Chapter Text
The chopper roared as it ascended from the Baker property, the hot Louisiana air so thick and damp that the propeller didn’t leave behind a cloud of dust so much as a sickly miasma of reeds and moss. The noise was thunderous even though Chris’ bulky BSAA-issued headset, and he glanced around to see if there was any ear protection he could give the two people currently laying next to him.
Mia and Ethan Winters, both barely clinging to consciousness but reunited and safe, were murmuring to each other, eyes and smiles soft. The headset did its job blocking out their conversation, at least, and Chris turned away to give them some privacy, surveying the outside as it faded into a deceptively pleasant mess of grey-green-yellow.
He’d have to come back soon to settle the Lucas loose end, no matter how much his team insisted they’d be fine without him. He didn’t have any doubt that they’d be able to catch the rat (though, he considered uneasily, he HAD been able to slip under BSAA watch for the better part of 3 years), but time was, as always, of the essence. Every second lost meant a chance for information to slip through the cracks into another new wrong set of hands. Much better to have his experience on board to dispatch the matter quickly.
When he turned back, both Ethan and Mia had dozed off, and he paused.
Mia was a normal-looking woman for someone about to be questioned about a laundry list of potential felonies. Years of assignments across the globe had taught him that bioterrorists had no standard shape or size, sure, but she was much slighter and softer than any he’d encountered before. She certainly didn’t have the appearance of someone who could handle even the weakest bioweapons he’d faced.
Maybe she really did have no idea what the Connections were planning, he mused. Or perhaps her physical state was weakened from years of living with the Bakers. From the small amount he’d seen of the house during surveillance, he couldn’t imagine that the nutrition was top notch.
In sleep, Mia was dead to the world, seemingly completely drained of energy. (Having a demonic fucking parasite exorcised from your body tended to do that, if Leon was to be believed.)
Her husband, in contrast, was tense and keyed up even while unconscious, face and body both shifting every few seconds or so. Occasionally he’d open an eye in Mia’s direction and stare at her for a drowsy second or two before allowing himself to nod off again.
He wasn’t as visibly thin as Mia, but as Chris surveyed Ethan’s body, his respect for his accomplishments deepened. Ethan’s arms betrayed a man who lifted weights maybe once a week, and his clothing betrayed a man who apparently thought that the appropriate dress code for an extraction mission was business casual. Even in his 30s, his cheeks carried an attractive trace of baby fat that made him look young. A pale sliver of stomach, visible where his (ridiculous) dress shirt had ridden up and rising and falling with his breath, was free from the stress of abdominal muscles.
If this man had shown up to a recruitment event, he might have been laughed out of the room. And yet, he’d almost singlehandedly controlled a situation that the BSAA classified as “highest danger” on little more than grit.
It had been a massive, gory spectacle that welcomed Chris’ squad as they approached their intended landing zone and realized immediately that changes would need to be made on the fly, considering that said landing zone was now covered in about five tons of black goo. Between hasty messages to HQ and exchanges with his team, Chris had watched in disbelief as a small figure on the ground appeared and began to approach the heart of the putrid, pulsing mess, barely visible save for the bright flashes of rapid gunshots. This man, whom he’d expected to swoop in and rescue like a knight in shining armor, was fighting tooth and nail against one of the worst monstrosities he’d seen in ages, towering over the Louisiana bayou. And what’s more, it seemed like he was winning.
Not since Claire, Chris thought with a slight ache, had he known a civilian to rise to the challenge of a bioterrorism case with such ease.
His eyes roved back up Ethan’s body to find, with a slight start, that Ethan had awoken and had now fixed his eyes on Chris, blue eyes glassy but holding his gaze.
Feeling a little awkward about being caught, Chris cleared his throat and tried to think of something appropriate to say.
“You’re safe now, Winters.”
Ethan blinked a few times slowly.
Cute, Chris thought. Like a puppy trying to stay awake in a new home. He continued, trying to sound professional and soothing like the BSAA training materials instructed. “You did a good job. We’ll take care of the rest.”
It had the opposite effect as intended. Ethan’s brow knitted and his eyes focused. He shifted in his seat slightly, shoulder cracking audibly (Chris winced - the helicopter seats were famously uncomfortable) before trying out a few words, voice hoarse but unwavering.
“Their daughter, Zoe, is still there.”
Zoe? Chris did remember something about a Baker daughter (“Status: Unknown”) from the briefing hastily delivered in the hours before they set off. He had figured Ethan had taken care of her along with the rest of the family. He cleared his throat. “My team will handle any remaining hostiles in the area.”
Ethan’s eyes widened. “No!” He gasped, sitting up abruptly before immediately inhaling sharply from the effort and doubling over, pain written on his face. On instinct, Chris’ arms shot out to grab him tightly at the shoulders. The poor man was cold, and he internally kicked himself for not bringing a jacket.
