"I don't know," Claire stomped through the room, pulling the cigarette to her mouth with frantic moves to puff without really inhaling the smoke. "What are you going to tell him anyway?"
Jill rolled her eyes. Her friend behaved like a drug addict on withdrawal and if anyone had believed the redhead's conduct in the previous weeks had been exaggerated, now it was time for them to consider she had simply gone crazy.
"I don't know yet, but it's time he learns about his past. I don't want him to feel cornered or stressed, so I think only one of us should tell him." The blonde put her mug down and took up the picture of the S.T.A.R.S. units instead. "Please, Claire, let me be the one. I was there when we walked into that mansion for the first time, when all this started for us — for him . We fought so often shoulder to shoulder, we created the B.S.A.A. together, and..."
Claire had stopped walking around like a madwoman but without dropping the stick of nicotine between her fingers, blowing out the smoke along with a slightly offended breath. The truth was unkind but undeniable, and it pained to admit that Jill was right. Sure, she herself had known Chris much longer than the blonde, but her experience fighting bioterrorism with him was limited to their brief meeting in Antarctica, and they hadn't really fought the same enemies back then. After another hiss and with a heavy heart, the redhead began to nod.
"Fine. So, how do you want to do it?" Dropping into the next best chair, she began to gesture animatedly with her words. "When you're back in New York?"
Jill looked around as she considered.
"I think it should be here," she said with a nod. "On neutral ground."
Claire rolled her jaw into a sulk, understanding that Jill wanted her to leave them alone, which made her feel oddly out of place in the cabin that held part of her past and childhood. There was hardly a way to deny that the blonde was right, though, and that Chris shared more memories regarding bioterror with his partner than he did with any other person in the world.
"Okay."
The door behind her opened and Chris and Piers returned from their morning workout in the snow. Jill couldn't help chuckling at the huge dark blue sweater that belonged to Chris and that hung like a parachute's canopy around Piers' shoulders, clear evidence of the size difference between the two. Chris pulled off the sweaty, grey hoodie and tossed it over the backrest of the closest chair.
"Morning!" He greeted cheerfully and turned back to Piers, pointing towards the kitchen. "There's water and juice in the fridge, I think. Grab whatever you want."
"There are leftover steaks, too!" Jill shouted from her seat at the dining table and laughed. "I'm sure you want to have them for breakfast."
Chris looked like he was about to reply in the natural, jovial attitude she had grown so used to, but the arms of Claire slinging around his neck and pulling him closer drew his attention to his red-haired sister.
"Oh, god, that's not a good idea!" He laughed awkwardly, carefully patting the shoulder of the woman who bravely ignored any moist stains on him. She just hugged him tightly. "Is everything okay?"
Claire quickly hummed in response and eventually pulled back.
"I'm going to leave today," she whispered. "You stay here with Jill."
The big man's eyes widened as he nodded, and so did his smile. Piers leaned out of the kitchen, one glass of water in his hand, and launched the redhead a surprised look to which she responded with a sad, comprehensive nod.
"You two better have a shower," she said. "Piers and I are leaving after breakfast."
After stuffing Claire's handbag with all kinds of food they were certain Chris and Jill wouldn't get to eat in what remained of the weekend, the younger people prepared to leave and give the two ex-S.T.A.R.S. members some privacy to go through Chris' lost time together.
"Call me if you need anything, okay?" Claire hadn't stopped smoking all morning long, even complimenting her eggs and toast with three cigarettes in a row.
"There's indeed something you can do for me," the blonde said and held her open palm under her friend's nose. "Your car keys. I'm not taking the train back to New York. I'm sure Piers will be glad to give you a ride."
After one second of bewilderment, and a brief glance at Piers, who was casually straddling the backrest of the couch, Claire shied away and shook her head eagerly.
"I'm so sorry." With a triumphant smirk, she leaned against the nearest wall. "I came in Lindsay's car and I have to give it back to her this afternoon."
