Chapter Text
“Let’s put this into perspective,” Chris exhales, pacing about, unable to stand still out of either adrenaline or anger. Bringing this subject in was… a challenge, to put it lightly. Not just a challenge, but one they’d underestimated once already. He’s not about to let it happen a second time. “We find you in a shack in the Bucegi Mountains, with nothing but a couple of hundred lei, a bag of clothes and personal effects, and a box full of extremely dangerous biomaterial. We offer to help you, and you respond by levelling two buildings, killing three operatives, and injuring another six.”
He has to pause and take a breath, reminding himself that the subject’s cooperation is more valuable than the alternative. “We bring you in, provide you with medical care, take care of you and even offer you a job, and you’re still going to say no?”
Your response is blunt. “Fuck you.”
He pauses, shaking his head. “You seem smart, so I’m gonna assume that you know that we know about your little secret.” Chris locks eyes with you. “How far along are you by now?” he asks. “Two months? Three?”
“Fuck. You.”
Chris exhales as you repeat yourself, trying to reign in his patience. “Why can’t you understand that we’re just trying to help you?” He asks, rubbing the bridge of his nose, clearly at the end of his rope with you and your stubbornness.
“Help me?” You laugh. “You stole what’s left of my boyfriend and broke my jaw.” It’s true, he did break your jaw -- but, to be fair, you deserved it. Your state at the time could only really be described as feral, and you had, as he noted, killed three of his operatives. He might be built like a brick shithouse, but you’re honestly lucky that a punch to the jaw was all you got. ...Even if it felt less like a punch and more like someone launching a slab of concrete into your face.
“You wiped out half my team,” he argues back before reaching out, gesturing to your face. “And we took care of your jaw. Just like I promised you.” His jaw tenses, his frustration with you clearly reaching its limitations. “I’m trying to help you out here. Not the BSAA, not the team, me.”
“Get a lab rat from somewhere else.”
“Don’t you get it?” He asks. “It’s not about you being a lab rat. Miranda’s dead.” He locks eyes with you. “You’re one of the last living products of the mold. Not to mention your child--”
“You’re assuming I want it.” You lock eyes with him. “Why do you think I was trying to get to Bucharest when I could have just gone into hiding?”
He shifts, clearly a little uncomfortable with not so much the premise, but the way you’ve called out his assumption. Finally, he closes his eyes, nodding. “If that’s what you want, we can arrange that for you,” he offers, “but in any case, if you don’t cooperate? The BSAA isn’t going to let you out of here alive.” He reaches into his pocket, taking out a pack of cigarettes, opening them only to pause and glance at you, realisation written across his expression. “You can earn freedom by proving you’re different,” he explains, putting the pack back in his pocket, clearly out of consideration.
“Different?” You ask.
“Different from Miranda.”
You eye him carefully, your face burning as you tense your jaw -- all of it still swollen from the surgery that reconstructed it, your flesh still adjusting to the metal plate that’s holding the bone together. “Why?” You ask. “Why help me? Seems like your job would be easier if I was dead. What’s your motive?”
“No ulterior motive,” he says, raising his palms in innocence. “Just think Miranda’s taken too many good people from us already.” There’s a pause. “I’m sure you can agree, and I have a feeling Heisenberg would.” Another long silence follows. “BSAA are happy for you to join the research team,” he explains, “given your medical background and unique experience with the mold, you’d be a valuable asset.”
“And that's it?” You ask. “They’ll just let me join up? No catch?” You relax against your restraints. “What if I have a request?”
Chris watches you carefully for a moment. “Like what?”
“I want his things back,” you say quickly. “I want him back.”
His eyes break away from you, moving downcast, staring at the floor. The sudden removal of eye contact doesn’t bode well. “Personal effects…” he begins, seemingly speaking more to himself than anything, “that’s doable. I can do that for you. But the biomaterial--”
“Biomaterial?” You interrupt, your tone incredulous. “You mean his remains? He’s not a fucking case study, he’s a person!”
“His remains,” Chris is admittedly quick to correct, “that’s a… they’re not gonna want to let go of those. Heisenberg’s.. The remains are too valuable--”
“What if I have something better?” You ask quickly.
He raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll join BSAA. I’ll do whatever they need me to, and I’ll even let them in on a way, way better sample of biomaterial -- living tissue,” you explain, “but I’m not doing shit unless you promise to back me up and let me have him back.”
Another long silence, a deadly one, one so tense that you’d probably have a bullet in you if you weren’t restrained in a room without a single trace of organic material. “You won’t get him back right away,” he finally says, “and I can’t promise they’ll take whatever you’re offering…” he exhales. “But I’ll back you up. You have my word.”
“You fucking promised me, Redfield.”
After nagging you for about five minutes straight about his ‘risk assessment,' Chris Redfield has finally decided to finish. Even though you've been working on this for two years, even though you've given him and the BSAA everything they've wanted, even though its literally launch day -- he's decided to try and assuage you now, and you're so frustrated that you can't even bring yourself to look at him, instead focusing on the system panel in front of you.
Not much longer to wait.
"I know." He exhales, clearly exhausted by everything going on. "But things have changed. Rosemary Winters has shown--"
You slam your palm down on the edge of the panel. "Do you honestly think I give a fuck about Rosemary Winters?" You snap, your shoulders tensing, jaw tightening. "God, she's all any of you give a shit about…"
"But that leads us to questions about your--"
You twist at the waist suddenly, locking eyes with him, your look conveying enough to silence him. "I told you: that's none of my business. ...I don't want updates."
"But he's your--"
"No. He's your project," you insist, clicking your tongue and directing your eyes back to the terminal. "I signed him over, remember?" You slide a dial, looking up through the glass and into the experiment chamber. "And I was promised this in exchange."
There's a silence as you watch the other staff do the final preparations, setting up an array of equipment, clad in hazmat suits as they prepare to unseal the vat in the centre of the chamber, the black substance inside already bubbling from the change of environment, from being in such close proximity to your Cadou. "The projections are unstable at best," he finally says after a few moments. "I just don't want you underestimating how bad this can go."
"Well, that's why you and your guns are here, isn't it?" You ask with a shrug, not missing a beat. "This is going to work. I can feel it. The Cadou can already feel the mold -- it's reacting to my presence." You hesitate a little as you input some more commands into a wired up laptop, unsure how much you should divulge. "It's talking to me, Chris. It already knows what it needs to do."
You can hear him inhale sharply, and you don't need to look at him to know he's probably vacantly resting his hand on one of the five guns strapped to his person at any given time. "You sound like Miranda," he finally says, his voice lower in volume before, like he's scared someone will overhear.
"You don't know shit about Miranda," you reply, nodding to one of the workers on the other side of the glass who's been waiting on standby. "You've seen a lot, Chris. I'll give you that -- but don't pretend you know a goddamned thing about what I went through with that woman." You watch as a wooden box is brought into the chamber, taking a deep breath. All of this time, effort, study, and sacrifice has led up to this moment. It’s time. You turn to Chris, locking eyes with him. “Now, either shit or get off the pot.”
Chris inhales again, a deep, slow one, and you think that maybe he’s about to protest or shut this all down. But, thankfully, he doesn’t, putting his hand up to his ear. “Eyes on the chamber,” he orders into his earpiece. “Project Bister is a go.” He is, at least, true to his word. He nods at you, giving you the signal to proceed.
You reach forward and press the button for the intercom system, realising your hands are trembling. “Prepare for bio-material drop,” you order, several figures in hazmat suits immediately rushing to their places, preparing for the culmination of everything you’ve worked towards. Two of them stand either side of the wooden box, one lifting the top off, the other holding the base security and revealing it -- the mix of metal, flesh, and crystal you’ve been unable to bring yourself to so much as look at since the Duke dropped you off at the safehouse with it. As your eyes settle on the reminder of everything that you lost, of your failure, of your weakness, your stomach flips. The two lab assistants slowly and carefully carry the crystalised remains to the vat of mold, and all you can think about for a brief moment is how much you miss him.
“Opening the sample,” you say through the intercom, pressing a button and watching as the thick, plastic covering on top of the wav slides away. The mold is exposed now, and you can notice the assistance getting anxious, moving quickly to ready themselves. “Bio-material drop in three… two…” you hope they can’t hear how much your voice is trembling. “Go.”
