Orphan

Part One:

-Under the Umbrella-

Chapter 1: Survival

Outside of Raccoon City, 1998

The first smell she remembers is dust. It's dirty in the conductors office on the train that takes her to safety. Alone, she was pretty sure her life was over the moment the world caught on fire and the first of the people died screaming in the garage.

She'd hidden, a master of it before the fall, and kept on hiding as the entire city became a necropolis. She was good at hiding. She'd been doing it most of her life when she was alone in the mansion where her parents seldom returned. She was a girl with so much heart and imagination, looking for things to make friends or family and fill the void of emptiness that almost canopied over the basis of her existence.

She watches the redhead who'd saved her in a dying city. A beautiful girl, the type that made Irons remark on her porcelain skin and brilliant blue eyes, Claire was instantly likable - funny and fiery and determined. She'd aligned herself to a girl she'd just met and never let go. Beside her, the rookie cop looks tired.

He's handsome - the kind of handsome reserved for storybook heroes and princes on white horses - he holds the controls on the train car and guides them into the coming sun. He smells like sewage and gasoline and blood. He's wounded, leaning heavily on the one side from a wound that still oozes beneath a dirty bandage. She's wounded herself, curled on a coat against the wall watching them.

She'd barely survived the infection. She could still feel it in her, something like a parasite, gnawing at her blood and bones. It made her vision clear somehow. She was pretty sure it wasn't all gone.

She listens to them talk. Claire, filthy but fine, remarking about hiding and hoofing it and making for safety. The rookie looking pale but determined, nodding. Claire calls him Leon and puts a name to a face with a soft smile.

He glances back at Sherry and questions, "You ok, kid? Warm enough?"

She nods. She's warm. She's in the sunlight now as the day rises into dawn. The train rolls to a stop. They're at the station far beyond the final destruction. She watched the world turn white as the bombs dropped. She knew her parents had already died before the bomb drops, but she still mourns them. She looks at the empty train station as they exit the car together.

Leon clears the inside with his weapon, instructing them to stay put and wait. Claire checks the outside while they wait, talking about her brother and how she thinks he's in Colorado. She'd show them the way once their wounds were treated.

Leon opens the door to station. His face catches the light. Sherry has a moment to blink - his eyes are the same blue as the dog she'd had as a girl, a husky, and his face is haloed in light. She feels her breath catch as he tells them, "It's clear. We're safe."

Without thinking, somehow, Sherry knows he's right.

She came awake listening to the heavy sound of quiet bickering. Creeping, she moved closer to the small office where Leon and Claire were whispering harshly. Her ears perked at her name from his mouth.

"-Sherry? Did you? She's badly wounded, Claire, she can't make the trip. She needs medical attention, a hospital, and help."

Claire's voice was angry, "She's fine! She can make it! I can't stay here too long, Leon! My brother is waiting! You're saying you can't make it either?

His voice came back, shaking with pain and quiet rage, "I look like I can hoof it across the goddamn country right now? I'm half dead here. I'm pretty sure this shit is infected. I haven't slept in three days. I'm starving and shaking. I need rest! I need medicine! I need some help here! I can't start out on foot toward the Rockies right now! Wait a few days here, just a couple days, and we can go. But I can't do it now."

The quiet dragged on until Claire finally answered, "...I'm so sorry, Leon. I am. I can't wait. What if he's in danger? If they followed him...I have to go find him. I have to. He needs me. He's my brother."

The silence was loud. Sherry put a hand to her mouth to stifle the small sound of fear and regret. What was she saying here? She was going to leave them?!

To break the moment, Sherry burst into the room. "No! Claire! You said you'd never leave me!"

Claire turned, looking stricken, she hurried forward and knelt. Sherry threw her arms around her neck and clung as the redhead told her, "I'll come back...ok? I'll come back for you. In a few days, when you're better, you and Leon will follow me. I'll have found Chris and gotten set up there. We can do the best we can to make it work. I'm not leaving you...I'm just giving you a little time to heal. Leon will take care of you."

Sherry saw the angry expression on the rookie cop over Claire's head. He curled his lip and turned away, stumbling a little until he could perch on the desk and curse. Sherry watched him rip off the binding on his chest and grunt with pain.

The skin was inflamed around the ragged wound. It was red and weeping, angry and swollen. He touched it, hissed, and shook his head.

Claire rose and Sherry tried to cling until the redhead pulled her hands away, "I'm-I'm sorry. I am. I'll see you soon. Help...help Leon with his wounds too, ok? You're so tough, you can do this. It's just a couple more days. Just a few...I promise."

