I'm sorry for the delay! My life has turned a little chaotic lately, and before Christmas I got busy with a Cleon short story. I promise I will keep writing my WIP, including Family Portrait :D

Thank you all for being here. I hope you enjoy this little chapter and that nobody finds the airport scene offensive.

Happy New Year!


The dome that embraced the entry hall of the West-Edonian airport terminal seemed to concentrate the sound in one centric spot in the in front of the security scanners and the access to the gates. It was hard to truly understand a word in the turmoil the passengers, airline personnel and the PA system caused.

"Are you kidding me? What's so dangerous about shampoo?"

However, the ambient sound drowned easily in the loud, beary voice of an astonished Chris Redfield who had just seen the ridiculously small shampoo bottle his sister was placing into the plastic bag the airport security required for keeping liquids and gels within the carry-on luggage.

"It's for security reasons, Chris." Claire snickered and zipped the bag. "They want to make sure people don't take explosives on board."

After hefting his sister's excessively heavy cabin case onto the plastic tray and pushing it towards the scanner, Chris blinked at her, completing his statement of disapproval with a click of his tongue.

"And that's why I can't bring my Pepsi?"

The redhead shrugged with an irritated roll of her eyes.

"I'll buy you a new one once we're on the other side," she said with a wink right before Chris was called to pass the scanner.

"So," the older Redfield said when they had all gone through the security checkpoint. "When did they become so meticulous with their safety? I remember carrying a box cutter on the flight to start my job in Raccoon City."

Jill shoved her passport into her back pocket and threw on her coat, tugging out the blond ponytail from the blue collar. She gave Claire a serious look before telling Chris the truth.

"Everything started after 9/11," she said, her face marred with a hint of embarrassment and regret. "In 2001 terrorists attacked the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon."

Claire's bag met the ground with a loud clunk as the older Redfield dropped it, paralyzed by the sudden revelation of one of the most shocking events he had missed. The attention of all the people around was drawn to him immediately.

"What did you just say?"

Claire sighed and collected her bag from the ground, removing the dust from the bottom side before throwing it over her shoulder.

"Yeah, it was awful. They hijacked four airliners and crashed them into the buildings." She looked at her brother and shrugged. "Nothing was the same after those attacks."

Chris shook his head in disbelief.

"Wow, that's…" he blew out a breath and pressed his fist into the other palm. "Had I been on that plane…"

"What would you have done, huh?" Claire shouted annoyedly as she grabbed her brother's earlobe, pulling on it in a chiding way until Chris yelped in pain. "Do you think you're a superhuman? Everything would have happened exactly the same way, but you would have died, too. There would have been attacks, they would have crashed the planes, and on top of that I would have lost my brother."

Jill watched the scene in awe. The siblings had started fighting like two teenagers over the fact that Chris had not saved the world that one tragic Tuesday in 2001. The blonde's eyes shot to Piers, who had been following them in silence the whole time, listening to their conversation with surprised interest, mind blown away by the youthful presence his Captain had adopted since he believed he was twenty-five.

"And now I can't even take a knife with me," Chris shouted. "What if someone hijacks our plane? How am I gonna defend you all without a proper weapon?"

Piers cleared his throat behind the siblings. With his bag thrown carelessly over his shoulder, he turned to Chris.

"Don't worry, Captain. If you don't feel safe, I can show you how to build a weapon from stuff you can buy at the duty free shop."

The cocky smile on his face looked good on him, Claire thought when she had forced her mouth back closed. Piers had effortlessly put an end to their argument and left her wishing he would abandon his freezing attitude more often—for his own sake, of course. Chris was, in the meantime, chuckling amusedly. It seemed he had found an ally in his second-in-command.

With the good mood restored, the four of them walked towards their gate.


