"Officially, Lieutenant Billy Coen is dead."
Thank you, Rebecca.
July, 1998
When Rebecca left him at the hilltop, a part of him worried that she would not make it out of the forest alive. He understood though, she had a job to do; but, she was nuts thinking that tramping through zombie infested woods was a good idea. She should have ran. Billy had half the mind to ask her to come with him, but what kind of life would that be for the young woman? She was just starting out.
Frankly, he hoped she would have a long, joyous life. That she did not run off to get herself killed following half-beat 'orders'. She kept things by the book, he gave her that much, but she was naive if she thought her superiors gave a crap about her. Only, he hoped her conscionable nature would not end with her buried six feet under, or reanimated as a walking corpse. Both were terrible options.
Billy fell backwards once again, exhausted from the previous night of fighting zombies and leech monsters, and all the nights before that. Honestly, he could have laid there forever, breathing a loud sigh of relief. In the last month, he was ex-communicated from the military, sent to be executed for 'murdering' twenty-three people he was forced to shoot by his superior officer, and was the scapegoat only because he refused to admit that the village was not unarmed and innocent. They blamed him. He was going to die for their negligence, and the military was okay with that. To top of his adventure, his escort was mauled by zombie dogs, and he survived unspeakable horrors.
Billy was 'just following orders' his whole life, and look where he wound up. He was alive, but at what cost? He did not even have his own name anymore, he would spend the rest of his life running away from authorities if he was found out to be alive. He sat up. He could no longer see the figure of Rebecca Chambers descending into the lumbering dark forest. He hoped the same would not happen to her, and that she would have a fresh start.
Just like she had given him.
August, 1998
For the first month, Billy tried to tough it out on the outskirts of Raccoon City, living small town to small town in an attempt to find money for a vehicle. He dreamed of returning to his hometown in Montana someday, but knew it would have to wait. Few people hired a nameless man with a tribal tattoo coating his entire left arm, let alone one that seemed as frazzled as Billy Coen.
Unable to find room and board, he was a frequent lock pick away from sleeping motel to motel. At any cost, the former soldier avoided Raccoon City. He couldn't afford to be seen by anyone looking for him; while Rebecca had successfully reported him as deceased, her justification was insignificant, as the chief of police dubbed her, as well as any remaining S.T.A.R.S. members insane for their 'inaccurate' allegations opposing the massive pharmaceutical company, Umbrella. Billy did not step foot into Raccoon City until he caught news that Rebecca, as well as fellow S.T.A.R.S. members, Chris Redfield and Barry Burton fled the city in search of shutting down Umbrella facilities in Eastern Europe.
After getting a job as a mechanic at the gas station in Downtown Raccoon City, the "Stalga", he managed to stay afloat, and purchased a 1994 Harley Davidson motorcycle that needed some attention, but would be up and running in about a month. In the same time, he would have had earned enough money to travel, and move on with his life. His position as the mechanic at the gas station was a need to know basis. He was paid mostly under the table, and few questions were asked. His boss was some burly old man with a gun collection that would put most arms forces to shame, so, Billy was sure that had a lot to do with his little care of who Billy was. Billy did not mind the odd man, however. He kept to himself, and did not ask a lot of questions so long as Billy came to work everyday, which was never a problem. For the most part, life had returned to an enjoyable snails pace for the former military man.
It would not be until September 20, 1998, that Billy realized he could not catch a break. He heard it on the news occasionally in his motel room. Bizarre murders happening across the city, but he tried to put it out of his mind. There was no way that could be happening in Raccoon City. S.T.A.R.S. wasted the mansion and the underground laboratories beneath it, that much he was sure about. Still, he started to carry a hand gun with him again, the same one from months prior during the beginning of the train incident.
He had seen a lot of bad in his life, but nothing as gruesome as what Umbrella had done. A part of him ached to get revenge for all of the people Umbrella killed or experimented on, for all the lives that they ruined... but his logical side fought with him. Billy had to look out for himself before he could become a freedom fighter, and he was top priority. He wasn't like Rebecca or her teammates; Billy already saw what the world could do to someone, with or without the help of bio-terrorism.
Whatever Umbrella was doing, it was not something new. It was just another weapon to replace the meat shields the military used to kill innocent people and deploy to war when ever their trigger finger felt itchy. Bio-weapons were not really that different compared to humans; it was still humans killing humans, only at a larger scale. In the end, there was no difference between Umbrella and the higher ups that people like Rebecca tried so carefully to protect. They were all people who would kill and use anyone to further their own agenda—and Billy wanted no part of it. He joined the military to help serve and protect his country—what he got in return was a swift kick in the nuts and execution plans.
