Chapter One:
Disclaimer: Resident Evil belongs to Capcom Inc. I did not make any profit off of this
manuscript—I wish I did but it is just not so.
"Don't worry! I swear, I will be waiting for you right outside the gate!"
Leon chortled listlessly at the last thing Claire had told him that morning when he had
dropped her off at the elementary school. She had been toting a side bag with a rainbow
and the Harrison Elementary ensign across the front, a small black backpack and a
handful of books for that day. It was still a sight he was growing used to: Claire
Redfield, the elementary school teacher. Leon couldn't imagine staying in a room with
twenty or so screaming kids for seven hours—even if he was getting paid for it. Or
maybe it was just because he never cared much for little kids. The baby-sitting genes had
gone to his youngest sister Leila. To him, little children were okay—and even
amusing—in small doses but when he was around them too long they drove him crazy.
"But you're so good with kids!" Claire had told him once when he had enlightened
her with his theory on kids.
"Yeah, but that's only for an hour or so." He explained. "I can entertain them for at
least an hour but after that I don't know what will happen."
"Oh, you're just being silly. I'll bet you'd get along really well." She told him with a
mischievous smile that told him she thought the precise opposite of the words she said.
She had that patronizing, sarcastic way about her but he didn't really mind. The things
she said amused him a lot of the time because they were on the save wavelength if at
different ends of the gender field.
Leon shifted uncomfortably and let the searing pain in his shoulder run its course.
Damn it, shoulder wounds just seemed to be his lot in life. Well, he supposed it was
better than the alternative… He doubled checked his fresh shirt to be certain no blood
was leaking through the bandage that he had gotten from the hospital that day—mere
hours before. No matter how nice and peaceful a place was there was always some
bastard somewhere that had to find some way or other to corrupt it.
That morning, the bank just outside of town was robbed. Leon and his partner and a
bunch of others had responded to the call…Leon had been lucky today, Dave hadn't
been. He was critically injured in the hospital…they had stabilized him but he would
have to stay there for two weeks. Once his wound had been patched up, Leon stayed by
his fallen buddy's bed until a bunch of other officers had decided to swing by after their
beat.
He had left the hospital around two o' clock and rushed home. He didn't want the
sight of a bloody shirt and haggard appearance to worry Claire. She already had fraying
nerves especially since she hadn't heard from her brother, Chris, in over a year. Leon
knew Chris from a few covert meetings a couple of months after the Rockford island
incident, but they had never been what one might call friends. Except for one night when
Chris confided in Leon that he was going on an extremely confidential operation with
Barry, Jill and a few others that he wouldn't name; Chris had looked fraught with worry
and tension.
"Leon, would you mind sitting down a sec?" he had said seriously when they had
returned from shopping for some new clothes for Claire's wardrobe.
"Sure." Leon replied, sitting down across from Chris. The older man had taken on a
hunching posture at the table, a change from the smiling Redfield that had made jokes
about people in the food court as they past by. In hurried, whispered sentences, Chris had
told Leon about his next mission (but only in the vaguest of details), ending with an
almost desperate plea:
"I don't know you, Kennedy. But you seem like a nice guy—a decent guy…that's way
I'm asking you…would you take care of my sister—my baby sister for me? Would you do
that for me?"
The tone in which he asked knocked Leon out of breath. How do you respond to a
request like that?
"Of course." Was all he could say. "You wouldn't have had to ask."
He had a feeling the last part didn't sit too well with the elder Redfield but Chris just
nodded and Claire returned from upstairs and they never spoke a word about the subject
again.
The task had been simple in theory but harder in reality. When Chris had brought up
the fact that he was leaving again, Claire had exploded. She had ranted about Chris
promising, promising he wouldn't leave again. How she wouldn't stand the chance of
losing him again. She'd kill herself first.
Leon had stood by while the siblings argued, ending in a tearful ambiguous silence. A
week later, Chris and the others were gone and Claire wouldn't speak with Leon for two
weeks because of him "keeping secrets" from her.
Communication with her brother was scarce. But still, there were times when Chris
would chance a letter mailed under a pseudonym—or even rarer, a telephone call from a
booth miles and miles from their hide out—to tell her how he was. There was usually
one of these things every nine months. It had been four years. In that time, Claire had
gotten her teaching degree from college and set up a nice, what would appear to be stable
life for herself. And Leon had been beside her all the way, taking on a surrogate brother
role that seemed to come naturally to him, especially since he was the only boy in his
family growing up.