Sherry stood frozen as Claire tried once more to reach the rookie, "Leon...I'll come back for you."

He laughed with disdain, "Just go Claire. You want to find your goddamn brother! THEN GO!"

His shout shook the rafters. Sherry jumped. Claire looked stricken. She backed up two steps. Her hand pressed to her mouth. Her eyes teared and she whispered, "I'm so sorry. I'll come back. I'm sorry."

She ran for it. Her boots echoed.

Sherry made a small sound of grief.

Leon's angry face fell when he turned his gaze to her. He gestured with his head, gruffly stating, "Hey...hey it's ok. It's alright. We can do this, right? You and me? We can do this together."

Sherry whimpered.

Leon, steeling his jaw, soothed, "It's ok. I won't leave you. You don't have to believe me...hell...why should you? But I won't leave you unless it's in a body bag, ok? Forget Claire."

He basically spit from between his teeth and added, "Come help me. Come on."

Sherry scurried over, scared, but determined. He let her poke gingerly at his wound and paled with pain when she pressed and saw the wound make pus in a gooey mess. She whispered, "...that's really bad."

He nodded, breathing hard, "Yeah...it ain't good. It's infected. I need you to look anywhere you can for something I can use to disinfect it, ok? Anything at all."

With a purpose, it was easier to keep the fear at bay. Sherry ran through the station looking for anything they could use. When she came back, he was collapsed on the floor by the wall with his head back.

She soaked the rag in her hand in rubbing alcohol and gingerly laid over his wound. He grabbed her wrist, his other hand grabbed her arm and bit into her skin. She watched his face go tense with pain. His mouth turned pale and he grunted, "...shit...I'm a wimp huh?"

She shook her head, "...you're so brave. I saw you...you took on my-you took on the monster. You did that while Claire guided the train. You did that alone."

He cracked one eye open, scanning her face, "...that's stupidity, Sherry, not bravery."

She denied that too, "It's bravery. You were terrified."

He laughed, high and pained as she squeezed his wound to expel more pus and cleaned around the stitches. "Saw that, did you? So much for my dreams of being an actor."

Quietly, Sherry told him, "You're handsome enough to be an actor."

Amused, he smiled, "Thanks. For all the good it's done me. Bravery, good looks, and stupidity...trusting women who aren't worth trusting." He lolled a little on his neck as Sherry treated the wound until it was no longer making pus, "I should have left her, ya know? I should have...but she needed me."

Sherry paused, looking at his tired face where it leaned back against the wall. He was speaking about the woman in red. She knew that, she'd heard the quiet fighting before on the train. The woman in red mattered to him somehow.

She'd betrayed him and left him for dead?

He'd saved her life anyway.

He started talking about her. He talked and talked, pouring over quiet details about his time there, spilling the truth in a way that made Sherry stop being nervous. She finally realized she'd cleaned his wound some time ago and was just sitting there beside him listening. He talked until he made a small sound of fatigue.

She wasn't even sure he was aware of it until he trailed off and the soft sound of snoring filled the office.

Sherry, concerned, checked his eyes by lifting one of his lids, but he was just sleeping.

She locked the office door and cuddled beside him on the floor. When he murmured in his sleep, Sherry curled against his naked side, looping an arm over his narrow waist. She touched the softly rising and falling lines on his belly, the delineated muscles in his abdomen and the softened but still hard line of his biceps. He was young, she was guessing Claire's age or close to it, but it wasn't a boy's body. It was a man.

It was easier for a girl on the new cusp of puberty to focus on a cute face than a terrible trauma. She slept, she dreamed of death and destruction. Awake, she could touch the little cleft in Leon's chin and pretend her life wasn't irrevocably changed.

She touched the reddened skin around the bandage, brow furrowed. It wasn't good. It was going to scar. He needed a doctor. She wasn't entirely sure how to find one since she had only half an idea of where they were. The train station had offered a small map on the wall to let her know she was in Whispering Pines. The train had taken them almost fifty miles outside of Raccoon City.

Far enough to make sure they were safe, close enough to watch the blast go off that leveled the place she'd grown up. She had a parrot named Petey who had been incinerated in that destruction. She had a single friend named Megan Miser who'd slept over a handful of times who'd died there. She'd lost her life, her parents, her home, her future...all of it in a city over run with the dead.

She had nothing.

Her lips trembled. She made a small whimper of misery and clamped her teeth to keep it in. Leon stirred against the wall and cracked an eye at her. She shook her head in apology and he lifted his arm, inviting softly, "S'ok, kid. Come here."

