"Nivans!" Jill yelled into the phone, breathless after her sprint from the shower, through the corridor and into the kitchen, where she had mindlessly left the device after her first mug of morning coffee. "Is everything okay?"
The man on the other end of the line hesitated audibly, surprised by the question. Of course, he couldn't know that Jill's ringtone, starting off quiet and slow but increasing pace and volume with every second, had sounded as distressing as a fire alarm.
"Uhm, yes," he muttered. "I was going to ask about your plans for the upcoming days. I mean, I'd like to help you with the planning."
Jill found herself tucking some strands of wet hair behind her left ear as her heart recovered from the imaginary emergency she'd believed to face, wondering just when she had become so jumpy.
Since you decided to lie to the organization you created yourself and hide your partner from them, maybe?
"Oh." She eventually released the breath she was holding. "That's nice, Piers, thank you."
Once her tone had changed from anxiously alarming to a softer version, the young man on the other end seemed to relax too. They exchanged short pieces of information about the current situation at headquarters before Piers took the conversation back to the reason why he had called.
"So, do you know already when you are going to return?"
A thick knot built up in her throat and robbed her breath momentarily. Jill sighed softly and swallowed as she thought about the words she and Claire had been exchanging the previous day.
Keep him away. Don't push him. He deserves a break.
As the little sister, Claire was allowed to wish her brother as far away as possible from trouble, but Jill, as another B.S.A.A. founder, had certain responsibilities among the soldiers, and keeping the truth about bioterror from her long-time partner was surely not something she should have been proud of.
"Don't count on us until next week," she said and surprised herself with her statement.
"Us?" The bafflement was evident in Piers' voice as he asked. "You're not coming either?"
She licked her lips and nodded, reinforcing her own words.
"Yes, I'd like to stay with him and make a controlled approach to things and surroundings that might trigger some memories," she said, unconvinced by her own lie.
Piers chuckled hesitantly.
"I see," he said. "Yes, that makes sense. Do you want me to inform HR about this?"
Her lips turned into a relieved smirk as she heard the young man's reaction to her petition, almost feeling bad for him as the dark undertone in his voice seemed to indicate that he had hoped to see his Captain back at work rather sooner than later.
"It's fine. I'm gonna call them later," she said and turned to the corridor, where Chris stood. "Piers, I have to hang up. Talk to you later."
Once the call had ended, Jill put the phone away and took a couple of steps towards the man, who was busy scratching the back of his head as his look was timidly set on the ground.
"Good morning," Jill greeted with a smile.
"Good morning," he replied, still avoiding her look.
"Are you alright?" she asked in concern. "Don't you feel well?"
The amusement was enormous when she understood that the reason why he wasn't looking at her was that she was standing practically naked in front of him, as the tiny towel she had urgently wrapped around her body on her way to the kitchen didn't cover much more than the most intimate parts. She found it cute. Over the years, Chris and she had gotten so used to each other; sharing rooms while on missions or spending weeks together without interruption; that they could easily walk around each other half-naked without invoking the slightest reaction of shame or embarrassment in the partner. It wasn't like Chris had become something like the gay friend she had always wished for; she had just stopped being a woman to him.
"I'm gonna get dressed," Jill whispered softly and quickly pushed herself down the corridor and into her bedroom.
"This is good," Chris exclaimed as he took another forkful of scrambled eggs and bacon.
After inspecting the emptiness of her fridge and kitchen cabinets, Jill and he had found nothing that could satisfy the enormous hunger of Chris Redfield, and so, they had gone out for breakfast, Jill leading the way to the 24/7 diner they always turned to when their shift had ended too late at night—or early in the morning, depending on how one liked to see it. Jill was sipping her third or fourth cup of coffee that morning and was finally beginning to feel somewhat awake.
"Are you sure you don't want some?" Chris asked innocently, lifting his fork with a small amount of steaming eggs to his partner's eye-level.
Jill shook her head slightly and laughed.
"No, thank you. Enjoy your meal."
Chris grimaced with annoyance, the fork still threateningly pointed at the blonde.
"Come on" You have to eat!" He insisted and shoved the fork into her face. "You're gonna pass out if you only have coffee for breakfast."
The tasty steam reached her nostrils and instantly made her mouth water in response. Jill's eyes jumped to Chris, who was smiling encouragingly at the chance to share his breakfast with her. She didn't want to offend him and, after licking her lips once, she decided she could do him that tiny favor and taste his food. Parting her lips, she gave him the chance to push the fork into her mouth and the delicious bit of scrambled eggs met her tongue.