The assistants carefully drop the remains into the vat, the mold absorbing it with no splashback whatsoever as the assistants practically run to get away from it, fleeing into a small, airlocked quarantine chamber where they immediately proceed to decontaminate themselves. Understandable. After all, you yourself are a living, breathing example of how the mold corrupts.
The mold in the vat immediately begins to bubble, expanding outside of the vat, pouring over the sides and onto the floor of the well-sealed chamber. Good. You’d expected this. It’s readying itself. “Introducing cellular material,” you note into the microphone, pressing another button and watching as a small arm drops down from the roof, holding a small, glass vial. The cellular material, in this case, is blood -- and it’s gone as soon as it’s dropped, the mold absorbing it, beginning to bubble and hiss. Chris says your name, alarm in his voice, but you gesture for him to wait. It’s all going to plan.
You’ve run simulations and tests more times than you can count. This is all how it’s meant to be. But, more importantly, if you close your eyes, you can hear it. It’s singing to you, calling to you through the Cadou. When you open them again, the chamber is filled with smoke. The mold is sporing, releasing cells into the air.
The next few moments pass in complete silence, with only the hiss of the mold and the chattering of other scientists and assistance coming through the intercom. Temperatures are climbing but nominal. Spore density is increasing. Visibility in the chamber is low, but the heat signature of the mold is consistent with original projections.
And then you hear it -- the singing of the mold, the strange, internal vibrational frequency that you can otherwise not describe turns into his.
Your eyes open and you push back from the terminal. You’ve done it. You know you have. Wordlessly, you run past Chris, out the door of your control area, ignoring his calls as he quickly follows you. You’re too quick, though. You know exactly where you need to go, running down the steps and onto the lab floor, quickly unlocking the airlock door with your handprint and stepping in. How you managed to outrun Chris Redfield is beyond you, but you’re not willing to question it now, ignoring the way he bangs his fist against the airlock door and shouts at you as you open the door into the chamber.
Chris curses under his breath, slamming his hand into the airlock door one last time, watching you and your white lab coat disappear into the fog of spores. “Want us to run the emergency protocols?” A voice in his earpiece asks.
His eyes search the fog, waiting, listening for any changes, hoping to see something. He doesn’t see anything good, but he doesn’t see anything bad, either. “...Hold it for now,” he orders.
It takes a few minutes for visibility to return again, Chris ready to make the call if it comes to it. When the spores finally settle, the mold is gone, the vat empty either than the entwined figures of yourself and Karl Heisenberg.
The first and only thing you whisper in his ear before BSAA control storm in and separate you are the words "I have a plan."
Heisenberg has been acting up, according to Chris. Originally you were told you could see him after a two week quarantine and screening process, but he's being… Heisenberg about it, refusing to cooperate with anything unless he can see you. The BSAA has taken meticulous effort in making sure there's no metal anywhere near the range of his unit, even letting you help design his cell area based on your expertise, but he's still abnormally strong. They can't control him, and they were fools to think they ever could.
So, in an effort to make him a little more compliant, they've cut your quarantine period, and although you'd hoped he'd be a little more happy to see you, you can only assume that the rest of the BSAA hasn’t made the best impression on him as he eyes you through the glass on the other side of security checkpoint attached to his cell.
Having already emptied your pockets in the last room, this is the last checkpoint before you can be in the same room as Heisenberg, who’s chewing on the end of a cigar as he watches through the observation window. Chris keeps watch, standing behind you as a security officer runs you over with a hand-held metal detector. The instructions today were extremely strict: no belts, jewellery, hairpins. Nothing on your person containing metal. Approved gifts only. They’ve been kind enough to let you attend in civilian clothing today, meaning you can at least be comfortable while being poked and prodded and scanned over and over -- Chris said it might make things seem a little more ‘friendly,’ but you know better. If Heisenberg’s seen you in a BSAA lab coat once, that’s all he needs. He’s got a good memory when Miranda is manipulating it.
“What’s the book?” The security officer asks, gesturing to the red notebook in your hand as he waves the detector across your wingspan. “Is it approved?” You realise he’s not asking you. He’s asking Chris. Typical.
Thankfully, though, Chris nods. “Personal effects. Approved it myself.”
The security officer waves the detector around your head -- it’s supposed to be a cursory and final check for hairpins or jewellery, nothing more -- but as it passes the side of your face, the detector begins to beep. “Thought you said she’d already been through security,” the officer remarks.
“It’s the metal plate holding my jaw together,” you snap, losing your patience and, honestly, not liking his attitude. The three years you’ve spent with the BSAA have been spent working, proving you’re more than a ‘bioweapon’ for their collection. You might technically be a prisoner here, but through your hard work you’ve become a valued member of the bio-research and development team. Technically, you outrank the security officer. “Asshole.”
The officer opens his mouth to argue, but Chris steps forward, raising his hand and signalling for the officer to stop. “It’s been cleared,” he says. “She knows the risk.”
“And what if he acts up?” The officer asks. “If he’s armed--”
“Then neutralise him,” you cut in, your voice flat, trying to do anything but look through the glass and at Heisenberg. You know he can’t hear you, not unless the microphone system is live, but it’s more for your sake than his. “He won’t try to hurt me. Maybe you,” you pause, your eyes locking with the officer, “but not me.”
The officer once again looks to Chris, who silently nods in approval. “Your funeral,” the officer sighs, finally stepping back and moving to a small control panel in front of the observation glass. “Give me a second to get the mics online and--”
“No need for that,” Chris interrupts, stepping towards the control panel and tilting his head, gesturing for the officer to step aside. “Give them some privacy.” The officer obliges him, letting Chris take over, his expression betraying his opinions. Chris presses a button on the control panel, opening the first door -- the entry into the cell’s ‘airlock’ -- and gestures for you to step inside.
Once you’re actually in Heisenberg’s cell, the energy is… electric, but not in a good way. It’s tense. There’s no emotional reunion, no running into each other's arms. Instead, you stare at each other, you standing by the airlock door, Heisenberg sitting on his bed, both of you waiting for the other to speak.
You take a breath. “They can’t hear us,” you say, “Redfield left the mics off.”
“How considerate.” It’s the first thing you’ve heard Heisenberg say in years, and it’s dripping with sarcasm. Stings a little. It’s not how you’d like it to be, but you can’t say you logically expect any different. You’re lucky he’s not already threatening you. “Did they send you in here to tell me to be a good boy?” He asks. “Tell me to stop fucking with ‘em?” He’s put five security officers and one of the doctors in hospital -- it’s a little more than just fucking with them.
“Yeah,” you admit. “But I’m not gonna do that. Figured you might like to know how this happened -- what’s happened over the last three years.”
He eyes you for a moment, the look as sour as you can remember it getting. “Fine,” he says, gesturing to the plastic chair by the small, plastic table they’ve given him. “I’m not gonna hurt you, Doctor.”
Doctor. Not Buttercup. Doctor. That… that hurts, but you swallow it down, keeping yourself composed using everything you’ve learned about your own emotional resilience over the last three years, taking the seat and placing the book on the table. “I know you won’t.” You hesitate for a second, knowing what you have to say, knowing it’s scary but it’s by far not the worst thing you need to say to him today. “I’d like to ask you a favour.”
Heisenberg scoffs at this, shaking his head. “Good to see you’ve still got that set of balls on you, at least.”
“I know. Just… hear me out.” You shift a bit in your seat. “If I tell you what happened, will you tell me what happened after I left?” You ask.
He raises an eyebrow at this. “They don’t know?”
“They know bits and pieces,” you explain. “The gist of it. But there’s a gap between you drugging me and them finding the aftermath.” There’s a pause. “I’m not telling them. It’s for me, not for them.”
Heisenberg takes a long, deep breath, shifting and straightening his back up. He looks exactly the same as the last time you saw him, although he does look awfully out of place in the plain grey shirt and matching track pants they’ve given him to wear. No glasses, no hat… no, they’re with you, in your living quarters. You aren’t allowed to bring him his own clothes, not yet. Not until they decide he’s earned a reward. You can remember jumping through the same hoops to get so much as Donna’s scarf back. “For starters,” he finally says, “tell me: were you ever really a med student? Or was this secretly always your thing?” He asks. “Trying to figure out how much of your arrival was a coincidence and how much of it was that bitch keeping one step ahead.”
“I was really a med student,” you say, smiling a little at the idea of you being some kind of sleeper agent this whole time. “I was just in the right place at the wrong time.”
