A/N: Well, I definitely got the reaction I was looking for with the last chapter :)

And I really appreciate all the reviews you all have given this story! Seriously, you all are great!

The headache that had struck Piers hadn't let up since arriving at Chris and Jill's home over an hour ago. But while it certainly hadn't gotten any better, thanks it hadn't worsened.

After walking inside, the couple gave them free reign of the showers, refrigerator, couch, and guest room. Piers told Riley to go and shower then get some sleep, but Jill insisted that he should shower first so that she could talk to the virologist and check her wounds. The younger woman still looked like she was in a state of shock, but she was more responsive than she had been in the car and said that she didn't mind waiting for her shower.

He would have preferred for her to take a shower and then let Jill look her over, believing that it may help her relax, but the SOA agent seemed to know what the wounds were all about. So he wandered down the hall to the bathroom and took a half-hour shower, reveling in the hot water.

In the privacy of the bathroom, he'd taken the time to map out the new scars he had from the C-Virus infection. From a distance, they probably wouldn't be seen very well, if at all, and up close they didn't look too bad, though anyone who saw them while talking to him would know that the marks on his face and neck were obviously scars, and then of course the ones on his side wouldn't be seen unless he was shirtless. His right arm, however, didn't have a mark on it. The scar he'd gotten on the palm of his hand when he was ten was gone. The scar on his forearm from a stray piece of shrapnel was gone. It had no scars of any kind, and he wasn't sure how he felt about that. Scars were badges of honor in his book, and now his arm that had been riddled with scars, each with a story behind them, was a clean slate. That would take more time to get use to than the new scars.

And now he sat on the couch in the den wearing a white shirt and dark grey sweatpants – Chris and Jill stopped at both his and Riley's apartments to get them each a bag of clothes prior to meeting them in Stanton Park – and his light brown hair was still very damp and sticking in random directions. He didn't have the energy to find a brush or spike the front like he normally did, and really, what was the point when he planned on calling it a night shortly? He would have already reclined on the couch, having decided to give Riley the guest room, but he wanted to postpone going to sleep until she got out of the shower so he could make sure she was all right.

Chris came into the room and set a beer on the coffee table. "You look like you need it."

"Thanks, Captain," he replied, taking a tired swig of the beer. He might look like he needed one, but he felt like he needed something much stronger. "You said Claire's working on getting Riley and me a place to stay?"

Nodding, Chris said, "One of her friends in Terra Save is moving into a bigger house and will be putting his old one up for sale once he and his wife finish the painting and touchups. She's trying to see if they'll postpone working on it and let you two lay low there until we get this mess cleared up. Shouldn't be a problem."

Piers took another drink, nodding silently. He appreciated what they were doing for him and Riley, even more so because they were putting their heads on the chopping block. Just in case Merrick's men showed up, Jill had showed them were the latter to the attic was so that they could hide if they had to. Thankfully, everything was quiet.

"How did we miss this?" the younger soldier asked, Chris and Jill having already filled him in on the situation. "A traitor in the BSAA is something someone should have discovered before now."

"We don't know how many people are being controlled, just that the Board definitely is. There could be someone being controlled in the U.N for all we know, and possibly people in the government and military." Sitting in one of the chairs, he continued, "Neo-Umbrella didn't even make an appearance until two-thousand-ten, and before that Riley said Merrick's family had connections with Simmons and the Family."

"What is the Family, exactly? I've never heard of them."

"Neither have I, but Jill said she heard Wesker mention them on occasion while she was under his control," he replied. "It's some kind of fraternity that's worked behind the scenes to shape the development of the world. Wesker, apparently, didn't like them very much."

"And Merrick gave them information that caused them to abandon Simmons and kill his cousin, Carla – that Ada doppelganger," he added, shaking his head. "I guess both you and Kennedy were right. The Ada we were following was killed, but the real Ada saved his ass."