"Why would you…?" Jill hissed in annoyance. "Oh, fuck, whatever…"
The silence spread densely in the room, Piers realized as he caught sight of Valentine's disappointed gesture, and he sensed that he would soon see all the attention drawn to himself and the only remaining option for Jill and Chris to get home by car. It was one of those moments when he wished to be informed about an outbreak, or a death case in his family, or any other tragedy that would inevitably lead to the necessity of driving back to New York in his own vehicle. Piers loved his car more than he was willing to admit, and the thought of passing the steering wheel to someone else— even if it was Jill Valentine or his Captain himself— gave him the strange shudders of a parent that allowed their child to stay out late for the first time. He could make up an appointment or a place to stop by before, but it wouldn't sound convincing after the spontaneous trip to Cedar Grove, and his Captain already knew he owned a bike, which would also grant him the needed freedom and mobility once he was back in the city. He could either remain silent and hope nobody would ask him for the keys of his ride, or he could proactively make himself useful.
"Uhm, you can take mine," he said eventually, cursing himself for his good will as his eyes drove to the redhead in the corner. "If Claire can give me a ride back home…"
He could have thought of worse ways to end that trip; unlike Claire, who had silently wished for a different outcome. She nodded awkwardly, though.
"Sure."
Piers handed Jill the keys to his Audi with a grunt while the siblings began to load the minuscule trunk of the Mini.
"Thanks, Nivans," the blonde breathed thankfully, patting the young man's shoulder with gratitude and getting another grunt in response.
"T'sokay."
"Piers?" Jill asked as her eyes drove to Claire, who was arguing loudly with Chris about how carelessly he was placing a box full of cans into the trunk. "Take care of Claire, please. Don't let her drive if you feel she's too agitated."
Her words made him dedicate more attention to Claire's attitude, and he spotted the redhead punching her brother's shoulder right before throwing both of her arms around him. It was obvious that she was afraid of the reaction Chris could show once he found out about their white lie and what the truth could cause to their relationship. Talking her out of driving would be a hard task, but Piers was willing to try — for his own safety, too.
"No problem."
Just as the soldier was about to turn away, Jill called him back once more.
"Nivans." After waiting for him to look back at her, she added, "You're doing a great job, you know? There's no need to feel discouraged. Johnson told me how happy he is with your work at the front of Alpha Team."
A sarcastic expression of disbelief crawled onto Piers' face and caused his left eyebrow to jump up. Claire could have really kept her fucking mouth shut instead of blurting out what he had told her in private.
"Really?" he asked with a laugh. "And when did he tell you that, huh? Just a couple of days ago he mentioned he hadn't spoken to you in weeks."
The blonde giggled, shyly shrugging one shoulder at him.
"Maybe we have a special mental connection."
They shared a laugh. Johnson's weird habit of staring concentratedly at the wall sometimes had more than once been laughed at by the B.S.A.A. employees, as it seemed like he was trying to hypnotize the brickstone.
"Thank you."
Piers walked to the car, scrutinizing the little room he'd have to contort his legs into before finally climbing into the tiny seats like the brave man he was. Claire gave her brother one last hug.
"I love you," she said with the glimmer of tears in her eyes. "Don't forget that, okay?"
The baffled older Redfield just embraced his sister once more, rubbing over her red ponytail.
"I won't. I love you too."
She eventually got into the car, fastened the seatbelt and turned the key. After another wave to her brother and Jill, she and Piers drove away, leaving the two partners alone in the white paradise that was Cedar Grove. Chris stood guard until the Mini disappeared around the next corner, and then turned to Jill, who was waiting for him on the veranda.
"Let me guess," he said with a grin. "You are going to tell me now what you have been hiding from me all these weeks."
There was no point in playing dumb or surprised. Jill had always known that Chris was too smart to not sense there was something he wasn't being told and it didn't even disconcert her that he was pretty much aware and that he had just been playing along. He didn't seem to be really upset about it, either. She nodded.
"Come in. I'll make coffee."
Despite the second mug of steaming, black coffee, Jill couldn't stop herself from shaking, and she dared believe it had nothing to do with the room temperature. Chris and she had taken a seat at the dining table and, so far, had been sipping their drinks in silence. It was the man who eventually decided to end the wordless staring.
"So?" He asked shyly, ripping the third sigh in a row from his partner.
Jill put the mug down and smiled.
"I'm still analyzing where to start."
The comment seemed to amuse the big man, who, contrary to the blonde, hooked his finger into the handle of the mug to take another slurp.
