Disclaimer: I don't own Capcom or Resident Evil.

Sorry for the late update! Christmas has been very hectic and I rarely have time to myself doing anything since I have been out of my house almost every single day during that period. Apart from that, some of you may already know the big coup over at Tumblr which is by far the craziest thing I have never thought I would come across in my life. In any case, here's the update just before this year is over... although the New Year surprise had meant to be in the next chapter. Well! Now you guys can look forward to the next chapter after this, it's significant progress.

And as usual, Carl is a wonderful man.

Lastly, wishing everybody Happy New Year! Happy 2013 and may all your endeavors come true in this forthcoming new year! I wish all of you success, happiness and for those in love, a wonderful experience as always. — Love, Sera.

"And when you're needing your space
To do some navigating
I'll be here patiently waiting
To see what you find"
— Jason Mraz, I Won't Give Up

"Fancy finding you here instead of training in the range."

Slipping into the chair opposite of Piers is Marco, the man who is convinced that Piers is someone who will never take a break even if he can afford to until now. He watches the ace staring into the field from the cafeteria located on the second floor, a cup of cold coffee sitting in front of him an indication that he has been sitting here for quite some time. However that wasn't what surprised Marco, not the fact that Piers knows how to take time to himself but rather, the boy is staring at the field filled with girls.

Yes, girls. Marco reassured himself twice.

"Someone you like in there?"

That immediately snaps the sniper's attention around, warranting a surprised look on his face that too surprised Marco. So maybe his speculations are wrong.

"What?" Piers seems alarmed in fact, and Marco is taken aback by his degree of defense.

"Hey no hard feelings, I just thought you're looking at someone special on the field since you seem to be staring so hard at it."

And Marco wonders if Piers has just averted his comment because the boy appears to look away rather hastily, sipping the cold coffee in an attempt to behave naturally. Taking another look back at the field, Foxtrot's scheduled for training as arranged on the system's calendar all right, mountains of girls jogging around the field in winter gear with rifles in their hands. Marco knows these snow drills at the back of his hands, a necessity to train the tenuous bodies of every soldier to withstand the harsh environments in any unforeseen circumstances. They have trained hard and long in this, under the scorching heat as well, to come this far placing them in Alpha is labor of their hard work, something Marco and everyone in the team is thus far very proud of.

Well except for Ben, the rookie who somehow fengshui-ed throughout his training days, in possession of extreme luck leading him here because he is always taken care of by lady luck shining his way. This also explains the happy-go-lucky character born in his blood, and that being the one thing weighing worries on the captain's shoulders because he personally vouched for their safety.

Speaking of which, Marco notices the familiar silhouette sighted alongside the field, another person standing next to him with his hat or earmuffs off seemingly to be telling him off and hustling the silhouette away. On closer look, they are indeed whom Marco had in his mind after all, none other than the Casanova Ben Airhart and their Captain Redfield.

"You okay there, ace?" He tries again, the weariness in Piers' eyes are unsettling.

"Yeah… I guess." Piers stalls for a moment, observing his coffee slowly stilling in the cup until it finally evens out, before he gathers every ounce of his determination to speak the words in his mind, "Say Marco, you mind if I err… ask you something?"

Looking baffled, Marco doesn't reject the ace's curiosity, "Hit me."

"You… you like Jill Valentine, …right?"

It is in a split second when Marco's face turns a few shades darker, but no sooner than his outburst of laughter following suit. Piers is stunned by the explosion, wondering what his words did to have induced such a response from the tech expert. Slapping a hand to his knees, Marco then rests his arm over his thighs as he bends forward, taking another sip of his coffee before he lets the cool demeanor return, face neutral yet brimming with positives.

"Yeah, I like her. I mean, don't you think she's too damn cool for her own good?"

Piers doesn't know how to relate to that. Probably because he isn't the one who has fallen for her or maybe because she simply isn't under the best of his impressions from the recent encounter, yet however when he tried changing the person in his mind to a particular captain, he finds the relation to Marco's spontaneous admiration. A glow rushes up his face, the kind that Marco, in his given experience, knows it's an expression someone has when they think about their significant other; just based off his experience and gut feel.

So probing, he grins, "I mean, while I may find her absolutely cool, maybe there's someone else in your mind on that field you feel the same way about?"

Okay, now that is clearly a big mistake on Piers' part thinking he could hide his agenda in his questions when he isn't someone who is good at hiding to begin with.

He needs a change in topic, something that doesn't remotely relate to that field outside.

"I'm just curious about what do you think about the fraternization rules in spite of the feelings you have for her," so he blabbers, a little too quick for comfort but nonetheless audibly in a sentence that leaves Marco in awe. That look grants him some security because he really doesn't want anyone to find out anything.

"What?" Marco reiterates, outed by Piers' serious question.

