Jill Valentine slowly awoke on her military bed in the small room belonging to the West African division of the BSAA headquarters. Her waking was slow mostly due in part to the fear that all she experienced in the past few days had only been hopeful dreams, and that the cruel sordid realities that her blue eyes would behold upon opening them would break her heart and sprit as they had many times before in the last three years. However, this morning, unlike those previous, allowed Jill to smile as the African sunshine cast itself without inhibitions throughout her entire room. There had been days in those three years, Jill nearly believed she would never be able to experience the beauty of a new morning with a free mind again.
Jill slowly sat up and stretched her limbs, feeling their weight and stiffness and happy that she could do so. They felt heavier than usual, but she suspected this would happen as her body became readjusted to operating without performance enhancers being pumped through her body. Her chest still ached slightly from the device that once resided upon it; the device that enabled Albert Wesker to control her actions and dose her with P-30 without discretion. Jill lightly placed a hand there feeling the bruise that had formed since its removal and the small bandages that closed the holes the device had made by burrowing tentacle-like appendages into her flesh as a way to administer the concoction Wesker had developed to his unwilling test subject. Although her chest ached, Jill's heart felt light.
Presently a knock came to her door.
"Come in," she called.
Jill recognized the younger, dark-skinned woman who entered as agent Sheva Alomar, who had taken Jill's usual place alongside her partner, Chris Redfield. They had previously met under tense circumstances and talked briefly before the three of them and Sheva's commanding officer, Josh Stone, had gone their separate ways to rest and repair from their ordeals.
"Good morning, Miss Valentine," greeted Sheva. "I've brought something that might help you recover your strength." Sheva handed the more experienced agent a bone mug.
"Thanks," replied Jill brightly as she received the mug. "You can just call me Jill." She took a tentative sip from its contents and recognized it as some kind of cold, herbal tea probably made from local medicinal plants.
"You look like you've gotten some color back," offered Sheva.
Jill touched a section of her once-brunette hair and ran her fingers through it thoughtfully. "I wonder if this will come back." Jill Valentine was not a vain person, however, she had misgivings regarding the changes in her appearance that did not allow her to feel good about herself aside from being a reminder of all the scientific torture she had endured every time she looked in the mirror.
"I have also brought you some clothes," said Sheva, ". . . and," she paused before going on not sure how to proceed, "there's a bit of a problem."
Jill pulled herself further up to a seated position as her concern was piqued. "What kind of problem?"
"It's Agent Redfield."
"Give me five minutes," said Jill.
It was no later than five minutes when Jill stepped outside her door onto the golden African sands of the BSAA compound. She was dressed in fatigue pants, combat boots, a green tank top, and a fatigue cap to keep the sun off her pallid face. Sheva had been waiting outside the door, and together they walked across the compound to Chris Redfield's temporary quarters.
The African branch of the BSAA reminded Jill of a small but typical army compound. Much of it was outside and without many of the amenities of the American BSAA headquarters, which was mostly indoors and seemingly encased in steel. It appeared to Jill as if the African branch was also less regulated although no less serious about the goal of stopping bio-terrorism. She was greatly appreciative of the men and women that ran this section of the agency for all their hard work and training, for without them, she hated to think what Albert Wesker could have accomplished with the release of Uroboros.
Within a short time later, Sheva and Jill entered Chris' quarters and were standing before his steel-framed bed. There he was, Agent Redfield, still fully clothed in his mission gear with his muscular bulk dwarfing the small bed, lying on his side as though someone had shot him dead and unceremoniously dumped the carcass. One arm was behind his back, and his was mouth agape. Chris was snoring loudly.
"We can't seem to wake him up," said Sheva. "We thought we could use your expertise."
Jill squinted in thought.
"We have to wake him," continued Sheva, "to clean and re-dress his wounds, but he's been sleeping since we got back from the volcano two days ago."