"Mhh, they're really good."
Chris mirrored her smile, showing her a row of perfect teeth glimpsing through from behind his bearded face. She had nearly forgotten how incredibly handsome he was when he just smiled that carefreely, and how just a hint of happiness could put so much light onto his features.
"So? What are our plans for today?" The man asked when Jill had finished chewing.
"I thought I'd show you around," she said with a smirk. "Have you ever been to New York City before?"
He laughed, shaking his head in a ridiculing way.
"Not that I remember."
The blonde nodded, a wide grin plastered on her face.
"Then we have a lot of work to do, I guess. I'm gonna start with Manhattan." She pulled out a couple of notes and left it on the table. "It's gonna take us a while, so let's not waste any time."
Chris stretched and hopped off his seat to run after Jill with the energy of a twenty-five-year old.
"One thing," he called out for her and tensed his muscles when she turned. "Shouldn't I take care of these? I feel they're deflating and I would like to take good care of them."
Jill laughed whole-heartedly. With a hand on her chest, she exhaled deeply and winked at him.
"We can step by the gym if you want."
The breeze blew right into her face through the open window. If the second coffee she'd just had hadn't been enough to activate her, the cold air would surely keep her awake until lunchtime. Claire lit a cigarette and closed her eyes in pleasure as she took a long drag of whitish smoke.
A knock on the door caused the cigarette to drop automatically into the old paper coffee mug that served as a makeshift ashtray, and the redhead began to wave the smoke away as best as she could before spraying a stream of air freshener across the area over the desk.
"One second!" She yelled and tried to close the window in time, but Moira had already stormed into the office.
"Don't worry, I already know your bad habit," she muttered with a roll of her eyes and walked around the desk towards the redhead. "Happy New Year and so."
"Happy New Year, Moira, it's so good to see you," Claire responded and pulled the girl into a tight embrace. "And the only reason I smoke here is that I would lose too much time taking the elevator to the rooftop every fifteen minutes."
Moira snickered accusingly and turned around, dropping into one of the armchairs next to the desk.
"That bad, huh? I was hoping you'd give me a call to tell me you were back. How is Chris? Barry told me everything."
Claire sighed, reopening the window and resuming her soothing task of smoking, thinking that it was fairly impossible that Barry had told her everything as they hadn't spoken since Christmas.
"We arrived yesterday. I just came to quickly check how things were going here but the director caught me and asked me for the overdue December reports." She shook her head. "Ass."
Moira hummed in response.
"I can help you if you need it."
Claire nodded.
"Thanks. And about Chris…" She let out a sigh that said everything. "It looks like the amnesia hasn't been caused by the hit on the head, but by a traumatic experience he's had."
Moira hung in the armchair like a bored queen, with her two arms stretching over the armrests and her legs crossed, giving Claire a baffled blink from below.
"What?"
She nodded, her view drifting to the skyline of the city in a gaze of sadness and incomprehension.
"Yeah, I still don't quite believe it either."
The phone on her desk began to beep; a sign for an incoming call from reception; and Claire blew out the current load of smoke into the cold air before pressing the button on the device.
"Yeah?"
"Hey Claire," the sweet, feminine voice of Lindasy Adams, Terra Save's head receptionist, came from the speaker. "Lieutenant Piers Nivans from the B.S.A.A. asks to speak to you."
A soft grimace spread over Claire's face as she heard the name, wondering what the young soldier could possibly want.
"Okay," Claire said and flicked the dry ash into the paper mug. "Put him through. Thank you, Lindsay."
"I mean, he's here."
Her mouth dropped open at the confirmation of the unexpected visit. Grimacing softly, she tilted her head to the side and closed her eyes in defeat as Moira, who had been eyeing her curiously, began to separate her legs to slowly get up.
"Alright," Claire hissed annoyedly and shook her head. "Send him up."
When the call was cut, Moira appeared right next to her and elbowed her in the side.
"Who's Lieutenant Nivans and what does he want?"
Claire turned around, starting her office-smoking-hiding ritual from before in a hurry.
"He's my brother's second in command," she said and pursed her lips. "And I have no fucking idea what he wants."
A smug smirk blossomed on Moira's lips.
