AN: This chapter is dedicated to Maidenchan, who inspired me to write Wesker in a completely different light, if only for a few paragraphs.
slt.
Book Credit - Lover Awakened, by J.R. Ward. We do not own or profit from any of Ms. Ward's creations.
Nobody sees you when you are lying in your bed
And I wanna crawl in
But I cry instead.
I want your warm, but it will only
Make me colder when it's over.
So I can't tonight, baby.
- "Love Ridden"
"You can't."
"Why?"
"Well... Because." She was obstinate.
"It's July, Jill. There's so much game out there now. And I'll be back in time for your birthday."
She chewed her nails - a habit she'd left in the past and picked up again in the last few weeks.
Chris wasn't himself - in spirit at least.
He didn't touch her.
He didn't look at her that way anymore.
She wondered sometimes if he knew about Wesker.
He never said anything though, and she was too afraid.
So it hung in the air.
Like the gallows.
"How many days?"
"I dunno. Three? Yeah? You'll be fine, baby. You got Prince Charming over there." Chris smiled at her, reassuring.
She sat on their little bed, watching him pack. "Did you... have you talked to him about this?"
Chris set down the folded clothes, looked at her darkly. "Really? You want me to ask his permission?"
"Permission for what?" Wesker stood in the door way.
"I'm going up. Gonna hunt for a few days." Chris said it casually, stuffing some pants into a bag.
Wesker eyed him. "There is plenty of meat in the freezer, Chris."
"It's not that. I'm taking a break... from this bunker. I can't do small spaces for too long."
They looked at each other, suspicious. Jill bit her nails.
"You should be careful," Wesker said, finally. "Do you have what you need? Take a rifle. A hand gun too."
She almost stood up. Allowing him to go? And letting him have weapons?
Chris folded slowly now, an odd expression. He hadn't expected that reaction either.
He seemed unsettled by it. "Yeah, Hoss. I got it under control."
"I don't think it's a good idea. I don't want him to go." She spoke up.
"Mr. Redfield is special ops, Jill. He's quite a big boy. He'll be fine." And Wesker walked back down the hall, calling out, "I'll set up the two-way for you."
"See. Everything'll be okay. Like old times."
Chris set his knives in a row on the dresser. He chose his largest hunting blade. "You guys can catch up... do whatever it is you did when I wasn't around."
She glared at him. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
He looked up, innocently. "Nothing, babe. Just... you know, talk or whatever."
She watched him do the rest of his packing.
"You're coming back, aren't you?" She whispered.
He softened, went to her, put his arms around her. She let herself be pulled in. He had gotten so strong and healthy. Chris was solid again; looking and feeling like himself every day, even if the fire wasn't in him anymore.
"Of course I'm coming back, Jilly-Bean. Of course."
January, 2006.
"It's called Scopolamine. It's derived from the Atropa belladonna."
"A lovely flower. It's a tropane alkaloid then?"
Excella nodded. "A muscarinic antagonist."
He paged through the report. "Tell me again how this benefits the furtherance of my... our cause."
"Mind control, my love." She purred. "A zombie without all the... mess."
Wesker held the vial up to the light. "You say you can mass produce this?"
"We are working very hard on a synthesized compound - a mixture of Scopolamine and a steroid to combat the adverse physical effects of the tropane."
"And what are these 'adverse effects'?"
"Dizziness, inability to speak, visual disturbances. The steroid additive will work to undo those."
Wesker nodded. "Typical psychological reactions?"
"Well, psychosocial effects of Scopolamine are actually more... desirable. Things like memory loss. Robot-like complacency."
She smiled, but sensed he wasn't impressed. "In early tests, it was even used to resuscitate rats when administered intravenously in high doses."
"And what's the working name of this zombie compound?"
"p30, Albert."
He watched the liquid swish back and forth.
A beautiful garnet cocktail.
"This is nice. Interesting."
Her smile grew.
"It will suffice as a cover for our real research. Turn over whatever you have to our satellite labs and use the name p30 for what we're doing here."
She looked confused, her pride stinging. "Do you want me to keep going with it or..."
"Shelve it. I need all of your energy focused on Uroboros. I don't want you working on anything else."
She stood in front of him, clutching the lab report, the smile gone.
He stared at her expectantly.
She didn't move.
"Well, that's all, Excella. Get back to the lab. I need that test subject prepped."
He walked out of the office, flipping the light switch off as he went.
She stood in the dark, clutching the lab report.
August 2, 2006.
Excella watched from behind the glass.
The guards wouldn't let her in.
He was frantic in the lab - mad with panic.
She saw it in his body, heard it when he yelled at the scientists.
He'd killed six of them. He would keep going, she knew, until they were all dead.
There was something else too - such pain.
Excella could not understand it.
Who was the girl on the table?
Such pain.
Wesker raised the magnum and executed another. That one she knew by name.
