Chapter Text
“You’re making a mistake.”
Wesker glared weakly at the man currently walking in front of him, the harsh white lights above his head making it hard for him to make out much of anything around. There were two guards by both his sides with patches on their shoulders that Wesker didn’t recognize from anywhere.
B.S.A.A. huh?
Wesker could only guess what it stood for.
His hands were restrained behind his back, his injured shoulder straining against the pull painfully. His ankle was a whole different topic.
The leader, who has yet to identify himself, although Wesker was already more than a hundred percent sure it was Redfield, scoffed, not even looking back at Wesker as they walked through yet another corridor. This was becoming a recurring theme for him.
“A mistake? Sure. You can tell command all about it when we’re done then."
The answer confused the blond even more. Not only was Redfield looking too old than what he was supposed to be, but he was also acting strange too. What happened to the loyal, overeager Chris Redfield from his S.T.A.R.S. team? He decided to indulge in the behavior at the moment though, hoping to gain as much information about the situation as he could.
“Command. Right.” Wesker mumbled under his breath, his voice barely above a rasp. “Very helpful, considering you still haven’t told me where you’re taking me.” Wesker forced out, shrugging one of the guards’ hand off his bloodied shoulder, staring at Chris’ burly back as that was the only part of him visible to Wesker right now. Also, since when did he gain so much muscle? And since when was he taller than him? Wesker looked scrawny compared to him, and he didn’t know what to feel about that difference.
“Cut the crap, Wesker.” Chris barked, glancing over his shoulder for less than a second, an unreadable expression crossing his face. “You know who we are. This is no time for your games. You’re going to answer our questions whether you like it or not.”
This was becoming really frustrating to endure. Redfield was dodging all of his questions, and he looked like he was doing it deliberately too, but was still expecting Wesker to be the obedient one. Wesker almost felt offended at the treatment but he also knew that anger would get him nowhere as of right now so he swallowed his pride down.
He debates asking about the Arklay mission, or just something small at least, desperate to find out literally anything. He feels utterly helpless and vulnerable in this predicament, and with no one willing to cooperate, Wesker had no idea how he would ever be getting out of this situation.
Finally they start to slow down, halting to a stop in front of a door just like all the other ones in the place. Chris finally turns around, facing him, and Wesker studies his features more under the light. Yeah, he wasn’t imagining it, Chris really was taller than him now for some reason, and it wasn’t just because of the fact that he had boots on. His eyebrows were more pulled together now, making his face look stern like he was forever in a frowning mode, very unlike what Wesker was used to. This Chris also had a stubble, which he never in all of his time in S.T.A.R.S. had ever imagined seeing on Chris.
“We’re going to be entering medical right now.” Chris warned. “Try to behave at least once in your life, Wesker. They’re just gonna look those over and make sure they don’t get infected or anything.” Chris said, jerking his chin towards Wesker’s bloody shoulder and ankle. “Can’t have you dying on us again before we find out everything”
Wesker stared at Chris for a moment, unable to process the words through the fog in his head, then blinked, and then sneezed again. The blond narrowed his eyes, clearly unhappy with how his body seemed keen on betraying him.
“And that too.” Chris finished, his mouth twitching upwards by an inch unnoticeably.
Then his previous words finally registered to Wesker.
Wait, again?
Wesker stood there, confused for a moment, while Chris opened the door. What did Chris mean by dying again? Did they declare him dead after he disappeared that night? Or was it something else? Wesker was experiencing too big of a headache to deal with all this at the moment.
The room they had entered looked to be the medical wing just like Chris said, but Wesker couldn’t see any familiar equipment. Did Wesker miss a revolution or something while he was asleep for a month or what? Everything seemed more advanced than even what Wesker had seen in Umbrella’s labs.
The guards by his side sat him down onto the bed, and finally moved away, but not before unlocking the handcuffs and closing them around the metal railing on the edge of the bed instead.