"Start at the beginning."
That seemed logical, even to her, but it was hard to say what exactly the beginning consisted of, as the roots of Umbrella reached so deep that even now, after fifteen years of fighting bioterrorism, their actual expansion remained an enigma. Jill absentmindedly bit the inside of her cheek. Maybe it was best to settle for starting where it had begun for them , that tremendous night of July 1998.
"Chris," she said after clearing her throat. "What I am about to tell you will sound unbelievable." That was a nasty little understatement. What had been their reality since the nineties sounded like the plot of a low-budget horror movie, or like one of those stories kids told each other at sleepovers. "You can interrupt me as often as you want, I'm sure this will bring up a lot of questions."
Chris nodded slowly, his curious dark eyes tightly set on her features, as Jill began to chew on her bottom lip.
"On the twenty-third of July, 1998, Bravo Team was sent to the Arklay Mountains to closely investigate the murders that had taken place there," she began her tale as her hand crawled over to the S.T.A.R.S. picture, gently caressing along the frame before grabbing hold of it. "We believed it was a gang of drug addicts who mutilated and ate their victims. It was supposed to be a simple mission, but they soon lost contact with Bravo."
Chris nodded again, carefully soaking up every single one of her words as though he feared he'd miss an important detail.
"So, Alpha team was sent after them, and we soon found their chopper." Her eyes dropped to her hands, neatly folded upon the table. "With the corpse of Kevin Dooley inside."
That was when something close to terror surfaced in Chris, who had known Dooley very well, even though the man had only served Bravo team as a chopper pilot without ever belonging to S.T.A.R.S.
"Kevin's dead?" he asked in fear.
Jill nodded.
"And so are Edward, Richard, Enrico, Forest," she said before making a pause. The fallen members of Bravo team were painful to remember, especially when she knew that Forest Speyer and Chris had been the closest of friends in the nineties, but the people whom they had spent the most time with were the Alpha team soldiers. "As well as Kenneth and Joseph."
The face in front of her started to crackle and fade, giving in to a mask so full of horror that it became hard to believe it was still the same man.
"They all died that one night?" he asked, the frown carving deep lines into the skin between his eyebrows. Jill nodded. "What about Wesker? Vickers?"
The upper row of teeth barely brushed her bottom lip, hovering over it like her mind hovered over the terrible images that pushed to return and she lowered her head into another nod.
"They… passed away, too," she whispered in a husky voice. "But let me continue."
She sighed after concluding this first part of her tale, eyes on Chris and the way he pressed his lips together, the frustration and anger evident on his face when his look drove to the coffee in his hand. The death of their comrades was as painful as it had always been, but it wasn't worth half the prayers that had been spoken if it wasn't completed with the background story of it all. Jill lifted the mug to her lips, the burning fluid flushing her mouth and running down her throat in a river of fire and Arabica.
The fun was about to begin.
"We were attacked by dogs. At least, they looked like dogs." Chris' frown turned back to her, the way his eyes shone showed her he was listening with curiosity. "They killed Joseph and chased us into a mansion in the woods. Chris, neither of us had ever seen a building as immense as that one." Jill nodded at her own telling, preparing herself for the upcoming words.
"What happened there?"
Her blueish-grey eyes jumped to her partner, who looked as though he could sense the dread she was about to share. She blinked, trying hard to keep her gaze warm and caring.
"We found that the Umbrella Corporation, the big pharmaceutical company, was performing human experiments in that place," she explained as every single one of her moves was quietly observed by Chris.
"Human experiments?" He asked with an incredulous huff. "Were they testing sleeping tablets and dandruff shampoo on people?"
She heard herself make a sound, one of amusement and disbelief, maybe one provoked by the empathy for Chris she was trying to tell the story with.
"Not exactly," she eventually said and smirked. Eyes closed as though it helped her visualize the terrors again, Jill began to narrate what kind of happenings they had encountered. "They created a virus, Chris. A virus that killed people… and reanimated them."
When had she become such a wuss to stop calling things by their name? Fine, most of the B.O.W.s had been given commercial names that Chris wouldn't understand, but she had never hesitated to use the Z-word. Never! Not even when the events had been so recent that the fear still stuck in her bones and the putrid smell of death still lingered on her.
