Resident Evil: Bio-Memory Recall

by CapnHannahSolo

Chris and Jill finally acknowledge their feelings for one another after the events of RE 5, however, something has happened that put a rift in the relationship, and before they can reconcile, Chris is brutally injured in Edonia. Can Claire help Jill heal her relationship with Chris? Get ready kids, we're going on a "feel trip". ;)

3. Chapter 3

AUGUST 2012

Jill practiced the patience of saint in waiting for Dr. Mangus to discharge Chris, telling herself, although not fully believing, that whatever the psychiatrist said was indeed best for her husband's recovery. She continued to visit him as much as she was allowed, and the hospital staff, as well as Dr. Rosenthal gave her glowing reports on how much better physically and emotionally he was doing since her frequent visits. She did try on occasion to request when, or be given an estimated time when Chris could be discharged, but Dr. Mangus always either seemed to never have the time to speak with her directly, or would change the subject. So although, missing Chris and worrying of him constantly, she tried to remain composed and patient through everything, until the fateful day when the BSAA held a memorial for the fallen agents of the China mission, which included all of Chris' unit. Redfield had been allowed to attend accompanied only by his wife by Jill's request so that she could support him through the emotional turmoil. Although understandably saddened and somber through the event, Jill had felt at ease with how well her husband was handling it - that is, until toward the end of the program when Mrs. Nivans, the mother of Piers, found it necessary to spit in Redfield's face for allowing her son to die.

That had been all Chris could take. The following days in the hospital, regardless of Jill's visits, he fell into a depression so deep, he was placed on suicide watch. It was then Jill made another appeal to Dr. Mangus, and this time, she wouldn't allow him to push her aside or accept his lip service. This time, she felt very strongly that Chris needed to come home to be around people who loved him, and to help jog his memory of the good things in his life. Dr. Rosenthal lent his aid in persuading the BSAA and Dr. Mangus to allow Redfield's discharge from the hospital as well as grant Jill paid time off to care for her husband.

Claire Redfield arranged to be in town for the first couple of weeks Chris would be home, and the morning of the day of his discharge, she had volunteered to help her sister-in-law prepare the house for her brother's homecoming.

"I'm glad you were able to be here for his discharge," said Jill as she and Claire kept to the task of putting clean sheets on the bed. "I think it's really important after what happened that he be with the two people closest to him."

"Totally," replied Claire. "I can't believe that Nivans hag did that."

Jill shrugged. "She's in mourning same as everyone else, I guess."

"Regardless," said Claire. "I know I'm a counselor and I see this all the time, but I don't let my clients not take responsibility for their actions. Piers chose this life, which meant he was willing to take what came with it, including death. And it's bullshit that his mother just assumes that Chris wasn't affected by everything that's happened or how it happened. Doesn't that ol' bitch know that he's been in the psychiatric ward?"

"I don't know," was Jill's somber reply. She felt she couldn't allow herself to emote as much as her more fiery compatriot because if she did, she knew she was opening a floodgate to her own anger at the mother of a man who gave his life to save her husband. Out of Piers' memory and gratitude to him, she refused to say anything condemning.

"Dumb bitch," cursed Claire resolutely as she tucked a sheet corner under the mattress. She, on the other hand, was more than willing to say a lot more when she could get away with it.

Jill decided to change the subject to rid herself of the temptation to express her own anger about Mrs. Nivans. "I'm just glad Chris is coming home."

"Yeah, about that," began Claire, "why are we fixing up the guest room again? Please tell me that you just forgot that I can't physically stay in both of your guest rooms simultaneously."

Jill looked up at Claire rather doggedly.

"So . . . you still haven't told him yet."

"No."

"Why?" asked Claire slowly.

"What if in telling him, he remembers everything? He offered me a divorce before he left, and even when I told him I didn't want one, he kept fighting with me about it."

"Dammit, Jill Redfield!" announced Claire. "You now know that you just explained your true feelings wrong – that your deep respect that causes you to do loving things for him is founded in love. Why can't you just tell him that?"

"I just don't want to fight about it with him. And it was hard even trying to get him to believe that I had only misspoken earlier. He kept thinking that I was only trying to go back on my words so that he wouldn't be upset, and that I didn't want to upset him only out of respect!"

"Good grief," groaned Claire. "It's starting to sound like you've never actually told him that you loved him even before this fight of yours."

