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It's Wednesday night. Taco night. Sherry and Jake were over for dinner, and it was as awkward as ever. Claire tries pretty damn hard to make it less awkward by doing it every week, and Jake and Sherry always agree, but it is always so damn awkward.
She's up to her elbows in dawn dish soap and hot water when she feels Wesker approach, and then he wraps his arms around her waist, leaning his forehead on her shoulder. She doesn't stop washing dishes. "You know, it really doesn't help when you and Sherry start talking viruses."
"Jakub works in the same sort of industries you and Sherry do, he can't avoid hearing about it," he scoffs into her shoulder.
"Well. I think it's different hearing it from the guy who developed half of them."
Who's his dad, she doesn't add out loud, because that's still something they're unpacking, years later. Wesker has frequently told her that he isn't fit to be a father, and while Claire doesn't necessarily agree, she understands why he feels that way.
He sighs into her shoulder again then pulls away. "I wish to go to bed."
"Okay. Give me a minute because if I don't finish dishes now, they're not getting done until Friday night."
He grumbles again, but settles into pacing the kitchen like he's thinking. It really is just another minute. She wipes her hands on her pants, and drags him by the wrist upstairs. She gets into the upstairs hall, just one step or so, and then…everything is black. Her stomach shifts like she's falling, except she can't see where or how and her brain is still trying to parse how she was in the hallway one moment and in this void the next.
She's been through a lot of shit, but this is a new brand of crazy.
Wait. She's still got a hand on Wesker's wrist, even though she can't see it, she tries to use it to pull herself up, but something sucks at her feet and then the pressure gives.
The whole thing must have really occurred in ten seconds or less. The next thing she sees are bright, bright lights and the whirr of some machinery around her, indistinct voices. She throws a punch, but it hits the wrong person, because they easily catch her fist and cocoon her. "Oops. Sorry," she tells Wesker.
"It's alright," comes her lovers rumbling, warm voice. "I did much the same thing a moment ago. Broke a lab technician's nose. Besides, hardly the first time you've assaulted me." The last words are a teasing purr.
"Oh, ha-fucking-ha. Where are we, anyway? That was…not the usual brand of weird."
"I've only been awake a couple of extra minutes, dearheart. They're going to get their boss. Apparently they recognize us enough to not throw us into containment."
She looks around properly now. They're in a big room, those bright white lights illuminating a flat pad with colored blue lights beside them, about the size of a pickup truck. There are people in labcoats swarming around with tablets and clipboards like ants. She only gets to watch them for a second before someone enters the room, someone thankfully familiar, though she's wearing different glasses than usual.
"Oh, Rebecca! Thank goodness." Claire jumps up, dragging Wesker up with her. "What the hell just happened? It was like a portal
Rebecca stares oddly between Claire and Wesker. For like. A long time. Then, she turns to one of the figures in lab coats who has come to stand behind her. "We didn't have a test scheduled. What happened here?"
"Mrs. Redfield was here yesterday, inspecting the Project. I suppose…I suppose it must have turned on somehow, and with the DNA in the machine…"
Nobody calls her Mrs. Redfield. Geez, that makes her feel old. Besides, she's not legally Mrs. anything. Hard to marry a dead guy, though everyone knows they're basically attached at the hip after Kijuju and the ensuing mess. Rebecca especially never refers to her as Mrs. That would be extra weird.
Rebecca rubs her eyes under her very square glasses. "Right. Of course. *Somehow*. Have Coen check the security cameras, get me an answer instead of a guess - no, don't bother. I'll talk to him after I deal with…this." She gestures at them, and Claire gets that general sense of wrongness again. "Mrs. Redfield…Mr. Redfield."
Claire can't help the laugh that escapes her at that point. Oh, man. She's gotta tell Chris about that one. He'd hate that. "Sorry. Uh. What's going on, Becca? That's not…"
Wesker is scowling. Rebecca ignores him. At least that part is normal. "You fell through a portal, you're in an alternate dimension. I know that's a crazy thing to say. It's kind of a long story as to why we're working on it. Probably don't worry about it for now. We'll be able to send you back in 48 hours or less. Right?" She turns to the scientist behind her again, who goes a little red and nods. "You're in Raccoon City. Well, the part that survived. Long story, again."
Rebecca doesn't explain things very well. Claire's sure she's doing her best, but she feels like she's lacking a lot of context. Rebecca gets excited towards the very end of the discussion, and scribbles down an address on a piece of paper. "You should go meet you! Both of you, really. At least then you won't have to stay in the lab while this gets fixed."
That is tempting. She looks to Wesker and he nods. He wonders if he's curious about Mr. and Mrs. Redfield like she is.
The cab ride is short, but weird. "Oh, damn! That's my elementary school!" Claire says, pointing it out to Wesker. "I see bombed out buildings in the distance, but this part of the city was fine."
"It is odd," Wesker says quietly, staring out the window and squinting. "Everything is familiar, but wrong at the same time. Of course, that's likely what I should expect from an alternate universe, but…"
"Yeah," she agrees after he trails off. "It's kind of uncanny."
