Chapter Text
He was so tired.
Fuck, he’d been living this life for twenty-three years, dragged through hell and back, losing everything again and again. Las Plagas had been a lot to deal with on top of everything else. Sheva had been injured, he had nearly died – but they’d made it through alive. The nightmares they both had were rough, but they made it through. Everything had kept happening until he’d wanted to give up. The Bakers had been a different sort of hell, a new innocent life thrown into the mix. Ethan Winters was dead, now, a man who had never been where he was supposed to be. His daughter was going to grow up without her father. Her mother was being tried for her position in the Connections, for her role in everything.
Some days, he wanted to lie down and give up.
They kept going.
They had to.
There was nothing else to do.
Chris stared at the ceiling, his blanket clutched in his hands, his knuckles white as he studied the patterns in the paint. He was so fucking tired.
At least one thing was over. Wesker had burned in the volcano, back then, an end to a torment that had lasted over a decade. Chris buried the part of him that felt guilty for it, buried the part that screamed for what had been lost, and ignored the way his eyes burned for the captain he’d once known. It was too late and far too long gone for him. There was nothing he could do to fix that. Nothing he could do to change what had happened to Wesker, and nothing that could be done to fix it.
His eyes slipped shut after hours of strain, finally resting.
It felt like too soon when his alarm went off.
Rolling over to slap blindly for the device, Chris frowned, feeling around for it. It felt wrong, the shape awkward under his hand. Sitting up, opening his eyes, he looked for his phone. It wasn’t where he’d set it, he realized. Leaning off the side of the bed, he checked under the edge, lifting the covers to see if it had somehow slid under the frame—
He froze.
It had been a long time since he’d seen the blanket he was holding. Over two decades, in fact. He’d had to leave it behind in Raccoon City when he ran to escape Umbrella closing in on him. It was one his mom had bought.
Chris sat up slowly, dragging the blanket with him as he went.
Adjusting, he reached out his other hand to flip the bedside lamp on. Muscle memory must have kicked in for him not to fumble it, the light bathing the room in a yellow glow. It was like seeing a ghost, somehow – he was back in his apartment from 1998. The photos on the wall were cast in shadow, but he knew what they would be if he went and looked. The details were so familiar, yet so strange at the same time. Chris stared at the wall for a moment, then stood up, pushing the blankets back.
His pajamas were familiar, too.
A pair of shorts Claire had bought him for Christmas in 1997, and his STARS training shirt. Something extremely strange was going on.
Trying to rein in his panic, Chris headed for the bathroom. He ignored everything except the mirror, flipping the lights on and staring at himself. A familiar face stared back at him, but it was one that he hadn’t thought he’d ever see again – the idealistic point man of the STARS Alpha Team. The one who had believed in Albert Wesker, through and through, until the rug had been pulled out from underneath him.
The faint freckles, leftover from summer, were something he hadn’t seen in a long time. He hadn’t had time to just go out in the sun and get them. His missions had taken him to a lot of different places, but he hadn’t been able to just go out in the summer and do something fun in a long time.
His hair was messy from sleep.
It took a lot of effort to meet his eyes. Chris couldn’t make himself do it for a few minutes, his hands clutching the edges of the chipped sink that had always taken a minute to run hot water – the apartment had its quirks, he remembered them even all these years later. His eyes weren’t the same as he remembered them – not hollow, underlined in dark circles from years spent awake for too long.
They were the eyes of the man he had been in 1998, young and trusting in the system he lived in.
There were no signs of the life he had lived in the meantime. Not physically. The memories were still there, he could recall them easily. His muscles strained against remembered enemies.
Glancing at the wall, he already knew he would see a small calendar next to the mirror, but it was a surprise what month it was turned to: June, 1998. It was the one thing he had always kept up on, at Claire’s insistence. He remembered that well enough – she had always called him to remind him, along with catching up on the things they had missed by being apart, to keep current on his calendar.
She would be enjoying summer right now.
The realization hit hard, his entire body tensing up. Chris shuddered, his breath coming out in gasps as he backed away from the mirror. Somehow, that was what made everything feel oddly real to him.
His little sister was out there, somewhere, right now. Her life hadn’t been torn apart by trying to find him.