Jill had slept much of that time too, however, her wounds had not been so serious. Much of her complications had come from her system re-educating itself on how to operate without P-30.
"CHRIS!" Sheva yelled quite loudly. "WAKE UP, CHRIS REDFIELD!"
But Chris' only response was an even louder snore without even the courtesy of a stir.
Sheva turned to Jill and shrugged. "We've been yelling at him for a day and half!" Her expression leaned toward that of exasperation as she turned back toward her provisional partner. "CHRIIIIIIIIIS!"
Jill held up her hand as a signal for Sheva to cease her efforts as she walked closer to Chris' face. Sheva watched with bated breath as Jill very silently leaned over and in a very soft whisper said, "A zombie ate my baby."
Redfield violently jerked to life with one hand instinctively reaching for his sidearm, the other reaching for his knife, yet finding neither in their places. What he did find was Sheva Alomar staring at him wide-eyed and Jill Valentine looking at him with a wry smile as his conscious assessment of the situation began to change. He quickly looked out the window for confirmation. None of the animated bodies he saw there were operating with the telltale, shuffling gait, and there was certainly no moaning to be heard. Chris blearily looked back at his two partners and knew who was the culprit.
"Not funny, Jill!"
Jill placed her hands on her hips and acted stern. "Sheva tells me your wounds need to be cleaned and re-dressed . . . ."
Chris immediately regressed into his fatigue. "Aw, c'mon, I'm so tired. I haven't slept in days."
"No, you've been sleeping for days," corrected Jill, "and now it's time to clean those wounds before they get infected."
"I'm fine," he said with some protest in his voice. "Can't I just sleep?"
"Redfield, you're disgusting!" exclaimed Jill. "You're still wearing your gear, and I'll bet you need a good shower anyway! Now off with it before Agent Alomar and I come and take it off you!"
With those words, a worried expression returned to Sheva's face.
"But I'm so tired!" Chris closed his eyes and invited the sandman to come back.
"Fine," stated Jill. She promptly turned to the other female. "Sheva, grab his shoes."
Sheva did what she was ordered by the senior agent as Jill began to roughly undo the clips to Chris' gear harness and remove it from him. The jostling was not conducive to attaining sleep so Chris just complained.
"What the hell, Jill!?"
"You've gotta get your wounds cleaned, Buster, and I intend to see that happen!"
"But they'll just hurt again if you do that!"
"I'm not listening to your whining, Redfield!" came a warning tone from Jill.
With Chris putting up a resistance with the hopeful prize of being left alone to sleep and not wishing to be moved due to the discomfort of his injuries, Sheva was still having trouble removing the first shoe even with one arm wrapped around Chris' leg to try to keep it from moving away from her. "Ugh!" she exclaimed, "It's like trying to unshod a mule!"
"You hardly know the half of it," grumbled Jill, who had finished removing the gear harness and was unclipping Chris' gun holster.
"Uh, I can do that myself, Jill!" came Chris with mild alarm.
"Then why am I doing it?" was the other's chiding retort. And the gun holster thunked loudly to the ground as Jill dropped it after having removed it with little help from Chris. Without warning or time to breathe, she immediately went to pulling his shirt from his pants and was attempting to yank it over his head, still with little to no sensitivity to Chris' feelings or person.
"Dammit, Jill!"
Finally, one of Chris' shoes fell to the ground, and soon Jill flung her stubborn partner's shirt into oblivion. Jill looked at her partner's body to assess the damage. If she hadn't spent the better part of the past ten years seeing people's heads explode from gunfire, viruses, or parasites, and seeing the walking dead eat the living, her stomach might have turned.
"Oh god," said Sheva in awe and disgust.
Chris was still mostly lounging on the bed and was trying to regain his bearings and breath from the violent intrusion he had just endured. Jill could see bruises and scrapes all over without discretion. Some of the more serious injuries had been dressed by Sheva in the field, but with all of his physical activity, they had bled through their bandages. There were sizable holes left in Chris' chest from the necessary repeated stabbings of an epi-pen, and raw, red track marks had been left behind from being tangled within Wesker's Uroboros tentacles.