The house they pull up to is nice. Not like…they aren't poor. But Claire lives modestly, and Wesker can't exactly work, being legally dead. This house is like…almost a mansion. Not quite, and it's all very tasteful, but it is huge. Wesker scowls at it but takes the lead and knocks on the door.
And Claire is met with herself at the front door. The woman's hair is maybe a bit darker, suggesting that she doesn't get out as much as Claire herself does, because her hair gets lighter and a bit more reddish in the summer sun. Other-Claire's hair is the dark brown hers kind of settles into during winter. She opens her mouth to introduce them and Other-Claire brushes them off with a hand wave. "Rebecca called and explained. No need to try to justify it. Come in."
They talk for a moment, easy pleasantries between Claire and Other-Claire.
It sets in then, when they're in the living room…parlor…whatever it qualifies as. "Whoa! What went wrong in my life that I dress like that?" Claire tugs on Wesker's sleeve and points towards her other self, like he can't see already. "Look. I dress like you."
"Or maybe he dresses like me," Other-Claire counters with a grin, smoothing her hands down her latex (?) bodysuit and leather coat. Then she looks Claire up and down. "You dress the same as ever, I see. Never grew out of wearing the same things Chris does."
"Oh, he dresses like that now, too," Claire assures. "Everyone's in their goth phase. Where's your Albert?"
The Other Claire scowls, first at her and then at her Wesker. "My…Albert. I don't think he'd like to be called that. But he's here. He's got a laboratory in the basement. He leaves it to work and to sleep - sound familiar?"
Claire snorts. This whole thing is weird, sure but she's finding it more amusing than anything else. After all, they already spoke to this universe's Rebecca about having her company send them back, and she was working on it, so what else was there really to do but enjoy the strangeness of it. Wesker looks less amused, shoulders up and tense and red eyes darting around underneath his sunglasses to try to assess the situation.
The house isn't familiar to Claire, but Wesker has been tense since he walked in, so she has to assume - She looks up at him, wrapping her arm around his, though the crook of his arm. "Hey, is this your house?"
"Yes."
Oh. That explains it. He had to have had a house in Raccoon City, though she hadn't really known him back then. This is not the time to make a joke, but she's been looking around since Other-Claire had let them inside, and it's kind of obvious. "So. Umbrella paid you pretty good, right?"
His frown deepens. "Yes."
…She waits for him to elaborate, or to say something to express his annoyance about the situation, but he doesn't. "VA benefits too?"
"Well, I certainly didn't go to Spencer Memorial if I could help it." Despite the actual response this time, his tone is clipped and upset. His gloved hand comes and covers the one she's got wrapped around his elbow.
Claire opens her mouth to reassure him, or at least say something a tad more genuine, but catches sight of Other-Claire in front of them, coat sweeping as she turns to walk down a hardwood stairway. Yeah. Not a great time. She squeezes his elbow instead as they follow her.
The lights go from that nice, honeyish warm color to a bright white. The floor at the bottom of the stairs is tile. Overall there's less security than she would have expected. Just a singular panel to input a code. She doesn't catch the whole number. It's pretty long, but the bit she remembers… "Is that coordinates?"
Other-Claire turns and grins. "Yup! Rockfort Island. Good catch."
Why Rockfort Island? Claire winces. Something must have happened there that made her…like this. It seems kind of reductive to call Other-Claire…Villian-Arc-Claire, but damn if that's not what it seems like. Her double pauses with the door held partly open. "He doesn't want to discuss why, but he's not involved in the BOW stuff anymore, okay? Well. Mostly. He messes around with vaccines and stuff down here, but most of his work has to do with being an obstetrician and neonatologist."
This shocks Claire more than anything else she's heard in the last hour. "Albert is a what?!"
Other-Claire laughs. "Yeah. I know. From Umbrella to S.T.A.R.S. to preemies." She looks up at Wesker. "Surprises you too, or nah?"
"Very much surprising. I don't think I've held an infant in my life. Well. No, that isn't true. I held Sherry once, but she was several months old because she was - oh. Well. That certainly explains it."
"Why?" Claire asks him, turning to look up at him. She hadn't heard this before.
"Sherry was premature. William told me she was very lucky to have survived, and could really only credit her survival to the excellent medical care working for Umbrella afforded. She had to have several corrective surgeries. My enjoyment for bringing new life into the world has always been focused on the submicroscopic…but I suppose I understand that how in different circumstances, the time I did get to hold her in the hospital could have led to that as a career choice."
"That's…actually really cute." He scowls at her. "It is! I'm totally telling her that story when we get back. You just try to stop me."
His grumble in response isn't really words, but she knows him well enough to understand that he won't try to stop her. Other-Claire opens the door all the way, and they step into a fairly rudimentary laboratory. A tall blonde man sits, hunched over a PC. The first thing Claire really notices about him is that he's not wearing black. Or grey. He's got a navy sweater and brown corduroy pants, and regular glasses on top of his head though he wears the sunglasses.