"No. Not in words," the other replied guiltily. "I didn't think I needed to."

"Well, I guess that probably happens between a lot of couples, but oddly enough most couples don't respect each other as much as you and Chris do. Without you acting out in affection before you were married, without you saying the words while you're married, he had nothing to fall back on to believe love is any motivation behind your words and actions. Jill, you have to tell him."

"How? I can't just bring it up out of nowhere and be like, 'oh yeah, by the way, Chris, we're married, and we had this fight where you thought I said that respect was the only motivating factor for marrying you and doing anything for you thereafter, but I just wanted to tell you that it's all not true, and that I'm actually in love with you'."

Claire shrugged. "I think that's pretty good."

But Jill only replied with an incredulous look.

"What?" said Claire defensively. "You know the longer you wait to tell him, the potentially worse this whole situation could become. He could still remember everything all at once, and then suddenly move out of the house when you're not looking to 'free' you from being in this marriage. He's just impulsive enough to do something like that. You know he is."

Jill sighed and sat on the end of the bed. "Yeah. . . . He is." She looked around the room, and blinked back a few hot tears upon the realization of what her husband was capable of, and how much harder it was going to be to convince him of her true feelings if that happened.

Claire watched her sister-in-law closely, and seeing her near to tears, softened her approach a little. Claire Redfield, like her brother, had always been more on the brash side, but Jill preferred to be more subtle and sensitive about things. Taking this to mind, as well as what she knew of Jill's childhood and how those events shaped her as an adult woman, Claire understood a little better how hard it was for Jill to face this. "I tell you what," she began. "How about I get lost for a while, and not come back until you bring Chris home and give you a couple hours to yourselves. Maybe seeing the house will jog his memory enough to give you some kind of an opening to talk to him."

Jill looked up at her and nodded with a slight smile. "Okay."

Some hours later, Jill was unlocking the front door, and leading a wary Chris into their home's foyer. "Here we are," she said, happy to finally have her husband's presence in the place again.

Chris looked around as though he were a potential buyer with a realtor, inspecting the building that was not yet his. "Hm," he said. "It's so roomy for just two people."

Jill was glad that he was too busy looking around to notice her blush at his comment. When they had bought the house a couple years ago, in conversation they had agreed that they didn't need a big house because, due to the nature of their jobs dealing with bioterrorism, it wasn't a good idea to try to have children, however, Jill had always had the feeling that the fact that Chris had bought a large house for them regardless, had been an unspoken acknowledgement that although it was not a good idea, he was still welcoming the possibility of having children with her in any case. "Well, Claire often stays with us when she's in town," she finally said.

Chris turned around, slightly confused. "Claire?"

"You'll remember once you see her," said Jill with a tender smile. "C'mon, upstairs."

Chris was mostly quiet as he looked around the house, and Jill couldn't really read his expressions.

"Does it seem familiar at all?" she asked as he followed her to the second floor.

"Yeah. More or less. I'm not really getting any distinct memories, but I feel at ease here. Like I can finally relax."

"Like you can walk around in your underwear?" she asked with a little laugh, stopping her ascent to turn and face him.

"Yeah, something like that," he said, returning her jovial manner.

"Well, you do that a lot."

"I do, huh?" Chris looked a little embarrassed, and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Must make you a little uncomfortable."

"Why would it?" Then, she quickly caught herself. "I mean, you did it all the time when we lived in your apartment. Guess I'm just used to it."

". . . Yeah," he said quietly.

And by the look in his eye, Jill could tell Chris just made a silent vow to not walk around the house with barely any clothes on for the sake of her comfort. All at once she felt very stupid, realizing that they had only been home a few minutes, and already she had passed up a few opportunities to tell him the truth. She turned back around to finish climbing the stairs, and he followed.

The first room they came to was the guest room Chris had quarantined himself in after their argument, and Jill began to get a trembling, nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach as she lead him inside. "I . . . guess I could give you a tour of the whole house, but you live here so you can go anywhere you like at anytime – there's really not much point in me showing you everything like you're a stranger."

"Except your room, of course," he said absently looking around the guest room.

Jill quickly tried to think of a gentle opening to say what she had needed to. "Um . . . actually, I don't have a problem with you being in my room. . . ."

He gave her a dubious look. "C'mon, if I walk around here all the time in nothing but my boxer briefs, I've got to give you at least a little space where you can escape it, Valentine."