“Then why were you in a BSAA lab coat?” He asks.
“When the Duke dropped me off at the safehouse…” you take a second. It’s a collection of hideous memories. Your joints aching from the Duke hiding you in a secret compartment in his caravan in order to safely smuggle you out, your head throbbing from the drugging, the smell of smoke as the Duke explained what happened to the village… “There was nothing left,” you explain. “The village was gone. BSAA nuked it -- what was left of it, anyway. Miranda’s mold had swallowed most of it up.” You clear your throat a little, looking away, your eyes drifting down to your hands. “Don’t know where the Duke went, but he couldn’t take me with him, so he left me with some food and the go-bag and…” you take a measured breath, “what was… left of you. Winters had sold it to him, apparently.”
“Winters,” Heisenberg spits. “The shithead.”
“Yeah,” you agree, nodding along, a little bit of an exhausted laugh following in your breath. “He did it, by the way,” you add. “Killed Miranda. Redfield says he triggered the nuke, too. Went down with the village.” You shake your head. It’s not super relevant, and you have mixed feelings about Ethan Winters. On one hand, he killed Miranda, which effectively freed you from her. On the other, he killed Heisenberg along the way -- for no reason, to your understanding, other than his own hubris or rage. He killed Donna for no reason, and he probably would have done the same to you.
“Winters is dead?” Heisenberg asks.
“Was the whole time. He was made of entirely of mold -- it’s how he was able to just grow back. ...But, yeah. He’s gone now. For real.”
“...And the kid?”
“Alive,” you sigh. You can’t say you care for Rosemary Winters, either. Any of the Winters family, really. They take up too much time, take up too many resources. Rosemary Winters seems to be the BSAAs focus, with you and your work, once again, falling to a backup. “Mia made it out, too. They’re both in BSAA care, too… not here, though. Different facility.”
He shifts, and when you glance at him, you realise he’s not actively avoiding looking at you as he listens anymore. He seems interested. “And the kid’s… still Winters’ kid?” He asks. “Not Miranda’s?”
“Yeah. Still Rosemary Winters, although she didn’t exactly come out of it unscathed…” You pause, shaking your head. “We’ll get to that, though. You asked about how we ended up here, right?” You’re trying to keep things on track, trying to ease him into the worst of it, although you doubt entirely that your attempt to control the direction of the conversation doesn’t go unnoticed by Heisenberg. He’s letting you continue without screaming at you though -- it’s a good sign.
Heisenberg nods. “I’m guessing old Boulder Puncher found you,” he says, nodding to the observation window where Chris waits on the other side. They’re watching, clearly trying to keep an eye on things, making sure everyone’s body language stays placid -- although you’re not sure what the nickname is about. You make a mental note to ask later.
“I didn’t stay in the safehouse for too long,” you explain. “Figured if the BSAA was involved, they’d probably try and find me. They’d already been through everything Miranda had in her lab and what she had on me was enough for them to know I existed and that I’d been unaccounted for. I did okay for the first month or so -- went into hiding in some old, abandoned farm I found in the woods. Planned on staying there, really. But…” you take a second, trying to come up with the right way to put it without alarming him. “I came down with something,” you decide, “and the little towns around me weren’t much help. Had to go to Bucharest for it and I guess I was in a hurry and… I got sloppy.” You reach up and scratch at the base of the impressively thick bun that sits at the nape of your neck. “Tried to lose them in the Bucegi Mountains, but it’s the BSAA. I didn’t stand a chance.” You glance at him again, a tiny smile creeping up in the corner of your mouth. “Although I put up a fight,” you assure him. “Took my share of them down.”
Heisenberg, however, doesn’t see the same humour that you do in your statement. “That where that metal in your jaw’s from?” He asks. You instinctively lift your hand to your face, resting your fingertips along the slightly raised scar that runs along the right side of your jawline. It’s had time to heal, and the BSAA surgeons were (admittedly) very skilled and careful, but it’s still noticeable when your hair’s up -- not that Heisenberg has gone off the scar, of course. No. He’s felt for it. Probably used his powers to check you over for some kind of contraband or a hidden mic or something, although part of you knows it’s probably more passive for him than anything.
“Yeah,” you admit. “Took a punch from Redfield to bring me down in the end.” You catch Heisenberg glancing at the observational window, his arms tensing a little. “Don’t,” you insist quickly, the urgency in your voice enough to bring his eyes back to you. “If you get violent they’re gonna drag me out of here and not let me see you again, alright?” You warn, still whispering, although you’re confident that Chris is a man of his word when it comes to his privacy. “Even with the glass. Please.”
Heisenberg gives Redfield a final look before settling, taking a long, deep breath and focusing on you again.
“Thank you,” you say with a gentle smile. At least he still cares about you a little bit. “They brought me in, obviously,” you continue. “And to be fair to Redfield, he had my back, even if he smashed my jaw up. Got them to agree to let me live and have a little freedom if I worked for them, let them get blood samples, you know. Science stuff. ...Think you can guess what the alternative was.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of a choice.”
“After everything we did to survive Miranda it seemed like a waste to spend the rest of my life in a cell.” You speak carefully. Very carefully. “Getting them to trust me seemed like my best chance as far as bringing you back goes.”
“That’s my next question,” he says. “How the fuck did you do it? Bring me back?” He looks at his own hands for a moment. “Feels like I never left.”
“Went off some of Miranda’s research,” you admit with a shrug, “along with research that came from Rosemary Winters. There’s a lot of…” you trail off, realising that you’ll be here for hours and hours if you explain it in detail. “The short version is that I managed to replicate what Miranda did to put Rosemary back together and bring her back after she was in those flasks,” you explain. “BSAA had some mold samples that they eventually let me grow, we managed to get the Cadou cells from me, and once we had some living tissue with your genetic sequencing--” you flinch a little, realising you’ve slipped up but desperately hoping he won’t notice, “--All we had to do was drop your remains into the mix.”
Karl stands up, exhaling, scratching at his neck a little. “Didn’t happen to bring any cigars, did you?” He asks. “Even just a cigarette?”
“No, I only brought the uh… the book,” you say gesturing to the red notebook on the table, the one with REMEMBER scribbled on the front. “Wasn’t sure if you’d remember…” you shift a little. “But I can ask.” You watch him as he paces. He’s clearly trying to work through agitation without alarming the supervision on the other side of the glass. “I know it’s not what we planned--”
“No shit.”
“--But I did what I had to, and I have a plan--”
“Living tissue?” He asks, stopping, locking his eyes on you. “Did they try to clone me?”
Heisenberg’s question is genuine and should be your way out of addressing the ugly, ugly truth. But Heisenberg also knows you incredibly well, and he’s smart, and he has a better read on people than most -- and he sees right through your lie before you can even tell it.
His face falls from frustrated to disbelief. “...Tell me they fuckin’ tried to clone me.” You don’t respond, just staring at him, your eyes wide, your face already apologetic. Fuck, you knew this was going to be hard, but not like this. “...Don’t say what I fuckin’ think you’re about to say, Buttercup!”
Buttercup.
It hits you like a bus, and you immediately look away, turning your face away from both Heisenberg and the window. The only way someone watching you might be able to tell you’re crying is by the way you quickly rub the sleeve of your sweatshirt against your eyes. You finally, after a second, manage to work up the courage to look at him…
And apparently, that’s all he needs. You assume, at first, that he’s going to lash out as per usual, but he doesn’t. Instead, he sits himself back down on the bed and rests his head on his hands, obscuring your view of his face. After a sharp exhale, he lets out a singular, heavy “fuck.” A few moments pass in relative silence, enough time for you to silently express to Chris through the glass that you’re fine. “Not often I’m left speechless,” Heisenberg finally admits.
“I’m sorry--”
“You’re sorry?” He asks. “You’re-- this--” he exhales again, this one short, loud, more of a puff. “Shit . This isn’t what I wanted for you.”
“It isn’t what I wanted, either.”
He looks up at you, his expression remarkably well controlled given the news. “So I’ve got a kid?” He asks. “Boy? Girl?”
You hesitate, wondering if you should tell him anything. “A boy,” you finally decide, against what feels like your better judgement.
To your horror, Heisenberg smiles, reaching up to scratch at his beard. “A boy,” he repeats to himself, nodding. “He healthy?”
“Healthy as he can be, given his parents.”
“What’s his name?”