Zombies, Irons! That place was crawling with motherfucking zombies!
Chris stared at her in awe.
"Reanimated?" he asked and laughed. "You mean like a zombie?"
Irons hadn't wanted to believe them back then; more precisely, he had been pretending he wasn't believing them, when the sucker had actually been almost as deep in that shit as Wesker himself, selling children from a local orphanage to Umbrella as test subjects; and Chris wasn't believing her now. The laughter kept ringing until the blonde turned her dark gaze to him, reminding him of the warning she had spoken out at the beginning of her story.
"You fucking kidding me?"
Something twinkled in his eyes, quickly acknowledged by the blonde's vigilant look, and she took his hand before he could jump off the chair and walk around in circles, which has always been his chosen way to act when he was thinking.
"I wish I was, Chris," she whispered with a head shake and a smile of solace. Chris didn't seem to truly fathom what she was telling him, but he trusted her enough to behave and listen to the complete story before making hasty judgements.
"I assume we couldn't save them," he muttered and it made her heart ache to shake her head.
"We were lucky to get out of there alive, Chris,"
"So," he grunted. "When you say our colleagues, or friends, died…" He could barely speak aloud. "Do you mean they…?"
"Not all of them," Jill responded quickly. "Forest turned and so did Edward, according to Rebecca, but Joseph, as far as I know, didn't get up again after the dogs attacked him, neither did Kenneth." She decided to avoid telling him how the zombie had peeled off Kenneth's face. "Richard was swallowed by a giant snake and Enrico…" She sighed, remembering the face of the moribund Enrico Marini when he'd tried to warn them about the traitor within the lines of S.T.A.R.S. "Enrico was shot. By Wesker, probably."
Or by Barry, who had been tricked and blackmailed into sabotaging their quest throughout the Mansion. When Jill dropped the thoughts and memories of almost getting killed by their red-bearded long-time friend, she found Chris gasping at the latest revelation.
"Wesker?" he asked, his lips shaking with incomprehension. "Why?"
She swallowed.
"He was with Umbrella." The words were blurted out so quickly that she nearly choked on them and Chris stared at her in horror.
"Wesker with a pharmaceutical company?" he exclaimed with a head shake. "But… he was a cop, wasn't he? And… I mean, if there were people dying, why didn't he…?" Pausing all of a sudden, Chris shook his head. "Did he know about it?"
Jill swallowed. That was a question she had never gotten to ask herself, as every bit of piece she'd found out about Umbrella and their research that night of July 1998 was proof enough that anyone implicated who hadn't been killed by then was very aware what was going on inside the Umbrella labs and that S.T.A.R.S. had been bound to be eliminated from the very beginning.
"It was all planned, Chris," she said. "S.T.A.R.S. was part of their experiments. Wesker just wanted to see how well their monsters performed in combat with an elite unit like us." She sighed. "They did well, by the way. The only survivors were Barry, Rebecca, you and I. Oh, and Brad, but Brad didn't even enter the fucking mansion."
It's like Arklay but on steroids.
That was what Brad Vickers had said to her when they'd been briefly wandering through the burning streets of Raccoon together. What had he known about Arklay anyway?
Chris' eyebrows rose all of a sudden into a gesture of surprise, but something told Jill that it wasn't about Brad being a coward. The Alpha team pilot had gotten himself the nickname Chicken-heart for a reason, after all.
"Didn't you say Brad died as well?" Chris turned his narrowed eyes at her in a look that seemed to believe he had caught her telling a lie. It almost made her chuckle.
"He did, but not in Arklay," she admitted and sighed deeply, swinging her mug around. The coffee was getting cold. "He died two months later when Raccoon City became the target of an outbreak."
Chris frowned.
"The city?"
"Entirely!"
Chris blew out a breath.
"What happened?"
Jill put the mug away and cleared her throat.
"It was in the drinking water. The virus. On September 28th, it spread like a bushfire. One turned and infected three more, maybe four, and the infection rate was exponential. They were fast, Chris, they were extremely agile when they had you in their reach. The city was doomed after a few hours. And then, there was that creature… Nemesis , they called it. It was humanoid, like ten feet tall and it used weapons. No knives, Chris. Flamethrowers. Rocket launchers. Umbrella had sent it after surviving S.T.A.R.S. members. Luckily, only Brad and I were still in the city."
