Dreamless sleep was something precious and rare, something that happened only a couple of times every year, when you were so exhausted that your mind didn't have the power to torture you. Nightmares, though; so vivid that you could taste death as though you'd shoved a spoonful of it into your mouth; were way more common, up to a point where you walked through them with outstanding skill. But dreaming; without monsters following you closely; that never happened.
Jill woke up to the memory of a field full of flowers and the sensation that gravity wasn't really a thing, allowing her to hop across the vegetation in long, high kangaroo jumps. It was almost like flying, and something still tickled funnily in her stomach when she pictured her descent back to the ground right before propelling herself back up.
She couldn't wait to tell Chris that she had dreamt again after a decade or two.
Turning her face to the right, she found the place beside her empty, but the sheets were still warm. The sound of the coffee maker in the kitchen told her she wasn't late for breakfast yet and, after shortly wondering why Claire seemed to have changed the sheets of her bed, she got up, pulled Chris' shirt over her head and strolled out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. She found Chris leaning against the counter, with his naked torso flirting indiscreetly with her, but eyes deeply stuck on the pages of a book.
He smiled when he acknowledged her presence and slung his arm around her waist as soon he had her in his reach.
"Good morning," he greeted, rubbing the tips of their noses together. " I think you're wearing my sweatshirt."
Jill chuckled against his lips.
"Maybe, but it was on my bedroom floor. It's officially mine now."
Chris hummed, pleased, enjoying the view of his shirt wrapped round the trained body of the blonde. She could keep it. It looked so much better on her. "Did you sleep well?"
She nodded, increasing the friction between their faces, and kissed him softly.
"I've never slept better, I think. I even had a dream," she laughed and pointed at the book in his hands, The Unveiled Abyss, the first detective novel of Clive O'Brien. "Enjoying it?"
Chris' eyebrows rose as he made a face of interest. He seemed to want to shrug.
"It's… fascinating," he mouthed and made Jill chuckle.
"It's garbage," she laughed as she freed herself from his embrace and turned to the coffee maker, amused by Chris' like-minded grunt. "The story is boring, the writing style pretentious. The protagonist is hard to like just because of how much of a superhuman he is. At times he tries to be funny, but it just comes off as derision toward the reader's intelligence." She shook her head and clicked her tongue, pouring them a couple of mugs. "I barely got to chapter four before deciding I would wait until someone posted a summary about it on the Internet to make O'Brien believe I had read it."
Chris flipped the book shut and left it on the counter, on time to receive the coffee Jill offered him.
"I'm not saying that him stepping back from the frontline of the B.S.A.A. wasn't absolutely necessary after what he'd done, but it's a shame that a talented strategist like O'Brien went into writing lame trash novels."
Chris nodded and slurped his coffee.
"Didn't you say he's still working as an advisor for us?"
Jill nodded, humming into her mug after putting enough sugar into it.
"Yes," she sighed. "But Johnson doesn't like being advised, especially not by O'Brien, so we usually meet with him in private, pick up his ideas and later feed them to Johnson in a way that he believes he's come up with the plan himself." She chuckled at Chris' open mouth. "It's a bit pitiful, but the only way to make it work."
Chris shook his head in disbelief.
"How did he even make it to B.S.A.A. director?" he asked and Jill snorted.
"I honestly don't remember anymore." Moving towards him, she purred and leaned into him once more. "And I don't really care right now."
She was welcomed by the protecting arms of the oblivious captain around her, and for a second it felt like she was where she had always belonged. Chris' skin was warm, he smelled good, and she snuggled his chest comfortably as his chin sank onto her head.
"What a night, huh?" he whispered against her forehead when she turned her face up, and she hummed lovingly in response.
"Incredible."
Chris put the coffee away, Jill mirroring him as soon as she realized that his hands on her body were moving to spots that would rip all remaining self-control from her. She slung her arms around his shoulders and spread her legs as he sat her onto the counter, stepping between her thighs and running his mouth over hers. Kissing before brushing the teeth had always seemed a disgusting way to start a day to Jill, but Chris was, again, forgiven for the bluntness of sticking his tongue into her mouth without permission or previously undergoing an oral hygiene process. Also, the coffee he'd brewed was so damn strong that it easily covered any hint of stinky breath.
"I love you," he groaned softly and raked his fingers through her hair, watching the brightness of her eyes as he laughed softly. "Just so you know, I didn't just say it to bed you."