She wasn't sure if it was the noise of the engines, the altitude or the warmth of the sunlight that flooded unfiltered through the windows, but there was something about travelling in big aircrafts that always made Jill sleepy. Adding the fact that the flight back home usually took place the moment the farthest away from their next mission, it was no surprise that she had the best of slumbers on planes. Unbothered by any possible jetlag, she barely cared what time it was anywhere on the planet. When her eyes were shut, it was night.

"Jill!"

That was, until someone woke her up.

"Jill, are you awake?"

Claire, on the other hand, was wide awake whenever she as much as spotted an aircraft. Surviving victim of a plane crash in 1998, the redhead claimed she couldn't find rest in a place where there was no escape and where they didn't let her carry her motherfucking guns to defend herself in case a Tyrant showed up.

Jill smacked softly in response as she began to rub the sleepiness off her eyes.

"I am," she grunted and looked at Claire through one open eye. "I am."

Claire seemed worried, turning her head as if she feared someone could hear her.

"He can't hear us," she whispered as she looked over to Chris, who sat a row in front of them, wide-eyedly watching one of the Harry Potter movies the airline had among their on-board entertainment package and completely isolated from the world around him thanks to the headphones. "Nivans has gone to the toilet."

Jill yawned.

"What's wrong, Claire?" She asked as she tried to stretch in her seat and nearly hit the young man next to her in the face. When all possible funds were used for the fight against bioterrorism, there was nothing left for tickets beyond the economy class.

Without losing sight of the corridor, Claire cleared her throat.

"Listen. I've been thinking a lot since we left Edonia, and I know we agreed to show Chris stuff from home to see if we can make him remember," she said. "But what if we don't?"

Jill expected her to say something else, but when Claire remained silent, she understood that it hadn't been just a rhetorical question and that she wanted to start a logical discussion over a delicate issue. It seemed that the redhead was having one of those bright moments that pushed her to do things like flying to France or infiltrating an Umbrella facility without backup, and it was Jill's job to dissuade her before someone got hurt.

"Well," the blonde said in a calm tone, hoping she could choke the spark of lunacy before it would ignite a fire that couldn't be extinguished. "Given the type of amnesia he suffers, it seems that his memories can be banned forever if there's no proper trigger to make him remember." Jill smiled softly, lifting an eyebrow. "But how are you going to keep the truth about bioterror from him when there's a major outbreak taking place every six months?"

Claire pouted, surely aware of the good sense in Jill's words, but overwhelmed with some kind of hope her stubbornness didn't let her give up on.

"Well, there are people who live kinda isolated from reality…"

"Claire, stop! We talked about this," Jill hissed and woke the man to her right up for good. "What will he do when all of us are sent away and he has to stay behind? Trust me, he's gonna find out sooner or later, and he'll be mad as hell." She sighed at Claire's look lowered. "Not to mention that the B.S.A.A. will demand explanations for the absence of one of their founding members."

Claire swung her ponytail around as her look jumped from the opening door of the lavatory back to Jill.

"That's exactly what I mean!" she hissed angrily. "It's always what the B.S.A.A. wants. He hasn't had any vacation in the past ten years, he's always abroad, risking his life. Don't you think he deserves better?"

The cabin crew was currently serving meals and Piers was forced to take the other corridor to get back to his seat, which gave Claire and Jill more time to argue.

"Claire Redfield," Jill said, shaking her head in denial. "I don't recognize you! You should know better than anyone why we are fighting and why we can't just take some time off whenever we want. You have seen the effects of bioterrorism; you have been infected yourself. What's making you so irresponsible now?"

Grunting, Claire frowned in displeasure.

"I know, Jill," she replied, grabbing her friend's hand as she looked at her brother, who was laughing loudly at the screen.

Of course she knew, but was knowing better than feeling? Her intuition had led her to one shithole after the other, yes, but was that reason enough to give up and trust her head more than her heart?

"I know, but he's so carefree, so unbothered and so… happy."

When Jill sighed after a short while, Claire turned back to face her and saw the hesitation in her friend's eyes.