"Fraternization. Military protocols in the event that two people fall for each other with the expectant regulations to be followed, as well as the restrictions these two people are supposed to keep off. What do you think about keeping them, let's say if you really got together with Jill Valentine?"

That sets Marco thinking, taking a moment of silence to himself to understand what Piers seeks from him. Perhaps an advice, likely in the form of a personal experience for him to relate to. But to whom, or rather with whom? Marco is more curious to find out whom the ace has shown his interest in, since the boy is the last he would expect to fall for someone in camp.

A clear challenge to that fraternization he speaks about.

"Well," Marco begins, "Protocols are protocols. We have to keep them since we're soldiers. But I won't let them define me, or define the relationship with whoever I have."

Sensing the message is incomplete, Piers waits for the senior to take his time to continue.

"As much as I love doing what I do in this job, there are just things that I cannot compromise to it for my own relationship. And if it comes to the point where I have to decide between this job and that, I won't hesitate to take the latter. But I don't think they're that harsh on fraternization, we just need to keep our asses focused on the duties and not let emotions run us over. Bottom line, just don't screw it up."

Piers has to admit, he is shocked by Marco's determination.

Never in his wildest mind he has ever thought of him as a man who would give anything for the person in his life, to the point that he would rather give up his career for the one he loves. Marco just didn't seem like someone who would do that, and Piers realizes how wrong he has probably been about this guy.

In fact, he had expected Carl to be that man of such devotion, but his marriage failed.

Just as how things would fail if he doesn't have the perseverance like Marco has.

But, that determination persevered in line of a normal healthy relationship. What Piers has in his heart now doesn't seem anything close to that. Besides, chances are…

"Ever heard about anyone in the Alpha team being involved in any relationships?"

Chances are…

"Nah, the only one who's ever been through it is Carl, but we all know how it ended."

"You mean everyone else on the team has never had a relationship with someone else before?"

Marco gives the comment some serious thought, brows frown and arched, "Haven't heard anyone's been out with a girl since I've known them."

He's straight. He's got to be.

The natural comment left a sting inside Piers but honestly, what could he be expecting out of these military guys? They are a bunch of men whom at every given moment would probably be thinking about bumping into the girl next door to give them every reason to retire from this career and make their own lives out there. Sad to say, he too has the idea of the captain being equally on the search as well. The girl who would perhaps take him out of this war, give him enough reason to put down all the responsibilities he shouldered to lead a new life.

And Piers wouldn't be a part of it.

He would be left here in the B.S.A.A., alone and left to heal his own wound.

Piers would never leave the B.S.A.A. with such a noble cause for such a special person, because he simply wouldn't be out looking for one.

Which, made the captain came knocking at his door special. He couldn't evade it.

"Hey," Marco decides to reach out since Piers is giving him a silent response, one which he couldn't exactly pinpoint how to respond to and that this conversation is getting a little awkward for him to handle. As inexperience as he is with love, Piers has definitely come to the wrong person for advices.

"I don't know what you are thinking about but… I think you should talk to Carl. He's the successful one. Most of us are barely even close to nailing a girl."

Hah, girl.

Piers gets where Marco is coming from. Even he is finding this consultation a little too uncomfortable for himself, but he really needed an opinion that wasn't his own. The walls have been dissuading his determination lately and the insomnia creeping around the borders of his bed is wearing his well-being down. The captain's over-concerns with his sleep nearly gave him a heart attack just the other day.

"Will do and… thanks for your time."

But Marco knows those troubled expressions never left Piers' face and for once, he feels a sense of helplessness supporting his own teammates like the captain always preaches.

Whereas Carl, in his disbelief, cannot believe Piers is at the library sitting across him, fingers interlocking with one another heaving a deep breath, attempting to arrange his thoughts into words. He puts his book down instantly, eyes darting back at the ace who seems to be having difficulty wording his situation, or even the reason why he is sitting here wordlessly.

"Piers?" So Carl, being the friendly guy on the block, tries instead, "Something wrong?"

Massaging the corners of his knuckles, Piers continues kneading his fingers until he feels the nervousness bursting out of his chest. In all honesty, he doesn't even know why he came looking for Carl. Simply because Marco suggested that he should, the tech expert probably implied he should but not without a question. And right now, he is stuck with no question because the man wedded a woman. He certainly did no such thing as to confess to a man. Not that Marco did, anyways.

Though, it doesn't really hurt to seek a third opinion, would it?

"It's just something trivial but I was just wondering… did you get married before or after serving?"

Carl grins to himself—so those tiny suspicions he has do really exist after all.

"After. It wasn't the grandest wedding but it was one that I could afford. She was proud of me, proud that I was serving but… I suppose she hadn't thoroughly thought it through regarding the consequences that come with it."

