His head was throbbing. It was the first thing that Chris noticed as he slowly woke; his head was utterly pounding. Once upon a time it would have been a rather irrelevant observation. It was, after all, a very human pain. Common, frequent, unnecessary. Nothing worth noting if not for the fact that he hadn't suffered a pain so human in years.

He groaned and slowly lifted himself into a sitting position, but his head immediately found its way into the comfort of his palms. His temples throbbed with his heart beat, his jaw ached, the spot above the point where his spine met his skull was radiating a pain so nauseating he thought for a moment he might lose his stomach. He took a deep breath, held it, then let it go – a process he repeated in an effort to center himself.

What had happened?

He tried to think of the last thing he remembered and build his way up to the present. He remembered going to the gala. He remembered—another flare of pain—Jill. Running into that fucking traitor and—he grimaced as something white hot flared behind his eyes—and losing their opportunity to grab Jake, to save him. The serum to help transition humanity was lost and their key to it gone. They had tried to retrieve him again, but somehow… somehow Chris had failed, he—he clenched his teeth against another roiling wave—had been betrayed again. By Piers.

His belly felt cold and hard, his gusts twisted. Finally, the pain eased ever so slightly, and he leaned his brow into his knees with a weary sigh. Wesker had said the kid couldn't be trusted, but… Chris had anyways. He rubbed at his eyes and tried to swallow down the regret and embarrassment that threatened to choke him.

Claire was gone. Leon, Jill, Piers, Sherry – they were all enemies… God, he was so alone.

He felt it too. He felt it in every cement block of his room. In the emptiness of the air, in the soundlessness of it. What was he doing?

A hand startled him out of that line of thought, and with its touch all traces of agony fled him. He couldn't help but sink into the strong grip of that hand, slack with relief and gratitude as he looked up at the man who had somehow snuck up on him. Wesker looked pensive. If he was here it was no doubt in response to the painful distress Chris' body had been under. He chalked his expression up to that. After all, they didn't feel human pain anymore. Or at least they shouldn't. He could see how it might alert the other man.

"I don't know what's going on," Chris rasped, surprised by the gravel-roughness of his voice as he pointed to his temple. "Been so long I almost forgot headaches were a thing."

"Soon they won't be," Wesker promised, his face smooth and seemingly put at ease by Chris' answer. "Between the trauma from Ada's bullet and the fight at the base, your cells probably just haven't caught up yet. You're still young."

"Young," Chris snorted. He felt ancient.

He scrubbed blunt fingernails across the stubble on his jaw and murmured, "I failed you."

The admission hung heavy in the air between them. Chris didn't know what sort of reaction he was expecting, but Wesker's patience still caught him by surprise. The man just gripped his shoulder a little firmer and said, "So long as you don't quit you'll have never failed me, Christopher."

Something warm settled in Chris' chest, filling him so that even when Wesker pulled away the pain did not return. He felt the older BOW run his eyes over his rooms, but when he reached out to Wesker's mind for what had the man on edge, he found Wesker's walls firmly up.

"Something's wrong," Chris said, frowning softly, confused by why he was being pushed out.

Amber eyes turned to regard him, sharp and distant, then suddenly familiar again.

"No. Surprisingly everything is going mostly to plan. Barring the loss of the serum and of my son, everything is still progressing smoothly. While you failed to acquire Jake, you did succeed in distracting them from me. My son can wait. Evolution cannot," he said, eyes on the chip he procured from his pocket – now whole.

"You found the cypher," Chris said. He could feel the twisting in his guts lessen minutely, his many betrayals forgotten beneath the relief of finally seeing a glimpse of the finish line. Wesker turned the chip this way and that between his fingers. As though he were gazing at a rare butterfly rather than bland plastic and circuitry.

He sucked in a breath, slow and long, before finally looking at Chris again.

"A long time ago I asked you to join me, Christopher. Are you ready to finish what you started?"

Wesker's walls fell and immediately Chris felt the familiar touch of the man's sentience brushing across his own. These moments always made him feel most at ease. Like two parts of a whole reconnecting, all his doubts washed away. He felt Wesker's confidence in his ability. His pride in what they both had accomplished. His hope for the future. Satisfaction at having him by his side. Something Chris almost identified to be relief, but of what, he wasn't sure.

Chris managed a small grin.

"Was there ever any doubt?"