Excella's fists clenched.
"Stop him! There isn't need for this!" She shouted at one of the guards.
They looked at her, blank and ignorant. Then they turned away.
"Did you hear me? Stop this!"
They didn't react to her, under orders not to.
"Please. There's a way. Tell him there's a way! Quickly!"
One of the guards, reluctant, went into the lab.
Excella sighed, thinking of the drug he had told her to forget about.
There was no going back now, whoever that girl might prove to be.
To see him hurt, to see him so afraid... was more than she could stand.
And the p30.
The p30.
But Excella knew then that it would not end well.
None of it.
September, 2007.
She watched them spar from the observatory.
Her heels sounded like little bells as she paced slowly over the metal catwalk.
Below her, Wesker and and his pet wrestled.
He spent so much time with her, on her, for her.
It made Excella nauseous.
Jill was slammed to her back, the wind knocked out of her. Her eyes were open wide, staring straight up.
His face hovered over hers. He was fuzzy, but undeniably... Wesker.
"Up, Jill. Again." He pulled her to standing as if she were a rag doll.
She shook her head, trying to clear it.
He stood apart from her, his body in a crouch, ready for her attack. He motioned for her to try.
She stumbled, still reeling. Then she rushed.
She missed him by three feet, sliding to her knees on the polished floor.
Wesker looked at her then, his hands on his hips. She was fast - very fast. And strong. But something was wrong.
"What is it?" He asked.
Jill of course, could not answer. She glared in his direction, rubbing her tired eyes.
His gaze went to Excella, above them.
"She cannot see, Albert. It's the p30." She shrugged, arms crossed.
He sighed.
"Overlays have been shown to help some ADHD sufferers. It improves the ability to focus by keeping the overactive part of the brain stimulated so the eyes can work."
The lab tech showed him rudimentary designs - glasses, goggles, something like a motorcycle helmet. "Red seemed to be the tint of preference for most subjects."
"None of these will work in combat." Wesker mumbled.
The tech fidgeted, nervous. "Do you... have any suggestions, sir?"
Wesker stared at the CADD renderings, spreading the papers across the lab table.
His fingers on his lips, thrumming. "Have you considered a mask?"
"It's probably better that her face is concealed."
"Oh, I agree..." She drawled. Anything to keep that animal covered up.
He stood behind Excella, his fingertips trailing down her back, whispering. "Terrifying and poetic, isn't it?"
It reminded her of the plague masks. It disgusted her.
She hadn't signed up for all this - hadn't signed up for the living-dead girl, hadn't signed up to make monsters, hadn't signed up to turn her back on everyone and everything she'd known.
He was worth it though.
He had to be.
He was all she had left.
So she smiled, a flute of champagne in her delicate hand. "Albert, it's perfect."
They watched as Jill grappled with a partner. She pinned a man twice her size and flung another off her back with ease - the sickening crack of his bones breaking.
The red eyes glittered.
Wesker beamed.
He does everything short of giggle like a schoolgirl when that little whore of his is around.
Jill breathed heavily under the repulsive mask, the ugly black cowl rippling. She seemed to stare straight at them, through the two-way glass.
Excella threw back the rest of her drink.
On the first day of their freedom from Chris, they were wild and young.
She laughed until she was out of breath, dodging around him in the lab. Always just out of reach.
He finally caught her, pulled her down to the floor with him by her underwear.
Got her in a lock, held her down as squirmed like a kitten.
He nipped her all over - behind the knee, her back, her neck, her arms.
She screeched and put up her pretend-fight.
Laughing until she was light-headed.
She had never heard him laugh in pleasure before - genuine pleasure.
It was a beautiful, liberating sound.
He echoed off the walls of the messy lab.
Both of them like dishes breaking.
He kissed her ear and found his way inside.
She loved the first thrust.
They laughed when she gasped.
"You just wanted him gone."
Wesker stroked her side, her ribs. "Mmmm... perhaps."
She could feel him smile in the dark.
"Probably shouldn't have given him so many guns."
He rubbed his nose in her hair, smelling her. "I'm unconcerned."
"Yeah, I know. But he's crazy, Al."
He touched her face. "Don't let it worry you. There's nothing he can do to us."
She rested her head on his chest, circling one of his nipples with her finger. "I dunno."
He nudged her hand away. "That tickles. And don't talk about him anymore. It kills my libido."
Wesker pulled her up, on top of him. A thigh on either side of hips.
"You're excited by this. All this sneaky, back-stabby shit." He could hear her smiling.
"Yes... I love the idea that Chris could arrive at any time... to find us here... fucking on the floor... and all those big, bad guns..." He laughed, half-serious.
She sighed, found his hands, pinned them above his head. He let her.
"Are you arresting me, Officer Valentine?"
"Yes."
"Under what pretense?"
"Being a dick."
