Note: Thanks so much for the feedback, everybody. I greatly appreciate it. You guys are what
keeps me going with this story. I probably would have just left it to the dust if it hadn't been for
you guys. Thanks a lot :D.
__________________________________________________________________
I'm so tall
Can't get over me
I'm so low
Can't get under me
I must be all these things
For I just threw out the love of my dreams
He's in my eyes
He's in my ears
He's in my blood
He's in my tears
I breathe love and see him everyday
Even though my love is a world away
Oh he's got me wondering
My righteousness is crumbling
Never before have I felt this way
I know what is right but want for him to stay
I must be made of steel
For I just threw out the love of my dreams
He's in my eyes
He's in my ears
He's in my blood
He's in my tears
I think of, and see him everyday
Even though my love is a world away
And I see him everyday
Even though my love
Is a world away
He's in my eyes
He's in my ears
He's in my blood
He's in my tears
I must be made of steel
For I just threw out the love of my dreams
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"No, Claire! Absolutely not," Rebecca shook her head emphatically. "We're not breaking
into the hospital and stealing Jill's files! What are you nuts?" One look at Claire and Rebecca
wondered why she even bothered to ask such a rhetorical question.
"Come on, Becky! You can see that something really strange is going on. Why did Jill lie
to us? And, if she was sick, why would she leave so suddenly?" Claire asked her friend.
"Ladies, ladies, what is all the shouting about?" Leon inquired after walking into the room.
"Can't a guy watch T.V. in peace?"
"Leon! Thank god you're here. Help me explain to Claire that breaking into the hospital
is *illegal* and an extremely bad idea," Rebecca begged.
Leon simply shrugged. "It sounds like fun to me." When Claire gave him a winning
smile, he smiled back at her and they looked at each other lovingly. Their trance was interrupted,
however, by the resounding sound of Rebecca's hand smacking her forehead.
"You two are impossible!" Rebecca cried out.
Claire and Leon just ignored her. "So wait... why are we breaking into the hospital?"
Leon wondered while scratching his head.
"We have good reason to assume that Jill is sicker than she let on, and we want to find
out if our suspicions are correct or not," Claire explained.
"But it's none of our business!" Becky protested again. "If Jill is sick, and she wanted us
to know, then she would have told us."
"Come on Becky, you know how Jill is. She has trouble confiding in people. So, maybe
she's out there somewhere, needing our help, but being too stubborn to ask for it," Leon
countered.
"Exactly," Claire agreed. Besides, her opinion may be a bit biased, but she thought that
Chris certainly deserved to know if something was wrong with Jill. "Look, Leon and I are going to
do this with or without you. So, are you going to help us or not?"
Rebecca sighed in defeat. "Okay, okay," she muttered. "I'll help you. Now, what exactly
do you want me to do?"
Before answering, Claire squealed in delight and gave Rebecca a big hug. She cleared
her throat and said, "Okay, now here's the plan..."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was only seconds after Chris left that Jill fainted from exhaustion. She had exerted all
of her energy in her act of deception. Carlos easily caught her, since he had already been
holding her in his arms, and carried her into her room.
"Dammit, Jill, why the hell did you have to go and do that?" he thought. The things she
said, and more so the way she had said them, were so convincing that Carlos had almost
believed her himself. And that kiss...
*It would not be smart to think about that kiss,* Carlos scolded himself. He knew it was
just a part of her act. The final blow to drive Chris away for good. But he couldn't let her do that.
He loved her too much to see her suffer. This last week, seeing her slowly lose her hope as well
as her will to live, almost killed him. The only person who could help Jill, as much as Carlos
hated to admit it, was Redfield. He could see it in her eyes, the way she longed for Chris, and he
wasn't going to sit around and do nothing about it any longer.
"I'm sorry Jill. I know you're going to be extremely pissed off, but you just don't know
what's good for you." Carlos gave her a soft kiss on the forehead, and his heart broke once again
when he looked at her broken form. He quickly turned his eyes away from her, and soon after he
left the house, determined to find Chris Redfield.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Rebecca shook nervously outside of the hospital, wearing a pair of nurse scrubs. She
had never done anything illegal in her life, and she still couldn't believe that she had let Claire talk
her into this. "Just do it for Jill," she murmured softly to herself. Of course, when they found out
that nothing was wrong, and they felt like stupid idiots, she was going to have to kill Claire.