Wesker grinned back. Something like static ebbed in the connection between them, hard to comprehend and fleeting, but it was gone before Chris could think too much about it. There would be time to ponder the head ache and the static later.

Evolution was waiting.

Jake waited, scarfing down a sandwich under Piers' surprisingly watchful eye, as familiar faces filed in one by one. It started with Sherry, who had come to perch on the bed beside him. Followed by Buddy, and then finally Leon himself, pushing along Jill Valentine in a wheel chair. Piers stiffened in the chair beside Jake's bed, drawing the red head's attention. In response, Jill seemed to deflate grimly.

"Leon—" Piers began, but the secret agent merely lifted one hand to stop him.

"I'm tired," Leon said to the room at large as he parked Jill's wheelchair and moved to lean back against a counter. His tone held no reproach, no anger or ire. But it sounded as exhausted as his statement. "I'm tired of losing people. Tired of fighting the people we still have left. Just… please trust me on this. She's invaluable."

She slammed my head into a helicopter and helped that bastard kidnap Chris in the first place, Piers wanted to snarl. But after everything, Leon had earned his trust. And what was trust, really, if it didn't make you uncomfortable now and again? With a displeased huff, Piers dropped the issue. On the bed, Sherry raised a surprised brow. Leon merely nodded his thanks.

"We're here, Jake," Leon said. "What's this about?"

It was uncomfortable to have so many eyes on him. A remnant of being a lab rat, perhaps, or merely the echo of knowing that people no doubt stared at him all through the strange catatonic phase that Buddy and Piers had described to him. Regardless, it immediately made him agitated. He forced himself to focus through it, hackles still raised from the dream and the ghost of his father's hand in his mind, raking his memories over the coals. Burning bits of him away.

"I saw Chris," he said bluntly. When Leon's brow furrowed ever so slightly, he continued on before the blond could interrupt with questions. "I don't know how or why, all I know is it wasn't just a dream. It was them, both of them; Chris and my father."

Leon crossed his arms over his chest before looking over at Buddy with a soft, "Is it possible?"

"Undoubtedly," the man said calmly, looking equal parts curious and grim in his chair. "Mr. Muller, can you describe what it felt like? What you saw?"

"It felt like…" he paused, eyes dipping to a corner of the room so he could think without catching someone's gaze and getting distracted. What had it felt like… it had felt… inevitable. "It's hard to explain. Like… being drawn toward a signal on a GPS. I just knew it was where I was supposed to be."

Buddy had taken out a tablet as Jake spoke, efficiently tapping away, cataloguing notes.

"We were right, Leon. Whatever Wesker has created, a facet of Las Plagas is involved," Buddy said slowly, his words drawn out and slow as he focused on his notes.

"Cool," Leon said dryly, "Now break it down like I'm five."

Buddy glanced up at that, eyes lit up with this new knowledge, and chuckled.

"Apologies, I get ahead of myself. When I was infected, this is how the Master Plaga reached out to any other infected in the area. It's the equivalent of setting a pin for your location and sending it to a friend for them to find you. Only for the Plaga, it's rather irresistible to follow to the source. Mr. Muller here wasn't able to go physically, but his mind was drawn to the ping, so to speak. So, the 'hive' sent him an image of where eventually he should go."

Leon nodded, remembering those first hours in Spain when he had entered that little village. How the fight had simultaneously left every villager all at once, beckoning them to the church at Saddler's will. Remembering becoming victim to that will himself; how it had felt to have his hands wrapped around Ada's neck, unable to do anything about it. He nodded grimly, eyes darting to Jake.

"You know where they are?" Leon asked.

Jake frowned at Buddy's description. It wasn't that he was wrong – hell, the man probably understood what the fuck was going on better than he did – but it wasn't right either. Jake shook his head and clarified, "I don't think they were trying to get me to meet them. I don't think the 'pin' was meant to be sent at all. Chris was afraid," he said, avoiding eye contact with Piers as he continued, "No, not afraid. Fucking terrified. Honestly, I'm not sure if he even knew he was doing it. By the time I got there, he was gone."

Buddy was watching him keenly at that, making Jake feel uncomfortable. The red head couldn't help but fidget in his bed, all too aware of his lack of dress in comparison to everyone else in the room. He felt small in his paper-thin hospital gown.

"It wasn't Wesker that reached out to you?" Buddy asked.