After the many years of partnership, she hadn't believed he could still surprise her, but everything she was learning about Chris in the weeks after his accident was fresh, stunning and extraordinary. She and Claire had tried to keep the reality of bioterrorism away from him, believing that it was the true burden that pulled him to the ground into the shape of a grumpy old man; and it surely had a lot to do with it; but even now that he knew about it all, he was still the cheerful, young man he'd been before Umbrella had stepped into their lives. And Jill was happy for him. That amnesia had been the best thing that could have happened.
"Thank you," she laughed and kissed him. "I was having doubts."
He chuckled and flicked a thumb over her left cheek before some sort of hesitation crossed his face.
"I'm not sure if you're aware, Jill, but there's something we didn't quite think of last night."
There was nothing more to add. Not for him, because she knew he referred to protection methods during intercourse; and not for her either, because she wasn't ready to tell him that contraception wasn't an issue for her anymore since she'd found out that either the fall and death or Wesker's gift of recovery had taken all her chances to ever become a mother. Jill swallowed.
"About that…"
The doorbell sang like a siren and Jill blew her tension-loaded breath against Chris' left cheek as the man turned his face to the door. He quickly spun back to her, pecked her lips and freed himself from the arms and legs of hers that secured him against her body.
"I'll be right back." As he sprinted to the front door, Jill hopped off the counter and began to rake her fingers through her hair and to straighten the sweatshirt that hung loosely around her body. She did that because she was kind of sure that the morning visitor would want to come in, as it could, technically, be no one else but...
"Claire! Good morning! Damn, what happened to you?"
The redhead, wearing the dark circles under her eyes with elegance, snickered half-heartedly as she hugged her brother before walking past him into the apartment.
"I didn't get much sleep last night and I was up way too early." Two paper bags were dropped onto the table in the living room before she turned. "So, I thought I would bring you breakfast and you could tell me how you are dealing."
She gave her brother the sweetest girlish smirk a redhead could fashion, underlined with a batting of lashes and a shrugged shoulder, and Jill saw how love and pride flooded Chris' face. She had no doubt that young Claire had always had her brother wrapped around her little finger, and even if he had been angry or disappointed with them for keeping the truth about Umbrella, his life and job from him, Jill was sure Claire would have gotten least of the scolding for it.
She was happy that the siblings could recover their close bond.
"That's so nice, Claire," she exclaimed as she walked out of the kitchen. "How about some coffee?"
The redhead turned to her with energetic joy but deadpanned the moment she realized the meaning of the overall picture she was looking at. Her eyes waved from Jill to Chris and back before her mouth stretched into a sly smirk.
"You know what?" One palm hit her forehead. "I totally forgot about that report I have to hand in. I'm so sorry, but I can't stay." Ripping open one of the paper bags, she fished out what looked like a blueberry muffin and stormed to the door, but Chris caught her arm before she could open it.
"Where are you going? I'm sure that report can wait," he laughed loudly. "Come on, stay for breakfast."
Claire eyed him hesitantly.
"You know that I just made that up to give you guys some privacy, don't you?" Her mocking look was turned back to Jill. "I was always told to stay the fuck in my bedroom whenever he wanted to bring a girl home, you know?" And her eyes jumped to her brother's face again. "Not that it happened often, of course."
Jill laughed and turned back into the kitchen to get a third cup of coffee, "Come on, Claire. Stay with us."
Whether they were a couple or just partners with benefits now, if anyone deserved to hear firsthand about them, it was Claire, who had been awkwardly trying to force them into a romantic relationship since day one.
Also, it would spare Jill the talk about useless family planning.
For the sake of normalcy, they were cautious not to show any affection out of the ordinary, friendly partnership they'd always been known for, but even so, Piers Nivans found out about them about two and a half hours before lunchtime. They were almost done proving their skills when the young lieutenant found them together at the shooting range.
"You're doing well, Captain," he congratulated loudly once the heavy metal door had fallen closed. "I see that the skills come from far behind."
An awkward laugh was released from Chris' lips.
"Hey! I used to be the Alpha team marksman in S.T.A.R.S. Don't forget that!"
Jill chuckled at the proud reminder, pulling down the earmuffs before turning to Piers.
"Good morning! I thought I'd show him the weaponry before he could begin the training with you," she explained and received a pleased nod from the young man. He looked tired and was obviously holding back a yawn or two. "You okay?"
"Oh, yes," he replied with a thankful grin. "I just didn't get much sleep last night."