"Is he good-looking?"
Claire arched a brow at the bold question, considering it a second before saying, "I don't think I've ever thought about that…"
Before Moira could even think of a reply, someone knocked on the door.
"Fuck!" Claire hid the ashtray in the upper drawer of her desk and took a deep breath. "Come in!"
Piers was in jeans, a dark shirt and the olive green jacket with the B.S.A.A. emblem on the sleeve, and just as he walked into the room he had Moira's full attention. The girl tilted her head in order to check him from different angles.
"Piers, hey!" Claire greeted and advanced a step to shake the man's head. "What a surprise to see you here. Is everything okay?"
The young man returned her friendly greeting before something—probably the remaining smell of smoke and air freshener in the air—made him laugh softly.
"Yeah, I'm sorry I bother. I just wanted to leave this for you," he said and it wasn't until then that Claire noticed the package he had clutched under his arm.
"What's this?" she asked curiously, and was rather disappointed by the answer.
"Your brother's uniform."
And her eyebrows dropped into a frown as she received the package, and her mouth was unable to say anything else than a dark, "Oh."
Piers hummed softly.
"I spoke to Jill Valentine this morning and she said she was taking some days off to start reintroducing Chris to…" He paused as though he was searching for the right words. "To the present time. But she mentioned that you might get back to work earlier, so I thought I'd leave this for you so you could show him what he does for a living. It's clean, of course." He shrugged. "I wasn't expecting you to be back already, but when the receptionist mentioned you had returned, I preferred giving it to you personally."
Claire smiled a little. Behind his annoying cover, Piers was a very polite man and a dedicated soldier through and through, and she hated that he was so charming at the same time he was being such a pain in the ass.
"Thank you," she said with a smile. "I will probably see them tonight, so…"
Before she could give away more information, luckily, Moira cleared her throat behind them and caused the two to turn.
"Oh!" Claire exclaimed, excusing herself for her rudeness. "I'm sorry. This is Moira Burton. Moira, this is Piers Nivans. He works with Chris."
Piers took a step towards Moira, careful not to invade Claire's workspace any more than necessary, and received the girl's handshake with an amiable gesture.
"Nice to meet you," he said. "Burton? Like Barry Burton?"
Moira replied with a laugh.
"Yup. Incredible, right?" She replied with a shrug. "I had to take a paternity test to believe it, too, but it seems that stinky old man is really my progenitor."
The young soldier's first reaction to the girl's comment was astonished silence, but as she kept laughing, he eventually decided to relax and rolled his eyes in response.
"I guess we all feel embarrassed for our parents' behavior in public."
Moira, still shaking his hand like they'd been glued together, laughed out once more.
"Yeah, maybe."
Once Piers had let go of Moira's hand, he turned back to the door.
"So, if you need anything else, just let me know, okay?" he said and gave Claire one last glance before he put his hand onto the doorknob. "No matter what time it is."
Claire breathed out a grateful expression and walked past him towards the door.
"Thank you, Piers."
"You're welcome," he mouthed and waved at Moira. "It was a pleasure, Moira."
Before he opened the door, though, he turned back to Claire.
"Oh, by the way," he said with a grin. "When your brother wants to smoke in his office, he puts a fan in front of the window and blows the smoke into it from behind. It works incredibly well."
Cheeks flushed with red, Claire could barely force out an embarrassed thank you before her eyes dropped to the package in her hands. What the fuck was she going to do with that thing, now? The last thing she wanted for Chris to know was what kind of heavy gear he was forced to wear on his assignments and the uniform was part of it.
"For your information," Moira's voice startled her. "Yes, he is good-looking."
Once drawn back to reality, Claire huffed out a laugh and frowned at her friend.
"In my opinion, you should stay away from him, but as you're always doing what you want, let me tell you that he's either gay or married to his job." She paused for a second. "Or both."
Moira, unimpressed, laughed darkly.
"Not gay, my dear. You should have seen how hard he was trying to keep his eyes focused on your face if you know what I mean," she explained amusedly as her finger waved at the redhead in chest-height. "Also, he said he wanted to give it to you. Personally."
"Oh my god, you have no shame," Claire replied with a laugh and turned to the shelf next to the door. Moira watched attentively as the redhead tucked the package unopened into a free space between old documents and folders.
"You're gonna forget it if you keep it there."
Claire hummed in response and gave the girl a dark look as she turned back to her desk.