Sherry shifted in, looping her arms around his waist. She cuddled against him, eyes filling with weighty tears. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and squeezed her gently, "I had a sister once..."

Sherry went quiet, listening intently, as he went on, "She died when I was about your age. We were those kids who couldn't stay out of trouble, ya know? Katie liked to climb. She climbed up trees like a monkey. One day..." He shifted and Sherry sighed when his cheek laid gently on the top of her head, "Katie decided it was a good day to climb in a rain storm. So...we climbed all the way up. I'd never been so high...I could see the whole world up there. I could see from one end of town to the other. My Dad...he left when I was young, ya know? So it was just me and Katie and my Mom. Up there in that tree, Katie and I thought maybe we could squint real hard and see him..."

He went quiet for so long Sherry thought he might have fallen asleep, and then he spoke again and his voice caught with old pain that hadn't ever really healed, "...they say lightning doesn't strike twice...that day it struck that tree we were in. I fell, hard, and woke up on the ground with my leg broke in three places. Katie...she didn't fall. She was always such a good climber...she hung on. She died up in that tree before they could get her. They claimed it was only struck once...but I heard it, ya know? I heard it when I fell. I heard it strike again. Katie died trying to find our Dad."

Sherry whispered, softly, "...my dad is dead..."

He clutched her closer, soothing, "I know...I know he is. I can't promise Claire will come back, Sherry...I can't do that..but I can tell you this - I won't let you die waiting for her. I couldn't protect Katie...but I can protect you...if you'll let me."

She nodded, eyes shimmering. Her hands held onto him as she mewed, "...do you promise?"

"...I do...as long as a I can...I'm going to do everything I can to keep you safe...reach into my pocket on my vest there."

She did and her fingers closed around his badge. He smiled, shivering with fever, "...keep it. I don't need it anymore...but it's...it's good, ya know? It's good to have. It's my promise to you. I will always serve and protect, Sherry. It's just...it's who I am."

She whispered, "...I want to trust you."

He nodded, eyes flickering, and urged, "I know you do...it's ok that you can't yet. I hope you will, when you're ready. Keep that badge, and remember that I took an oath when they gave that to me. I took an oath that I plan to keep on upholding...even though I'm not really a cop anymore."

Honor - it was something that was hard for a girl to understand. She saw it on him, some kind of nobility that had brought him into a dying city to serve and protect. He wore honor like the badge, bracing it against a barrage of horror and betrayal. He was hurt, maybe dying, and still trying to uphold an oath he made when he'd become a rookie - for the one whole day he'd served.

She wanted to believe in him. He was making it really, really easy.

She held on even after she felt his body relent into sleep again. She closed her eyes and clung to him. She was still holding on when she woke up some hours later to find his skin was feverishly hot.

Afraid, she let go and lifted her head. He was flushed and breathing hard. He was sick. She knew it, she didn't need to be a doctor to know it. The infection? Was he turning!?

She whispered, high and scared, "...Leon?"

His eyes opened, bright with fever, "...heya kid...I'm not doing so hot, huh? You find any aspirin when you were poking around?"

She nodded, scurrying to get the bottle. She dumped a few pills into her hands and grabbed some bottled water. Leon was shaking when he took them. He grunted, lip curling in pain, "...fuck. I'm in trouble, sweetheart. Can you...are you ok to look outside and see if you notice anything like...a car? Or something for us to try like hell to get somewhere for some help here."

Sherry nodded, leaping up, she gave him a thumbs up, "I'm on it! Just...wait here!"

She hurried out of the station and started looking in the windows of the two cars in the abandoned parking lot. They were old, seemed sad and left behind, and she wasn't sure if there was any chance of starting them up. She broke the window out of the first one with a brick she found and climbed in to mess with the interior looking for keys.

To her joy, she found them tucked up in the visor like something out of a bad movie. She started the engine and hurried inside again, calling excitedly, "Leon!? I found a car!"

She found him struggling to his feet and looped his arm over her shoulders. Amused, he looked at her affectionately as she walked him toward the car in the lot and tried to aim him at the passenger seat. He resisted, grunting, "...you think you can drive?"

She laughed, admitting, "I can...sorta. My parents...they were gone a lot. Sometimes I got bored. You think I can possibly drive worse than you? Claire told me about your wreck."

He grunted, grinning as he collapsed in the passenger seat. She ran around the hood and climbed behind the wheel. He informed her, "...that was unavoidable. I'm a good driver."