Why, it seemed to have been one of those nights absolutely nobody slept. Jill gave Piers' shoulder a friendly pat, before even considering if it was appropriate for someone in her position to do so, and the hesitant reaction the lieutenant gave her made her regret her mindless straightforwardness. Luckily, Chris unknowingly saved the day.
"Wow! What's this beauty?"
The other two people spun around to find the Alpha Captain rummaging the cabinet and Piers' face went pale the moment he recognized the firearm he was grabbing. Jill laughed.
"That's the B.S.A.A.'s Anti-Materiel Rifle," she explained and walked up to Chris. "Barry helped design it. Equipped with normal and thermal scope, it has proven to be immensely effective in combat against large enemies and it uses 12.7mm rounds." Rising to her tiptoes, she whispered into his ear, "It's Piers' standard weapon. Treat it like it was your woman."
The way his look switched from friendly interested to astutely suspicious told Jill that it had to be the moment Piers acknowledged something was going on. Not a particularly hard task to achieve with Chris momentarily losing control over the situation to run the back of his fingers along her jawline and respond, "my woman, huh? I will have to cook her spaghetti, too," and the look of skepticism she found on the soldier the next time she could rip her eyes off Chris wasn't probably only addressing the way the amnesic Captain held the AMR.
Said Captain gave the soldier an impressed nod.
"That's your standard weapon?" he asked and made a face of admiration, waiting for Piers to affirm before adding, "This weighs a ton."
The young lieutenant laughed, a little nervously until Chris sat the rifle back into the cabinet.
"Nothing is too heavy when the B.O.W.s you are fighting are as large as a building," he exclaimed, and Jill agreed silently. Common weaponry often fell short in battles against special creations or bigger species of B.O.W.s. You were lucky when you found fuel barrels, nitrogen tanks or other heavy items that had been randomly abandoned in the landscape to help you kill the enemy, or at least save yourself and others. Jill had read, in Piers' report, about the huge Ogroman the Edonian Liberation Army had sent after the B.S.A.A., of course, it was by far not the worst she had read in that report.
It was time for her to get back to work.
"Why don't you stay with Piers now, Chris?" she asked in a friendly manner, receiving an excited nod from the lieutenant.
"Yes, Sir," he cheered. "We're just about to start training, and the team will be glad to meet you."
Although he liked the idea of training with the team, Chris still felt disappointed that he had to leave Jill's side. Not that he felt discouraged or insecure without her around him, but now that they had become something like… well, something… he could barely take his eyes off of her, with his mind always recalling the feeling of every spot on her body he had kissed and anticipating all the times he'd kiss and touch her again.
Maybe it wasn't that much of a bad idea for him to clear his mind and distract himself from that captivating aura of hers.
"Alright," he gave Jill a short smile of goodbye and followed Piers to the door, taking his change to blow a kiss to the blonde as soon as the younger man had turned his head away.
Jill chuckled, locked the cabinet, and prepared herself mentally for a day full of analyzing and strategic planning.
The vital information about infections and terrorists was hard to fathom, scattered across different papers and reports, but once all the documents had been placed in order; one after another; it became evident that the world was more exposed to bioterror than ever before.
"Neo-Umbrella," Jill read the repeatedly popping up name of the terror group aloud as she stared at the information plastered onto the whiteboard in the Conference room of the Intelligence Division. As little as they knew about the threat that seemed to seek the footsteps of the long-destroyed pharmaceutical giant, she wasn't the only one who was goddamn sure that they weren't something they could simply ignore.
Although this type of analysis did not belong to her competences in the B.S.A.A. after leaving Intelligence to focus on Operations and Strategic Planning of interventions; she couldn't fight off the fascination she felt for the data she had in front of her. It reminded her of her days in Raccoon City, when she and Chris; and later on her own; had been gathering information, following people and collecting lists of implicated individuals. Back when they didn't know anything about what they were fighting.
Not that they were any smarter now.
The mentioned destruction of Umbrella had happened on paper only. The web Spencer, his friends and foes had spun had grown so huge and wide that it was impossible to erase all of its remains with only the bankruptcy of the company, and it was no surprise that former employees, benefactors and collaborators had found new tasks to work on once the corporation had lost all their public power and government support. Wesker himself had turned his back on his former employer and had dedicated his life to a bunch of his own projects, proving that working against Umbrella and their founding fathers didn't mean working on the right side.
And now, there was Neo-Umbrella, and the name alone made all the hairs on Jill's neck stand up.