"I see... I demand a recitation of my rights."
"Oh, no - they can't save you now. I'm gonna throw the book at you this time, Wesker."
She ground her hips against his.
He moaned. "Please, Officer Valentine... be sure to really teach me a lesson..."
September 23, 1998.
She wept.
She wailed.
She practically threw herself to the ground in her grief.
And Wesker dragged her by the wrist.
The strange men had taken her from Leon and Claire. They'd come in, broken down the doors, masquerading as U.S. troops.
And then they'd dropped her into the clutches of a man she'd seen perhaps four times in her short life.
"Stop it, Sherry. Stop it." An angry, unfamiliar voice.
Her face was wet with tears.
She paused long enough to hear him... and then returned to screaming.
"Oh, Christ. You are exactly like your father."
He yanked her; she tripped and fumbled along after him, her little loafers scraping against the rooftop.
The helicopter whirred, waiting for them to make a dramatic exit from the town that wouldn't exist in seven minutes.
The pilot watched their approach.
Wesker turned to her, grabbed her by her tiny shoulders, too rough.
There was mucus coming out of her nose.
He looked at her, shook her once. "Listen to me, Sherry. Stop it and listen. Your parents are dead."
Her eyes were like saucers.
"They are not coming back. They were Umbrella's fools and now they've paid for it with their lives. And all of your carrying on is pointless."
Her bottom lip shook.
"Do you want to die, Sherry? Do you? Because we are both going to die if we stand here while you throw a tantrum."
She screeched and went limp, dropping to her already bloodied knees.
Wesker looked around for help.
He was really bad at this.
"Fine. I'll go. I'll leave. And then you'll be sorry."
She sank down farther, heaving and writhing, her face on the tarred cement.
Wesker watched, a hand on his forehead, the other on his hip.
And whether it was William's ghost or some last shred of humanity, he'd never know.
He bent down, picked her up, and carried her.
He felt her head on his shoulder.
Her little hands clutching at his jacket.
Her tears on his neck.
He ducked into the helicopter and nodded to the pilot.
They left Raccoon City as it toppled in on itself.
And he held her as she slept.
"I am not meant to be a father." He said it suddenly, absently.
Sometimes the slivers of his life worked their way into their meetings.
She enjoyed hearing him be human.
He was sitting up in the bed that was his throne, staring into space, thinking out loud.
Ada slithered out from under the silk sheets.
"She cries every night, until she collapses and sleeps. I can't... I don't know what to do with her feelings. She's so... messy."
Ada listened as she slipped back into the slinky gown. She slid the belt up her thigh. Wesker saw the glimmer of the throwing knife in the low light.
"Are you kind to her?" She asked, glancing over a bare shoulder at him.
He looked at her. Silent.
"Right," she said, going back to the intricate straps of her heels. "It is you we're talking about."
"I give her whatever she desires."
"That's not the point."
"What is the point then, Ms. Wong?"
She stood, straightening the dress. He had just had sex with her, yet he called her Ms. Wong.
"She's a little girl. She needs you to be nice to her. She's alone."
"I'm here."
"No, you're not." She checked the cartridge of the handgun. Slammed it back. "Talk to her."
"What will I say?"
He sounded fragile.
Ada holstered the firearm, looked at him. His eyes were almost blue again in that light.
She leaned over the bed, took his face in her hands.
"You'll figure it out, Wesker. You always do."
June, 2008.
She was a pretty girl.
She looked like both of her parents - tall and gangly, freckles across her cheeks and nose as if she had been sprinkled by a paintbrush.
Wesker had watched her grow and through some kind of divine intervention, had figured out what to say in his minimalist style. They had struggled, butted heads during her teens, but they found their way.
She was in college. She would be successful.
He'd urged her to pursue what she loved: Criminal Law. (That had been a tense confession on her part).
But he knew the New World wouldn't wait for her to finish her degree.
They stepped off the jet together onto the private landing.
"I have business to attend to. There's another car coming for me." He was already dialing someone. "Enjoy a nice meal. Get some rest."
They kissed each other's cheeks and she got into the waiting limo, headed for the heart of Paris. The lights of the city twinkled in the distance.
"Sherry."
She turned, pulled a headphone out of one ear. "What?"
He stared at her, more intensely than usual.
"What?"
"Take care."
She smiled. "You're such a weirdo. See you later, Al-ligator."
She knew he'd hated that joke since she was a child.
Tonight though, he didn't cringe. He let it be.
"Yes. Later." He said it slowly, almost a sigh.
He watched the limo pull away and then headed back to the jet.
It was the last time he saw Sherry Birkin.
She didn't find the letter until that night, at their hotel - the same one he had taken her to as a child.
He'd shown her the Eiffel Tower for the first time at 13, had stalked the halls of the Louvre with her. She recalled laughing at the squeegie sound his black boots made on the museum floors.
