Precious memories

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Wesker had gotten Rebecca back to the safety of the tiny facility where he had taken Claire and Leon's newborn children, it was also the place that Chris and Jill's dark haired daughter currently called home. However, for now wesker had left all three children in the care of someone else, his attention solely on easing Rebecca's pain and meding the wound he himself had given her.

Ruby nodded, hesitantly placing her hand in Sherry's. "He won't be able to track us like he used to, he's old as well as human now." Ruby looked more like her mother than she would know as they moved through the building. Wesker had put her in a battle suit almost identical to Jill's, however, it served a purpose Aruba was unaware of; it had many tiny sensors that pressed against her skin, monitoring her condition... And her location.

Wesker continued to pace, knowing he could no longer be as careless as he usually was when pursuing someone. As a human, he would be much slower and have to rely upon dulled senses far less than the technology in the building around him.

Rebecca was no more aware of this than Ruby or Sherry. She found the two young women in the hall and took nearly twenty minutes explaining to them that they could trust her.
Though Sherry didn't want to, she knew they had no choice. If they wanted to get away they would have to trust someone it was insane to trust.
Soon enough the three of them were far away from the island labs and standing on the outskirts of a very large city. Sherry wasn't about to tell them this was where Ark lived.

Ruby was apprehensive of everyone and everything around her, having never been outside of the island facility before. To her, all these news faces and sounds were yet more ways of being hurt. As it was, she gripped Sherry's hand tightly, refusing to let go. It surprised her to find that every so often her thoughts drifted to Dave, and to the man in the tank in the basement. What was wesker going to do to them without the two girls there to hold his attention?

Sherry brought them to Ark's door, not sure what else to do. It was near midnight nearly two weeks since she'd last seen him. Gingerly she knocked on the door, her stomach churning.
Rebecca sat in the rental car and shook her head. "There's no one here." She muttered. "Sherry never did have a fucking lick of sense."

Ark looked like hell when he opened the door. His grey eyes had dark shadows beneath them, and it looked like he had a split lip. His search for Sherry had gotten him asking questions people didn't want to hear.For a moment he simply stared at the young woman on his doorstep, not sure it was really her.

"And you do?" Ruby shot back. "How can she have sense, when you experimented on her like some animal for however many years? Would you have eventually gotten around to doing that to me too?"

Sherry couldn't help herself. She threw her arms around Ark's neck and held onto him tightly. Though she didn't want him to touch her back, she needed to feel his powerful form against hers.
Rebecca frowned at Ruby in the light of the street lamp. "Sweetie...there's alot about this that you don't understand."

Ark hesitated somewhat, remembering the number of times Sherry had recoiled from his touch. "Sherry... What happened to you?" He breathed at last, his arms circling around her, but not so tight as she would feel threatened.
"Because I'm just a means to an end, right?" Ruby asked darkly. "Another one of Albert Wesker's freak creations." The young woman would have felt differently, had she known just how much her parents truly would have loved her, had she known she was alive.

The gentleness of Ark's voice was enough to have Sherry in tears. The touch that she was so sure she didn't want felt like the only thing anchoring her to reality. She couldn't even answer. All she could do was bury her face against his chest and sob.
"That has nothing to do with it and you're not a freak creation." Rebecca snapped, scowling as she heard Sherry begin to cry. "Stupid girl." She muttered.

One of Ark's arms was a little firmly around Sherry as she began to sob, while he lifted his other hand to gently stroke her golden hair. "It's okay, you're safe now." He assured her, not for a second thinking she had brought company.
As she watched Ark and Sherry, Ruby couldn't deny that she was somewhat jealous. "It must be nice to have someone to hold you like that." She commented, then appeared to lose all outward interest in the situation.

"Ark...I need help.." Sherry managed, all but blubbering as her shoulders began to shake.
"He's faking it." Rebecca hissed bitterly. "That's all any of them do. He wants to fuck her and when he gets done he'll kick her to the curb."