You shift uncomfortably, panic ripping through you. “Before I tell you, I just wanna--”
“Come on,” he says, grinning. “This is the only good fuckin’ news I’ve had since I came to.”
You look down at the floor, your heart racing, your palms sweating. You’re losing control of this really fast. You’ve fucked up so bad. “Karl,” you say. “His name is Karl.” You’ve just fucked up. You’ve just fucked up phenomenally. He’s excited-- he’s happy. You never, ever expected him to be happy about this. You’d expected yelling, maybe some furniture kicking. “Didn’t think you were gonna take this so well,” you admit aloud.
“It was the last thing I wanted when that bitch was around, but now that she’s out of the picture? Now that she won’t have control over any of us? That we’re out?” He shrugs. “Not the worst news in the world.” He gives a singular laugh. “Karl,” he repeats. “He here?”
“No,” you say quietly, looking away again, knowing that’s probably the last time you’ll probably see Heisenberg smile for a long time.
“Guessing that’s the deal, then?” He asks. “I play along long enough and they’ll let me see my--”
“He’s not with me,” you interrupt, deciding to rip it off like a bandaid. “I haven’t seen him since he was born.” Heisenberg falls silent and you take a deep breath to try and stop your voice from trembling. “I signed him over to the BSAA in exchan--”
“This better be some kind of fuckin’ prank--”
“In exchange for your remains,” you continue, not letting him stop you. “It was the only way to get them to agree--”
“You gave him away?!” He snaps, standing up and beginning to pace again.
“What was I meant to do?!” You snap back, your anxiety taking over, your heart leaping into your throat, the emotions starting to bubble over. You’ve been dreading this day for three years, and it’s finally here, and there was never anything you could do to prepare yourself for it. “They’d already caught me--”
“I dunno, Buttercup, maybe get your ass to a doctor and take care of it when you knew you were pregnant if you didn’t actually want it?” He shouts. “Not let the BSSA turn my son into some kind of fucking science project!”
“I tried!” you argue, getting to your feet, taking offence to the implication that this was anything but necessary. “Why do you think I was trying to get to Bucharest?”
Heisenberg opens his mouth to say something, stopping for a moment, sucking air in sharply through his teeth as his hands ball into fists. He stops pacing long enough to lock eyes with you, pointing at you as he speaks in a growl. “You brought a fuckin’ kid into the world that you didn’t even want so some assholes in labcoats can run fuckin’ experiments on him for the rest of his life?” You have never, ever seen him this angry, and part of you thinks that if there was metal in this room, you’d be dead. “I thought you were smart, Buttercup,” he spits, finally crossing the room and closing the distance between you, standing over you. You instinctively look to the observation window, just in time to see Chris urgently getting to his feet from behind the panel. You raise a hand, gesturing for him to stop, and although Chris stays in place, he doesn’t seem convinced as Heisenberg continues to get in your face. “Apparently you didn’t learn a fucking thing in that village.”
“It was the only way to get you back--”
“Just like fuckin’ Miranda!”
You know the cell is soundproofed, but you’re positive that Chris and the security officer on the other side of the glass are able to hear it when you slap Heisenberg. The intercom beeps immediately, the microphones and speakers in the system buzzing as they come online.
“I’m pulling you out,” Chris says. “The airlock--”
“No,” you snap, cutting him off, not looking away from Heisenberg. “It’s fine.”
Chris doesn’t seem convinced. “I’m not risking--”
“I’m not gonna touch her,” Heisenberg speaks up, much to your surprise, his gaze locked to yours. “I’m not a fuckin’ idiot, Redfield. Your experiment’s safe.”
You expect Chris to argue this or turn a request into an order, but instead you hear the unmistakable sound of the microphones and speakers deactivating with a loud click, the buzzing stopping.
“Don’t you ever compare me to her,” you warn him.
“You’ve made it hard not to,” he argues, his voice low.
You take a deep breath, trying to keep your cool. “Look around,” you say. “I know there’s no metal in here, but do you see any plants? Dirt? Anything organic? This whole base is like that. No organic plant material, no soil. It took me three years to convince them to let me look at so much as a petri dish of mold, and I can’t even do anything with that.” You step back. “I’m just as much of a prisoner as you are, and you might hate me, and that’s fine. But I can’t get out of here without you, and I was never gonna be able to get out without you, so what fucking hope would our son have had?” You ask.
“You shouldn’t have even--”
“Do you honestly think they would have let me terminate?” You laugh incredulously. “Redfield offered to arrange it if I wanted, but I wasn't born yesterday. He might have control here, but there’s people above him that don’t give a shit about what bioweapons want. The second they found out I was pregnant, they were making plans. ...You wanna know what I learned from Miranda?” You ask. “I’m not a person to the people in control. I’m a body. I’m an object. I’m a tool. They would have just knocked me out for nine months and taken him away if I’d resisted. At least this way I got to stay awake, study the place, plan a way out. It gave me nine months to figure out how to bring you back.” You stop, taking a second to swallow your breath in the hope that a certain feeling you’ve been suppressing for the last three years won’t make its way out.
There’s a long silence, and you half expect Heisenberg to completely shut down. “Named him after me,” he reiterates. “The son I’ll never get to meet.”
“I just…” there it is, that feeling again. You close your eyes and centre yourself as you continue. “If the thing with the mold hadn’t worked and you hadn’t come back or something had gone wrong… I just… wanted to make sure he had some kind of connection to you. It was the least I could do.” Opening your eyes again, you try to stay focused on the goal, the point of this conversation. “Doesn’t matter, though, because we’re getting out of here.”
You wait for Heisenberg to say anything, but he doesn’t, just continuing to watch you, his eyes studying you. You know he’s picking you apart, trying to see your tells, dissecting every single aspect of your countenance and speech to see if there’s a lie to catch you in.
“When all this is over,” you continue, your voice cracking, “and we’ve escaped and found him, you can do whatever you want. You can take him and leave and never speak to me again if that’s what you want to do. But this is the situation we’re in right now and we’ve got to do what we can with it, the same way we did in the village.”
His eyes thin a little bit before, finally, he runs a hand through his hair. It’s a small gesture, but it’s enough to demonstrate that he’s cooled down just a little. “I know we didn’t want a kid,” he finally says, his voice bitter, “but this is cold, Buttercup. Stone fuckin’ cold.”
“I’ve spent the last three years trying to keep detached from it,” you admit, trying to push the memory of your son’s birth to the back of your mind, trying to ignore the swell of emotions that came with it, the way that despite all your preparation and efforts to remain distant from it, you fell in love with that baby the second you held him for all of two minutes and have had to force yourself to pretend you’ve felt nothing ever since. “Had to. Wouldn’t have survived it otherwise.” That feeling pops up again, digging into your chest, and you quickly look up at the ceiling, afraid that so much as looking at Heisenberg will cause it to overwhelm you.
When you feel Heisenberg’s hand on your shoulder, you expect it to be followed with violence, with sirens, with security and Chris storming the cell. But when you feel him wrap his arms around you, it’s somehow even more alarming, an outcome you absolutely never expected. He holds you against his chest, one hand cradling the back of your head and holding it against him as he lowers his head and kisses the top of yours. “You know what I’ve always loved about you?” He asks, his words muffled into your hair. “You’re resilient. Like a weed. Miranda throwing your car off a cliff, the Cadou, all your bones breaking, the shit with Ethan Winters… you just pop right back up and keep going.” He chuckles a little, a sound you never thought you’d hear again. “It’d be annoying if it didn’t remind me so damned much of myself. “
You’re… shocked.
“Not about to pretend I’m totally okay with this,” he admits, “but I respect what you’ve done.”
“Are you still mad at me?” You ask.
He pauses for a moment. “I’ll get over it. They’ll win if I don’t… and I know you’ll make things right. You’ve got a habit of that. Our personal problems though?” He asks. “We’ll sort ‘em out later.”
“God I missed you,” you whisper into his chest. You stay like that, just happy that even though there’s an unspoken level of hurt between you, it’s not enough for him to throw you away, to discard you. It’s something that might heal with enough time and understanding. ...The idea of Heisenberg being even a little forgiving of what you’ve done was out of the question when you’d first met. You wonder if he’s changed because of you, or if your way of thinking has just become more and more like his.
“You’ve got a plan?” He asks, still holding you.
“Yeah.”
“Let’s hear it,” he says. “While we’re playing kiss and make up for the audience.”