No, Billy would not be apart of the system that saved the men that thought throwing away innocent lives was a justification over returning to base empty handed.
September, 1998
They say post-traumatic stress disorder effects everyone differently.
For Billy, it came in bursts, primarily when nasty, gnawing creatures were trying to rip his flesh off. Maybe he had gone numb, or a little soft; but he did not remember the intense bout of fear when their teeth came only an inch away from his flesh—the intense, radial panic that filled every bone in his body and pushed him into survival instinct.
He had destroyed no more than sixteen corpses in under under five minutes, piling them up around the gas station. Lapses in his memory were common, often time, he would spend hours, sometimes days going through the motions of everyday life until he snapped.
Billy snapped that day, loaded the pistol from the safe under the cash register, and went to town, spiraling a mountain of bodies around the otherwise empty gas station terminal.
"You just need to run!" His boss, Frank, yelled after him, bleeding profusely from the leg.
"No way, man, I'm not leaving you behind." Billy replied calmly, shooting another freshly devoured corpse between what should have been its eyes. He couldn't even see them as people anymore, they were just shambling monsters with sharp teeth.
With the last of his effort, he pushed the final one outside of the gas station, forcing a latch and lowering the shutter to the main entrance. Behind him, he could hear the man who had opened his doors to Billy gurgling and choking on his own blood.
When Billy reported to work that morning at 5:00am, this was not what he had expected to see come afternoon. The city was damn near peaceful up until a few hours ago, now the sounds of screaming, blown up cars and gun shots were wide spread through every corner. The tattooed man spun on his heels and charged at the injured boss who smirked. The man had a twisted look on his face, holding the gaping hole close on his thigh with his hands, while the wound on his neck continued to bleed out.
"Looks like this is it for me." he spurted, blood spraying from his mouth. Billy grimaced, touching his wound only briefly. What ever attacked him, it did not just bite. It tore the flesh right off of his bones. The back of Billy's mind screamed at him. Zombie dogs.
"We can still get you out of here." Billy offered, unzipping his blue jumpsuit down to his waist to remove the stench of fresh blood from his nostrils and revealing his tank top and tattoo. He ripped a piece of his mechanic jumpsuit as a make-shift bandage for the man. However it did no good.. Frank shook his head, and pulled himself into the mechanics garage where Billy's motorcycle sat trashed in the corner, wasted by some panicked idiot flying through the open shutter before Billy could get it closed. Outside, he could hear the gashing of their broken fingers slamming upright against the metallic shutter—a fruitless effort. There was no way they could pound themselves through the barrier.
"No..." Frank muttered, lowering his head, "I can already feel it clawing inside me..." He grimaced, tugging at the color of his shirt. He inhaled briefly, and Billy was at his side.
"Just...just put me in my car." The man muttered, to which Billy could only comply, slipping open the red vehicle door, and helping the injured man inside. His skin was fevered, yet cold and clammy at the same time. Billy could see that the man was dying, and knew all too well the next step.
He would turn. They always turned.
"That's...that's better..." he gasped, the life leaving his body as he slumped forward to the dashboard. His hands slipped away from his injury, allowing the pulsing blood vessels to flow freely, staining the car with a certain iron scent of death.
For a moment, Billy thought that he could leave the man like this, dead from the wound in his leg. Maybe he would not reanimate like the rest? Maybe one bite was not a death sentence after all. When the recently deceased man's finger started to twitch once again, Bill followed with a firm head-shake and reeled backwards. What was he thinking? Of course not. Cocking the gun, Billy did not hesitate to fire, spraying red along the drivers side and windshield before he took his turn to leave.
There was a sewer system in the back alley behind the gas station that would take him directly out of town. So long as military were not watching the borders of the city any longer, he could slip out mostly undetected.
He hoped.
"Frank" was the name on the identification card he presented to the military on his way out of the city. A 31 year old mechanic and gas station owner from Raccoon City with no living relatives outside of the bombed city. That was twice Billy was given a chance to live again, twice that billy had succeeded. If Billy Coen was never reported dead; he was damn sure that he would be now, along with thousands of other people that lost their lives, including Frank. Billy looked at the identification card he had swiped before leaving the gas station with a slight frown, listening to the some distraught blonde waitress, who arrived at the safe zone only a few hours after Billy did, spout nonsense about a 'sunlight' cure.