The regret lying at the back of Carl's mind is immense and it was a feeling that told Piers just how much the other soldier had hoped for his marriage to come through. That made him think about his mother, and her perseverance standing throughout those lonely nights when his dad had been outfield or in camp. What Carl's wife couldn't do, his mother went through all of it. Or perhaps because she had them, her children, she had them around reassuring her that the love is only growing stronger each day.

That perhaps is the beauty of having children, it ties bonds.

"No kids?" Piers asks, growing wary of his questions in any event should they get too offensive.

"Nope, we're still too young."

Clearing his throat, the ace tries to accommodate to the awkwardness of the topic, since it wasn't what he had wanted to ask or even know perhaps, but neither did it hurt to get know a little more about Carl. He should have started this a while ago in fact, he did promise himself he would.

"My… my mother was a tough woman. She brought us up when my father was serving the nation. I guess, other than her own resilience, our presence helped her through the difficult times. Perhaps your wife just needed something similar like this."

"Ex-wife," Carl laughs, "Yeah I know what you're trying to tell me. You have a point. But we were never ready to have a child to begin with."

"Perhaps there are just some things in life not meant to be prepared for. The responsibility of a child isn't about how far you have gone to prepare yourself, but perhaps the amount of love you are willing to sacrifice for him or her."

This made absolute sense if Carl has to say but at the same time, considering what he has conjured, the ace's suggestion might have just backfired since he isn't really preaching what he is saying. And as it turns out, to what Carl would like to think, he probably hasn't even realize the complexity of his words addressing to his own issues.

Which he figures, all Piers needed is his vote of confidence.

"Like love?" Carl gestures, "Love is something that hits you when you least expect it. Therefore there is no way you can prepare yourself for that, am I right?"

Nailed it. Carl nailed him hard and good.

Piers contemplates his answer, realizing how dangerously close the topic has instantaneously switched its spotlight back to him. He threads the waters, the straits of love as Carl has put it and ventures into his possibilities, except there are none.

"Err-yeah," so he quips, "Love is a good example of that."

Grinning to himself, Carl leans onto the desk separating them, hands threading with one another as he smiles at the young guy, ready to pop his own list of questions, "So, you have a question about love?"

All right, why did no one tell him Carl is so intuitive?

Piers rests his case, feeling abused from the repertoire his mind has been enduring each day, thinking about his chances or what-ifs. He sighs as his head bends down, taking a moment to recollect his thoughts as he finally remembers the reason why Marco advised him to talk to Carl instead of the rest of them.

A quality only Carl possesses, far beyond what the others could offer him.

"When you married her, did you believe it was love? I mean, how do you know if… if it's love at all?"

Almost bemused, the question presenting itself cripples Carl's ability to think all at once, but he is quick to force himself back into the picture. This is a topic coming from someone who probably would never bother thinking about it unless it has happened to him. It calls for a pragmatic solution, to resolve the dubiety and confusion this incalculable element brings, but there is none so to speak. It factors in characters that the ace possesses, as well as the attitude that defines him which in this case, could have been the radical thoughts holding the ace back from whatever he is feeling or experiencing. But the fact that he is now sitting across the table asking him a question that has multiple answers to, Piers must be looking at a specific area that they are both somehow connected to in a way.

Except, Carl doesn't know what this connection sets them akin to one another.

"I didn't know what love was," Carl begins, slowly but of course, "I think nobody on Earth can tell anybody how to feel what they are feeling. I'm being metaphoric here using references from books that I've read but if it could happen in a fictitious world, it has the same possibility to happen in the real world as well."

Then the sudden shift in the atmosphere causes both of them to lean forward towards each other, seemingly paying close attention to the subsequent content each has to offer in it.

"My marriage… wasn't a spur of the moment. Okay technically, the proposal is but I had been thinking hard and long about it. It was into my fifth month in the military that I decided to enter into holy matrimony, but that was my third year with Mandy. When she agreed to my proposal, I felt like the happiest man alive but that was irrelevant, because I knew I was the happiest man alive the moment she accepted the relationship."

The last line made Piers think, hard in fact, at what Carl is trying to tell him.

Happiness that couldn't be bought with money and couldn't be measured by materials yet so easily obtainable if pursued.

Marriage is just a process of commitment; the type that shows the commitment both are willing to take in all phases of life, even though they have already showed that by being together.

And proposal is an act of spontaneity like an appetizer to the main course, something that isn't a must but can be a supplement if available.

"We didn't know how it started, this mutual feeling towards one another. It's more of a one moment we're just classmates in the same lecture hall and next we're having lunch together every time we have the opportunity to do so. You'd ever had one of those in colleges?"

Piers digs back, remembering the two relationships he has ever had in college and how badly he was told he fared in them, "I dated a while back when I was in college… but I didn't do things like eating or spending a lot of time with them. I was mostly on my own."

