Title: Into the Light

Author: Malenkaya

Rating: R for violence and swearing

Summary: (RE movie fanfic, 2nd in trilogy): What began as a mindless effort to survive has developed into a race against time to stop Matt's sudden mutation as Alice, Rain, Michael, Matt and J.D. re-enter the Hive in search of a cure.

Disclaimer: Consider the lacking amount of people using the characters out there, I should own them. But I don't. So don't sue :)

Feedback: Please! I live and breathe reviews! Flames, as long as they're explanatory, are fine.

Author's Notes: Sorry again for the late update! This chapter is a little dialogue heavy, which may be good or bad for you; but there will be more action in the next chapter, definitely.

Thanks again to those who have reviewed Into the Light thus far, particularly for chapter seven: Darkness Amber, rain1657, FREAKSHOW1, Faded Writer, XMaster, Susan LeGrow, Gabzilla, kk, and Nikolai Burnside. Please again remember to leave your emails with your reviews so I can thank you for them and answer any questions you have. Thanks goes out also to all those who read and don't review, even though I beg you—continuously—to do so. It's still very appreciated.

To XMaster: I'm terribly sorry, but I'm going to be upfront and tell you that Kaplan is, pretty much without a doubt, not coming back. Spence killed him in Fading Away, and there's not really anything I can do to realistically bring him back into the story. I hope that you keep reading regardless, and hopefully Kaplan's heroic death was at least an acceptable one for him :)

Also, I'm trying something new for spaces today :) I saw it on a CSI fanfiction and it looked pretty, so hopefully it works!

Thanks again, enjoy the fic!

Into the Light

Chapter Eight: Fire And Ice

It was eleven o'clock pm, and night had fallen upon the denizens inside the Hive.

Not, of course, that any of them could tell, what with being underground and everything.

Their environment was calm, though—shockingly so, considering where they were. They'd returned from the chaotic scene at the theatre to the same room they'd been in before, where they all were now.

Overall, the scene was calm as well. Matt, Alice, Michael and Olivia sat together at the room's only table, seated on rickety chairs and crates. A handful of files, containing all the important papers they'd found so far, were scattered across the table in front of them as they discussed their contents quietly.

J.D couldn't help but notice that they were all careful to keep the specifics vague for Olivia's benefit. Obviously, they were still expecting a confession from her.

He wondered if she'd talk to Alice. He hoped she would. It would help, not only with relieving Alice's suspicions of Olivia's involvement in their search for Matt's anti-virus, but also with benefiting her relations in the group.

She'd need it, after the scene with Rain that afternoon.

J.D bit back a scowl. Part of him had hoped Rain would, in her classically explosive way, let the information of their relationship slip to the rest of the group.

He'd been surprised to realize she didn't need to. Matt, Alice—both of them had evidently all ready found out on their own.

In fact, the only person who hadn't realized what was going on was Rain.

J.D glanced at her, sitting in the observation room alone, and sighed.

As soon as they'd returned, Alice had made up some lame excuse for giving him and Rain assignments separate from the rest of the group's recon mission. And when Rain had turned her back, Alice had shot him a look that clearly stated he owed her an explanation.

J.D smirked. Whatever the case, it was nice to see that Alice hadn't been stressed to the point of completely relinquishing her role as the mother figure in the group yet.

But then, she didn't know Rain as well as he did. She had no idea how difficult the girl could be when she was actually angry and not just irritable about something.

No, when Alice and Matt had a problem, they sat down and talked about it.

Rain, though… J.D had expected an explosion from her. In fact, he'd hoped for one—if it meant a screaming match, so be it. At least the entire fucking fiasco would have been over and done with then. That's just how their fights, even their minor arguments worked. One of them would do something stupid, the other would complain, and a shouting match would erupt. After a few well-aimed insults and arguments, they'd make up again, generally with a kinder, funnier but equally well-placed insult.

This time she'd been silent and stand-offish instead, refusing to speak to J.D and ignoring the others.