"Wait, wait, wait!" Chris interrupted her with a beary voice. "What does that mean… only you and Brad? What about Barry, Rebecca? What about me ?"
Jill blinked softly.
"I honestly don't know what Rebecca was up to, but she disappeared only a week after Arklay and I didn't see her again until two years later," she laughed. "I always believed she went back home, and one day I found her wearing a lab coat, saying she's a researcher looking for a cure."
Chris made a shy attempt at laughing along with her.
"Barry took his family to Canada, where he considered them safe. You know they have been living there ever since," she said. "He came back to help me get out of Raccoon City when he learned about the outbreak."
Chris' eyes narrowed.
"Where was I?"
She decided to give him a recomforting smile, proud to finally show Chris Redfield the hero he was.
"In Europe. Investigating Umbrella," she sighed encouragingly. "You were the bravest of us all, Chris. You never stopped fighting."
His fingertips began to thrum angrily onto the table as he blew out a breath, her response obviously hitting a raw nerve.
"I left you alone?" he hissed, grinding his teeth as his fingers stopped attacking the table surface and curled into a tight fist. Jill swallowed, considering if it was the right time to tell him that Claire had been in Raccoon City, too. Chris exhaled audibly as he let his look turn to the coffee as silence spread between them.
"Jill," he eventually said. "Are you completely, absolutely sure that you're not joking?"
Her thumb flicked lovingly over the back of his hand. She knew it was hard to believe, and the tired, hesitant glance on his features made her wish she could take back the truth. One word from her, and everything would be like before. It was so tempting, because she was absolutely certain that the lines on his face had grown a little deeper because of the story.
"Yes, Chris," she said, her voice close to breaking. "Unfortunately, this is real. I have no proof now, but once we get back to the B.S.A.A., I will show you all the data we've collected throughout the years. There's graphic material of most B.O.W.s as well." She nodded reaffirming, as Chris frowned in confusion. "Uhm, that stands for Bio-Organic Weapons. It's what the monsters are called."
Visibly overwhelmed by the information, Chris grasped Jill's hand and held it tightly, as though she was the only last real thing he could hold on to at that moment. The blonde saw his throat bob exaggeratedly as he swallowed hard before the tip of his tongue moistened his dry lips.
"I need some time to think," he said and got up, letting go of her hand when he was already turning to the veranda.
"Okay," she whispered, but he didn't hear her anymore.
The seat was resisting adjusting to the length of his legs and the height of his shoulders against the steering wheel, and it took Piers three minutes to finally find himself comfortable in the tiny vehicle. Claire watched him with her brows knitted into a frown.
"How exaggerated! This thing is more spacious than it looks like on the outside and I'm pretty sure your own car is just as narrow as this one."
Piers grunted a bit as he turned the key. She wasn't entirely wrong with her assumption about the inside of his favorite ride, but while the seats of his Audi had been adjusted to his size the day he'd bought it and never been changed, the red Mini was used to a more petite driver and, just like his, it would hardly give in to longer legs on the pedals.
They had stopped at a gas station for a snack, a walk and a cigarette and, after filling the tank, Claire had agreed to let Piers drive from there on, and the first thing she'd done when sinking into the passenger seat was to pull out her phone to check it for any news from Chris and Jill.
"How is she going to call you," Piers said and made her turn her angry gaze toward him. "If you didn't bring her phone?"
Claire hissed in response.
"We have something like a housekeeper," she said and rolled her jaw in thought. "Whom, now that I remember, I haven't paid a visit. I'll give her a call later. Anyway, Jill could use Mrs. Wilson's phone to reach me."
Piers found himself nodding at the piece of information.
"I see," he said and heard Claire sigh in the seat next to his. "Hey, don't worry. I'm sure Valentine will take care of everything."
The redhead sighed again. Yes, she knew Jill would take care, but she couldn't help but feel nostalgic about the little time she had spent with Chris. He would remember. Among all the things that would come back to him, there was probably also the memory of why he hated his sister so much.
