Writers Block is officially banned! Let's get back to action!

Chapter XI

"Let's get the Hell out of these sewers."

It was the best thing he'd ever heard and it certainly didn't have to be repeated. He took hold of the smooth steel of the ladder rungs, pulling himself up. The change in air was like a punch in the face, albeit a pleasant one. Murky sewers were bad enough and they were even worse when they served as Hunter playground.

Clambering out of the opening at the top he cast a cursory glance around. Finding the coast clear, he reached his hand back to give Jill a thumbs up.

"Monster-free up here."

He could hear the rusty ladder objecting as his partner followed him to the surface. There were some muttered curses, then Jill reached the top with a distinctively darker expression than she'd sported before.

"I think I need the med pack."

She presented him her left arm. Three long gashes split the fabric of her sleeve and he could tell for sure that they were not oozing sewer water.

"Shit, Jill..."

"It looks worse than it is, really. I just don't want it to look at it all the time."

Although injuries were part of the job hazard, the original fear of infection was still there and it was as prominent as on the first day. Things had improved dramatically since the first outbreak in Raccoon, medically. Back then a bite equaled a death warrant. But now the BSAA and countless other organisations had come up with a couple of experimental antivirals. If applied within a certain time post exposure an unstable viral strain could be more or less prevented from taking over the host body But, as with everything else in the world, the deal with the antivirals was the cost. If you were an ordinary mortal and didn't have access to the kind of resources that the BSAA did, the antiviral was as far out of reach as it had been back on day one.

The BSAA equipped their high-risk teams with one vial for extreme emergencies. Extreme emergencies meant bites-only, where the infection ratio was one-hundred percent. With claw marks, gashes and other more superficial injuries you ran a forty percent chance of getting away unharmed. The sixty percent infection ratio did not warrant the antiviral to be used out in the field.

"Let's find us a dry spot," he suggested and took his eyes off Jill's arm.

Jill was a special case anyway, what with her infection back in Raccoon. They had never openly talked about it. She didn't want to tell and he didn't want to press. However, Chris had never been the type of guy to live in uncertainty. She didn't know and she'd probably kill him if she ever found out, but he'd looked into her medical records some time ago. The antiviral Oliviera had brewed up back then hadn't exactly been state of the art. Be it because of his medical incompetence or technological obstacles, Jill had never been cured of the T-virus.

Traces of it remained, dormant, kept at bay by natural antibodies Jill's system produced. In other words, she was a ticking bomb. Nobody knew if or when the infection would erupt again. The antibodies she carried were strong enough to keep the infection at bay at the moment, but nobody knew how long that would last, or what effects a new exposure would have on her. Some people speculated that she was immune, but Chris couldn't help but be skeptical. Where Umbrella's atrocities were concerned, it seemed more realistic to expect the worst.

They settled under a sheltered area and Chris took out the med kit. Gingerly he sliced some of the material of Jill's sleeve and peeled it away to reveal a large, angry gash underneath. The edges were torn and mangled, pulled apart by the force of her exertion in the fight. Chris looked her up and down. Her eyes were shining and her face was flushed. She was probably too hyped up on adrenaline to realise what a mess her arm was in. Still, the same could probably go for him and his numerous wounds. But that was part of their training, choking down the pain and carrying on like they were the picture of health.

"I'll dress this as best as I can," he said, taking a swab and some alcohol gel and pressing it to the wound in an effort to clean it somehow. "But you were right. We need to get the Hell out of here and get backup."

Green eyes met hers with a worried intensity. "I'm not going risk anything else happening to you."

"You seen yourself in a mirror lately?" Jill countered with more bitterness than he had anticipated. "Don't think you look any better than me." She hissed at the alcohol getting to her wound. "We're in the same boat, Chris, so stop patronizing me. We'll get out of this together, as a team. We're partners, so treat me as one."

"I was just..." He faltered for a moment, crestfallen. "I'm not patronising you, Jill. Why do you think I always insist on being paired up with you? If I thought you were a liability, I'd tell you to stay at home. You're the best at what you do and you're damn sure the only person in the world that I'd trust to watch my back."

He trailed off, frowning slightly. "But that doesn't mean that I'm not completely terrified of something happening to you. It's like... I need you, because you're a great agent, but at the same time, I can't stand it every time you get hurt. And I swear to God, every single near miss gets harder and harder to..." He pressed his lips together and cleared his throat. "Well... you know how it is..." he said gruffly, looking away. "I just... don't want to lose my partner, is all."

Jill didn't look at him as he spoke, fixing the floor with her gaze.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean it like that. I could never wish for a better partner and friend." She tried to ease the tension with a half hearted laugh. "I guess the stress is getting to me. I'll have to mail Spencer my counseling bills when we're done here."

"It's cool..." he mumbled, wrapping the bandage around her arm. "We're injured, we're stressed, and this whole mission has been one big mess from start to finish. I can't blame you." Tying a knot in the white gauze, he looked up at her and gave her the brightest smile he could muster. "All done."

He stared intently at her injured arm, frowning at the tiny beads of blood which were already starting to seep through the grubby bandages. Her pupils were wide, dilated with adrenaline and her hair clung damply to her cheeks. He'd seen her in this sort of state more times than he'd care to recall, but with every fresh disaster, the gnawing anxiety that he might lose her was slowly spiraling into an uncontrollable paranoia.

He didn't know exactly how it happened, but before he realised what he was doing his lips were abruptly pressed to hers with a rough, desperate compulsion. His arm wound itself around the small of her back as he kissed her. It was only the sharp, metallic taste of blood on her lips which brought him to his senses, and he drew back as though he'd been burned.

There was a horrible lurch in his stomach as he saw her shocked, almost hurt expression. He looked away, gritting his teeth. It was the kiss that he'd been holding back for the better part of a decade, that he'd imaged so many times over, and it had happened in the worst way possible, under the most horrible circumstances.

"I'm not sorry!" he blurted out. "I know I should be sorry, but I'm not." His voice was much too loud, and he lowered his tone, glancing around the perimeter to make sure that his sudden outburst hadn't alerted anything to their presence. "This is bullshit. I don't want to lose you and I don't want to be just your partner."

Jill looked slightly stunned, her expression distressed. "This...this isn't the time or the place, Chris..." she said quietly, her tone flat. "I...can't think about this right now. I just want to get Spencer and get out of here."

He winced at her words, and the lack of emotion in her voice was like a punch to the chest. His jaw was clenched so tightly that it was painful and he bit back the urge to spill his guts to the woman in front of him, to let ten years of not-so-carefully repressed emotion come tumbling out. Instead, he swallowed hard and nodded slightly.

"Yeah," he replied despondently. "We better get moving."