"Uh, I mean… he seemed surprised to see me."

"You interacted Wesker?" Jill asked, breaking the conversation with her soft question. The room had forgotten her presence, despite the conflicting opinions on whether or not she should be there at all. Leon turned to her, caught by the seriousness of her tone. He knew she'd resist drawing attention to herself unless absolutely necessary – so for her to have spoken up so soon made him antsy.

"Yeah," Jake said, annoyed to have to repeat himself.

"Jill?" Leon asked.

She took her gaze off Jake slowly to meet Leon's look.

"Two things," she said, looking pale and small in her seat. "I think Mr. Kozachenko already knows one of them though."

She didn't need to look to see the messy haired man nod.

"If they interacted – not just that Jake saw him, but actually interacted with him verbally or physically – then there's good reason to bet that Wesker probably knows where we are right now. He wouldn't miss the opportunity to get any information from Jake that he could, even as little as it might be thanks to the coma."

Jake flinched at, remembering the sensation of Wesker plucking information from his mind as though pulling files from a filing cabinet. His mouth twisted into a scowl as he said, "I… Yeah, that's a pretty good bet."

Sherry touched his forearm, drawing his attention.

"Do you know where we are right now?" She asked.

"No," he said, "But he could probably figure enough out to shorten the list."

"Regardless, we should assume he knows," Leon said, ending that line of thought. He pulled out his phone, tapping quickly as he asked, "So what's the second thing?"

"It is… unusual that the 'pin' came from Captain Redfield and not Wesker," Buddy said, eyes on Jill. She nodded to him as he spoke – suspicions confirmed, they had been on the same page.

"It means our theory was correct, Leon," Jill said sharply, being sure to remain vague. When Leon opened his mouth, she gave him a look, eyes darting to Jake for only the scantest second, lips pursing. Leon cottoned on quick.

"Leon?" Piers asked, looking between them, lost.

Leon shook his head, standing up from the counter as he did.

"Jake… what did you see?" He asked.

The red head licked his lips, unsure of how to say it. How did you tell a room of people that their friend – someone who had fought beside them all, saved them all – had been tortured in a way so indescribable? How did you tell those people that Chris was probably gone?

Jake clenched his hands into fists in his lap and forced himself through it with grim coldness, unwilling to pause and linger on the palpable fear Chris had dumped on him. Fear that he felt even now; thick like oil.

"Chris and Wesker were fighting. Or something, I'm not sure. All I know is he was running away. And not like 'escaping' kind of running away. I'm talking about blind panic running," he said, forcing himself not to pause. Not to take in anyone's hurt. "Wesker was doing something to his mind. Shredding it. Putting it back together. I… whatever he did, next time we see Chris, it's probably not going to be the Chris you all knew."

He waited for them to ask how he knew and dreaded revealing that Wesker had tried to do it to him, too – even if mildly by comparison. Thankfully, no one asked. He tried to ignore the little blossom of warmth that bloomed at that, pleased to be trusted at least in this. He didn't want to get attached to the feeling. To any of them.

Piers had bowed over in his seat, elbows on his knees and head low. There was the sound of aluminum crackling, then the hiss of a punctured can followed by the dribbling of soda hitting the floor in a slowing trickle. Jake forced himself not to look. Beside him Sherry sucked in a hurt little breath and squeezed his forearm tighter, eyes on Piers.

"Jill," Leon said, breaking the silence, "Did he… did Wesker ever talk about anything like that?"

In her seat, Jill looked suddenly stoic and far away.

"He had a lot of plans for Chris. Disobedience wasn't going to be tolerated," she said, her words just as distant.

Buddy cleared his throat and said, "A hive minded virus shares information. Unfortunately, it is not much of a stretch to conclude that the Master Host or Alpha – in this case Wesker – would have the ability to also alter that information however he saw fit."

The team saw it the moment it appeared as though Leon wanted to lose control. A flash of anger in his eyes that made it obvious he wanted to kick the trash can or toss a chair. To do anything other than just sit back and take bad news after bad news after bad news.

Instead he forced it down, took a breath and said, "Thank you, Jake. Was there anything else?"

"No."

Was that not enough? It was more than they had a minute ago. Jake clenched his jaw and tried to work past the frustration balling in his chest, weighing him down. His stomach growled again, and he scowled even further. Another reminder of how fucked everything had become.