She patted his knee and pulled the old car onto the road with a little fishtail of tires. He slumped in the seat, breathing hard. Sherry struggled with the old car that was clearly lacking power steering.

She started to lose control and he caught the wheel, tugging on it to keep them steady. When she glanced at him, he winked and told her softly, "...I gotcha, kid. Follow the signs for a hospital, honey, ok?"

For almost twenty minutes, she drove with him holding the wheel. He kept making sounds of pain that worried her. She talked to ease the silence, telling him about her parents and how they were hardly ever around and had parties when they were with weird nerdy friends.

The sound of a siren had her glancing at his face in fear. He told her, "...it's ok...it's alright. It might be an ambulance. Pull over, ok? And maybe we can hitch a ride."

She did, easing the car off the road.

A handful of seconds later, eight cruisers shot up the highway. Her hands clutched at him as they surrounded the little old car, lights flashing, and cops with guns pointing. Softly, Leon urged, "...get down and ease over here...get on the floor at my feet, ok?"

She did, without a word, making a small keen of fear.

He rose in the seat, face pink, and told her, "...whatever happens, stay down, you hear me?"

Sherry nodded.

There was a rap of knuckles on the window and a voice commanded, "Officer Kennedy? We're gonna need you to come on out of the vehicle."

Softly, Sherry whined, "...how does he know you!?"

Leon shrugged and returned, "...I don't think so. Show me some I.D."

Without warning, the door was wrenched from his hand and Leon spilled out to the ground. Sherry whimpered, her sight compromised, and watched Leon rise and battle the man for the gun in his hand. It was terrifying.

Leon, wounded, wasn't a match for the other man. He was easily knocked down and three men rushed up to restrain him. A gun was aimed at him as the man commanded, "Stop fighting us! You made this worse for yourself. Where is the girl!?"

Leon laughed and spit on the ground at his feet. "What girl?"

Sherry keened as the man pistol whipped him across the face. Leon sagged, grunting, and spit blood on the ground as the man demanded, "The girl, you little shit? Where is she?!"

A voice called, "Johnson, you idiot, back off!"

A woman in a suit came over, beautiful, but severe with a bun in black. She cupped Leon's chin and drew his attention where he sagged in the arms of his captor's. "You're ill, Mr. Kennedy, and you're no match for us. Don't make this worse, where is Sherry Birkin?"

They didn't know about Claire.

They knew about her, but they didn't know about Claire.

Somehow, she knew Leon wouldn't say a word about either of them.

He snapped, "...who?"

The woman sighed and told the men around her, "Fan out, search the area. She's hiding somewhere. She was with him at the station."

The other man, Johnson, asked, "You got eyes on her for confirmation on that?"

The woman nodded, "Less than four hours ago via helicopter. She's either there or she's here somewhere."

She gripped Leon's chin again to get his attention, "Last chance, Mr. Kennedy, where is she?"

He lifted his lips in a half smug smile, "...I don't know who you're talking about."

The woman tossed his chin from her hand and told the men, "Put him in the van. Tie him up and make him talk."

Sherry covered her mouth with her hands and hunkered down further. She heard them hitting him. She knew he was in that van getting beaten. Her whimper of pain was lost in the sound of fists on flesh.

He hadn't given her up. He hadn't said a word. Why? She wasn't worth anything!

After awhile, the woman shouted, "Anyone check the fucking car!?"

The door was jerked open. Sherry stared in horror and the woman laughed, "...why hello darling, aren't you cute?"

She grabbed for her, Sherry bit her hand and kicked her in the face, and she scrambled to the other side and opened the door. Tumbling to the ground, she started running. Leon shouted from the van, "RUN! Don't look back, Sherry! KEEP RUNNING!"

She didn't. She ran for the van. When the first man turned, Sherry kicked him right in the balls. As he staggered, she shoved him over and grabbed the ankles of the man in the van with his back to her. He went down, landed on his face with a metallic thump, and Sherry grabbed for his gun. As he rolled, she shot him in the chest at point blank range.

Bound to a chair, covered in blood and bruises, Leon gave her wide eyes as she grabbed for his bonds. "...I'll get you out, I promise!"

She shoved the dead man out of the van, slammed the back doors, and ran for the front. Leon felt the van lurch as she gunned the engine and the sound of gunfire chased the squeal of tires onto the road. She'd just attempted to rescue him.

His chair hit the wall of the van as she cornered too hard. He grunted, Sherry shouted and tried to hold on, and the van spun out anyway as a hail of bullets took out the passenger window.