Jill just folded her arms and shook her head as though scolding a little boy on the mess he created.
"Don't look at me like that," came Chris, trying to sound threatening,
"And what kind of surprises would I find if I took your pants off?" questioned Jill.
". . . Is that a trick question?"
Jill only ignored her partner's flippant response and stared at the especially long and bloodied bandage that was present on Chris' left side, cutting across his obliques just above his hip. She looked to Sheva, who had taken the opportunity with Chris being distracted to quickly remove his other shoe, and asked, "What's that?"
With a slight grunt from Sheva, the shoe flipped around and thunked onto the floor of the small room. "Oh. That's from a little run in with an executioner in the village. Chris pushed me out of the way of his axe."
"And it hurts a lot; don't touch it," stated Chris.
"I'm hardly in the habit of listening to you when we're not in the field," returned Jill almost tartly. She turned her attention to Sheva. "We're going to have to remove most of his bandages and get off his pants."
"What?"
"All right," said Sheva in total compliance. "Where do we start?"
"I don't need you ripping my skin off, Jill!"
But no one of the female persuasion who was present in the room that day gave heed to Chris Redfield's protests. Jill simply jerked her head toward Chris' upper half, and the two women began ripping bandages off with all the efficiency of ER nurses, once again paying no mind to Chris' ensuing shower of expletives for each bandage removed. Jill instructed to leave the one large bandage on the piece of Chris that had met with the executioner's axe as the lesion was much deeper, and it was possible that the bandage was the only thing keeping anything important from escaping. Once that was over, the hapless patient was left to regroup himself again, and it almost seemed as though "head nurse" Jill Valentine was allowing him to catch his breath before she continued with her assault. Once her patient's panting appeared to be returning to its normal rate of breath, she looked to "nurse" Sheva once more and said, "Pants."
"Oh no!" exclaimed Chris grabbing the top button to his trousers as the two women were reaching for him. "I can do this on my own!"
"So do it," rejoined Jill tersely.
Chris was just about to begin to execute the appropriate initial maneuver when he stopped as nothing in the room changed in the manner he thought it would. "With you two here?"
"I don't trust you, Redfield."
"You don't trust your partner?"
The ploy didn't work though. "Mission's over. Pants off," ordered Valentine.
Chris looked to heaven for a split second for help, however, no avenging angel of decency appeared to his dismay. Without any choice in the matter, Chris was soon before the two women in nothing but his BSAA-issue boxer briefs.
"Okay. Flip over," said Jill, not trusting her eyes that saw nothing to be too concerned about without Chris' pants being in the way.
With some grumbling, the other did as he was told. Sheva gasped, and Jill just tisked. More raw Uroboros tracks, and road rash was present from the shoulders down underneath the band of his underwear. Beyond that, bright blue and purple bruising was covering the right thigh and heading upward once again underneath the fabric.
"That's from when he was dragged by that motorcycle," explained Sheva.
"And this?" asked Jill, referring to the large contusion.
"I fell on my ass in a volcano," muttered Chris.
"You're lucky if you didn't break your tailbone," said Jill, reaching out to test the structural integrity of Chris' coccyx.
Chris quickly swatted her hand away before she could touch him. "I didn't break it," he insisted.
"Yeah, well, we'll see about that after an x-ray in the states," replied Jill.
Chris refused a response to this although he was not enthused to hear it, and at this point, he certainly wasn't about to tell Jill just how much it really hurt to sit down since that fall.
