Chapter One:

Nowhere Warm

A/N: So I love Sheva and Chris and wanted to write some fanfiction on my own. This is the first chapter on many and it's a bit long. It's kind of a dark and very character driven. You cant survive this kind of stuff without being a little damaged in real life and I wanted to explore that with a little action and romance thrown in the mix. Review and let me know what you think.

Rating: M for language, violence, dark themes and sexual situations

Disclaimer: I don't own Resident Evil.


It was over. The sun was beating on her back and her muscles ached, but it was finally over. She glanced at the man opposite her, his features furrowed in concentration, in dramatic realization that the battle that he started years ago, had finally come to an end. She admired him in a way; they were both very alike him and Sheva. Tough and taut, jaded and controlled. If loneliness of a childhood forgotten had taught her anything, it was how to guard her emotions; it was important to always retain some semblances of control, even when the world was shattering around you. Even when your life was slipping through your fingers like angry tears sizzling as they dissolve below the African sun.

There were no words between any of them; at this point what was there left to say? Jill had been kidnapped and forced to do god knows what and here the four of them sat, survivors of a trip to a hell that people only encountered in the darkest most remote depths of their inner minds. They had survived and for the moment, that was all that mattered.

Sheva shifted, the jingling of metal breaking all of them from their mental stupors. Her shoulders ached and her neck was so stiff she felt as though she would never be able to move it properly again. Wesker had thrown her about plenty of times during their encounters. Chris had seemed too focused on Jill to notice that she didn't recover as quickly as him, that she didn't have a personal stake in the scheme of things and that she was getting her ass kicked around because he did.

She wasn't bitter about it…what was there to be bitter about? As soon as she reached the base in Cape Town, all of this would be over. The two of them would be back in America soon enough and they would never see each other again. She would be a lingering shadow in their psyche, a brief memory in a sea of thoughts until, like so many others from their pasts she would be nobody…a lingering specter…a fading ghost.

She arched again and this time caught the eye of her companion who had been watching her for god knew how long. She was lost in an abyss of thoughts, self depreciation…it was something she was good at. She turned away from him quickly her eyes falling upon the sparkling metal that lay idly in her lap. The silver burned in her hand as she touched it, a staunch reminder of all she had lost today, of what she had to return to. After all, it was her comrades that died in this battle, not his, not theirs.

Neither Chris nor Jill seemed to realize that she had grown up with these men; she really was the little sister of the team. They had all looked out for each other; they were a working unit, troubled pasts and hazy futures, they were a family. And they had been lost. Her eyes stung, the sun was too fucking bright and her back was killing her and Chris kept looking at her with this sorry look on his face. She wasn't a doll she wouldn't fucking fall apart. At least not here. At least not in front of him.

"Are you okay?" he asked, looking at her, his eyes, blue and crystal clear and concerned as hell.

She smiled, one of those fake smiles that didn't reach the eyes. She had been smiling like that since her parents died. "Yeah, tired is all," she mumbled, truly looking at him for the first time since they began their flight home. He looked exactly like she felt. "You?"

He shrugged….No, he wasn't okay. He hadn't been okay since all of this shit started. He was exhausted and uneasy, he could look into Jill's face and see that she was mentally fucked from whatever Wesker did to her. Hell he'd probably be fucked too if he spent damn near two years with that monster. And Sheva, she was quiet and pensive and pissed about something and he felt guilty as hell for dragging her down with him in what was his fight. It was the hardest war he had ever fought and they both had battle scars to prove it. Health sprays can only go so far.

She chuckled darkly. "For someone who just took out his arch nemesis, you don't look too thrilled. You should be celebrating," she said, leaning against the wall and arching her back for the millionth time.

"Yeah, I suppose I should be," he said, glancing at Jill who was staring solemnly out the window. She hadn't said a word since they took off. "I've been doing this for a long time, and I can't seem to shake the feeling that this isn't over."

"You don't think Wesker's dead?" asked Sheva, her voice rising with genuine shock and curiosity. They launched two rockets straight at his head…he also happened to be in a literal lake of fire, surrounded to the waist by liquid flame. Who in the hell could survive that?

"You'd be surprised what he's survived," Chris said stoically reading her mind. "I don't know. Maybe it's just paranoid wishful thinking."

Her eyebrow arched. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Chris glanced at Jill, his gaze unwavering, drawing in her attention but she remained still, staring out the helicopter window with the same icy unwavering stare. What the hell did it mean? It meant he had a sucky fucking life, that's what. Ten years. For ten years he devoted his life to finding Wesker. He jeopardized his relationship with his sister, he avoided normal relationships, and he hadn't had a woman in an embarrassingly long time. His revenge, his all consuming need to hunt down Wesker and obliterate every resonating mark he left on this earth was the only true companion he had. It had been with him since the first incident in the Arklay Mountains, and a decade later, its dark presence remains, even at the end of the road, even with mental peace in sight, that nagging feeling was still there. Until he had Wesker's bloody head on a platter, it would always be there. Lingering. Waiting.