Forty minutes and a lot of talking later, you give Heisenberg’s hand a squeeze before stepping back into the airlock, leaving him with his red notebook. You’ve told Chris that the notebook is for the possibility that the process of resurrecting him has somehow corrupted his memory recall, but the truth is a little more than that -- you’ve hidden some printouts in the dust-jacket, folded up, slipped in between Chris approving the notebook and you arriving at Heisenberg’s cell. Heisenberg now has some extra reading material, information about the base you’re on, maps, and some information about the process you used to bring him back.
“He tell you what happened?” Chris asks once you’ve left his cell block, his voice low as he escorts you back to your ‘area’ of the base, the one where you’re allowed to roam freely.
“There was some more important stuff to go over first,” you respond. “As you can probably imagine.”
Chris hesitates a little as you round a corner. “...How’d he take it?” He asks. “Signals looked mixed from where I was--”
“I’m still breathing, so all things considered? I’d say he took it pretty well.”
“You really thought it’d go that bad?”
You step into an elevator, Chris swiping his security card and punching in the code for the residential level you inhabit. “Miranda took him as a child and ran experiments on him that were so bad that he doesn’t even know how old he is or how old he was when she ‘adopted’ him,” you explain, making a point of not making any eye contact, keeping your eyes on the doors as they close. “I don’t think it’s a big reach to assume that he wasn’t going to be a fan of his own son being handed over to the BSAA for the same thing.”
Chris takes a long, measured breath. You’ve spent three years working alongside him -- or, rather, he’s spent three years assigned to keeping an eye on you -- and you like to think you know him well enough to tell when he’s choosing his words carefully. “They’re not doing that to him,” he says quietly, shooting you a glance. “You’ve seen his files.” He pauses to roll his head a little, tilting it from side to side. “You can pretend you don’t read them all you like, but I know what you’re like.”
He’s right -- you have seen little Karl’s files. Chris has been secretly supplying them to you since he went into BSAA care, and while you’d immediately throw them out without reading them at first, your curiosity eventually got the best of you. You told yourself it was your medical curiosity, your desire to know if he was normal or otherwise, but the truth of the matter is that the unspeakable feeling eventually crept up on you and got too much. The feeling that kept you awake for days at a time for the first three or so months after Karl was born, the feeling that would make you forget to eat, the feeling that would cause you to lash out and argue with well meaning colleagues and BSAA therapists that were just trying to help you get through what Miranda had put you through, the feeling that nearly pushed you to cross a line with Chris Redfield at one stage just so you could feel something else. You didn’t, thankfully, but you worry sometimes that Chris’ continued kindness isn’t altruism but a result of a tension you cultivated deliberately for a few months to try and seize back some kind of control, and apology for a mistake you came dangerously close to making -- or, worse: a continued attempt to rekindle it, even though you both know you have absolutely no interest in doing so.
You’ve always worried that there’s something rotten in you, something that’s moving on to you now that Miranda isn’t around to play host to it. The need to assert some kind of control at any cost, the constant desire for a dominance that just isn’t ethical or fair to those around you, the anger and rage that at times makes you think that all the good in you is lost. Chris, during your darker moments, the times assigned for the two of you to sit in a room alone together so he can ‘check in,’ has assured you that this is trauma, some kind of PTSD that you’re just refusing to discuss with your BSAA assigned therapist -- but that’s easy to say when you don’t have a literal parasite living in your chest as evidence of Miranda’s legacy.
You have to actively ignore it, and remind yourself that maybe, just maybe, Chris Redfield is just a good guy.
A good guy that you’re planning to monumentally fuck over in the next 24 hours.
“He’ll tell me what happened before Winters took him out,” you say, waiting as you watch the display in the elevator climb the five floors you need to go, “tomorrow, though. Think it’s only fair that he gets some time to process today’s news, don’t you?”
Arriving at your floor, the doors open. “You’re right.” The residential floor is quiet -- it’s not highly populated, most of its occupants being fly-in-fly-out workers or people on a short changeover. For you, it’s permanent lodgings, a privilege afforded to you when BSAA command decided they could trust you to live outside of a cell. It’s also where Chris crashes when he’s here on work -- you have no idea where ‘home’ is for him, but when he’s here, he tries to make it his normal, often trying to include you in it. He’s trying to lead by example. Sometimes it’s nice, sometimes you think that it’s pity and feel disgusted by it.
“You’ll let me see him tomorrow, right?” You ask.
“I think we’ll need it,” Chris admits. “It’s the most cooperative I’ve ever seen him.”
“Good.” You give a nod, making your way to the boarding hall that contains your private room. “I’m gonna go over that data again, global wants me to do a presentation by the end of the week…” you stop, trailing off a little, a pang of guilt swelling in your chest. “Chris?” You ask. He doesn’t respond verbally, just lifting his eyebrows in acknowledgement. “Thanks for this. I know I haven’t always been… easy to deal with,” you half-joke, although it’s the truth. “But you’ve always been in my corner.”
Chris shrugs it off, although you catch the way he gently smiles at the gesture. “Why wouldn’t I be?” He asks. “Don’t know how many times I have to tell you that Miranda was the bad guy, not you.” He pauses for a second as he presses the call button on the elevator again. “If global ever lets you out of here, I’ve got some friends I think you’d like,” he says. “Been through some similar stuff to you, but different. Think you might feel less alone if--”
“I’d like that.” It just kind of tumbles out of your mouth, maybe out of panic because you’re realising what this is, even if you’re the only one who knows it. This is a goodbye. “One step at a time, though.”
He nods as the elevator doors open. “I’ll come get you tomorrow,” he says. “Same time.”
As soon as Chris is gone, you punch the access code for your room into the door, pushing it open and quickly closing it behind you. What a fucking day -- and yet, your chest stings knowing that it’s not even going to compare to tomorrow.
You spend the rest of the night making sure things are ready, rummaging through your small room that could barely pass for a hotel room size-wise for the things you’ll need. The go-bag this time is more meticulously packed and organised. Other than some clothes and necessary items for yourself, it contains files -- both printed and digitally collected on USB sticks and storage drives. Most of them are about the research that went into bringing Heisenberg back, but the rest are files about your son. You don’t know exactly where he is, but you know it’s somewhere in America. He, like Rosemary Winters, has some kind of abilities -- but the files you’re able to access from your base are limited. Most of the research here is about Rosemary. You’ll need to cross continents in order to find out more about him. Heisenberg’s belongings are stored separately in a cardboard box for easy access. You’re confident that he’ll want to wear his own clothes as soon as he can, and putting it in the go-bag will only get in the way.
You don’t get any sleep that night. It’s hard to decide what you need to feel more guilty for -- what you’ve done to get here, or what you’re about to do. You’re trying to find forgiveness for one sin by committing another.
You’ve never felt more like Miranda -- but it’s set in stone.
Chris watches as the security officer scans you over, smiling a little at the way you’re holding Heisenberg’s hat. You look nervous, and while he initially questioned why the team felt the need to include that and a set of his discarded glasses in the evidence sweep before the factory went up, he’s glad they did. The anticipation on your face is, dare he say, kind of cute in a weird way. He can’t say he’s a fan of Heisenberg in the slightest -- but he likes you, thinks you’re just another poor bastard who’s been wrapped up in something bigger than them. Just a regular person in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just like Claire, just like Leon, just like him… although things were, admittedly, a little more complicated for you when you came out of the other side, what, with the powers and all.
Either way, though, it’s nice to see you happy. You’ve struggled over the last three years, although you’ve still managed to hold it together better than most, all things considered. If Heisenberg is what it takes for you to take back a little of your life from what happened to you in that village, so be it. He’s harmless as long as he’s in BSAA custody, anyway.
The metal detector beeps as it waves past her jaw again, but this time, the security officer disregards it, knowing better. He sits down at the control panel, gesturing for Chris to pull up the seat next to him as you step into the airlock. “Mics today?” he asks.
“I trust her,” Chris says, waving his hand as one end of the airlock closes and the other opens, allowing her into the cell. “She’ll tell me what we need to know.”
Chris takes the seat, failing to withhold the tiny trace of a smile on his face as he watches you all but leap into Heisenberg’s arms this time. Things look less tense. It’s good. “Looks like they’ve worked something out,” the security officer notes. “What’s their thing, anyway?”