"We should have noticed something was up before Carla was shot," Chris stated with a sigh, leaning back in the chair. "The woman we were chasing on the aircraft hangar was wearing leather pants and a red shirt, but the woman killed was in a blue dress and a red scarf."

Piers thought back. He was right. Unless she'd changed quickly, they'd been chasing the real Ada Wong – the innocent one. Why she was on that boat, he didn't know, and he figured he was better off not know. It was possible that she didn't like being blamed for the hell that had fallen on China and was looking to confront her doppelganger.

"Back to Merrick," started Piers, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "What are we going to do about him?"

Sitting forward, resting his elbows on his knees, Chris sighed, "Nothing tonight, but in the morning Jill, Claire, and I are going to start making some calls to people we trust and give them a heads up, try to get more information on Merrick, and then bring our evidence against him to the U.N. It might take a while, so you could be looking at laying low for a few days or more. Riley said something about Merrick having a facility in China, but all incoming and outgoing flights have been restricted, and no one without the proper authorization is allowed in or out until they have the C-Virus under control, which I don't see happening in the near future."

"So, while you and Jill look for anything to incriminate Merrick, I have to sit on my hands."

"You don't have to like it, but that's how it has to be," Chris reasoned. "Whether they let you two go or not, Neo-Umbrella is going to be on your asses in some way, shape, or form."

"This isn't just about you, Piers," Jill said upon returning to the room from where she'd been sitting in the hall outside the bathroom while Riley showered. "Riley's going to need someone to keep her safe while the three of us are out investigating. She's a brilliant virologist, but in case you didn't notice, she isn't used to this kind of stress and threat. Teach her to shoot, or something, just don't argue about not being able to tag along with us."

He didn't need to be told that she wasn't used to the stress they'd fallen under, he'd seen that for himself, experienced it when she blindly fought against him to get back to her friend before giving way to shock.

"How is she?" he asked, dropping his complaints about hiding for now.

Jill sighed, leaning against her fiancé's chair, and replied, "She's come out of shock, but she's more or less a little moody now, and very tired and sore. I offered to clean up the wounds on her chest again and put a clean bandage on them after she got out of the shower, but she insisted that she didn't need to be babied and went to the guest room to take care of it herself."

"How'd she get those wounds anyways? They looked like punctures, or scratches, or something."

A dark look fell over the SOA agent's face, and after adjusting her blouse to make sure that her scars were hidden, she asked, "Did she tell you how Merrick's controlling people?"

"Yeah, she said he was using the same kind of device that Chris removed from your chest a few years ago," he replied, already not liking where this was going.

"Apparently, he gave her two options to consider," she explained tightly. "Option A was to just bend over and do whatever he wanted, however he wanted, and whenever he wanted it done, but he would have gone easy on you and eventually cured you again."

He snorted.

"I don't believe that either, and neither did she, so she asked what her other choice was," she continued, hesitating slightly. "He threatened to make her a mindless slave like he has with the members of the U.S Board, his scientists, security, and whoever else, and he put one of the devices on her chest but kept it just far enough away to avoid injecting her with the drug while Jessica restrained her. As a result… the device clawed at her and repeatedly dug its legs into her in order to try to bring itself closer and infect her. He didn't pull it away until she agreed to help him."

Piers tightened his grip on the beer until he thought the bottle might break, and his other hand fisted against his knee in an attempt to keep from shouting. He knew that Merrick had done something to hurt her, but that was barbaric, and his blood boiled. No wonder she looked like she'd been crying when she came back into his room; she'd been essentially tortured and scared out of her mind. She didn't deserve that, not in the slightest.

Rising to his feet tiredly, he said, "I'm going to go check on her."

"I think she wants to be left alone, Piers," Jill commented.

"Then she can tell me to go away after I ask if I can come in," he countered, in no mood to argue about it. He was going to see for himself if she was all right. "And do either of you know her parents' numbers? They should be warned in case Merrick goes after them. I think she said her mom was in Miami, and her dad and sister were in the Congo," he added, not wanting something to happen to the woman's family.

