Chapter Text
Captain Redfield froze. His office door was open a crack and a beam of light fell on the linoleum floor of the dark hallway. He was sure he'd closed the door behind him when he'd left the room earlier. Silently, he approached his office - an impressive feat for a man of his height and body masses.
Then he heard it: a familiar laugh echoed across the hall.
Chris tried to quietly push the door open and sneak into the office, but Claire Redfield didn't let anyone take her by surprise - not even her older brother. It didn't help much that there was a sniper in the office with her:
Claire sat on Chris' desk, legs crossed. Opposite her was Chris Lieutenant Piers Nivans. As Chris entered, Claire jumped up and threw herself around her brother's neck. Piers snapped to attention.
“Claire! I wasn't expecting you until the 23rd at the earliest." Chris said and pulled her into his arms.
“And that´s the way your big brother tells you he’s happy to see you” Claire explained to Piers. She let go of Chris and sat back down on his desk. “I took the earlier flight. I wrote to you before boarding started."
"Did you?"
"I did. Something you would know if you had your cell phone with you.”
“The captain had a meeting,” Piers tired to rescued him.
Chris hadn't told Claire about the mission two weeks ago that Team Alpha and Team Bravo had gone on together and that half of Team Bravo hadn't returned from. Neither did the captain of Team Bravo, and so Chris had taken on the task of breaking the sad news to the team members' families. It was part of his job, but no matter how many times Chris did it, he just couldn't get used to the look of horror and then terrible sadness when family members realized why Captain Redfield was standing on their doorstep. He didn't want to burden Claire with these stories.
"Lieutenant Niv...Piers, also stayed here because one mission after another is coming up."
Claire turned to the young man in surprise, "You're not going back home for the holidays, Piers?"
“No, not this year. As the captain says, there is an incredible amount of work to do at the moment.”
“Jeez, you encourage each other with your workaholism. And what about Christmas, Piers? At least I was able to convince Chris to celebrate with me this year instead of staying at the shooting range or the ammunition depot. Don´t tell me you are planning on spending Christmas Eve on the couch in the barracks common room with cheap wine?”
"With beer. Don´t worry, ma´am, we even have a tree. “
Chris laughed, "That's a cactus that Andy put bottle caps on."
"Whatever," Claire said. She looked first at Piers, then at Chris with narrowed eyebrows. “You could come to us.” Both Piers and Chris looked at her puzzled.
"With us?" Chris asked incredulously.
"What?! We don't have anything to do anyway except eat and sit on the couch?
“Then to what extent is my old couch better than the one in the barracks?”
“At least, we have red wine,” Claire said, pointing to a bag of groceries.
“No, no Claire, I can’t accept that. Christmas is a celebration for the family and I don’t want to get in the way.”
“There are only the two of us, Piers. I wouldn’t exactly call it a family celebration.”
"Claire, if he's uncomfortable..." Chris interjected.
Claire looked sharply at her brother. “Well, are you uncomfortable with the idea, Chris?”
“Of course not, that’s not what I meant. Piers is a...a great guy”
“Thanks, Captain,” Piers said, unable to keep a hint of sarcasm out of his voice.
“Chris, don't hold it against me, but if I get the chance to complain to someone about your cooking this Christmas, I'll have to take advantage of it. And ohterwise, Piers would be lonely.”
Chris looked over at Piers, who raised his hands in a gesture of innocence.
“All right,” said Chris, “Piers would be lonely. And we'd be lonely, too. If having Piers around means you´re complain to my Lieutenant about my food instead of me, that's fine with me." He turned to Piers "My address is in the notebook on my desk, be there at p.m.1800. Don’t bring food and certainly don’t bring any presents!”
“Does everything you say have to sound like an order?” Claire asked.
“That was an order!” said Chris, ending the conversation.