Chris doesn’t answer at first, watching through the glass as you hand Heisenberg his hat, Heisenberg grinning from ear to ear as he holds it in his hands. Seems like he really appreciates having it back. Chris wonders if it means something special. “It’s a long story,” he dismisses.
“Well, whatever it is,” the security officer exhales, “it’s working. He’s co-operated with everything since she dropped in yesterday, spare for the blood sample. Didn’t kill anyone this time, though, so I guess you could call that an improvement.”
“I’ll talk to her about it,” Chris assures him. “I’m sure it’s something we can work on.”
“Think so?”
“She’s a good agent,” he says with a nod. “Like I said: I trust her.”
Chris watches Heisenberg put the hat on, his gaze finding its way to the smile on your face. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen you smile like that before, honestly. It’s something a lot more genuine than he’s used to from you, anyway. More… free. “This whole thing’s nuts, even for BSAA,” the officer remarks as they both watch you take Heisenberg’s face in your hands and kiss him. Chris feels a little guilty watching this, really -- not just because he doesn’t feel like it’s his business, or because it’s an especially passionate and open-mouthed kiss that seems like it should be private, but because there was a time where he thought about the same when he really, really shouldn’t have. “I mean, I’ve seen bioweapons reanimate,” the officer continues as the memory replays in Chris’ head, a memory he’d rather not have. “But this guy was like, pieces of glass.” Chris nods vacantly, he’s barely listening. It’d been a hard day on base, he remembers -- you’d been denied Heisenberg’s remains again, and Chris was 30 hours without sleep, trying to de-escalate your accompanying outburst. He already has his issues with the BSAA, and in a moment of weakness his distrust of them morphed into something else for you. It was a low point for both of you, and even though it didn’t happen, it shouldn’t have even crossed his mi--
“Hold on,” Chris says, gesturing for the security officer to wait, noticing something in Heisenberg’s posture change. You give Heisenberg a smile, saying something Chris can’t hear as you step back. It’s odd, and he thinks about turning the intercom on for a second -- and then something weird happens.
Heisenberg rolls his head from side to side before reaching up and putting his fingers in his mouth. At first, Chris thinks that maybe he’s picking his teeth, that maybe you’d made a comment about his breath or something and that explains the sudden change in energy… but then he pulls something out. Heisenberg turns to the glass, taking a second to grin at Chris and the security officer and giving Chris time to figure out what he’s got in his fingers.
It’s a coin.
“Shit,” Chris says, rushing to get to his feet. “Get--”
It’s too late. The coin shoots through the observational glass, and even though it’s designed to withstand impact, the sheer force behind it makes it less like an object being thrown and more like a bullet. It doesn’t cause the glass to shatter, but it definitely takes a chunk of it out before shooting straight through the security officer’s head. Chris dives back onto the floor, reaching for his earpiece as the coin tears through the plastic and polymer control panel, causing both the doors on the airlock to unlock and unseal. “This is Alpha!” He barks into his comms as Heisenberg effortlessly shoves the airlock doors open. “Project Bister has breached his cell! Project Bister has--” he stops as Heisenberg breaches the second airlock door, arriving in the same room, the coin whizzing towards Chris as he reaches for his polymer gun. The coin charges through it, causing it to rip from Chris’s hand as Heisenberg casually starts to knock on the back wall using his knuckles, the coin moving to float in front of Chris’ head. A threat. It’s as good as a bullet.
“Alpha?” Heisenberg laughs. “Really?” He pauses, knocking in one spot, apparently listening carefully. “...This the wall, Buttercup?” He asks you.
Chris watches as you step out from behind Heisenberg, hoping that this isn’t what he thinks it is, hoping that you’re an unwilling participant. “That’s the one,” you confirm, nodding. Chris’ stomach drops. He immediately knows the mistake he’s made, three years worth of your behaviour suddenly making complete sense to him, unravelling in his mind -- but he doesn’t want to believe it.
Heisenberg gives you a smile, gesturing for you to wait before making his way over to Chris and stomping his foot down on his chest, not hard enough to seriously injure him, but applying enough force to keep him held down as the coin shoots to the back wall. “Built all this to keep me penned in, huh?” Heisenberg asks with a laugh as the coin begins to shoot in and out of the concrete, causing it to crumble and falter piece by piece. “Let me guess -- last minute extension before your bosses could change their minds about bringing me back?” To Chris’s alarm, enough concrete falls away to expose the earth that the base is buried in. It’s a small patch, but Chris knows that it’s enough for what you’re clearly about to do. “Shouldn’t have half-assed it.” Heisenberg smirks as he watches you reach up to your bun and untie it, letting your hair down. “Definitely shouldn’t have let her help design it, either. I know, I know,” Heisenberg laughs as a small, singular vine emerges from the exposed earth, “she’s cute, looks like a woman you can trust. Rookie mistake, buddy!” Heisenberg’s voice lowers into a chuckle. “...You won’t make that one twice.”
As the vine begins to grow larger and larger, Chris manages to catch your gaze, and in a last ditch attempt to bring you back to the person he’s painted this image of in his head, he calls your name.
The sound of the wall coming down is deafening, the room filling with dirt and dust, going completely dark as the power cuts out .
At first, Chris thinks the entire level might come down, but eventually the crashing stops, the room filling with quiet as he thanks his dumb and almost unnatural level of luck. As the dust and dirt clears from the air and his vision is restored, he takes in the full scope of the damage. You’ve grown that little vine in the wall to a gargantuan growth that’s blown apart the ceiling, running up to the next level of the base. It’s something that looks more like a tree-trunk than a vine, and it’s not alone, the entire wall having turned into something more like a root system than anything, countless branch-like vines entangled together, running in all different directions. The ceiling is completely destroyed, and just as Chris thinks about how it’s a miracle it didn’t collapse on him completely, he looks directly above him and realises why -- a system of the vines have sprung up around him, reinforcing the walls and part of the ceiling that would have otherwise fallen on him. You saved him.
He carefully gets to his feet, surprised at how relatively uninjured he is. The comm chatter in his ear is going ballistic, everyone in security rushing to try and keep up with the breach, Chris struggling to keep up with the description of the trail of destruction himself as he forces the door to the floor’s main hall open as he hears someone else request his callsign over the comms. “Update me,” he orders.
“Bister and Terra have breached into residential,” the voice calls back, shouting over gunfire. “We’re trying to neutralise, but the polymer shots can’t get through the organic gro--” the voice on the other end is drowned out by more gunfire.
“Shit,” he growls to himself as he sprints down the hall to the stairwell. The lights are flickering and it looks like they’re down to emergency power -- the elevator’s definitely out. “Hold position, keep eyes on them,” he orders. “I’m on my way.” This is catastrophic. The non-metallic shots can’t get through the vines that you’re growing, and switching to proper rounds just means giving Heisenberg bullets to shoot back at you. They’re gonna need to get creative, but the chances of bringing either you or Heisenberg back into containment alive are looking slimmer and slimmer. “Control -- this is Alpha, do you read?” He shouts as he climbs the stairs. “Order an evac! I want anyone non-combat out of here!” The response Chris gets is static and barely audible, but apparently they receive the order, because as he clears the second floor of the four he needs to ascend, the PA system is ordering that anyone without combat clearance needs to evacuate immediately. Good. One less thing on his conscience.
He finally reaches the residential floor, all but kicking the door open. He finds the combatant team at a standstill, what’s almost a wall blocking the hall that leads from the common areas to the rooms. “What’s happening?” He asks an agent.
“Terra sprung that thing up and it’s been quiet since,” the agent explains, her gun pointing towards the vines, waiting for something to change. “Don’t know what they’re doing in there, but they’re taking their time.”
An agent steps out from the line that’s being held, reaching out to grip at the wall of vines with the intent to climb it. It looks climbable, anyway -- but as soon as he gets a footing, the vines part for another one to shoot out. It wraps around the agent, lifting him up and throwing him back across the room before retracting back into the wall like growth, which closes back up. “Hold the line,” Chris orders. “Let’s see what they’re doing first.”
“Alpha, this is Panthera,” a female voice in his earpiece says, her speech quick, urgent. “Global’s sending down demo--”
“Demolition?” He grunts. “The base is--”
“There’s concerns about the structural safety of the base,” she explains. “Terra’s got those… trees? Vines?” The voice trails off, stumbling over her words. “Whatever they are, she’s basically wrapped the base in it. If she decides to crack open the foundation--”
“She won’t. That’d take the base down.”