Belatedly, his mind scrambling to catch up, Chris leaned against the wall and let himself slide down it until he was sitting on the floor. How the fuck was this happening? This didn’t feel like a dream. The details were too real, the cold tile under him was too present against his skin. The yellow glare of the bathroom lighting was too familiar, too bright. Dreams weren’t so rich, so real, and he’d never been able to read in them before.
So something else had to be happening.
A hallucination?
No, it was the same sort of thing. The rules were a little different, but he wouldn’t have been able to read so clearly.
Chris took a breath, then another. He turned his head, clamping his teeth down on his shoulder. He could feel the cotton of his shirt clenched in his teeth, the way it wicked his saliva up, the gentle pain from his own bite. He wasn’t restrained, nothing was keeping him from doing that, and the pain responses were lining up the way they should.
Gasping for air as he released his shoulder, Chris stared at his hands. “What the fuck.”
Standing up on shaking legs, he looked at himself in the mirror again, his face a few shades paler this time. “Okay,” he muttered. “So, if it’s June and my alarm went off,” he paused, watching his reflection stare back. “I’m supposed to be going to work.” He nodded, his reflection agreeing with him. “I need to get dressed.”
If nothing else, it might help him figure something out.
Whatever was happening, he needed answers.
Walking into the Raccoon City Police Department felt more like a fever dream than anything else had so far.
He knew their faces, knew their names, knew their voices, but he hadn’t seen or heard them in over twenty years. The last time he had seen them, they had been dead or dying, eyes plucked out, or skin chewed off. Joseph Frost met him at the door, walking in, and Chris nodded at him, forcing a small smile and as casual a greeting as he could manage. He could still remember the barking as they ran, Joseph’s screams, the way he couldn’t quite see what had taken him down. Keeping himself centered was difficult, after that, but he walked in like nothing was wrong.
Tried to, anyway.
Richard Aiken was standing with Forest Speyer, inside, going over some paperwork. A report, it looked like. The two of them were laughing about something, as well.
Chris stopped in his tracks.
Three faces he hadn’t seen in over two decades.
He wasn’t sure he could do this.
Whatever the fuck was happening, whatever this was, he wasn’t sure he could deal. Not with the faces of his first team, the first losses he had ever felt because of Umbrella. It was more ghosts, their voices calling out to him like they always did in his dreams, but he could feel their warmth. Joseph walked away, the lingering heat of his body dissipating quickly in the cold air of the station – the place always had felt like a tomb, even before everything had happened.
Even before Raccoon City had fallen apart, the police department had felt like the biggest tomb Chris had ever walked into.
In hindsight, maybe that should have been a sign.
He made his way through the station, towards his desk, watching as Bravo Team filtered out, Alpha Team filtering in. He remembered the sounds of it all, the way the station shifted and changed as the teams alternated. It was like yesterday, for him, a memory he couldn’t erase.
Living it again was a sort of torture.
Rebecca Chambers waved goodbye as she grabbed her bag from the desk she shared with Jill, and Chris nodded in return. She had actually lived through the mansion incident, so seeing her was less of a panic for him, her small smile a bit of a relief. STARS had never been her main goal, Chris remembered, sitting down. She had wanted to be a medical technician or a lab tech, something along those lines, and she had needed a certain number of hours in the field. He dropped his chin into his hand, staring at the desk next to his – Barry’s desk.
Barry was pretty much retired, now, living with his daughters somewhere. Chris had helped them all disappear.
Too much risk to remain out in the open when you had fought for so long against the leading players in the fight. He’d done his old friend a favor and helped them cover their tracks, including his adopted daughter.
“Hey,” someone’s voice caught his attention, fingers snapping in front of his face. “Chris, come on.”
Jolting, Chris looked up.
Jill Valentine.
She hadn’t looked like that in a long time – young and unbothered, sure of her place in the world, no shadows under her eyes. Not haunted by the nightmares they’d had to face down, not yet. She wasn’t the version of herself that would wake up screaming from the sensation of what had been done to her, the Lickers and the implant and the memory of falling off a cliff to what should have been her death.
“Shit, Chris,” Jill stared at him, her eyebrows raised. She held out the mug of coffee she had in one hand, already mixed with creamer if the color was anything to go by. “You look like you need this more than I do. Rough night?”