"All right, get in the shower," said Jill. Seeing how badly her partner of ten years was wounded was becoming a wearying thing to deal with. She couldn't quite imagine a time in their lengthy past where she had seen him this abused, but at the same time, she really wasn't that shocked. She knew Chris well enough to know that wherever Albert Wesker had been concerned, his already impetuous nature was magnified three-fold. On missions such as this last one had turned into, the one thing that came before Wesker's death was the safety of his partner, and Jill had a feeling by comparing the number of lesions, abrasions, and contusions on Chris' body now and the lack of such markings on Sheva, that his sense of concern for his partner had been increased ever since he lost one out a window three years ago.
Chris had slowly removed himself from the bed and was making his way to the shower, when in passing Jill, he smartly remarked, "You're not going to scrub me down too, are ya?"
"Don't give me a reason to, Redfield," she warned.
Before the door closed, a flying pair of BSAA issued boxer briefs attempted to assail Jill, which she caught in one hand before they hit her. She shook her head again, and wondered what she was going to do with that man.
Sheva, on the other hand, was slightly bewildered watching the actions of these two senior agents. "You . . . wouldn't actually go in there and scrub him down, would you?"
Jill smiled. "Sheva," she began, "due to random mishaps and dangers in the past ten years, there ain't a piece of that man's body I haven't already seen. It is cute that after all this time he still tries to uphold some modesty."
Sheva looked a little uneasy. She knew that in taking up with the BSAA to protect people and ideals that there would be many losses and sacrifices on her part . . . she just never considered modesty as being one of those necessary sacrifices. She supposed that it was because she was young yet, however, it didn't keep her from hoping that the day she would have to sacrifice such a virtue would never come. And at once, Sheva tried not to imagine an event that would leave her and say, Captain Josh Stone, in those circumstances.
Jill broke the silence feeling that Sheva had become a little uneasy. "I don't like the way that cut looks," she said. "Would you mind getting some medical supplies so we can clean and stitch it up? Something to sedate him would probably be a good thing to have on hand. Clean sheets would be good too."
Sheva nodded and started for the door before she stopped and turned. "How much sedative do you think we'll need?"
Jill glanced at the bathroom door and then to her female counterpart. "Oh, about enough to bring down a mule," she said with a wink.
As Sheva was gathering the supplies, Jill looked for clean clothes and stripped the bed. Sheva had returned momentarily to only hand off the linens before leaving again to gather the medical supplies, and Jill remade the bed. Chris came out of the shower wearing a towel to cover his loins, and despite the truth that Jill had said earlier to Agent Alomar, she turned her back to Chris to allow him to put on the clean underwear in private. Jill told him he could lie back down on his left side, and Chris was grateful. Although the warm water of the shower felt good on his muscles, most of his body still ached from overexertion. This wasn't the first time he'd gone an extended period without sleep, but those previous extended periods hadn't involved such an exhaustive beating from Wesker.
"How was the shower? " asked Jill almost softly as Chris eased himself onto the glorified cot.
"Stung like a cruel, bitch-mother," he replied.
"It's the fastest way to clean those injuries."
". . . I know," he replied quietly. For all of his complaining, Chris Redfield was well aware that he was very lucky to have a partner as knowledgeable and thorough as Jill Valentine.
Sheva returned with the medical supplies thereafter. And with much grimacing from Chris, Jill carefully removed the bandage on his side. Sheva was surprised to see how deeply the cut had been made. When she had bandaged it initially, there was too much blood to really assess how bad it really was. Jill deduced that Chris was going to need stitches. Without the usual medical means available in the states, Jill readied the hypodermic needle to issue the tranquilizer.
"Well, I've got good news, Chris," she said tapping the needle with her forefinger behind his back. "We're putting you back to sleep."
"What do you mean 'putting'?" And nearly before he could finish the question, Jill had jabbed him with the needle. "Ow, Jill! What are you . . . ? " and his words trailed off.
Jill and Sheva adorned operating masks as Jill used her medical training earned through years of BSAA involvement. Her skill at picking locks and disposing explosives allowed her fingers to attain the deftness required for minimal surgical dealings such as this. Sheva assisted Agent Valentine and during this time began to feel fortunate to be able to observe these two legends of the BSAA. Sheva looked over at Chris who was in a sleep so deep that he couldn't even snore.