Chris and Jill exchanged an uncomfortable glance.

Piers frowned. "What?"

Chris said, "Riley hasn't talked to her mom in years, but… her dad and sister died in the Congo when she was eleven."

That wasn't what he'd expected to hear.

"Oh," was all he said, and he walked down the hall to the guest room, more than a little confused about why she'd avoided telling him that they were dead. Reaching the door, he hesitated momentarily before knocking softly. "Riley?"

Silence.

"Riley? You awake?" he asked, knocking again.

After a moment, she quietly asked from inside the room, "What do you want?"

"I just wanted to know if you're okay."

"I'm fine," she said shortly.

Jill was right about her mood going downhill. "Can I come in?"

"Why?"

"Just to talk, that's all," he replied, leaning against the door-frame. "I'm not going to interrogate you about Merrick or anything, I just want to see for myself that you're fine." He cringed, realizing that she could take what he said as believing that she was lying or something.

She didn't take it that way, however, and said tiredly, "It isn't locked."

Taking that as permission to come in, he stepped inside the dark room, shutting the door behind him.

The street light outside allowed a little bit of light to filter into the room through the curtains, and he could just make out Riley lying on her side facing away from him, the cream colored bed sheet pulled up to her hips while the heavy comforter lay unused on the floor. On the nightstand was an open first aid kit with Band-Aids, peroxide, and cotton balls scattered around it, a few bloody pieces of cotton in the trashcan beside the bed. His chest tightened, and he decided that he had to see the damage for himself.

Setting his beer down on the nightstand, he sat on the full-size bed and laid his hand on her shoulder, gently urging her onto her back.

After a small amount of resistance, she relented and moved onto her back, and his mouth went dry. He'd noticed that she was in a black spaghetti-strap shirt, but what he hadn't noticed prior to urging her onto her back was that she wore no bra underneath it, but he sure noticed it now, even in the dim light. Not wanting to be caught staring and receive a slap, he kept his eyes on her face for a long moment and tried to get an idea of how she was feeling.

Her hair was sopping wet like she hadn't even bothered to dry it, and the spot on the pillow under her head was soaked. Aside from that, she looked exhausted, staring at him through half closed eyes, and she looked confused about what he was up to.

Once he was sure that his eyes wouldn't wander too low, he looked at the part of her chest that was visible to him, and he frowned. The V of the purple shirt she had been wearing earlier had hidden a few more punctures over the curve of her breasts along with a few more scratches, just visible above the low neck of her nightshirt. Each wound was covered with small, circular Band-Aids, and each one had a little bit of blood showing through.

"They really aren't as bad as they look," she said quietly.

He shifted on the bed and moved closer to her, his hand flat on the bed on her other side so that he could easily lean over her. Careful not to hurt her, he traced his fingers over the scratches on her chest, and his jaw clenched when she winced.

"Jill told me what he did," he bit out.

"I thought you said you wouldn't talk about Merrick," she reminded him, turning her head to the side to look out the window while he traced each scratch and brushed each bandaged puncture.

"I said I wouldn't interrogate you about him," he corrected, pausing to rest his fingers over one particularly deep scratch near her left collarbone and extended to the valley between her breasts. There was no doubt that she'd be left with scars, both physical ones and mental ones. "He's not going to get away with this, I promise."

She just nodded, neither believing or disbelieving his promise, and allowed him to go on tracing her wounds.

He knew that now probably wasn't the time to ask, but he was curious, so he asked gently, "Why'd you tell me that your dad and sister were in the Congo?"

Her eyes immediately started glistening with unshed tears and she said nothing for several seconds. Maybe asking had been a mistake after all. The last thing he wanted to do was shove his foot in his mouth again at such a bad time.