A loud knock on the window seemed to pull him out of a feverish, hazy trance and
Leon realized that he had fallen asleep. He looked out his window to see Claire staring
down at him, not quite out of her teaching mode yet. He felt like he had just spilled a
container of macaroni during arts and crafts time. He reached over to the passenger's
side and unlocked the door. Claire seemed to sigh even though Leon couldn't hear her
and she crossed around the green jeep and hopped in.
"Leon Kennedy!" she exclaimed, hitting his right shoulder—and making him thankful
it was only his left shoulder that was in pain. "You fell asleep with all the car windows
rolled up and the A/C shut off. What did you want to do? Suffocate?"
"I'm sorry, miss." Leon said, enjoying the ever so slight wince of Claire at the name that
seemed to stick to all female teachers, married or not. "But it was all I could do not to eat
paste again."
"Ugh, spare me, Leon." She said, rolling her eyes and sitting back in the seat. "I teach
fourth graders, I think most of them are well beyond the paste-eating stage."
"All except that one kid in the corner, eh?" he asked, giving her a sideways glance as he
reversed out of the parking lot.
Claire was quiet for a few moments before she said, quite without feeling, "I keep
telling Donnelley to stop eating the stuff, it tastes God awful, but that kid is like a brick
wall."
At that, Leon paused and turned to look at her. "Uh, Claire, I was just kidding."
Claire gave him a dubious look, "Uh, Leon, so was I."
The two laughed a short, dull laugh and there was silence. Claire seemed to want to
say something; her words started to form but then were sucked back in by indecision.
Leon waited until after the fifth set of, "Leo—di--…"s and "Wel—ca--…"s before he
broke out with, "Claire, if you ever decide to teach English—don't."
At that, she gave a real laugh and shook her head. "What I meant to say was…did
he…did anything…Oh, come on, you know what I'm saying."
"No." Leon replied.
"No?" she repeated.
"There was nothing from Chris."
An uneasy smile, a slight nod then a turn to look out the window was the response.
The rest of the drive was a deep silence that was more contemplating than uncomfortable
as Leon drove to the usual restaurant they went to twice a week to compare lives. Today
was Thursday—Leon was treating. Claire had seemed to brighten up as they sat in the
little booth by the window and watched as people passed by.
"God, did you ever think that we'd have such hum-drum lives?" Claire wondered
aloud as she finished the details of her day.
"Hey, being a cop is exciting." Leon objected. 'More exciting than she knows, especially
today…'
"Yeah, but I'm a teacher. Where's the excitement in that?" Claire wondered. "I didn't
plan to do this, I just didn't…I didn't know what else to do with my life…"
Her tone wasn't depressed or self-pitying—that wasn't Claire—it was only honest.
She looked up at him with eyes that were still bright and full of child-like wonder despite
all she had been through. Leon pursed his lips together and took a deep breath.
Whenever Claire got like this, it was always best to take a firm stand.
"Don't give me that 'those who can't, teach' crap." Leon said, taking her hand. "Claire,
you're job is important. You educate the future leaders of tomorrow, the hope for the
world to come, the…the everything else that suggests that those little snot wads will grow
up to be successful men and women."
Claire raised an eyebrow at him and scoffed. "Your confidence and certainty is
overwhelming."
"I just don't understand why you'd feel your commonplace just because you're a teacher.
You're every bit as important as doctors, lawyers, scientists—and maybe even police
officers—" that remark brought a sniff of indignation, by the way—"your job is probably
a lot more honest anyway."
"Yeah, I guess so." She said, sounding a little better.
"Plus, you with a yard stick as a disciplinary tool is incredibly sexy." Leon added with a
twinkle in his eye.
They pulled into Claire's little house about two hours later, as the sun was setting.
Claire gave a small "Thanks" before she started to collect her things and opened her door.
"Hey, Claire." Leon called before she could close it.
"Yes?" she said, balancing her things on her hip in order to brush away a loose strand of
hair from her eyes.
"You gonna be okay? Is there anything you need?"
Claire shook her head and smiled in a pleased way that made Leon feel foolish.
"You sure?" Leon double-checked.
Claire looked thoughtful for a moment before she looked down at her things. "Well, I
have a whopping pile of papers to grade for tomorrow. You interested?"