"Aw," she said. "Sedated like a baby."
Jill laughed a little as she worked.
"You know," began Sheva, "it's strange, isn't it? How the same man who went through all we did in the past few days, took an axe for me, got dragged for meters by his foot from a motorcycle, fought crocodiles, infected tribes people, virulent monsters, fell on his butt in a volcano, got sucker-punched more times than I can count, and fought Albert Wesker, and did all those things with barely a groan, but now does so much complaining with something as small as ripping his bandages off."
Behind her mask, Jill smiled. "You'll find that's often the case with men, especially the passionate ones, like Chris," she said. "When the adrenaline's pumping, they don't feel a thing. When it's not; they turn into babies."
"Really?" asked Sheva. "Are all men like that?"
"Well, I can't say all," rejoined Jill, "but if you're partnered up with a man for as long as I've been, don't be surprised if they need a little coddling when the mission's over."
"You need to coddle Chris?" responded Sheva with some amusement.
". . . Maybe coddling is not the right word in Chris' case," said Jill in thought as she finished a stitch. "But he is a baby. Women are the one's that have stamina when it comes to pain, and that's just a fact a nature." Jill knotted her last stitch and cut the thread. Together she and Sheva taped some clean, protective gauze over the stitches, and then, taking the opportunity while Chris was asleep, they dressed the rest of the injuries. Most of this was done rather quietly, until Jill inspected Chris' hands. She lifted one massive paw to show Sheva the cuts and bruises. "Now how does somebody do this?" she asked. "It looks like he punched a boulder, or something."
"He did," replied the younger woman.
And Jill said, "Why am I not surprised?" With that, she treated and bandaged Chris' hands as well.
By the time the two women had finished with the whole ordeal, night had begun to fall. Chris had awoken slightly from his induced sleep, but was now resting peacefully on his own without the disruption of having to be cleaned and mended.
"Well, that's nearly it," said Jill with a sigh as the clean up process was coming to its end.
"Yes," said Sheva. "I still haven't finished my report yet for the BSAA."
"You can go work on that now," said Jill. "I can finish cleaning up here."
"Are you sure?"
Jill nodded.
"Thanks," said Sheva with a kind smile, and out the door she went.
Jill finished cleaning up the odds and ends of the day and then sat down next to the unconscious Redfield to catch her breath. She was very exhausted now, but hadn't paid much attention to how her body was still weak from the adjustment of no longer operating with P-30 constantly coursing through it. The area where the device resided began to ache once more. She held her hand to her chest and took deep breaths. As the aching subsided, she looked at Chris and watched the peaceful rising and falling of his side as he slept contentedly, seeming as though he never had to fear his nightmares materializing into reality just like any average man, and Jill wondered if it was truly possible that the nigh invincible Albert Wesker was finally destroyed. And if he was dead, she began to wonder how life might change for her and her partner. With all the years of struggles behind them with Wesker being the primary cause, would it be possible to have a somewhat more normal existence? Or at least as normal as one could have working for the BSAA? Jill Valentine certainly didn't know the answers, however, she was fairly certain that neither she nor Chris would have to struggle as hard as they both had for the past ten years, or mostly in Chris' case, the past few days, ever again. For Jill, that was a comforting thought. And, to top it all off, somehow they were alive. That last reflection left her feeling thankful and guilty for reasons and lives too numerous to count.
Jill decided it was time for bed before she allowed herself to feel really depressed about things she didn't have the power to change. She slowly stood from the chair and made her way out of Agent Redfield's impermanent quarters and into the African night. The sand and sky was a deep blue around her, and just like that morning, Jill breathed in the night air and was appreciative to be able to enjoy the beauty around her freely.