"I know that we can't keep him away from the truth forever, but do we have to introduce him to bioterrorism right away? I mean, nobody can guarantee that he will remember his past anyway."

Jill bit her lower lip. It was true that Chris' character had changed now that he wasn't carrying the weight of bioterrorism on his tired shoulders, but that wasn't reason enough to doom the world, was it? She frowned at her own thought.

Was the world really doomed with Chris Redfield gone?

Before Piers could get into their reach, Jill replied quietly, "Fine. What do you suggest?"

Claire couldn't hold back the victorious smile of hope as she spoke.

"Let's wait and give him some time off. Maybe he starts remembering things even if we don't intervene, but we can't just throw him into a world that has changed completely. He's a stranger here. Let's make this as comfortable as possible for him and…" she looked to Chris again. "Let him be happy for a while. A couple of months; maybe three."

Jill sighed, remaining silent as she considered what consequences Claire's idea could have.

"You know that I agree with you, Claire. Chris really deserves some time off," she said eventually. "But I also know that we need any help in this battle and Chris, even without his memory of bioterror, will be of great value to the B.S.A.A. Also, what am I going to tell everybody? How am I going to justify his absence?"

The redhead next to her cocked her head playfully as her lip twitched.

"For now, he will have to recover from his head injury."

Jill clenched her teeth visibly at Claire's audacity, also because of how much it reminded her of Chris. So different in many ways, when it came to the most annoying character traits, the two Redfield siblings were disturbingly alike. When Jill's response didn't show immediately, Claire began to grimace in pity, making use of those puppy eyes of hers and the way they watered when she held her breath for too long.

"Jill, please."

Another sigh announced the fall of Jill Valentine's determination, because Claire was painfully right when she said that Chris deserved to be happy, at least for a while. All of them had lost almost everything because of people like Spencer and Wesker, who were taking their will to play God too far. Jill swallowed. Was it fair of her to deny Chris a moment of freedom and carefreeness, a pause from all the headaches bioterrorism brought along? Her eyes jumped to the corridor. Piers was threateningly close to reach their row again, but before he arrived at his seat, a little girl with blonde curls dropped her teddy bear and he knelt down to give it back to her. Jill lifted a finger.

"One month," she said and made Claire smile shyly. "And a half, maybe. If he hasn't made any progress by himself by the end of February, we will tell him everything."

Claire blew out a breath of restrained happiness as her lips widened into a relieved smile. She squeezed Jill's hand in gratitude and mouthed a quiet Thank you, before the blonde shrugged a shoulder.

"I want him to be happy, too," she said and gestured to the young soldier that had finally reached his row and dropped into the seat. "I just see one tiny problem here."

Claire's look drove to Piers, whose attempt to climb over his Captain's legs had caused the older man to pause the movie and remove his headphones.

"I'm so happy you're fine, Captain."


Piers had gotten off the plane whistling a cheerful melody and, after carrying their bags to his sports car, he'd played Tetris with them until they were all stored in the tiny trunk. The three other people were baffled by his skills.

Jill was the only one who could stay awake once the engine roared, as she'd had her nap on the plane already.

"So," Piers mumbled as his look drifted to the rearview mirror and got stuck on the image of Claire, whose head had already dropped to the shoulder of her brother. "Shall I take you all to HQ?"

Jill made a sound of surprise when the young man shifted gears and accelerated, guiding the vehicle smoothly through the rush hour traffic and pushing her into the seat she was occupying next to him.

"Well," she said as she turned her head to the people in the backseat. Both Chris and Claire were sound asleep. "Honestly, I think we all need a rest before we start working again, you know? Chris has gone through a lot these past weeks and I want him to be…" she considered what words she should use. "In good shape when he gets back."

It was a pity Claire had dozed off so quickly. The redhead could have come up with much more convincing words to get Piers to drop them somewhere else.

"Also, remember that people over thirty don't have that much energy anymore," she laughed. "We we need less sleep, but things are going more slowly."