It troubled her a little to hear him call her by her maiden name like a cold needle to the heart. "Well . . . actually . . . ."

"So I guess this is my room," he stated, as though he hadn't heard her start to protest his last statement. As Chris had looked around the guest room, familiar articles he had left in there prior to his trip to Edonia caught his eye, namely the picture of him and Jill from STARS days that was sitting on the nightstand, which he picked up for closer inspection.

Jill bit her bottom lip. "Um . . . yeah."

"Guess I'll get settled in, then."

"Okay. Sure." Hesitantly she began to leave the room. She had just made it back to the doorway, when his voice arrested her.

"Jill?"

"Yeah?" She turned around and waited, expectantly, half-praying for him to say something about the room not feeling right, half-praying he wouldn't say anything at all. "What is it?"

"Uh . . . ."

"Yes?"

Chris grimaced. ". . . It's nothing," he said finally.

Silently, Jill slowly turned back around and left the room.

It had taken Chris a few moments upon seeing her and hearing his sister call out "Big Brother!" before he recognized her, but once he did, he rushed Claire Redfield and whirled her around like a rag doll within his embrace. The rest of the day became filled with smiles and laughter amidst happy tears, mostly coming from Claire who hadn't physically seen Chris since sometime before Christmas. There was much Chris didn't remember, but he seemed to remember most of it as his little sister was threaded and entwined intimately within the recesses of his oldest childhood memories. There were jokes and happy moments he seemed to recall easily, which not only helped him feel more at ease with himself, but made Jill and Claire all the more contented and joyous having witnessed him recover more of what he had forgotten. But something that did not please Claire was noticing that later that night, after Jill had already gone to bed, and she and Chris had finally exhausted themselves from talking, that her brother retired to the other guest room.

The following morning, Jill found her sister-in-law sitting in her pajamas at the kitchen table with coffee already done brewing.

"Oh, 'morning, Claire. You're up early. I half-expected to not see you or Chris up 'til noon the way you two were carrying on last night." She poured herself a mug.

"Yeah," replied Claire in a slow sigh. "I was half-hoping to see Chris follow you into your bedroom last night." She gave Jill a stern look. "So, I see you didn't tell him yet."

"No, I didn't tell him yet," the other quickly replied in a hushed voice so the party who wasn't present wouldn't hear her. She quickly sat down across the table from her in-law. "And you know what, I'm glad I didn't!"

"Glad?" Claire was a little taken aback. "What's to be glad about?"

"I was thinking about it last night while you two were still talking. Maybe it truly is best that I never tell him."

"Why? How can it be?"

"Because . . . he remembers a lot of his past with you, and he remembers a lot of his past with me, but he didn't just fall in love with me overnight, you know. That was something that had been building between us since we were partners in STARS, only we just never told each other. I . . . think he forgot he's in love with me."

Claire was nearly aghast at Jill's conclusion. "Whaaaaaaat? No way."

"He must have forgotten, or those feelings would still be there with those other memories, and he hasn't said anything about it!"

Claire scratched her head a brief moment to quickly gather her thoughts. She was certain Jill was very wrong about this. "What makes you think he'd say anything? From what he knows, he believes you're only living together in the same context you were when you came back from Kijuju. He was in love with you then too, but he didn't let on about it until after you moved out, remember? I'm positive he didn't forget that he's in love with you."

"And what if you're wrong? Then I'd be telling him we're married for nothing."

"How do you figure?"

"Because . . ." Jill paused in erratic thought. "Because if he forgot, he might not like the fact that we're married, and we'd just get divorced anyway."

Claire was weary of all this now. "So . . . wait . . . so . . . you're telling me that although you love him and are fearful he'll remember everything including the fact that he offered you a divorce, you won't tell him that you're married and that you love him for the sake of him not liking it and asking for a divorce anyway, but yet if you don't tell him, he continues thinking that you're not married and not in love and . . . therefore that might be the only way he won't divorce you? . . . What? No matter which way that goes, no matter what you do with that line of thinking, you might as well just divorce him yourself right now before he figures anything else by himself because you can't act on being married to him regardless!"

Hearing it aloud from a voice other than the one in her head, Jill realized that fear was a very illogical animal . . . however, knowing that didn't make it any less powerful in its persuasion. "Okay – okay. You're right, but . . . dammit! How do I find out if he didn't forget that he loves me?"