He'd even let her hold his hand once as she stared at the Champs-Elysees, sad and lonely, on a cold French Christmas Eve.
He distracted her with stories about Napoleon and the guillotine and all of the horrible thrilling things that made up the French Revolution.
And when she was most melancholy about her parents, he took her to the best pâtisseries and bought her the most beautiful petit fours. She would eat them until she bounced from the walls on a sugar high.
Sometimes he smiled.
Paris did that to him - made him almost whole.
Albert Wesker was a man she would have been happy to call her real father. He was more intelligent than anyone she'd ever met, he was handsome, he was proud, and he was quiet.
And if he was evil embodied, she thought, then she would be okay in the world.
That was the most important thing he'd given her: the knowledge that she would be okay.
She began tearing up at the sight of his tight, haunted script.
She knew what the letter would say, knew that the day had been coming, could hear it in his voice.
Dearest -
I have raised you to the best of my abilities. I know you have wanted for things I am unable to provide. I hope that in your adulthood, you will find it in your heart to forgive my inadequacy as a guardian.
The guilt of your parents' deaths has been with me all of these years. I am a monster, in more than one sense of the word. Know that I have not gotten away with it, though. There are ghosts that find me, even in my sleep.
I will not allow my ghosts to find you.
You do not deserve to bear witness to my plans as they unfold in coming years. You are clean and I refuse to tarnish the shine of your youth. I ruined your father and thought nothing of it then. Now, I think of it every day.
You will not be a casualty in my war.
There is a buffer in place to meet your needs without being connected to our past. You know the accounts and you have privileged access to everything that is mine. Your apartment is ready at Harvard. Please keep in mind that education is a priority.
(Through tears, Sherry rolled her eyes.)
I will be in touch soon.
Be strong and think of a future that has no room for death or suffering. Our future.
You are with me always,
A.W.
Day 138.
"Yes. I know."
He was on the phone again.
Not with a scientist.
No. This person was special enough to get his soft voice. Jill listened, tried to imagine who would be worth that to him.
"You must stay where you are. I'll be there soon. Did you stock up like I told you to?"
He got off the hotel bed, began to pace.
Jill bit her nails.
"You have nothing to be... No. It cannot break into an apartment."
He was lying to the person on the other end.
The monsters could break into anything.
Jill jumped, having bitten one nail down to the quick. She watched a drop of blood well up.
Her chest ached; the plate was hot to the touch. Hungry.
He was late. She wished he would just get off the damned phone and shut the plate up, shut her mind up.
"I have some business to attend to before I can get to you. Just stay there. Don't leave for anything."
He listened.
"You know I feel the same."
She watched him close his eyes, everything seeming to leave him then.
"It's not right for me... to say those words."
Jill strained to hear him as he walked away.
"I cannot. Don't ask that of me... Just be strong... Shhh... Don't cry, don't cry..."
Day 145.
Jill watched Wesker take the stairs. Two at a time.
She looked at the brownstone apartment building in the middle of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Who was it that lived here?
On the second day of their freedom from Chris, they were literary connoisseurs and time travelers.
Wesker was eating Cheetos.
The orange dust all over his fingers.
He would occasionally offer her some... and then rip the bag away when she reached for them.
Eventually, she stopped falling for his joke.
She was laying next to him, reading a trashy romance novel.
"What's this one about?" He spoke with his mouth full. Crumbs fell out.
She brushed them off of her book. "Hey, slow down with that." Turned the page. "It's my favorite. Zsadist's story."
He laughed loudly. "Zsadist? Truly, Jill? What next - Masochistmo?"
She was offended, hugging the book to her chest. "Uh, yes, his name is Zsadist. And laugh all you want, but he was a vampire-blood-sex-slave. It's very sad."
Wesker looked skeptical. She smiled at how stupid the premise of the bodice-ripper sounded out loud.
"Read it to me, Jill."
"... No." Turned the page. "Absolutely not."
"Then let me." He held his hand out.
"There's Cheeto shit all over your fingers. No."
He wiped it on her arm then. She wiggled away - disgusted, amused. He licked and sucked the rest of it off his fingertips. Then tried to wipe his sticky hand on her again.
She tossed the book at him. "Christ, take it!"
"Thank you. Glasses, please." He picked the novel up and flipped through the pages, pausing on any she'd dog-eared. She put his glasses on for him. "Hmmm... Let's see..."
He was expressionless for a moment. And then his eyebrows jolted up. He brought the book closer to his face. She watched as he mouthed the words, fast.
His nostrils flared as his eyes darted back and forth down the page.
"My my, Jill. You've been keeping this from me?"
She blushed, and then grew angry that she was blushing.
Wesker licked his lips, half-way to smile, and began to read.
"... As he lifted his head and swallowed, the growl of ecstasy he made stopped her heart in her chest. Their eyes met."