She was obviously a lot more upset than he'd expected her to be. She'd blow up eventually, yeah—but unfortunately, he had no idea how to deal with her anger in the intermission between.

J.D sighed. Whatever the case, he needed to talk to her. The idea was a terrifying one, but Rain—Rain was important to him. Like a best friend, or a little sister. He had no idea why she was as mad as she was, but he still owed her an explanation. And an apology.

Saying a silent prayer—J.D wasn't religious, but he figured it couldn't hurt—he opened the door and walked in.

Rain sat in the far corner of the room, the file holding the Hive's passwords in her right hand, a red pen in her left. As he watched she marked them dutifully, grouping them according to placement and tossing them into small piles around her.

She didn't look up when he closed the door, or when he walked across the white floor and sat in front of her.

"Rain," he said, his voice coming out more hoarsely than he'd expected it to. "I'm sorry."

She ignored him. J.D watched in tired exasperation as she scribbled 'Lab, division A' across the top of a page and dropped it onto a pile beside her.

Finally, irritation won out. "Rain, we need to talk about this."

Another three papers joined the first.

He sighed, tried again. "Rain—"

"Fuck off, J.D."

Her voice was low, and barely audible, but he could hear the restrained anger in it. He stared at her, unsure of what to do.

She finally looked up at him, her eyes showing a mess of emotions as she met his glance. Her voice tired, she said, "Look, J.D, I don't care. Okay?"

At his continued silence, she looked up again. "So fuck off," she reminded him.

She returned to her papers.

Finally realizing that his presence was pointless, J.D stood. Rain was obviously lying, but it was just as clear by the stubborn set of her jaw that she wasn't willing to divulge any further.

As he left the room, closing the door behind him, he caught Alice's eye. She looked partially curious, but worried as well, and he shook his head.

The answering expression in her eyes brought more guilt crashing down upon him. They both knew the repercussions of this now. Like civil war, any conflict between Rain and J.D was only going to make their ultimate destination more difficult to reach.

In her eyes was a question, too, a question the whole group including Olivia herself probably wondered at the answer to: was he going to continue… seeing her, if it could even be called that?

J.D didn't know. Either way, it didn't matter, not now.

Because the answering expression in her eyes only confirmed what he already knew.

It was going to take a lot more than an apology to get himself out of this one.

xxxxx

J.D looked away, and Alice refocused on the task at hand.

They'd been going over possible exits and entrances from the Hive for a few minutes, but nothing had been found; everything had, according to Olivia's information from Archangelo, been efficiently sealed off already.

Alice wasn't exactly sure what the plan was now. Whether they'd stay here as long as they had to, searching for a way out, or make an attempt at negotiations with Archangelo.

Neither possibility was one she looked forward to; but then, Alice didn't particularly care how they got out now. They had enough provisions, enough ammunition to last them at least a few weeks in here, if not more than a month.

Matt, on the other hand, had less than a week left. Four days left, not counting today; which, given that it was pretty much over, was meaningless.

Alice had no idea what they were planning to do, which labs to infiltrate, nothing. Archangelo certainly hadn't given them any information to work with in his little video, and Alice couldn't even understand the documents they'd found.

She smiled slightly. Luckily, they had Michael and Olivia. Those two were nearly halfway through the first half of the pile they'd found already, and moving quickly.

Olivia Alderic, in short, was actually a nice woman. An asset to the team, definitely, but kind and seemingly trustworthy so far as well. The only evidence they'd had to dispute that theory—Olivia's eavesdropping discovery of Matt's infection—had already been explained to J.D, and both he and the rest of the group could understand her reasons.

Unfortunately, after the Rain/J.D/Olivia fiasco, her relations within the group were going to plummet, and the entire group knew it. It was unfair, definitely—but they all stuck together as a group. That was just the way it was.