Leon was wearing operating scrubs, and Claire had on a doctor's lab coat. "I always
wanted to marry a doctor," Claire joked and gave her fiancé an adoring kiss, which he happily
returned.
"Ahem," Rebecca cleared her throat and the two quickly broke apart, each muttering a
weak 'sorry.'
"So, Rebecca, you're going to steal Jill's file and I'm going to get her blood sample, got it?
And Leon is going to be our lookout, and, if necessary, our decoy," Claire explained to her friend
again.
"Yep, I got it," Rebecca replied. She just wanted to get all of this over with.
"Alright, let's do it," Leon said. He was the first to enter the building, with Claire and
Rebecca following ten minutes later.
Rebecca went into the file room, which contained shelves and shelves of patient files
stacked neatly and alphabetically. *This shouldn't be too hard,* she thought to herself, and
quickly found the file marked 'Valentine, Jill.' She was about to leave the room, when she heard
somebody approaching and panicked. Not wanting to get caught, she locked the door and
looked for another way out of the room. She paled when she saw the only other way out was the
window.
"Dammit! This door always jams," she heard a voice say from the other side of the door.
"Now which key is the one for this door?"
As she heard a few different keys being used, Rebecca just stood still in fear. Realizing
that she had no other choice, she opened the window and cautiously climbed out, standing on the
thin ledge. Just as she was able to get out of sight, she heard the door burst open.
"It looks like some idiot left the window open again," Rebecca heard the same voice
remark bitterly. Her heart dropped when she heard the soft click of the window being locked.
Standing four stories above ground and shivering from the cold, with Jill's file under he arm,
Rebecca thought miserably, "Now what am I going to do?"
Meanwhile, Leon and Claire were on the other side of the hospital, waiting for the room
that stored the blood samples to empty out. When Leon gave Claire the go-ahead signal, she
entered the room nonchalantly and started to look through the blood samples. It took her a while
before she found Jill's vial, because the samples were stored by the date they were examined.
Before she was finished, Leon watched as a pretty blond nurse headed toward the blood
storage room, and he quickly thought of a plan to intercept her. He started walking in her
direction, and then pretended to accidentally collide into her. The impact caused the nurse to
drop the files that she was carrying, and Leon apologized profusely.
"I'm so sorry, let me help you with that," he told her, and helped to pick up her scattered
papers.
"It's okay. Let's just hope you're not as clumsy on the operating table as you are walking
down the hall," she said flirtatiously. After all, it wasn't everyday that you bumped into a
handsome, young doctor.
"You must let me make this up to you," he offered, and gave her his most engaging
smile.
The nurse felt her heart flip flop. *He's so cute,* she thought dreamily. "And how do you
suggest that you do that, Dr. -?"
"Doctor, uh, Dr. Skippy," he replied, using the nickname that Claire used for him in the
bedroom as it was the only name he could think of under pressure.
"I'm Alice," she told him. "And you were saying something about making this up to me?"
"Oh, right. Well, why don't you let me take you out to dinner sometime?" he proposed,
just as Claire happened to walk out of the room. Neither Leon nor the nurse had seen her, so
she stood a couple feet away and watched the scene angrily.
"That sounds great. Here's my phone number," she said, and wrote it down on a small
piece of paper. Then she slipped it into his hand, letting hers linger there for a little bit. "See you
soon, Doctor Skippy," she stated seductively, and then winked at him before walking away.
Leon was about to stop her, when he noticed that Claire was already out of the room
waiting for him. He sighed in relief, but his sigh soon turned into a gulp when he saw the burning
fury on her face. "Uh, Claire, let me explain," he pleaded.
"Save it, 'Dr. Skippy,' " she said mockingly. "Let's go find Rebecca." Claire stalked off
with Leon following behind quickly.
Rebecca, unfortunately, was having bigger problems as she was still stranded on the
window ledge. There was a fire escape a couple feet away, but it was far enough away that she
would have to jump. When she realized that she had no other choice, she closed her eyes tightly
and prayed for good luck. First, she threw the file she was holding onto the fire escape in
Frisbee-like fashion. Then, she counted to three, and jumped with all her might in a horizontal
direction and grabbed for the ledge. She was able to grab it, and she pulled herself up over the
rail. Breathing in and out heavily, she sat down and regained her composure. Rebecca tried to
open the fire exit door to the hospital, which to her luck was unlocked.
When she came in, she leaned against the door in relief until a voice asked her, "What
the heck do you think you were doing out there?"
