Disclaimer: I do not own RE.

a 'pre-sequel' to chapter 9.

Chapter 10: The Chain

"And if you don't love me now, you will never love me again. I can still hear you saying you will never break the chain."

Everything burned like red-hot coals…every breath, every bullet, every bite. There were many way to suffer and now, more than ever. People were sick, starved, scavenging like animals to make it through another day. They would fight and more often than not, kill one another for the smallest rations of food, water, or much needed supplies. They would sell each other like slaves for weapons and land, if you had a skill and a still functioning brain, you were sought after, bribed, or sometimes even kidnapped for it.

The human race was sent back to the stone age and not a damn person saw it coming.

Except for Claire.

Claire knew the wolf was at the door.

He spread his jaws and bared his bloody teeth, seething the world's end through his maw. He drew closer and clamped down, an iron grip on every throat of every living creature. He was relentless and cruel, tearing up everything too weak to face him, carving flesh from bones, lapping blood from wounds, feeding off of everything he could.

Until there was nothing.

She faced this wolf many times just as she faced him now. Even as she scrambled along, running short on breath, limping on the now gravel path, the sound of her boots crunching down is the only thing she hears. Her wound is gushing, her terrible, stupid, irreversible wound… she wants to make it back to safety, she wants to use everything until she's nothing. There were still chances to live, to survive.

"Fuck…" She growls. Her fingers clench around the flesh just under her right breast… it does not stop. "Fuck…" Her voice is broken.

Her empty house is in sight and she feels a surge of energy as she forces herself to move on, fingers slick and sticky with her own blood, breath labored and harsh, knees on the verge of buckling… she has a chance to survive. She has to try. Her hands fumble with the knob and she uses her shoulder to force the door open into the silent house. She hasn't been here in months and yet, it still remains the same. Her boots drag across the floor and Claire collapses in the kitchen, her limbs finally giving out…

XXXXX

He finds her in the only place he knows she would still find comfort in, even in death...

Home.

And he recognizes this scene— this exact feeling and setting and yet, this time, she was going to die.

'How curious…' He thinks to himself as he approaches her slowly, assessing the fatality of her wound and then something clicks in his brain.

She will die.

She is unable to speak and she is unsure whether it's from pain or her own blood coating her throat, spilling effortlessly between her lips. She is frantic and terrified, the thought of the wolf looming over her in two separate forms… one as death and the other as Albert Wesker.

She is not sure which to be more frightened of.

She can feel herself shimmering on the edge, his words are blank and heavy in her ears, she can hardly make out what he's saying. Her limbs are lethargic yet weightless, as if she is submerged in water.

Maybe she was dead.

Maybe she wished for death.

For every day ended in two choices: fight until you fall or fall right now. And every night, Claire would have to question the worth of both her options. If she fought, as she does now, her chances for survival were typically in her favor. She was cautious yet curious, dangerous yet level-headed… she could probably make it, live out her days until there were none. Or... she could have ended it all so easily it was mystifying. Something so complex and profound as death could merely be delivered by a bullet traveling too quickly to even register pain. And this was something that Claire always marveled at. Her past sufferings were always drawn out, gouts of her blood pooling around her, tears wetting her cheeks. Yet she inflicted on herself, she alone once ran the blade across her wrists. It was one thing to simply feel pain, but it took a lifetime to feel so deeply about it… and yet, it took very little to feel ashamed, selfish, and remorseful.

It took very little to regret it again.

It took very little for him to come to her again.

She wonders if he can smell her blood, and like a hound, comes running in to pick up the pieces and this time he's too late.

Claire has never seen him so perplexed, so angry, so concerned all at once. His expressions twist in the dark and as his hands draw away from her wound, she finally sees the gouts of red on his skin slashing against the flickering kitchen light.

"Is this it?" She mutters, her voice cracking. There is still blood between her lips.

"Do you wish it to be?" His words are calm but Claire can hear a faint break in his tone. "Is this how you want it to end? Defeated by the one thing you've fought against for so long?"

There are streaks of tears now falling, leaving thin trails against her stained cheeks. "I'm so tired." She says, her voice is hardly a whisper in the dark.

"I know."

"And I want to see them." She says quietly. "I want to see my parents… I want to see Chris…" She is broken then, she was not before and now she is. Memories of her family bursting just beyond her vision...

She feels warm.

"They're not there." He says. "You know that."

She smiles and there is blood on her teeth. "Yeah... " She croaks. "I know."