He titled his head and exhaled. If they didn't get bit, a cure wasn't needed. He was surprised anyone that had gotten bit even made it past the military check points. He honestly thought it would be a shoot all infected type of situation...but maybe, just maybe the military wasn't so heartless. That, or they didn't want the negative publicity, especially not after bombing an entire city. Billy cracked his neck to one side, and cracked his knuckles, thumbing the identification card into his pocket as another set of survivors approached the safe zone.
A man with a terribly wrapped bullet wound in an R.P.D. uniform holding the hand of a small, blonde haired girl approached Billy who was outcast from the rest of the group. The second Raccoon City Police officer to turn up alive from the incident. Out of a police force of nearly two hundred men, Billy thought the survival of only two was pretty significant. The others probably died in battle, and his heart ached for only a moment.
"You're the second cop." Billy offered disheartened, as this was not his first rodeo of death and carnage, he had a more translucent appearance of care in his eyes—opposed to the wild, surival instincts echoed through the eyes of the police man standing before him.
"Was." he replied as the little girl tucked her head behind his back to avoid the crowd. "Is this all that made it?" His young voice barreled out of his chest as a sharp plea. He stared at only a dozen men and women who stood at the mile marker miles outside of the now desolate city. Billy shrugged in response.
"Thus far." Billy replied coolly as a brunette woman followed in the police officer's heels and blew right past him. Her auburn hair, tied up in a high pony-tail, shoulders tall and back straightened as she approached the man managing the survivors reminded him faintly of the dainty shoulders of his own former companion, and he scoffed while folding his arms.
"Hey, what's your-" the police officer had started, but Billy was already gone. He wasn't going to wait around for the police, or the military, or whoever they were to poke and prod at his story. This was only the start of a very unfortunate downward spiral, and he wanted nothing to do with it. Billy wouldn't be a hero for long once his face made it through the media—his familiarity as "Frank" to one "Billy Coen" was simply too cohesive.
No, Billy would take his new identity and he would leave without a second glance backwards. This, too, he would manage.
October, 2000
Raccoon City had been a bust, and now more than ever, survivors of the incident remained in the public eye, constantly raising awareness of Umbrella's treason and unnatural action. Billy watched most of the news through headlines, having changed his name officially to "Frank" after his deceased former boss. He never adapted to the change.
Billy never adapted at all, really.
When he was living in Raccoon City, he was working to gain some identity, some closure. The constant pressure of being found always hovering over his shoulders like an anvil was erased upon the destruction of the city. Billy Coen was officially dead, replaced by one pissed of Frank.
He hated that name.
Now, with nothing more than a cheap apartment, a drinking problem, and another dead end job, he wondered what exactly he was supposed to be living for. Why he tried so hard. Sleeping was frightful as it was, plagued by constant nightmares of not only the crimson lined gnashing teeth of death and carnage, but by the faces of innocent women and children whose echoed permanently scarred every inch of his memory. The monsters, the terrors of the night, he could forget those—even grow to accept those. They were brainless rotten corpses, and they were much easier to shoot than the beady, wet eyes of a child.
Billy shuddered, and threw the empty glass bottle of whiskey hard against the opposing wall, shattering the copper colored bottle into thousands of tiny pieces. The only release he found was booze, but that was not much of a life. Unfortunately, that was the life he chose. No family to go back to, and the friends that he did have were either still in the military, serving out the remainder of their duty, or dead.
Billy, he scoffed, Frank, was alone and while he should have been content with that, only now was he regretting his decision to play so defensively. Blindsided by his own deteriorating moral values, he convinced himself that there were no 'good guys' left in the world. However, the moment Umbrella fell, he knew there was at least one good person living.
If he had simply followed her into the woods that day to stop Umbrella—he might have been discovered and shot—but at least his life would have meant something.
June, 2005
When he runs into her again, it was by mistake, and unfortunately, not during some stroll around the park.
No, both were exhausted, covered in sweat, and sprinting wildly through a horde of infected when they collided into one another, falling to the ground in one swift thump.
Rebecca? He thought briefly, but had no time to recollect the memory, the sound of mashing feet behind him, and the sound of familiar squealing of loud, unholy monsters brought him to his feet quickly, dragging her along with him.
They barreled over a set of cars that laid strewn out in the streets of Brooks, Michigan, a small town, population 2,000 that had reports of bizarre murders of the Raccoon City variation. Billy had, after deciding that he wanted his life to mean something, started his own reconnaissance missions to prevent the spread of viruses and malice created by governments and companies. A hired mercenary of sorts, except, he took only the jobs that he was interested in.