And Rain, in particular, had an almost vulnerable nature about her that the entire group often felt protective over her for. It wasn't that she was the youngest—they were all in their early twenties anyway—nor because she was childish in anyway—

Alice smiled despite herself. Childish was probably the wrong word to use. While generally mature and semi-reasonable, Rain also had an immature aspect to her that she didn't mind exploiting occasionally. Her silent treatment of J.D was a classic example of this nature.

What was different about Rain was that she never wanted to admit that she could be vulnerable. All of them were difficult at times, but in the same way, they were always willing to break down, to talk to someone.

Rain, on the other hand, kept up a constant wave of denial when faced with the accusation of being upset about something—and when pressured, blew up at the person in topic.

It was because of that stubbornness, ironically enough, that they all watched over her so closely.

And unfortunately, that meant that Olivia, for the most part, was going to be treated as the bad figure in all of this. J.D would get his fair share too, of course, but he was more deserving of it.

Alice wished he hadn't lied to Rain. Having a relationship was fine. It would make things difficult, but J.D deserved it, just like the rest of them did. And Rain no doubt would have needed time to adjust to it, but at least everything would have been out in the open.

The funny thing was, as dense as some guys could be, J.D was generally pretty adapt when dealing with Rain—except for the fact that he could never understand why she was upset when it went further than simple irritation.

Like this, for example. Rain was understandably angry about J.D's lying to her, but he was too caught up in worrying that she was only angry with his "fraternizing with the enemy" to bother thinking about that.

Matt shifted next to her slightly, obviously bored, and she smiled. They'd been sitting here for more than half an hour now, listening politely as Michael and Olivia attempted vainly to explain the contents of the files to them.

In terms of emotion… Alice was nothing like Rain. They were both, in a matter of speaking, sentimental; but while Rain could hold hers in, keeping hers hidden was a task Alice found impossible.

She kept breaking down in front of Matt, and she hated it. It was nice to be able to let everything down in front of him, to be completely and utterly honest; but in a way, she felt it was unfair to Matt.

Matt was the one mutating, not her; and except for that night, the first time he'd found out about it, he'd shown almost no outward emotion about what was going on. When she'd tried to speak to him about the incident last night, he'd passed it off.

Whether he was unwilling to talk about it or trying to avoid reliving it, Alice didn't know. But what she did know was that part of the reason he refused to talk about it was because he was trying to protect her from the facts.

Matt nudged her slightly, and she glanced at him in surprise. He smiled at her, the expression in his eyes amused, and she realized Michael and Olivia had been telling them something important—something that she'd completely and utterly tuned out accidentally.

She flashed them both a slightly embarrassed smile, though their expressions were both understanding. "Sorry. You were saying?"

Michael grinned. "Well, now that you're listening," he said, his tone gently teasing, "We've narrowed it down to three labs to search."

He pushed a map across the table to her, indicating the labs he'd highlighted. She glanced at them briefly, then looked back up at him, a smile on her face. "So what's so special about them?"

"They're the only ones dealing with biological experimentation that happen to be locked and guarded with top-rate security systems," Olivia cut in, a small smile on her face.

Alice raised an eyebrow. "And the rest of Umbrella's locks are cheap?"

Olivia laughed, and Alice marveled despite herself how comfortable she seemed in the group already. Michael, in direct conflict to her easy assimilation, had taken weeks to confer so easily. "Most of Umbrella's locks are just technologically controlled with security systems. These ones have an employee check and probably 'surprises' inside as well."

Matt glanced at her. "Surprises?"

"Traps," she clarified. "Things an employee would know to bypass."

"Do you know?" he asked, and she shook her head.

"No. I'm in the database, but I'm not technically allowed to work in there on my own."

Matt nodded. "So we're pretty much on our own."

Olivia nodded, a small smile still on her face, and Matt shook his head in disbelief.

"Sounds fun," Alice said wryly. "Not for tonight though." She stood with those words, watching as the rest of them stood up around her. "Everyone should get some sleep, relax tonight. We'll go tomorrow."

The three of them nodded, and Michael asked, "Who's guarding with me tonight?"

