Second Chances - 4
(a Resident Evil fan fic)

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"What?" Chris croaked.

Jill dropped her chin, staring at her hands in her lap. "I said I love you." Then she raised her head again quickly. "And I know you love me too! I heard you. In the hospital, when you came to visit me, I was awake the whole time. I heard everything: how you think of yourself as a coward and how you always wanted to tell me how you felt but knew that nothing would change even if you did because we work so hard because we don't have emotional attachments to each other.

"And I know that would complicate things, but I had to tell you. It's been eating me up inside for so long."

"Jill...I didn't realize you were awake. I wouldn't have said anything if I did." He dragged his hand over his head, not sure what to do. "I don't...I don't know what to say."

He was rejecting her. In his own way, he was, and though she told herself that it was better this way – better to keep things how they used to be – she felt her heart breaking in her chest. "But Chris, I love you too and it's taken us so long to say anything, but I think this is a good thing. We've always felt this way, we just never said anything. Why should knowing suddenly make it impossible to work together?"

"Because...Jill." He stood up and started pacing, his mind awhirl with thoughts. "Don't you realize what's going to happen now? We're not going to look at each other the same way."

"Haven't you always looked at me like that? Like a lover? I've always thought of you like that. Why do I think I threw myself out that window?" she asked. "If you meant no more to me than a co-worker, I'd have let you die like Joseph Frost and everyone else. Yes, it was hard to see that, but it happened and I knew I couldn't stop it so I had to accept it. With you, I wouldn't have been able to handle watching Wesker kill you. Even if he'd killed me after, which I'm sure he would have, I had to make sure you survived, even if it meant killing myself. I had to let you live."

Chris' tone sharpened in anger. Did she think he was stupid? That he didn't want her? Of course, if he thought that he could, he would have taken her the first moment he laid eyes on her. He would have married her and settled down and had a family like people were supposed to. But he knew that they had a job to do. They'd signed on to it the moment they left Raccoon City and he wasn't going to turn and walk away.

"And what if you got pregnant? What then?" he asked. "It's fine if it's just the two of us, but things happen. I'm almost forty years old for God's sake! I used to want to get married. I wanted children, but if I had them, there's no way I'd be able to fight like I do. And then I couldn't make for them a safe world to grow up in. And you? You think I'd let you continue with this life? Not a chance in hell!

"I lost you once, Jill. I never want to again, especially not if we were to go that far. I was able to move on as best I could having lost my partner. If that happened again, if you were killed, I don't know how I could live without ever kissing you again, or holding you or just seeing you. You'd become too much a part of me."

It was Jill's turn to get angry. It was like he was toying with her, telling her how much he loved her, how much she meant to him, while pushing her away. "I've thought about that! And I want the same things you do, Chris. I want a normal life. But we're not going to have one. Whether we like it or not, we're stuck in this forever. But why does that mean we have to give up what we want? I know you'll never be able to settle down and fight like Claire. You're too much of a soldier to try to work things out diplomatically. I'm the same way. But I..."

She was angry and upset and hurt and suddenly she felt the symptoms of paranoia and anxiety. Her breaths became rapid at the thought of losing him. Her chest tightened, her voice became a wheeze. She couldn't go on knowing how much he loved her, how much she loved him, and never doing anything about it. She couldn't go on with only pretend memories of a monster made man in her mind.

She wrapped her arms around her belly, curling up on the floor and felt the tears overwhelm her again. She swallowed her voice, tried to blot out the memories, but they were rushing rapids, squeezing through her metaphorical fingers the harder she tried to keep them at bay. Her voice slipped out before she could stop it, before she could bury it away forever: "I don't...I don't want to grow old and the only memories I have to be of him!"

Chris glanced over his shoulder. What?

She told herself to shut up. Don't say anything! Don't make this harder on him than it already is! Don't remember! But the words came fast and angry.