Leon simply nodded, then took a ration bar from the counter and tossed it to Jake as he said to the room at large, "Until we know more about this connection, this conversation needs to leave this room." He swallowed and managed to say, "I'm sorry, Jake. We can't afford to take any chances."

"Whatever," Jake said, the word hoarser than he'd like as he bit into his ration bar as dispassionately as he could. Sherry rubbed a thumb across his forearm, but he pulled away. The look of hurt that flashed across her face gave him no solace, and yet he couldn't help himself.

Leon looked ashamed, and yet all the same he continued as bravely as he could.

"Buddy, Jill, Sherry, follow me, please. Piers, until we're sure you're no longer key to Jake being cognitive, I need you to stay here."

Piers stiffened, head jerking up at that, something hot and disbelieving in his eyes. But even so, some small knowledge that Leon was right kept his mouth shut. Just because bad news had come didn't mean they could take unnecessary risks with a teammate's health. Instead he just clenched his jaw and looked away, unable to offer any more cooperation than that. He was a soldier first and foremost, and he had received his orders.

For the first time, he was tired of being a soldier.

Eyes cast aside, he missed the guilt that passed Leon's face. The weary, heavy weight of leadership that was slowly sucking him dry. With a whistling sigh, he gestured for the names he had called to leave the room. Buddy went first, looking uncomfortable amid a team as tightly knit without him as this one. Jill followed, squeezing Leon's forearm gently as she passed. Sherry looked at Jake, opened her mouth to say something, but when the man wouldn't even look at her, she sighed and left as well with a soft, "I'll be right back."

"Not like I'm going anywhere," Jake scowled.

Leon paused at the door, obviously looking for something to say – anything to make things right. But there was nothing.

"This is only temporary," he finally tried.

Neither man answered. With a little nod, Leon left, closing the door behind him.

Wesker waited in the gym, standing tall in the middle of the sparring mat, chin up and yet eyes closed. He had precisely five minutes left to wait until Christopher was late. A different man – a human man – babbled possibilities in the back of his head in little urgent whispers. It didn't work, it gibbered, he's not coming. We'll have to move on without him – at least, without him being mentally present. A shell is better than nothing at all.

With a barely imperceptible inhale, he grabbed hold of those thoughts and envisioned them sliding from his person like water off a duck's back. He did not linger on any one thought lest it stick and linger behind to distract him. Christopher would come. Christopher was his. There was no room for doubt. Not in an Alpha.

The door to the gym opened with three and a half minutes to spare. His lips quirked up ever so slightly, though he wasn't facing the doorway – the expression safe from Christopher' prying eyes. He turned just as the brunette BOW dropped a small duffel on a nearby bench, eyes down as he pulled a familiar roll of tape from inside and began the tedious and useless process of wrapping his hands. Wesker forced himself not to roll his eyes. It didn't suit his reputation, but the urge was great.

"Laundry day?" Christopher asked with a grin as he wrapped the bright tape around and around his knuckles, working his way down. Wesker kept his mental guard up as he recognized the soft sensation of reeling in his mind. Even after having Christopher cognizant and rewritten for a day or so, finding him like this was still jarring. His mind suited his youthful face now. It seemed that in a universe in which Wesker had remained his trusted captain throughout hell and fire, he retained much of his playful nature from STARS. Perhaps it was because he didn't have to step up as leader and shed that skin. Perhaps it was a dozen reasons. Regardless, it felt like taking a step back into the past. Eerie and unnatural, and yet somewhat pleasant, if only for the nostalgia of those days when Wesker had a team that wasn't hellbent on killing him.

It took a moment for him to realize the meaning behind the man's joke. A call back to a memory from their time in STARS. Wesker preferred to spar and train in his uniform – or whatever clothing he intended to perform missions in. At the time, it would have been his regulation blues. Now, it was the infamous leather assemble that generally covered him from head to toe. Christopher had asked him once why he didn't train in something more forgiving like sweat pants and a t-shirt like normal people. His answer had – in a surprising turn of fate – actually been adequate enough to get the brunette to shut up for once.

Why practice in anything less forgiving than the clothing he'd actually be wearing during the mission? He needed to know the limitations of his wardrobe as fluently as his own body in order to succeed. It wouldn't pay to get into a situation and try a stunt that would have been possible in one state of dress, but not another.