Disbelief is what caught Carl in mid-thought, and here he thought the ace must have had a wild but regretful experience that alters him so drastically to strive in his adulthood. In his own words, he didn't think Piers was anywhere as anal as this. So the fact that he is coming to him for advices regarding whatever he is going through right now, the severity of the issue requires his attention right away.

"You don't like your past girlfriends?" This is probably a redundant question Carl realizes but he is curious to see how Piers reacts to it, "Then why did you date them?"

"It feels like the logical thing to do."

Carl is stunned, where did all those intelligence go?

"Confessing takes a lot of courage and guts and I believed those girls wanted a chance to try things out. So I provided a chance but I guess I wasn't ready for it either."

"Your empathy makes their love for you like it's for show, Piers. That's not how love is supposed to work," this time even the combat specialist takes a minute to scold the ace, "Love is not sympathy."

And he continues, "Love is the trigger that sets you off whenever you see that person coming your way. It is the constriction that makes you hold your breath every time you talk to this person. It is the need for worry whenever this person is out of your reach and strangely always on your mind. Love is the canvas that you envision a future together with this person, an action that makes you do whatever it takes to paint this portrait."

Although Piers understands everything Carl is trying to evaluate in his extravagant depiction, at the same time he starts picturing all the different circumstances he is placed in and his reactions to them.

While everything he says is really a little too exaggerated, discounting factors regarding futures and carrying them out, the first three sets his awareness high. He knows he has been doing those things, the nervousness he dips into whenever he talks to the captain, as well as the worry that goes beyond miles for his captain as compared to his other teammates. Like the civilian extraction a couple of weeks ago, the support he provided for the team in name, but personally he only wanted to aid the captain as best as he could to keep him safe and unharmed.

Not to mention the simplest touch of his hands over his skin feels unraveling, like a knot in his stomach demanding release.

And the genuine smile across his face that makes him feel so alive.

"Love is not a hunch, Piers. It's enlightenment, almost like an awakening."

Chapped skin over those aged and perhaps experienced lips that he wants to touch them.

"It's something that you know, before you even find out how you knew about it."

Contours over trained muscles he craves to have a feel of its naked skin.

"What about rules and protocols, consequences and responsibilities that forbade it?" Weight immense on Piers, those words came out far too quickly for him to stop them in time before his comrade may find out what he is actually hinting at. But as it stands, that is the bottom of his question, the same opinion he wanted to hear from Carl as he has heard from Marco.

Since he has set the sails on the ship, he might as well ride with it, "What if everything ahead stands against it and that this… could possibly be a journey with no end bearing no fruits?"

Discerning, Carl laughs at Piers' concern, confident and poised, "Do we ever let anything stand in our way? Has the captain ever taught us to give up if something stands in our way?"

Wait, that certainly… has a point Piers thinks.

"That's the last thing about love I was going to tell you. You'd never give up anything for this person. That's the one sign you can be so sure if you harbored any feelings for this person you're thinking of."

Now that just made Piers look at Carl with puzzled eyes, becoming too concerned with what Carl actually tried to imply in that. Leaning back into his chair, Carl folds his arms, smiling warmly at the confused ace. So that is the similarity between him and the ace, an iron will never to give up.

"You don't have to tell me why you are asking all these questions. I won't even ask who exactly you are asking these questions for because I think it's your privacy. But since you asked me for all these advice, I just hope you'll find the answers to the questions you have for yourself. Don't run away from these fears you may have. Sometimes it's because of these fears you have for yourself that you end up missing the one thing that matters most to you."

Piers let Carl's word sink into him. He must admit the guy is much more poetic than he thinks those novels he read could have done to him but what he says has a point, in more than one way he ever thought possible in fact.

All those hesitations he had were never about him, never once he thought about giving him up but rather the possibility of where the relationship is going.

"Love has no bounds—it's universal, genderless, nationality-less, ageless and all the others that I can't say all at once. All you need is a little belief and conviction. So long as you believe, something will work out."

The walls have completely stopped talking for good.

Even the skies in the night sky seem so much brighter than it had ever been for the past few weeks.

Piers feels the tiredness washing upon him earlier than his usual bedtime, the rest of Alpha still busily chatting and giggling amongst themselves. He will have to skip tonight's activities, he feels too tired to climb out of his bed to join them.

But just before he drifts off to slumber, he sees a smile radiating from the side of Carl's face then he goes out of the room with the others. For some unknown reasons, Piers finds comfort in that. It felt like Carl's reassurance to help him keep on believing.

Turning inwards to the wall, Piers closes his eyes as he dozes off to sleep, smiling to himself contentedly.

The cliff and dead end have disappeared.

The next chapter is going to be a breakthrough, and I'm sure it's the kind that everyone has been looking forward to.