Well, this is a fine mess.

"Rose, you gotta eat something." 

"But I don't want to!"

"Rose."

"Chris!" 

Rose was a tiny, golden little dictator who, as far as Chris was concerned, hated his guts on principle.

"Okay," he intertwined his hands, leaning his forehead against them. "Okay."

Rose was already fussing, starting that little whine deep in her chest that usually built itself up into a full nuclear meltdown if left unaddressed for more than thirty seconds. 

Chris had fought the walking dead, maniac bioterrorists, and the occasional giant tentacle-y equivalent of Cthulhu-the-water-demon, and yet he could not figure out how to get a six-year-old to eat her apple slices.

"Tell you what," He looked up at Rose who was holding back her wailing back like a loaded sawed-off for the right moment. "You eat your food, I'll let you stay up till ten and watch cartoons."

Rose blinked at him. Considered "Till eleven."

"No way."

Her lower lip and little chin started trembling and Chris's heart fell directly into his boxers. 

"Okay‐ alright- till ten-thirty, and that's the absolute ceiling, that's my final offer, take it or leave it." 

Rose swallowed back her impending breakdown and nodded with uncanny wisedom. "Deal." 

A six-year-old had just negotiated bedtime terms with him and walked away with the better end of the agreement.

He really needed to think about retirement.

His phone buzzed on the coffee table and Chris Redfield was once again saved by the bell. Rose went back to levitating her spoon above her plate and ignoring the food on it entirely. Chris chose not to fight that battle right now.

He picked up. "Redfield."

"Chris, it's Sherry." 

Sherry. 

His mind came up blank for a moment. Too many names, too many missions and people and faces, faces, faces–

"Sherry Birkin?"

"That's right. I'm calling from DSO headquarters." 

That can't be good.

"We need your help," a pause, "it's Leon." 

Chris's head snapped up. 

Leon. Huh. He hasn't heard from Leon in a while.

"What's the situation?" 

"He's back in Raccoon City. His comm went offline about forty minutes ago, I haven't been able to ping his location or reach him since." There was typing in the background, fast and anxious. "I'm sending you his last known coordinates. He was sent in to capture Victor Gideon and extract a civilian– Grace Ashcroft, a FBI Intelligence Analyst. Last confirmed position was somewhere in the ARK—"

"The ARK?!"

He said it louder than he meant to and Rose looked up at him from her plate, one already chubby cheek bulging with an apple slice.

"Sherry, that facility is a death trap. BSAA has lost agents just trying to locate the place; our infrastructure data on it is practically nonexistent, the structural integrity alone is—" He stopped. Pinched the bridge of his nose hard. "Why does DSO keep sending him in alone on these missions?"

"He's one of the only field agents we have qualified for operations like this. And honestly?" A small pause. "He's more of a lone-wolf type of guy."

"He's a moron is what he is," Chris said, pulling up his laptop one-handed. "Son of a bitch." 

"Bad word!"

Rose had materialized approximately six inches behind his left elbow without making a single sound. She had been doing that lately and she had been strictly policing his vocabulary for approximately three weeks and she was very consistent about it. 

"Yeah, yeah." He pulled the phone from his ear for a half-second just to whisper to her gently. "Gimme a break, Rose."

"You have to put money in the jar." She held up one finger, "You owe me a dollar. 's the rules."

There was, in fact, a jar. It was on the kitchen counter. It had a considerable amount of money in it.

He covered the receiver and turned to face her fully. "I'll give you my entire direct deposit if you—" he reconsidered — "go sit down."

"Two dollars!" She held up two fingers instead, beaming.

Chris turned back to the window and stared at the middle distance with the hollow eyes. He had survived many things.

He was not going to survive this kid.

He turned back to the phone. "Sorry about that, Keep talking."

Static crackled softly on the line. "Chris... Leon wasn't in good shape the last time he came through. The infection has progressed faster than projected. His vitality data–" She stopped for a fraction of a second, a fraction too long. "His body won't hold much longer."

Chris let out a slow breath through his nose.

Leon Kennedy was a tough son of a bi– gun. Sarcastically gifted. Undeniably one of the best field operatives Chris had ever worked alongside, which was a list he did not add to lightly. But invincible had never been on that list. 

Not back in Raccoon City. 

Especially not in Raccoon City, not in a million years and not on a mission he was running with a compromised body and no backup.

He should feel that deep familiar pang of tragedy somewhere between his ribs when Racoon City came up. For a long time, he had. But lately, since BSAA had ramped up operations in that area again, that feeling had curdled into something different. Something sour and sizzling in the back of his throat every time another report came across his desk, every time another thing crawled out of that wound.

Somehow, Raccoon City kept producing new horrors at a rate that wasn't slowing down, wasn't leveling off, showed no signs of doing either.

How many times does a town need to die?

How many times does he need to kill it? 

"Chris?" Sherry's voice pulled him back. "You still there?"

"Yeah." He stared at the blinking dot on his screen, Leon's last coordinates, relentless and small and waiting in the middle of a death trap whispering come find me. "Yeah, I'm here."

He closed the laptop.