Her hand reaches forward and her face contorts to sadness as her jaw clenches and lips quiver, on the verge of bursting to tears. Wesker takes a small step forward and takes her hand in his, keeling beside her.

"I'm scared." Her eyes flicker over his face, stone as ever, his own eyes piercing right through her.

"Don't be. I'll be right here."

Her hand is slick with blood but Wesker squeezes it harder as Claire begins to cough violently, pain spreading across her features.

"I…" She is breathless. "I wanna live—"

Wesker's eyes shimmer in the dark as they meet Claire's. "You won't." He says flatly. "Not like this."

Her soft cries churn with her labored breath, and Wesker cannot help but pity her.

But it stings. Stings more than it should. He will lose her. And he will be alone.

"I can help you, Claire." Wesker says. "But I must ask for your trust."

Her other hand reaches forward weakly and finds his jaw, fingers now caked with dried blood, trace it with such a feathered touch as if she thought it would shatter him. Wesker takes her wrist and gives it a gentle squeeze and he leans into her touch, closing his eyes against the dark, he kisses the inside of her palm. He could hardly bear watching her constant bending finally being broken. And here Wesker thought that he and Claire would continue to watch everyone she cared for, perish against this corruption and it would continue to gut her, to spill her like splintered glass.

She had already lost Chris…

But Wesker promised to be there. And he was here.

"Do you trust me, dearheart?" He asks, his baritone voice pierces the night.

"No..." She says. Her voice is nearly gone.

XXXXX

Her body feels like two tons yet weightless all the same. Her head is swimming with a million thoughts and she cannot make it stop. She feels like she is being thrust through a thousand different lives but she cannot seem to find her own. She feels so lost but she can feel herself clinging onto something, onto someone. Claire shifts slightly and feels Wesker's legs bent on either side of her, her back against his chest. He's leaning against the kitchen counter, eyes closed, head just slightly tilted to the side… he looks content.

'You miss this…' She thinks to herself.

'You miss him…'

Before all of this, they had time to explore one another, to delve into corners and absorb meaning. They had time to breath with each other, to learn just how the other functioned. They had time to be curious, adventurous, worried, and jealous. They had time to be together. It's been so long now, Claire has nearly forgotten what it was like to feel his chest rise and fall… to hear his heartbeat.

"Am I alive?" She asks in the dark, her frail voice cracking.

She feels Wesker shift from his relaxed state and sighs, almost tiredly. "Yes." He says sternly.

Her eyes scan over the dried blood on his arms wrapped around her frame, elbow deep, brown and rusted. They see it was once slathered onto the floor right below them, it once soaked her shirt, it gushed from a wound… her fatal wound.

Her body coils and she can feel him react. "What did you do?" She says pointedly, her words are instantly sharp and they pierce what once was silence. Claire's mind races and she now wonders what his intentions are, fight or flight blooming in the back of her mind. She squirms and Wesker's arms are already tightening around her.

"What did you do?" She shouts, kicking her legs, struggling to get free. She suddenly feels like a little fox with its paw stuck in a trap, the hunter looming above her.

Wesker restrains her again easily and his mouth is at her ear. "Relax." He says. Claire feels a chill run down her neck as his breath tickles her skin. "You're still frail, if you continue to struggle you'll only hurt yourself more."

She reluctantly settles down but is still visibly tense in his grasp. "What happened?" She asks, her throat is sore and she can taste blood.

"You died, Claire." He says.

Wesker feels her entire body freeze against him, her fingers press into the flesh of his bare arms, her head hides between her legs, and she squeezes herself with his arms. She wishes she could coil in on herself, a snake as tight as a ball. She feels sick, terrified, unholy—for some reason. She wants to scream but her throat is raw and tastes of copper. She wants to sob but her eyes can only stare, wide and trembling at the rusted stain beneath her. She wants to escape… Claire begins to shudder, her breathing rushes in and out, and for a moment, she thinks of slamming her head against his and running, yet she has nowhere.

"Wes—" Claire's hands shake against his arms, she cannot hold herself together. "Wesker…"

"Hush." He says softly. He leans forward and his chest is against her back, he gently removes her hands and holds them. "I've got you."

XXXXX

He was not the noble kind, nor was he the kind to care for insignificance. He was cold and devious, an ever-scheming master of his art. He was influential and powerful, his now fallen kingdom was once a shining example of his name. And his now fallen kingdom is ruled by the undead, by the creatures adapted to the night, by the unsightly beasts ever growing and feeding.

He was now left with nothing, just like everyone else.

He only had her.

