(A/N: Hi there~ Thanks for reading this, if you do. :D I'm writing this to give you fair warning: I don't really settle on just one POV. Proof reading this chapter, I've realized I tend to jump back and forth between the two when the need suits me, so I'm sorry in advance if it's confusing. I'm also proofreading this on my own, so please be kind about any mistakes. I'm trying my best. The start of this is post RE6 by only a few minutes, maybe not even that. Piers is, of course, still infected. Chris will show up, in due time, as well. Anyway, enjoy the story!)

Chapter One:

Guess I'm ready to travel the universe

Life was boring for Emil before that morning. The morning that everything changed. Emil hadn't intended to do much of anything that day, really. It was a weekend and she didn't have any work, for once. Then again, she was glad for it. Retail wasn't the best thing to work in for someone of her temperament. She kind of hated dealing with people now. Most were stupid and those that weren't stupid were like unicorns, very rarely seen out in the wild. So she took each day off of work gladly. And it just so happened to be the fourth of July weekend, so she could spend her weekend drinking and generally trying to not feel so lonely. Well, spend it with beer and video games really. At least, that's what she intended to do.

She had woken up on the morning of July 1st in the year 2016 with every intention of starting her morning off with a shower and a good home cooked breakfast. What she got was, while close to a shower, far from what she expected. Very far. She'd just been stepping into the shower when, with a spontaneity that she would come to expect of her life later, a rather injured young man came crashing into her and sending both of them to the floor of the bathroom. Glad her towel had remained with her, she had been about to try getting up when the feeling of something trying to tug her stomach out of her body hit her and it did a strange flip flop and her world turned upside down and suddenly both of them were crashing onto a beach somewhere and everything just hurt so bad. The last thing she remembered as she blacked out was the cries of the seagulls as they retreated from the beach and the nauseating smell of what little had been in her stomach quickly finding its new home on the beach.

The next thing she remembered was waking up to darkness. She could feel the panic settling into her empty stomach as she woke up before she realized that it was only the darkness of nighttime settling in around her as it chased away what had probably been a beautiful sunset. Still groggy and panic stricken, it took her another moment to realize the next few facts. The first being the young man currently laying face down across her body and that only the towel separated him from her. The second was the fact that it was starting to get cold, which was quickly followed by the third, that she was rather naked underneath her towel. Her first instinct was to scramble away from him and try to preserve her dignity. He was, however, heavier than she'd expected him to be upon first glance and soon gave up, though she was clearly not happy about it. The next thing she did was actually look at the young man. She couldn't see his face, as it was turned away from her, and she could only really see his left side. She couldn't see over his body to see the other side of him but, judging from what she /could/ see, his condition wasn't very good. Besides being absolutely drenched in water, there was green gunk all over him, along with what looked to be blood. The fading light was making it harder to see things.

She tried again to move him, startled when he groaned in clear pain. He seemed to curl up on top of her then away from her, rolling off of her. Sitting up with one hand, and using the other to hold up her towel, she watched him with wide eyes, fear settling into her stomach alongside the panic that lay waiting. Her thought process froze as she recognized exactly who he was and what had happened to him. The last time she'd seen him had been at the end of Chris' campaign in Resident Evil 6. She'd never forget the arm he had, which sparked now, lighting up the surrounding area. Nor would she ever forget the look he'd given his Captain as he pushed him into the escape pod, sacrificing his life for the rest of the planet even while knowing with some certainty that no one would really know how much he had sacrificed for them and how much it meant to him except for maybe Chris. Or would she forget the small amount of fear she always thought she saw in his eyes as he watched Chris escape. Her friends told her she was seeing things, but she always believed that she saw it. It was something she would always remember, even if just in those times when she felt like doing something stupid to herself. It sort of kept her going, the courage she'd witnessed despite the fear. It made her feel silly, thinking so much and so highly of a person that wasn't supposed to be real and she was sure her friends would make fun of her for it if they knew but here he was. Here Piers Nivans was, in the flesh and the pain, and painfully real.

Before her thoughts could collect themselves into a semblance of order from where they'd been thrown, the young man cried out as he sat up, his electrified arm lighting fire to a piece of driftwood somewhat nearby to them before he collapsed back onto the sand, panting and gasping in a heap. Shaking and doing her best to hold onto her only piece of clothing currently, Emil scrambled to his side, trying to see what was wrong. Piers' eyes were closed, pain written on his face still. The frightened young woman sat back, a shaky hand running through her shoulder length brown hair and trying to untangle the mess. This wasn't how everything was supposed to go. She was supposed to be home, living a boring life and getting ass drunk and replaying one of her favorite games for the thousandth time. Of course, now she was living it and there wasn't a damned thing she could do about it. Steeling herself and trying to make herself stop shaking so much, she tied her towel around her body so that it wouldn't fall as she moved and started the agonizing process of moving Piers from his slump on the cold beach to a slump closer to the fire.

It took her what seemed like ages to get him there and on his uninjured (read: uninfected arm) side, the young man coughing up some seawater but otherwise just laying there with his eyes closed and panting. With nothing else to do for him for the moment, she left him there and went to look for dry wood nearby, to keep the driftwood fire burning through the night, in which she could then decide what her plan of action would be. She came back with a few sticks and planks, sighing quietly. The darkness of night had chased her back to the fire.

