Chapter Text
Third Floor Storage Room, Raccoon City Police Department, Raccoon City, September 30th 1998
"Somebody else was really keen on getting their hands on this medallion," Leon said, poking at the C4 stuck to the boarded-up entrance of the enclosed space where the maiden statue was stored
Grace shakes her head, brow furrowing with her confusion, "That doesn't make sense. We didn't even know we needed the medallions until Elliot and I started looking for how to unlock the Goddess statue.
Claire was digging through her backpack, glancing up to consider the maiden statue, secure as she was behind bars. "Maybe someone was trying to steal her."
Wesker glances over his shoulder, magnum in hand, guarding their backs. Mr. X, the tyrant, whom Claire had named because it was easier to talk about him that way, was stomping around the floor below them. He was easy to track when they knew to listen for him. He sighs at them, "It doesn't matter. The C4 won't explode without a proper detonator. Just rip it off and find a way through."
Claire pulls a half-size crowbar out of her bag, brandishing it with a smile. "Always pick up something if it seems like it might be useful!" Grace takes it from her with no small amount of amusement. Claire was certainly living up to her reputation as Ms. Utility.
Leon begins removing the C4, choosing to trust Wesker's experience on whether handling it was safe or not.
Wesker stares at Claire, baffled, "…Was Chris getting you ready for an apocalypse, or is this just your own personality?"
Straightening up from her crouch, Claire props her hands on her hips, with a thoughtful look on her face, "Both?"
"Are you telling me or asking me?"
Claire's eyes narrow, a small smile quirking her lips, "That depends. Are you and my brother dating? Don't think I didn't notice the way you get all soft," as much as Wesker was capable of becoming, "Whenever you talk about him."
The silence that follows that declaration is deafening, broken only by the sound of a licker screaming in the distance, the sound cutting off abruptly. Likely, a victim of Mr. X's large fists.
Finally, Wesker scoffs, turning his head back to watch the rest of the storage room, "I'm not answering that."
"And your refusal to answer says almost as much as it would have if you had just said yes," Claire grins, voice almost singsongy, bending over to zip her backpack closed. "I know Chris has been seeing someone, because he gets all squirrelly. The question is whether or not you're the one making him squirrelly."
Wesker doesn't even bother to sneer at her words. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction.
It makes Claire chuckle, pleased with herself.
Grace smothers a laugh, handing Leon the crowbar after he tosses aside the clay-like plastic explosive, and he starts tearing off boards. The work is slow, but eventually there's a hole large enough in the three layers of barricade for Grace to wiggle through, Leon's hand held over a jagged piece of wood to prevent her from getting snagged on it. She dusts her pants off when she pushes herself back onto her feet, pulling Elliot's small journal out of her back pocket and flipping it open to the page where the maiden's combination was scrawled.
The maiden is as exquisitely carved as the large goddess statue, and Grace has to wonder why she'd been sequestered in such an out-of-the-way area of the station. She deserved to be in a place of prominence. To be shown off to the world.
Not hidden away.
Grace circles around the statue, the combination lock, at the statue's back. Whoever had carved her hadn't wanted to obscure the painstaking detail of her figure; that much was obvious. The combination lock's pictograms were scratched and faded, and without prompting, Grace was transported back to Rhode Hill.
To carrying Emily through gore-splattered halls to the Isolation Ward in the East Wing, all so that the blind girl could translate the braille on the puzzle box and open it to retrieve the final crystal to unlock the door.
To Marie smashing through the wall and snatching Emily off the ground, pulling her into the yawning darkness of the basement.
Grace flinches when she turns the last dial, glancing over her shoulder at the heavy stone wall.
Marie was dead, melted into nothing like the Wicked Witch of the West after getting splashed with water.
No. Marie wouldn't be born for another twenty years at least.
Either way, she wouldn't be coming through the wall this time.
The mechanism holding the medallion releases with the sound of metal scraping against metal, gears clicking open by perfected design, and Grace scoots around to the front of the statue, thanking the statue silently for guarding it so well.
She hands the medallion through the bars to Claire for safekeeping.
The concern on Claire's face makes Grace wonder what sort of expression she was wearing.
Fear?
Anguish?
Anger?
Thoughtful?
All of the above?
There was another task to add to her list of things she could try to change. Finding a way to save both Emily and Marie from Victor Gideon's care at Rhode Hill.
"Grace?"
She smiles at Claire, giving herself a mental shake, "Sorry. I was lost in my thoughts."
"You okay?"
"All good," Grace assures her, retreating to the hole in the barricade and kneeling on the ground to wiggle back through, Leon's hands on her back and waist more comforting than he must have realized. He helps her to her feet and, opportunist that he was, presses a kiss to her lips when she looks up to thank him. Her laugh surprises her, a soft giggle that makes Leon turn pink in response.
As handsy as he was with her, she'd almost given up on seeing him get flustered.
Wesker, with all the patience of a drill sergeant, looks over his shoulder once more, "If we're done here, there's a fire ladder we can use near the entrance of the clock tower, that will get us back down to the main floor."
"Express shortcut?" Claire asks.
"If you insist on calling it that."