A/N: I was sort of irritated when they didn't mention the fate of Jill Valentine, or Angie Ashford in the last movie. Or maybe they were mentioned and I just missed it? Doubtfull, but whatever. So, anyway, decided to mess around, write a story about what was going on with them during Extinction, after Alice, Carlos, and LJ left. Only with Angie and Jill. Not sure how much time actually passed after they left, but this story is set three years later. Enjoy?
Edit: Much as I loved this story, I just can't seem to work up the inspiration to finish it. So from now on, this is just a one-shot.
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In Which We Remember
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She couldn't say she hadn't expected Alice to leave. The signs had been clear enough; the distance she put between herself and everyone else, the clouded look she would get in her eyes when she was planning something. It was there, and they saw it, but there wasn't anything they could do about it.
The night before she left, they'd been sitting in a small room in an abandoned hotel, eating the candy bars they'd managed to steal from a vending machine down the hall.
There was a body in the bathroom, but none of them made any mention of it, instead opting to ignore it, because the less that was said, the better.
LJ had cracked a joke about something or other. She'd never really bothered to pay attention, because usually they were vulgar and explicit, and she'd never really cared for, or understood them.
As LJ and Carlos chuckled amongst themselves, her gaze dragged along every inch of the stuffy room. She knew this would be one of the last nights they enjoy the comfort of a semi-warm room, as the next day, they would be heading out onto the road.
It had recently been established that constant movement was a must in order to survive in a world such as theirs. It was too dangerous to stay in large cities anymore, so they didn't have much of a choice in the matter.
It was about then, as she reflected on the faces of those closest to her, that she caught the eye of the one person that she could relate to most.
Alice.
The woman had been silently staring into oblivion when she suddenly gazed over at her. Something about her eyes was different that night. The way she looked at her was strange. She'd flashed a smile, and when Angie would look back on that night later, she'd wonder if it wasn't her way of saying goodbye.
Because the next day, Alice was gone.
She couldn't say she'd been too surprised when Carlos and LJ left. After Alice's disappearance, she figured Carlos didn't see much of a reason to stay. And LJ was such good friends with Carlos at that point, sort of the way she had been with Alice.
Sort of.
They had at least had the decency to say goodbye before they left. And by then, Angie hated everyone. Hated them for leaving, Jill for letting them, and herself for not stopping them—For not stopping Carlos, or LJ, or Alice.
For the first few weeks, she cried. She cried a lot.
Jill was at a bit of a loss as to what to do. She'd never had to take care of a child before. Hadn't babysat once in her life, and there she was, trying to raise a girl in the middle of an apocalypse.
Angie thought she would leave, too. She didn't, though. And after a time, things started to get better.
Or, at least as better as things can get, considering their situation.
It had been three years since they'd last seen Alice, two and a half since Carlos and LJ had left, and it was on nights like these—nights when they aren't going without sleep so that they can drive for hours, looking for a safe place to stay. Nights when they just lay in the jeep, and Jill let's Angie open the sun roof so that she can look up at the stars. Nights when it's quiet enough for them to relax, but not so quiet that they start to feel wary—when Angie misses LJ's jokes the most, and Alice's halfhearted attempts at conversation.
Because it's always on nights like these that she finds herself feeling like she's caught up in a dream. But then she forces herself to backtrack, because she realizes that these are no dreams, they're nightmares.
And she would very much like to know, pretty please (with a cherry on top), when it is that she'll be waking up.
