Thicker than Water

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Alex Chambers stood on the helicopter landing pad his fingers pressed to his forehead to block out the morning sun. He was dancing from one foot to the other, unable to hide his excitement.
"I see them!" He shouted back to his mother, who was standing near the entrance with a medical team. None of them knew what kind of shape their heroes would return to them in but Alex didn't seem to care. Already he was hopping up and down waving at the chopper as it drew closer. He cheered when Chris Redfield waved to him and repeated the action when Jill Valentine did the same. But as the helicopter touched down his smile began to fade. Not everyone he'd hoped to see was stepping out.
"What happened?" Rebecca Chambers soon came to stand beside her son, her lips set in a thin line as she looked from Chris to Jill. "Where is Parker?" She'd done her best to keep herself from saying this man's name first but she couldn't seem to help herself. "Where's Jessica?" She added, hoping this would make for a decent cover up.

"You're the best cattle prod I know." Rebecca laughed softly, her breath catching when she saw a tow headed boy making his way toward them from the mansion. "Parker..." She breathed, clinging to him for fear that she was seeing something that wasn't there.

"I hope that wasn't you calling me mean." Parker chuckled, picking his way through the small rocks until they were back on dry land again. He was searching for a blanket when Rebecca breathed his name.

"Hey, dad." Alex was standing before them, gaunt and rather tired looking. The dark circles under his eyes would prove that Spencer had been less than kind to him.

"Alex?!" Parker practically threw the blanket at Rebecca before rushing to his son and throwing his arms around him. "Where were you?"

"Here." Alex whispered, returning the hug only slightly. "I've been here."
Rebecca too forwent the blanket to cling to her son, holding tightly to both of them as best she could.

Chris watched this happy reunion for a long and painful moment before he threw his head back and howled.

"how did you escape?' Parker breathed, still clinging to the thought that Alex had been taken against his will. "Chris came looking for you... Did you see him?" Rebecca's husband heard Chris howl in agony, not knowing that Jill had been carrying the other man's child when she had plummeted to an unknown fate.

"I don't want to talk about it." Alex whispered, covering his ears at the agonized howl. "I just...I want to go home." He confessed, swaying where he stood.
"Parker, go get Chris." Rebecca pleaded, helping her son keep his feet. She slid something into the other man's hand. "It's the only way we're going to get him out of here without him dying too. Jill wouldn't want that."

Parker nodded. He didn't even give the other man chance to point a gun at him before he injected him with the sedative Rebecca had pushed into his palm. He knew Chris would despise him for it when he woke up, but Rebecca was right; the last thing Jill would have wanted was for Chris to die too.

Alex woke bathed in sweat. His scream of terror filled the small medical room and echoed back to him. There was that dream again. The one where he saw his father...the man's cruel eyes all but glowing red. He barely made it out of the bed before he was wretching in the trash can.

Chris had completely shut down. Even without knowing it Wesker had finally broken the other man. He was simply sitting in another room in the medical ward, staring at the wall. It was gone. It was all gone. The life he'd finally allowed himself to have was shadows and dust.

Parker hadn't slept since his son had returned. He was never far away, and as such heard the boys scream. It was as Alex wretched over the trash can that Parker came bursting into the room. "Hey, kiddo, you need your mom to give you something to sop you being sick?" He asked gently.

Jill's life wasn't much better right then either. She had women briefly, only to be greeted by excruciating pain. The fall had shattered several of the vertebra in her spine, punctured a lung, broken both her legs and dislocated her left shoulder. In a strange sense... Wesker had saved her life, as she would not have survived in the water long in that condition.

"No." Alex groaned, laying on his side on the cool floor. He hadn't really eaten anything since returning either and his mother was threating to give him something for that too. A week had passed and all he could do was remember and worry.

"You know... You can tell me if he did something to you." Parker had intended to lead up to that point with a little more tact, but as usual, it simply came out wrong. "Your mom missed you, and we're both so happy to have you home again." He added.

"Can we got to the flea market tomorrow...like we used to?" Alex asked, glad when his father came to sit beside him on the floor. He crawled into the elder man's lap and simply held onto him for dear life. "I'm sorry for what I let happen to Jill."

"You didn't let anything happen to her." Parker assured his son gently as he held him. "Jill was a big girl, she was accountable for her own actions."

