#sonic voice: Im waiiiiitiiiiiing

[possessionisamyth]

Thought of Sherry and made myself sad because she was 10 (retconned from being 12) during the whole Raccoon City incident and didn't have her pseudo parents (Claire and Leon) for a week before she's being shifted into Simmons' hands.

I was thinking of what kind of lie and the strings of control Simmons would have to cast in order to make Sherry trust him. I can believe she was tutored the year the incident took place partially because they wanted to check her danger levels as a bioweapon and partially because she was a traumatized child so her mental state would need to be balanced before being thrown back into school. The best place for her would be private school the whole time. There's a level of control money brings, and Simmons would be able to pay off or make disappear anyone who might see something strange about her. He'd funnel her to private doctors and nurses for all her appointments where she might be out of school for a week here and there, but her absence and lack of work wouldn't be punished either because, again, money talks.

I can think of her as suspicious and untrustworthy of Simmons at the beginning because Leon promised to protect her, and she's hearing nothing from him. I'd think Simmons would extend an olive branch to keep that control and lie appropriately. If he says Leon abandoned her, it would incite rebellion, and he needed Sherry to trust him. He'd probably tell her Leon was paying for everything with his job so she could live a normal life. Her acceptance of this would come in tiny waves. She did hear other student's parents talk about how expensive tuition and supplies and uniforms are. She is getting the nicest toys whether they're limited edition or sold out before they appear in her room all wrapped up with a bow. She can decorate her room however she wants and anything she needs is provided quickly.

She can't see Simmons weaving the web where sometimes her gifts would read "From: Leon". It's not his handwriting, but Sherry wouldn't know. She doesn't get that an extended school vacation after breaking an arm which healed in a week instead of 6-8 weeks was a means of keeping up the air of normalcy to her peers. She's told over and over Leon's working hard to make sure she has the best of everything, and does she really want to stop him? Does she know what'll happen if she does? Suddenly it's like she's with her parents again. That if she makes too much of a fuss she'll cause problems for them. She'll cause problems for Leon. So she oh so gradually stops asking where he is and what he's doing and when she can see him. Besides, the excuses for why she can't know that information were getting old and tired anyway. "He just left the country", or "He's getting special training," or "He's moving again". It was like they weren't even trying to not lie to her.

Until Claire comes to visit. What better way for Simmons to cement the trust he needs then to let Sherry see the other important person in her life as much as she can? Which does work. When Claire visits on her school breaks and holidays, the lies do feel a lot more like the truth. Sherry doesn't expect Claire and Leon to be attached at the hip, but if Claire can visit while being busy with college, maybe Leon was as busy as Simmons said. It helps that Claire admits she also struggles getting in contact with Leon. So maybe Leon was almost always out of the country and getting training and working all hours since everything Sherry needed was so expensive. Maybe he was working so hard to make sure Sherry had the best life she could. Maybe she should stop trying to see deception that wasn't there and work hard herself to make sure Leon's efforts went to something good. So she stops asking for Leon except maybe around the milestone events like the 13th birthday and 16th birthday and 18th birthday, and highschool graduation, and college graduation, and by then? By then, all the little red flags of Simmons control hadn't registered until RE6 where the mask comes off.

She sees Leon for the first time in 15 years, and it's him telling her everything was a lie. Simmons was a traitor and never had her best interest in mind. Never had their best interest in mind, and too many things are happening for her to process the information. She just has to swallow it all.

What's worse is she probably would try her best not to beat herself up about it, but I don't know how well she'd succeed. The looping mantra of knowing at 10 years old she was right about the lies and fell for them anyway. Having the hindsight of an adult to notice every single time Simmons nudged her life this way or that way to make sure she did everything he wanted. Questioning how many of her decisions were her wanting to be better than her parents, to make Leon's effort worth it, to be as well-adjusted as she could be around Claire, how much was actually her and how much was Simmons' manipulation? How much of her choices and personhood were hers and not a result of what Simmons wanted her to be? Fingers crossed she took a long vacation after RE6, and a longer vacation to really comb through that contract Simmons definitely gave her for her current career.