The bonds of family

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Claire Redfield was sat at her desk, chewing on her pen as she stared at the faded photo in a battered frame. She had just gotten back from Rio on business and she had already thrown herself into another case. The photo she kept safe was taken such a long time ago, Sherry was still just a little girl in it, and Leon... Well he was no different. They had all been so happy when they made it out of Raccoon City, despite everything that had happened. It was years later and Claire still sometimes woke with nightmares of that place, and her time spent at Rockfort Island. She had barely spoken of it to Leon when she had made it home, but she figured Chris probably told him everything anyway. That was when she had drifted apart from the people she called family. They all seemed to have their mission and she had always just been 'Chris Redfield's baby sister'. Claire was much like her brother, in the aspect that she just wanted to help people. A shame Chris thought she was still that nineteen year old student. They still spoke on the phone often, had dinner together at the holidays, but pinning big brother down long enough for anything more seemed harder work than finding all traces of Umbrella and making them disappear for good. The young woman shook her head to try and clear the melancholy away, then pushed the dark red hair from her eyes. "Come on Claire..." She scolded herself, laughing quietly when she thought of the fun her friends had made in the past when she talked to herself.

This news only seemed to break Jill further, prompting her to suddenly lean over the edge of the bed and throw up.
"Good job." Parker snorted, moving to the table on the other side of the bed to pour Jill some water.

"I am her family." Wesker told the doctor thinly, though he knew Ramona would hate him for it. Thirty hours wasn't long enough to find a fox for her, and find Jake and win him over.

"I...was trying to...tell her something nice..." Carlos said, feeling lost all of a sudden. "I'm sorry." I wasn't trying to make it worse."

"I'm sorry for your loss." The doctor said, patting Wesker on the shoulder. "I'll recommend some excellent funeral homes for you."

Jill was trying to regain control of herself, and was again lay down. It was little wonder Chris couldn't wait to get away from her; she killed his sister. Leon would probably come to the same realisation too.

Wesker's figners shot out and he grabbed the doctor around the throat. "Funeral homes are for the dead. My wife is very much alive." He snarled.

"Parker..." Rebecca made the unfortunate mistake of poking her head in to see her husband sitting beside Jill and stroking her hair. She didn't even finish what she was going to say, she just let the door slam shut behind her. 

The doctor beat on Wesker's arm, unable to catch his breatH. Ramona simply watched, her green eyes dark with the cruel streak that connected them.

Parker groaned quietly and pushed to his feet. "If anyone other than Chris can take care of her, it's you." He told Carlos before chasing after his wife. "Rebecca!" He shouted. "What has gotten into you?!"

"I'm sorry." Jill breathed once she and Carlos were alone. "I should have called you more..." She confessed, feeling she needed to make some kind of amends. "I shouldn't have just left like I did."

Wesker let the doctor go and returned to Ramona. "Come on. I don't think this place is what is best for you." He breathed, the gears in his head working over time.

RebeCCA didn't answer him as she marched to their car, too proud to tell him she didn't have her keys. she supposed she deserved this fate after what she did. 

"it's okay." Carlos laughed softly. He took Parkers place beside her on the bed. "I've been keeping an eye on you."

"you called me your wife...can you imagine?" Ramona whispered, not getting off the bed though she desperately wanted to.

Parker stood a few feet away and watched Rebecca act like she was simply looking for her keys in her pocket now she didn't have her purse. "Which part pissed you off? Me showing concern for a friend, or someone else being in the room with us? Or, perhaps its was realising that your jealousy has no place when Claire's lifeless body lies in the morgue while Leon cries, telling her all about the house he had bought for her?!" He roared, having finally had enough.

"You have?" Jill asked, not sure that was such a good thing. "Carlos..." She sighed quietly, knowing he had seen her at her lowest then.

Wesker reached down and lifted Ramona up into his arms. "Quite often." He replied simply. "I am taking you away from here, I need time to fix what was done to you, and that's not something they can give us."

"You act like that's something I didn't already know." Rebecca said, wondering when she'd gotten so cold. She'd begun to sound just like her former captain. She gave up pretending to search for the keys and shoved her hands in the pockets of her jeans. "give me the keys." She said after a moment. "I'm going home. Stay with Jill. I don't care anymore."

Carlos smiled. "You're not the only one who's had a bad day, miha. I just wish it was me you wanted to bring you out of it. But...I'm no Redfield and I never will be."

Ramona rested her head on Wesker's shoulder. "Force Rebecca to fix it." She whispered. "She did it...make her undo it. Take something precious from her and threaten to destroy it if she doesnt. Maybe that will make her work faster..."

"Did you ever care?" Parker asked quietly. "Why did you even marry me? I'm not your marine, and I'm not naive enough to think you ever thought about me the way you did him."

Another tear dripped down Jill's cheek when Carlos breathed those words. "Is there something wrong with me?" She asked. "The way he treats me... And I still can't give up on him? He walked away from me, doesn't love me... So why do I continue to punish myself? What does that say about me?"

