Disclaimers: I do not own anything out of Resident Evil. All of the contents belongs to Capcom.

Calm Before The Storm

'It will only for you to understand. If only you will let me save you.' - Sherry Birkin

He shifts his gun in his clutch nervously, eyes peering into the darkness enveloping the little wooden cabin. His most-probably-temporary partner pressing her back against the other side of the door as the man pointed his gun onto every corner of the conveniently placed makeshift accommodation.

"Clear." He mutters under his throat and signals his partner that they are safe to enter.

The cold is just unpleasant as it was outside the blizzard. Icy mist seeping out her lips when she exhales, Sherry brushes the remnant of the snow sticking onto her jacket and her hair. She glances over her partner, Jake was busy searching for anything useful in the cabin to light a fire over at the fireplace. The splinter are dry but frozen solid that Jake knew it is near impossible to lit them unless he find else to burn. She contemplates for a while if she shall help but rejects the idea when Jake rummages through the shelf next to the window.

Bleacher, detergent, and something in a tin can that Jake has no idea what it is but dare not to try his luck. "Look what I found!"

Motor fuel.

One thing leads to another, in meantime, they are now waiting by the fire until the raging storm outside subside so that they can resume their en route to where their help will be.

They are tense. Really awkward.

Ever since they had awaken from the disastrous crash from the chopper and after Jake had witness her ability, Sherry notices fairly quickly that he is avoiding her. More like he is trying to keep his distance from her, being overly careful around her. Sherry doesn't blame him for his behavior for acting that way, she knew that he is expecting herself to mutate any time soon since she is indeed different in lots of respect.

For example; she is twenty-six (she doesn't know if Jake knew of this) but she looks like an eighteen years old juvenile just on her stage of enrolling into a college. Another one, up until she was twelve, she has never suffer from any type of infliction or debilitation. She doesn't even remember if she had ever had a scar.

And her wounds heal pretty quickly than anyone else normal. Very quickly. Far too quickly.

He plays with his lighter, flickering the lid up and down, up and down, but he never looks at her. Even so, his posture is rigid and he is extremely cautious. While Sherry can only folds bother her arm on her chest and waits. Waits. Waits. Until the minute stretches itself.

Eventually he hops down the table and hovers to the window. Mistaking his intention, Sherry quickly intercepts by striding to the door before him, "I-I'll go get help, it shouldn't be that much further from the rendezvous." She stutters nervously, hand already on the knob way before Jake can react.

"Wait!"

Too late, the blizzard forces its way into the warm cabin and Sherry nearly get caught in the storm. Her feet stumbles that she is almost drawn out into the raging storm, not until Jake pulls her back in to safety by her waist. "Fucking dammit!" He curses at the glacier hitting his face and with one hand, the door is slammed shut once again.

If there is another word explaining beyond awkwardness, that is what they have caught into right now. As Jake has Sherry securely in his arm and she is staring back at him with shimmering eyes.

For a moment, Jake's vigilance to this woman is gone for a moment. Unlike what he assumed her to be since the 'freak show' he saw the moment he woke up, all Sherry Birkin now is human. The fragility, vulnerability and the fear she brims in her frosty blue eyes clearly indicates that she is in fact, human. Not those mutants he had seen suddenly sprouting huge appendage limbs or maybe the gooey cocoons bursting out as those weird crow cross fly creatures.

But human simply doesn't recover a huge gaping wound on the back in like... three seconds.

They distance themselves again after short second, whether it is Jake's or Sherry's initiation is unknown.

The storm showed no signs of ceasing. Jake has not overlook the fact that he will be stuck here in this little cabin with... this girl with some super healing ability for a while. He huffs at the blistering snow petals sticking onto the glass, obscuring his view.

The sound of teeth chattering attracts him. Jake glances over his shoulder to see that Sherry has already bunching herself up by the flickering fire, her knees has brought up to her chest and she is shivering.

"Uh... you okay there?" He pulls it off pretty okay for a conversation starter, he thought.

Her pink lips is purple to his surprise when she tilts her head up to look at him. She is trying to smile but only ends up a wrinkled one when she speaks, "Y-Yeah. Just a bit cold... I g-guess. The gap on my jacket aren't helping m-much." Jake frowns at her, remembering that she was fine just a few minutes ago when she was shouting orders at him in the midst of the snowstorm and firepower.