"It's complicated," he said. There was no point getting into it. She wouldn't understand anyway. She was young, inexperienced, she didn't know lustful hatred as he did and she had only looked true evil in the face a few times in her life. He had seen it every night for the past ten years in his dreams.

Chris didn't want to talk to her about it. That was fine. She wasn't sure if she wanted to hear about it anyway. She didn't need to hear anything else that would keep her thoughts lingering on him after today. She leaned back again, rubbing her shoulder, pressing on the fierce bruise that was staining her honey colored flesh purple. She grinned to herself, that would be the first of many and by tomorrow morning she surmised that she would be black and blue all over. As she moved she heard that jingle again, the dog tags of her dead comrades mocking her, rubbing and rustling together like bodies in heat.

Chris glanced at the silver necklaces in her lap and felt another pang of guilt. Sure their deaths weren't his fault in the least, but they were still dead, still dead because he couldn't take out that bastard sooner and here was his twenty three year old companion silently mourning the loss.

His eyes fell to his former partner and his current. They were different in the most obvious of ways. But in some ways, Sheva reminded him of Jill and vice versa. They were loyal to the end, strong, skilled, and he admired the hell out of them both. He smiled at the quiet blonde; it was good to have her back. Damaged, beaten, whatever… it was just good to have her back with him. It was one less thing that he had to regret. Jill was back, Sheva and Josh were safe, Uroburos was gone and for now, that had to be enough.


It was strange to be back, to have so many eyes upon them as they walked from the eerily quiet helipad to the white doors that stretched across the distance before them. For the first time in a while, they weren't fearing for their lives, they weren't surrounded by dilapidated buildings and the sounds of mysterious of war cries. They were back within the strong grips of a distant reality that for moments at a time Sheva had thought they would never see again.

She was walking in front of him clutching her dog tags and her shoulder and limping to the door, anxious to get out of the heat and he was behind her, holding Jill around the shoulders as the two walked toward the pristine double doors that led them to the Southern BSAA HQ facility. As Sheva stepped inside, a cool rush of the air conditioning blew against her and she inhaled sharply. She was home, she was home and it was really finally over. She felt the eyes on her from every angle, she was smelly and sweaty and covered in dried blood and in her hand jangled the only remains of her fellow agents. She stopped quickly, glancing behind to see Chris and Jill entering together, his arms wrapped firmly around her shoulders. He was doing it to keep the blonde from collapsing and Sheva knew that, but there was a small part of her that was filled with a gentle pang of jealousy. All the more reason she needed to say goodbye, to take a shower and move on and purge the thought of Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine from her mind. Maybe it was time to take her first vacation since she started at the Africa branch. She wanted to get off this god damn continent…maybe go to Australia. That seemed far enough.

She stood tall as a set of double doors opened before her and a man dressed in a black suit approached the four of them. It was Charles DeBroe, director of the South African branch and the head commanding officer. She went through the motions, saluting and all before he approached her specifically, a solemn look in his eye. She knew what he wanted. She raised a shaky arm and dropped the barrage of chains into his hand. As soon as the metal dropped from her palm to his, she felt a release, she felt the weight of carrying the legacy of her peers to safety was over. She could breathe. She was alive and she could breathe and it was over.

"Thank you, Miss Alomar, Mr. Redfield," said Charles, clutching the chains delicately knowing exactly what they meant. He glanced at the blonde woman and signaled for medics to be called. Her condition could only be described as…grim.

"Of course, there must be an extensive debriefing, but before that, you have visitors Mr. Redfield," said Charles, head tilting to the side as another different set of doors opened and several familiar faces burst through.

Chris was caught by surprise as they approached, not fully expecting all of them to be here. Claire yes, but not all of them. She enveloped him roughly, his free arm coming around to hug her. If Sheva hadn't read his file, she wouldn't have thought it was Claire that was his sister. Rebecca looked more like him than anything, but the red head who had enveloped Valentine, looked nothing like Chris in the least. Her eyes fell upon more familiar faces, they were BSAA agents after all and they came trickling in one by one. Leon S. Kennedy, Rebecca Chambers, Carlos Olivera, the dream team was actually here for a reason unknown. They should have been called the fabulous five, all new BSAA agents knew them, they were forced to study their files, they were some of the sole survivors of the Racoon City Incident, they were trained warriors, they were the best.

Her eyes fell to Josh and silent realization washed over them both. They were all that was left from their branch. But at least they had each other.

"May I speak with you two?" asked Charles, beckoning them follow him. They had much to discuss.


Jill was leaning against the wall speaking in hushed whispers to Rebecca and Carlos as Chris rested in a chair near his sister and Leon.

"So where is she?" asked Claire, her eyes bright.

"Where's who?" Chris asked, rubbing his neck tiredly.

"Sheva. I want to meet the girl that saved my brothers ass," she said playfully tapping him gently on the shoulder.

"I don't know, she disappeared a while ago," Chris said, glancing around fervently realizing that she hadn't returned.