The van tipped, it hit its side and skidded over the filthy ground, Leon was thrown into the ceiling and came down with a groan. Sherry scrambled back as the engine ticked madly and grabbed or his hands, "...I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I couldn't stop it!"

She was bleeding from her face. He watched her jerk on his bonds and murmured, "...Sherry, look at me..."

They could hear the people running for them. The bad guys were coming again. She begged, "...help me! Leon, help me! I can't undo this knot!"

He tried again, voice calm, "Sweetheart..look at me..."

She did, shaking, breathing hard and scared. "...they're gonna take you."

She whimpered, shaking her head in denial, she grabbed for his hands again. He said it once more, "...they're gonna take you, honey. They might kill me too. Sherry?"

She stopped and gasped, "...you promised not to leave me."

"...I promised to protect you...let me do that. Let me try."

She felt her face collapse with a small sob. She whispered, "...I cant be alone, Leon. I can't be alone."

He lifted his chin and she collapsed against his battered chest, clinging. He told her, voice gruff, "...I'll find you...I swear to god."

The doors were jerked open. Sherry shouted and tried to protect him. She crouched over him as they grabbed for her. He shouted in anger when they hit her with a shock rod and her small body bounced in pain.

"You motherfuckers! She's just a girl!"

The woman grabbed his chin and snapped, "Not anymore...she's a fucking B.O.W."

He couldn't stop the pistol that came for his temple.

Sherry cowered in the dark, listening to them interrogate him. When they were done, she knew they'd kill him. They'd kill him and she'd be alone. She put her ear to the glass wall and could see him in the shadows beyond the enclosure where she was kept.

The woman demanded, "...were you alone? Was anyone else with you?"

Without missing a beat, he answered, "...you kidding? Everyone else in that city is dead. You know that...you and your people...you waited to evacuate...you left everyone to die and quarantined the fall out. You killed them."

The woman laughed, "Umbrella killed them...we just left the fallout until we could sanitize. Safety comes at a cost, Mr. Kennedy."

She turned her head, speaking softly to the man beside her. Surprised, she inquired, "...you're positive?"

She turned back to Leon, "...it seems we underestimated you, Leon. The fever in your body? That's more than fighting infection, it's burning away the residual signs of the T-Virus...you're immune. Incredible. How else could you have survived? Indirectly, we stumbled onto the only living pair inoculated now against the T and G Viruses. Sherry...she's special. She's...a gift...and so are you."

His filthy look was answered by her laugh, "...I'm about to give you a choice that I wouldn't have ten minutes ago. I'm gonna give you the opportunity to serve your country."

He laughed and laughed and laughed. "You can kiss my fucking ass."

"...I could...but how about this? You agree and we inherit a soldier with a natural resistance to the thing we're looking to destroy...or I start experimenting on Sherry."

Sherry watched him jerk in his seat and the woman added, "...she doesn't have to be alive for that, Leon. Alive and in our care or dead and on a lab table somewhere. Your choice...all it costs you is your freedom."

Sherry slapped the glass, rising to shout, "DON'T! Leon, don't! I'm not worth it!"

His gaze shifted to her. One of his eyes was rimmed in blood around the pupil. He was hurt, desperately, and she knew he wouldn't survive another beating. She couldn't stand there and let him sell himself for her.

She just couldn't.

He smiled, sadly, and called, "...it's ok, sweetheart. This is how I climb that tree, right? I keep my promises."

Sherry shouted, "NO! DON'T! I'M NOT WORTH IT!"

Leon turned his gaze back to the woman and demanded, "Safe. I want her safe. I want her cared for. Not a goddamn pin cushion, a place where she can find peace."

The woman chuckled and shrugged, "Sure. Why not? Let's pretend you're in a position to make demands. Safe I can promise, but she's a B.O.W., Kennedy, there's no way to avoid testing on her. The only choice you have here is how we do it...alive or dead."

Leon closed his eyes. Sherry shouted, sobbing, "Leon! Don't!"

And he opened his tired gaze as he grumbled, "...done."

The woman affirmed, "You agree?"

"...yes."

Sherry bellowed, "LEON!"

The men came to take him. The men came to take her. They dragged her away. In the hallway, Leon shouted, "...I will find you! Do you hear me!? I will find you!"

She kept on shouting his name until she was hoarse. They stuffed her in a van. They took her away.

She crumbled in the dark and hugged herself.

She kept whispering his name against her knees until she lost her voice completely.

She was alone with his R.P.D. badge in her palms, clutched to her like a shield, with nothing but the darkness and her own fear.