"The heartless mouse cares about nothing, not now." Wesker breathed. "I took her marine, I'm the reason she did this to you, Ramona."

Rebecca knew why she'd been pushing Parker away and she braced herself for her plan to finally come to fruition. She'd never meant to fall for him. The first time she'd met him she was still mourning Billy. But he'd  refused to let her push him away then, he had wanted her so badly. She'd foolishly let him into her heart, fallen in love with him and once she realized it she knew there was only once thing to do to save his life...
"Yeah." she breathed, her head down and staring at the parking lot. "You're right."

"He walked away because the fool thought he would kill you." Carlos snorted. "where is the Jill that would give him a good punch in the nose like he deserves?"

"I think you're wrong, my love." Ramona said, gesturing him to look across the parking lot where husband and wife stood in painful silence. "I think she moved on. Trust me on this."

Parker hadn't been expecting this admission from his wife. "That's why you punish me for my friendship with Jill? Because you would have screwed around with Billy if he came back now?"

"He left her at the side of that road." Jill whispered, staring out the window now. "I asked him to start a family with me Carlos, was that really such a terrible thing?" There was a world weary sigh from the dark haired woman before she spoke again. "I was pregnant when I went to that damn ship looking for him... I lost the baby, he never even knew."

"The Italian?" Weaker snorted. "Marriage of convenience. A woman like her always needs someone to take care of her."

Rebecca jerked her hands from her pockets and began to wring them tightly as she nodded her head, refusing to look at Parker. It had to be this way. Especially now that Wesker was so close and knew what she had done. "You were just a thing to get me through until he came back." She whispered, her eyes burning. 

"For god sake don't tell the man." Carlos said, shaking his head. "He thinks he hasa Midas touch of death as it is. For what it's worth...I'm sorry. It should have been me you went home with. Not him."

"No, Albert. Look." Ramona pressed. "See the way she's wringing her hands? I'll bet you can sense that she's about to cry. That's not convenience. That's love. If you want her to fix this..nab the Italian and torture the shit out of him. See if I'm not right..."

Parker nodded his head, finding some kind of solace in the fact that Rebecca had at least confirmed his fear for him. "I'll move my stuff out as soon as Jill is in the clear." He whispered.

Jill continued to stare out the window, thinking about the first time she had met Chris. "He told me I couldn't shoot for shit." She murmured, recalling how she had been getting in some target practice before she met the whole team, and Chris had happened to come down there too. "I'm sorry too, Carlos. If we had done a better job, if we had gotten people to believe what happened at the mansion... Maybe you wouldn't have been dragged into this hell too."

Wesker laughed quietly. "My bloodthirsty little stray." He mused. "I may just do that anyway, even send her to footage of him calling her name and begging for his worthless life."

"Of course you'll wait until then." Rebecca mumbled, holding her hand out for the keys. "I'll just stay at the labs until you're gone." Hot tears were sliding down her cheeks and she was trying hard not to let him see. 

"No, I'd have been dead. Shot in front of a firing squad for murdering a man that raped my sister." Carlos snorted. "It's a terrible thing to say, Jill but you guys did me a favor."

"Can I watch?" Ramona breathed hoping to distract herself from the pain that was eating her alive.

"Not that I need to explain myself anymore, but Jill is my friend. She just had surgery and lost someone she thought of as a sister!" Parker growled, tossing the keys childishly at Rebecca's feet. "Go be a bitch in your lab if it makes you happy! Something has to!"

"I'm sorry." Jill found herself saying that a lot to Carlos lately. "It can't understand what happened to Claire... She was the strongest person I know, it's those damn Redfield genes."

Wesker smiled and nodded. "Of course, you can slide the first knife between his ribs, if it pleases you?" He replied.

"Go back to Jill." Rebecca said woodenly. She bent to pick up the keys, holding her breath to keep from sobbing out loud. "Everyone runs back to her sooner or later." She closed her eyes, watching his boots as he stomped back toward the hospital. "It's...for your own good." She whispered. "I love you enough to do this for you..." 

Carlos nodded. "They're too hard headed to do things the way normal people would." He agreed. "I'm sorry about her, Jill. I know you loved her like a daughter." He told her, taking a cool rag and wiping her face with it. 

Ramona gave Wesker a wicked smile. "It would please me very much." She purred, "Just...hurry...We don't have much time..."

Jill closed her eyes, wondering what horror fate would force on her next. "I'm worried Chris will do something stupid. Will you and Parker watch out for him?"

Wesker took Ramona out to the car they had used to drive here, telling her not to leave the vehicle for any reason. That said, he returned to the other side of the Parker lot in the direction Parker had left. The younger man would never make it back to Jill, nor would anyone else see him again that night.

"If I didn't love you, I would turn you down in a heartbeat." Carlos said, though he was smiling at her. "Chris hasn't been that friendly. He's even been sabataging your friend Parker's marriage. Or making it worse than it was... You sure you want me to save him?"

Rebecca didn't even consider that something might have been wrong. She expected Parker to stay with Jill until she was well and didn't expect him home. It was for this reason she collapsed on the bed she'd been sharing with him and cried herself to sleep. She had no way of knowing what had become of her husband.

