So slow to catch on

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Jill gave Leon a little push, then smiled. "Believe me, these things can last days." She assured him. "Besides, I want the chance to grill you myself."
"You doubt my suitability as a mother?" Claire asked thinly, folding her arms across her chest.

"Go ahead." Wesker responded, rashly calling Leon's bluff. "How would you ever hold your children with bloodstained hands?" He sneered, suddenly lurching forward to pull his body off the knife.

Because Wesker was moving so slowly, Leon was able to let go of the knife and grab Rebecca before the other man could stop him. He had his gun out and pressed to her heart in a second later. "I'm not fucking with you! I will kill her and never think twice! Tell me where they are!"

Wesker was still refusing. "Do it!" He roared, blood spraying past his lips. "Kill your lover's best, and only, friend!"

"Tell me where they are!" Leon howled, his gun shaking in his fingers. "Play your games with Chris and Jill but leave those innocent babies alone!"

"I didn't leave their innocent baby alone, why should you be any different?" Wesker sneered. He had his own gun pulled free now, and he knew his next actions would cause Rebecca to doubt him. He shot his lover through the shoulder. As she was much smaller than Leon, it meant when the bullet went straight through her, it hit the other man in the chest.

Leon barely had time to register the shock of being shot before he fell to his knees, his own blood mixing with the rain. "I won't...stop..." He whispered, the crimson liquid now spilling past his lips. "I'll find them..." That promise made, he fell face first onto the pavement.

Claire would eventually find her extended family all unconscious. When none of them had returned, she had dragged herself from the hospital room, still holding the gun Chris had given her, to seek them out. She saw the shattered window before she saw Chris and Jill, and a moment later she saw Leon lying in a pool of blood on the floor outside.

Wesker was walking out of willpower alone as he carried his lover. For one, he himself was badly injured, but he knew the moment he fell, was the moment he failed Rebecca.

Chris was the first to awake, his eyes snapping open as if he'd been fighting to do so for a long time. "Ruby..." He gasped out. "Jill..." He looked around him, trying to remember where he was or how he'd gotten there. "Claire..."

Claire was no longer indoors. She had made her way outside and was kneeling in the mud, the rain beating down as she cradled Leon's head in her lap, a hand pressed to the wound in his chest. She couldn't even find the breath to cry his name, the shock of everything that had happened finally proving to be too much.

Jill stirred slightly when she heard Chris murmuring names. "Wesker... He was here..." She breathed, her jaw aching like she hadn't thought possible.

"I noticed." Chris grunted as he too managed to sit up. "Goddamn it. What the hell was I thinking...Jill, things are worse than that."

Jill sat up, instantly holding her head as it began to throb. "Rebecca... She left with him, didn't she?" She asked, when a quick glance aroun proved the younger woman wa snow here to be seen.

"He threw her out the window." Chris responded, rubbing his head. "I hope she's dead." He added, ashamed of the dark tone in his voice. "Jill...Wesker said that you were pregnant when you took him out the window..."

Jill frowned at Chris, the look on her face all but declaring him crazy. "No I wasn't." She told him, genuinely believing that the be the truth. "It's wesker, he's just trying to mess with your head." She told Chris gently, her slender fingers reaching out brush his cheek lightly. "Because he made damnm sure I can never get pregnant, he's just trying to taunt us with that fact."

"Jill...not that right now is a great time to argue but...I think Wesker is right...something about the way he said it..." Chris said softly, knowing that Jill was going to punch him in the face sooner or later.

"How... Did he say it?" Jill asked, her voice seeming so very frightened and afraid. Right then, she was too lost and dazed to hit anyone, least of all Chris. "Chris... How could I not remember being pregnant?!" She didn't shout those words at him in anger, it was genuine fear.

"I don't know but...I think we're going to have to look into it." Chris said as he got to his feet and held a hand out for Jill. "Come on. We have to find Leon and Claire...Wesker's still got their babies too."

Jill closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath in a bid to calm herself. "He can't get away with this Chris." She replied at last as she took the hand offered out to her and got to her feet. "And Rebecca..." Her fists were suddenly balling up. She betrayed us all!"

"I'm going to kill her for it." Chris nodded darkly. He moved toward the window just to see if there might be any evidence of where they'd gotten to. Instead what he found was his sister and her boyfriend together in a puddle of rain and blood.

Jill had joined Chris by the window, and didn't think anything of it as she vaulted through the space where the glass should have been to the ground below. Landing on her feet with little more than a thud she was soon by Claire's side. "What happened?" She breathed, but quickly saw the wound Claire was pressing down on. "It's going to be okay. With a little luck the bullet went straight through... Just like last time."

Chris was soon with them, bringing with him a medical team. "Let them do it, Claire." He instructed his sister, gathering her into his arms. "We need to get you back inside too."

Claire clung tightly to her brother, finally letting her sobs escape her. "We don't deserve this!" She shouted. "All we ever did was try to do what was right!"

"I honestly think that's the problem." Chris whispered as they followed the medical team inside.
Hours later they knew nothing of Leon's condition. None of the doctors were so much as talking to them. However, government agents had been swarming the halls for some time.

Claire had seemed to simply shut down when the government agents forcibly kept her from Leon by handcuffing her to the bed she had been told to rest on. Her once vid eyes now stared vacantly ahead of her.
"Chris?" Jill was holding out a cup of disgustingly weak coffee to her partner when she found him sitting in the hall. "Any word on Leon yet?"

Chris shook his head wearily. "Those bastards won't tell me anything. They've even had to handcuff Claire to keep her out of the surgical ward..." He took the coffee but did little more than stare down at it. "This is all my fault...I should never have brought Rebecca here..."

"This wasn't your fault, Chris." Jill breathed as she sat down next to him. "I should have fought harder... I should have killed him every time I was close enough." She added. "But mostly... I should have come with you when you freed me. Maybe then we could have been certain who we were actually stopping."

"So are we actually thinking clones?" Chris asked, jabbing his finger into the coffee. The pain actually made him feel something other than guilt. It was almost strange. "If that's the case then how many are there?"

Jill her head, gently taking the coffee back from Chris when she saw him push his finger into it and keep it there. "There could be countless many. You saw all those capsules in the underground facility... What if he used them to mature any number of clones?"

Once his hands were free Chris buried his face in them. "Can you imagine..." He breathed, his shoulders shaking. "We'll never be free of him..."

Jill was right there to wrap her arms around Chris, her fingers gently stroking through his hair. "Leon is going to be fine." She breathed. "And once we know he's okay, you and I are going to reclaim our nice and nephew. That's all we need to think about right now."

"It's hard to put that into perspective." Chris confessed. "Everything seems so hopeless right now. I'm ashamed of myself for thinking this way but...what else can I do?"