Her own lazy attempt, though, seemed to have been successful enough, and Piers nodded, laughing, though with a hint of embarrassment on his face.

"Oh, right, sorry," he excused himself and snickered shyly. "I got carried away. Naturally, the Captain can take his time. I guess there's a lot of… personal things he has to learn about, too."

Something in his voice made Jill believe that he was speaking about her, and it bothered her to the core. The rumors about Chris and herself had spread further than she had expected, becoming one of the favorite subjects among the newest B.S.A.A. members. Nothing but rumors, of course, but still a very unpleasant subject when you hoped to be respected by the employees.

"So, I'll take him home. Where shall I drop you?"

No, maybe he hadn't been speaking of her, Jill noted when she turned to the young man to check his expression, which remained relaxed and friendly instead of mischievously sheepish. He was innocently asking for orders to follow, like the good lap dog he had always been to Chris. Jill had to bite her tongue when she caught herself with such mean thoughts on her mind, and she focused on giving him a proper answer.

"I think you can take us all to my place, if you want to head home… or to HQ," she offered in a sympathetically mocking manner as she pointed to the backseat. "I will take care of those two."

Her place was a good option. It was neutral ground, as she had always made sure not to bring any work home, and Chris hadn't visited her in such a long time that even his unharmed memory would be safe from painful revelations. Piers surely felt that he was warded off by the blonde, but, just as Jill had expected, he didn't complain. Following her indications, he drove Chris and the two women to her apartment block and even carried their luggage to the elevator.

"He's a good kid," Claire whispered to Jill as they watched the two men say goodbye.

"I just hope he won't make any trouble. He wanted to take your brother to headquarters today," the blonde replied and Claire shoved her sunglasses a little down her nose, showing Jill her enormously swollen eyes.

"I see." She took a deep breath. "We'll have to be careful."


Chris had barely said a word since they'd opened the door to Jill's apartment. While Claire and the blonde were making coffee in the kitchen, he was busy having a closer look at the pictures on her shelves and enjoying the view of the dusty streets she had from the windows of her living room. Every now and then he seemed to sigh sadly, as if he hadn't found what he'd expected to encounter.

"It's a luck you have that little evidence of your work lying around here," Claire said with a thankful nod as Jill handed her a cup. "His place is full of B.S.A.A. reports."

Jill chuckled.

"I know. Has he at least given up the habit of leaving his assault rifle lying on the countertop?"

That comment made Claire laugh, as she had used to keep her handgun in the same spot at her place. Luckily, losing that habit was one of the previous New Year's resolutions she had actually achieved.

"I think it's usually on the TV table."

Jill rolled her eyes.

"Some things will never change."

Claire was propped against the wall, with her index finger resting on her lips and her thumb on the tip of her chin. Thoughtfully, she just hummed in response.

"I think it would be a good idea if he stayed here with you."

"What?" Jill's mouth dropped open, drawing an incredulous smirk as she listened to the redhead.

A strong vibe of pity underlined the redhead's voice and, though Jill hoped it was a joke, it was unmistakable that she was deadly serious about her proposition. She understood that Claire wanted to check Chris' place thoroughly for evidence of bioterrorism before letting her brother walk through the familiar rooms of his home, but something about the idea bothered her. The blonde swallowed, thrumming her fingers onto the marble surface of the counter behind her.

"Of course he can stay," she said as a shrug ran through her left shoulder. "But I just have one bedroom. Why doesn't he stay with you?"

That had been impertinent, she noted as Claire smiled slyly.

"My place is a mess, too," the redhead countered with a head shake. "I was working on a case before Christmas and my living and bedroom are still full of papers, pictures and reports. It won't be for long, I promise. A couple of nights and I will have made his apartment amnesiac-safe."