Ark pulled Sherry away from him to gently hold her at arms length so he could look into her face. "Is someone hunting you?" He asked, always thinking the worst. He didn't realise how right he was this time.
Ruby was oddly silent when Rebecca snarled this. She was leaning against the street light, simply staring at her reflection in the darkened window of a store a few feet away. Ruby had seen how happy Sherry was to see Ark, and she knew then... Her friend would chose him, she wouldn't have any desire to stay with Ruby instead. It was something the younger woman couldn't understand, having obviously never been in love before.

"I have people here...that need somewhere to stay...can we...stay with you until they get somewhere else?" Sherry asked, plowing into her question rather than answer his.

Ark obviously didn't like this question. "Who are they?" He asked thinly. "And do you really trust them?"

"One of them." Sherry whispered, her eyes dropping to the pavement. It surprised her to realize that it had begun to snow. It had been many years since she'd seen snow. All at once she lost interest in Ark and tilted her head back, grinning at the flake that landed on her nose.

"Sherry, you are avoiding my questions... Again." Ark replied wearily, proving he had slept very little recently. Despite this, even he couldn't really get mad whenever he saw Sherry enjoying such simply pleasures.

"Huh?" Sherry turned her head, blinking in the light of the front porch as if she'd forgotten he was even standing there. "Oh yeah. No...they're fine for a night or two...I'll leave with them if you want..."

The look of hurt on Ark's face was quite obvious. "You... Want to leave?" He asked. "Sherry, if you trust these people, they can stay... But more than anything, I want you to stay right here with me."

Sherry looked at Ark as if he'd grown a third arm. "You want me to stay..." She began, glancing back at Ruby. "Are you sure about that? What about when you change your mind?"

"I won't." Ark replied firmly, gently tilting Sherry's chin up. "I want you to stay here with me for good, for a long time after these people of yours leave."
Ruby's heightened senses felt Sherry's gaze in her, and also heard Ark's words. Sherry had Ark, and she already knew Rebecca would go crawling back to Wesker. Yet further proof that she really was all alone.

"Don't." Sherry jerked her head away from Ark and put distance between them. "Never say things you don't mean." She snapped, turning to run down the driveway to let Rebecca and Ruby know that they could stay.

It was in Ruby's head to simply turn around and run in the opposite direction. She just couldn't make anyone understand what it was she was so very afraid of; being all alone.

"Ark says we can stay." Sherry said with a wide, relieved grin. She didn't even look at Rebecca as she spoke. "Come on. He's really tired so we need to get in and get quiet."

"No, Ark said you can stay. Forever. We are only permitted a night or two." Ruby replied icily.

Sherry glanced back uncertainly at Ark and then back to Ruby. "Everything will be okay." She promised, taking the younger woman's hand and pulling her towards the front door. "I'll let you have the couch in his game room. It's so fluffy and warm...do you see all this snow?! Isn't it beautiful?"

Ruby said very little even when they were inside Ark's home. It seemed she disliked him intensely, and he felt just the same way. There was something about ruby that just seemed to rub Ark the wrong way. It was almost like he somehow thought she was in love with his Sherry.

Sherry fixed the bed for Ruby in the game room and the bed in the guest room for Rebecca. When she was done, she realized she hadn't accounted where she herself was going to sleep.

Ruby didn't even attempt to sleep, nor did she sit on the bed Sherry had made up for her. She was sat atop Ark's pool table, staring off at nothing in particular. If anyone would be able to hear her thoughts right then, they would find the lonely young woman asking why she was alive at all.

"You can have my bed, if you like." Ark told Sherry when he saw her simply sitting in the living room. "It's not like I've used it myself recently, so someone should get the benefit of it." He added as he sat down beside her.

"Why haven't you been sleeping?" Sherry asked, lifting her head to watch Ark in the darkness. "You can't keep doing that to yourself. You're going to get sick."

"Do you really care?" Ark found himself asking. "Sherry... Why won't you tell me where you've been? Or why that girl you're with... Looks so much like Jill Valentine? And for another thing, why is Rebecca Chambers tagging along?"

Sherry blew out a long breath, trying to get past the fact that Ark had hurt her feelings. "Of course I care." She whispered. "And...the thing with that...It's hard to explain...I wish you'd give me some time to come up with a decent answer."