“Not to mention that Bister can just pull down the steel framing--”
“He won’t,” Chris insists, his eyes still trained on the wall of vines. “Not while there’s still something they want in here.” He pauses. “Prep everyone without level 2 combat clearance for evac. I want everyone that’s not on residential redirected to the specimen vault in R&D--”
The vines begin to retract, shrinking back towards the broken walls and continually expanding the system of roots along the floors. The line tenses, preparing themselves for either of the breaches, either you or Heisenberg.
Instead, they get a fridge.
It clears out about four agents, throwing them back and pinning down one as Heisenberg emerges from a room -- your room -- dressed in the same clothes Chris remembers seeing him wear in the village, sunglasses and hat and all. Shit. He’s in his element, ripping up the steel underlay from the flooring, using it as a shield against the polymer bullets as the fridge rises back up from the floor to take out more of the agents. He’s laughing -- and as alarming as that is, it’s not enough to stop Chris noticing you in the back of the hall, a grouping of vines shielding you from any shots, smaller ones securing some kind of bag as a huge one rams through the ceiling. Chris watches as the vines that surround you shift to their new purpose: lifting you up and through the new breach to the next floor.
“She’s breaching--”
“I know exactly where she’s going,” Chris shouts into the earpiece, sprinting back to the stairwell as the agents he leaves behind do their best to at least survive Heisenberg. “Keep on the vault, I’m on my way!” He sprints up the next three flights of stairs as quickly as he can, the comm chatter turning from sharp commands to panicked shouting. Heisenberg’s breached the next floor up, too, and Chris isn’t sure if Heisenberg’s chasing him, or if he’s just working his way through the base. The first thing Chris sees when he emerges onto the R&D floor is a vine shooting across his vision, slamming an agent into a wall, and he realises that Heisenberg is far from the only thing he needs to worry about.
It’s carnage. You’ve already torn through the R&D floor. There’s smashed glass, smoke, torn out walls and downed agents. The most alarming part, though, is the vines. They’re everywhere. Chris reaches down, taking the polymer rifle from an unconscious agent on the floor. “Gonna need help with R&D,” he orders into his earpiece. “Lot of downed agents. I want ‘em moved out.”
“What about Terra?” Panthera asks on the other end.
“You just worry about getting everyone out of here before global blows the place up,” he says, following the trail of destruction down the halls and through the labs. “I’ll deal with Terra.”
“...Loud and clear.” She doesn’t sound happy about it, but Chris’ reputation proceeds him in this regard, apparently, and Panthera begins delivering subsequent orders over comms.
The door of the vault is gone, huge vines running inside like arteries. Chris can hear the commotion of you ripping the place apart as he ventures inside, knowing exactly where to go, knowing exactly why you’re there. There’s a part of him that’s still trying to make excuses for you -- that Heisenberg manipulated you, or the stress of breaking the news about his son finally made you crack under the Trauma, or that activating the mold sample somehow activated something inside you that they can still fix… but then you turn around to face him, a locked biocontainer of the mold wrapped up in one of your vines, and a recent acquisition in your arms. A doll, an artifact from the village. To most people here, it’s just a creepy relic, just evidence. But to you and Chris and anyone else attached to the incident, it’s more than that. It’s a dried, left-over Cadou. There’s no excuses to be made for you. You’ve been planning this all along, and Chris, in his desperate need to successfully save someone to make up for failing so many others, has helped you.
You stare each other down, both of you expecting the other to make the first move. Although Chris’ gun is trained to you, he doesn’t shoot, though. There it is again, a twinge of that feeling, that fucking feeling. “It’s not too late,” he says, his words measured, both of you extremely aware of the fact that Heisenberg will be here any second. “Put the samples down, call off Heisenberg, and--”
“And you’ll what?” You ask. “Let us be in adjacent cells?” You shake your head. “We both know it’s too late, Chris. ...Sorry you had to get caught up in this.”
His eyes flicker to the sample in your arms as one of the vines brings you the bag you’ve been escaping with. “All your work,” he says, watching you unzip the top and carefully place the sample in the top. “All this good will, and you’re willing to throw it all away for what?” He asks. “A doll?”
“Her name is Angie.” Your voice turns dark, firm -- it’s downright vengeful, and Chris hasn’t heard you sound like that since he first brought you in.
“They would have let you both have a life,” Chris argues. “With some trust building and work, you and Heisenberg could have had the same level of freedom that Mia and Rose are allowed--”
“Enough about them!” You shout, a vine shooting forth from the roots below and knocking the rifle out of his hand just as he tries to fire it. “I was Miranda’s backup plan for those two and I’m not spending the rest of my life being the same thing for the BSAA!”
“Then don’t do it for the BSAA,” Chris says, stepping back, a crash from outside indicating that Heisenberg’s arrived. “Do it for--”
“For you?” You finish. You intend for it to sound bitter, but it doesn’t come out that way. It’s hurt, a little glimmer of honesty you never meant to let slip.
“Figured we had a level of mutual respect.”
“You’re right,” you say quietly. “But not friendship, right?” You lock eyes again. “BSAA wouldn’t allow that with a bioweapon . Might mean acknowledging I’m a human being.” There’s another pause that’s so tense it borders on agony. “You know it as well as I do...” the vines lift you off the ground a little, rising you above him, allowing you to look down on him. “Everything you decided I was meant to be? That was your choice, Redfield.”
Before Chris can respond, the impact of a steel bar slamming against his torso knocks the wind out of him, throwing him to the wall of the vault and pinning him against it as Heisenberg steps inside, surrounded by various floating metal objects and pieces. “You’re a quick one, aren’t you?” He laughs before directing his attention to go. “We good to go, Buttercup?” He asks. “Not to rush you, but Redfield’s got a habit of blowing places up when things get dicey.” He quickly looks back to Chris, who’s doing his best to push the bar away.
“If you take those samples, the BSAA is never going to leave you alone,” he warns.
“Without a thriving root, this isn’t enough Megamycete to replicate unless I cultivate it that way,” you explain. “Don’t worry about another incident. There won’t be one.”
“Not from the mold, anyway,” Heisenberg warns, leaning in to get a good look at Chris -- but mostly to smirk at him, to gloat. “I will be collecting my son at some point.” Heisenberg, satisfied after a moment, takes a step back, finding his footing on one of the vines that is supporting you and holding on. “Thanks for taking care of my Buttercup, by the way! She told me all about your help -- so I’ll let you live this time. As a treat.”
There’s another crash, more of the ceiling crumbling, this one louder than the last as Heisenberg pulls the steel ceiling of the vault apart to let the vines through. By the time the dust clears and the bar drops, they’re long gone, the vine extending through what Chris can only assume is floor after floor.
Chris pushes himself off the wall, now freed, and steps over the bar that has since dropped to the floor as he takes in the ruin that surrounds him, trying to digest what you’ve done -- what he’s let you do.
Bucharest, Romania
You stare at your laptop. Two months of hiding in an abandoned village in Serbia followed by eight months of hiding in plain sight in Bucharest, and you’re a little sad that your time here is coming to an end. Once the paranoia and hypervigilance settled, you kind of came to like it here.
Sure, your apartment is cramped and kind of run down, but the landlord doesn’t care about you fixing things yourselves -- it’s why you rented this place, after all. He doesn’t ask questions and accepts cash. You’ve managed to turn the one bedroom into something cosy, something that doesn’t look like it’s owned by a slum lord that primarily rents out to drifters and illegal overstayers.
You glance over from your laptop to the couch where Heisenberg lounges. The two of you run an illegal drug operation to keep the lights on, something surprisingly low effort thanks to your abilities. You grow things like hallucinogenic mushrooms, opium poppies, marijuana, and anything else that comes from the soil and can be used to get high. Heisenberg runs it to manufacturers, who buy it, turn it into product, and then have it sold to the endless supply of backpackers that seem to come through the city. It’s a neat little operation, and while it was an act of desperation at first in order to make money while keeping your heads low, Heisenberg has done a fine job at making everyone involved far too afraid of him to try anything. It’s one of the few industries you can get into where he can use his powers to his advantage -- because everyone knows what happens to snitches when it comes to the drug trade. At first, he wasn’t a fan of it, agreeing to it at first because you were running out of the money you’d been able to make selling stolen BSAA equipment. Heisenberg is Heisenberg, though, and he came around quickly when he realised the power trip that came with the work. Initially, he’d referred to it as ‘being a mule with extra steps,’ but now that he’s got the Bucharest drug trade on its knees? He’s a little more fond of the practice. During his downtime, though, he likes to watch movies. Netflix, as you’d assumed back in the village, is less of a passtime and more of an active hobby for him.