"Of course I get stuck on a beach with a guy out like a light and probably burning with a fever. And to top it off, I'm stuck wearing nothing but a towel. Guess I should be glad there's no one on the beach." She said to herself, inching closer to the fire as the dark, inky blackness of night took over everything else. It was actually unnerving, to not be able to see anything but the driftwood fire and Piers. It didn't help that she didn't know where exactly she was. "I mean, I could be in my own world still." She said, continuing her discussion aloud. "Or I could be stuck in his." She gestured to Piers, groaning and putting her fore head on her knees. "And I don't want to be stuck in his. No offense, but your world sucks ass." She grumbled at Piers, glaring at him. Oh sure, he was sweet and kind in his last moments, and probably in general when he wasn't out and about, but his world held J'avo and BOWs and Wesker. She shuddered at the thought of Wesker. What little she remembered of him had made her hate him with a fiery passion. "Guess I should be glad I'm not stuck with Leon and those Plagas guys. Those were the worst. Not to mention that short guy. Salazar? Ah, I can't remember!" She made a face and threw a rock into the darkness, looking pleased when she heard it splash into the water.

She had already set her head back down on her knees when she realized that the splashing hadn't stopped. A nasty, somewhat see-through tentacle came crawling from the blackness from the direction of the water and started wriggling its way towards her, clearly intent on causing her harm. She started trying to scoot backwards, her feet sliding off the sand ineffectively and fear making her movements sluggish. Before it could get very far, however, it was speared by Piers' arm and electrocuted rather well. With a final zap, it started disintegrating as the clearly tired out but just waking up Piers glared at what was left of it before collapsing into a sitting position roughly. His infected arm sat in his lap as he took a hot moment to gather himself together before he looked around with tiredness clouding his eyes, confused. His body had acted on auto-pilot when it sensed the monster he had thought he had left behind and so he was still in the process of waking up. He spotted Emil, who hadn't moved back to her spot but was staring at him, and watched her. She was shaking still, mistaking the look of familiarity in her eyes at seeing what had to have been a part of HAOS as one of fear that she had almost been attacked by a J'avo. Realizing he had been staring at her for far too long, he hastily looked away, the left over bits of his regular skin on his face having the decency to turn slightly red. He opened his mouth to ask a question and immediately started coughing. Once he had calmed down, Emil spoke up before he could.

"Don't talk just yet. I think you inhaled some water." She said quietly, scooting closer to the fire again and hoping that the warmth would stop her shaking. It did little to help though. "Not that I know what happened to you exactly. When I found you, you were coughing up water." Despite how frazzled it would make her, she figured it would be a good idea to pretend that she didn't know who he was. After everything that had happened with Carla and the virus and his previous team, he'd be suspicious of her and she didn't need that right now. Not from the man that could probably kill her. Besides, he needed some one on his side, if she was correct in her guess of how long it had been since he had saved Chris from HAOS the final time. And she wasn't afraid to admit that she needed him as well. "You also lit the fire." Oh god, was she going to start babbling now? She could feel her nerves, already frazzled from the almost attack, scatter again when she opened her mouth again. "I saw your arm light up and had to dive out of the way, which wasn't comfortable in nothing but a towel, but I got out of the way and then BAM the fire was lit and everything..."

Piers watched her from the corner of his eye, tiredness mixing with amusement. Someone certainly knew how to talk. It was clear from how nervous she looked that she was a civilian far from her comfort zone, and it made him feel a little bad for her. What was she doing out here, with him? He knew for sure that she hadn't been in the underwater facility. He started trying to talk again only to be met with a cough and a sore throat. He was forced to clear it, which stopped Emil's ramble, before he was able to say anything. "Where are we?" was the first thing he asked in a hoarse voice, moving his head so that he could see Emil a little better with out outright looking at her. She shrugged, hands in her hair again and trying to make some sense of the mess on her head as a way to distract herself from the fear threatening to rise up again. It felt like a snake coiled and ready to strike and she knew she would have a hard time containing it if she let it loose.

"I have no clue. All I know is that I was about to take a shower when you crashed into me then we were on this beach. I woke up as the sun was setting and that's when you zapped the tree." She gave up on her hair, and instead decided to hug her knees to her chest, settling her chin on the top so that she could still look around. It was clear from how she sat and how her voice shook that she was afraid and he didn't blame her. Her she was in a new, harsher environment with no form of protection at all. Except him. The thought made him cringe a little. He was supposed to be dead. And yet here he was, stuck with a young woman armed with nothing but his arm and a towel. Either the odds were badly stacked against him or the Gods were using him as entertainment. He sent a quick curse their way before turning his attention back to the young woman.

"What's your name?" He asked her, scanning what little he could see of the surrounding area, which was actually very little. It was like being stuck on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean. The thought made him shudder. He would never trust big bodies of water ever again. Emil watched him with slightly wide, bright blue eyes, wondering if the shudder had anything to do with water.

"...Emil. Emil Valentine. And you?" Piers watched her out of the corner of his eye, pretending to be looking at the fire. If she noticed, she didn't mention it. The look in her eyes told him that she held a secret, but he wouldn't push her, still seeing the fear written clearly in her eyes as well.

"Piers Nivans." He said, deciding to not lie to her. There was no chance she would know his name. Looking at her, there was no recognition on her face, for which she was quietly grateful for. Good. Her last name itched his mind, screaming at him that he recognized it from somewhere. Tired brain catching up with him, he realized where he knew it. The Captain's on again off again girlfriend. He always wondered why they kept bouncing back to each other. "You wouldn't happen to be related to someone named Jill Valentine?" He asked, just in case. She shook her head, face carefully blank. She dug through her memory, trying to remember where she'd last heard the name. She knew it was a character in the series...Ah, that's right. Chris' partner.

"No. I'm an only child and I don't know the rest of my family. I do know there were never any Jills." She smiled slightly, her eyes looking far away even though she was looking at him. There was pain in that look, and sadness. It didn't last long, however, and she was quickly shaking her head, the look disappearing in favor of embarrassment as a strong wind pushed past them, causing her to shudder. God, could this night last any longer?!