He paused to look at Jill. She sank further away, embarrassed. When she was sufficiently flushed, he went on.
"... A release was coming for him. Just as it had in the bathroom when she'd held on as he pumped. Only hotter. Wilder. Out of control. "Oh, Jesus!" He hollered -"
She tried to yank the book back from him. "Okay. You get the point, Al. I'm humiliated. Good job."
He held it up and away from her, pushing her with his free hand. He smiled, still reading as expressively as he could.
"Their bodies were slapping together and he was mostly blind and he was sweating all over her and the bonding scent was a screaming roar in his nose... And she called his name and seized up under him. Her core grabbed onto him in spasms that milked him until -"
She finally succeeded, wrenching poor Zsadist, the Vampire-Blood-Sex-Slave, from Wesker's grip.
He was grinning like an idiot.
"So there. Now you know." She settled back down next to him, their bare shoulders touching.
"Those stories kept you warm all these months?" He asked.
She nodded, book in her lap.
"You never came to me. I would have done a better job than words on a page, villainous and foul as I am."
She studied him. He spread his long toes, her foot on top of his. "Yeah, well, you never came to me either."
He rested his head on the wall, took off his glasses, set them aside.
"You should read to me, Jill," he said.
"All of it?" She asked, finding her place again.
"Whatever you feel is pertinent." He closed his eyes and waited.
"I'm almost done. I'll read you the end."
"Alright. The end. Zsadist's happily ever after. Please."
She cleared her throat (a habit).
"She crushed the paper to her heart, then launched herself at him, hitting his chest so hard he stumbled back. As his arms came around her with hesitation, as if he didn't have any idea what she was doing or why, she wept openly..."
Wesker hummed, as if he understood. Jill continued.
"In all her preparations for this meeting, the one thing she never considered was that the two of them might have some sort of future..."
"You perv." She laid the blue thong on the floor, smirking. "I knew it."
He'd brought out The Box for her.
He never intended to show her what he had, hidden away. But as they lay, talking in the dark, talking in their warmth, he felt compelled.
She paged through the news paper clippings. Her obituaries. She was surprised there were so many. All those people who cared. Now on the opposite end.
"It's so weird. I... I mean, I was alive for all of this. But I wasn't there. It's a bizarre feeling - looking in." She spread out the articles.
Wesker sat on the bed, watching her. "Looking in was all I did for more than a decade."
She dug, an archeologist of her own life.
Wesker saw her stop moving; one of her hands going to her chest, protective. He knew she'd found the plate.
"It's the past, Jill." Softly.
She nodded, but she couldn't unknit her eyebrows. He hated her concern.
"Here." He was up then, walking around her and the fragile artifacts that made up her secret identity.
He opened the louver doors to his closet.
Pushed through his clothes to the back.
Along the wall, he lifted a few pairs of neatly folded pants, pulling out something underneath.
When he turned to her again, she smiled and set the chest plate down.
"You saved that?" She was amazed.
"Jesus Christ. Did I really gain that much weight? It won't go up."
He was laughing. "Lay on the bed."
She did, her legs dangling, feet swinging.
He worked the zipper, tugging it.
She held her breath, sucking in so he wouldn't catch her skin.
He was smiling; it was stuck. "I believe we have reached maximum zippage, Jill."
And then she was laughing. "Really?"
"Yes."
She stood, the material of the suit so strange on her skin. It clung to her and rubbed uncomfortably.
She looked at Wesker, pulling on the fabric. "How did I do anything in this?"
He crossed his arms. "Well, recall that you wore it before you developed those."
A nod to her chest.
She stared at herself in the battle suit.
Ridiculous cleavage - the zipper stopped in some glorious limbo right above her navel.
She turned, three-quarter view in the mirror.
"You look a bit like Excella from that angle."
She shot him a glare.
"It's just the fertility drugs. Now that you're weaning off, your body will return," he said.
"It's like the porn version of me." She saw herself from every way possible.
Wesker rubbed the back of his neck. "Indeed."
"Not bad, huh?" Her hands on her hips. A pose.
All those curves.
"Not bad at all." His sultry reply. "Or maybe very bad..."
She stopped admiring her reflection. "Hey. Gimme that." She pointed to the chest plate.
Wesker hesitated. "Jill..."
"No, really. Give it to me. I wanna see."
He relented, sighing.
In the mirror, she bit her bottom lip, chewed.
She held the jewel up to chest, where it had been imbedded years before.
It glittered in the light of the bunk.
She thought she felt it throb.
A moment of fear.
"There. I can handle it." Not entirely convincing.
He stood to her right, watching.
She swallowed. "This was how I looked?"
"Yes. You were something else." He seemed to go back in time. "We were something else. Chris's face... when he saw you... I would have paid for it."
She nodded, but didn't remember.
The both of them were transfixed on her image.
She wavered, stepping back. He grabbed her arm.
