Clairry

Clairry is the friendship between Claire Redfield and Sherry Birkin from the Resident Evil  fandom.

Resident Evil 2 (2019)
In 1998, Claire travels to Raccoon City in search of her older brother, Chris Redfield. With help from Leon Kennedy and Lieutenant Marvin Branagh, Claire makes it to the police station, then to the underground facility beneath the station. It’s there she finds a small child, hiding in the dark. Claire gently tells the girl, ''“Hey, it’s okay. I won’t hurt you, I promise.”'' She also asks if she needs help, before extending her hand out. The girl just barely whispers that it’s Claire who needs help. Claire asks again and the girl tells her louder, before pointing to, unbeknownst to Claire, the girl’s father, in his mutation form. A fight ensues with the mutated man falling over a ledge, seemingly dying.

Claire calls out to the girl, telling her it’s “over”. The girl emerges from over the platform where Claire had fallen in and Claire asks her to lower the ladder for her. Before the girl does, she asks Claire if she can help her find her mother. Claire agrees and the girl smiles before lowering the ladder. Up top, the two talk about Sherry’s parents and how Claire also lost hers, which Claire comments that’s a good thing – they have something common. The two make for a manhole, leading up into a parking garage. As they struggle to attempt to lift a gate a man calls out Sherry’s name, orders Claire to her knees and for Sherry to tie her hands. Using his key card, he opens the gate and leads Sherry out, leaving Claire on the ground. Sherry begs him stop hurting Claire and to let her go, though to no avail. The man drags Sherry out and just as Claire frees herself from her binds the gate closes. Helpless, Claire comments to herself, “Stay safe, Sherry.”

Claire is later seen through a surveillance camera when the man, who Claire discovers is the Chief of Police, Brian Irons, calls via telephone. Irons had locked Sherry in a bedroom within the orphanage and demands Claire to meet with him with Sherry’s pendant that she dropped in the parking lot. Upon obtaining the key card, Claire makes for the orphanage. While there she encounters a dying Irons, who succumbs to a G embryo bursting out of his chest, killing him instantly, courtesy of William Birkin.

Claire heads down to the basement from Iron’s room, calling out for Sherry. Sherry hears her and yells in return. Relief floods over Claire as she sees Sherry. The moment is short lived as Mr. X, who had been stalking Claire prior, shows up again. Claire screams for Sherry to go and they run for an elevator. Just as the gate closes for the elevator, Mr. X pries it open. He’s seconds away from getting them when William emerges from behind and rips Mr. X’s abdomen out. The elevator descends into free fall and crashes. For a moment Claire wakes to Sherry pleading for her to wake up, before passing out again and Sherry runs off. The next time Claire wakes, Sherry’s gone, though her mother, Annette Birkin, is there “accessing the situation”. Claire tries to get her to tell her where Sherry is, to the point where Annette “can’t play 20 questions” with Claire and finally snaps at her, telling her that “her daughter is none of her concern,” before leaving Claire alone.

Claire finds Sherry down in the sewer, in a waste disposal compartment as Annette insists “that she doesn’t have time for this”. After Annette hangs up on Sherry via the loud speaker, Sherry slumps to the floor. Claire pounds on the glass from the control room, commenting that she’ll be right there.

After navigating the sewer system, Claire arrives back to the waste compartment where she can hear Annette talking to a weak Sherry. Upon entry, Claire makes for Sherry and cradles her in her arms. Sherry coughs, letting Claire know she’s still alive. Over the loud speaker, Annette asks Claire what she’s doing. Claire looks up to the camera on her and Sherry, telling Annette that she’s here to help. Annette informs Claire that Sherry cannot be helped, as she’s been “implanted” with the G-virus. Claire snaps as Annette, telling her that “this conversation is over”. Claire picks Sherry, with the intent to leave when Annette, panic stricken, tells Claire that she can treat Sherry back at her lab. Annette ends the feed, telling Sherry she loves her. Claire tells Sherry she’ll get Sherry “whatever she needs”. In Sherry’s weaken state, she manages to ask Claire why she’s helping her, to which Claire tells her it’s “because she cares”. With Sherry tucked into Claire arms, Claire makes for Annette’s lab. Claire finds a cable car, taking them to NEST. At some point during their ride, Claire gives Sherry her red jacket, which Sherry later comments is “so warm”. She also tells Claire she wouldn’t know what to do without Claire. Touched by her words, though trying to stay positive, Claire teases Sherry, saying, “You were doing just fine without me, until I came along and got you into all sorts of trouble.” Sherry starts to groan in pain as they arrive to their destination. Claire finds the lab and lays Sherry down on the bed, promising her she’ll be back.

After another battle with with William, and him seemingly dead, Claire heads back for Sherry where she finds Annette. Annette shares the news that Sherry is now free of the G-virus as she succumbs to her injuries she sustained by William earlier. As Annette lay on the floor, she gives Claire an ID wristband with admin access, telling her to get Sherry to safety. The building they’re in activates self-destruct, which happens if the G-virus leaves the building. Claire carefully pulls Sherry off of her mother’s body and Sherry hugs Claire’s waist, telling her she’s “lucky to have Claire”. As the building rumbles, Claire pulls Sherry to an elevator where they ride down. While there, Sherry thanks Claire for being nice to her and for helping her, and how glad is to have met Claire. In return, Claire tells her she too is glad to have met Sherry. With 10 minutes left until detonation, Claire and Sherry work together to make for the train system.

At the trains, Claire tells Sherry to stay put while she figures out how to start it. Soon, with the train successfully in descend, William attacks them again and Claire is triumphant in the heated battle. She enters the train to Sherry’s relived embrace. Claire runs for the control panel, putting the train in motion. Once she realizes that all she can do is wait for the train, she goes back for Sherry. Claire asks what the first thing Sherry will do and Sherry answers to see where Claire lives. Claire jokes, “Good, ‘cause I need to take a shower.”

Resident Evil 2 (2019)
"Hey, it’s okay. I won’t hurt you, I promise."

- Claire to Sherry.

"Do you need help? Here… you can take my hand."

- Claire to Sherry.

"Stop hurting her, please!"

- Sherry to Brian Irons, about Claire.

"Stay safe, Sherry."

- Claire.

"I’m so sorry, Sherry. This is taking forever."

- Claire.

"I don’t know what I’d do without you."

- Sherry to Claire.

"You were right about this jacket, I’m so lucky to have you."

- Sherry to Claire.

Friendship/Family
Claire and Sherry are first introduced in Resident Evil 2, when Sherry is 12 and Claire is 19 years old, the majority of their canon interaction taking place then. Claire takes on a protector role, and due to this a bulk of the fandom as seen them as a friendship or even as a mother/daughter relationship despite Claire being only 7 years older than Sherry.

On AO3, they have 15+ fan works in their general/friendship tag.

Romantic
Following Sherry’s return to the series in Resident Evil 6, she’s a grown 26 year old woman. Since then a small handful of people have been shipping her and Claire romantically.

On AO3, they have 5+ fan works in their het/romantic tag.

Fandom
FAN FICTION
 * Sherry/Claire tag on FanFiction.net
 * Sherry/Claire tag on FanFiction.net

Trivia

 * In Resident Evil 2 (2019), during the Leon B scenario, Leon can find a note from Claire to him, part of it reading: “I have to take a little detour to help this girl I found. If I don’t save her, I hate to think what might happen.”