Means to an End

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Parker smiled at Chris slightly, patting him on the shoulder. "For what it's worth... I'm sorry too. I was so obsessed with finding Alex... I didn't stop to see the signs. I should have found out Jill was pregnant... Had I known that..." He paused and ran his fingers through his hair. "I do blame myself for what happened to her."

Chris never responded to this. As soon as they were inside the building he muttered something about needing to get Parker certified and left the other man to navigate the holding cells alone.
Jessica, it seemed, had been waiting all day and half the night for him. She visibly brightened when he was let into her cell. "Parker!" She gushed, leaping to her feet to throw her arms around him. "I knew you wouldn't let me down!"

"She's my daughter." Chris whispered, not sure how to explain this. "We're going to have to get you a wheel chair, aren't we?"

"If anyone it was mine." Rebecca explained, nodding at the girl as she took the gloves from her. "I should never have let them know that I remembered. I should have just...let him go." She sighed.

"Daughter? How? That kid looks easily about twelve!" Parker choked, finding this news a little dumbfounding.

"It's hard to let go of someone you love." Violet replied, her gaze never quite meeting Rebecca's. It was odd, that here, in this pace, where she had just found both her parents... The dark haired girl was thinking of Sophie. Of course, this was only so she didn't remind herself how much she truly wished Alex was there to help her make sense of what was going on.

"All I have to say is Wesker and it should explain everything." Chris said softly. "Tell me Jill is okay. Was she all right when you last saw her?"

"But...when you're faced with things like this...maybe it's for the best." Rebecca whispered, shoving her hair over her shoulder as she shoved up Claire's shirt to look for the wound.

Parker nodded his head. "Jill was more than fine... She was actually hunting those things down, not just taking out the ones that were close by."

"Being alone is best?" Violet asked uncertainly, wishing she understood the world the way Alex had.

"Ever feel like everyone else is changing and...you're staying the same?" Chris asked as he shoved open the door to Parker's room with his shoulder.

"I don't know. Sometimes I think so." Rebecca admitted. "But...you're just a little girl. It's not fair for me to make you listen to my twisted way of seeing things."

Parker nodded in firm agreement. "I feel the same about Rebecca... She just keeps getting stronger, more capable, and me..." He snorted quietly. "I just keep holding her back."

Violet's left eyes twitched slightly as Rebecca said this. "You shouldn't judge me on either my tender years, or my small size." She warned the other woman darkly.

"Is she?" Chris asked. "It doesn't seem that way to me. It's like she's destroying herself from the inside out. Like...maybe she's finally managed to pull her own heart out. I don't know how you lived with it."

Rebecca smiled at this and nodded. "That's fair. You sound like my son. Even as a baby he wasn't about to let anyone call him weak."

"That's what you see when you look at her?" Parker whispered, truly wounded by this thought.

Violet's small fists balled up tightly when Rebecca used that word; weak. However, before she could respond, a lone zombie shuffled towards Rebecca. It would take mere seconds for the slender doctor to realise Violet was less, or perhaps more, than human.

Chris nodded. "I've seen it for years. When we left Raccoon city...she was a shell. I don't know if she's ever really gotten past that. After what Wesker did to her, it's no wonder. That bastard nearly killed her and...sometimes I wonder if maybe it would have been a mercy to her and Alex both if he had."

"Oh dear..." Rebecca whispered, watching the zombie fall in slow motion. "Maybe...we need to talk."

"Never even breathe that again!" Parker hissed. "He did worse to Jill, and you damn well know it! Hell... That kid, violet... She could be his for all you know!"

Violet couldn't look at Rebecca. She could bear to see the same look in her eyes that had been in Alex's. "No... We don't. You need to take Claire and get out of here." She breathed, already backing away, prepared to bolt at any moment.

Chris turned his back on the other man, shaking his head. "I have no doubt she's mine. I'm not sure that's a feeling you'll ever know, Parker. Sorry about that."

Violet would miss that Rebecca certainly wouldn't look at her that way. She'd gotten over the shock with Alex and that had been ten years ago. "Violet...I know it's hard but...you'll come to see what happened to you as a gift. My son Alex did. People won't look at you like you're a freak forever. You'll see."

Chris' words hurt Parker more than the other man could ever imagine. The Italian's fists were balled up tightly, resisting the overwhelming desire to simply hit Chris. "A few days looking after a damaged, genetic freak, and you think you are the expert on fatherhood?!"

Violet's cerulean eyes filled with tears and she shook her head. "Alex was the one who looked at me like a freak in the first place!" She shouted, terrified by the thought that this truly was his mother. Years of living as Albert Wesker's pet project had made the small girl far too cynical; there was no such thing as a coincidence. Meeting her father here... And now the mother of the only friend she had ever had...

"You mean you're more of an expert after having done it for a few years?" Chris shot back, scowling at Parker. "Seriously, dude?"

"Alex? You mean my Alex?" Rebecca asked in surprise, looking up from what she'd been doing. "You've met him? Is he okay?"

"You wanna pay that game? Fine, yes,I am more of an expert." Parker retorted. "And looking after a girl is far different to looking after a boy."

Violet shrugged her slender shoulders. "I dunno... He looked at me like a freak, then I never saw him again."

"It can't be that hard." Chris muttered, nodding to himself as he found everything Parker had brought in with him and a bag that Jill had sent besides. "I mean they're kids. Candy...staying up late...besides that I've lived with Jill for years. I know how girls operate."