"I'm really dizzy."
"Shhh... here - sit."
He led her to the bed, easing her down. She dropped the plate.
"Are you alright?"
"No... I can't breathe..." She pulled on the zipper. "I can't breathe." She fanned herself.
"Lay back."
She began to hyperventilate. "Oh God. It won't come off! Get it off! Get it off! Fuck!"
Her hands clawed at the suit.
"Jill, relax. Stop."
She screamed, arching up. He couldn't get her to stop raking her fingers over the zipper.
"It won't come off! Help me! Get it off! I'm dying!"
He pinned her then, held her face still. She stared at him, terrified. "Listen to me. You're having a panic attack. I'm going to remove this but you have to let me. Okay? Yes? Give me something."
She nodded, breathing through her nose, erratic and fast.
He took either side of the suit in his hands and tore it.
Ripped the damned thing in half.
Pulled her arms out.
Helped it down her body and off.
She was shaking and naked again, biting her hand.
He stared at her, what was left of the suit on the floor.
"Jill... I didn't realize..." He started, but it went nowhere.
She looked at him, hurt.
He wrapped her in a blanket and then laid down next to her.
She curled up, burrowing into him.
Shaking pathetically.
Day 145.
"Sherry?"
He pushed the door open slowly. It had been ajar.
Every door down the corridor had been ajar.
Furniture torn to shreds, apartment turned over.
He was too late.
He imagined her screams.
"I have some business to attend to..."
He pulled away from the door, took three uneasy steps back before falling to his knees.
Deep sobs.
No tears.
Just pitiful, human sounds as he crawled on the cold floor.
A worm.
"I'm really scared. It's all over the news."
"Yes. I know."
"You know? Everyone's dying! Isn't there someplace safe? One of them was spotted 200 miles away!"
"You must stay where you are. I'll be there soon. Did you stock up like I told you to?"
"Yeah... but I'm... I should be with you... I'm -"
"You have nothing to be -"
"Are you serious right now? I live in an apartment! Can they... do they climb?"
"No. They can't break into an apartment."
"When will you be here?" She began to cry. "I'm really scared. Please come soon."
"I have some business to attend to before I can get to you. Just stay there. Don't leave for anything."
"Please hurry..." She wept. "I love you, Dad."
"You know I feel the same." He whispered, closed his eyes in pain.
"Then tell me. You never tell me."
"It's not right for me... to say those words."
"Please... I love you. Just say it - once."
"I cannot. Don't ask that of me. Just be strong... Shhh... Don't cry, don't cry..."
He emerged, wiping his nose, walking quickly, forcefully.
Jill stood. "You find them?"
He shook his head, getting back in the car.
He looked to be his normal, ornery self.
She was confused. He'd been so adamant about finding whoever lived there.
"Well... do you want to look for -" She tried.
"Get in the fucking car, Valentine!"
His eyes flashed behind the sunglasses.
That night, in a nameless hotel, he tore the jewel from her chest - freeing her.
When she clung to him, he clung to her.
And they both bled.
On the third day of their freedom from Chris, they were only lovers.
He rocked her slowly.
Her thighs pushed back.
Laying on the lab table.
They moved, almost gently.
He touched her almost sweetly.
They were almost... real.
He pulled her up, an arm around her.
She looked into his eyes.
"Is this how he is with you?" He whispered against her mouth.
She shook her head, kissing him.
He broke away, pressed his forehead to hers, rocked his hips. "How then?"
"Al... not now. Don't." She was afraid his jealousy would ruin what they had found.
He stopped, looking at her. "I need to know."
In her bunk, in Chris's bunk, she stared at Wesker.
She lifted something shiny off the dresser she and Chris shared.
Came to him, the gift in hand.
It went over his head.
She adjusted it so it laid perfectly on his bare chest.
He looked down.
REDFIELD
CHRISTOPHER
311131488 BSAA
AB NEG
CATH
Wesker wore his dogtags well.
Jill pushed her fingers through his hair, silent.
She messed up the straight blond strands - piecing them out, twisting some of them.
She fussed until he was perfect.
He stared at himself in the mirror on the dresser.
Naked except for the dogtags around his neck.
His hair out of place - pushed forward, falling over his face, textured where it had once been smooth.
Behind him, Jill laid her cheek to his shoulder blade.
Her hands spread out over his chest.
She hugged him hard, her eyes squeezed shut.
He moved slowly, the way he thought The Other would.
His hands over hers, holding her there.
A hero.
He stared at Chris Redfield in the mirror.
Jill let him lead.
They swayed together.
No music.
Wesker's hand on her lower back, his other holding hers.
She buried her face in his throat, inhaled deep.
As they moved, she couldn't remember who it was she was dancing with.
She didn't care.
Jill showed him how he should kiss.
He mimicked her until he got it right.
The Savior's Kiss.