Rebecca jumped up with a start and answered meekly, "I was, uh, going outside for my
cigarette break."
The nurse supervisor who had stopped her seemed to believe that excuse, and walked
away shaking her head. "Damn smokers."
Wanting to get out of there as soon as possible, Rebecca practically ran down to the
parking lot where Leon and Claire were waiting by the car. Neither one looked too happy.
Claire noticed the file in Rebecca's hand and said, "Okay, we got everything, now let's get
home fast." When they were in the car, Leon looked toward the backseat to see Rebecca still
trembling with fear, and looked toward the front seat to see Claire staring out the window in
anger. "Great, just great," he muttered and started the drive back home.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Chris grabbed his suitcase and headed toward the door of his motel room, determined to
check out and get back home immediately. He had searched for a bar for about an hour, but his
search was in vain, for this useless little town he was in seemed to have nothing.
When he opened the door, the last thing that he had expected to see, or wanted to see
for that matter, was the face of Carlos Oliviera on the other side.
"What do you want?" Chris growled with rage. "No, wait, let me guess. You wanted to
rub it in? The fact that Jill loves you and not me? Well, I'm warning you, now is sure as hell not
the time."
Carlos shook his head. "No, that's not it."
A doubtful look appeared on Chris's face, and he asked, "How did you find me here
anyway?"
Carlos shrugged. "I got lucky. It's the only motel around for miles, so I figured you'd be
here. But that's not important right now. We really need to talk."
"Frankly, I'm not interested in anything that you have to say," Chris commented. He
barged past Carlos and walked down the hall, leaving Carlos to stare on in desperation.
"She's dying…" Carlos called out, with a catch in his voice. He didn't want to have to tell
Chris like this, but it was the only thing he could think to say that would stop him from leaving.
And Carlos was right. Chris stopped immediately in his tracks and slowly put his bag
down. He turned around and asked cautiously, "What did you say?" *I'm imagining things…* he
thought.
"Jill… is dying," Carlos repeated.
Chris picked up his bag and walked back into his room, pushing Carlos in before him and
slamming the door. "Listen asshole, this isn't funny, it's just sick. I don't know what kind of kicks
you get out of torturing me, but if you say one more word I'm going to kick your ass," he bit out.
"No one messes with Chris Redfield and gets away with it. No one. Got it?"
Carlos just shook his head dejectedly. "Do you know how much I wish I just messing with
you? But I'm not. Jill is dying, and she doesn't have much time left."
Chris didn't want to believe it. In fact, for a second he didn't. Yet he couldn't ignore the
look in Carlos's eyes, the pain in his voice, and his defeated manner. Chris's legs failed to
support him and he sat down slowly on the bed. A million questions rose in his head, a million
thoughts, a million regrets. The only word he could form out of his mouth was, "How?" His voice
was raspy and he could hardly recognize it.
He didn't need to elaborate, though, because Carlos understood the question. Chris
wanted to know what she was dying of. Carlos explained everything, about the T-virus and Jill's
unavoidable transformation into a zombie.
After Carlos was done explaining, Chris stared into space and with absolute hatred in his
voice he uttered, "Umbrella…" Carlos simply nodded.
"Why are you telling me this? Jill was pushing me away, and I was about to leave
forever. You could have had her to yourself," Chris wondered.
Carlos looked down at the floor. "I know you've never trusted me. But I'm not that type of
person. I love Jill, and I only want the best for her." He paused and then added, "She needs
you."
Chris put a hand on Carlos's shoulder in a gesture of camaraderie. "You're a good man.
Jill was lucky to have you to turn to."
Smiling, Carlos replied, "And now it's your turn to let her lean on you."
Chris removed his hand and smiled back. His smile quickly faded, however, when the
reality of the situation came back to him. Jill, *his* Jill, was dying… "I have one more question for
you. Why did Jill leave, why did she push me away? Maybe I could have helped her in some
way… "
"I think that Jill should answer that one," Carlos responded, and Chris nodded in
agreement.
"Let's go, then," Chris said anxiously. He didn't want to waste any more time away from
Jill. Not when he had so little of it left. *Don't worry, love. I'm coming,* he thought.
________________________________________________________
*Song Credit: I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams by Weezer
How will Jill react to Chris? Will Claire forgive Leon? What will Claire, Leon, and Rebecca do
when they find out the truth? And Barry, where's Barry?!?! Most of these questions to be
answered in the next chapter. Please keep reading, and keep replying!
keeps me going with this story. I probably would have just left it to the dust if it hadn't been for
you guys. Thanks a lot :D.