Her eyes began to read through the diagram of names and places that they knew, suspected or believed to be related to the terror group. Most of the information was marked in blue for unconfirmed/tentative, but the drawing had already met the edges of the big whiteboard. They knew Neo-Umbrella had been the organization that provided the rebels in Edonia with samples of the C-Virus. They knew about a couple of other attacks where they had been pulling the strings to cause death and chaos. From Piers Nivans' testimony and images of several security cameras, they knew that Ada Wong was among their agents; of higher rank, even.
They didn't know where they were operating from.
They didn't know what their goal was.
They didn't even know for sure if they really created the virus or if they acted as a mere intermediary.
Bottom line, they knew nothing, which meant that they couldn't foresee any of the enemy's moves and they needed to be on constant alert in case Neo-Umbrella attacked again.
Jill sighed. She had tried to convince herself that Chris' amnesia had come as good fortune, a happy little accident that had allowed them all to relax and disconnect from the stress of the job, but the truth was that the B.S.A.A. needed his field experience for any complex intervention, so he could make the right choices about unforeseeable happenings. Now, with all that experience locked away within his unrememberable memories, he was rendered practically useless to the organization.
"Agent Valentine! It's good to see you!"
When the blonde spun around, she was greeted by the intense stare of Boris Donovan, a talented young Data Analyst who had been adopted by the B.S.A.A. after falling in disgrace in his position within the CIA, so long ago that no one asked questions about the reasons anymore. The tall man was easy to recognize and remember, with cheekbones so strong and high that it made his cheeks look like he had them constantly sucked between his teeth, and a long, pointy nose, crowned with the inch-thick, round lenses of his glasses embedded in a reddish frame. Physically speaking, he was a peculiar man. Not unattractive, but different in every way, Boris came equipped with a limited repertoire of stiff gestures, used mostly to readjust the position of his glasses; but he was a friendly coworker whose developed sense of humor, although mismatching the outside, was well known by all departments of the organization.
And he was the best she knew when it came to data collection and interpretation.
"Donovan," Jill greeted the young man with a welcoming wink and the tapping of two fingers against her temple. "Thank you. It's good to be back."
She turned back to the whiteboard as Boris walked towards her.
"I see we have gotten some more information about Neo-Umbrella," she mumbled, pointing at the newest details that had been neatly written into almost perfectly round circles. It sometimes aggravated Jill how unpolluted Boris' performance always was.
"Indeed," Boris cleared his throat and knocked his fingertips onto the whiteboard next to one of the perfect circles. "Along with the information Lieutenant Nivans provided, we also recovered transmissions between the Edonian Liberation Army and someone we believe to be Ada Wong, exchanging notes about catching a certain target. So far we haven't found out who or what the target is exactly."
Jill nodded, without taking her eyes off the diagram.
"I see."
She turned her attention to Boris when the young man —respectfully— curled his hand around her upper arm to pull her closer.
"Although we do have confirmation that National Security had an agent in the zone to locate a subject and extract them," he whispered as though he feared someone could catch too much of their conversation. "Both agent Birkin and the subject, a mercenary named Jake Muller, have disappeared after their brief meeting with our Alpha Team. Said meeting is described in Nivans' report, too."
Boris' hand waved in careful moves in front of the whiteboard, following all the exposed data in their stream to a logical conclusion.
"Do we expect Mister Muller to be the target?"
Boris hummed.
"Most probably, given the fact that Muller is expected to have antibodies that might help create an effective vaccine against the new virus."
A sigh of exhaustion left Jill's lips. If the mercenary Jake Muller was the person Neo-Umbrella was after, they most probably had disposed of Sherry Birkin. It was bad news for all of them, as nobody wanted to lose any force on their own side, but it would be especially hard for Claire, as Sherry and she had become good friends since she had rescued the little girl from dying in Raccoon City.
And now said little girl was dead anyway.
"The government hasn't confirmed any of this yet, though. Even the FOS seems to dodge all questions related to Muller and Birkin."
Why didn't that surprise her? The US government had always worked like a fortress when it came to their strategies and reasons. It was, sometimes, hard to believe that they were after the common goal of combatting bioterror.
That thought somehow made her laugh.
"Orders must come from Derek Simmons personally."
Jill's eyes flickered at the man's words.
"What?"
Boris nodded, his glance deadly serious.
"Derek C. Simmons, National Security Advisor," he whispered and narrowed his eyes into tight slits. "Sherry Birkin reported… reports to him directly. He works closely with the FOS for the supervision of intelligence programs. Always for security reasons, of course, but the more I think about it, the more strings lead to Simmons. Trust me, he knows something he's not sharing."