He practiced until she moaned against his mouth.
The way she moaned against Chris's.
Wesker was kneeling.
The mattress creaked under his unfamiliar weight.
He waited for her to show him how.
He'd left the lights on.
She looked at him, her heart beating so hard - aching and falling apart and shattering and coming back together and finding itself and breaking.
And then she turned over, on her hands and knees.
More open and vulnerable than she'd ever let herself be with him.
"Please," she said.
She whimpered when he took her.
When Wesker took her.
The dogtags cool on her back, his skin so hot where they met.
She pulled his hand down, beneath her, between her thighs, to help her over the edge.
His rhythm was a perfect match.
She cried out, fighting tears.
He kissed the back of her neck, bit the back of her neck.
It was so good and sad.
Both of them starving and lonely and reduced.
"Jill." Chanted over and over like some sickly prayer for mercy.
She could have sworn it was Chris.
They pressed so close together.
Their pale skin and pale hair and pale souls identical, impossible to separate.
She looked into his eyes - looked so hard and long that she couldn't tell the difference between amber and blue.
"And what now?" He whispered. "What would he do?"
She moved his hand so that it rested on her hip.
His thumb rubbed an invisible circle there.
"And you, Jill. What would you do?"
She shivered under his stare.
"I would tell him that I love him."
She looked down, the tags in her hand. She ran her fingers over the raised print.
"What would he say then?" Wesker asked, watching her. "After you tell him that you love him."
"He would say it back."
"Because he's a hero." He said sorrowfully.
"Because he means it. Because he does."
Her eyes moved up then, shy.
There was a moment when it would have been possible to go back.
To step away from the window and Chris and the stormy ocean and the cold.
That moment had passed.
"I love you," Jill said.
"I love you." Wesker answered.
2007.
"It's a matter of harnessing chi."
Her strike was good. Form was near flawless. It was true power she was lacking.
He watched as she performed the melee over and over again.
Ghost butterfly.
"You can do that until you die of exhaustion, Jill, but it won't change until you acknowledge your latent strength."
She glared under the mask, her teeth gritted.
"There are two forms of chi. One we are born with, the other what our body uses to create energy. Both are important... but the birth chi, the internal chi, is greater."
He walked around her, observing. She kept going, grunting at the end of each strike.
"Birth chi is the power of intention. It is the follow-through. It is the strength."
He stepped in front of her, easing down into a preparatory stance.
"You can attack on a surface level, that is, physically harm your enemies. Or, you can obliterate them by attacking them on a sub-atomic level."
She watched through her new ruby eyes.
"The art of harnessing chi is practiced across all cultures."
Slowly, he pulled his hands back, brought them close to his chest, palms out.
"The Egyptian Uraeus, for example, is a cobra, coiled to strike - in the position of the third eye. This serpent, if you will, is where your chi lies. And this is where your intention must issue from."
He forced his elbows straight, an inhuman growl on the execution.
Ghost butterfly.
Jill fell back, thrown to the floor by a wave of energy. She gasped. He hadn't even touched her.
Wesker recovered, offered her a gloved hand.
"The power of intention, Ms. Valentine."
They performed Kururunfa forms together, the ki hap at the end of each position the only sound in the darkened gym.
Slow, slow, fast, slow. Fast, fast. Slow.
Each movement had a purpose, had a speed, had a breath, had a chi.
She was his shadow, his ever-serving rib.
She had never been so awake and the plate on her chest glowed in approval.
Her body and mind aligned with his, and Jill Valentine harnessed her chi.
On the day Chris came home, something was changed between them.
She woke up the next morning.
He was staring down at her.
Already showered.
Wearing all black.
Anything casual, anything soft in him... gone.
He waited until she had both eyes open.
"I think it would be wise for you to get up and get dressed now. He could be home at any time and we have to clean."
She looked up at him - searching for something.
(Some kind of recognition? An acknowledging of the night before?)
But he was hollow.
She stared. He grew anxious.
His hand went to his throat, self-conscious.
He felt the necklace; almost winced when he touched the metal.
He yanked on the dogtags (the noose), couldn't get them off fast enough, set them on the dresser.
Careful, spidery fingers arranged the chain.
Jill watched him, pulling the comforter around herself, suddenly... painfully aware.
He nodded curtly, and stepped backwards.
Both of them so distrustful, it ached.
Then he turned and left.
She sat on the edge of the bed.
Jill couldn't think of a time when her regret had ever been more intense.
"Did I, uh... did I miss something?" Chris asked. "You all have a party?"
The lab was a mess.
Wesker was picking up.
He was in a terrible mood, wouldn't speak.
Chris watched him snatching things off the ground, tossing things in the trash.
There were Cheetos everywhere.
Chris sat down on their bed.
The sheets were still damp from the washer.
Someone had done that in a hurry.
He frowned and pushed the unpleasant thought out of his head.