"He may hate me, but I don't want him dead." Jill whispered. Every time Carlos told her he loved her, it was like a stab in Jill's chest. There had been so many times when she could feel herself falling for him. Every time Chris crushed her, she found herself thinking about Carlos. Then Chris would do something that swept her off her feet and made her forgive everything. It left Jill feeling like a horrible person.

Parker would wake to find himself locked inside a rather small cell. He was suffering an excruciating headache that left him sensitive to the lights that were flicking in the ceiling.

"He doesn't hate you. That's the problem." Carlos whispered. 
Leon entered Jill's room, his face pale. He was shaking violently. "C-Claire's body is gone... They don't know where she's gone. No one can find her...."

Ramona was sitting on the other side of the bars, looking like the cat that had gotten the cream. "Well hello there, hero." She purred. "I'm confused. Is it Jill's or Rebecca's?"

"Gone?" Jill echoed, her voice shaking slightly. "What have the doctors said? Was she not moved to somewhere else?" She added, though deep down she knew it hadn't happened. This was too strange and almost... Convenient. 

Parker openly snarled at Ramona. "Don't you even talk about my wife!" He hissed, though didn't confirm a name.

"It's a mad house down there." Leon said, shaking his head. He looked like he was about to throw up. "Theyve lost a body. Chris is there waving a gun. He's lost his mind, Jill." Leon was blinking hard and fast trying hard to keep from losing his as well. 

"You too, huh?" Ramona laughed, smoothing her hands down the legs of her pants suit. "And here I thought it was just the meat heads. You're a bit delusional, aren't you though? Miss Valentine belongs to another." Ramona had forced her to shower and get dressed even though it was the last thing she'd wanted to do. However, if she was going to die, she wasn't going to do it looking like she had In that hospital bed.

Jill was sitting up again, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, determined that she would be the one to fix everything.

"Jill has always belonged to Chris, anyone with eyes in their head can see that." Parker replied. "Not that it means anything to me, just my wife." He added. "Perhaps she is the one with the obsession for Jill, hmm?"

"Not this time." Carlos said, already putting a hand to her chest. "You will have to trust me as you did before. Just...once more. Okay?" He pressed, kneeling so that she was forced to look at him. 

Ramona smiled. "So it is easy it get you to sing. Jessica didn't lie after all. Although...she did say that your passionate groans are better. Perhaps I should pass that part along to your wife?" The slender woman got to her feet and moved closer to the cage. "You really are blind, aren't you. Typical man. That was the marine's problem too."

Jill looked down at Carlos, her cobalt eyes betraying just how hard it was for her sit by and do nothing. Having just had major surgery didn't seem to mean anything to her. "I've always trusted you Carlos, you know that."

"Marine?" Parker was fighting the nausea he was suffering to move closer to the bars himself. "I never hid what Jessica and I got up to either."

Carlos shook his head. "You don't trust anyone with Chris Redfield." he chuckled. 
"And you shouldnt." Leon grumbled. "The soN of a bit cheaper is the reason Claire is dead. I should have shot him myself!"

"Right...you knew him as Billy." Ramona said, tapping her nails on the bars because she knew it would make the headache worse. "But you did hide the night you and Jessica said goodbye...what did she call it? For old times sake? And you hadn't even been married a month. Parker...you are a bad boy it seems...no wonder Rebecca loves you." She purred.

Jill had been about to defend the statement Carlos had just made when she lifted her gaze to Leon. Since the moment the awful news had been broken to her, she had been waiting for the line to be drawn that would set Leon and Chris on opposite sides. "Leon... We need more information before we start assigning blame. But for now, if you want to blame someone, blame me. I should have been more careful, I should never have gotten myself shot in the first place."

Parker's eyes betrayed him just as Jill's always did. It was clear he thought no one had known anything about that night with Jessica. "Rebecca doesn't love me." He corrected Ramona a moment later. "Everyone knows that."

Chris entered then, basically shoving Leon and Carlos aside to get to Jill. He dropped to his knees in front of her and rested his face on her knees. He sobbed openly,  his shoulders shaking.  

"Correction. You know that." Ramona said with a wicked smile. "She saw you that night, you know. She called my, crying. She said she probably deserved it."

Jill could feel herself about to fall apart and quickly asked Carlos and Leon if they could leave them alone for a little while. Her fingers were already threading through Chris' hair, something she had done a thousand times but never did she think it would be for this reason.

"She called you?" Parker asked uncertainly. "Why would she do that?" He added, trying to think who Rebecca would call in a case like this. He thought perhaps Claire, but then she and Rebecca had never been all that close. Claire was too much like her brother.

"I'm sorry." Chris choked on the words, not knowing what else to say. He couldn't meet her eyes, still feeling defeated and lost. 

"Don't you worry about that, handsome." Ramona purred, glancing over to see the yellow eyes watching them in the darkness. "Just know that your betrayal is far worse the your wife's ever was. I hope it was worth it."