Wesker stared down at the cuffs, unimpressed. “This is really unnecessary.”
Chris narrowed his eyes at him, raising an eyebrow as if to ask ‘do you think I’m stupid?’
Wesker didn’t back down. “What? It’s not as if I’m going to magically disappear in a facility full of guards. Especially not with you hovering over me like that. I fail to see the concern.”
“I’d rather not risk it, since you always seem to have something up your sleeve.” His eyes flicked over Wesker’s face, searching for something. “I don’t trust it, especially with you cooperating with us so easily.” Chris said, his fingers tightening around his rifle.
That just soured Wesker’s mood even more. So not even cooperating would work on him? What was he supposed to do now? Also, what could he possibly have up his sleeve? He’s hypothermic, half-dead, and chained up like some kind of animal. Chris seemed dead set on locking him up for a very long time, possibly forever, and with Wesker being completely clueless about everything, he was practically going in blind, playing around with his, already rather limited, freedom.
Did the Arklay mission happen after all? Is that why Chris was behaving so differently? How was Chris lucky enough to stay alive then? Wesker had personally reviewed Umbrella’s files on the mission before he was taken, and although Wesker had tried his best to sabotage it and even send a warning, Umbrella had made sure it was impossible to survive. Or maybe he was the sole survivor of the entire mess which would explain why he was angry so much. But then why was he behaving towards Wesker like this, when he wasn’t even present for the mission?
“Where’s… Jill?” Wesker asked suddenly, still pondering over his thoughts. Valentine and Chris had been practically inseparable in the office, surely if Chris survived, Jill would’ve too, right? He looked up towards Chris, only to notice him clenching his jaw in anger, his lips pressed together into a thin line.
“Keep her name out of your mouth, Wesker.” Chris snapped, gritting his teeth.
A touchy subject, then.
Wesker’s stomach twisted, though he tried his best to keep the feeling down. Had Jill not survived then?
“You always were defensive when it came to her.” Wesker said carefully, almost softly.
That seemed to be the wrong thing to say because Chris stepped forward sharply for a moment, looking as though he was ready to grab Wesker. He restrained himself though, choosing to only glare at the man in front of him.
“Don’t you dare. She has been through enough because of you.”
Oh.
She has been.
So she was still alive then. That was a relief, even if the sentence itself brought him very little comfort. Wesker allowed himself to exhale slowly. He decided not to provoke Chris even more since he seemed too irritated already, so he changed the topic.
“Very well, then. Let us discuss something you are willing to answer” Wesker rasped, shifting his hands against the restraints that were tightly clasped around his wrists and causing him discomfort.
“We will be the ones asking the questions here.” Chris spat. “Now tell me this at least, how long have you been out there before we found you?”
Wesker raised an eyebrow, unimpressed at the broad question. He really was trying to work with Chris here, but the other was genuinely making it impossible to do so. “Out there? You mean in the snow? Wearing this?” Wesker asked, looking down at his current clothes pointedly, at the tattered thin T-shirt and ripped pants. “I hope for your sake that you’re not serious, Christopher.”
“Don’t call me that.” Chris bristled, frowning, something akin to annoyance and old grief passing over his face. “And I meant out there as in the facility. That’s where you came from, right? There’s no other building in the radius of at least 20 miles.”
Wesker opened his mouth to retort back with something sarcastic again when Chris’ radio on his chest suddenly burst to life with loud static. Chris sighed, then signaled something to his men before stepping back. One of the nurses in the room moved towards him carefully, as if approaching a wild animal.
She looked young, young enough that it immediately reminded Wesker of Rebecca and her sort of skittish behavior when she just started working with them. She had long blonde hair tied into a low ponytail and bright green eyes. Wesker sat stiffly and tried not to move much as to not scare away the nurse. Besides the fact that he had no desire of being any more of a problem and making things harder for himself, he also really wanted his injuries to be looked at.