"Holly wanted to be a doctor like dad, and she constantly helped him when he went with relief groups to help the less fortunate, but I wasn't allowed most of the time because it was too dangerous," Riley said quietly, refusing to look at him. "Since I was still a little kid he would sometimes leave me with his mother while he and Holly went out of the country on medical related stuff. When I was eleven, he and Holly went down to the Congo to help a group give medical treatment to a village. It was very dangerous, and he grudgingly let Holly come along, but he outright refused to bring me, and I was so, so mad at him for making me stay behind. I was always cranky when he left without me, but before that it was only ever for a few weeks. This time, it was going to be for a few months, meaning I would have to be stuck with mom and dragged along on her trips to Paris. Grandma took me to the airport to say goodbye, but I refused to hug him and threw one hell of a temper tantrum that had the whole airport staring at us." She took a shaky breath and sniffed, biting back tears that threatened to fall. "He was calm the whole time and tried to reassure me even while Grandma and Holly where scolding and snapping at me to behave. And… and the last thing I said to him was that I wished he would never come back. I was just so upset and angry, and I wanted to make him hurt too."

Piers moved some hair from her face, tenderly stroking her cheek. He couldn't picture her as a little kid throwing a tantrum like that and saying something so mean, but then again he hadn't had the family situation that she did.

"That was the first time I saw him cry," she murmured, and a few tears finally fell. "A few weeks later, Mom got a phone call, and… both Dad and Holly got caught in an Ebola outbreak and died in the Conga. That's where they're buried."

"I'm sorry," he whispered sincerely, smoothing his hand over her wet hair.

"That's why I became a virologist. I wanted to cure Ebola. But while I've helped create cures and personally engineered the suppressant for the C-Virus, I have never been able to cure Ebola," she said with a heavy, trembling sigh. "The last thing I told my father was that I wished he would never come back, and I got my fucking wish. Now, I have to live with it."

"Hey," he started, shifting his weight onto his elbow and bringing himself closer to her, cupping her jaw and forcing her to look at him. "You were a pissed off kid and your dad was leaving for months. What happened to him would have happened no matter what you said, and if your dad's half as great as you make him seem, I'm sure he didn't hold what you said against you."

"Yeah, maybe."

"No maybes," he insisted. "He'd be proud of you."

"Proud?" she repeated in disbelief. "I've defended Merrick and helped convince people that he was a good guy! I'm partially to blame for all of this!"

"No, you're not, and don't you ever blame yourself, do you hear me?" he demanded sternly. "He had you scared and in the dark, plain and simple. You knew enough to keep you afraid of him, but not enough to believe that he was up to something, and that was what he wanted. None of this is your fault, okay?"

Biting her lip, tears leaking from the corners of her green eyes, she nodded mutely.

He didn't know if she believed him or not, but at least she made no further argument. He'd take what he could get, and he sighed. But upon taking a deep breath, he came to realize just how close he was to Riley.

In the process of leaning closer to her to get it through her head that she wasn't to blame, he'd unknowingly half laid down on top of her, his weight supported on his elbow beside her, and they were pressed chest to chest. He realized just how inappropriate he was being and cursed silently in his head. Here he was trying to reassure her and check up on her, and he was almost completely on top of her. The last thing he needed was for her to think he was using the situation to make a move on her. His mind had briefly wandered to the gutter upon noticing that she wasn't wearing a bra under her shirt, making him take notice of her perfect curves, and he had to wonder just how soft her hidden skin would be beneath his battle roughened hands… no this was not the time, and he bit down on his tongue, forcing himself to be rid of the inappropriate thoughts when they returned.

With the feel of her pressed against him making his head spin, he started sitting up only to become frozen in place when she leaned up and placed a tender kiss to the corner of his mouth. He stared down at her, utterly bewildered and taken aback while she flushed red, her skin heating up from where she'd reached up to rest her hand against his cheek.

The kiss hadn't been a friendly peck on the cheek, nor had it been a romantic kiss on the lips. It had been something in between, and something far more intimate.

"… What was that for?" he asked dumbly.