“Something like that,” His voice was cracked when he spoke, the first words he’d said above a whisper since he’d woken up back in 1998. “Sorry, wasn’t – Been feeling out of it all morning. What were you saying?” He took the coffee from her, cradling it in both hands. The warmth was good, a comforting touchstone that grounded him in whatever form of reality this was. He had no clue what was happening, no understanding of the circumstances, but he could trust her.
She’d always had his back. Even when the world seemed like it was falling apart, Jill Valentine was his best friend and the woman he could count on.
“Nothing important,” Jill sat on the edge of his desk, crossing her arms. “Just said good morning a couple of times, you didn’t seem to hear me, that’s when I got closer and noticed you were really out of it. Everything okay?”
“Not sure,” Chris took a sip, his eyes closing.
He couldn’t tell her the truth.
Not until he was a little more certain about what the truth was.
“Do you need to call out today?” Jill’s head tilted to one side when he looked at her again. She glanced around the room, her eyes searching for something. “I think I can catch the captain and tell him.”
The captain.
Oh, he hadn’t even thought about that yet.
“Where would you guys be without your point man?” Chris forced a laugh, rolling his eyes. “I think I’ll be okay. I’m just feeling a little off.” The words were too easy, the lie too quick, but it seemed to work. Jill’s smile eased back onto her face, the persona of his old self falling back into play after over two decades out of use. “Thanks for the coffee. I think it’ll help a lot.”
“No problem,” Jill stood up, patting his shoulder. “I think there’s some stuff left in the breakroom. I’ll run and grab a few things really quickly. Bravo Team left us some breakfast.”
“Oh, nice.”
She left him alone again, sipping the coffee she had given him. Chris took a few moments to breathe, his eyes half-closed, as he listened to the half-forgotten sounds of the RCPD starting another shift. More footsteps arrived, light but noticeable, and Chris refused to move. He darted his eyes to the door, keeping the rest of his body in the same position as he watched the new arrival.
Captain Albert Wesker.
After all this time, after all the years that had passed, everything that had happened –
He was just a man.
His hair was gelled into place, his uniform was pristine, and his sunglasses were perched on his nose the same way Chris remembered. This was him before he’d become a Tyrant. Before Ouroboros, before Las Plagas, before a volcano had swallowed the remains of him. His eyes were a grey-blue color, behind the black lenses, and there were details Chris hadn’t noticed when he was younger.
The circles under his eyes, hidden behind the frames.
Given what he knew, now, he wasn’t surprised. When did Wesker find time to sleep? The man’s schedule must be a wreck.
Jake Muller would be about six, now, Chris realized. His father was continents away, preparing to betray his team, unaware of his existence. Wesker’s face was drawn in concentration, focused on the papers in his hands, the paperwork handed over from Bravo’s shift.
“You’re early, Redfield.”
“Figured I’d try something new,” the response was the easiest thing he’d done all morning, the words slipping out like water. “Everything alright, captain?”
Wesker looked up, standing next to his own desk.
Chris stared back at him, both hands wrapped around his mug. Despite everything, despite what he’d expected to feel, he felt…Calm. Facing down Wesker wasn’t causing any sort of panic or alarm. “Valentine gave you her coffee,” he observed instead of answering.
“Yeah, I wasn’t feeling great,” Chris held it up, taking another sip. “She figured it would help, so she made the sacrifice.”
With a short nod, Wesker continued to stare. “You do have vacation time, if you need it, Redfield.”
How had he ever thought this man was cool, detached, and mysterious?
He almost wanted to laugh out loud. He was awkward and running off of scientific observations, as well as probably four hours of sleep at most. He had noticed that Jill had made coffee, that he hadn’t seen Chris in the breakroom, and that Chris suddenly had coffee – which meant that Jill had given Chris her coffee. He had heard that Chris didn’t feel the best, which meant he wouldn’t perform well in the field, which meant making the necessary sacrifice of pushing him into taking a few days off.
It was easy to track once he figured it out.
Once he’d had to be a captain of a team as well, actually.
His grip tightened on the mug for a moment, the ceramic threatened by a realization, before he forced the thought away. “I think I’ll be okay.”
“If you are certain…”
“Yeah,” Chris took a deep breath, trying to ignore the man he’d started to mirror. “I’m certain.”