As the girl began working on his shoulder, Wesker leaned forward a bit to make it more comfortable for her to reach him, catching little snippets of the conversation Chris was having with whoever was on the radio. He couldn’t hear much of it but he grasped some words like ‘Umbrella’, ‘files’, ‘danger’, and ‘cleared’.
With the context that he had, Wesker could only assume it meant that the facility he escaped from had been cleared by Chris’ men. Chris looked a tad bit disappointed though, which could mean that he hadn’t found whatever he was looking for inside the lab.
It seemed highly unlikely though that an Umbrella lab wouldn’t have anything huge hidden inside. Sure, it might’ve been taken out already as it was being abandoned, but Umbrella always made sure to have backup copies hidden in their secret basements or whatever little rooms they managed to conjure up at the time.
Chris must’ve known that as well.
He says, a bit louder. “Keep the perimeter locked down for now. I’ll be there once I’m done with my duties here. You don’t know them like I do. Umbrella always leaves something behind.”
Wesker stared at Chris for another moment before gazing back at the nurse, who was deliberately not looking at him, suddenly feeling nauseous and exhausted, the day’s activities finally catching up to him.
Wesker laid his head back on the bed, looking up at the ceiling.
He wondered if his warning reached Enrico.
Wesker remembered panicking while typing it, adrenaline rushing through his body the entire time, something that usually never happened to him. It was unlike anything he had ever felt before. That feeling of... helplessness. He was on an old Umbrella terminal, old enough so that Umbrella’s tracking programs wouldn’t even work right on it.
He knew he was going to be caught by Umbrella, he knew the agents were closing in on him, so in a last ditch effort, he had tried to construct a warning coherent enough to alert Enrico and his team that the mansion had been a trap mission and that the new “handler” Umbrella had planned on sending instead of him was a traitor.
He remembered still feeling nothing when Umbrella had first told him about the basics of the mission back in early April. Or maybe that wasn’t completely true. But still, as he later read more and more about the mission from other files, all he could feel was uneasiness and disgust at his team being planned on being used for combat data, being reduced to assets as if they weren’t human. He had thought at the time that maybe he was feeling sick and that these weak feelings couldn’t be coming from him, but he had been overflowing with guilt the entirety of the next month while constantly facing the others in the office.
Each time he read any of the files and imagined himself luring them all into the mansion, all he could picture were his team’s faces, walking around in RPD while completely clueless. He imagined Chris, smiling every time he talked about Claire, a proud expression on his face. Imagined Jill, pretending not to laugh whenever Chris or Brad made fools of themselves. Imagined Barry, staring at a picture of his family that stayed on his desk at all times. Imagined Brad, scared more than half the time, but still trying to belong. Imagined Joseph, grinning too wide and talking too loudly, filling the room with more life than Wesker knew what to do with. Imagined Bravo team laughing together in the break room over something idiotic, all while having no idea that their leader was supposed to send them to their death sentence.
Those feelings were what eventually led to him sneaking back into one of Umbrella’s facilities multiple times to try and sabotage the mission or delay it as much as he could while training his team relentlessly to increase their chances of survival. He remembers the entire team complaining and calling him paranoid and a bastard behind his back for those unforgiving training sessions, but Wesker didn’t let that stop him from training them harder.
He also remembers making excuses to Umbrella for any kind of delays, saying the team wasn’t ready and that they wouldn’t get their ‘combat data’ if they didn’t push the date back until his team was ready. But he couldn’t be seen as ‘soft’, especially not when Umbrella was already watching his every move, so he became colder with his team. Then, he had made sure to send the message to Enrico’s field computer, because that laptop was the only one Wesker could be one hundred percent sure would be opened.
The old Umbrella monitor was so glitched though, that it may have just sent a really corrupted and delayed message, but still, Wesker hopes it got to Enrico in time and had enough keywords present for it to be understandable. He would have to ask Chris about it whenever he wasn’t in one of those moods.