Maybe it was fate that he ran into the woman at this point in his life, fleeing from a horde of undead and mutated freaks, but he wouldn't have time to think about it as Rebecca veered to the right, diving into an abandoned train station with Billy on her heels.
Ahh, trains. He thought bitterly, tucking his gun into his holster and removing his dark sunglasses. Finally able to catch a short break as their sprint died down into a stride. His first choice of an escape route was most definitely not a dark, isolated, sitting duck of a train station; but he made no complaint, feeling compelled to follow the former S.T.A.R.S. member. They had walked in nearly complete darkness for several minutes, maneuvering one of the darkened hallways that lead into an abandoned mine shaft before Billy thought to speak.
"What are you-"
"Shh!" Rebecca hissed, holding out her hand to silence him. She drew her gun carefully now, and Billy sighed quietly, following her pursuit.
Obviously, she knew something that he did not. Making her way around a few boulders, and following her up a steep incline, he could see the discreet efforts made to mark a path. This must have been the way she had entered the small town previously. He cocked his jaw suspiciously as she watched her shoulders drop as the rays of the sun became illuminable at the base of the incline.
An escape route. She dashed ahead, nearly leaving Billy in he dust as she approached the exit of the cave, gun still drawn. She scout the area, before turning back to Billy who emerged only seconds later. Sharing only a brief look with him, she reached down to grab her radio quickly as it started to spew static.
"Rebecca, are you alright?" The deep voice screeched from the other line of the radio.
"Yeah, Barry, but Brooks was a bust. The whole town was over run before I got here." She echoed back, turning a corner to walk up the hill further. Billy followed quietly, wanting to see what she saw; only to grimace once he did.
Nearly the entire town could be seen from the hill top, including the abandoned train station that Rebecca had led him into. Smoke erupted from some buildings, even more from cars, streets and trees.
"...Were there any survivors?" Barry's scratchy voice called to her. Rebecca turned slowly at Billy, who watched with only the faintest amount of amusement and then raised the radio to her mouth once again, pressing the button.
"No, sir. No survivors." She confirmed, hearing what Billy could only assume was a sigh from the other end of the radio.
"Alright, we will send in a team within the hour to secure the area. Get to safety, Rebecca. Over and out." Barry's final command was met with a quick turn from Rebecca, who immediately tucked the radio back into her supply belt and tilted her head at Billy.
"I thought you were dead." Rebecca said hurtfully, beginning her stroll down the hill, followed carefully by Billy. They would have to walk as they talked, because they didn't have time to dilly dally at the foot of the hill. It drew far too much attention, and either missiles or a swat team would be in soon to clear the area, and Rebecca didn't want to be around for either of those events.
"Yeah," He paused thoughtfully, the idea having never crossed his mind. "Well, I'm not." He added mutely, earning a calm look from the former medic.
"You should have contacted me and let me know." She paused pressing through some shrubs at the end of a dry forest. Luckily, there wasn't snow on the ground yet, or this job would have been increasingly harder. "I thought you died in that forest outside of Spencer's Mansion." she finished, only sparing a short glance at him as view of her vehicle rounded the corner.
"Didn't exactly think news of a wanted fugitive would be something an aspiring super hero such as yourself would be interested in." He replied in the same, calm, slightly snarky tone as she remembered.
Rebecca scoffed slightly pulling out her keys.
"You're not a fugitive, Billy." she said sedately, referencing the idea that he had technically been deceased since 1998. The way his name rolled off her tongue made his spine tingle. He hadn't been called by such in years. He tried not to visibly flinch while she dangled her keys from her hand.
"Need a lift? I don't think you want to be around when the B.S.A.A. send out their operatives and after your landing, I think your car is totaled." The upturn of her lips forced him to frown at the memory of his own sloppy entrance into the small town. He didn't expect things to be as bad as they were. Billy expected at least some of the town to be alive when he arrived on location—all of them—that wasn't the case, however.
He tilted his head. "Alright."
Billy climbed into the passenger seat of the military grade jeep that Rebecca drove into the mountains. Turning the engine over, she slipped on then buckled her seat belt with Billy following suit. A basket of maturity surrounded the once rookie member of the police force. She drove carefully down the same spiraling hill that he had drove up only a few hours ago, and made easy work of the boundless curves and bumps in the roads.