"Look I know you have to write an incident report that we'll no doubt be forced to read," began Carlos as he walked toward Chris, "but what the hell happened out there?"

Chris sat down; this would be a long story.


It was hot, the water was hot and steady and it burned her skin. She closed her eyes as the stream of water ran past her breasts, down her taught stomach and into the short brown circles that lay atop her pelvis before dripping beneath her onto the shower floor. The bottom of the basin was so dirty it was almost black, between blood, dirt, sweat and muck from the slimy Uroburos tentacles, she was surprised that she was able to actually get relatively clean. She ran her fingers over the brown locks that reached her mid back, smoothing the conditioner out of her air as she let the water run down the valley between her breasts.

She wasn't ready…transferring to America wasn't exactly what she had in mind for a vacation. Moving there, it would certainly make things unnecessarily complicated. But she couldn't exactly divulge that to her superior….yes sir, I can't go to the States because I'm secretly lusting for my American comrade, you know Chris, could I maybe go back to Europe instead? She didn't want to be one of those idiot girls she saw on TV, pining for men that didn't belong to her and that were frankly way out of her league. Chris Redfield was a fucking entity, an anti bioterrorism legend, and she was a kid compared to him. She chuckled to herself. She was younger than his little sister. And he had Jill….she wasn't an idiot, he was obsessed with finding her…."Partners my ass."

He searched for her brown locks, but she was swallowed up by the sea of people that were filling out of the meeting hall they had just left. He hadn't seen her since they landed and he was anxious to have a word, to thank her, to see if she were okay, to properly say goodbye. He finally found her and ended up walking in her shadow. He reached out and touched her elbow, drawing her attention and turning her around.

She spun to see who was grabbing her and was surprised that it was her former companion. He was a little taken aback by her appearance. She looked different. Her hair was down, and she had make up on and her face was clean and she looked…nice.

Nice didn't quite describe it but saying what he was really thinking, it wouldn't be exactly professional. She smiled at him. "I didn't expect to see you still lingering about," she said, looking up at him, her hazel eyes even prettier in this light. Maybe because she wasn't squinting, maybe it was because they weren't filled with fear.

"Yeah, we won't be here for long," he said honestly. His flight left tomorrow morning. "I just…you didn't seem too surprised in there when DeBroe said the West African branch was merging with the east for the time being considering…" Considering most of the agents from the West were dead.

"I already knew," she said truthfully. "DeBroe told me when I got back."

"So what does that mean for you?" he asked, falling in step behind her as they walked to no place in particular.

"It means I'm being transferred."

His eyebrows arched. "Do you know where?"

She chuckled. "North America."

He stopped dead in his tracks. "Really?"

"Really." Her voice was monotone, stoic. Was he upset? She couldn't tell. Why would he be? If anything…

"How do you feel about that?" he asked, stopping and crossing his arms against his broad chest.

His biceps flexed and she felt like a fucking idiot for ogling at his arms like an ignorant pratt. "Orders are orders."

He laughed, a hearty laugh, one that she hadn't heard from him. Ever. It was nice. "You don't seem too thrilled about it. America's not that bad, you know."

"I know," she said sheepishly. "It's not that, it's just moving has all these….implications."

Realization washed over his face. "Leaving someone important behind?" he asked. It was pretty obvious even to her what he was asking. Why would he even care?

"God, no, nothing like that."

His eyes darkened for a moment and he wondered if she were telling the truth, why would she lie? She had nothing to hide from him. They were partners, friend's maybe and that was it.

"But with Tricell and WilPharma based in the states and the knowledge that they may be working with Umbrella, DeBroe says they want a consort of agents tracking them that have been personally involved. So he inducted me into your elusive club," she said, grinning up at him.

"Copy that. Well, welcome to the team, it'll be good to have you," he said, the look he was giving her completely genuine.

It was time he left for bed. She was looking up at him with a glimmer in her eyes and her lips were parted and her skin was glowing under the lights and she was, well she was something that he couldn't have. Part of him would have been glad to see her go. He knew during the first hours of their missions he had been cold and stoic and pissy and it was because…well it was because she was pretty and the last thing he needed was to get distracted by her... curves. But the knowledge that he would be seeing her every day for only god knew how long… it was troubling. Not that he wasn't good at controlling his urges, but this, whatever was budding for her, it was something far more than an urge. And he wasn't quite ready to explore that.

"Thanks," she said, brushing her bouncy strands behind her shoulder. "I'll see you bright and early then."

She waved gently and he watched her go, her backside swaying gracefully as she walked away. For a woman that had a mean right hook and could wield a weapon like the best of them she was surprisingly elegant. She was a chameleon of sorts, metamorphosing overnight, changing from a swooping vulture to a graceful crane.

"She's too young," he told himself, running his fingers through his hair before turning away and leaving. She was too young and he was too old and twisted. She was his partner and they had a job to do. Tricell and WilPharma were behind Uroburos in some way and they would find out how. Maybe he would finally get some closure at the end of this fight. Maybe then, he could finally move on and have a chance at life.