"Rain."

"Rain?" Matt repeated, glancing at Alice in disbelief. "She should be sleeping, shouldn't she? She was just up last night with me."

Alice smiled wryly at him. "Try explaining that to her."

He grinned at her, acknowledging the truth of her statement as Michael left to find Rain and Olivia, after an awkward moment, wandered off to see J.D.

Alice watched as she grabbed his hand, her expression serious against his tired one, and pulled him to the far corner of the room.

Whatever conversation those two planned to have, it certainly wasn't going to be a fun one.

xxxxx

J.D's expression was surprised, and, Olivia couldn't help but note, slightly embarrassed as she pulled him to the far side of the room. As if he were suddenly shy now that the group knew about them.

Or ashamed, she thought pessimistically.

Olivia battled back the hurt commingled with anger the thought brought about and focused on the situation at hand.

"What's going on"

J.D looked at her, seeming surprised at the question. "What do you mean"

"With you and Rain" she clarified. And us, she added silently in her head.

She hated the idea of playing the classic foreign seductress, of splitting up the group in an attempt to keep a relationship with J.D. Her own moral character was against it, and besides, despite having known them for a grand total of three days, Olivia was smart enough to know that these were good people. Working with Umbrella had taught her effectively how to see past the images people so easily projected, and nobody in this group seemed anything but sincere so far.

But what she hated more was the strain between her and J.D that had developed instantly after Rain had walked in on them. The whole relationship had begun in the heat of the moment—but still. Olivia had been sure there had been something between them, that it wasn't just some spur-of-the-moment fling.

Now she wasn't so sure. She'd backed off, given J.D some time to sort things out with the group; he was close to them, and she figured he'd need it. For three hours she'd kept herself far from J.D, allowing him to try and work things out, and for three hours he steadily avoided bothering to tell her anything.

As, apparently, he meant to now.

"Look, Olivia, this isn't really something I can talk to you about—"

"Well, you're going to have to" she said firmly.

His expression was one of slight irritation as he looked back at her, and she softened her tone. "Look, J.D… I care about you. And if there's something going on with Rain, if there's any reason you want to put this off, that's fine. But you need to let me know what's going on."

His expression was still irritated as he glanced at her; but seeing the worry in her eyes, he softened visibly. Though still exasperated, he smiled as he asked rhetorically"Why are all the women in my life so goddamn stubborn"

Olivia wondered for a moment whether he was referring to her and Rain, her and Alice, or all three of them before he continued.

"I care about you, Olivia. But Rain… she's important to me, and I need to work this out with her right now."

She nodded. "The group's okay with it, though"

J.D shrugged. "They're madder at me than they are at you" he admitted, an easy smile lighting up his face. "Rain's just… possessive."

Olivia raised an eyebrow, flashing him a teasing smile. "Possessive"

He shrugged. "I do the same thing to her" he admitted. "Comes with the territory."

She nodded, biting her lower lip. Part of her wanted to smile and walk away, pretend the problem was solved—but like it or not, there was something more she needed to say.

"J.D, if there's something between you and Rain… you should work that out first. Before we go any further."

His expression was one of slight confusion, and she sighed inwardly, wishing for the first time that she was talking to another girl instead of a guy. Alice and Rain herself would have understood her implied meaning instantly.

"I mean, if there's any romantic bond between you two" she clarified, somewhat belatedly.

J.D's look of confusion only deepened slightly before he started to laugh. "Romantic"

She nodded, and he seemed to realize suddenly that she was serious. His expression softened, only a touch of amusement remaining in his dark eyes as he said"Olivia, me and Rain are friends. Nothing more."

She raised an eyebrow. "You're pretty protective of her" she pointed out. "And you both obviously care a lot about each other."

He shrugged. "Close friends" he said simply. "So"

She nodded, thoughtfully. He seemed sure, but—"J.D, have you ever thought about the possibility that she might want more than just friendship" she asked gently, scanning his face for any sign of reaction.