Overhead, he heard the familiar whistle of jets swarming by, and had to fight the urge to poke his head out the window to check for himself. Apparently, missiles were the best course of action in this place. He didn't blame them.
When the first bomb landed, Rebecca was already miles away, the speck of fire rising from the forest burning into his pupils as he turned to watch the infested town drown in a sea of fire. Following the explosions, military helicopters followed, marked with the tag "B.S.A.A". The clean up crew to make sure they did not miss anything in the bombing, Billy deduced. He turned his attention back to the road, and fought the intense urge to question why Rebecca a trained medic of all people was at that circus.
Billy was hired to investigate the reports of a missing relative that disappeared into Brooks a week ago, his reasons were clear and his objective was neat, tidy, and already dead when he arrived; but Rebecca, there was hardly a reason she needed to be there. A better suited military man, perhaps, but not Rebecca.
"Other operatives were injured, or otherwise occupied." She said flatly, as if reading his mind. Her conclusion was then justified at the ramification that in the back of the jeep, she only held medical supplies.
"The town wasn't supposed to be over ran, but at such a small population, I thought I could handle it." she added hoarsely, pulling off to the side of the road at a gas station twenty miles out of the next city.
"You did pretty well." he complimented, feeling the engine come to a roaring stop.
"Better than you." She joked, recalling his entrance into the dead town. He came blazing into town in a 1966 loud as fuck, black El Camino, dressed in a black suit and tie business attire, packing an excessive amount of heat. He laughed at himself and rubbed his tired eyes.
"A missing persons report doesn't automatically raise a red-flag of infection regardless of strange murders." He commented absentmindedly as she shifted the gear into park. Stoically, she looked forward, having formed a permanent frown over her once naturally upturned lips.
"Why don't you join the B.S.A.A?" She fumbled over her words slightly. "We don't get many trained soldiers, and cost of training new recruits is expensive—and it still doesn't prepare them for what's really out there. We could use you."
Rebecca turned at him with those wide green-blue eyes, and for a moment he might have agreed. He, and she, and all the survivors of Raccoon City could agree that nothing could prepare a solider, or an operative, or really, anyone for the horrors the lurked around bio-terrorism, but he shook his head refusing before his brain could answer why. Though he was sure use him ad a heavy negative connection to the idea.
"No thanks," he loured. "Pretty sure you don't need a 'deceased' terrorist in an anti-bio-terrorism group." He remarked sinfully, recalling the B.S.A.A's protocol.
"But you're not a terrorist." She argued, her voice pitching for emphasis. "No one even knows that you're alive, and those that do won't be able to make an appropriate, viable connection."
Rebecca's argument was valid, but still, Billy wasn't ready to take up arms for another government ran operation—not when he was his own boss, under no pressure to do anything he didn't think was morally correct. He shook his head once, and then offered her a simple smirk.
"No, thanks, doll face. I've already had my share of orders." He said carefully, slipping on his shades and clicking the jeep door open. Rebecca didn't seem as pleased with the recurrent nick name, only ever used by one former lieutenant.
"The B.S.S.A. isn't like that." She offered pleadingly, but he had already made his decision by stepping out of the jeep and looking in at her with a soft smile. Her frown deepened.
"Sorry, Rebecca. It's not going to happen." He assured her, his playful tone taking form of a more serious manner. Rebecca exhaled quietly, and looked down at her steering wheel, having no other excuse than to accept his refusal.
"Alright." She muttered as he took one step away from the jeep, ready to close the door. "But if you ever change your mind, the offer still stands."
"Thank you." He replied quietly, curtly nodding at her as he shut the door. The open window giving him only brief contact with her eyes one last time. She almost looked sad, but Billy put it out of his mind.
"Maybe I'll see you around?" He suggested. With a soft smirk, Rebecca winked at him before putting the vehicle into drive.
"Maybe."
February, 2009
This time, it was intentional.
Billy, otherwise known nationally as 'Frank' wasn't hard for the brunette woman to find through her network provided by the B.S.A.A. Rebecca called him from across the United States; he was currently seated in Maine, she in Washington. The phone call was short-lived, but to the point; as many of her requests were. Sometimes, when Rebecca needed something done outside of her restrictions, she would call the mercenary for assistance. What could she say if someone came in and completed a difficult job before her, using the appropriate methods, instead of the one that the service required?
If she needed that someone, Billy was the one she could call to do it.