"For keeping me from running after Dwayne and getting myself killed, and for coming in here to check on me," she said quietly, a nervous edge to her voice. "Saying thank you seemed too cheap and common, so, yeah. I mean, if I was out of line or… or something, just say so. Say the word, and I won't do it again, promise. Damn, I probably shouldn't have done it to begin with. I'm sorry," she apologized on one breath, removing her hand from his cheek to cover her eyes in a pitiful attempt to hide in embarrassment.

Despite her clear discomfort and embarrassment, Piers found himself smiling in amusement at her reaction. As confident as she was around a lab and viruses and medicine, she fumble for mere words when taken out of her element. It might be an embarrassing trait to her, but to him, it was adorable.

Most women he was with spoke so easily it was almost as if they rehearsed the lines of an invisible script before he walked over or they walked over, and it took all that was personal out of the conversation and short relationship. Having a woman stumble so naturally in a conversation and struggle for the right words was refreshing.

When she'd yet to remove her hand from her eyes, he reached for her hand and gently pried it away with a bit of resistance that made him smile wider.

Her embarrassment quickly turned to irritation when she saw him smiling down at her. "Oh, so now you're going to start laughing at me?" she accused, a twinge of hurt lacing her words.

"No, no, I'm not going to laugh, it's just that…" Now it was his turn to dig around for the right words. Sighing, smile still on his face, he released her hand and brushed his thumb along her cheek. "You an amazing woman, that's all."

The blush returned to her face and her scowl faded, though the embarrassment did not return. "Oh, well… thank you," she replied quietly, not entirely sure what to say to that.

It hit him that he could probably get away with stealing a real kiss from her and finally discover if her lips tasted as sweet as they looked since meeting in Edonia. He was certainly close enough. All he would have to do was lean in just a little more, and he was sure that she wouldn't oppose. But he didn't. This just wasn't the right time, no matter how much he wanted to, and they were both exhausted and needed to get a full night's sleep in order to think clearly.

"You should get some sleep," Piers said after a moment, regretfully sitting up and pulling away from her.

Unmasked disappointment fell over her eyes and she sighed. "You should too."

Reluctantly, he stood from the bed and walked to the door. There was a couch in the living-room with his name on it.

"Hey, Piers?"

He turned around. "Yeah?"

"Why don't you… I mean, we're both adults, so there's…" she shut her mouth to gather her thoughts. "There's no reason for you to sleep on a couch. Just sleep here tonight. The bed is plenty big."

Just because it was bigger than that hardly twin-size medical bed didn't mean that it was plenty big enough. He'd still be awfully close to her.

He hesitated, not sure if that was a good idea. "I don't mind sleeping on the couch," he assured her.

"I mind," she argued, not taking no for an answer. "We both need to sleep, and I've slept on that couch before. It isn't comfortable. If it bothers you so much, just sleep on top of the sheet while I sleep under it."

He hadn't thought about not sleeping under the sheet with her, and given where his thoughts had threatened to go, that was probably a very wise option. And that couch really wasn't comfortable, but the bed was.

A few more beats passed before he finally relented and tugged off his sweatpants, leaving him in his t-shirt and boxers – he normally didn't sleep with a shirt on, but he was leaving it on tonight. Retrieving a spare blanket from a chair in the corner of the room, he returned to the bed and got on top of the sheet while Riley reached down on the floor on her side of the bed for another pillow, revealing to him that she was only wearing a pair of dark purple panties beneath the sheet before she readjusted the sheet and handed him the pillow. He swallowed thickly, the image of her perfectly curved ass burned into his brain, and accepted the pillow, acting like he didn't see anything.

Riley didn't notice his discomfort and she turned back on her side, facing away from him yet again with her arm curled under her pillow and her knees pulled close to her chest, forming a ball of sorts.

"Goodnight, Piers," she yawned.

"Night," he mumbled back, lying flat on his back and staring up at the ceiling.

Being this close to Riley was heady, and he ached to turn over and curl his arm around her and fall asleep. He bit back that impulse and closed his eyes, willing himself into a deep sleep on the far edge of the bed.

Coffee keeps me awake to write, but reviews keep me motivated to write!