Claire shrugged. "I don't know. Hide in his bed naked, and rip his clothes off when he gets inside – see if he acts like you've stumbled upon something brilliant."

"Claire!"

"Well, it'd be obvious and to the point!"

"I can't do that!"

"I think you should."

"And what if he doesn't feel that way about me anymore?"

"I highly doubt that's the case. In fact I doubt it so much, that if you did what I just said, he'd be wearing you like a jockstrap before you knew what happened."

"GEEZ, CLAIRE!" cried Jill, blushing profusely.

"What?"

"Morning, ladies," came an unexpected Chris, striding into the kitchen.

Jill and Claire cried out in unison while practically jumping out of their furtive skins at his surprise entrance.

"Whoa," said Chris casually looking over his shoulder while he poured himself some coffee. He was aware that although he didn't remember everything yet, he was pretty sure this was not a usual morning greeting. "I think it's time you two switched to de-caf."

For the remaining weeks of Claire's visit, Jill was continually thankful for her presence. The Redfield siblings seemed to constantly have something to either joke or tease each other about, and there was no shortage of memories that Chris regained. Jill could see the improvement in her husband's demeanor.

However, Claire did have to leave and rejoin her personal life and work. Without the distraction of his little sister, Chris' mood declined steadily day by day. Jill tried to keep a careful eye on him, and wished she had the kind of riotous spunk that only Claire seemed to be able to master to get Chris smiling again.

There were a few things Jill knew she had in her arsenal, but in order to use them, she needed to be more than just a friend. In order to use them at their utmost potency, she needed to be a wife.

But the admission of not telling Chris the truth from the start, and it now being several weeks after the fact, just didn't seem to have a place here.

One night, Jill decided to check in on Chris before she went to bed, feeling uneasy with the copious amounts of silence that filled the house coming from the guest room. She climbed the stairs, and stopped at the door. She nearly knocked, but this time, didn't, and just went inside.

The room was mostly dark except for the bright moonlight coming through the slats of the blinds, creating long shadows. She saw Chris, sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed with his back toward her. He remained silent even though Jill was certain he heard her come in. As she made her way around the bed to be on the same side he was, she found that he was staring blankly into the moonlight, with his hands propped up on his knees, holding a bloody BSAA patch that had once been thrust into his hand by a self-sacrificing Piers Nivans.

Jill sat down beside Chris, wrapping her arms around his much more muscular one, and laying her head upon his broad, sinewy shoulder. He didn't react to her touch.

Finally, in the stillness, his voice cut the silence like the moonlight to the darkness. "I killed them, Jill. I killed all those boys."

"I think it's time you put that patch away, Chris," she said softly. She moved her hand tenderly to try to take it from him, but his grip was like a vice on it.

"Ben Airhart . . . Carl Alfonso . . . Andy Walker . . . Finn Macauley . . . my whole unit in China . . . Piers Nivans . . . ." He swallowed hard. "Those boys had their whole lives ahead of them."

Jill was trembling inside, hearing his pain so clearly in his voice, knowing that she could never know how deeply he felt the guilt for their deaths. "You have a lot more life ahead of you too."

Chris quickly stood up, wrenching himself away from her embrace. "My life!" he exclaimed. "What good is my life? All it seems to do is either lead people to their deaths or inspire them to end it for my sake!"

Jill stood as well, fighting anger toward her husband for minimizing his own worth, for forgetting all his own sacrifices, and the lives he saved. "People die in this profession, Chris, regardless of who their captain is!"

"That's cold, Valentine!"

"That's the truth, Redfield!"

He turned away from her harsh gaze.

"And if it weren't for people like them," she began sternly, "joining the BSAA, willing to sacrifice their lives, this world would've burned a long time ago with millions of innocents!"

Chris whirled around to face her again. "The world is worth dying for, Jill, not me!"

At those words, she couldn't contain it much longer. Jill promptly slapped Chris across the face. The force of the slap was hard enough to turn his face aside, and he didn't bring it to look at her again. Jill caught her breath. She was still angry, but remorseful for slapping him although knowing that she couldn't have hurt him that badly for his resistance to physical pain and as the slap was only a means to get his attention. "Chris," she breathed. Jill came close and brought both her hands up to gently touch his seemingly unaffected countenance and turn it to face her again. He kept his eyes to the floor. She tenderly pulled him toward herself, inclined her face as she guided his downward, and leaned her forehead against his. "Chris," she breathed again. "Don't you realize that when you say that you desecrate the very thing I once threw myself over a cliff for? Don't you realize that those words dishonor Piers' memory? We found enough worth in you to die for you. Why can't you just respect that?"