Christopher was no doubt reacting to the fact that while Wesker was wearing his regular leather pants, he had opted for a simple black tank. The blond quirked a brow overtop his glasses and said, "Hardly. It is more a reminder that this session is only to keep limber and go over plans."

Christopher grinned, starting to tape his other hand as he said, "Afraid I'll trounce you that bad, huh?"

"You're insufferable like this," Wesker replied easily, his STARS days returning to him with far more ease than he ever expected.

"Too late to bad talk me, boss. Wouldn't be here if you didn't think I was a keeper," Christopher said, finishing with his hands and testing them each with a few flexes before stepping around the bench to join him on the mat. He stopped a few feet away, standing tall, chin high for his Alpha. Even with his walls up, Wesker could feel the openness of the other man's mind on the other side of his careful barriers – so drastically different from the flimsy mental barricades Christopher had tried and failed to create over and over to keep him out. Now, there was nothing. This version of Christopher trusted him completely. Even now he could feel the man's desire for respect and praise. His eagerness to please, to perform to his Alpha's expectations. Wesker opened his mind enough to allow a little blossom of intuition to slip to the man, letting him know he was pleased with him. Christopher stood a little straighter, something alive in his eyes.

"Like I said," Wesker said blandly, knowing full well Christopher knew differently, "Insufferable."

The comment did little to take the wind from Christopher's sails. The man seemed at ease with him, an echo from more pleasant days. He watched as the brunette stretched, taking one arm across his chest and pulling it with the other.

"So, what's the plan, boss?" Christopher asked, tone tight from his stretch as he began walking in a loose circle around Wesker. Something akin to annoyance bubbled up in Wesker's veins, slow and lazy, at seeing the man perform such archaic human traditions. He lashed out just to gauge Christopher's perception of danger, one foot arcing through the air in a blur to take him out at the knees, only to hit nothing but air as the man lithely danced out of the way.

"So impatient," Christopher grinned, pointedly switching arms to stretch the other side.

"I don't see why you bother with that," Wesker said easily, standing still like a rock in the middle of a river, watching him keenly for any sign that his grip over the man's mind had faltered in any way. Any inkling that something had gone wrong and this was all a ruse or a fragile time bomb.

"Habit," Christopher shrugged, letting down his arm to face Wesker properly. The blond lunged forward before the last syllable was even fully off Christopher's tongue, only for his fist to be caught a scant inch from impact, Christopher's body curling around his fist and forearm, both hands on his wrist. He had almost failed to block the blow that time or else he would have dodged entirely. Wesker grinned, then brought the heel of his free hand up and slammed it down on the meat of Christopher's shoulder, right at the place when it joined his neck.

Christopher took the blow with a braced breath, then twisted one ankle forward and around one of Wesker's legs and stole a small inhale of surprise from the blond's lungs as he toppled them both off balance. In his STARS days, Christopher had been a scrawny guy – more of a sharp shooter and a runner than a hand to hand fighter or bench presser. When he had finally been apprehended, he had been dense with muscle. Now he was a perfect mixture of the two – wiry and dense – and Wesker found himself more frustrated than anticipated as the brunette managed to grapple him after the fall, pinning him down.

A blossom of knowledge appeared in his mind – knowledge from the fake life he had contrived for them. He hated grappling, a fact that Christopher knew all too well. Between the two of them, Wesker was faster but Christopher had more stamina in his strength. A close combat match actually gave Wesker more of a challenge than the BOW would ever admit – a weakness he had known but had never come face to face with while Christopher had wasted so much time before fighting his instincts instead of focusing on fighting Wesker.

Now the man was a lean, instinctual machine – unafraid of his abilities and unafraid to use them. In gaining the asset he had been looking for all this time, he had also opened himself to a danger he had convinced himself would never come to fruition. Christopher was stronger than he should be, coming from an evolution of antibodies younger than Wesker's own infection.

And he wasn't done growing yet, either.

"Just doing my job, boss," Christopher said in a series of short, straining grunts, grinning as Wesker growled and squirmed, nearly pinned beyond escaping. Nearly.

The blond finally broke through Christopher's hold to spear the man's side with a knee. While not even remotely damaging, it was enough to distract Christopher and give Wesker the opportunity to wriggle free. A swift twist of his body back and away brought him back on his feet, Christopher not far behind, and as they both returned to standing, they gauged one another critically. Christopher was sweating. But so was Wesker. Something in that knowledge both pleased and frustrated him.