Had he known the situation, however, he would have rethought this one specific detail—typically, Rebecca didn't lead him astray, as her motives and morals were always on point with his own, but this time—he wasn't so sure.
He rested his shoulders against the back of a metal supply crate, dressed in black cargo pants, adorned with several belts to which he held a plethora of weapons, but most prominent, was the traditional handgun squeezed between his fingers. Rebecca leaned against the metal crate beside him, having just been shot in the shoulder by a stray bullet. She used her fingers to slow the bleeding; but was no where near her medical kit to pamper with this type of wound.
"Come out with your hands where we can see them!" The man with a thick Jamaican accent shouted, and Billy turned to face Rebecca, ripping off a sleeve of his shirt as preparation for a make-shift bandage. She wasn't bleeding out, luckily, the bullet hadn't gone straight through, which would be more complications later on. Right now, however, that was what they needed.
"I thought you said the facility was abandoned." He crooned, swatting her fingers away from the wound.
"I thought that it was." She hissed as his broad fingers tied an eccentric knot around her shoulder. She released a sigh of gratitude, but her discomfort was no less than it was. Billy sighed.
"They must have heard that we were searching for information about Africa..." She muttered breathlessly, checking her pistol for ammunition, though she couldn't grip the weapon properly with both hands because of her injury. She instead held it up with her right hand and exhaled.
Billy adjusted himself once more, listening to the bemused anger of the men that surrounded them, and knew that their time was ticking to a close. He sighed briefly and pressed her to a squat. He motioned with his finger for her to stay quiet, and then carefully revealed a grenade from behind him that he had ripped off another soldier previously. Without much thought, he tossed said weapon into the distance after pulling the pin, and it exploded, creating a stir up of dust.
Billy yanked Rebecca forward and to her feet, keeping her just low enough that stray bullets would pass above them as they dove into the narrow passage to safety. Luckily for them, Billy always came prepared, while Rebecca was quite honestly under the belief that this was a simple reconnaissance mission—having only called Billy just in case things with south; and boy, did they ever. He held tightly onto her arm, practically pulling her along with him as she lost just enough blood to have become woozy. The men yelled after him, but Billy kept them in a sprint.
"Stop right there!" A man yelled beside them, causing Billy to freeze naturally. He and Rebecca both stopped, directing their attention to a shaking man with an automatic rifle. He seemed jittery and Billy's eye lids lowered.
"Drop your weapons!" he screamed, his accent barely coherent enough to understand. Rebecca did as she was told automatically, though Billy, who could hear the sounds of feet parading down the hallway they just came from, knew that regardless of if they went peacefully or not; they were dead if they didn't act fast.
...and so he made the tough call. The hard decision. He lowered the gun slowly, as if he were obeying the man, and waited for just a single moment of weakness. The enemy sighed slightly, blinking for maybe a minor second, causing his finger to wiggle away from the trigger—a chance.
Billy fired before Rebecca could argue, the man opposite of them lying dead without a complaint—shot between the eyes without the messy spray of bullets provided by an itchy trigger finger. Billy cursed. This was why not everyone should be allowed to hold a gun, the boy he just shot couldn't have been older than sixteen—and because he was stupid he just ended it.
Without much time to think, Billy reared a shocked Rebecca to her feet and pressed her through the next hallway, pushing her along until they reached the outside.
"You still have that stupid disk?" He groaned as they raced towards her military jeep. She threw him the keys and he caught them naturally as they piled inside.
"Yes, I have it." She mused tiredly, slipping into the passenger side right as their enemies rounded the corner outside, screaming for them to stop and screaming for others to get them.
Billy shifted the car into reverse, and then whipped it around quickly before drifting into drive and speeding off down the road. Rebecca groaned beside him, holding her arm. He glanced briefly at her, pissed.
"I hope that damn thing was fucking worth it."
"It was!" Rebecca whined, wincing in pain at her rise. She grabbed her seat belt after going over a bump that nearly caused her head to fly through the roof, and fashioned herself down. "It might have something about..."
Jill. He thought, remembering clearly the first time Rebecca spoke about her comrade whose body was never discovered. After her disappearance, Rebecca felt responsible to pick up the slack in her absence, taking on jobs that would otherwise be too stressful as a medic—and trying to keep pace with her companions so that they wouldn't have to work so hard, especially for Chris, who was the most beaten up about his deceased partner. Billy shook his head shortly.