In complete honesty, you wouldn’t be opposed to staying here… but you haven’t spent all this time planning and researching for nothing. You have things to do, places to do, people to find. Your most recent investment of a van is set up and ready to go, Heisenberg having spent about three weeks modifying it, reinforcing it, making it capable of handling rougher terrain than it should -- a process that would have taken a normal person months. Tomorrow, you’ll pack the last of your things, get in the van, and leave the country.
He’d wanted to find your son first, understandably, but two weeks of pouring through your stolen files have brought up some problems, namely that they’ve probably moved him to a location that’s prepared for both of you, something more purpose built. He’s with a foster family that’s been assigned by the BSAA, allowed the same freedoms as Rosemary Winters is, but that probably comes with the same levels of surveillance and security. To get him out, you need something they aren’t ready for, a factor they aren’t prepared to deal with.
So, instead of crossing the ocean to get to The States, you’re driving to Italy… you, specifically. Heisenberg doesn’t know how to drive anything but farming equipment and tanks, apparently, although you’re sure he’ll insist on trying along the way. Still, it’s a trip that needs to be made. You need living tissue for the next step of your plan to get your son back, and according to Ancestry.com, there’s a lot of living Benevientos in Italy that are close enough relations to provide the genetic matching you need. If you have to go through them one by one, so be it.
You close the laptop, picking up your mug of tea and moving over to the couch, Heisenberg scooting over for you as you place the mug down on your little coffee table. You take your seat, resting into him when he puts his arm around you. It’s been a long road to get back to this point. Heisenberg might have changed a little -- as have you -- but he’s still stubborn to the point of bullheadedness. It took him a while to forgive you -- like, really forgive you, not just say that because it’s what you wanted to hear or because he wanted to be over it before he really was. It’s not that Heisenberg doesn’t understand why you did what you did, it’s that he doesn’t know how to handle it, how to separate it from what Miranda did to him. At the same time, you also had a lot to get through. The trauma of everything kept creeping up on you, catching up no matter how many all-nighters you pulled and how much you insisted it was fine. That feeling would nibble and nibble at you and the only way you knew how to cope with it was to become stone cold.
There was a lot of fighting, some of it explosive, lots of it toxic -- at one stage, you’d both come to the understanding that you’d go your separate ways after you got your son back. Karl would probably go with Heisenberg, and you’d find a new life with Donna. But as time went on and you pushed yourself more and more and more, something finally snapped, and Heisenberg came home one night to find you sitting on the bed, hugging your legs, sobbing. You finally told him the truth that night: that the unspeakable feeling that had been rotting you from the inside out was shame.
You genuinely expected him to leave, or be mad at you, or shout at you for having a breakdown at a time like this. He didn’t, though. Heisenberg climbed onto the bed beside you, held you, and let you cry. All he said was a solitary “there it is,” like he’d known how ashamed you’d felt all along, like he was more mad at you for denying it than anything else you’d done. You made up pretty quickly after that. And then you made up on the couch, and then in the shower, and then he stopped sleeping on the couch and started sleeping beside you again. Heisenberg might have the emotional maturity of a brick 99% of the time, but grief and regret and shame are all old-hat to him, and you’ve managed to learn quite a bit from him. That’s not to say he hasn’t had his own outbursts -- you’ve lost count of how many holes in the wall and even the ceiling you’ve had to patch up. He’s never laid a finger on you, though. Even when you were both at your worst and at each other's throats, he’s never hurt you, and you’ve never worried that he will.
“I’ll miss this,” he says after a few moments, his eyes not moving from the TV. He’s watching some kind of documentary about Tony Hawk. You can’t help but wonder if he’s watched everything else on the service and is just scraping the bottom of the barrel, or if he’s genuinely interested in things that happened outside the village.
“There’ll be wi-fi on the way,” you laugh. “I’ve tried to pick rest-stops that--”
“Not that,” he interrupts. The hand that’s resting on your shoulder reaches up to stroke at your hair. “This. The whole… couch and movies thing. Feels good. Normal.”
You can’t help but give a surprised laugh. “Normal?” you repeat. “I know you wanted ‘free,’ but normal?”
Heisenberg shrugs. “It’s grown on me. I mean,” he smirks, “don’t get me wrong -- I like the idea of crushing the BSAA to dust even better. ...But until then? This is still good.”
You shift a little. “And what about after?” You ask.
“After you bring Donna back?”
“No -- after we find Karl.”
He shifts a bit. Your son is still a bit of a sore spot, although as time has passed it’s less because of what you did and more because it’s the most uncertain and complicated part of the future. What do you do once you steal a child away? What if he’s happy and you’re ruining his life? What if he’s not as healthy as the reports make him out to be? How will things change for you once you become a family and not just a couple? Family. The f-bomb between you two. “Lets not plan too far,” he finally settles. “We go get my boy back, and we’ll reassess after that. ‘Sides, with my good looks and your big, beautiful fuckin’ brain? He’s gonna be fine no matter what happens after we get him.”
Heisenberg gives you a knowing smile, and you know exactly why he’s avoiding it. After the way things went in the village, he’s been confronted with his own mortality. He knows he’s only so invincible.
“That’s a while away, though, Buttercup,” he says with a smile as he kisses the top of your head. “Still gotta get Beneviento back.”
You take one of his hands in yours, tracing your fingertips over the array of scars. He’s stopped wearing them around the house now -- a relatively new development, although you’re unsure if it’s some kind of progress, or because he gets more freedom for skin-to-skin contact with you now. He’s got a lot going on sexually, but the real thing at his core is touching you with bare hands, or the way you kiss his palms and wrists -- what an absolute degenerate. He can’t seem to get enough of it now. Maybe the free-flowing affection comes from the feeling of safety you have here, or maybe it comes from the… freedom, the knowing you’re on birth control now and that lingering fear isn’t there, knowing that Miranda won’t turn something beautiful you share into something ugly.
“I missed you that whole time,” you say suddenly, tilting your face upwards to face him, your gaze meeting his. “I know sometimes it sounds like I brought you back because I wanted a way out, or to make myself feel better, but--”
“Buttercup,” interrupts, pulling you against him a little more tightly. “I know.” His kisses you, nipping at your lip playfully as he pulls away. “I spent a lot of time in that factory trying to make myself believe that I was just keeping you close because you were my key out of there, or because I’d need someone used to the outside to help me work it out once we buried Miranda.” He pauses, smirking. “And, you know, you’re a great piece of --”
“But?” You cut in, causing him to laugh at your unimpressed expression.
“But,” he admits, “you had me from the second you read my notes and asked me if you could run an ECG on one of the Soldats,” he explains. “You refused to let that bitch have her way with you without a fight, and once you worked it out? You didn’t question it, you just got to work. Took me a while to realise it, but…” he shrugs, “was hot as hell.”
It’s your turn to smirk, playfully looking him up and down. “All it took was seeing me get elbow-deep in a Soldat’s chest cavity and you were in love, huh?” You tease.
Heisenberg is… not very open to the ‘L’ word. You’ve said it a few times, most recently after you ‘made up’ in the shower, but it’s not a word that gets tossed around a lot. He tenses up a little, his own way of flinching without flinching, before his muscles relax. His eyes study you, and it looks like he’s thinking of a way to change the subject. “Maybe a little.”
He doesn’t say it, but he doesn’t need to. His acknowledgement says everything, the same way it said everything back in the village. You don’t need him to say it, because you know. You and Heisenberg have shared and experience that no one else on the planet has shared, that no one else ever will share, and there’s no denying that there’s something between you two that’s so powerful that some stuff can just remain unspoken, that some things exist between you two just by knowing it’s there. Sometimes you wonder if it’s because your Cadou do all the talking for the two of you, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s good. It’s comforting. It’s sacred.
You lift his hand and gently kiss his palm, pretending to not notice the way his expression softens momentarily as you relax into his hold, enjoying the last night in your apartment, remembering how important it is to value the time you have left where it’s just the two of you.
Your ‘family’ is about to get three people bigger, after all.