So slow to catch on

First topic message reminder :

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.

It had been unlike Jill to leave her guard down this way, but the past week had taken more than a lot out of her. The stress of planning a child's funeral and still struggling to contain Uroboros within her was quickly taking its toll. This had made things all too easy for attacker. The worst part was... Jill had been carrying a wreath she had picked up for on Sarah's tiny coffin when she was struck down. The little girls name spelled out in flowers was quickly soaking in her aunts blood.

Rebecca had smashed the flowers into the pavement as she'd walked away from the other woman. She had executed the attack with far more power than a tiny thing like her should have been able to.
Chris had stayed behind at the funeral home that evening. He'd been there throughout the week, watching over his niece's tiny casket. He hadn't been able to get himself to leave. It was something he would later regret.

Jill and Chris hadn't been on the best of terms since their disagreement at the hospital, but as she felt her life seeping out her wounds, Jill's only thought was of Chris. The good memories far outweighed the bad, but once again... She was dying all alone. The brutality of her attack meant that Chris, Leon and Claire could very well be attending a double funeral.

"Jill!" Leon was running toward the other woman, leaving Claire at the entrance to the hospital. He couldn't see all that well in the darkness but something deep inside him was telling him who and what he was seeing. "Oh god...Claire! Get a doctor! Where's Chris?!"

By the time the doctors got her into the hospital, it was too late. They presumed Jill dead at seven twenty four that evening. They couldn't explain the wounds either... She hadn't been stabbed, it was more like bite marks and fingernails that had ripped at her flesh. The dark haired woman's body was taken to the morgue to be prepared for an autopsy almost right away, that was how bad the wounds had been. It was down in this cold room that her loved ones would have to say their final goodbyes.

Chris was solemn as he stood guard over his partner's body. Like his sister he seemed to have shut down. Claire of all people would remember these actions from the last time something had happened to Jill.

"It never ends... Does it?" Claire asked Leon quietly, the two of them still keeping a vigil by their son's bedside. "Jill was always so strong... So in control of everything, how could this have happened to her?"

Down in the morgue, Jill could easily have been sleeping, where it not for the marks that marred her now cool flesh. Despite her being pronounced dead, her skin wasn't actually as cold as a corpses should have been.

Leon shook his head. "I always heard that statement, 'No rest for the wicked'. But...what does that say for us? Are we really the bad guys? Are we really the ones doing wrong?"

"I don't think Chris is going to get over this." Caire whispered fearfully, not realising he had thought the same thing about her. "When I was younger... I always assumed they would one day get married, have a football team of kids, you know... Normal stuff."

"I always thought that of myself." Leon whispered, his shoulders slumping somewhat. "I remember how Chris was both times he lost Jill. I think you're right. I think this time he won't be coming back."

Claire felt the sting of that barb Leon had unintentionally tossed her way. "Well... I'm sorry you got stuck with the Redfield who didn't believe in marriage." She replied, feeling she had deeply disappointed Leon by thinking they didn't need a piece of paper to tell the world how they felt about each other.

Leon said nothing to this as he watched their son sleeping peacefully. "What are we going to do with them?" He asked, meaning their son as well as Chris.

"Maybe our son will help his uncle realise he still has a meaningful life worth living?" Claire suggested softly. "Chris would have made a great father..."

Leon nodded, though a dark part of himself was telling him that she was saying something much different. After all, he'd already failed one of his children.

"He'll need my help with funeral arrangements... I can't ask him to do it alone." Claire whispered, seemingly on autopilot now, and she had yet to even bury her own child. "Then we have to find who did this to Sarah, and to Jill."

"We know who did it." Leon all but growled. "Claire...you need to name our son. I think he deserves one just as much as his sister."

Claire's dark circled eyes narrowed at Leon, disliking his tone as much as the knowledge that he had been keeping the identity of her daughters murderer from her. "Who did it!" She demanded, so enraged she could barely think straight, let alone name their son.

"You're not going to name him after me?" Chris asked, joining them in the NICU for the first time that day. He looked like living hell but his did his best to smile at his sister.

"Chris..." Claire's anger quelled slightly when she heard her big brothers voice and turned to look at him. Without another word she ran to him and embraced him tightly.

Chris simply clung to his sister for what seemed like eternity. "It's okay." He whispered to her. "I'm here now. I'm not leaving you alone."

Claire's own fingers dug into Chris tightly, as though subconsciously daring him to just try and leave her. "I'm so sorry about Jill." She gasped, barely choking back a sob. "I promise you right now, we will make whoever did this to Jill and Sarah pay."

"Don't talk about it." Chris said as if it were all that simple. "Let's just take a look at that nephew of mine. Are they letting you hold him yet?"

Claire shook her head as she took a step away from her brother to let him get a better look at his nephew. "They said he's still weak, and I don't want to risk any infection getting to him." She replied, holding up her bandaged wrist for Chris to see. "The wound won't heal..." She whispered. "It just keeps weeping, and bleeds every time I try to clean it."

"Have you been to see a doctor?" Chris asked, holding her arm as he looked the wound over. "Claire...this worries me."

"I don't want to leave Jack's side." Claire replied, not even realising she had just named her son. "I can't stand to think of something happening when I'm not there."

"That's why you got Leon and me isn't it?" Chris asked with a soft laugh, though the joy of it never reached his eyes. "What do you think we're good for? Toadstools?"

Claire was already shaking her head. "Sorry Chris, I'm not leaving until I know he's okay." She told her brother firmly. "Would you do any different?"

"Don't make me knock you out, kiddo." Chris warned her, crossing his arms over his chest. He gazed at Leon over her head and the other man nodded.

"You don't scare me, old man." Claire replied, mimicking her brother by folding her arms across her own chest.

"Did you really just go there?" Chris asked, raising an eyebrow. He couldn't help it, he was grinning widely.
Leon felt suddenly lost. He couldn't tell whether these two were serious or not.