He supposed, once you survived through hell with someone, it created an unbreakable bond—which was why he even found himself in this situation to begin with. He wasn't stupid enough to think Rebecca was as strong as Jill, or as talented as Claire. Rebecca was a protector, a healer. She wasn't supposed to be doing the fighting.
"Billy," She called to him, looking over at him with wet eyes. "I'm sorry that I brought you into this." she muttered tiredly.
Billy exhaled. He could not look at her right now. Not after shooting someone, a living someone for the first time in over ten years. He could barely think straight, let alone look at her, the first person he had ever shared his story about how he was forced to kill over twenty people. She was probably mortified by his instinct to kill so quickly—but he knew, he knew, it was kill or be killed. Not everyone could be a good person like Rebecca, or classified as downright evil without repercussion like Wesker. That is what separated him from the B.S.A.A. Why after so many years he could not join them.
Billy was not afraid to kill someone if he had to, no matter the cost, no matter the person. The scariest of all, is he could do it without it weighing him down. Billy was a killer, and he always chose to save his own skin, her skin before he would even consider saving someone else. He wasn't good, and he was far from noble. He couldn't shut off the soldier any more. He was the soldier.
He reached over to pat her shoulder, as if verifying that she was okay and still there. She blinked at him, but he remained focused on the road.
"It's okay. Just no more of this hero shit, ya' hear?"
Rebecca smiled softly at his harsh, reassuring tone and slipped one of her hands over his reassuringly.
"Okay." she said warmly, thumbing the protected disk in her pocket, hopeful that it would give them some idea about Jill—if she was alive.
July, 2010
Her skin was like fire, a beautiful drug that warmed him to his very core when his body was pressed against hers beneath tepid sheets. A bad habit for the both of them, meeting like this; forming a customary bond before missions, after missions—sometimes during missions. They worked together more times than he could account for in the last year—and was damn near the point of believing she wiggled her pristine fingers just deep enough under his skin to unofficially make him a member of the B.S.A.A. Damn her.
The erratic movements below the hotel sheets bellowed an unbelievable amount of moans, a breathless array of gasps, and a few rough grunts; coming to a stand still and slow down as a final thrust was made, eliciting a noise of pure alleviation beneath him from the brunette woman. No longer the timid girl that she was, she looked up at Billy, and ran her very gentle fingers against his jawline, and pressed her lips to his earnestly. Kissing her was a drug, one he was never too keen on attaching himself too as he rolled off of her, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Shifting out from beneath the sheets long enough to fetch his discarded jeans, he pulled up his trousers and buttoned them quickly.
Rebecca shifted in the bed beside him, pulling the blankets up just high enough to cover herself, but not high enough to hide the painful reminder of her previous bullet wound. She had spent nearly two hours in surgery getting the bullet's many pieces out of her shoulder, and as a result, a nasty scar was left in its wake. He slumped downward, extending his fingers to touch the vibrant scar and rubbed it gently. She, however, took his hand and guided it up to her cheek, where she pressed against it with an adornment in her eyes to rival his own demons.
"You're not a bad person, Billy." She told him, kissing his wrist carefully before he pulled his hand away and blinked sincerely at her.
No, he was not a bad person, but he wasn't good either. Somehow, he worried that he would bleed into her, configure her beliefs to match his—damage her super heroism. Damage her. He briefly pressed forward, not the type to usually display a massive amount of emotion—rather-conditioned to show little emotion, and pressed his lips firmly against her own; her short hair fell against her jawbone as he stroked the side of her face tenderly.
Yet he couldn't stop himself. Something about her, only her, had a strange affect on him. It made the nightmares manageable—nearly disappearing in the background every time he saw her. Billy was prepared to do what ever he could to keep that. To keep her, and her happiness. To keep her alive.
While he was barely a speck of dust floating in the wind to the world; that did not resonance the same for the woman before him.
The world needed people like Rebecca, and he needed her.
December, 2013
He would never. Never get used to the idea of wearing a wedding ring, even after three years of doing so. Billy would also never get over the fact that he had to take his wife's last name, over his own. Sure her reasons were legitimate, as he couldn't be known as "Billy Coen" officially, but "Billy Chambers" was...; his southern parents would have been flipping in their graves.
On the bright side, he didn't have to go by "Frank" officially anymore; even if his birth date was screwed up and he was written off as five years older than he actually was in all of his certificates. Hopefully, the government—Billy eyed Leon from across the room—would never catch whiff of his insidious actions, otherwise, he was under a lot of identity fraud. Frank was dead—Billy knew that for damn sure—but just because dead men couldn't complain, that didn't mean that he wouldn't have a lot of explaining to do. The good news, however, was that only Rebecca seemed to know who he really was, and no one else seemed to care who he was; they only cared about who he is now.