Wesker was cleaning the dried blood from her paling skin now, gently running his water-soaked hand up and down her arms. She doesn't remember arriving here, the facility seems long abandoned and he assures her that it is. She doesn't remember being stripped from her soiled clothes and set into a warm bath… a sensation she thought she'd never feel again. Claire pays no mind to modesty, for he has relished in her flesh before, but not now. The small bathroom is silent save for the sounds of dripping water as Wesker continues to wash the blood away from her body. His hand kneads the warm liquid into the back of her neck and she shivers as the droplets turn cool traveling down her back. He moves to rinse around her shoulders and slowly makes his way to the curve of her breast and swiftly, Claire's body tenses. Wesker stops.

"Are you going to keep me here?" She asks quietly.

His arms are resting on the side of the tub now, the sleeves of his bloodied, white collared shirt are rolled up to his elbows.

"No." He says. "I've brought you here to rest." Wesker stands and turns around, clearing his throat. "Do you remember anything?" His voice is low but professional. Claire nods her head as she draws her knees to her chest, suddenly feeling grossly exposed to him. She has memories of her dark kitchen, but a blossoming pain clouding the rest of it.

Wesker is handing her a towel, a look on his face prompting her to get out of the tub. She stands and she is instantly greeted by a sheer cold, and another bitter memory of years before their current time, where underground facilities and mazes like this were a constant.

Places that she would soon rather forget about. Forever.

There is no rug beneath her feet, only the pale cold, finally making Claire shiver despite the towel tightly coiled around her frame. Wesker has his back turned to her but he's packing supplies into his worn backpack, giving Claire time to use the small mirror to inspect a deep scar on his left cheek, a wound that had clearly never healed properly. It lashed from just under his inside eye, diagonally towards his lower jaw.

"What happened?" She asked suddenly, her voice pierced the silence of the tiny room. "The scar… on your face I mean."

Wesker looked over his shoulder at her, eyes uncovered and searing against the sheer white of the lights. He turned to hand her a change of clothes, and in snatching them, her cheeks began to warm. Claire looked into the mirror and saw him, eyes shut and face angled towards the wall, she began to dress.

"Your brother gave me this." Wesker says, gesturing slightly to his face, eyes still shut. "Shortly before he was killed." His words are not soft, but they are not cruel either. If Claire was to make it in this world, she would have to come to terms with mortality. Not just her own, now bound to Wesker's, but others as well.

His eye are open now, he can hear she's finished dressing. His eyes are open now and instantly, are they locked with the woman behind him. They are still blue and two symbols of humanity, but they are still storms, torrents, clashes of water against his which are red-hot, hell-forged jewels.

"Christopher is gone, Claire. There's no need to become upset." Wesker says as he turns to her.

Claire's face twisted in anger and her fists were shuddering, as a seething cruelty washes over her. A beast-like feeling that plunged her into a fury. She was on Wesker in an instant, violently shoving him into the sink, cracking the mirror against his head. He grunted from the surprise and had little time to retaliate as Claire was already forcing him around, swinging Wesker into the door, they both go crashing into the other room, wood splinters driving through the fabric of his shirt and tearing his flesh. She's straddling him now, her knees digging into his ribs and there is seemingly no control to her strength as she begins to crush and press relentlessly into the fragile bones. She is gripping both of his wrists with machine-like power, pinning Wesker to the floor. There is raw emotion dripping off of her, and Wesker is at the mercy of her newfound and god-like strength.

"Why would you say that?!" She screams, her voice tears as she forces more pressure onto the man below her. "Why the fuck would you say that, Wesker?!" One hand strikes him across the face and he's dazed from the force. She strikes him again and again and again, her nails scrape his jaw like claws and she is finally drawing blood. Her thighs are pressuring against his ribcage, slowly collapsing against his bones. The force upon her hold his a power untethered from that of the humanity she so dearly holds on to… But it is her eyes, her eyes are blazing amber cores that mimic the heart of the earth itself.

They are stunning and paralyzing.

She is a force to be reckoned with.

She had been reborn.

XXXXX

He had managed to calm her down. Her rage was unlike anything he imagined, a truly untapped power had been dormant within her. She was curled up in the bed like a child, feeble and exhausted from her fit. Wesker was against her, heat melding between the two of them. He felt a strange sense of completion then, like he had gained something valuable. Here was another, someone akin to his likeness… someone with the same burden. A burden that Claire never asked for. A burden that she didn't deserve.