__________________________________________________________________
I'm so tall
Can't get over me
I'm so low
Can't get under me
I must be all these things
For I just threw out the love of my dreams
He's in my eyes
He's in my ears
He's in my blood
He's in my tears
I breathe love and see him everyday
Even though my love is a world away
Oh he's got me wondering
My righteousness is crumbling
Never before have I felt this way
I know what is right but want for him to stay
I must be made of steel
For I just threw out the love of my dreams
He's in my eyes
He's in my ears
He's in my blood
He's in my tears
I think of, and see him everyday
Even though my love is a world away
And I see him everyday
Even though my love
Is a world away
He's in my eyes
He's in my ears
He's in my blood
He's in my tears
I must be made of steel
For I just threw out the love of my dreams
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"No, Claire! Absolutely not," Rebecca shook her head emphatically. "We're not breaking
into the hospital and stealing Jill's files! What are you nuts?" One look at Claire and Rebecca
wondered why she even bothered to ask such a rhetorical question.
"Come on, Becky! You can see that something really strange is going on. Why did Jill lie
to us? And, if she was sick, why would she leave so suddenly?" Claire asked her friend.
"Ladies, ladies, what is all the shouting about?" Leon inquired after walking into the room.
"Can't a guy watch T.V. in peace?"
"Leon! Thank god you're here. Help me explain to Claire that breaking into the hospital
is *illegal* and an extremely bad idea," Rebecca begged.
Leon simply shrugged. "It sounds like fun to me." When Claire gave him a winning
smile, he smiled back at her and they looked at each other lovingly. Their trance was interrupted,
however, by the resounding sound of Rebecca's hand smacking her forehead.
"You two are impossible!" Rebecca cried out.
Claire and Leon just ignored her. "So wait... why are we breaking into the hospital?"
Leon wondered while scratching his head.
"We have good reason to assume that Jill is sicker than she let on, and we want to find
out if our suspicions are correct or not," Claire explained.
"But it's none of our business!" Becky protested again. "If Jill is sick, and she wanted us
to know, then she would have told us."
"Come on Becky, you know how Jill is. She has trouble confiding in people. So, maybe
she's out there somewhere, needing our help, but being too stubborn to ask for it," Leon
countered.
"Exactly," Claire agreed. Besides, her opinion may be a bit biased, but she thought that
Chris certainly deserved to know if something was wrong with Jill. "Look, Leon and I are going to
do this with or without you. So, are you going to help us or not?"
Rebecca sighed in defeat. "Okay, okay," she muttered. "I'll help you. Now, what exactly
do you want me to do?"
Before answering, Claire squealed in delight and gave Rebecca a big hug. She cleared
her throat and said, "Okay, now here's the plan..."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was only seconds after Chris left that Jill fainted from exhaustion. She had exerted all
of her energy in her act of deception. Carlos easily caught her, since he had already been
holding her in his arms, and carried her into her room.
"Dammit, Jill, why the hell did you have to go and do that?" he thought. The things she
said, and more so the way she had said them, were so convincing that Carlos had almost
believed her himself. And that kiss...
*It would not be smart to think about that kiss,* Carlos scolded himself. He knew it was
just a part of her act. The final blow to drive Chris away for good. But he couldn't let her do that.
He loved her too much to see her suffer. This last week, seeing her slowly lose her hope as well
as her will to live, almost killed him. The only person who could help Jill, as much as Carlos
hated to admit it, was Redfield. He could see it in her eyes, the way she longed for Chris, and he
wasn't going to sit around and do nothing about it any longer.
"I'm sorry Jill. I know you're going to be extremely pissed off, but you just don't know
what's good for you." Carlos gave her a soft kiss on the forehead, and his heart broke once again
when he looked at her broken form. He quickly turned his eyes away from her, and soon after he
left the house, determined to find Chris Redfield.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Rebecca shook nervously outside of the hospital, wearing a pair of nurse scrubs. She
had never done anything illegal in her life, and she still couldn't believe that she had let Claire talk
her into this. "Just do it for Jill," she murmured softly to herself. Of course, when they found out
that nothing was wrong, and they felt like stupid idiots, she was going to have to kill Claire.
