#re3 spoilers just in case but i think that was kind of a given with this oops

[arklay]

leah no pressure ofc but do you have any spare dani facts to share? 👀🥺

hiii omg 🥺🥺 thank you so much for asking about the latest brain worm!! 💖 so she is very much just vague ideas at the moment but hopefully this will be coherent!! (okay it actually kind of turned into infodump oops)

definitely a military brat, like no doubt about it. not sure if both of her parents were in the army or just one of them, but either way, one of her parents was a pilot which obviously played a big part in dani's interest to one day fly herself.

worked extremely hard in school and earned high honours on her high school diploma. this continued when she put in her warrant officer flight packet and got outstanding scores on the tests involved there.

following flight school she only spent a couple of years in the army's aviation branch before she was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing a superior officer. whether this was done in a split second because she had finally snapped or planned over a period of time is up for debate. no real details besides the guy was an asshole who constantly berated and humiliated her, and she finally had enough.

her intelligence and skills as a helicopter pilot didn't go unnoticed by umbrella, especially for her age, and after some time in prison she was recruited into the umbrella biohazard countermeasure service to be one of their main evac pilots.

surprise, carlos flirted with her the moment they met at the training centre on rockfort island. no but really though, he had seen her around and she was always so quiet and would just stick to herself that he was really intrigued by her, definitely went and hung out in the hangar and got in trouble for it a couple of times. also she didn't really reciprocate his flirting because she thought he just flirted with everyone, and also because she was given this lifeline by umbrella and wasn't sure if fraternising was actually allowed, so she steered clear. that being said, there were definitely lingering touches and long glances. like sparring together was an actual nightmare. everyone, and i mean everyone, at base knew there was something going on between them but they were both just pushing their feelings aside.

dani was also kind of taken under nikolai's wing in a way. he had been impressed by her background and then seeing how she was more focused on her craft rather than socialising, he thought that was particularly admirable. could just definitely see him training with her and honing her skill in hand-to-hand combat. there's also the running joke that nikolai is an asshole to everyone but her, which confuses the other u.b.c.s. members.

originally i didn't know how she would be involved in the raccoon city incident, but like most oc related things it just came to me out of nowhere. so she would've piloted one of the helicopters that the u.b.c.s. members deployed from before being given orders to help evacuate civilians out of the city. my canon, my rules, the helicopter that told jill to head to the parking garage roof, where it then went down from tail rotor failure was dani, and jill was apprehensive at first because of the huge umbrella logo on the side of it. she blacked out from the crash, then a while after when carlos was clearing the train tracks, mikhail's radio went off from where he was sitting on the platform. she was just trying to reach any u.b.c.s. members at that point, and they could hear that she was in pain and not all there, carlos was already getting ready to head out cause he knew where the parking garage was, and mikhail let him. he had already lost enough men, he didn’t know if he could handle it if he lost any more.

made a post about this already but uh when carlos got to the roof and just saw her lying there, he ran up to her, and seeing her kind of in and out of consciousness "stay with me baby" slipped out of his mouth before he could even catch it. he carried her back to the subway as quick as he could and got her settled there before returning to clearing out the tracks. she and mikhail were both just like well shit, we’re both injured and the platoon has suffered heavy losses already, the only objective now is to get out of the city and get the civilians to safety.

when nemesis attacked the train nikolai grabbed dani’s arm and pulled her to the next cabin, locking the door behind him and trapping jill and mikhail inside. he pulled her along while she was asking him what he was doing and he didn’t bother responding to her, too focused on getting them off the train because after he finishes his missions within raccoon city, he needs a pilot to get him out of there. plus, he had some faith in her to come around and see his side of things. the moment they’re clear of the subway, she just wrenched her arm out of his grip and asked what the hell that was all about, how he could’ve just left jill and mikhail behind and he realised she was too concerned with helping people that she wouldn’t be of any use to him. she quietly told him to just do whatever he was actually sent there to do before walking away from him in hopes of finding other survivors or regrouping with carlos and tyrell.

she ended up bumping into beth (who belongs to @steelport) who survived the train derailing, and they team up. dani got in contact with tyrell and he told them to head towards the hospital cause that’s where he was heading. they found him on the way there, after he had been shot by nikolai, and they hurried inside to get away from the horde that wasn’t too far behind them. dani and beth stumbled in shortly after tyrell, and carlos instantly froze, the moment he heard jill say that everyone on the train had died he assumed that meant her also, he hurried over to help dani onto the couch in the room and they all listened to the broadcast. she moved to get up when they heard the zombies coming but carlos knelt in front of her and asked her to just stay there, that she needed to rest, and there was the unspoken promise that he would be right back. there’s a hand here and there, touches lingering and a lot of eye contact, and tyrell was definitely sending them a knowing look.

after defending the room, carlos checked in on everyone before heading out to look for stockpiles of the vaccine underground and dani was like okay break time is over and got up. definitely copped more comments of “you need to rest” but she’s wasn’t just going to let carlos go off on his own. i have like no details about the end sequence but she’s the one that actually pilots the helicopter and gets them out of the city, but carlos probably still sits up there with her.

the aftermath of raccoon city was not kind to her. she had to heal from the injuries to her back and ribs from the helicopter crash while also dealing with nightmares almost every night. but she did stay in contact with jill and beth while she and carlos laid low, and the four of them became close friends and were all there for one another. 

despite everything that had happened on top of months of mutual pining, dani and carlos still just remained friends with a hell of a lot of tension for a while until he decided to take a leap, leaning over while they were relaxing on the couch and kissing her out of nowhere. she froze for a moment, taking a second to realise what was going on before she kissed him back and he finally told her how much she meant to him, and he asked her if she wanted to be with him as much as he wanted to be with her.

after some time they moved to somewhere in south america. i’m not sure if perhaps umbrella found out where they were and came after them or if they just moved cause why not. perhaps carlos wanting to head home and dani wanting to see where he came from. they eventually start working in humanitarian aid, joining terrasave when they establish a branch wherever they’re living.