He decided to center his mind with the task at hand.

"We have the chip," he began, launching them into the think tank the session was meant to be while giving Wesker the opportunity to judge Christopher's growth without the man holding back. "And we have the cipher. Now it's time to marry the two together and get the last piece of the puzzle that we need to finally launch."

Christopher wiped at his brow with the neck hem of his shirt as he thought that over. It was easy to travel with the man's thoughts, the bridge on Christopher's side so open. Knowing the BSAA, nothing was ever easy – including information. A chip held in one secret base. A cipher held at another. One was useless without the other, and even paired they were inaccessible unless you paired them in the correct location.

"There's one more base to visit, isn't there?" Christopher asked.

"Precisely," Wesker said, lips quirking into a wry little smile. He did love making Christopher guess. Revenge for the forced grappling session. Christopher rolled his eyes.

"You gonna tell me where?"

When all Wesker did in response was grin ever so slightly, Christopher snorted and rushed forward, pushing ever so slightly to go faster than Wesker anticipated. He appeared behind the blond, twisting to get an elbow in at the Alpha's lower back. Knowledge that a vulnerable part of him was about to be struck left the fine hairs on the back of Wesker's neck tingling viciously. He dipped to the side and twisted until he found himself behind Christopher instead, fingers winding into the fine hairs on the nape of the brunette's neck, preparing to plow his face down onto Wesker's rising knee.

Christopher managed to slip from that hand before those fingers could properly curl into a ruthless grip in his hair and bounced back onto his heels, putting much needed distance between the two as he reassessed the situation. Wesker could see it in the man's eyes. His days as a captain – now remembered as days as Wesker's SOC – had embedded a strategist's ability to quickly observe, asses and decide at a moment's notice into the man.

"So, we're looking for a base with a reader that'll put a mama chip and a daddy chip together," Christopher said idly, weaving left when Wesker suddenly surged forward, the heel of one hand singing over Christopher's right shoulder instead of up into his throat. Christopher grabbed that hand and Wesker felt something akin to surprise – a ghost from more human days – tighten his belly as Christopher hurled him over his shoulder. Wesker landed on the mat, already reaching above his head to grab the brunette's ankles and take him out at his feet. Christopher landed face first with an indelicate sound.

Wesker was halfway up to pinning the man by the hips when Christopher suddenly alligator rolled, flipping their positions. It only lasted seconds – a fleeting moment in which Wesker found himself on his back, straddled by the man he had created – by it was enough to leave the Alpha's guts curling. This sparring session, no matter what he had told Christopher, had been to assess the man's progress. To see if his mind was splintering, if the new memories hadn't taken hold…

Instead he began to wonder if he had made a very different miscalculation somewhere along the way.

Wesker reached into a well of strength he shouldn't have needed for a spar such as this. With that strength, he used Christopher's surprise to lunge forward, taking the brunette by the throat, bunching his own legs beneath himself, and switching their positions – one hand tight and squeezing around the brunette's throat. Wesker felt strength flood him, a certainty that he would not fail, that he was Alpha indisputably. He probed Christopher's mind more freely than he ought to, searching for any sign that the captain of the BSAA was returning – and inkling that Christopher as he was now had enjoyed that taste of dominance – anything beyond complete obedience.

Christopher wasn't focused on the power struggle at all. His blood sang with the fight, but his mind was very much on the thrill of sparring with his Alpha and trying to riddle out the mission that Wesker was forcing him to muddle through himself. The knot in Wesker's gut relaxed ever so slightly.

"Not necessarily a BSAA base though," Christopher wheezed through the chokehold, both hands on Wesker's wrist.

"Good," Wesker said, letting go, forcing himself to shake off his earlier worries and focus, "So where are we going, Christopher?"

He pulled off of Christopher and put some space between them, circling the brunette as he slowly hefted himself onto his elbows, thinking. Not bothering to get up yet. Something in that pleased Wesker.

"There's a lot of bases, boss," he said, the littlest bit annoyed by this guessing game now that it became obvious that the man had no intention of simply telling him where they were going. "Not even just BSAA bases or in the United States."

"Think," Wesker admonished him. "If you were going to hide something that sensitive, would you put it somewhere heavily defended and classified as you had with the others?"