"Maybe you can move on, Chris. Maybe you can live without ever getting close to me, but I don't think I'd be able to. I tried that already. For eight years I tried to accept that you and I would only – could only – be friends. But Wesker made me see that it didn't matter what I tried to tell myself." She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed the palm of her hand to the lid, trying to forget the memories swirling through her mind. Her voice dropped to a low whisper and he wondered if she was still talking to him, or if she'd reverted back into a world of her own. "I couldn't stop him. I was helpless, completely helpless for three years. After a while I just gave up. It was pointless to try and fight any more; I was like a cripple trying to walk, or a blind person trying to see. So I did the best I could. I did the only thing I could."

Chris knelt again, clutching her by the shoulders. Se flinched and his entire body had been electrified with rage he was afraid he couldn't control. But Wesker was dead; he couldn't avenge her even if he wanted to. "Jill, what did Wesker do to you?"

"I'm sorry, Chris. I'm so, so sorry," she said, and suddenly she was not the thirty-three-year-old woman who'd lived through viral outbreaks and bio-terrorism. She wasn't a former S.T.A.R.S. agent, or one of the most respected members of the B.S.A.A. She was a little girl, ashamed and afraid. She felt like she'd let him down. "I couldn't do anything, so I just...pretended. I told myself it wasn't him. Instead, I tried to imagine he was you. But I knew, in my heart, no matter how much I tried to convince myself, you wouldn't do that."

"Do what?" Chris asked, though he was certain he already knew.

"I've always tried to keep up with you, you know," she said. There was something about her tone, something foreign, dead. "Ever since we met, before we met, even. I was always trying to keep up with the guys in S.T.A.R.S. There weren't many of us girls there, maybe one per team, if that. Try being the only feeble little girl working along side people like Barry and Wesker – Barry's like a bear and Wesker had all of his kung fu stuff."

If they were in any other situation but this, Chris would have laughed and corrected her, saying Wesker knew martial arts, which encompassed kung fu, but wasn't exactly the same thing. But they were here and now and it was the last thing she needed to hear.

"And then you came along: handsome, strong, and the best damn shot I'd ever seen. I felt like I had to be masculine in order to fit in. That's why I always wore my hair short, and wore blue all of the time. And somewhere along the way I even started to talk like a guy. I wanted to be like the rest of you, but in my heart I'm still a girl. I still noticed and felt things that are typical for women. Like love.

"Even back then, just like you, I liked you. I wanted to know you and as partners, I was able to. Everything I learned, from your love for Claire to your short temper, I came to love. And I wanted you and that night you called me to your apartment, I thought that by being there for you, for listening to you and supporting you, maybe you'd notice me too. I wanted to be with you that night, but here were are, years later, still just 'partners'."

"Jill, I..." He wondered where she was going with this, or if, after everything she'd been through, she'd finally lost her mind.

"Gunpowder," she said. "You always smell like gunpowder smoke, no matter what you do. In the mornings, when I know you've showered, when we're out with the guys for beers, at parties like tonight, you always smell the same. It's like cigarette smoke: washing, cologne, fresh air, nothing can cover the smell. But over time, it no longer irritated me. Instead, it smelled familiar, and when I was in trouble, if I caught a whiff of gunpowder, suddenly, I wasn't so scared anymore. I knew you'd have my back.

"But Wesker always smelled clean. He always smelled like antiseptic, like chemicals, like a hospital. It sickened me and when he was that close, I wanted to vomit, only my body wouldn't even allow me that while I was under his control.

"Your hands are course," she continued, "calloused and dry and your nails are black are torn. Your skin is tanned from the sun and imperfect, scarred and bruised from all of your adventures, like badges of honour. Your face is rough with stubble and your hair is messy. Your eyes are filled with sadness and fear and anger from everything you've seen, but like a distant star, there's still a sparkle of hope and love.