Leon was wearing operating scrubs, and Claire had on a doctor's lab coat. "I always
wanted to marry a doctor," Claire joked and gave her fiancé an adoring kiss, which he happily
returned.
"Ahem," Rebecca cleared her throat and the two quickly broke apart, each muttering a
weak 'sorry.'
"So, Rebecca, you're going to steal Jill's file and I'm going to get her blood sample, got it?
And Leon is going to be our lookout, and, if necessary, our decoy," Claire explained to her friend
again.
"Yep, I got it," Rebecca replied. She just wanted to get all of this over with.
"Alright, let's do it," Leon said. He was the first to enter the building, with Claire and
Rebecca following ten minutes later.
Rebecca went into the file room, which contained shelves and shelves of patient files
stacked neatly and alphabetically. *This shouldn't be too hard,* she thought to herself, and
quickly found the file marked 'Valentine, Jill.' She was about to leave the room, when she heard
somebody approaching and panicked. Not wanting to get caught, she locked the door and
looked for another way out of the room. She paled when she saw the only other way out was the
window.
"Dammit! This door always jams," she heard a voice say from the other side of the door.
"Now which key is the one for this door?"
As she heard a few different keys being used, Rebecca just stood still in fear. Realizing
that she had no other choice, she opened the window and cautiously climbed out, standing on the
thin ledge. Just as she was able to get out of sight, she heard the door burst open.
"It looks like some idiot left the window open again," Rebecca heard the same voice
remark bitterly. Her heart dropped when she heard the soft click of the window being locked.
Standing four stories above ground and shivering from the cold, with Jill's file under he arm,
Rebecca thought miserably, "Now what am I going to do?"
Meanwhile, Leon and Claire were on the other side of the hospital, waiting for the room
that stored the blood samples to empty out. When Leon gave Claire the go-ahead signal, she
entered the room nonchalantly and started to look through the blood samples. It took her a while
before she found Jill's vial, because the samples were stored by the date they were examined.
Before she was finished, Leon watched as a pretty blond nurse headed toward the blood
storage room, and he quickly thought of a plan to intercept her. He started walking in her
direction, and then pretended to accidentally collide into her. The impact caused the nurse to
drop the files that she was carrying, and Leon apologized profusely.
"I'm so sorry, let me help you with that," he told her, and helped to pick up her scattered
papers.
"It's okay. Let's just hope you're not as clumsy on the operating table as you are walking
down the hall," she said flirtatiously. After all, it wasn't everyday that you bumped into a
handsome, young doctor.
"You must let me make this up to you," he offered, and gave her his most engaging
smile.
The nurse felt her heart flip flop. *He's so cute,* she thought dreamily. "And how do you
suggest that you do that, Dr. -?"
"Doctor, uh, Dr. Skippy," he replied, using the nickname that Claire used for him in the
bedroom as it was the only name he could think of under pressure.
"I'm Alice," she told him. "And you were saying something about making this up to me?"
"Oh, right. Well, why don't you let me take you out to dinner sometime?" he proposed,
just as Claire happened to walk out of the room. Neither Leon nor the nurse had seen her, so
she stood a couple feet away and watched the scene angrily.
"That sounds great. Here's my phone number," she said, and wrote it down on a small
piece of paper. Then she slipped it into his hand, letting hers linger there for a little bit. "See you
soon, Doctor Skippy," she stated seductively, and then winked at him before walking away.
Leon was about to stop her, when he noticed that Claire was already out of the room
waiting for him. He sighed in relief, but his sigh soon turned into a gulp when he saw the burning
fury on her face. "Uh, Claire, let me explain," he pleaded.
"Save it, 'Dr. Skippy,' " she said mockingly. "Let's go find Rebecca." Claire stalked off
with Leon following behind quickly.
Rebecca, unfortunately, was having bigger problems as she was still stranded on the
window ledge. There was a fire escape a couple feet away, but it was far enough away that she
would have to jump. When she realized that she had no other choice, she closed her eyes tightly
and prayed for good luck. First, she threw the file she was holding onto the fire escape in
Frisbee-like fashion. Then, she counted to three, and jumped with all her might in a horizontal
direction and grabbed for the ledge. She was able to grab it, and she pulled herself up over the
rail. Breathing in and out heavily, she sat down and regained her composure. Rebecca tried to
open the fire exit door to the hospital, which to her luck was unlocked.
When she came in, she leaned against the door in relief until a voice asked her, "What
the heck do you think you were doing out there?"