She has since replaced the weary and scratched dog-tags around her neck, the cold steel resting between her breasts and Wesker's fingers, Claire pushes against him more, and a sleeping sigh comes from her.

The very next morning they're already moving away from the town. She doesn't know where they're heading or what Wesker has planned but she doesn't have much of a choice anymore. She's infected and at a complete loss of how to deal with the lifestyle and respectively, she is in Wesker's debt. They have a vehicle and a few maps but Wesker seems to just drive without hesitation, without direction. Claire begins to believe that it's instincts. Trees and fields are rushing by, blurring and smearing together. The morning is still young, a soft, gray-blue sky accompanied by a thin but dominating fog. Her window is down a few inches, wind buffeting against the glass, it doesn't really bother her. She loves the feeling of the cool air on her face. Claire closes her eyes and a stone turns in her gut and it spreads, a warming bloom in her belly. It tingles and climbs into her throat, she clenches her jaw. Her teeth are grinding against each other as she tries to force back a sob, a feeling of sheer emptiness and confusion. Claire leans her face into the crook of her arm and a shaking, deep breath leaves her… she begins to sob.

"You're going to be alright, Claire." Wesker says suddenly.

She sniffles and looks up at him, and really looks at him. He hasn't shaved his face in at least two weeks, there's blonde stubble taking over his jawline and chin and upper lip. His usual fair skin is dirtied and tanned from the apocalyptic elements, thin white and fleshy scars thatch up and down his arms which had grown more toned since their last encounter. His hair is longer but still pushed back, loose and unkempt strands sometimes fall in front of his face. The scar on his cheek is probably a few months old, healed as much as his virus would allow. She wonders if he still possesses inhuman strength and speed. She wonders when she herself will acquire those traits.

"You're alive." He says, eyes still on the road, stern as always.

Her jaw clenches and she turns her face away from him, once again locking with the blurring landscape going by.

"I shouldn't be." She says.

Her fingers lightly trace the new scar under her breast, a new symbol she will carry with her through this world. Her fingers clench around the new scar… a symbol she has to bear now. It would be her last blemish, her last flaw, her very last reminder of her humanity that once paled in comparison to what she would ascend to. Claire felt the car come to a stop and Wesker killed the engine, a deafening silence overcame the two inhumans. She wasn't looking at him, instead she watched a doe and fawn cautiously striding across the broken road. She waited a moment for the remainder of the herd, but they never came. The mother and fawn were alone. Claire watched them pass into the tall grass and disappear.

"Look at me." Wesker says.

She flinches from the sudden reverb of his voice and silently refuses his request. Squeezing her eyes shut, she wishes she could run far away from him, far away from all of this silence and pain. She wishes she could will herself into another place or time, away from the ashes of depravity of the dwindled human race. A race she no longer qualified for. She looks down at her hands and fears they will burst open with claws and scales as they tremble uncontrollably. Claire feels herself shifting across lines in sanity, not sure how long she'll be able to anchor herself. Quick, short breaths seethe between her teeth and her still trembling hands find her auburn hair, fingers twisting and tangling into the locks and she pulls harder than she should, trying to elicit some kind of feeling other than this bottomless sadness.

There are warm hands on either side of her face and there are thumbs wiping away the tears. "Look at me, Claire." Wesker says again, this time his words are coated in patience and softness. When their eyes meet, Claire searches his frantically, still swollen with tears, they radiate a warm amber that slowly calmed to blue once again.

"Promise me-" She blurts, her hands are around his wrists, leaning into his touch. "Promise me you'll stay this time."

This time…

There were lots of times before this one, none particularly as significant but they still existed. They still played in Wesker's mind like lapses he could never really force off. He tried to push around these memories, send them to the corners of his brain where he could forget about her like every other woman he met. But Claire Redfield was sharper than he ever anticipated. She confounded him, mystified him, and challenged his very limits as a man. He was created to be the perfect weapon. A fierce and unforgiving entity of violence... he had created and destroyed, he had given life to the most gruesome of creatures. He was the shroud of darkness that lurks just beyond the brink of nightmares. He was the ever turning serpent of chaos.

But she once cut off his many heads, rendered him useless and writhing. She once touched the dark and went straight through him. And as he held her face in his hands, eyes locked together, Wesker's lips tugged into the smallest of smiles.

"I promise, dearheart."

A/N: hi wow im alive im just one Depressed mother fucker and have zero motivation to write hence the reason this took 5ever to update but anyways, heres the fruits of my mental labor of the last few months. -The Chain by Fleetwood Mac-