"Uh, later—rain check!" Leon spat out, making an over the top movement to get away.
"Oh-ho, I see, Kennedy doesn't want to get his hands dirty with ink stains."
"I'm through with school, Redfield." He replied.
Defeated, Claire looked down at her nails and shrugged. "Okay, fine. I'll go in and
grade these papers all by myself. Someone will be hiding in a closet somewhere, he'll
attack me…I'll probably be beaten and brutally raped…but, oh well—you can do the
homicide report! Seeya later." She said with a bright tone and hearty salute.
Leon squinted over the sloppy handwriting of one of Claire's students. "You know,
Claire, one of these days, that helpless female act is not going to work."
Claire could only giggle and return to the pile she was grading. After five more minutes
of trying to decipher the words for the spelling test he was staring at, he gave up and
looked at Claire again. She was curled up in her corner of the couch, nibbling on her
eraser and then marking down something on the paper. Finally, she set the paper down
and sighed.
"Okay, I'm done, I—Leon! You still have a whole bunch to go." She said, looking at
the pile he still had.
"I told you, I'm through with school." He said nonchalantly.
Claire threw her arms up in surrender. "You're useless. I'm better off being rap—"
"The day that helpless thing wears thin is today, Claire, I'm not listening." Leon said,
covering his ears.
"You will too, listen!" Claire said, hitting him with a couch pillow.
"Claire, wait!" he exclaimed, shielding his arm as she pummeled him again and again
with as much damage as feathers and velvet could inflict. Out of breath, she stopped and
leaned on his shoulder.
"You don't normally give up that easily." She said, looking up at him and feeling his
forehead. "Are you okay?"
Leon mumbled something about being fine when he felt the pain killers given to him
wear off. Faintly, he thought about rushing outside to the car to get the pills when he felt
Claire's warm hand on his cheek.
"You shaved before you came to pick me up?"
"Yeah." He replied.
"It's really smooth." She observed, scooting closer to him, clutching his uniform as she
did so. "And your uniform seems to be fresh despite all the hard work you must do in it."
Leon felt torn between the pain seeping back into his shoulder and the increasing
curiosity as to what Claire would do next.
She gazed deep into his eyes for a few moments before she pushed him away
violently. "Okay, Leon, what's going on here?"
"Ou—whaddayuh mean, 'what's going on'?"
"Don't give me that. You're never this clean cut when you pick me up after work. You
changed into a new uniform and shaved off the three-day beard requisite of a cop
working the beat you have."
"So?" he asked, dusting himself off stiffly.
"So…what's wrong?" she asked him, her voice gentle once again.
Leon was about to insist that nothing was wrong when he caught her looking at him
strangely. He followed her gaze to a red blotch on his left shoulder area.
"Oh, that's…that, uh…" he didn't get to finish because she was already reaching for his
shirt and unbuttoning it to reveal his bandage, soaked through with blood that had spurted
out.
"Leon…" her voice was small, fragile. "What…what happened?"
He was once again going to insist on the lame excuse of 'nothing' but the concern in
her eyes tore him apart worse than his wound did his shoulder. So he told her the whole
story. From the moment the call came out to the second he stepped out of the hospital to
go home and change.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she demanded weakly.
"I didn't want you to worry. You've already got so much on your mind. Why should
you worry about me?"
"Because you're my friend, Leon!" she exclaimed, hugging him tightly. "I don't know
what I'd do if you…if anything worse had happened to you today."
Leon felt his throat tighten. Trying to lighten the mood, he forced a smile. "Hey, I
was lucky today."
A pause before Claire meekly replied, "Luck runs out…I can't lose another one of the
people I care for the most." She looked up at him. "Please, please, stop keeping things
from me. I need to know so that I can help you. I won't fall apart like you think I will,
honest. Please stop keeping secrets from me." She repeated.
Leon swallowed again and took a deep breath. "It's been rough, I know."
"I've lost my parents. I might have lost Chris. I can't lose you too." She said with
desperation.
"That's the thing! You didn't lose me. There's probably a good chance that you won't."
"Probability and chances aren't exactly comforting things to count on." She said softly,
hugging him close.
"Trust me, Claire." He said firmly, stroking her back. "You won't lose anyone
anymore."
Although dangerous as that promise was, it was true. Claire wouldn't be the one to lose
another anymore. He would.