"Boris!" Jill snorted. "He's the National Security Advisor. Do you expect him to give you a call every morning to report his location and agenda to you?" She looked around anxiously, hoping nobody had overheard their conversation. Those were the kind of affairs that had gotten Boris' position in the CIA compromised. She huffed before lowering her voice. "You asking for permission to investigate a possible link between Simmons and Neo-Umbrella?"
Boris yelped dramatically before the glasses slipped off his nose and between his fingers as he shook his head.
"I didn't say that."
But it was what he implied. The mere thought was as hair-rising, far-fetched and vague as an alien invasion theory and Jill could barely bring herself to keep her voice low, but there was that tiny detail that stood proud and unignorable in the middle of the room. He knew it. She knew it. Everyone knew it.
Boris Donovan was in possession of an enviable instinct which had helped them more than once to a strategic advantage over their enemies. Whatever took place during the neuronal connections in his head wasn't just intuition; it scraped on the edge of premonition. And if Donovan was right and Simmons had his claws dug into the wrong side of bioterror, it was in their all interest to keep an eye on him.
"Why don't you ask your direct supervisor for approval?" Jill asked after raking her fingers through her hair, loosening some strands from the tie of the low ponytail.
"I don't like wasting time," Boris replied, flattering her with his confidence and trust. Under extreme circumstances, it would have been justified, even, to skip a couple of echelons to get the job done quicker, but the surveillance of the highest rank in National Security because of a hunch wasn't such a circumstance.
On the other hand, Boris wouldn't have asked for it hadn't he been certain to uncover something big.
Damn it.
"What do you need?" She asked, her voice betokening frustration. The man, certain of his victory, laughed with the cheer of a kid on Christmas day.
"Not much," he smirked, his eyebrows jumping playfully behind the thick glasses to the intense thinking exercise he was engaged in. "Fennix from IT, no questions asked and three weeks of vacation once we get him."
How blunt. Boris blurted out his requirements with such loud arrogance that it made Jill laugh. Jordan Fennix was the star member of the IT department, a recognized talent who had been given a position in the B.S.A.A. after graduating from college at the tender age of seventeen and hacking the websites of different State Governments during her summer vacation just for fun. She was a genius, an autodidact and extremely creative. Her parents, a couple of modest farmers, had never even heard of terms like SQL and scripts and believed a firewall was a construction against arsonists, always wondering why anyone would set the Internet on fire. No need to mention that Jordan had accepted the job at the B.S.A.A. because fighting monsters was cooler than working for the boring government.
Allowing Jordan to work with Boris on the unofficial task wasn't a problem. The extra vacation for both of them would be doable, too. The only point that would cause trouble was the demand for unquestioned liberty, as it referred mainly to one person in the organization.
"If Johnson asks questions, send him to me."
Before Boris could reward her with a thankful nod, the sound of animated laughter streamed in from the hallway.
"Look at that body!"
"I would give everything to be that towel."
When Jill stepped into the corridor, followed closely by Donovan, she was greeted with what looked like a rehearsal for a 90s Diet Coke advertisement, with a good half of the Office Administration team glued to the large windows that allowed a full view of the outdoor training ground. Although a couple of men had joined them, too; hiding their interested glances behind their vending machine coffee cup; it was mostly the female part of the department that drooled against the glass.
"Oh, yeah, you can slay my B.O.W.," Jill heard one of them say and couldn't hold back an annoyed grunt at the fact that B.O.W. seemed to stand for Burning Obsession with Wangs now. Boris appeared to be as baffled as she was, using the tips of two fingers to arrange his glasses, a move that was so far new to her.
The pair was barely noticed by the crowd at the windows when they stepped closer to see what the object of their desirous looks was. Finding that it was Alpha team toweling themselves dry after finishing their spurt across the obstacle course didn't come as a surprise. They were trained, talented soldiers in their twenties and early thirties, the best in their respective field, and though they were all selected for the B.S.A.A. teams by the higher ranks, including Chris Redfield himself, Human Resources always made sure to leave the files of the better-looking candidates on top of the stack.
"Thank god he's back. Work was so boring without him around."
However, something told Jill that the one they were currently staring at was none of the younger soldiers.
"Every unit needs a Captain like him."
She would have agreed with the praises, hadn't the cheerful giggle that followed the statement annoyed her to the core. It wasn't only the fact that half of the female employees were currently drooling over her man —if Chris tagged her as his woman, she could goddamn do the same, too— but that the terrorists of the world would laugh their asses off if they knew about the unprofessional attitude of the world's number one anti-bioterror organization. How were they going to eradicate biological threats when they weren't completely focused on the problem?