"Yes, I know."
Jill couldn't remember the last time she'd had that much fun. She and Chris had spent the whole day together, taking endless walks through the streets of Manhattan, taking the subway, visiting the gym together and rewarding themselves for their hard workout sessions with a delicious lunch at what Chris used to call his favorite place before losing his memory. All throughout the day, she hadn't stopped talking to him about what had happened in the fifteen years he had missed.
"My mother read The Lord of the Rings to me when I was a boy," he exclaimed cheerfully when they climbed up the stairs to the floor where Jill's apartment lay. "I can't believe they made three movies of them."
Jill chuckled. No wonder how Chris had become the justice-seeking man she knew, if he had been fed epic novels since he was a kid.
"There's one about the Hobbit, too," she said as she pulled out her set of keys and turned to the lock. "I think it's gonna be a trilogy, as well."
Chris propped against the wall next to the door, with his arms crossed and his eyes wide open.
"You gotta be kidding me! How can you just say that and remain totally calm? We have to watch them!"
The blonde stared at him in bewilderment as she turned the key. In all the years of partnership, Chris had never mentioned to her that he was a fan of epic fantasy stories. As she pushed the door open and walked into her apartment, Chris stayed in the corridor.
"And what's the next big revelation? That there's a movie of A Song of Ice and Fire, perhaps?"
Jill turned to face him, her confirming silence causing Chris to place a theatrical hand onto his chest and inhale in offence.
"Oh my god."
She laughed.
"I think it's a TV show, though."
They laughed as she held the door open for him to enter. Before he could disappear inside the apartment, though, they heard a loud, beary voice call out for them.
"Chris, Jill!"
The blonde stuck her head out and peaked into the corridor, pleasantly surprised by the image of Barry Burton carrying a six pack of beer under his arm.
"Barry!"
That had been one surprise too much for Chris, it seemed, as Jill found her long-time partner gasping in confusion as he stared at the approaching man.
"Claire told Moira you were back from Europe. Thank God that my oldest knows how to keep her eyes and ears open. I wouldn't know anything about you two otherwise." He laughed and put a hand onto Chris' shoulder. "So, you're still amnesiac, aren't you? Anyway, we're glad to have you back."
Chris swallowed at the sight of his old friend, shaking his head softly before even being able to greet him properly.
"Burton," he breathed, closely inspecting the man. "Fuck! You look old and wasted. What have you been eating all these years?"
The last words were underlined with a pat onto the man's stomach, which made them both laugh. Jill watched them, catching herself with a feeling of dejà-vu, something she had felt too often that day. She pointed into the apartment.
"You want to come in?"
"I'm surprised how neat and clean your apartment is, Jill," Barry said when Chris had gone to the bathroom. Jill took a sip from her beer and sighed.
"You mean because I don't have guns lying around so my eight-year-old daughter could shoot her sister in the abdomen?"
Dark eyes jumped to the blonde in a sarcastic expression.
"I mean that you don't have any Christmas decorations here," he said, pointing at the surroundings. "No tree, no candles. I thought you left on Christmas Eve and came back just yesterday. Have you removed them all?"
Jill sighed a little sadly. She had never been a huge fan of Christmas, but in the past, even after the events of Raccoon City, they had often found the time to spend the holidays together. That had changed over the years, though — it had changed after she had died in the Spencer Estate — and Jill had stopped caring about home decorations and Christmas, mostly because she spent so much time working that her office was more of a home to her than her apartment.
"I was pretty busy before the holidays. Edonia was keeping us all on alert."
Barry nodded, a sad smile of comfort spreading over his bearded face as he remembered all the losses they'd suffered.
"Poor kids," he muttered before turning to Jill in excitement. "Oh, you know who finally joined the South American branch? Carlos Oliveira!"
Jill sat her bottle down with a loud clunk.
"You're kidding! When did that happen?"
Barry laughed out loud.
"Pretty recently. I think he joined in December, but he's already standing out of the rows of common soldiers."
Jill smirked, as proud as if she had recruited Carlos herself.
"He's a great soldier and I'm glad he finally made his mind up. He'll be a very valuable member of the team." She slid the pad of her thumb over the label of her bottle in thought and narrowed her eyes. "I just wonder why he didn't notify me."
Barry laughed again.