"You know," she whispered against the glass of the side window once she'd put the phone down. "Our relationship has suffered a lot in the last years."
Piers nodded again. He had heard about the once so close Redfield siblingship that had, somehow, lost its closeness, and the few times he had witnessed them interact, he had seen all the rumors confirmed. Whatever stood between them, it was big and unforgivable. He still remembered the day they'd learned that Claire had been abducted to Alex Wesker's island, and how Chris had refused to abandon their mission in South America to help with the search for his sister. His reasoning had been valid, of course, as they'd been as close as ever to catching that bioweapon dealer, but even after arresting the guy, Chris hadn't gone back to see how his sister was dealing with the experience, with survivor guilt and the infection of the dreaded T-Phobos.
Piers cleared his throat as the thought hit him. He would have to ask Claire about that infection and the related risks someday.
"What happened?" But right now, there were other things to ask.
The redhead made a delicate sound of appreciation, grateful for the interest the soldier showed.
"I'm sure you know about it," she said softly. "When Jill went missing."
His chin rose slowly, only to drop into a soft nod.
"When she was with Wesker," he said affirmingly, showing off his knowledge about the fact. "They declared her dead after she went out a window to save the Captain's life."
Claire hummed and turned her face back to the window. Knowing the effect the upcoming telling always had on her, it was best to hide her eyes from Piers.
"Chris wasn't himself back then. He… drank and became violent… verbally."
Piers felt his eyes narrow. Chris had always been so calm and serious that imagining him verbally aggressive was hard. While most of his companions often shouted at the B.O.W.s during the confrontation, the Captain relied on firepower alone, saving his voice only for motivating words to his team.
"Did you fight?"
Her eyes met their own reflection in the glass.
"Yeah, well," she said, shrugging at the pitiful image of herself. "He basically told me that he could fuck as many hookers as he wanted and that it was always better than sitting around in celibacy while waiting for the one guy to make his mind up." She swallowed. "He was talking about me, in case you wonder."
Piers swallowed. Those were some hard words Chris had given his sister, and even the certainty that he had only said them with the false bravery of alcohol, it seemed a plausible way to leave a deep scratch in a good relationship.
"Ouch." His reply was loaded with awkwardness, hesitant about what to say to make it better, as his mind began to spin about the one guy his Captain could have been referring to. Was it Kennedy? Dude had quite a reputation, after all, and Piers remembered Chris complain about the friendship his sister and the agent shared.
"I'm sorry to hear that."
Claire reacted with a sound halfway between a sigh and a laugh.
"Thanks."
And her look dropped back to the phone in her hands, willing to let the conversation die and the roaring of the engine become the only one to fight the silence. Piers, though, felt irrationally uncomfortable with the silence he was given.
"Will she tell him about that time?"
Claire made a sound and turned her attention back to the driver.
"About Africa?" After receiving a gesture of affirmation from the man, she clicked her tongue. "Let me doubt that. It would make things awkward between them. It's a dark chapter for Valenfield."
Piers unconsciously lifted the foot from the pedal before throwing the redhead a frown.
"Val… what?"
Claire giggled.
"Valenfield," she said as though it was the most normal thing to know. "That's the pair name Moira gave them. Valentine plus Redfield — a love story."
Laughter coming from two windpipes filled the little room in the car, and Piers could barely see the road through the tears that shot into his eyes.
"Valenfield," he exclaimed once the composure was regained. "But Redfield could refer to you as well."
Claire winced out a ridiculing whistle.
"That's what I told Moira, too, but she said that nobody who knew the two of them would ever believe that Jill could be with anyone other than Chris." She shrugged. "She also said that Chrill or Jis doesn't sound right and, honestly, I agree with her in both cases."
The young man smiled at the warm words the redhead harbored for her brother despite the bad fight they'd once had, and he couldn't help feeling a certain jealousy of the siblings' relationship. His parents were still alive, but he'd never had the pleasure of having someone to share their love and attention with.
"I admit they have chemistry, and, yeah, there have been rumors, but I always supposed this is a result of years of partnership."
The comment made Claire laugh loudly, causing her head to drop back.
"Oh, yeah, same old story," she said amusedly and proceeded to rake her fingers through her ponytail. "Partners, just that. Partners who fight together. Partners who take care of each other. Partners who are willing to die for each other."
