Title: Anathema

Fandom: Resident Evil (movie-verse)

Pairing: Alice Abernathy/Claire Redfield

Rating: R

Summary: Before the end of the world, Claire had been Catholic. After? She wasn't really sure anymore.

Disclaimer: I don't own Resident Evil, or Claire and Alice.

Notes: Just a short Claire character study. This is sort of soft for an M-rating. But I feel like it pushes T too much for me to put it there.

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Before the end of the world, Claire had been Catholic. She had been a good little girl, had gone to church every Sunday up until college. She always wore appropriate dresses and took communion and went to confession. She said her Hail Marys like she was supposed to, memorized Bible verses so she could answer questions like she was supposed to in Sunday School.

Really, truly, she had believed in a God. At least, up until high school she did. Then her parents died two days after her fifteenth birthday and she was never sure anymore. Every night for months after the car accident, she had prayed for an explanation. She had prayed for God to give her a reason why. But it had never happened. The people at her church mumbled apparent comforts of "God has a plan" and "The Lord will comfort you." It was not soothing, no matter how many times and how many people said it to her.

It felt almost like they were laughing in her face.

As soon as she was in college, she stopped attending church on Sunday. She scoffed at her roommate, who was a strong Baptist. She felt sick to her stomach when people prayed before meals, and when one of her cousins got her a devotional for her birthday she threw it away as soon as no one was around. She disposed of everything from that life, and by the time the world ended in Raccoon City during her senior year at university, she had nothing left but her rosary and a cross necklace her parents had gifted her with once she completed confirmation.

Those came with her throughout her travels. During her time in Raccoon City with Leon Kennedy, while she attempted to find her brother, they remained in her bag. They came with her in the Hummer, always there while her convoy traversed across the Nevada desert. She had no idea why she kept them. Perhaps she was more sentimental than she had first thought. But something in her just could not dispose of them.

Many turned to religion when the world came to an end. Claire stepped even farther away from it.

It all sort of seemed like blasphemy. The only time she called out to God anymore was because of the woman named Alice-and the blonde's dexterous tongue and fingers were responsible, moving with amazing skill along the heat between Claire's thighs. Her cries fell among curses and moans in the back seat of her Hummer, and they meant nothing but an expression of pleasure.

They had talked about religion once, after Vegas, when Claire was sitting alone on the back of the Hummer while tears threatened to come crawling down her face. Alice had found her there, and sat next to her, silent as ever. She waited for Claire to speak, and all the convoy leader had been able to ask was "Why?"

Alice met her eyes, "Why what?"

"Why do people have to die?" Claire asked, and the tears escaped then. Alice had reached out, her calloused fingers wiping them away with gentle strokes.

Alice sighed her blue eyes paling at the question, "I don't know."

"There can't be a god. Because if there is, he's a sadistic bastard for letting all of this happen," Claire had said, an she had never meant the words more.

Alice bit her lips and shrugged a shoulder, "We've killed so many people, already undead and not yet turned. Humans have begun controlling death, far more than they ever did before. I think we're our own gods at this point. We govern our own lives."

It was quite possibly the most Alice had said during the three weeks Claire knew her, and the words had stuck with Claire every day since then. They seemed true enough. Claire had ended people's lives. So many people. It made her wonder if that was why murderers killed people. Maybe it made them feel powerful to control life.

In those three weeks, Alice and Claire grew quite close, and something in Claire trusted the older, enigmatic woman with every fiber of her being. She told her everything. She had cried in front of her and argued with her and made love to her. The idea of being with another woman would have, in her Catholic life, made her wrinkle her nose with disgust. But now she was her own god, and she could dictate what was acceptable and what wasn't.

Even though it became what she firmly believed, Claire couldn't help how she coped when Alice sent them off in a helicopter towards Alaska. She couldn't help that, on nights they stopped to rest, she pulled out her rosary and her old cross necklace and found a private spot. Claire would pray to God, the traditional ones she had used to say in church, and ones that were just rambling collections of thoughts. She asked God to keep Alice safe, and to bring the other woman back to her in Arcadia.

Claire couldn't help but feel like she was talking to herself, but what else did she have left?

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