Jill chuckled slightly, but something about the situation made her wonder if they weren't taking their concerns a little too far. Claire promised to take care of Chris' place and get it ready as soon as possible, but when the redhead had left, Jill felt how much of a bad idea it had really been, as she eventually faced Chris completely alone, out of reach of anyone who could interrupt the situation loaded with doubt about what to say.

"So…" was the first thing she managed to speak. "Are you hungry?"

Chris shook his head and smiled before he turned back to the windows and looked down at the streets, where people ran hastily through the darkness of the winter night.

"This is a bit weird for me," he excused himself and made Jill laugh tenderly. She knew how he felt like, as it was weird for herself, too.

"Maybe you need some sleep. It's still a bit early but I think that you've overcome the recommended time to fight the jetlag."

He huffed out a laugh in response and nodded eventually.

"Yes, maybe I could try," he said and let Jill lead him to her bedroom, where Chris, surprised, fidgeted hesitantly.

"Wait, isn't this your bedroom?" He asked as he pointed to the instrument that stood silently in the corner of the room. "You always like to have your piano close, don't you?"

Jill chuckled. Yes, young Chris Redfield used to know her very well.

"It's okay, Chris. I only have one room, but I'll be glad to leave my bed to you." She giggled. "Claire and I changed the sheets earlier."

Her friend and long-time partner huffed with regret. He couldn't just take Jill's bed and let her sleep…where, in the living room?

"No. Forget it." An energetic head shake emphasized his exclamation. "You sleep in your bed. I'll take the couch."

Jill smiled tenderly as she heard his words. He was such a gentleman, always so courteous and considerate with everybody. She patted his shoulder and winked playfully before she walked into her bedroom and dug out a fresh towel from the wardrobe.

"It's alright, Chris. I'm not sleepy yet and I probably won't be until early in the morning. I promise that tomorrow night I will consider taking the bed myself, but tonight, please accept my friendly invitation. Tomorrow we'll have a lot of things to do, and I need you to rest."

She handed him the towel wrapped in soft laughter, and Chris couldn't help but accept the offer whole-heartedly. Thanking her quietly, he took the towels from her and let her indicate him the way to the bathroom. He watched Jill as she walked back into the living area. Before they lost sight of each other, though, he called her back.

"One more thing."

Jill blinked at him.

"Yes."

A sheepish grin spread across Chris' face as he pushed open the door to the bathroom.

"Did I really never ask you out?"

Bewildered at first, Jill soon burst into full-throated laughter. Chris just smiled a little irritatedly until the blonde caught her breath again. What was she going to tell him now?

"Chris, we never had time for this."

They stood in the corridor, sharing one of their moments of wordless connection, that thing they had built up through years of fighting shoulder to shoulder, with their hearts beating in unison for the same, destructive cause and celebrating victories and grieving failures together. It was one of those moments she had started believing to have dreamt, when, after coming back from Kijuju, she and Chris had lost that invisible bond of theirs. She wasn't dreaming now. She was wide awake, and so was their partnership.

"Can I ask you out now?"

The blonde sucked in a shallow breath in response as her head tried to organize her thoughts rather unsuccessfully.

"Chris…"

"We'll have some time tomorrow, won't we?"

Damn, what was he doing to her with that cocky smile on that beautiful face of his? Jill tried to calm all those thoughts that were spinning in her mind and give Chris a convincing answer without offending him. Not an easy task to achieve.

"We will be busy tomorrow. We wanted to introduce you slowly to the present world, and I think that will be exciting enough."

Her words underlined by a flick of her tongue over her lips, she stared at Chris, hoping he would drop the subject soon. He kept smiling, without pushing further.

"I see," he said and momentarily turned to the bathroom door to turn the lights on. Jill was about to walk away when he added, "Before the end of the month, I will get you to go on a date with me, Valentine."

Her jaw dropped at his bold comment, her face unable to remain serious at the sight of the devilish grin of her partner. They exchanged more smiles before Chris disappeared behind the bathroom door and somehow left her with that uncomfortable pounding in her heart.