Piers frowned at her comment, as the undertone in Claire's voice suggested that she found the honorable relationship between soldiers on the battlefield rather ridiculous.
"What's bad about that?"
Claire shook her head in an apologetic demeanor.
"Nothing, sorry," she said, her look driving to the snowy landscape. "It's obvious that you know that every battle could be your last one, and that it's an honor to die for the cause. I just wonder if everyone would exchange their own life for someone else's only for the sake of the mission. Don't get me wrong. I'm incredibly grateful for her doing, but it makes me wonder if she would have done the same for just any other partner."
He didn't reply, letting his thoughts drift away as silence began to embrace them again. He had never really thought about it, believing that he would be ready to die for anyone if needed, but now that he'd learned about Claire's point of view, he couldn't stop ruminating. As he side-glanced hesitantly at the redhead, who hadn't turned her look back from the window and the whiteness outside, he understood that maybe there were indeed people in the world whom it was easier to make sacrifices for.
She couldn't tell for how long he had been outside, nor for how long she had been standing behind the window watching him, occasionally wiping the cold layer of frost off the glass with her palm. Chris' reaction to her story didn't surprise her, as the absently sitting around like a retiree on a park bench had been exactly what young Chris Redfield had done the first day after they had been dismissed by Irons when they'd tried to tell him about the Mansion, Wesker and the dark secrets of Umbrella.
This depends on us now, Jill.
That's what Chris had told her back then, when they didn't really have a clue what it was that depended on them now. They had been so young.
Thick snowflakes began to rain down onto the sleepy mountain village with frightening intensity and Jill decided it was best to convince her partner to move his musings back inside before he'd turn into a snowman. She pulled the door open and dashed towards the man, whose face was red and white from the cold and the ice crystals that had settled down in the stubble of his beard. He turned his head to face her when he acknowledged her presence.
"Don't you want to come in?" she whispered as she dropped into the chair next to him. "I promise I'll give you the room you need."
A blink was his only response as his mouth widened into a sly smirk. Icy fingers jumped to her hand and curled around it, holding it with the protective touch only Chris Redfield could provide, holding it as though she was the one who needed comfort. Jill placed her other hand onto his, sharing the warmth of her palms.
"Do you have questions?" she asked when she considered they had been idiotically sitting in the cold for long enough. Chris nodded.
"I do, actually." Flicking open the pack of cigarettes Claire had given him with one proficient hand, he dug out a smoke and lit it, leaving his partner impressed with his finger technique. His eyes shot back at her, scanning her closely as he blew out the toxic smoke. "That Carlos guy…"
Jill's jaw dropped under the weight of incredulity at the mention of the U.B.C.S. soldier. After a short pause, which Chris had taken to check her reaction, he continued.
"He helped you against that thing, right? Nemesis?"
Shock, rage, fear, sadness, euphoria, Jill wasn't sure what emotion was going to win the battle inside her. Eyes jumping pointlessly across Chris' face, she just witnessed herself pout in annoyance when she managed to close her mouth again.
"You can't be serious," she shouted, barely holding back a nervous laugh. "Is that all you have to say?" She jumped up from her seat and turned to him. "Chris, I just told you that zombies exist, that our friends are dead, that it was Wesker's doing, and you only care about a guy I met one day I was running from a monster?"
Okay, it wasn't just that. She owed Carlos her life for several kind acts of philanthropy, but there had never been more between them than the trust of two fellow survivors, despite one or two attempts of seduction on his side. The flirting, though, had been so meaningless and unimportant that she hadn't even thought that Chris could feel irrationally jealous about it — until she'd told him. His current reaction wasn't entirely new to her, and she had always sensed that his bad mood the first days after their reunion in 1999 had something to do with Carlos. The brunette got up and faced her.
"I have been thinking about our friends and zombies for the past…" Chris' look dropped to the watch on his raised wrist, the revelation of the current time pushing his eyebrows up into an expression of surprise. "Three hours!"
Jill watched him, amused by his look of stupefaction, as Chris shook his head.