Total silence followed. Finally J.D asked, looking confused—again—"Why would you think that"

She shrugged. "Like you said, you two are close."

He nodded. "Yeah, we are. But Olivia, Rain is—intense. She doesn't do casual relationships."

Olivia nodded. Striving for a tone of mild curiosity, she asked"So how many relationships has she had in the past few years"

J.D shrugged, the expression on his face going from exasperated to slightly annoyed. "A few. Nothing serious. Why"

"Why haven't they been serious" she pressed.

"Enough" he said shortly. "Look, Olivia, I'm sorry. But there's nothing between me and Rain, and this is her life, not mine."

She nodded, feeling ashamed, but still determined to make her point. "I know. I'm sorry. But J.D—"

A loud sigh interrupted her; glancing at him, he seemed exasperated but willing to listen, so she continued.

"She was the only one who didn't find out about us."

J.D looked confused again. "Look, I'm not the most… feminine guy around. Why exactly would that indicate something more"

She shrugged. "Maybe she didn't want to believe it" she pointed out. "I mean, if she wanted more—or thought there already was more—between you two, wouldn't she have figured you wouldn't… be with anyone else"

Her sentences had long since lost their simple eloquence, replaced instead by halting hesitations and stutters, a simple sign of nervousness.

J.D didn't seem to notice as he shook his head, taking her hands in his. "Olivia" he began, looking straight at her. "Look. Me and Rain are friends, nothing more. I promise."

He kissed her gently on the mouth, pulling back slightly to add"But I need to work this out with her. Okay"

Olivia nodded, forcing a small smile as he squeezed her hands, smiled at her one last time, and left.

She wished she could believe J.D's words. He'd been confidant about his opinions, had said all the right things—but still. Something she'd said had hit home with J.D, and she'd seen the brief flicker of doubt in his eyes when he'd left.

Olivia sighed. She didn't know Rain. She barely even knew J.D yet. Besides the circumstantial evidence, there was no real reason to believe there was something more between the two.

But even as her logical mindset forced her to move on, pulling out her sleeping bag and laying it carefully next to J.D's, her heart told her otherwise.

Rain loved J.D.

xxxxx

"I fucking hate J.D" Rain intoned dully.

Michael glanced at her from his position below her. Rain sat on the table, her back against the wall, toying with the gun in her hands and staring at the ceiling.

Casually, unable to help himself, he asked"Have you been drinking or something, Rain"

Even as the words came out, he realized the possibility of it was nearly non-existent; but Rain had been uncharacteristically stoical all night, and he had to ask.

Rain snorted. "I wish" she said wistfully, her gaze never leaving the ceiling.

Like now, for example. Despite Alice's insistent warnings against even mentioning J.D to Rain, Michael had been quizzing her about it all night, to no avail.

Finally stumbling upon a topic practically guaranteed to get a reaction from Rain, Michael smiled. "What about Olivia"

Rain only shrugged. "What about her"

That answer, more than any of the others combined, surprised him. "You're not angry at her"

Rain wrinkled her nose. "Why should I be"

Michael glanced at her, unsure of how to answer the obviously rhetorical question. "That's a lot of foresight for, uh—"

"Me" she finished, grinning at him. "Well, she wasn't the one who lied to me."

The obvious hurt, hidden beneath layers of annoyance and forced bravado, was clear in her last words and Michael sighed. "Rain, maybe you and J.D should talk about this—"

She glanced at him, her expression one of distinct annoyance. "Look, Michael, don't play fucking therapist, okay? I don't care what J.D does. I'm not his mother."

"You're his best friend" he pointed out quietly.

She huffed her own sigh of annoyance. "Michael."

Her tone was one of warning, and Michael backed off slightly, realizing she wasn't going to say anything more. "Sorry."

"Whatever" she said easily, closing her eyes briefly. "But if you don't watch it, I'm going to start calling you 'Mikey'."

"Mikey" he echoed, glancing at her.