Disclaimer: Resident Evil belongs to Capcom Inc. I did not make any profit off of this
manuscript—I wish I did but it is just not so.
"Don't worry! I swear, I will be waiting for you right outside the gate!"
Leon chortled listlessly at the last thing Claire had told him that morning when he had
dropped her off at the elementary school. She had been toting a side bag with a rainbow
and the Harrison Elementary ensign across the front, a small black backpack and a
handful of books for that day. It was still a sight he was growing used to: Claire
Redfield, the elementary school teacher. Leon couldn't imagine staying in a room with
twenty or so screaming kids for seven hours—even if he was getting paid for it. Or
maybe it was just because he never cared much for little kids. The baby-sitting genes had
gone to his youngest sister Leila. To him, little children were okay—and even
amusing—in small doses but when he was around them too long they drove him crazy.
"But you're so good with kids!" Claire had told him once when he had enlightened
her with his theory on kids.
"Yeah, but that's only for an hour or so." He explained. "I can entertain them for at
least an hour but after that I don't know what will happen."
"Oh, you're just being silly. I'll bet you'd get along really well." She told him with a
mischievous smile that told him she thought the precise opposite of the words she said.
She had that patronizing, sarcastic way about her but he didn't really mind. The things
she said amused him a lot of the time because they were on the save wavelength if at
different ends of the gender field.
Leon shifted uncomfortably and let the searing pain in his shoulder run its course.
Damn it, shoulder wounds just seemed to be his lot in life. Well, he supposed it was
better than the alternative… He doubled checked his fresh shirt to be certain no blood
was leaking through the bandage that he had gotten from the hospital that day—mere
hours before. No matter how nice and peaceful a place was there was always some
bastard somewhere that had to find some way or other to corrupt it.
That morning, the bank just outside of town was robbed. Leon and his partner and a
bunch of others had responded to the call…Leon had been lucky today, Dave hadn't
been. He was critically injured in the hospital…they had stabilized him but he would
have to stay there for two weeks. Once his wound had been patched up, Leon stayed by
his fallen buddy's bed until a bunch of other officers had decided to swing by after their
beat.
He had left the hospital around two o' clock and rushed home. He didn't want the
sight of a bloody shirt and haggard appearance to worry Claire. She already had fraying
nerves especially since she hadn't heard from her brother, Chris, in over a year. Leon
knew Chris from a few covert meetings a couple of months after the Rockford island
incident, but they had never been what one might call friends. Except for one night when
Chris confided in Leon that he was going on an extremely confidential operation with
Barry, Jill and a few others that he wouldn't name; Chris had looked fraught with worry
and tension.
"Leon, would you mind sitting down a sec?" he had said seriously when they had
returned from shopping for some new clothes for Claire's wardrobe.
"Sure." Leon replied, sitting down across from Chris. The older man had taken on a
hunching posture at the table, a change from the smiling Redfield that had made jokes
about people in the food court as they past by. In hurried, whispered sentences, Chris had
told Leon about his next mission (but only in the vaguest of details), ending with an
almost desperate plea:
"I don't know you, Kennedy. But you seem like a nice guy—a decent guy…that's way
I'm asking you…would you take care of my sister—my baby sister for me? Would you do
that for me?"
The tone in which he asked knocked Leon out of breath. How do you respond to a
request like that?
"Of course." Was all he could say. "You wouldn't have had to ask."
He had a feeling the last part didn't sit too well with the elder Redfield but Chris just
nodded and Claire returned from upstairs and they never spoke a word about the subject
again.
The task had been simple in theory but harder in reality. When Chris had brought up
the fact that he was leaving again, Claire had exploded. She had ranted about Chris
promising, promising he wouldn't leave again. How she wouldn't stand the chance of
losing him again. She'd kill herself first.
Leon had stood by while the siblings argued, ending in a tearful ambiguous silence. A
week later, Chris and the others were gone and Claire wouldn't speak with Leon for two
weeks because of him "keeping secrets" from her.
Communication with her brother was scarce. But still, there were times when Chris
would chance a letter mailed under a pseudonym—or even rarer, a telephone call from a
booth miles and miles from their hide out—to tell her how he was. There was usually
one of these things every nine months. It had been four years. In that time, Claire had
gotten her teaching degree from college and set up a nice, what would appear to be stable
life for herself. And Leon had been beside her all the way, taking on a surrogate brother
role that seemed to come naturally to him, especially since he was the only boy in his
family growing up.