Rebecca jumped up with a start and answered meekly, "I was, uh, going outside for my
cigarette break."
The nurse supervisor who had stopped her seemed to believe that excuse, and walked
away shaking her head. "Damn smokers."
Wanting to get out of there as soon as possible, Rebecca practically ran down to the
parking lot where Leon and Claire were waiting by the car. Neither one looked too happy.
Claire noticed the file in Rebecca's hand and said, "Okay, we got everything, now let's get
home fast." When they were in the car, Leon looked toward the backseat to see Rebecca still
trembling with fear, and looked toward the front seat to see Claire staring out the window in
anger. "Great, just great," he muttered and started the drive back home.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Chris grabbed his suitcase and headed toward the door of his motel room, determined to
check out and get back home immediately. He had searched for a bar for about an hour, but his
search was in vain, for this useless little town he was in seemed to have nothing.
When he opened the door, the last thing that he had expected to see, or wanted to see
for that matter, was the face of Carlos Oliviera on the other side.
"What do you want?" Chris growled with rage. "No, wait, let me guess. You wanted to
rub it in? The fact that Jill loves you and not me? Well, I'm warning you, now is sure as hell not
the time."
Carlos shook his head. "No, that's not it."
A doubtful look appeared on Chris's face, and he asked, "How did you find me here
anyway?"
Carlos shrugged. "I got lucky. It's the only motel around for miles, so I figured you'd be
here. But that's not important right now. We really need to talk."
"Frankly, I'm not interested in anything that you have to say," Chris commented. He
barged past Carlos and walked down the hall, leaving Carlos to stare on in desperation.
"She's dying…" Carlos called out, with a catch in his voice. He didn't want to have to tell
Chris like this, but it was the only thing he could think to say that would stop him from leaving.
And Carlos was right. Chris stopped immediately in his tracks and slowly put his bag
down. He turned around and asked cautiously, "What did you say?" *I'm imagining things…* he
thought.
"Jill… is dying," Carlos repeated.
Chris picked up his bag and walked back into his room, pushing Carlos in before him and
slamming the door. "Listen asshole, this isn't funny, it's just sick. I don't know what kind of kicks
you get out of torturing me, but if you say one more word I'm going to kick your ass," he bit out.
"No one messes with Chris Redfield and gets away with it. No one. Got it?"
Carlos just shook his head dejectedly. "Do you know how much I wish I just messing with
you? But I'm not. Jill is dying, and she doesn't have much time left."
Chris didn't want to believe it. In fact, for a second he didn't. Yet he couldn't ignore the
look in Carlos's eyes, the pain in his voice, and his defeated manner. Chris's legs failed to
support him and he sat down slowly on the bed. A million questions rose in his head, a million
thoughts, a million regrets. The only word he could form out of his mouth was, "How?" His voice
was raspy and he could hardly recognize it.
He didn't need to elaborate, though, because Carlos understood the question. Chris
wanted to know what she was dying of. Carlos explained everything, about the T-virus and Jill's
unavoidable transformation into a zombie.
After Carlos was done explaining, Chris stared into space and with absolute hatred in his
voice he uttered, "Umbrella…" Carlos simply nodded.
"Why are you telling me this? Jill was pushing me away, and I was about to leave
forever. You could have had her to yourself," Chris wondered.
Carlos looked down at the floor. "I know you've never trusted me. But I'm not that type of
person. I love Jill, and I only want the best for her." He paused and then added, "She needs
you."
Chris put a hand on Carlos's shoulder in a gesture of camaraderie. "You're a good man.
Jill was lucky to have you to turn to."
Smiling, Carlos replied, "And now it's your turn to let her lean on you."
Chris removed his hand and smiled back. His smile quickly faded, however, when the
reality of the situation came back to him. Jill, *his* Jill, was dying… "I have one more question for
you. Why did Jill leave, why did she push me away? Maybe I could have helped her in some
way… "
"I think that Jill should answer that one," Carlos responded, and Chris nodded in
agreement.
"Let's go, then," Chris said anxiously. He didn't want to waste any more time away from
Jill. Not when he had so little of it left. *Don't worry, love. I'm coming,* he thought.
________________________________________________________
*Song Credit: I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams by Weezer
How will Jill react to Chris? Will Claire forgive Leon? What will Claire, Leon, and Rebecca do
when they find out the truth? And Barry, where's Barry?!?! Most of these questions to be
answered in the next chapter. Please keep reading, and keep replying!