"His skin was pale, almost deathly white and smooth. His teeth were straight and white and his breath was hot but minty. Clean. His chin was always smooth and I can't recall ever seeing him shave. His body... Every muscle was perfectly sculpted, like a statue; not a single flaw. His hair was neat, combed, gelled and not a single hair out of place. His hands were delicate, the nails and cuticles trimmed, his palms and fingertips smooth. They were the hands of someone who performed meticulous and precise jobs, like a surgeon or artist. But they were powerful and cold. They were cold and as lifeless as the tint of his skin, like a corpse come back to life. And his eyes...he had a dragon's eyes: fiery, evil, serpent-like and invasive. Every time he looked at me, every time he touched me without his gloves, every time he...forced himself on me..." She cringed and pressed her knees together, curling up in an even smaller, tighter ball. "Every time he was..." She shuttered. "I felt a little of my soul slipping away."

Chris clutched her arms tightly and leaned in until their foreheads touched. His voice was a strong whisper; it was all he could do to keep his anger at bay. "Jill, Wesker is dead. He can't violate you or torture you anymore and if I had known, lava and rockets would have been too good for him. I'd have ripped out his heart myself. I'd have broken the fingers that touched you and pulled out the eyes that looked at you and when I was finished, not even God would have known he was a man."

Jill raised her head, briefly wearing something that resembled a grateful smile.

"I should have told you a long time ago, but there was too much at stake to burden you with the truth back then. And afterwards, I just wanted to forget. I wanted to move on, but every time I close my eyes, there he is, haunting me."

"Wesker can't hurt you ever again. He's dead, and even if he wasn't, I'd never let him near you so long as I live." And then he pulled her close and Jill thought that he was going to kiss her but instead he hugged her tightly.

"It's been a long night," he said when he finally drew back. "We should both get some rest. Would you mind if I crashed on your couch tonight? I'd hate to ask you to drive me home."

She nodded and wiped her eyes again, sniffing back mucus. "Sure. Actually, I was going to ask you to stay. I don't want to be alone right now."

He smiled sympathetically and cupped her cheek, wiping her eye with his thumb. "I understand. Maybe I can't be what you want me to be, or what I want me to be, but so long as you need me, I'm not going anywhere, okay?"

"Okay."

With the groans of two spent, aging adults, they got up off the floor. Jill pulled back the sheets and climbed into bed. When she was tucked in, Chris shuffled his weight from one foot to the other, thinking what to say. Finally, he settled on, "I'll be in the living room. Shout if you need something."

"Okay," she said again. As he turned away, "Hey Chris?"

He stopped. "Yeah?"

"If you could," she asked gently, "...if we weren't, you know, fighting in this war...if we were normal people...Would you want to...you know..."

"Sleep with you?" he finished and she nodded, pulling at a thread in her blanket. "Of course. You're beautiful, sexy and I love you. I couldn't imagine anything I'd want more, if things were different."

"So...what did you mean when you said I reminded you of Claire?"

Blood pooled in Chris' cheeks. "What?"

"That's kind of disgusting, Chris."

"No! I didn't mean it like that!" he insisted and started to shuffle anxiously, feeling himself grow redder and redder. "I don't want to...I don't think about Claire like that! I just meant...I just meant that I remember taking care of her after our parents died. And it made me feel good, like...stronger, to do that. More of a man. But I..." Everything he said seemed to sound bad, incestuous. "What I mean is...I don't...It's not like that, I swear!"

Jill laughed at his response. "I was teasing, Chris. I know what you meant."

"That was mean," he said, but smiled. "Goodnight, Jill."

"Goodnight, Chris."

He nodded and stepped back and turned and disappeared into the hallway. Jill relaxed against her pillows. She was afraid to go to sleep, but her body felt heavy and her eyelids began to droop. And though she was afraid, somehow, by reminding herself that Chris was just a holler away, she felt safe and found herself smiling as she drifted off to sleep.

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Disclaimer: Resident Evil and its related characters belong to Capcom and all respected creators.

Author's Note: Another short chapter. The next is going to be the final for this story.

I apologize now and in the future for spelling mistakes (I thank Black Metalmark for pointing one out in the last chapter). While I'm prone to making them, I always try to re-read my chapters before I submit them. Thankfully, I have my beloved Microsoft Word back, so the changing of contractions to Chinese characters and elimination of quotation marks shouldn't be an issue anymore XD