Steadier now, though still hunched, Ethan looked up. “Tell them not to hurt her. Please. Zoe isn’t like her family. I talked to her a lot down there. She’s smart, she rewired the phones on the property, somehow.” Ethan dropped his gaze, voice thickening a bit. “My one lifeline in an insane situation. She helped me in every way she could. But I couldn’t,” he took another shaky breath, “I didn’t help her back.”
Ethan’s brow, pinched from the start, was now fully furrowed, and his hands were trembling slightly. Chris resisted a sudden instinct to run a soothing hand through his hair - not your sister, he chided himself - opting instead to rest one hand heavy on his neck in a solid, comforting weight.
“Hey. You helped her by killing Eveline,” he reassured, “and trust me, as satisfying as it would be to set that house on fire, it’s not in our interests to just drop a crate of dynamite and run. It’s our job to catch who’s behind all this, and that house is full of evidence. We’ll be thorough. If she’s there, and she’s human, my team will find her safely.”
Ethan’s face grew even stormier.
“I don’t know if she does look human anymore. And it’s my fault. Zoe made a serum - a cure - and gave it to me to hold onto. She’s smart, like I said. But Jack attacked us and I had to use some to kill him. When I found her again, she was with Mia, and I…I only had one dose left.”
Tension seemed to bleed out of Ethan as he confessed, leaving behind a vague cloud of despair, body sinking into his seat. “The only reason I came here was to find my wife. Giving the serum to Mia shouldn’t have even been a question. But god, it felt like one of the hardest choices of my life.” He slumped, impossibly, further into himself. “I love Mia. But Zoe made that cure. And I took it from her.”
Chris - not great at emotional conversations to begin with and feeling a bit on the back foot processing this new information about a supposed cure - chose his next words carefully.
“I’m sorry. It sounds impossible.” Giving into his instincts, he rubbed a few firm, soothing circles on the base of Ethan’s neck. “For what it’s worth, I think you made the choice anyone would make. If she’s as smart as you say she is, I’m sure she’ll understand.”
Ethan exhaled miserably. “I hope she’s alive to understand at all. I didn’t hear from her again after that.”
Chris, intimately familiar with impossible decisions, felt a pang of deep sympathy for this man. He made a snap decision.
“Tell you what. I’ll make it my priority to find her. I’m already going back to settle some things. I trust my team with any other tasks that might be necessary. Rescuing Zoe will be mine.”
Ethan looked up, eyes alight. “I can help you find her. I-I’ll come with you. I’m not bad with a gun. And I know the place better than anyone by now.”
There’s that grit, Chris thought, suppressing a smile that he suspected would be misinterpreted as patronizing. Most people would avoid Dulvey (and probably Louisiana as a whole, for good measure) like the plague following such a hellish experience. Yet here Ethan was, offering to rush back into the fray without a second thought, all for a girl he’d known for less than 24 hours.
Ethan wasn’t the first person Chris had met who was almost singlemindedly self-sacrificing. There were at least a few hero types in the Air Force even as the reality of service tried to stamp it out of you. Chris himself had been the exact same long ago and, if he was honest, hadn’t fully beaten the instinct into submission, either. And of course his squadmates from STARS were of the same heart - Jill especially. But it had become rare in the BSAA as of late. Maybe not since Piers, if he…
Anyway, he thought, forcibly shutting down that line of thought, when you found someone like that, you clamped down and held tight. In another world where they’d crossed paths in better circumstances, Ethan would probably have been one of Chris’ people. Fondness settled warm in his chest.
“I respect the hell out of you, Ethan Winters. Honestly? You impressed me more than any recruit I’ve seen in years. But I can’t bring you with me, and I wouldn’t even if I could. You need to be under medical observation. That’s not negotiable,” he said, seeing Ethan open his mouth. “No doctor would allow it with that arm looking like that. Our medical director would have my neck.”
Chris’ mouth quirked into a wry smile. “I’m not trying to butter you up. It’s not that I don’t think we could use your help. It doesn’t matter that you’re damn good at it: this isn’t your job. But it is mine. And I know you don’t know me, but I hope you can trust me when I say I’m pretty good at it.”
He fixed Ethan’s gaze, willing him to understand. “When I take a mission, I complete it. That’s a promise, Ethan. I’ll find her.”
Ethan regarded Chris for a few long seconds. Then, slowly, he started to nod. “Okay. I trust you.”
The bare honesty of his tone took Chris by surprise. The warmth in his chest crawled up through his neck into his cheeks, leaving a surprising but not unpleasant tingle in its wake. Feeling suddenly restless, he crossed his arms and leaned back. “Of course. It’s nothing.”
Ethan wrinkled his nose. “It’s not nothing.” He smiled - the first Chris had seen on him. It was a nice look. “Thank you for helping. And for taking me seriously.”
Chris shook his head and huffed a laugh. “With bioweapons, you gotta be careful. Trust me, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
He would later recall this moment somewhat contritely. It would have been nice if it had remained a vague platitude and not an accidental prophecy.