hissed.

"We've all been suffering through this, it sucks! I get it! But can't you please just...cut the crap and stop acting like you're the only one?!"

Leon's hurt, cerulean eyes shot daggers into Claire, "Last I checked, Claire, I lost all of my colleagues, my fellow officers, everyone in Raccoon City who I was supposed to help and protect, and-"

Now, it was Claire's turn to be hurt, "And who else? Ada?"

"What?! No, this isn't--how do you-"

Her voice grew louder, "Oh please, Leon! Don't think we don't hear you yelling out her name in your sleep every damn night!"

Leon sighed defeatedly, "Look, Claire...me and her were never-"

"Just like how me and you were never? Like that night never seemed to matter to you either, Leon?!"

"Claire...", Leon's voice cracked as if he were about to cry.

"And my brother's still missing. Thought I'd bring it up since that clearly doesn't matter to you either!", she shouted.

Leon stayed silent. Even though he knew that wasn't true.

Claire sighed, "Look. You're going to need to stay strong, may as well start now. We can't hide forever"

He nodded faintly. This time, he knew Claire was right.

She turned around to leave the small, confined motel bathroom--probably the thousandth one in the span of two months, "Oh and by the way..."

"I can tell you've been drinking"

...

November 30, 1998 - 12:58am

Claire shifted anxiously in the large motel bed, listening to the thunderstorm and the gentle snores of her companions.

It was official now. She had to do it. 

A taxi would be arriving in front of the motel in 10 minutes to pick her up. Claire would be heading to the nearest airport. Her destination? Paris, France.

She remembered each word of her brother's letter that she'd found in Raccoon City, word-for-word, vividly. As farfetched as it sounded to her, she was desperate for answers. She also remembered that there was an Umbrella research facility located in Paris as she was slowly piecing together the details of her brother's possible whereabouts. 

That was it. He had to be there.

Quietly and carefully, she slid out of bed and began gathering her belongings.

Changes of clothes, first aid, any weapons she felt would pass airport security. She noticed her red jacket draped against a chair in the corner of the dark room.

No. She should keep that. It will keep her safe.

She let her medium-length reddish-brown hair down out of her ponytail--something she wouldn't typically do. She threw on a thick, hooded rain jacket. Enough to cover the pained expression on her face.

Claire knew this could go terribly. She had trust in Leon that he'd take care of Sherry for her, even if he wasn't the most stable right now.

She needed to do what she had to do either way, but she had a hard time ignoring the sickened feeling inside of her. She hadn't been apart from either of them in months. At best, they were inseparable. At worst, particularly her and Leon, couldn't stand each other.

Then, Claire got an idea. As she was about to head out the door, she noticed a pen and notepad, the establishment's name engraved onto the top of each page.

She needed to leave a note. It would give them closure.

Leon,

I hope you can forgive me, but I had to do what I needed to.

My search for Chris has waited long enough without word from him.

If you are reading this, I am on my way to Paris.

I love you and Sherry very much.

Speaking of Sherry, I am entrusting you with one thing and one thing only.

Keep her safe.

I believe in you, Leon. You're a good man.

We'll meet again.

-Claire 

And with that, like a whisper in the night, she was gone.

The End