But for now, Wesker stayed silent as the nurse finally finished wrapping him up. Though he couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow when the girl stepped back for a moment just to bring him new clothes that looked exactly the same ones that he was wearing right now. The nurse shrugged apologetically and placed them next to him, a small smile escaping at Wesker’s exaggerated unimpressed look.
Well, at least these clothes were dry and wouldn’t stick to his body uncomfortably, so Wesker took that as a win.
Once the entire process was finally done, after many complications, because yes, apparently Chris was stubborn enough not to unlock his cuffs for a full ten minutes despite Wesker needing to change out of his sopping wet clothes, and now once Wesker didn’t feel like a freezing popsicle anymore, Chris let another nurse do some basic tests, take blood, and check his vitals, while he paced impatiently around the entire room before hearing that the blood work results might come back only a few weeks later.
Chris stopped, looking at the nurse with such a look that the girl chose this moment to escape from the room.
And, with the nurse gone, Chris compromised by choosing to glare at Wesker instead, like this was all his fault, as if he wasn’t the one who got dragged in by Chris himself.
Not seeing any reactions from Wesker, Chris sighs, moving forward and putting the cuffs back on, this time with his arms in front of him. He then grabbed Wesker by the upper arm and hauled him up from the comfy bed. Wesker almost protested at the action.
“Yeah, yeah, break’s over,” Chris said, walking him towards the exit door. “You’ll get your beauty sleep after the interrogation.”
Wesker rolled his eyes, but cooperated, letting Chris bring him towards the exit door. Just as Chris opened the door to escort Wesker out, something caught the corner of his eye, forcing him to glance towards it.
A calendar.
Showing the date.
October 4th? 2011?
No.
No, that’s impossible–
His mind tried to reject it, push it away as some sort of trick, a lie, a mistake, some kind of deliberate attempt to disorient him. Umbrella had lied before. A calendar meant nothing. A date printed on paper meant nothing.
And yet, as Wesker stared, unable to rip his eyes away from the item, it all made too much sense now.
Why Chris looked older.
Why everything around him looked so advanced.
Why the facility he woke up in had looked too rotten to be abandoned for just a month.
It’s too late.
He’s too late.
Everything he had been working towards.
He failed it all.
Wesker stood frozen near the doorway, eyes glued to the small, cursed item, unable to move his body. His head suddenly felt too heavy and his knees almost buckled. His cuffed hands shot out to catch the wall and balance himself on it at the last second before he could fall down.
For a few moments, he couldn’t hear anything besides the loud ringing in his ears. His stomach twisted so violently that Wesker thought he might get sick again right then and there.
Thirteen years. Thirteen years had passed.
The number didn’t fit right inside his head.
Wesker was vaguely aware of Chris stopping beside him. Vaguely aware that he should move. Say something. Pull himself together before Chris saw too much.
But his body refused to obey him.
There was nothing to pull together.
For the first time since waking up, there was no next step. He had no plan, no way out, nothing.
He had spent so much time trying to get back to S.T.A.R.S. because they needed him– his team needed him.
But now, as he looked at the B.S.A.A. patch on Chris’ shoulder for the first time he understood.
There was no S.T.A.R.S. to go back to.
Wesker’s breath caught harshly.
He had thought it was July. That he had time. That he could still save his team. That he could maybe warn Enrico better, maybe even stop them from being deployed at all.
Where are they now? Wesker wondered. Did any of them get out besides Chris and Jill? Or were they all rotting underneath the mansion, believing that their Captain ran?
“...Where’s who?” He heard Chris’ voice beside him suddenly. It pierced through the fog and ringing in Wesker’s head. Had he said that out loud? Chris had an unreadable expression on his face, like he wasn’t sure if he should help Wesker get up, or just leave him on the floor. Since when had he fallen? Everything around him looked blurry now.
“No one…” Wesker managed out, pushing himself back up barely. Chris looked unsure. He didn’t believe Wesker. His eyes looked too wrong, like he was somewhere far away, but he had no idea how to help him. He wasn’t even sure if he should help him.