He figure it must be her adrenaline rush just break off or something.

Maybe she isn't really a mutant that he thought she was after all... well, those J'avo freaks back on the snowy hill could kick his ass without a shirt on.

Sherry hears the distinct sound of his thick boots moving on the wooden floor again and when she looks up, Jake is sliding down the spot next to her, with his gun in hand. A pre-cautious against her she assumed. To her surprise, he scoots closer to her. Their thighs are touching, "Take your jacket off." He commands.

"W-What?"

Jake makes an irritated sound and scowled at her, "Look, it's not what you think. I just don't want you to get hypothermia before I get my money. No way I'm gonna carry your frozen ass over the mountain to get my 50 mil, ya' understand?"

Her perplexity remains in her blue orbs so Jake has no choice but to elaborate, "Okay. Sorry for my poor language but seriously; all I want is to get you warm. You ever heard of body warmth? Best source of heat in this fucking planet. That jacket of yours is just getting in the way."

"Umm... okay." Reluctantly, she slips the zipper of her jacket off, revealing a simple black shirt underneath. Her breath hitches when Jake yanks her petite flush to his build in the next moment. Without a word, Jake winds his arms around her and sighs. Jake is right, she thinks, his body warmth is way better than the fire itself. Gradually, her shivering stops altogether, and her teeth now no longer chatter.

His body is a bit hard against her soft one, he must have a very well-defined body. Sherry can just doze off any time soon...

"What are you exactly?"

She jolts at the soft whisper of his. She stirs to look at him and he has a bewildered face on when their gazes met.

He is talking to himself. He hasn't realize how he had whisper his thoughts out.

"What do you mean?" She demands, she can understand why he is careful around her but she is still slightly offended of what he thought of her.

Jake shrugged, "I mean... yeah, you have that super healing thing and that practically makes you a freak too... but you look like and act like a completely normal person so... I don't know what you are—"

She snaps, shoving herself away and retrieves her discarded jacket next to her. Well, she isn't angry at him for accusing her as one of the 'freaks', but she is angry of herself. Angry at that particular thing that makes her different from everyone else. It was what made her life miserable, and trap and... friendless.

Because everyone will look at her as a freak for having that kind of ability.

"Hey look, I'm sorry... I didn't mean to—"

"It's the G-Virus." She says suddenly, which brought an end to whatever Jake wants to say next, "The healing thing comes from there."

"How did you?"

His tone is soft, like he is seeking—begging—for her to answer. No doubt that he is too, curious of her background. Who wouldn't? For someone as special as her to have such special abilities. She shifts uncomfortably, as if she is trying to find where to start. "It was... a long story." Her memories return to the sewers beneath Raccoon City. When her dad, whom she didn't recognized anymore, infected her with the G, "And... brutal."

"Well, you can always tell me the G-rated version. I don't mind." He is making a light-hearted joke to her with good intentions, which she appreciated when she returns a smile to him. However, the topic is a little too sensitive for her to think about, much less the details in it. And... even though Jake is a partner to her, he is too much of a stranger to share the information about.

"My dad was a scientist working on B.O.W.s..." She starts off lamentably. Jake gives her a brief glance at the change of atmosphere. "His research killed him... and... mutated him into a B.O.W. So much that I didn't even know it was him—" She stops, the memories flashing through her suddenly sharpens.

"Go on." He urges her.

"...That time, I was trapped in Raccoon City. And my father- infected me with the G-Virus." She can't possibly tell him the method of her infection. So she stops just there, "And luckily, I was treated with the vaccine before it was too late. Or else... I would mutate like my father did."

Jake is silent for a moment, slowly registering her stories into his mind.

"You survived Raccoon City?"

"With the help of my friends, Leon and Claire. They are the only friends I ever had in my life. And they are my saviors." He notices how she has brighten a bit at the mention of her 'friends'. Maybe she did look up to them so much. He falters, trying to swallow the little bits of Sherry's life into himself.

Gotta be tough having her own father to turn into a weird ass monster and trying to drag his own daughter to become the same twisted monstrosity. Jake never had a father, so he can't tell how bad exactly it feels. He suddenly felt guilt for his smart-ass attitude to her. More so on how he tried to judge her even before he knew anything about her. It wasn't by choice that Sherry wanted to be infected with the G-Virus; it was her father's fault. Sherry never choose to get herself infected just so she could obtain the superpowers she had now.