A loud knock on the window seemed to pull him out of a feverish, hazy trance and
Leon realized that he had fallen asleep. He looked out his window to see Claire staring
down at him, not quite out of her teaching mode yet. He felt like he had just spilled a
container of macaroni during arts and crafts time. He reached over to the passenger's
side and unlocked the door. Claire seemed to sigh even though Leon couldn't hear her
and she crossed around the green jeep and hopped in.
"Leon Kennedy!" she exclaimed, hitting his right shoulder—and making him thankful
it was only his left shoulder that was in pain. "You fell asleep with all the car windows
rolled up and the A/C shut off. What did you want to do? Suffocate?"
"I'm sorry, miss." Leon said, enjoying the ever so slight wince of Claire at the name that
seemed to stick to all female teachers, married or not. "But it was all I could do not to eat
paste again."
"Ugh, spare me, Leon." She said, rolling her eyes and sitting back in the seat. "I teach
fourth graders, I think most of them are well beyond the paste-eating stage."
"All except that one kid in the corner, eh?" he asked, giving her a sideways glance as he
reversed out of the parking lot.
Claire was quiet for a few moments before she said, quite without feeling, "I keep
telling Donnelley to stop eating the stuff, it tastes God awful, but that kid is like a brick
wall."
At that, Leon paused and turned to look at her. "Uh, Claire, I was just kidding."
Claire gave him a dubious look, "Uh, Leon, so was I."
The two laughed a short, dull laugh and there was silence. Claire seemed to want to
say something; her words started to form but then were sucked back in by indecision.
Leon waited until after the fifth set of, "Leo—di--…"s and "Wel—ca--…"s before he
broke out with, "Claire, if you ever decide to teach English—don't."
At that, she gave a real laugh and shook her head. "What I meant to say was…did
he…did anything…Oh, come on, you know what I'm saying."
"No." Leon replied.
"No?" she repeated.
"There was nothing from Chris."
An uneasy smile, a slight nod then a turn to look out the window was the response.
The rest of the drive was a deep silence that was more contemplating than uncomfortable
as Leon drove to the usual restaurant they went to twice a week to compare lives. Today
was Thursday—Leon was treating. Claire had seemed to brighten up as they sat in the
little booth by the window and watched as people passed by.
"God, did you ever think that we'd have such hum-drum lives?" Claire wondered
aloud as she finished the details of her day.
"Hey, being a cop is exciting." Leon objected. 'More exciting than she knows, especially
today…'
"Yeah, but I'm a teacher. Where's the excitement in that?" Claire wondered. "I didn't
plan to do this, I just didn't…I didn't know what else to do with my life…"
Her tone wasn't depressed or self-pitying—that wasn't Claire—it was only honest.
She looked up at him with eyes that were still bright and full of child-like wonder despite
all she had been through. Leon pursed his lips together and took a deep breath.
Whenever Claire got like this, it was always best to take a firm stand.
"Don't give me that 'those who can't, teach' crap." Leon said, taking her hand. "Claire,
you're job is important. You educate the future leaders of tomorrow, the hope for the
world to come, the…the everything else that suggests that those little snot wads will grow
up to be successful men and women."
Claire raised an eyebrow at him and scoffed. "Your confidence and certainty is
overwhelming."
"I just don't understand why you'd feel your commonplace just because you're a teacher.
You're every bit as important as doctors, lawyers, scientists—and maybe even police
officers—" that remark brought a sniff of indignation, by the way—"your job is probably
a lot more honest anyway."
"Yeah, I guess so." She said, sounding a little better.
"Plus, you with a yard stick as a disciplinary tool is incredibly sexy." Leon added with a
twinkle in his eye.
They pulled into Claire's little house about two hours later, as the sun was setting.
Claire gave a small "Thanks" before she started to collect her things and opened her door.
"Hey, Claire." Leon called before she could close it.
"Yes?" she said, balancing her things on her hip in order to brush away a loose strand of
hair from her eyes.
"You gonna be okay? Is there anything you need?"
Claire shook her head and smiled in a pleased way that made Leon feel foolish.
"You sure?" Leon double-checked.
Claire looked thoughtful for a moment before she looked down at her things. "Well, I
have a whopping pile of papers to grade for tomorrow. You interested?"