Pattering feet ran at him, almost knocking him over from surprise. Billy looked down to see Rebecca's bright, hazel eyes staring up at him, over the face of a timid two-year old child with out-stretched arms, wearing a red and pink holiday dress.
"Daddy..." She pouted. "Moira won't share her 'nacks" The young girl whined. Letting out one of the first real smiles of the night he reached down to scoop up the small girl into his arms and then lift her with a bounce; immediately a sound of imminent laughter sprayed from her throat.
"Maybe we will have to go see about this Moira, wont we?" he whistled into her gleeful squeal as she wiggled happily in his arms.
That, was also something he never thought he would experience, or hear. Daddy. Most people with his life, with his background-a killer, a survivor, a prisoner, a fugitive, a soldier—they didn't see happiness at the end of their day. Most of the time, their joy was the end of a bottle; or the barrel of a shotgun at the horrors that he had witnessed in his life.
Watching his friends celebrate their annual Christmas bash, welcoming new-comer Jake to the folds, he knew he could have never done this alone; that there was much more to life than simply running. He turned to his wife, Rebecca, who gnawed playfully on a tree-shaped cookie and nudged her gently to gain her attention.
"Daaaaaaadddd, auntie Jill needs help! I'll save her!" The innocent child bellowed while fighting for freedom against his clutches—so easily distracted by the next best thing. First Moira, now Jill. Her set her down promptly, allowing her plastic shoes to dance mercilessly against the tile floor, over to a pregnant Jill who had dropped her fork.
"I wonder what she'll be like when she's a teenager." Rebecca cooed smoothing her hands over Billy's covered arms.
"A hell raiser." Billy quipped and grimaced, causing Rebecca to giggle sweetly. Billy looked down at her, pressing his palm flat against her stomach.
"I think this one is going to be a boy." he suggested, getting a flat-line frown from Rebecca, who raised her eyebrows.
"I've already picked out a girl name to match Rita." She uttered as Billy wrapped one around around her waist and watched the small brunette in question dance around gleefully; being scooped up by equally as paternal, Claire Redfield, and hung upside down, squealing.
"We'll see." he muttered, stroking her back just gently enough to remind her that he was there.
He was always there. Not just sometimes or when she called—he stayed relatively close, opting out of the mercenary gig for a safer, normal, more placid job as a mechanic working for the B.S.A.A. and training supervisor.
In the end, she had talked him into it; which looking back came as no surprise to him. Now, he would have argued that had he gone sooner—gone with her that day she decided to head into Spencer's mansion, they could have this sooner. But he wasn't ready, not until he learned of Rebecca's tendency to walk herself into a corner of bad luck, did he felt obligated to hang around to keep her safe. He looked at her fold her arms and carefully address and recount how many individuals were in the room—just in case. He smiled down at her, and guided her away from her obsessive compulsive thoughts.
At least he told everyone he stayed to keep her safe, the truth, however, was that she kept him sane, and kept him grounded; and kept the nightmares at bay. They kept each other safe: partners until the end... Which he hoped, for either of them, the end would not be any time soon.
FIN
Author's note:
So, I was finally able to purchase and then play Resident Evil Zero (thanks to the remaster) for the first time in like five years, fuck yeah. I beat the game for the third time after beating Wesker Mode and getting unlimited ammo. -needs a life- and I was like "yo, what ever happened to Billy". I'm sure there are stories out there like this, but this is what wanted to be written, and so this is what I wrote. It's sort of like "Jake Muller" in the way it's broken up throughout Billy's life. Also, it kind of overlapped with the end of "Jake Muller". If you want to see other characters fleshed out like this, drop it into a review and let me know.
Brooks is an imaginary town in Michigan. If it does exist, this one is not based off of that one. I think small towns would be the practice of bio-terrorism on a smaller scale in the turn that people wanted to practice their new virus, without the huge blow up of Raccoon City or China (RE6).
Also, I don't know where the alias 'Frank' came from. I used the world "frankly" and it just spawned.
Kiiiiiiind of got a little mushy there towards the end, which wasn't my original intention, actually. It just worked out that way. That's what wanted to be written I suppose? Yay, happy endings?
First fanfic in the Resident evil category in over a year. Hurray?
I didn't proof-read this, but I will at some point when I am no longer sick. Sorry for the errors.