"I have pictured them, Jill. In all possible forms. I pictured them eaten, rotten, with their face peeling off their skulls and their eyeballs on display, staring at me." His accuracy about how a zombie really looked was fascinating, Jill realized as she heard him speak and began to wonder if the hidden memories of the truth had started to surface in flashes. "Dancing to Michael Jackson's Thriller ." Okay, maybe nothing was really surfacing.
Jill laughed slightly when the brunette waved his arms from right to left, doing the move of wrists on each side like the undead in the famous 80's music video.
"I don't need more details about that, Jill. It will come back to me someday." His eyes narrowed as he spoke to her. "What I need to know is how I lost my girl to someone else."
"Your wha…?" Jill exclaimed in bafflement. She tried to protest, wanted to protest, but she couldn't protest because against all feministic principles, being called someone's —Chris'— property resulted to be more pleasant than she had expected, and all complaints she could come up with materialized into an audible gasp.
"Chris…"
"Is he the reason why we didn't work?"
They had never really talked about any possible upgrade of their friendship, about how the gentle, harmless flirting during their S.T.A.R.S. times had come to a stop one night in the Arklay mountains, about the feeling that partners was the best and only word for whatever it was they had. And now she was his girl.
"Oh, Chris, no," Jill mouthed into the icy wind of that snowy February afternoon. "This has nothing to do with Carlos."
He frowned at her response.
"Does that mean you two didn't…?"
He left the question awkwardly unfinished and it made Jill chuckle. She and Carlos had done a lot together, but none of the things Chris was referring to.
"No."
A smirk of satisfaction crawled onto his lips as the stare of his eyes became passive-aggressively uncomfortable. He didn't say anything. He just stared quietly at her, until the blonde didn't want to stand the pressure anymore.
"Chris, you and I, we weren't meant to be. Not after Arklay," Jill eventually said, softly tilting her head to the side as her lips drew a smile. "This all, our job, the B.S.A.A. and the battle, it's our life. We work so well as partners. It would be irresponsible to risk that."
Chris kept fighting his staring contest silently, making her feel strangely pressed and interrogated.
"We missed our chance, huh?" he said observingly and gained himself a regretful nod from the blonde.
"Yes."
Before Jill could add another part of her descriptive reasoning, he blew out a breath, the haze of it visible in the cold winter air.
"I refuse to accept that."
With her eyes ripped open widely, she huffed chidingly.
"Excuse me?" Her mouth dropped open as she waited for her partner to go ahead with his blunt attack. Chris shook his head and stepped closer to her.
"We should have tried." His voice adopted a seductively sensual tone as he breathed his words into her face, causing the fine hair on her neck to stand up in expectation. Jill froze on the spot when Chris ran his hands up her arms, from her elbows to her shoulders and beyond, cupping her jaw before she could fathom the happenings. "How can we know if we never tried?"
She had no answer. And if she'd had one, she wouldn't have had time to tell him, as the man was quick in bringing his lips to hers and stealing all her words, her breath and her will to complain. She had barely the chance to gasp shortly before Chris' tongue pried her mouth open and she found herself letting him. Just that; will-lessly, she let him kiss her. Had it been any other man, it would have been violent, raw and quickly castigated; but coming from Chris, so passionate and heart-felt, she didn't give a damn that he hadn't asked her for permission, because that kiss — that kiss — was exactly how she had never dared imagine it would be; fiery, strong, and with that disgusting layer of smokes covering every other taste.
With the fear of embarrassingly fainting putting her on the edge, her fingers searched anxiously for support and hooked into the thick coat the man was wearing, as Chris nibbled on her upper lip, caressing the inside of it with the tip of his tongue. Neither of them changed the angle, causing their cold noses to rub together in soft caresses, and Jill simply found herself enjoying the sensation. Just when she decided to give in to the moment and sling her arms around him, Chris pulled away and broke the kiss, leaving her mouth hungry for more.
When her eyes fluttered back open, the brunette was smiling slyly at her.
"So," he whispered into her face as he thumbed over her cheekbones. "How about we go back inside and you tell me the rest of the story?"
And she could only nod in silence.
My apologies for the long wait. Also for the upcoming tooth-rotting fluff.
I couldn't avoid it lol Thanks a bunch for reading and all the feedback. You're making me incredibly happy.
Please stay safe.
Xaori loves you.