"What? Where did he go? Where were you?" Rebecca felt panic rising up inside her that had nothing to do with the zombie infestation.

Parker snorted and shook his head. "No, you know how to live with Jill, and she's hardly in need of protection, is she?" He replied. "A little girl is a lot of work, and then there's the whole boyfriend issue..."

Violet was backing away again as Rebecca demanded answers she didn't have. "I don't know! He probably went back to his father!"

"Boyfriend is a little too early, don't you think?" Chris growled, baring his teeth even though he didn't realize it. "Girls are easy. Get them a hair brush and nail polish and they're great."

"Oh hell." Rebecca cursed. She shook her head, as she turned back to working on Claire. "Violet...I'm sorry...today is just not my day, sweetie. Can I...ask for your help?"

"And what about that sister of yours? You really think she wasn't thinking about boys the second she hit her teens?" Parker challenged. "Same goes for Violet too."

Violet hesitated, and though she didn't move closer, she also didn't continue backing away. "You promise you won't yell at me again?"

"We're not talking about Claire and how come we're all of a sudden on my case?" Chris hissed, shoving Parker away from the door when he heard a set of footsteps in the hall. "Would you hurry and change? I've seen enough of your ass for a lifetime."

Rebecca couldn't help but smile at this. "You know, you're the first person to ever ask me to stop yelling?" She asked with a laugh. "Parker...my husband...used to try to get me to yell all the time. He used to say it was because he was worried I'd forgotten how to speak."

"Because you're a self righteous jackass!" Parker shot back, simply for something to say, feeling he needed to be angry... Else he would think about Alex, how deeply he had failed him if they didn't make it out of this alive.

"Wesker never yelled." Violet told Rebecca quietly, inexplicably stood directly beside the other woman without having appeared to move at all. "When I was really small, if I did something bad... He stopped giving me my serum, he would let the monster in my blood burn at my skin until I couldn't take it any more."

"Pants, dipshit!" Chris barked, tossing the bag at Parker. "You don't need to flatter me." He added with a chuckle. "We all know what a great guy I am."

Rebecca was used to the quick movement and she truly thankful for that right then. She knew how skiddish the little girl was. "Serum? Is that something you need? I'm good at making things like that, you know."

Parker didn't reply this time. He was staring at the water in the sink with wide eyes. "Uh... Chris... I'm having a Jurassic Park moment in here..." He called to the other man.

"I haven't had it in a while now... When they brought me here. They said it was a drug, that I didn't need it. But..." Violet closed her eyes, then held her arms out to Rebecca, revealing the deep scratches. "I can feel it... Like bugs under my skin..."

"You're still..." Chris was going to say something smart when he turned his head and saw the very same thing. "Oh hell." He muttered, knowing full well that this was not going to end well for them.

"Oh dear." Rebecca was fully aware that she was saying that quite a bit but really there was nothing else to say. Things were getting very bad, very fast. She had no idea that they were about to get even worse.

Neither man would get to say anything more as a rather large form suddenly smashed through the wall, sending them both sprawling on opposite sides of their new attacker. The Nemesis looked at each man in turn, then seemed to ignore Parker in its haste to crush Chris.

"Chris...?" Claire's eyes weren't open, but her cracked lips were breathing her brother's name.
"Help her... I'll keep the monsters away." Violet instructed.

Chris cursed as he rolled to the side, barely missing the back end of a heavy hand. "Oh good. A new playmate." He said cheerfully, trying to look at the situation from a different light. It would do him no good to be reminded he was pretty much dead meat.

Rebecca nodded at this, though paused when she felt the ground begin to shake. It didn't help when something crashed down the hall near to where Parker and Chris had gone.

This Nemesis was much quicker than the one Jill had encountered, and that one wasn't exactly slow. It swiped at Chris again and again. It would be the human who grew tired before the monster did.

"Keep her safe!" Violet shouted, already halfway down the hall in toe direction of all the ground shaking.

Chris was somewhat glad that the monster seemed to have no interest in Parker. It made it easier on him that for once he didn't have to worry about anyone else. "Go get the girls and get them out of here!" He shouted at the other man. Since the creature was in the way he dove at him and some how managed to slide under it's legs. "Come on, Ugly!" He shouted, getting to his feet in the hall. "We should take this to the play ground!"

Though he did wish to help Chris, Parker was wise enough to know he would be a hindrance in battle. Instead he limped in Rebecca's direction, not even seeing the dark haired girl that ran straight past him.

Jill had heard the crash when the Nemesis had arrived in the hospital, and had simply stopped what she was doing, unable to think of anything but her partner, and the little girl they had found.

Chris ran for all he was worth, avoiding zombies that seemed to be growing in number with every turn. He hoped this meant he was getting closer to the elevators. He cursed himself for the decision he'd made to have both Jill and Parker put on the fourth floor.

Rebecca was doing her best to carry Claire toward Parker's room. She'd seen a tall hulking shape moving away from that area and could only hope that it was a good sign.
Not that it really made her feel better. She hoped she was making the right decision by letting the little girl go after Chris.

Violet may well not have existed for all the attention the undead paid her. The small girl dipped and ducked between the ambling masses, genuinely not caring if one of them did break the trend and suddenly take a bite out of her. She was a monster, and despite Rebecca trying to make her believe other wise... That was exactly what Violet believed about herself. However, if she truly was a monster, then she felt she needed to be the one to stop whatever was chasing her father.

Claire was drifting in and out of consciousness, and would later hate the fact that she had called out for Leon at some point.