He had no answer.

Jill swallowed back some emotion and continued. "Yes, Chris, they died under your command. Yes, you could do nothing to save them, but I also know that if you had been given the choice, you would have traded places with any one of them. There was something Alomar told me before we left Kijuju. Do you remember what happened on the aircraft when it was going down into the volcano?"

Chris still didn't answer.

"Well, Sheva told me. . . . . She said the two of you were holding on for dear life while the vacuum coming from the open walkway was trying to pull you out. Wesker was hanging onto her leg. She said, that at that moment, she knew she could easily end the whole thing and save the world right there; all she had to do was let go. She said she looked up at you, into your eyes, knowing that you would understand, but right at that moment when she let go, so did you . . . to keep her from sacrificing herself even with Albert Wesker helplessly dangling right there. She also said, that later on, in that volcano, you jumped on him after he had transformed to distract him, and ordered her to shoot through you to hit him." Jill took a deep breath to help keep her own emotions in check, but tears filled her eyes anyway. "Oh, Chris. . . . Your life has saved so many millions of innocent people time and time again. More than once it's been the one thing standing between them and certain apocalypse, so how can it be worthless to you?"

Chris couldn't answer her, but he saw how she was affected and that affected him. He didn't want her to be upset, but he also wasn't sure he yet had the ability to accept her words that he was worth anything. Years ago in Kijuju, after they had made it back to the West African headquarters of the BSAA, Chris had made sure that his ailing partner, Jill Valentine, had his emotional support after everything that had happened to her. He made sure he was never far away from her. He wanted her to know that he would even be close enough to fight her nightmares for her until she didn't need him to anymore. Right now, Chris hoped she'd be willing to do the same for him. The bloody patch slowly fell from his hand, and he reached up to pull her closer to him. Her body was willing to comply. Something about the closeness felt very familiar to him just then, but different in the sense that they were longtime partners and close friends – something was missing, but he couldn't know what or how.

Regardless of the fact that Chris didn't know the appropriateness of the affectionate act, Jill began to stroke his bottom lip with her thumb. She lifted her face a little more, bringing her lips to practically touch his.

"Jill?"

"Yes?"

"I need to ask you for a favor."

"Ask me for anything," she whispered softly.

He hesitated. He was not normally the one in the vulnerable position so this was difficult, and on top of everything else, he did remember, ever since he saw Jill that day in the hospital, how he had hidden his most tender feelings for her, and he was aware that he still was very much in love with her now, but just like he had been for more than ten years, he buried those yearnings deeply within, placing them in check behind his respect for her. But unrequited love or not, he needed something from her now. "Would you please stay here with me tonight? You know I'm not asking for anything else other than you just being by my side, I . . ." he exhaled deeply, "I just don't want to face this night alone." That was only a fraction of what he felt he needed. A desperate part of him knew it needed to feel her accept every fragment of him, the good, the bad, the strong, and the vulnerable. If this woman he adored so much could accept all of him, then he could be at peace with his controversial existence . . . but he knew she'd never go that far, and he honored her too much to ask, regardless of the fact that it truly was what he needed.

Without pulling away, Jill smiled warmly and gave him his answer. "Let's go to bed, Chris."

They slowly let go of each other. Jill pulled the covers on the bed back and got inside, moving over enough to give him space. Chris picked up the patch, sat on the edge of the bed to put it reverently in the drawer of the night table, and joined Jill. Although he hadn't asked her to, hadn't even expected her to, Jill cuddled alongside of him, putting her head on his chest and wrapping her arm around him. He pulled the covers up around them, and enfolded her in a warm embrace, ensuring to keep her close to him all night. A part of him tried very hard to ignore the piece of him that wished he had the right to ask for more, and no conscious part of him could know that she would have happily complied if he had.

