Disclaimer: Don't read if you don't like spoilers. There's a lot of those here.
A/N: Here is where the original story begins. Hope you enjoyed the prologue!
Sherry stood up in the center aisle in the plane. "I left something behind, I left something behind!" A few stewardesses rush over and comfort her. The panic attack overtakes her as she clutches her chest and falls to the row of seats across from her, barely breathing.
I've forgotten something, Sherry thinks.
I've forgotten. Something.
Something.
She can't remember what that something is.
Her eyes shoot open, and she groans.
Second time this week, she thinks. Sherry has always had a little flight anxiety; usually that would feature a few situational nightmares. The scenarios would usually be rather pedestrian; one time, Sherry is stuck while going through security and she misses her flight, in another her bag is too big to go in an overhead compartment, or in another, she'll board the wrong flight altogether.
The threat in this dream had been ambiguous. Maybe it's my Type-A personality, Sherry figures. I have it together, and this time I don't? She was steps away from consulting a web browser in her smartphone and looking up a dream dictionary; it would be like the grief counseling she had as a child after Raccoon City, all over again.
Cold, blue moonlight filtered into the white hotel room blinds. The temperature in the room was barely below tolerable, but Sherry wasn't ready to fumble with a thermostat with characters for numbers she'd have to decipher. Her mind was active and running a million miles a minute, but her body was in a state of rigidity. She knew that she would otherwise be asleep, but that wasn't going to happen tonight.
She rolled to her side and saw the boarding pass sitting on her nightstand. She was set to leave the Edonia City Holiday Inn Express and this whole godforsaken country for Washington, D.C. tomorrow morning. Admittedly, it would be good to soak her toes in American soil for the first time in six months; would be good to walk down the familiar hallways at work, go out for margaritas with her best friend, or even take a mundane jog in some ugly sweats around the neighborhood proper. The D.S.O was even nice enough to buy out the lease on her apartment while she was gone, and even went so far as to feed her cats and keep the utilities on.
A light emitted from her smartphone. Something inside her nagged her to look at the phone (as it usually is when those things go off), but she decided to rather attempt to sleep again. Her mind continued to run regardless, and she turned her thoughts to the events of this week.
After she and Jake escaped Lanshiang, the U.S. Government shipped them both back to Edonia, where they were both met by armored guards to be escorted to and questioned at the U.S. Embassy. Standard protocol after a dire mission that involves national security, they explained. Sherry managed to maintain her natural physical composure despite the stressful nature of the situation, yet Jake somehow still managed to remain Jake, just monosyllabic, curt, to the point, and blatantly factual, almost to the likes of hitting a hard, concrete wall.
Listening to Jake's answers in those sessions to the questions felt much like that. A giant liability - and a price tag rested on Jake's head, so the government was kind of at his mercy. There was a lot of yeahs, so whats, whatevers, and mehs emitted from Jake's mouth during questioning by the U.S. State's Attorneys that Sherry thought that she herself might give her inconveniently wiseassing partner a disciplinary backhand.
After questioning, they were to be held for a one week period before they would be allowed to go their own ways. They'd have to both go physical and mental evaluations with Army doctors, barraged with another round of questions by the Department of State, then finally, be debriefed by the D.S.O officially. The new president, who was formerly Vice President Josephine Bowman, was nice enough to put Jake and Sherry up at Edonia's capital city's nicest two star hotel.
"We decided to put you two in separate rooms," Sherry fondly remembers the call from the President, minutes after escaping the underwater facility in China. "This isn't a co-ed dorm," she said jokingly. President Bowman then told Sherry to rest up and that her country was proud, blah blah, we appreciate your service, then Sherry choked out a tired "thank you, Madam President."
Then, the week began.
Jake had been distant the whole time. Distant, maybe was an understatement; more like on the other side of the world. He would only look at her out of necessity, or when it was unavoidable. He wouldn't even give her mention during the questioning sessions unless she was part of the question, and his glances were short and furtive. He was slumped over with his head in his hand most of the time, shameless on showing his lack of interest.
Sherry was remembering one questioning session in particular.
A State's Attorney asked Jake, one day this week in front of a small international court, if he had any emotional attachment to the mission.