"Uh, later—rain check!" Leon spat out, making an over the top movement to get away.
"Oh-ho, I see, Kennedy doesn't want to get his hands dirty with ink stains."
"I'm through with school, Redfield." He replied.
Defeated, Claire looked down at her nails and shrugged. "Okay, fine. I'll go in and
grade these papers all by myself. Someone will be hiding in a closet somewhere, he'll
attack me…I'll probably be beaten and brutally raped…but, oh well—you can do the
homicide report! Seeya later." She said with a bright tone and hearty salute.
Leon squinted over the sloppy handwriting of one of Claire's students. "You know,
Claire, one of these days, that helpless female act is not going to work."
Claire could only giggle and return to the pile she was grading. After five more minutes
of trying to decipher the words for the spelling test he was staring at, he gave up and
looked at Claire again. She was curled up in her corner of the couch, nibbling on her
eraser and then marking down something on the paper. Finally, she set the paper down
and sighed.
"Okay, I'm done, I—Leon! You still have a whole bunch to go." She said, looking at
the pile he still had.
"I told you, I'm through with school." He said nonchalantly.
Claire threw her arms up in surrender. "You're useless. I'm better off being rap—"
"The day that helpless thing wears thin is today, Claire, I'm not listening." Leon said,
covering his ears.
"You will too, listen!" Claire said, hitting him with a couch pillow.
"Claire, wait!" he exclaimed, shielding his arm as she pummeled him again and again
with as much damage as feathers and velvet could inflict. Out of breath, she stopped and
leaned on his shoulder.
"You don't normally give up that easily." She said, looking up at him and feeling his
forehead. "Are you okay?"
Leon mumbled something about being fine when he felt the pain killers given to him
wear off. Faintly, he thought about rushing outside to the car to get the pills when he felt
Claire's warm hand on his cheek.
"You shaved before you came to pick me up?"
"Yeah." He replied.
"It's really smooth." She observed, scooting closer to him, clutching his uniform as she
did so. "And your uniform seems to be fresh despite all the hard work you must do in it."
Leon felt torn between the pain seeping back into his shoulder and the increasing
curiosity as to what Claire would do next.
She gazed deep into his eyes for a few moments before she pushed him away
violently. "Okay, Leon, what's going on here?"
"Ou—whaddayuh mean, 'what's going on'?"
"Don't give me that. You're never this clean cut when you pick me up after work. You
changed into a new uniform and shaved off the three-day beard requisite of a cop
working the beat you have."
"So?" he asked, dusting himself off stiffly.
"So…what's wrong?" she asked him, her voice gentle once again.
Leon was about to insist that nothing was wrong when he caught her looking at him
strangely. He followed her gaze to a red blotch on his left shoulder area.
"Oh, that's…that, uh…" he didn't get to finish because she was already reaching for his
shirt and unbuttoning it to reveal his bandage, soaked through with blood that had spurted
out.
"Leon…" her voice was small, fragile. "What…what happened?"
He was once again going to insist on the lame excuse of 'nothing' but the concern in
her eyes tore him apart worse than his wound did his shoulder. So he told her the whole
story. From the moment the call came out to the second he stepped out of the hospital to
go home and change.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she demanded weakly.
"I didn't want you to worry. You've already got so much on your mind. Why should
you worry about me?"
"Because you're my friend, Leon!" she exclaimed, hugging him tightly. "I don't know
what I'd do if you…if anything worse had happened to you today."
Leon felt his throat tighten. Trying to lighten the mood, he forced a smile. "Hey, I
was lucky today."
A pause before Claire meekly replied, "Luck runs out…I can't lose another one of the
people I care for the most." She looked up at him. "Please, please, stop keeping things
from me. I need to know so that I can help you. I won't fall apart like you think I will,
honest. Please stop keeping secrets from me." She repeated.
Leon swallowed again and took a deep breath. "It's been rough, I know."
"I've lost my parents. I might have lost Chris. I can't lose you too." She said with
desperation.
"That's the thing! You didn't lose me. There's probably a good chance that you won't."
"Probability and chances aren't exactly comforting things to count on." She said softly,
hugging him close.
"Trust me, Claire." He said firmly, stroking her back. "You won't lose anyone
anymore."
Although dangerous as that promise was, it was true. Claire wouldn't be the one to lose
another anymore. He would.