The next morning, Chris awoke, but only opened his eyes just enough to look over and see that Jill was still with him. Contented, and wanting to take advantage of the feeling for just a little more, he closed his eyes again. With a peaceful sigh, he relaxed and welcomed sleep to come back . . . only this time, something much more vivid than dreams broke through his unconsciousness and assailed his conscious mind. There were many of them, and they almost seemed to be playing themselves simultaneously in his mind for they didn't necessarily connect with one another, but they all had the same theme: Jill's soft curves rolling over and entangled within his hard, contracted muscles; hot, moist lips against smooth, sweating flesh; heavy breathing of shared breath; intense, jagged pleasure arousing tender, soothing pain and back again.

Chris bolted upright in bed and found himself hot and breathing harder. He tried to tell himself that the visions he saw were only dreams, but they were filled with sound, color and detail, and his senses were ignited with feeling as though they had happened. He quickly caught his breath, and looked over at Jill. She was still sleeping soundly only a few inches away, totally unaware of his distress. He swallowed hard, and with a trembling hand he lifted the bed covers to look beneath them. To his relief, he found that he was still clothed and so was she. He tried to convince himself that what he saw were just dreams again, but his mind refused to believe it and had been much too awake when he saw everything. Feeling quite vile for allowing something in himself to create such visions, Chris slowly got out of bed so as not to awaken Jill, and quickly went to the bathroom for a cold shower.

A couple hours later found Jill awake and ambling into the kitchen where the smell of cooking food had stirred her. She found Chris at the stove and smiled.

"Oh, you're cooking breakfast?" she asked rubbing sleep out of her eye. "I wondered where you had gone to."

"Yeah," replied Chris trying to keep his tone normal. "I figured I owed you after last night." He found he couldn't look at her.

Jill poured herself some coffee and went to sit at the table. "You don't owe me for anything." She sipped her coffee and thought nothing of it.

Chris put the food on a plate, grabbed some utensils, and carried everything over to her. "Uh . . . Jill?"

"Hm?" she said innocently during a sip from her mug.

Chris bit the inside of his lip, still very much disturbed by the visions, and hoping to find some way to alleviate his guilt. "Have I ever forced you into something you really didn't want to do?"

She lowered the mug, and wondered if she had run out of time. How much of his memory was back? She decided to play it by ear. "No."

"Never?"

She recognized the stress in his voice. She kept hers very calm and lighthearted. "No."

"You'd . . . tell me if I did, right?"

"Of course!"

"You wouldn't hide it from me to keep me from being hurt?"

She had to think for a minute, but had to answer him honestly. "Well . . . if I thought it could hurt you, I'd try to tell you with as much tact as I could."

He found it hard, trying to put the answers into a context that would help him understand what he'd seen in his mind's eye that morning. "But, what if I deserved my feelings to get hurt. What if what I did to you was just that insensitive?"

"You wouldn't do that to me, Chris."

He leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest in thought. He found her statement true. He was so careful of his desires for her that he rarely put her in a position of temptation for himself. Last night was a dire exception. "We've come across a lot of weird substances though, haven't we, Jill?"

She stopped eating for a moment in her own thought before she answered. "Yes. You can't say we haven't."

He put his hand to his chin. Maybe this was a lead. "Have we ever come across something that caused us to do something that we normally wouldn't?"

"Like, what specifically?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I guess like, have I ever been exposed to something that might make me do something like putting you in a situation where you were . . ." he paused, looking for the right words. ". . . you know, doing something you wouldn't normally do."

She scowled in confusion.

"Or, wait – have I ever been exposed or afflicted with something where I had attacked you . . . in any way?"

"No . . ." she said slowly. "But I was. In Kijuju."

"Yeah. Right," he quickly replied. He finally felt he was beginning to find a clue. "I remember Wesker had you fighting me and Sheva in those ruins and everything. But do you remember maybe having withdrawals where maybe you acted on something, some impulse or something, that you normally wouldn't have?"

This time, Jill bit her lip in thought. "I guess I probably did."

"Okay . . . ."

"I remember being depressed for a long time afterward, but that had more to do with what Wesker had me do while I was on the P-30, and nothing to do with coming off it."

"Oh." Chris looked around the table top for guidance. "But you could have done something, and just not remembered, right?"

"Oh, no, Chris. I remember everything. I was very much aware of everything I was doing, but no matter how much I hated it, I just couldn't stop myself."

Her last statement hurt him in every part of him that was a man, even though, he now believed, that regardless of the fact that what the visions had shown him could have possibly come from a few years ago and were an honest misconception on his part regarding Jill's ability to consent, he deserved it. "Oh."

Chris found he didn't want to ask any more questions for the rest of the day.