"Woof," Claire says, and her Wesker pinches her. Other-Wesker looks up at them, and Claire notices something else. "Hey, you're not infected."
Both Wesker's scowl at her then. "And you're tactful as ever. Though I do wonder how you were able to tell."
Well. Too late to be tactful about it now, right? "You're greying."
"Ohhh now you're in for it," Other-Claire snorts. "You're fine, Albert. You look great for your advanced age."
"Advanced age? Really?" He scoffs. "Well, it's lovely to meet you too. I'm assuming something went wrong with Chambers' pet project."
"Or right! Isn't this interesting? Imagine the data we could get."
"Imagine the data you could sell, dearheart. Say what you mean."
Other-Claire shrugs. "Well. You know. That too."
"This is…true enough," her Wesker says quietly, looking at Claire like she might object. She doesn't. Mostly because she's curious. "Your Raccoon City didn't get fully decimated. I can't quite determine where our timelines diverge."
She's never seen Wesker talk so much, to anyone. Ever. Though it makes sense it would be to himself. They start chatting quickly and Claire soon can't keep up, with Umbrella terminology being thrown around. Other-Claire pokes her in the side gently. "I think he's happy to talk to someone who gets the whole 'Project W' thing. Even as versed as I am in that kind of thing today, it's not like living it, right?"
"No, it's not. I know he doesn't want pity, but ignoring what Spencer did to him and the other subjects…I work with victims of bioterror every day. In a lot of ways he's suffered the same long term effects. Even in my own house I feel like I can't make any real progress."
She probably wouldn't admit feeling that way to anyone other than herself - even Chris. But If anyone would know, Other-Claire would, right? "Uh. What do you do, anyway? I work for an organization called Terra-Save, we travel the world and provide relief to victims of bioterror."
Other-Claire grins. "I sell bioweapons for Blue-Umbrella. It's not very hush-hush. I mean, the BSAA basically is the strong arm of the US government when it comes to bioweapons. We decide who gets them. I sell them, Chris throws his weight around and makes sure they don't use them against the US or our allies."
"And you're okay with that?!"
Other-Claire shrugs and offers a little smile. "It was the best of a lot of bad options. It's turned out pretty damn well, though. Okay, if you work in charity, how did you and Albert end up together?"
"Long story, but - well. I guess Africa didn't happen for you guys. Chris and Jill threw him in a volcano, somehow he survived enough to crawl out and I uh. Kept him secret for a while. It was rough revealing him to Chris."
"Yeah. They've got a beef - I don't know why."
"Something happened in the Spencer Mansion, I thought."
Other-Claire shakes her head. "The way I heard it, Jill was the one who confronted him. Chris was stuck in a lab in the basement for almost the whole thing."
Hm. Weird. Not how it went for them. "What made him give up virology."
"I helped kill Spencer in 2001. They had a long conversation before he killed him. About what, I don't know. But he didn't come back quite the same. He dropped everything pretty quickly."
"That was later than Spencer was killed in our universe. I wish we had time to talk the whole thing through."
"Even if we could, you really think Albert would open up about it all?"
Claire ground, thinking about it. "Probably not. But I'm still curious. Some things seem so similar, but different."
They don't get to talk much longer before Rebecca calls and says the machine is fixed. They drive back through the streets of Raccoon City one last time. "Is there anywhere you'd like to drive by before we go?" Wesker asks her.
Claire shakes her head. "I think that would do me more harm than good, honestly."
"A wise realization. Let's go home then."
…
"Do you think there's a universe where we don't end up together?" Claire asks him that night, safely back in their house, laying over top of the blankets while he undoes the plethora of buckles on his coat. Now that she's thinking about it, maybe wearing that to taco night was part of the reason Jake is so weird around him.
Wesker is quiet for a while. "If there are the infinite universes that Doctor Chambers' team suggests, then yes. There are likely many where we aren't even acquainted. A multitude more where I died in the Spencer mansion, or you died in Raccoon City, or Chris successfully threw me into a volcano."
She tosses a pillow at him. "That was an excuse to be cute and romantic. But I realize I'm barking up the wrong tree with you." Claire thinks for another moment. "Well. I'm glad I'm living in this one, then. Sure, we've gone through it, but overall, I'm pretty happy with my bioterrorist. And I'm glad you're not legally 'Mr. Redfield'."
"That makes two of us," he scoffs, finally shedding the coat and his turtleneck beneath it and joining her in bed. "Perhaps…perhaps I learned something today."
"Oh?" What's that?"
He smiles, but not barely. "I think you should try on my coat tomorrow evening when we're both off work."
"Really? That was your takeaway? An infinite amount of universes?"
"I just don't find it worth dwelling on," he admits. "If there are an infinite amount of universes, then there are an infinite amount where my mistakes have rightfully stuck, or we are simply not together. I would like to enjoy the one I am in."