Christopher slowly got to his feet, his face falling into a soft squint of 'what the fuck are you on about' when suddenly Wesker lunged forward again, lifting both feet off the floor at the last moment to send both into Christopher's chest and launch him across the room. The brunette hit the far wall with a surprised shout, embedded into the dry wall.

"You're more than a wall of muscle, Christopher, "Wesker called out to him, straightening back up to his feet gracefully. "Think."

Christopher muttered a soft, "Rude," under his breath as he pulled himself out of the wall, not even bothering to brush away the dust as he took stock of the fight so far. With so much space to utilize between them, Wesker now had the advantage. And they both knew it.

The last thing he would expect would be for Wesker to willingly give up that advantage – so that's exactly what he did. A black blur slipped across the room, only for a hand to grab Christopher by the throat again and heft him off his feet. The brunette rolled with that momentum to bring his legs up and around Wesker's neck, the leverage giving him the strength to make the hold too awkward for Wesker to keep. His body weight gave him the advantage he needed from there to bring them both crashing back to the mat. Christopher twisted around as quickly as he could and managed to get Wesker in a chokehold – but he had sacrificed a truly defensible position for speed, and it cost him. Wesker craned an elbow back and into his side, wailing away until the chokehold was no longer worth the damage it was costing the younger BOW.

Christopher let go and rolled away, breath heaving as he settled onto his back with a huffed, winded, "So something in plain sight instead of top security clearance…"

Then, chuckled at his own joke as he watched Wesker stand above him, he continued, "It's almost like you want me to say something stupid like 'Area 51'."

Wesker leveled him with an intense, no-nonsense stare even as inside he enjoyed putting Christopher through this mental scramble – because who, honestly, would think of Area 51? That was the allure of using it as a safe guard for something completely foreign to its 'namesake' after all. Wesker watched on as Christopher slowly began to babble through a soft chant of 'no,' that was drawn out and disbelieving. A repeating denial that slowly, ever so slowly, got more and more disbelieving.

"You're shitting me," Christopher said, finally breaking free of his buffering mindset of no's.

"We're going to infiltrate Area 51," Wesker said, "Or rather properly known as the Iron Gate, and we're going to access the information on these chips to discover where their failsafe is. Once we have that final location, we'll know how to launch the beginning of our new world."

When Wesker offered his hand down to him, Christopher took it easily, letting the man heft him up to his feet as he grinned, "And maybe see some aliens."

Wesker sighed.

"There are no aliens," he said, walking to the bench to grab a towel and a water bottle. "That's merely a front. Thus 'hiding in plain sight'. Obviously an installation as heavily guarded as that base has more going on than baseless accusations of extraterrestrial incarceration."

"Or," Chris drawled, grabbing the bottle Wesker threw at him, "Aliens are definitely real, and the base just so happens to also have the chip reader there because who in their right mind would fight through a military base that might also have aliens in it to get to the reader?"

Wesker stared at him blandly from overtop his own water bottle. It was strange – these small, fleeting moments. Moments that alluded to years of camaraderie rather than gruesome fighting and rivalry. Although even those memories belonged primarily to Chris. Wesker's clone had been the one to fight him. In a way, Wesker was more familiar with this more energy, eager version of Christopher than he ever was with the hardened BSAA captain. It felt… right.

"There are no aliens, Christopher," Wesker repeated.

Christopher just gestured at the two of them and said, "We were impossible just a decade ago, Wesker. Kind of close minded to say it's impossible when evolution on this scale should have been, what – hundreds of years off? Thousands?"

Wesker gave him a baleful look before turning and leaving entirely, heading for the door.

"You're uninvited to the new world, Christopher," he said over his shoulder as he went.

Wesker didn't need to look to know the brunette was grinning as he said, "Admit it, you'd miss me!" Wesker could feel it in their bond – that comfortable, playful energy radiating from the man. It should have put him at ease, and yet Wesker found himself untrusting of it. As though it were too good to be true, too easy.

"Insufferable," Wesker repeated in a huff, closing the door behind him. Christopher laughed.

Just like he used to in STARS.

[a/n] Heeeeeeeey. Remember me? So, it's been a couple years, and that's my bad… but better late than never, right? (nervous laugh) ...honestly I'll be shocked if anyone still remembers/reads this fic haha.