She didn't choose to become a freak...

"And I was taken in by the government... and from there, my G-Virus got experimented. I got experimented. Only three years ago, they offered me some freedom by training me as an agent." She shared him the faintest ghost smile, "Believe it or not, saving you is my first ever mission ever since I regained my freedom after eleven years in captivity."

So she had spent her adolescence in without freedom? Jake gazes at her in wonder. Truthfully, he is getting quite fascinated by this woman beside him. She is not the least of what he was expecting when he first met her in that worn out Edonian building he worked in. Jake had an average impression of her at first: Some girl who skips college to earn some quick reps and legal cash that she chose to be an agent - in his knowledge that government agents get good pay but... he grimaces at the idea of being someone's lapdog.

Well, at least now he knows that she had a childhood just as fucked up as his was. In a different way.

"Saving me? Not me. Just my blood." He corrects her with a sarcastic edge.

"No, Jake. I am saving you!" The increase in volume makes Jake alarmed, "I am not saving you only for your blood, but your life as well!"

His interest piqued, "Why?" His eyebrow arches at her.

She stutters, to his amusement. Perhaps she is caught off guard by her own words too.

"Say that I am foolish if you want..." She whispers, "But maybe I am just trying to live up to Leon and Claire's example. To save a life, I want to save a life."

'A life, huh?' He considers for a few seconds. The corner of his dry lips arches slightly, completely amused by this little green agent's idea. "If that's really what you want, girlie, then trust me in this: Aside from my special blood worth saving, my life's not worth a dime. It's a waste."

"I don't think so, Jake. I think your life worth much more than your fifty million dollar pint of blood."

He steals a peek to her, but quickly shy away when he realizes that she is staring at him keenly. His gaze returns to his gun in his hand. How would a life like his - murdering and stealing from people - worth more than that hefty fifty million? Her philosophy is getting more and more ridiculous by the seconds. And here he is, finding himself intrigued to hear more of those ridiculous things.

It's been a long while since he had a silly chat like these. With his mercenary buddies, all he talked about was the money. Money. Money. On rare occasions, their kill.

"How so?" He asks.

And now she smiles back at him, with sincerity that makes Jake forget all the snow and chaos outside the little wooden cabin.

"It will only for you to understand. If only you will let me save you."

Now, a smirk on his face as he waves his gun dismissively, "Then... good luck in that, I suppose. Saving my life now is gonna be harder, with all that crazy freaks trying to kill us. And that behemoth..." His blood shrill at the image of that gigantic, buffed up humanoid creature. Yeah, more to his metallic claw thing and that spiky cage on the back customized specially to store Jake...

It is now Sherry's turn to laugh, "Yeah. Never giving up, no matter the odds."

Another of her silly, childish philosophy - she says that almost dreamily.

He looks at her directly in the eyes now, her stare is still at him. She is almost asking for him to understand, to let himself know how a life worth to her. Jake Muller knows that she is right: there's no way for him to understand whatever she is trying to deliver unless he lets her to.

Let Uncle Sam agent Sherry Birkin save the pathetic mercenary Jake Muller.

'Save me, huh?'

Maybe he'll just lighten her burden by saving her once in a while.

And his first opportunity begins at the sound of heavy footsteps and engines out the cabin.

He is only split seconds away from turning both himself and Sherry into a bullet sponge had he not tackle the clueless woman on the ground when a barrage of bullets destroys the poor wooden door.

Raising himself for only a moment, he sees the fascination in her brightened eyes. Maybe she still hasn't come to believe that he had just save her life?

He smirks, arrogance and confidence begin flooding his now adrenaline-filled systems.

"Speaking of odds." He says, pulling himself away from her and ready to shoot those idiots outside senseless.

She saves him. He saves her.

It's a start.

A.N: I noticed after a while that I haven't wrote a cabin scene yet about them. Which I found myself ridiculous because... well, all Jake/Sherry fans knew about the cabin scene and it's unacceptable if you haven't write anything about it. =.=

I've been busy catching up in real life but I will still find myself some time to write.

RFF! :)