"Maybe because he doesn't want you to move any strings to benefit him," he said in a fatherly tone and launched an expectant glance at the blonde. "I think he still believes you wouldn't have made it out of Raccoon City without him."
A deep breath filled her lungs before her eyes fell shut and the two shared a laugh. The sound of the toilet flush caused them to drop the subject and wait for Chris to come back.
"So," Barry said as the younger man sat down again. "Have you watched all the Harry Potter movies already?"
"Shit, I totally forgot to do the grocery shopping," Jill hissed as she had another look into her kitchen cabinets and found nothing but heart-clenching emptiness behind a bag of flour and an expired bottle of tomato ketchup. "Barry could have brought dinner instead of beer."
When she turned around to tell Chris that they would either have to order something or leave the house again, she found a very concerning look on his bearded face.
"Are you okay?"
Chris was leaned against the wall, watching her every move with an ice-cold serenity that would have frightened even the biggest B.O.W.
"Who is Carlos?"
She froze on the spot, happy that she wasn't carrying anything in her hands she could have droppen in shock.
"What?" she whispered fearfully. "What do you know about Carlos?"
His eyes turned into spears that seemed to bore into her, digging for the truth somewhere behind her ribcage. He didn't know—couldn't know—that this truth could hurt them both up to a point where there was no turning back.
"Barry said he got you out of Raccoon City," he said with a voice so low she could barely understand a word. "I don't understand it, Jill. What happened? Why weren't you with me?" He took a step towards her. "Or am I the one you were running from?"
She sucked in a breath and began to shake her head eagerly.
"No. No, no, no," she hissed as she jumped to him and cupped his chin. "No, Chris, no. Listen. Don't ever say that again, okay? How can you even believe that?"
Chris huffed out a laugh, trying to be relieved, but failing.
"Then tell me the truth, Jill." He kept staring into her eyes as his hands rose to hold her shoulders. "How did I fail you?"
Her teeth sank into her lower lip as her mind searched vaguely for a good reason why she could have fled from that city. Something different than a zombie apocalypse, ideally. After anxiously clearing her throat, she tried a story as close to the truth as possible.
"In 1998, S.T.A.R.S. Alpha team became the target of a witch hunt," she started. "Our unit hadn't been solving many cases in the recent past so someone started blaming us for those murders in the Arklay Mountains. Wesker was the first one to be accused of having murdered those people so S.T.A.R.S. could solve the case and become heroes. The next one was Joseph, followed by you and Barry." She shrugged. "When the complete R.P.D. decided to go after Brad and me, you were already long gone."
An expression of disbelief too over Chris' features as he listened to Jill's made up alternate universe, which she found has sounded pretty plausible.
"A-and," he stuttered. "That Carlos guy?"
"Oh, right!" Jill patted her head as if she had forgotten to mention the young man. "He was a soldier in the Brazilian army and he was just driving through Raccoon City. We met at that gas station out of town. You remember it?" At Chris' nod, Jill continued her tale. "When I had paid for the gas, the rowdy Raccoon crowd had found me and was already taking over my car. Carlos was so nice to help me get out of the city unseen."
After concluding the story, Jill scrutinized his face for more hesitation, but found nothing but regret on it. His lip twitched uncomfortably and he huffed.
"I left you alone?" He asked and caused her to pout in response. Yes, he had left her alone indeed, searching for the heart of Umbrella all by himself because he had wanted to know her safe. How could he have known that the very hometown of the Umbrella Corporation would be the first one to fall due to their own virus?
"You had to," she whispered and smiled encouragingly, patting the cheek she had been holding so far. "It's okay, Chris. We all did what we had to do. When they eventually accepted that it had been…" she sighed at the hardest lie of them all. "Wolves who had been murdering people, we could return."
Chris frowned, almost questioning the last part of her story, but fortunately interrupted by the doorbell, which Jill turned to to open it.
"Claire!" she exclaimed happily, both at the sight of the redhead as at the bags of Thai food she was carrying.
"Hey!" The other woman stepped into the apartment and pushed the bags into Jill's arms before hugging her brother. "Have you had dinner yet?"
Chris shook his head, his moody attitude blown completely vanished from his face as he saw his sister.
"No, we were just talking about going out," he said and rubbed Claire's ponytail. "Did you know that there are eight Harry Potter movies?"
I was going to add some comment about Jill tasting Chris' eggs, but it kinda didn't happen LOL
Thank you all for reading! I hope you enjoyed!
