busily missing God knows what.

Chair, 1860s

Crisps vs Chips: I gotta admit, the Brits have this one. They're thin slices of potato that have been made crispy. No chipping of any materials involved.

Car Park vs Parking Lot: Equally matched. What's a car park? A place to park cars. What's a parking lot? An otherwise empty lot where you can park.

When Claire was very little she had a big bear stuffy. Like big enough to be the size of a 2 yr old. Chris picked it out for her when she was really little to give her as a birthday present. She adored it because it was big and so soft for a very long time. When Claire got old enough that she didn't sleep with the bear anymore but still cherished it and it sat on either the bedside table or in a little kiddie chair in her room "ready to play tea", Chris would sneak in while she was still sound asleep (snoring away as most Redfields do) and take the bear.

When Claire would wake up, she wouldn't notice it's absence right away as she sleepily drags herself from bed to start the day. The first time she notices it is when she goes to use their shared bathroom and finds the bear sitting on the toilet seat with a newspaper (the Sunday funnies) propped up in its paws reading with an old pair of their dad's glasses (he got a new pair so these were gathering dust in a nightstand drawer) balanced on its snout.

Claire had a giggling fit that erupted so hard her mom heard it and came to see what was going on. They both burst into laughter when they saw the bear.

The second time he did it, the bear was sitting at the breakfast table before anyone else got up with a bottle of honey next to one paw and a coffee mug by the other, and a plate sitting in front of it with a single (still packaged) honeybun on it.

This continued on and off for a while as Chris came up with intricate and even funnier and random places to put the bear. It only lasted for maybe a month or so before Chris got too busy with the school year.

It didn't happen again until after their parents passed away. Chris was hoping to cheer Claire up and found her old bear in the cardboard boxes from when they packed everything up in a hurry and he was unboxing and sorting some things to make room in the garage storage.

He resumed the bear antics for a few weeks which did a good job at lifting her spirits, and reminded Claire of her favorite cuddle buddy when she was down. She slept with the bear again a few times during that time.

AU where Spencer Mansion and Raccoon City are pretty much the same. But after Simmons tries to take Sherry, Albert rescues her and takes her with him. But instead of becoming the world's leader in bioterrorism, Albert spends his days living the domestic life trying to give Sherry a good normal happy life and fulfill his godfather duties he promised to fulfill to Annette and William on the day Sherry was born.

He still has the creepy red eyes and inhuman strength and speed, but now he uses it to do extremely domestic things like clean the house at top speed, or move heavy furniture entirely by himself to find a missing shoe she misplaced, etc.

Instead of cooking up virus's for evil intentions, he's making healthy nutritious meals for a young growing girl who is about to hit a growth spurt. And instead of signing contracts with a new sketchy pharmaceutical corporation, he's filling out paperwork for student enrollment and rental agreements for their new apartment, and side eyeing his neighbors for being too noisy on a Sunday night when Sherry is trying to get some sleep before school in the morning.

He's filling out grocery lists and scrutinizing the incredibly small and very gaudy children's lunch bags that the local shops sell at ridiculous prices. He's swapped office meetings for parent/teacher conferences and now Sherry is looking at him with sweet innocent imploring eyes as she holds out a school field trip permission slip with the parent chaperone paperwork attached because "PLEASE UNCLE ALBERT! We're going to the Museum of Natural History. You LOVE the museum!"

Albert, grumbling quietly to himself the fact that he will ONLY go on the grounds that the annoying boy in her class' mother isn't going to be accompanying them. Her behavior was abhorrent when they last met during the after school fundraiser and bake sale he accompanied Sherry to assist with last month. She would not leave Albert alone the entire evening. Being recently single was no excuse to lose all self respect, Cheryl.

His life has completely done a 180° and in the meantime Chris, Jill, Barry, Claire, Rebecca and Leon are still out there fighting the good Anti-bioterrorism fight while Albert glares tiredly at a recipe book about making easy three step cookies and is aggressively scrutinizing the lackadaisical instructions.

This is CHEMISTRY, you nitwit. You cannot simply EYE BALL IT and get accurate results every time! It's just not statistically possible!

Additionally:

Neither Claire, Leon or Chris were aware of Albert's close friendly ties to the Birkins and immediately assume he only cares about Sherry for nefarious reasons since she's a survivor with unique properties leftover from the G virus.

Albert just looking at these three like "Are you fucking serious?"

Then he realizes they are. He is legally her guardian in the event of William and Annette's demise for whatever reason.

Both Birkins were aware of the dangers of working for Umbrella and how easily they could be terminated and disposed of with a single order from Spencer.

They set up contingency plans to aid each other, and the Birkins contingency plan relied on Albert using his skills and power within both S.T.A.R.S and Umbrella to get to Sherry and get her out and as far away from Umbrella as possible. Annette and William may die, but they hoped that Albert would at least be able to save Sherry's life.

He did not kidnap her. In fact, he saved her from her kidnappers who wanted to use her as a lab rat.

It's most likely Chris that will probably discover them first. It's entirely by chance that he sees Albert one day. He's driving by a shop, going at a crawl as he approaches a red traffic light to wait for his turn when he glances aside when something odd steals his attention in his mirror. He glanced at it and sees a tall slender built well dressed blonde man. At first he thinks its just his imagination as he watches this man with his back turned, head a short distance down the sidewalk. But then he stops next to a vehicle and puts his bags into the backseat before climbing into the driver's side, and now he can see the sunglasses and can tell the hair is styled in a very specific way.