With Chris hovering over him like that, waiting for something, it just made the blond feel even worse. “I’m fine!” Wesker snapped, voice cracking, feeling far too overwhelmed with everything going on. “Just get whatever this is over with, Redfield.”
Chris exhaled exasperatedly. Right. What was he thinking? Of course Wesker was fine. He was probably trying anything he could to get out of this.
At last, Chris finally escorted Wesker into one of the many interrogation rooms in the headquarters personally. Wesker could almost feel the multiple gazes following him through the one-way mirror as he entered.
The room was a bit more spacious than what he was used to seeing in RPD. Everything else though looked just about the same as any other interrogation room; blank light walls, a singular light source on the ceiling, a table with the restraint points on it, chairs, and everything else.
Chris firmly pushed Wesker into one of the seats, although not harshly, then cuffed his hands to the desk before he himself stood beside the chair on the opposite side of Wesker, facing towards him. There was another man next to Chris, reading a file, and who didn’t look too pleased to be here.
Chris put his palms on the table, looking at the file as well. “Alright, let’s just get this over with.” He reached towards the recorder, flicking it on. “This interrogation is being recorded,” He said, his voice even. “Date is October 4th, 2011. Time is 1906 hours.” Chris looked back up from the file.
October 4th, 2011. It really was true. Wesker kept his posture even, but his hands were shaking a bit, making the cuffs clink against the desk. Chris continued.
“Subject is believed to be Albert Wesker. Location– B.S.A.A. North American Branch Regional Operations Center, temporary holding wing, interrogation room number 3.” Chris turned a page in the file, then went back to the first one. “Present in the room are Captain Chris Redfield, Alpha Team, and Captain Marco Rose, Bravo Team.”
Even some of the names didn’t ring a bell. Also, Captain? It’s ironic that Redfield is– was under his command once, and now he was a Captain of an Alpha team himself.
It seems a lot has changed in the last thirteen years. Wesker still couldn’t wrap his head around the number. This all felt like a fever dream. A very unfunny one.
“For the record, state your full name.”
Wesker snapped out of it, blinking a couple of times, before looking up at Redfield. He swallowed once, throat feeling tight. “You know my name.” He said, despite knowing the protocols they’re supposed to follow.
Chris’ jaw tightened. “State your full name.” he repeated.
“...Albert Wesker.” he said at last after a moment of silence.
It was very disorienting, to be on the opposite side of the table. He had been the one to ask all the questions once upon a time, he knew how everything worked, and despite all of his knowledge, it felt as though none of it would be able to help him.
“Current affiliation?” Chris asked, taking a file from in front of Marco for a second, flipping through the pages, not noticing Wesker’s internal turmoil.
Current affiliation?
Did he have one anymore?
When he had just woken up, he had still been Captain of S.T.A.R.S. Alpha team. That had been the only title that mattered to him, the only position he had been trying to return to. But S.T.A.R.S. doesn’t exist anymore, does it?
So Umbrella, then?
No, that’s not right either. Umbrella had owned him on paper, perhaps, but he was already planning to betray them anyway, before they took him. Before they cut him open and buried him alive in that facility.
What did that leave then?
“Current affiliation.” Chris said once again, frowning, after waiting too long for an answer.
“...None.”
Chris froze with the file still in his hand, “You’re telling me you just work for yourself now then? No funds, no organizations, nothing? Really?”
Wesker bit the inside of his cheek. “I don’t know what else to tell you. Yes, none."
It was obvious from Chris’ face that he didn’t believe Wesker for even a second. Marco leaned over the paper, writing something down. Chris decides not to focus on that though, choosing to bring his attention to other matters at hand.
“Fine. What about the facility? What were you doing there? Were you also after something?”
Silence.
Wesker genuinely had no strength left to think about any sort of answers or anything. He just wanted to sleep and hope this was all a realistic nightmare or even just a prank.
