AN: I am going to enjoy this story far more than I expected when I started writing it.. So many songs that make me thing about it.

"I want to heal you, pretty sweet. I'll throw rose petals at your feet. I'll spend eternity comparing all my poetry to yours. I want to see love through your eyes. You'll never have to compromise. I'll give up all my fame to fight you demons and your bloody wars." Liar by Emilie Autumn


"I never pegged you to be such a liar, Albert."

"My dear Victoria, you never really knew me at all.. You were so easy to fool, a few choice words here and there.. The right touch in between. So simple to manipulate. You were the perfect puppet.. Until now."

Victoria woke to a prick in her arm. The plane ride had been short enough for her to sleep almost the entire way through, and while Excella re-entered the main chamber, a fair faced man set next to her. He waved a needle about to her with a smile, capping it off and stowing it away.

"Good morning, love."

"Good morning, Alec."

He had raven black hair as well, Excella noted. He seemed to be no less than Victoria's husband; they embraced each other so fluidly that it looked very natural. She couldn't help but wonder if Victoria had married into ZydraCal, but that question would only be answered in the future.

"Thank you for catching my dose. I forgot to prepare it before I left for home.."

"I know you well, Vicky."

"This is Excella Gionne.. I told you about her, didn't I?" Victoria glanced between them for a moment.

Alec followed her gaze to Excella, and he nodded to her in greeting. His eyes betrayed no striking color, looking much more plain than the woman he called his wife. He was sharply dressed, she could say that much for him. The dark red shirt beneath his suit coat suited him.

"From TriCell, yes? I remember you saying something… This is all about -him- isn't it?" Alec reached for his wife's hand. It was indiscernible whether it was a sign of concern, or a sign of jealousy.

"I brought her here because I know I am not the only one who wants to watch Albert Wesker eat his words. He is an enemy to the entire world, Alec.. This needs to be done."

"Yes I know, you have told me a thousand times." Husband and wife exchanged harsh glances. The seeds of argument.

"I'm sorry to interrupt your lover's quarrel, but I'm afraid I am being left in the dark on all of this still. Victoria slept the entire way here, and told me nothing in detail before we left," Excella piped up.

It was likely a good thing, as it distracted both of them from the underlying cause of Alec's ill mood. Surely, he was jealous of his wife's sudden fascination with 'saving the planet and annihilating Albert Wesker. Given their past, it only made sense to him that he felt so jealous. No one else knew, and therefore could not understand. Both Alec and Victoria were intent on keeping it that way.

"You know that we have created vaccines for several of the viruses currently used in bio-terrorism. I have developed what I call a cocktail of them all, anti-viral DNA that can seek out and destroy most viruses in any given blood stream. I take this cocktail because I am just like our mutual enemy, but what happened to me was the production of the viral anti-bodies rather than permanent mutation of my own body. This cocktail helps me keep it under control, effectively flooding T-Virus Antibodies with those of another disease. Because of this, I virtually sweat global restoratives.."

"How is this going to help us stop Albert?" Excella found a seat near them again, awaiting an answer quietly.

"If I can get close enough to him, there are a number of things I could to do weaken him so that he would be easier to inject. My saliva also carries these anti-bodies, so--"

"So if you kissed him, it would be like giving him a small dose of the anti-virus." Miss Gionne interrupted. She thought she was getting the right picture.

Alec had the very same picture in his head, and he scoffed slightly in protest to his wife's plan. It was a familiar noise to her when she considered these things. Alec had all the spirit, but none of the voice when it came to their disagreements. He was too intent on keeping her happy to care much about his jealousy.

"Something like that, yes.. But it would have the very same effect on me, because the anti-bodies move quickly to strike the active virus. Some of them move so quickly that the attack is virtually unrecognizable on a microscopic level until it is too late. My body would be drained with the attempt to combat him, just as his would be drained trying to combat me."

"How are we going to find him?" Excella asked.

"He already moved to contact her. She received a phone-call from him shortly after the incident in Africa. Maybe a week or so later-- you were still unconscious in the hospital," Alec obliged by answering before his wife could even find the words.

She just nodded to confirm this. She remembered their brief talk, the total shock that consumed her the moment she heard his voice on the other end of the line. It may have been awhile since they had talked at all, on the phone or otherwise, but she would never forget that voice. Deep down, she even believed she would be able to recognize his shadow in a crowded room. This level of recognition was what had disturbed Alec so much about her plan. He did not like anyone having that kind of intimacy with his wife but him.

"He told me that he was surprised to see me on the ship, when I saved you. He went on to say something about how he should have expected me to be there, because I've always been like a snake at his heels.. Or something like that. Seems to think that I am always aware of his activity."

"Are you, Victoria?"

"For the most part, yes. Its hard not to be when I am still in the business."

Before anymore questions could be asked, the door open rather abruptly. A young woman with blond hair and blue eyes stepped up the stairs, followed by a little boy that couldn't wait to get to Victoria. Excella assumed that these were her children, but she couldn't quite convince herself to disregard the girl yet.

She was tall, built like her mother in everything except for her height. It was clear she was not Alec's child, for the boy that had ran up was eager to welcome them both home. The girl only recognized Victoria as family.

"Cassie, Morgan! Glad you two were able to make it," Victoria spoke.