He doesn't realize the light turned green until a car honks at him. Chris is forced to drive ahead but he can't tear his eyes away from the car in that mirror. He tried to memorize the licence plate but he only managed to get half of it before he got too far away. It's not enough to track down the owner, and by the time he manages to take a turn in a nearby parking lot and come back, the car was already gone. He didn't see where it went.

He thinks he might be going crazy. But he swears he saw Albert. Maybe the stress of work was getting to him afterall. Jill warned him that he was doing too much. They both carried the nightmares from Spencer Mansion alongside their guilt. Maybe it would be better if he took a few days off and spent some time with Claire.

It would do him good. He convinced himself that's exactly what he'll do, only except that the day he was supposed to meet up with Claire for lunch, he pulled up to a stoplight in the same area of town, and looked over while fiddling with the radio. On the otherside of the car at the lane beside him, was the car from before and the well dressed blonde man with sunglasses that was patiently waiting for the light to change just like him.

Chris manages to lower his passenger window to lean over and call out. "Wesker?!"

The man, who also had his window down to enjoy the breeze, startles. He turns his head towards Chris and seems to go pale (even paler than he already was) at the very sight of him. The light changes. The man takes a sudden turn as his lane dictates, and makes a very hasty disappearance before Chris could catch up (and break at least two traffic laws in the process of his pursuit).

Listening to Chubby Checker's The Twist song got me thinking of my HC that aside from being big into singing and playing his guitar, Chris isn't shy about playing it in public. There's been a few times where he's played it at little local gatherings where they needed a guitar player and he volunteered as a fill in guitarist for little functions if he wasn't scheduled for work those days.

One of his favorite things to do is hang out at a local place that has a 1950's style diner set up, with a dance floor that they host functions on the weekends with music and dancing. A couple times Chris has played his guitar while singing classic 1950's songs when Claire was just a teenager, and yes, one of them was The Twist.

She had no qualms about getting up on stage to dance with her brother and do the twist right by his side when he sings the lyrics "Yeah you should see my little sis. She knows how to rock. She knows how to twist."

They're very fun loving and energetic, especially when they're together. It wasn't uncommon to spot other members of S.T.A.R.S hanging around to get a bite to eat and watch Chris play. A few times Jill and Brad have joined Chris on the dance floor or even up on the little stage area while he's performing to sing with him.

A couple times Barry and Wesker had walked in only to be genuinely surprised when stopping by to get something to eat on a Friday night, just to hear a familiar voice skillfully belt out classics to the melody of a guitar, and they end up joining the spectators from the side booths in watching Alpha Team's point man in his natural habitat.

Let me explain.

It's no secret that Resident Evil 6 spent a lot of time giving us plenty of throwbacks to the events of Raccoon City from Jake and Sherry's campaign showing these two make amends for the mistakes of their parents and prove they're more than the reputations of their fathers. To Leon's campaign where Tall Oaks is a painful reminder of the hell he had to endure in Raccoon City all over again.

Then we get to Chris' campaign. Seemingly unrelated at first but then when you look at it from a slightly different angle, not so much. Chris' struggle throughout RE6 is reminiscent of Albert Wesker and the Spencer Mansion incident. Captain Chris Redfield of Alpha team was indirectly responsible for the loss of his first team due to unfortunate circumstances beyond his control. (RE0 with Albert unaware but standing by regardless as Bravo team gets ambushed and most members are killed).

He then abandons his organization (not intentionally, due to his traumatic amnesia) only to be drawn back into the same fight with a new team. Now blinded by an entirely new and selfish goal. He is dismissive towards his new team's struggles at first, often leaving them to handle the brunt of the fight on their own (like Wesker did to Alpha team in the Mansion) while he obsesses selfishly over his goal for vengeance against Ada.

Just like in Leon's campaign, it's not an exactly alignment to what happened back in 1998, but it does carry notes of similarities in how the events are played out and the roles they carry now. With Leon, he sort of becomes a more successful version of Lieutenant Marvin Branagh, as he comes to the aid of a rookie cop struggling to defend civilians on his first day. He gives the group some guidance and directs them on the best course of action to ensure their survival only for it to end in an inevitable failure. Just as it did in Raccoon City.

For Chris, it's only when his team has dwindled down to three (him, Piers and Marco) that he starts to really unravel like Wesker did towards the end, even confronting Piers with an ultimatum after Marco's death. He's steadfast in this mentality that his revenge, that HIS goal takes precedence over any of the lives he's already lost to this cause. Justifying their sacrifices as a means for the end. Just as Wesker did.

Piers is stubborn and loyal to Chris, just as Chris once was with Wesker. He loved him and respected him, hoping to find some way to shake this insanity out of the broken man in front of him. Just as Chris lunged forward in an attempt to save Wesker from the tyrant he unleashed himself, Piers lunged forward to save the man he believed could still be better than who he was before.

Chris had been betrayed and used by the man he once loved and admired, a man he considered a good friend.

Piers watched painfully as the man he loved and admired became someone entirely foreign right before his eyes, making senseless sacrifices for selfish reasons and he STILL believed Chris could change. That he could become better. That he could overcome this.

Chris watched Piers do for him, what he himself couldn't do for Wesker all those years ago. He watched himself begin to become the monster he swore he would never be.

He changed his fate, but he lost everything to do it. Piers' sacrifice, and Chris' own selfish goals had brought him back to the brink of that hellish place he had escaped fifteen years ago. Only instead of being a young promising soldier looking up to his beloved Captain, he had become the man he hated most.