If there’d been one thing he could find a graceful reprieve in, it was the swallow of the rest of Emily’s thoughts. A tangible vehemence that filtered through her first accusation; it wasn’t entirely off, but Chris wasn’t that fucking dense.
He just didn’t appreciate being yelled at, regardless of the fucking context. They were adults, a civil conversation wasn’t that hard to find. Well, it shouldn’t have been that hard to come by, but if you were one Emily Berkhoff, then those parameters may have been different.
Regardless, Chris wasn’t there for it.
The flex of his brows slanted upward, once in shock at her utterance before ultimately levelling themselves as she’d found her own composure. A breath, one he’d matched within the cave of his own chest to quell the silent simmer of his own frustration. It wasn’t silent, though. The moment they entered the Winters’s home, the tension and shift in the air became palpable within the grasp of his palms. It was off-script, a speed run of everything they’d planned and learned in the months leading to their trail of Megamycete.
He doesn’t need a review of what their objective was; the objective was clear back in 2017. The root of the issue, the sole proprietor to all things that ran through the Mold. “I’m aware of what the mission objective was, Emily.” It was spoken in a low tone, as if a threat could pack itself verbally. It felt condescending, a low hit to his own reputation and command, which he felt by now was more refined and balanced where it could be.
The Winters family simply became a wrench in his design; the organic composition of who he was and how he structured himself. Logically, Chris knew that the heart of the problem was the solution and their primary goal, on top of everything. At the end of the day, their objective and some still took place— they’d still succeeded regardless. The latter half of the argument was unequivocally nonnegotiable in his eyes.
I don’t think you understand the logistical implications of the actions you took.
Did he consider the scope of the downfall from the retreat of the main objective in the beginning? No. With a firm hand he could admit to that; being in the clear with a mind that’d been more fresh than one that had to adjust to the moment and combat the threat to the family, Chris could now easily see where some misalignments would prove themselves unfavorable in this conduct.
“There was never anything that would’ve stopped Ethan.” Chris was already six feet into the hole of eating himself up over the outcome. It wasn’t preferred, it wasn’t the one he was hoping for even with a step off the rails of their initial plan. He couldn’t continue with the prior mapping of their objective knowing that Mia was a fake, and that Rose and Ethan could potentially be accessory to more of Miranda’s unrelenting lack of remorse. “If we hadn’t stepped in when we did, who knows what would’ve happened to that family. Miranda was a vital piece to the Mold and any research on it– removing both targets, the Megamycete and her all in one confirm with certainty that there shouldn’t be any more activity with the subject. The order of operations became compromised when Miranda became Mia. The family was my obligation after the events of the Dulvey incident.”
On paper, they weren’t solely his devoir; Chris felt as though he’d owed them after the events of Dulvey. More or less, he felt as though he owed more of a chance to Ethan for his position in the situation; a simple civilian who had no business poking his nose where it didn’t belong, but Chris couldn’t turn away from the fact that he understood why he was there. The love, care, and devotion bridled within one man was enough to pull his wife out of the fucking Mold infested swamp. That, and paired with Mia’s cooperation with the BSAA to retain any form of life beyond a prison, there was more than enough reason to keep tabs on them. Multiple.
Between the stale intensity that curled itself between both operatives, Chris followed the progression of Emily’s form in his direction, counteracting the suggestion he’d given with both hands placed upon the table.
I spent four months in the Romanian wilderness, evading BOWs and infiltrating extremely hostile territory.
The captain wasn’t oblivious to this information, and the passage of it felt more like a pitied fucking guilt trip than it needed to. He didn’t take his team for granted– he never took his teams for granted, especially one that he’d pried together himself. These operatives were skilled above and beyond any normal scoring, that’d been the sole reason why he’d recruited the people that he had– he didn’t need Emily throwing that information in his face as though they’d walked them into a total failure. It wasn’t an absolute success, that much was underlined with a stark clarity, but it’d been to date one of the best results he’d had on an operation.
His teeth grit themselves within the clasp of his jaw, a tension that bubbled itself through the muscles that wrapped themselves over bone. The flare of his nostrils prefaced the retort of his tongue, slow and steadying despite the small hiccup in his own breathing. It rounded itself in raw irritation. “And I appreciate what you did, don’t stand there and talk to me as if I’m not thankful for the time that you, all of you, have put into this with me. But you need to understand that things won’t play themselves out to the fine print that you put down. What we assess is as close to an estimate of our surroundings, as it’s assumed they will change and adapt even with us on the ground. That’s the basis of any battle.” Another assumption that he’d made about the woman, apparently wrong in its positioning. “I need your trust in me as your captain when it comes to making snap decisions. They’re as logistically inclined as I can get them to be, even on the field.”
Well. Most of the time. Chris led with his heart, his gut, over factual data most times. Not every answer felt like the correct one, even if his instincts told him otherwise.
The silent, jaw clenching atmosphere forced him to mirror the position of her tone; both arms brought themselves over his chest as he’d followed each incensed syllable fall from her lips, a precision that echoed itself in the work that she’d done for this operation. Emily was nothing short of collection, astute, proficient. She was seeking proficiency in a field where more often than not, the best ending was typically less than. The competence, in his opinion, confounded itself in one's attitude to displace and acclimate where it’d been necessary.
“We were going to run a course with the BSAA whether we’d planned for it or not. They were the ones, alongside Blue Umbrella, to have this information in the first place. They’ve been tracking the mycete since Louisiana, and no shit their trail would end up here. The Megamycete needed to be destroyed, and I didn’t have a firm belief that the BSAA was going to fulfill that duty.”
Especially not after he’d seen their own usage of BOWs after everything.
“If you want my honesty, I don’t have a full disclosure plan on what to do when it comes to keeping low from their eyes. They may know someone else was there, but you’d just said it yourself, they don’t know who. If my own experience has taught me anything, it’s that even covert groups such as our own don’t stay hidden for too long. Not with the dealings that we have a hand in, if we want results. There’s only so much that we can do when it comes to eliminating a BOW without it being a widescale turn of events for others to notice. That village was infested, there were little survivors left after Miranda turned it into her own playground."
A huff fell from his lips.
“Hardware can be replaced. Lives can’t. And don’t– I know we still lost one in the grand scheme of it all. But that’s one over how many others that could’ve been harmed if the village wasn’t blown. That was the only way to get rid of it to its entirety– you know this. And if you remember, we saved Rose and Mia.”
The downfall, whether to his knowledge or not, of who he was as a person, and a squad captain.
Both palms tucked under the cross of his arms had tightened under the flex of his muscles from the obscene grate of her vocals with her final inquiry.
Chris drew in another breath, this one more forceful than the last as he released the hold of his chest, bringing his palms down to match and mirror Emily’s position over the table.
“You joined this team to help. Stay clear of soiled water, and do something good without any infraction of potential systematic tampering. The goal of the BSAA is to protect the innocent. Keep the innocent alive and safe. That’s a value I carry into this squad– that was why I helped create the BSAA in the first place. If that’s something that you can’t align yourself with, maybe I hand-picked the wrong person for this team, and maybe you’ve misunderstood what we represent.” His own tone was low, a dangerous exaltation of composure and malice, while his eyes stayed trained upon her own with each word.