"So what'd ya catch?" Jill asked as she swept the floor, around and under the bed.
"Nothing. I just sat out there and thought."
She brushed loose hair out of her face. "You didn't hunt?"
"Nah. We don't really need it. Besides, it woulda rotted by the time I dragged it back here."
She nodded, sweeping the dust into a pan. "What'd you think about?"
"Everything. All of this." He gestured around the room. "What did you two do? This place looks like a bomb hit it... oh, wait..."
He smiled at his own joke.
"I didn't do much," she said.
(We had sex all over the bunker.
Wesker read my erotica out loud.
And then we put your IDs on him, made him you.
Because he wanted to be you, just for a night.
He's always wanted to be you.
But this morning, he woke me up and acted like none of it happened.
And I think I might be dying of this.
Dying of everything. Of all of this.)
She shook her head and leaned on the broom. "Yeah, nothing really. I did a lot of thinking too."
Chris glanced at the dresser. "Oh. I totally forgot these."
He pulled the dogtags over his head and adjusted them so that they laid perfectly on his chest.
Jill stared, her eyes watering.
March, 1997.
He set a piece of paper, face down, on her desk.
She looked up, surprised and embarrassed.
She shoved the latest copy of Cosmo in the closest drawer.
"Sir," she said.
"Ms. Valentine, I've asked you several times to pull... that back." He looked at her hair. "I'm not sure what exactly they required of you in the military, but you're a police officer now and you need to be more conscious of these things."
"Yes, Captain. I'm sorry. It won't happen again." Her eyes were on what he'd brought her.
He leaned in. "I came across this. I'm aware you are estranged from him, but I thought it prudent that you knew." He slid the paper closer to her.
At his desk, he tried not to watch her.
He could not help himself.
Around her, the rest of the office went on - a flurry of paper, conversations, Redfield dribbling a basketball as he pecked at the keyboard.
He saw her tuck her hair behind her ear.
She read to herself.
Her back hunched then, as if she'd been struck, unexpectedly.
Nearby, Chris laughed at something Brad said and Barry answered a phone while Rebecca sifted through a substantial stack of files.
Jill though, was still.
Her shoulders up to her ears.
Her fingers shook. Just a little.
She folded the paper he'd given her then. Ripped it in half. Ripped it in half again.
She made a neat little pile.
It went in the trash.
She straightened her shirt and then sat upright in her chair, her back suddenly rigid.
She opened a file and began working on it.
The office moved on about her, a dull roar of activity.
Wesker knew he'd just watched her heart break.
She was the most interesting creature he'd ever seen.
So lovely in her pain.
That night, he closed up the station.
Keys in hand, folders under one arm, he passed by her empty desk, the little green light left on.
He looked down into her trash.
There, the ripped up paper lay, neatly disposed of.
It had let her know her father had been sentenced to 20 years in an upstate prison.
Grand larceny, organized crime involvement, battery and assault with a deadly weapon.
She'd folded it, torn it to bits.
He knew the feeling.
He'd done the same thing with most of his emotions.
They weren't so different.
No, not so different at all.
He reached over her desk and turned off the light.
Late that night, she walked out to the lab - her sleepy voice and bare feet.
Wesker was reading his journal.
He didn't even look up.
"Are you coming to bed?"
"Not tonight."
She waited.
"You're not coming to bed?"
He sighed. "No, Jill, I am not coming to bed. Stop asking."
She felt her chest cave in, her hands sweat.
He wouldn't even look at her.
She cracked first, and lost all the power for it. "You can't take it back. You told me you love me. Don't punish me for it."
He frowned, finally daring to meet her eyes.
He was so clear, lucid. "I never said those words to you."
(Ghost Butterfly)
He watched her stumble back.
Mortally wounded.
"Al..." She begged. "Don't be like that. Please."
(Obliterated)
"Perhaps it is...," he said, setting the book down. "That you've confused me with Chris Redfield. Hmm?"
She shook her head, not comprehending his cruelty.
(The power of intention)
There was a moment when it would have been possible for them to go back.
To stop playing games and let the wounds heal and trust each other.
That moment had passed.
"Now... Have a good night, Ms. Valentine."
He stayed up all night, reading and re-reading his journal.
It all looked foreign to him now. Nothing registered.
He was outside of his own life, looking in.
He read all that he had written.
Trying desperately to remember who he was.
Albert Wesker.
He wrote his own name, trying to feel it - in the motion of the hand, in the curve of the letters, in the hardness of the meaning.
Albert Wesker.
But it didn't feel like anything.
It didn't mean anything.
To anyone.
Something had broken down there.
On a sub-atomic level.
In the chi.
The three of them knew it.
Most of all, Wesker.
No one knows what it's like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes.
No one knows what it's like
To be hated
To be fated
To telling only lies.
- "Behind Blue Eyes"