She had only made it halfway to her quarters, when Jill Valentine's steps became labored and slow. The exhaustion came upon her suddenly this time, and she hardly had a moment to rest when dizziness and darkness overtook her. The ground eagerly reached up to catch her.
At least this time when she came to, Jill remembered what had happened last. She felt that was an improvement. However, remembering herself fainting was what caused her to be confused for instead of finding herself one with the African sands, she was actually being gently carried with her head resting comfortably against the shoulder and chest of her savior. She reached up and felt her head. Maybe she had hit it and was hallucinating.
"Easy there, Valentine," came a familiar voice.
Jill looked around without moving her head as it was still spinning. She saw the random bandages on his shoulders and chest and those she had personally placed on his hands and knuckles. "Chris?"
"Yeah?"
"I hope to god you're wearing pants," she said.
"You take the fun out of everything, Valentine."
"What are you doing? You're going to open your stitches, if you're not careful." Her responses were barely better than whispers.
"You took care of me, so now I'm being a good partner, and I'm taking care of you."
"Great, so you're going to torture me now."
"Shut-up," said Chris good-naturedly. "I'm just glad you're alive."
Jill slowly blinked and came back with, "Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised to hear that. You did look like you were going to cry when you first saw me."
"When?" challenged Chris.
"In the ruins when Wesker pulled my hood back. And again after you took that thing off my chest."
"I was not," he said defensively. "I knew you were alive."
"You sure? Because a couple of times there I wasn't sure if I was looking at Chris Redfield or Victoria Falls," she teased.
"Jill!"
Jill reached up and patted Chris' chest as she nestled her forehead into his neck. "It's okay, Timmy. Lassie loves you too."
"Geez," groaned Chris. There were only two females in his life that could even attempt to tease him like this, and it was difficult to tell who of the two was better at it.
Upon coming to Jill's quarters, Chris finagled the latch, and brought her through the doorway. He kicked the door closed to keep the night air out where it belonged. He turned on the lights and gingerly laid Jill on the bed. Chris sat on the bed and took one foot, removed her boot, and threw it to the other side of the room. He took the foot nearest him and did the same with that boot. After all they had been through, right now, Chris didn't give a crap about any kind of pomp or circumstance. He yawned and patted Jill's leg. "Good to have you back, Valentine."
"Thanks," she replied, pertly as she welcomed the comfort of the small bed to her tired body.
Chris looked over at his partner. "Shove over," he said.
Before Jill could protest, Chris pushed her to the side and made room for himself on her bed. Due to the small size of it, Jill had to lie on her side and let Chris wrap his arms around her and pull her close so she wouldn't fall off. He grabbed the bill of her cap and pulled it off her head to throw it across the room with every bit of irreverence his wrist could muster as it was annoying him now.
"Chris!"
"Shh," he replied. "Time for sleep."
Jill sighed but didn't resist. For nearly the past three years, the only touch she encountered was that by cold steel needles and tubes being shoved through her. She just realized now how much she had craved being touched by a warm human being who cared about her, and very few, if any could actually say they cared more about her than Chris Redfield. And oddly enough, she felt she needed him there. Maybe tonight would be the first night in a long time where she wouldn't have nightmares. But still, there were practical concerns to think about:
"And what will we say to the West African branch of the BSAA when they see you in here tomorrow morning?"
"Hey, . . . I'm wearing pants!" exclaimed Chris with tired irritation. "And maybe it's time for the West African branch of the BSAA to understand that finding a man spooning an intelligent, attractive woman who just so happens to be his partner of ten years is a healthy, natural, beautiful thing . . . ." Chris kicked off one shoe.
"Chris –"
". . . And I don't feel like walking all the way back!" He pulled the remaining shoe from his foot.
"Chris!"
"Good night, Agent Valentine," said Agent Redfield with finality, and with that, he threw the shoe at the light switch. His marksmanship skills availed him with shoes as well as bullets, and the room abruptly went dark.
14