Second Chances - [Resident Evil 8 - Karl Heisenberg Fanfic]

Chapter 1: Make A Checklist

It was cold. And terribly dark.

Or had she gone blind?

Celia squeezed her eyes shut and tried again. This time, she could make out a hazy, dim light that gilded her surroundings. Though she couldn't feel it, the wind howled around her, screaming at her to wake up. She registered that it was winter, and she was outside in it, by the ache in her jaw from the clenching and shuddering of her teeth.

She blinked again, waiting for her vision to return. She was alive. But where was she? And why was she here? She was disoriented and dizzy, but the pain that ricocheted through her body was drawing her up and back into consciousness. She was freezing and wet. Her shoulder burned as she rolled onto her back, feeling cold metal against her lower spine even through her thick clothes. Soft white moonlight filtered in, a haze hanging in the air. Closing her eyes, she tried to clear her mind and focus her thoughts on the last thing she could remember.

A house, her orders.

Wine? The target.

No...targets.

Ethan...? Yes. Ethan! And...Rose!

Snapping to attention, her memories poured back into her pounding skull. That's right...she was on a mission to collect an infant and her father, Ethan, and bring them back to the base. Her team had just taken out Mia Winters...or the entity that was assuming her likeness. The real Mia Winters was probably long dead, and it was just as well.

No one deserved this nightmare.

Yes. It had almost been too easy. She remembered her words to her partner as she hopped back into the van after pumping that doppelganger full of holes. Cocky remarks and light-hearted jokes and a fleeting feeling that something wasn't quite right.

Agent Redfield had instructed the field team to retrieve Mr. Winters and Rose after Miranda, posing as Mia Winters, was exterminated. She and her partner, James Sunderland were acting as escorts for the van that held the family. She remembered leaning over the side of the van and retrieving the screaming child from her partner that she had felt...guilt? Guilt that the father had no idea what was happening, that before he was knocked unconscious, he had to see his "wife" murdered, his child, taken.

That poor bastard. After all he's gone through...

Though they were no longer affiliated with the BSAA, and destroying Miranda and eliminating the contagion was the primary goal, Rosemary was of interest to many. She had wondered, once they got her to the safehouse, what would they do to her?

Would Ethan even see Rose again? What would they do with her? What would they do with him?

Celia didn't have the clearance for that kind of information...and that was OK with her. She didn't want that kind of guilt anyway. Not knowing was better. As they loaded his unconscious body into the van with her, she told herself that it was for the best, that he would be fine once he came to. Chris would talk to him...and explain. And it would be fine.

As for Celia, she was charged with Rose's wellbeing until her convoy arrived at the base. She remembered now, holding her as the van sped over unpaved roads and through the snowy mountain paths, clinging to her as she wailed and screamed and pushed against Celia as if she could possibly comprehend what was happening. She recalled feeling a kind of...sadness, was it?

Realizing this was the first time she had ever held an infant, though she was thirty-two and had yet to get to work on all the things she had once wanted for herself. Her own family. Not intentionally, though not unintentionally...for better or worse her career had her hopping continents as regularly as the seasons changed. It wasn't a bad life, in fact. It was in most ways fulfilling, just not exactly where she had pictured her future-self to be.