Jill cleared her throat behind the crowd and all of them spun around in synchronized shock. One of the younger secretaries stepped quickly to the next door and disappeared, while the rest of the group stayed, bravely awaiting the scolding lecture from Jill Valentine.
She wanted to say something. She wanted to yell at them if they had forgotten how important their job was and how everybody in the B.S.A.A. should work in their position with pride and respect. However, when her eyes rolled to the window and targeted the object of the attention of the crowd, she reconsidered. Neither of these women had ever stood on the battlefield, only a couple had ever seen bioterror closely. Yeah, most of them hadn't even taken a closer look at the footage the SOA and SOU brought home from their missions. They were caught in their boring desk jobs, operating phones and numbers every day, as they would be in any other company. Jill sighed at the thought, pitying them silently. Her position included office work too, but the writing of reports and strategic analysis couldn't be compared to an humdrum accounting job.
"I never had coffee here," she pointed at the vending machine. "Can anyone tell me which the best is?"
And the group showered her with baffled glances.
The day had been eventful. At first, he had believed that the shooting session with Jill would be the highlight of the morning, but the workout with Alpha Team had been even more gratifying and revealing. The crew was so similar to what the two S.T.A.R.S. teams had once been, that he wondered if he had been the one who had forced them into their respective roles. As Piers had told him, though, the men had just been promoted from Bravo to Alpha team, so he technically hadn't even had the chance to impress and influence them, which made it even more surprising how much they reminded him of his former colleagues. There was Marco, whose carefree comments sounded pretty much like Kenneth Sullivan, and the rivalry between Aston and Frederic nobody could remain oblivious to was the same kind of friendship he and Forrest had shared. The soldiers had been timid and cautious in his presence at first, but as soon as he'd cracked the first joke, they had warmed up to him and started laughing. Piers hadn't liked it, telling him something about authority and respect, that it was okay to treat team members like family, but that certain topics weren't to be discussed with family.
Admittedly, he had never tried to talk to Claire about sex, rather had he always tried to talk her out of it.
Maybe Piers was right.
"I may have fucked up today," he confessed to Jill when he climbed into the car, a cheeky grin spread over his face. Jill laughed.
"You can't fuck up while Piers is around," the blonde responded and fastened her seatbelt. "He's been trained to avoid that."
Once the key was turned and the engine of her Jeep purred, Jill turned to face Chris, who was pouting silently in the passenger's seat.
"Maybe not everything my old self did was wrong," he muttered as his fingers scraped the back of his head. "Those soldiers spoke so well of him. Of me."
He looked confused, almost shattered by the weight of the man he had been once and who he tried so hard to despise. Seeing him like that nearly broke her heart, and she cut the engine to grant them a little peace and silence to talk.
"You are a fantastic captain, Chris," she said as her hand shifted to his knee. "And a great soldier. You have been in the frontline of the fight ever since we were chased into the mansion in 1998. Nobody has fought as much as you and nobody has sacrificed as much as you did." Those words gained her a scolding glance. "Okay, nobody sacrificed as much as we did."
They took time to breathe and think. As Chris didn't seem ready to speak yet, Jill decided to keep going.
"Of course, your team adores you, Chris. You're the best in your job and everybody in the B.S.A.A looks up to you." Or just indiscreetly at him. Jill nearly laughed. Underlined with a sigh, her next words adopted a tragic weight. "Sadly, your job was all that mattered to you. When Claire and I decided to keep you away from all this, it was to give you the chance for a little happiness."
His intense stare crossed her eyes and went to dig for the heart below when he took her hand and pulled it to his lips.
"I think this amnesia is the best thing that could have happened to my old self," he said before he placed a kiss onto the back of her hand. "I love you."
Jill's smile was clouded by a hint of concern.
"I love you too."
Because nobody could know what would happen when old Chris, with all his memories and disenchantment, surfaced.
A/N:
Hello everybody! Welcome to the first 2021 chapter of A third Chance :D I hope you're all doing well and staying safe and healthy. This chapter was a little shorter and way more boring than I hoped it would be, but it's a bit of a filler chapter. Nivanfield fans might look forward to the next one, where we'll dive deeper into the Piers-Claire relationship.
Diving. Lol.
Thanks for all the support and feedback! You're the best! Also many thanks for all the people who have encouraged me. Writing is going slowly these days, so I'm actually celebrating this boring chapter update lol
Thank you all!
Xaori loves you