“How long were you inside?” Chris continued.
Still nothing.
“Who else was in that facility?”
…
Chris slammed both hands down on the table. “Dammit, Wesker, stop wasting our time. There are lives at stake.” A moment of silence. He leaned forward, then hung his head low, looking at the pages again.
Lives at stake. His team’s lives had been at stake too and look where he was now? Chained up to a table, while his former subordinate interrogates him like a criminal.
Wesker, still staring forward at his hands, felt his mouth move before he could stop himself.
“How many made it out?” He asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Chris froze. “What?”
The question hung in the air, with no other response from Wesker, who seemed to be somewhere far away in his head or just tricking them into thinking so.
The silence dragged for another moment, and with every second, Chris’ expression grew colder.
Chris released a sharp breath, irritated.
“Pause the recording.” Chris said suddenly, pushing himself upright away from the table, looking to his side.
Marco froze and looked up from the paper, pen stopping, “You want to step out?”
Chris sets down the file in his hand, running a hand through his hair. “He’s not going to answer us like this. He’s practically playing with us. And I wanna look at some of the reports again. Feels like I’m missing something…”
Marco nodded silently and moved his hand towards the recorder, and then the red blinking light finally turned off. Marco stood up, following Chris out of the room.
In the observation room, the situation didn’t turn any much better suddenly. Chris flipped through the files at least ten more times, before anyone inside spoke up.
“We need to apply pressure from somewhere, sir.” Airhart, one of Chris’ men, said almost quietly. “He’s Albert Wesker, he’s not going to speak up easily.”
“I know who he is.” Chris said, clearly not in the mood. “My main question is– how the hell is he still alive? And not just that. He’s been off radar for 2 years now, and he's decided to surface now of all times? I know he has something planned."
The men shifted uncomfortably, some pacing around the room, all trying to think of a strategic way to get an alleged bioterrorist, who tried to end the world to speak up.
“It's a BOW anyway, why not rough it up a little?” One of the other guys who Chris was not very familiar with said suddenly. “The higher ups would probably sign off on it.”
…
Chris gave the guy a weird look for a second then turned back towards Wesker, watching him carefully from behind the glass. “No. I know him,” Chris said pointedly, glancing back at the man and narrowing his eyes. There was an awkward moment of silence, before Chris continued. “He’ll just shut down even more if you tried that anyway. And besides, we’re not that kind of people. Got that?”
“...Of course, sir.”
Chris exhaled slowly, rubbing his eyes. “Any other bright suggestions like that?”
Nobody spoke after that.
Marco stayed by the glass, watching Wesker with the same sharp focus he used on the field. Airhart stood near the desk, file open in both hands, trying to find anything useful or unusual in Wesker’s file. The other agent, thankfully, kept his mouth shut now, which Chris appreciated very much because he was this close to making sure the man stayed out of every interrogation room for the rest of his career.
"He was talking just fine before he got into the room, so there's definitely something we can do." Chris muttered, glancing down at the scattered pages across the table. "...But what?"
Inside the interrogation room, Wesker still hadn't moved an inch from his place. He sat with his cuffed hands on the table, staring at nothing, looking less like a man refusing to answer, and a lot more like one who hadn't heard the question in the first place.
Chris hated noticing details like this. It compromised his judgement and made him look for something in people that didn't have it.
Before anyone could say anything again, the door to the observation room opened, making everyone's head turn to face it. One of the facility officers stepped halfway inside, posture stiff and professional. The agent's eyes flicked once towards the glass, then back to Chris.
"Captain Redfield?"
Chris closed the files under his hand, fully turning towards the agent. "Yes?"
"Command is requesting you on secure line one immediately."
Chris frowned, "Now?"
The agent nodded. "Yes sir. They're saying it concerns the detainee's containment and transfer status."
"Fine. Patch it through." Chris said, heading over to the agent by the door. "Let's hear what Command wants this time."