"No," he said bluntly, without emotion, without looking up. The stenographer in the background clacked seconds after his answer, looking unimpressed.
The attorney continued. "Do you have any emotional attachment to the BSAA?"
"Hell no." Jake looked upward. "You might be noticing a trend in my answers."
"Well, then," the attorney finished. "Are you at all at risk of any conflict of interest or emotional attachment to Agent Sherry Birkin?"
Sherry felt her throat swell. At that moment she didn't want to be in the room, let alone the same country, continent, or even on the same fucking planet as Jake Muller, and for a short while, she looked accusingly at everyone in the room, wondering whose goddamn great idea this was. A ball of nausea formed in the pit of her stomach.
She saw Jake twitch his lips from the corner of his eye. He shrugged.
"Nah."
Nah. Nah? She became even more nauseous with now a nasty case of dry mouth, but didn't have time to process her confused emotions since the same questions were now directed towards her.
No attachment to the mission, rather working with Leon S. Kennedy, an old friend, for a short while.
She considers Chris Redfield a friend by proxy, and Piers Nivans is practically responsible for saving them all as far as she's concerned, but otherwise no real interest involved.
And her partner, Jake Muller?
Just following orders, she said. The mission is all there is.
Maybe the nagging feeling would just be something that would simply go away. He was just another partner, and she had many, male and female. Once the mission was over...well, it was over. There was a chance that paths would cross again, but the reunions weren't usually warm, or even friendly for that matter. As a mercenary, Jake would certainly understand. Finish the job, move on. Bag it and tag it, as was the nature of the job.
He at least owes me one private conversation, she thinks. Maybe I owe him that, too. She realized that she had just been as avoiding of him as he was of her, as soon as she realized the game. She'd see him in the hotel lobby and then quickly disappear into the women's restroom, they'd pass in the hallway and Sherry would keep her head down, pretending that he wasn't even in her vicinity. It hurt her to do it, but she had to play the game just as much as he did. It certainly confused the hell out of her, but for some reason, she silently agreed to played along. Maybe it was swallowing her pride, and maybe it was just simply a matter saving face in front of her superiors, but each day closer to the flight home was like another blow to the head.
The mantra of the evening kept repeating in her mind.
He.
Wants.
Nothing.
To.
Do.
With.
You.
She remembered the the cabin, the J'avo attacks, the locker room, the railbed. The way he touched her, some of the glances and looks. How he saved her from catapulted shrapnel, twice.
All show. Nothing.
Her phone chimed again as a reminder, and this time, she obliged to reaching for it.
From: Jake
To: Sherry
You awake?
These had been the first words Jake had spoken to her in nearly a week. Her heart pounded with both unbridled joy and anger simultaneously. She wanted to reply with several texts, hell, she was ready to write him a goddamned novel. She wanted to punch him in the balls, she wanted to throw her arms around his neck.
Namely, she clearly wanted to write above all, What the fuck is your problem, asshole?
The reply she mustered:
From: Sherry
To: Jake
Yeah.
She confidently - and coldly hit send.
It was now nearly 4AM. But now she had an itch that needed scratching, and lying in bed, waiting for a text reply from him was ten times more painful than the experiments performed on her as a child, more painful than being stabbed in the shoulder by a J'avo spear.
The tension from the week and the insignificant half-closure from the text was more than she could endure. She felt like screaming.
So she did.
She buried her face into a nearby pillow and began to let fucking loose. Her muffled screams into the down pillow had enveloped her blonde head so deeply. Her screams slowly began to disintegrate into sobs. She didn't know who she was tonight, and what was even truth now, and the wave movement of her body convulsing to syncopation with her sobs was the closest to comfort she'd had in nearly a week.
The crying didn't last for too long. She didn't cry often; it was reserved for intimate moments such as these, where she could shut her mind off as easily as she could shut off the lights. She sat there on her side, in the darkness for a bit, so out of tune that she almost didn't notice the soft knock on her door.
"Sherry?" A voice said outside the hotel room door. "You okay?"
Jake.
You capture my attention
I'm anticipating,
I'm watching
I'm waiting
For you to make your move
-Lights, Toes