"Tell that to Chris." Alex whispered. "I can't believe Wesker kill Spencer." He added after a long moment. "He was the only one who knew. He understood me because...Mom didn't even know me as well as he did." He added, his mind playing over the scene between his father and the old man. He had known them and understood them only because they were both a part of him.
"Wesker thinks he's a god now. There's not going to be any stopping him...if he's still alive." He finished.

"Wesker isn't alive." Parker told his son firmly, if only to quash any notion he may have had of searching for him at a later date. "Your mom and I want to understand you too, Alex. Will you at least give us a chance?"

"you can't hope to understand me when you can't understand each other." Alex told him. "I'll make you a deal. If you and mom get closer to each other, I will lay you in."

Parker had to chuckle slightly. "Still trying to fix a problem that isn't there?" He asked. "But very well, I will prove to you that your mother and I are already close, and love each other very much."

Alex raised an eyebrow about this and made a face. It was clear he didn't believe a word of it. "You're not going to have a baby like Jill was." He whispered, thinking this was the only way two adults could be close.

"Well, maybe not right away..." Parker had been about to laugh, until he realised what Alex had actually said. "Wait... Jill? Baby?"

"Yeah. Jill told me the night of the party." Alex whispered, getting to his feet and heading back for the bed. He was so skinny these days that it didn't take him much to get cold. "She was so excited. Then Chris asked her to marry him. I thought my getting out of the way would help but...I guess I ruined everything."

Parker was left reeling by this news. He stared hard at the wall in front of him. "Chris... He never said a word, about getting married or the baby..." Suddenly it was more than Jill's death in his conscience... He had ruined Chris' life and that of their unborn child. Parker tried to snap himself out of it and rose to his feet, sitting on the bed with Alex, wrapping his arms around him to keep him warm. "Please... Will you eat something?"

"I'm not hungry." Alex whispered, resting his head back on Parker's shoulder. "I just want to sleep without dreaming for once. I really hate that part."

Chris was drunk and he was glad for it. He was sprawled on the floor in his hospital room, not caring that he was naked. He didn't really care about anything anymore.

"What do you dream about?" Parker asked gently. "Maybe if you ate something nice, like chocolate pudding, you would have nice dreams?"

Marie was the one to nurse Chris in his current state, but she was different now. She had long since accepted Chris had only ever had eyes for Jill, and truly pitied him for having lost the one he loved. With great difficulty the slender nurse managed to get Chris into his bed, covering him over and beginning to check just how much he had drank by the number of bottles in the room.

Alex shook his head. He could feel Chris' pain as if it were a physical presence and it didn't help his own guilt. "I don't like sweets. Spencer said they would make me weak. I can't afford to be weak anymore."

"Jill?" Chris was barely able to lift his head but he searched for her anyway, wanting nothing more than to be able to hold her again. "Did you call the chaplain?" He breathed, trying to kick off the covers. "We had a deal.."

"Spencer lied to you." Parker told his son. "Sweets are nice, once in a while. Your mom likes them. She says that strawberry bonbons are her favourite. Have you ever tried them?"

"Chris, you need to lay down." Marie told her patient gently, a hand pressing against his shoulder to try and get him to comply.

"You're just saying that because you want me to eat." Alex said, yawning widely. "You can't make me believe that you and my mother actually sat down and talked about Bonbons. In the year before that you guys only talked about old guns and stuff you found at the flea market."

"No. I made a promise. I can't let you down." Chris slurred, pushing to his feet. "Come on." He grasped her wrist and tried to pull her toward the door. "You can't get out of it this time."

"We found bonbons at a flea market once." Parker replied with a serious nod. "Preserved from way back in the Victorian times."

"Chris, please..." Marie pleaded as she tried to wriggle free, not wanting to have to be the one to remind Chris out loud that the woman he loved was dead. "You're not wearing any clothes!"

Alex couldn't help the grin that spread over his lips no more than he could help the giggles. He laughed until his sides hurt and even after that he was hard pressed to stop. He gave a sigh and rested his head back against his pillow. "I'm so glad you are still yourself, dad."

"I can't waste any more time!" Chris cried, yanking open the door and marching into the hall. "We've wasted enough time!"

"And I'm glad our family is back together." Parker breathed, laying down with his son pulled close. It pained him just how thin the boy truly was.

Marie tried to grab for the syringe she had placed on the nightstand, but was too slow as Chris pulled her out into the hall. "Chris, I'm not Jill! Jill is dead!" She finally shouted.