She nodded. "One of my foster brothers. He hated it."

He laughed, and she smiled at him. The smile didn't hide the visibly tired expression in her eyes, and he said"You should be sleeping."

If she was surprised by the sudden change of topic, she didn't show it. Instead she shrugged. "J.D and Olivia are already shacking up, and Alice wants Matt to stay out of this after what happened last night."

Michael nodded, understanding the reasoning behind her words. "Make J.D and Olivia do it then."

She snorted. "Yeah, right. Because that's what they would do all night. Guard."

He grinned. "Do they really need to do anything? I mean, the door is reinforced steel."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Obviously you haven't seen some of Umbrella's freaky pets."

He nodded slowly. "I actually wanted to talk to you about that." She turned to look fully at him, and he hesitated only once before asking"Where are all the monsters? How come, since we've arrived, we've seen almost nothing"

She was uncharacteristically silent for a moment. Finally she looked at him, her eyes dark, and said"Maybe Umbrella's saving them. For us."

She looked like she was thinking back on something, and he nodded. "Maybe we should talk to Olivia about it."

She smirked. "You mean, maybe you should."

He raised an eyebrow at her, smiling. "I thought you didn't care about Olivia."

"I don't" she drawled slowly, grinning now. "Doesn't mean I want to talk to her."

He snorted, despite himself, and she laughed. "Don't worry Michael, I think you can handle it."

They fell into a comfortable silence for a moment, during which Rain continued to toy with her MP-5 and Michael scanned the room.

Finally, more to satiate his own curiosity than anything else, he asked"So what was it like? Working with Umbrella, I mean.

Looking surprised by the question, Rain shrugged. "Secretive. It wasn't bad at first—stupid lab break ins, shit like that. In and out again. We didn't say anything about it, and we got paid a lot of money for it."

She paused, her eyes straining as she thought back. "We didn't really figure out what was going on 'till the Hive incident, and that's when everything got fucked up anyway."

He nodded solemnly. "You never wondered why they were so secretive"

She shrugged again. "Well, yeah, we wondered. But at the time, we figured Umbrella was just trafficking illegal pharmaceutical drugs over the border or something stupid like that."

Michael didn't even bother questioning her meaning of we—she obviously meant her and J.D, possibly Alice as well—before asking"Any regrets"

She shook her head. "Not really. I mean—" she hesitated for a moment, then continued. "I mean, it sucked what Umbrella was doing. But it's not like we knew. All I wish now is that we'd figured something out that we could actually use to help Matt."

Michael nodded again, surprised at the obvious worry that flashed across her face when she thought about Matt. He supposed her and Matt were probably close, considering the situation the two of them and Alice had been thrown into down here months earlier; but Rain, being Rain, had never really shown any outward sign of worry like the rest of the group had.

Seeing him mutate though, even if only briefly—that had to have been painful. And her and Alice's arguments moments later couldn't have helped the issue.

Softly, and—realizing she might become defensive if he showed any signs of trying to make her admit any emotion—nonchalantly, he asked"Are you worried? About Matt, I mean."

She nodded. "Yeah" she admitted. "Not as much as Alice, though."

As if on cue, the two of them both turned to where Matt and Alice slept on the floor, inches apart from one another. While Matt's expression was peaceful, if exhausted, Alice's showed a strain that hadn't been there last night.

"I just hope we find something" Rain said quietly. "In the labs tomorrow."

He nodded. "We still have five days left" he pointed out, trying to dredge up an optimism he couldn't find in him.

As far as things went, it was possible. If Olivia's information was correct, the odds of the lab they planned to infiltrate the next day being the one they were looking for were high.

Unfortunately, it wasn't that easy. The lab was guarded, protected, whether by simple mutations or more technologically advanced systems.

Whether they found the anti-virus wouldn't matter if they were all dead by then.

And if the lab was the wrong one… they were back to square one.

xxx End xxx

Thanks again to all those reading; the next udpate will be two weeks from now, on February 18th, 2005.