Happiness rang out of her voice as she hugged her five year old son and her young adult daughter. Her age was hard to pin-point, but it was clear she was out of high school. Her Virginia Tech hoodie should have given away her place as a college student, but you never knew these days.

"Excella, these are my children, Cassandra and Morgan." Victoria introduced them.

Morgan did not move from his mother's side, and merely paid their guest a child's shy wave. Cassie was quick to step forward and shake hands.

"Excella Gionne, right? My mother was really interested in your case when she came back from Africa the last time."

"How many times has she been?"

"Ten times in the last five years, maybe? Since Morgan was born," Alec threw an educated guess into the air, receiving a shrug from his family. No one else had kept count.

"We should probably get going home. Morgan certainly has homework, and its Cassie's last weekend home before she goes back to college. Think you'd be up for dinner, Excella, or has the jet lag struck you?" Victoria moved to stand, slowly urging her son a few steps away.

"Dinner would be lovely."

And it was. The moment they arrived in Victoria's high rise penthouse, dinner was being set onto a long, obsidian colored table. It was a wide arrangement of more simple foods. Things like spaghetti, salad, even chicken nuggets for little Morgan whose appetite hadn't quite come to par with what he had been born into. It was quaint, and it reminded Excella of how different Victoria continued to be from other CEO's she had ever spoken to in her lifetime.

Victoria was clearly a very grounded woman, delighting in her son's story of how he found a earthworm in the playground at school, listening intently as Cassie explained the intricate details of how gravity effected the functional settings of machines at different altitudes. She watched her divide her attention equally between the members of the family, even pulling her guest into the topics from time to time. It was refreshing to see, and it reminded her that not everything was black and white.

"So, Victoria.. How do you know Albert?" She finally had the strength to ask after Morgan abandoned the table in favor of his Nintendo DS.

"Well.. I was a researcher a long time ago, and I was around him quite a lot, even when we were young. I worked with him and William Birkin on rare occasion, as I usually had my own research to do. Both of them were far ahead of me, as the corporate ladder went, so I was more or less a lab rookie. The only reason I got along with him well in those days was because of the research; we had a lot to talk about…"

"When Birkin met the woman he would later marry-- Annette, who was his assistant at the time-- that was about when Albert starting showing some kind of romantic interest. I thought nothing of it then, but as I look back on it now, I think he was just mimicking Birkin, trying to be better than him at something, at least."

"We did get married, and we had Cassie," Victoria paused to look at her daughter, who just exchanged awkward glances with the others at the table, " But when he joined the S.T.A.R.S…. that's when I noticed things really change. I was more aware of his power-hungry nature, and how determined he was to be the best at everything. I only thought it was harmless ambition. Then, it didn't hurt me, and it didn't hurt Cassie."

"When all of that craziness started happening in the Arklay mountains, I knew something was wrong. I claimed silly reasons for leaving him in front of Cassie.. But when we were alone, we fought about the virus and his work a lot. I decided I was done when he slapped me so hard I fell, and two days later Cassie and I were halfway across the U.S."

Excella watched Alec reach for Victoria's hand, and she allowed the gesture. Fingers intertwined, and obvious concern was portrayed. Cassie, however, did not seem daunted by the story. She had likely been told about it all before.

"I met her at a Bio-Terrorism summit in Colorado, maybe two months after she moved in with her parents and got her divorce. Neither of us knew at the time that she had already been infected, and to this day don't know how it happened.. But the moment I saw her, I told myself I had to take her out for coffee. So I did, and I found out what happened to her, and I fell in love with her a little while after that," Alec began wrapping up the story on a lighter note, " She was pregnant with Morgan before we got married, but I remedied that as fast as I could.. And now here we are."

"So you want revenge on him… for infecting you in the first place? For hitting you?" Excella continued to ask questions, but she wanted to understand why she was there, what she had to do with it.

"My personal motivations are far greater than that. For one thing, I don't want him getting anywhere near my babies. I don't want him wrecking the future they could have when the world is clean of all these terrible things. But most of all, I don't want to see another innocent woman, like you or like me, falling for his ridiculous tricks and the bad boy charm that gets us all in the end…"

Alec gently squeezed his wife's hand. That was his signal for her to stop. He didn't like hearing about Wesker, and it didn't bother him to remind her and everyone else of that. He stood, and did not relinquish the hand. He wanted her to come with him.

Victoria obliged, but not before glancing to Excella and pointing down a long hallway," The guest room is just down there-- your bags are in front of the door."

Victoria and Alec walked together to the balcony, shutting the window pane door behind them. They did not want anyone to hear, or at least, they didn't want to be annoyed by Morgan mimicking the noise of Sonic the Hedgehog.

That was the beginning of understanding. Excella was coming to understand not only Victoria, but how the pair of them were engaged in the same sort of struggle with the same man. Neither of them could claim any kind of deep emotions. Then again, Miss Gionne felt safe believing she never held them. To her, however, it was clear that Victoria was still very torn about Albert Wesker and Alec Powell. She did have the motivation to do what she claimed capable of. She wanted to cleanse the world of Uroboros, of Albert Wesker and all of the other dirty, unclean, violent viruses of the earth. All she wanted was a safe place for her kids, and Excella could respect that. Anyone could.