Title: Final Illuminations
Author: Malenkaya
Rating: R for violence and swearing
Summary: RE movie fanfiction. In this sequel to "Fading Away" and "Into the Light", Alice, Michael, Rain and J.D continue in their efforts to defeat Umbrella, finding along the way new allies, new enemies—and new hope for Matthew Addison.
Disclaimer: I'm feeling daring, so I'm not going to post one. Ever again! So ha ha. If, strangely and ironically, I disappear from due to this heinous offence, I will be found under "TMonkey".
Feedback: Please! I live and breathe reviews! Flames, as long as they're explanatory, are fine.
Author's Notes:
Another starter apology :) I'm really sorry about the thank you notes again. I promise I'll get to them this time; I'm not really sure whether you all actually care if I sent them. I just like doing it, as I personally am a lazy reviewer myself, and know the effort it takes to really write a good, well thought out review. I'm just really busy right now. In fact, I finished this chapter about an hour ago (it's 1 am now), so I suppose that gives you a decent idea of my time frame right now, doesn't it:)
Anyway, huge thank yous must be said to: masked-in-your-shadows, Sakura123, Xmaster, bigfan, DarkPrincessPyro, GrendelXO666 and Kim Hughes. I really do appreciate it.
Ah, yes, a few obligatory remarks:
No, there will be no game characters in this fanfiction, as a few people have already asked, for a number of reasons: firstly, I'm not really interested in adding new characters at this point; every character in this one has been mentioned at least once in Into the Light, thus their appearance has already been planned out and, now, set into motion. I would much rather concentrate on my existing characters to whom I have really gotten into in the past two years. Secondly, I don't really play the games or read the books beyond just for fun, so I have a feeling if I tried to write any of the characters you all would kill me because they'd end up so horribly out of character :)
So that's that. And, of course, the second remark is that the title of this chapter is taken from David Usher's lovely, "Unholy, Dirty, and Beautiful", a song which actually inspired this chapter. So props to him :)
Thank you, enjoy.
Chapter Six: Unholy, Dirty, and Beautiful
Three hours time found them sitting wearily in a brand new home in a modestly decorated neighborhood. The lights above them were dimmed where they sat around a table, one eerily similar to the one where they'd had a nearly identical conversation concerning Matthew Addison four months earlier.
None of them looked happy. Rain, sitting closest to the door, had her legs drawn up on the chair underneath her and looked characteristically moody. Alice, seated next to her, had an unwavering look of stubborn determination that made Michael's heart ache.
It didn't take a genius to see that Matt wasn't okay, and probably never would be again.
Rain had been shaken when she'd explained what had happened inside Umbrella, and it had been painfully clear that, despite her vehement denial of the fact, she was scared of Matt; and neither J.D nor, true to form, Demitrov trusted him. All three of them had nearly blown up at Alice when she'd asked J.D to stay alone with Matt, citing him as 'harmless'.
Despite her arguments, the rest of them had insisted J.D, injured as he was, was not only accompanied by someone else in the group, but a gun as well. Despite the arguments of everyone including Demitrov himself, Demitrov, in the end, had been the one to sit with J.D.
It was the intelligent choice; Demitrov, detached as he was from who Matt had been, was ironically the most likely of the group to be able to defend them all if something went wrong.
If Matt had to be killed—if it came down to that— Alexei wouldn't hesitate.
Somehow, the knowledge comforted Michael.
Because Matt… had come back wrong. In all their hopes of salvation and rescue, none of them had prepared themselves for this bitterly ironic revelation.
And yet, still Alice continued to hope—and that hope both heartened and dismayed Michael.
It meant that not everything had died inside her—that leaving Matt hadn't yet killed her, that she'd survived.
It also made it impossible for her to see sense.
"Matt is safe," Alice repeated stubbornly. "He doesn't need a gun on him."
Michael resisted the urge to slam his head down into the table.
"I don't want to talk about this," Rain said abruptly.
She slid off her chair without looking at either of them and left the room. Michael cast a worried look at her, but Alice barely seemed to notice, leaning forward to continue her argument, her bright eyes glittering in the pale lamplight.
"Michael, Rain said Matt only mutated when he was threatened. If we just keep him safe—"
"Alice, he interrupted, cutting her off softly. "It's not possible. The only way we could keep Matt relaxed enough to stay completely docile until we get the anti-virus is by drugging him, and I don't think that's what you want.
She stared at him, unresponsive.
"Is it?" he asked uncertainly.
Nothing. And then: "We can't keep him in a goddamn cage."
She stood, her cheeks flushed, eyes sparking with anger. "This isn't Nemesis we're talking about. We're talking about Matt, and we won't keep him locked up like one of Umbrella's monsters—I won't let you."
"Alice," Michael said wearily, letting his head fall into his hands, abandoning all premise of tact. "Whether Matt's dangerous or not, he's not who he was anymore. He never will be again. You know that."
He said the words with the air of an exhausted man, not expecting any of them to actually register to Alice.
A moment passed in silence, and he lifted his head hopefully, thinking that maybe she was finally starting to see sense—
Only to realize, to his horror, that Alice was standing in the middle of the floor, her hands covering her face, shoulders shaking in silent sobs.
"Alice," he said regretfully, clambering wearily to his feet. "Don't—"
She shook her head, holding one hand out to him in warning, and he stopped, watching and feeling distinctly uncomfortable as she struggled to gain composure.
Finally, she took in a shaky breath and turned to him, crossing her arms wearily over her chest.
"Michael, I know, okay?" she whispered. "Believe me, I know all of this already."
She sounded exhausted, and for the first time, he could see past her determined façade; glimpsed the heartache and despair that lurked behind all their masks.
Then the mask slipped down again, and she whispered, "I can fix it Michael, I just need time."
He hesitated, and, if sensing his momentary weakness, she looked fully at him. "Please, Michael," she pleaded, her eyes shining with tears again. "Give me a chance."
He knew that it was wrong.
And yet, when he thought of the things he had told her, all the lies and heartache that was bound to come out later anyway, he simply nodded at her, not trusting himself to speak.
Alice gave him a shaky smile. "Thank you," she said quietly, reaching forward almost hesitantly to touch his arm gently. "I appreciate that you—that you trust me. And Matt."
He nodded again, staring at the floor as she hurried from the room, knowing that what she was doing was wrong.
Given time, patience, reassurance, maybe Matt could recall who he was again, or at least regain some resemblance to the man he had been.
But it was a slim chance, and Alice, despite her intentions, would only force Matt further away if she tried to press him.
What she was doing was wrong, and yet Michael said nothing, because he knew what he was doing was wrong as well.
Somewhere along the way, despite the best of their intentions, they'd fallen into the ways of selfishness—J.D's primarily guilt-motivated vendetta against Demitrov, Rain's complete ignorance of J.D's advice because of remaining vestiges of mistrust, Alice's complete denial of all the hard truths involved in saving Matt, and Michael's own tangled web of lies.
What did one more mistake matter?
They were all sinners anyway.
xxxxx
Seeing Matt alive, human if not fully restored, should have made Rain happy.
It only made her numb.
She couldn't shake the feeling that something here was wrong.
Part of her envied Alice for her denial, for that complete, unwavering love that shone throughout wherever Matt was involved.
And yet, that same part of her was standing in front of the door to the single bedroom apartments single bedroom, hand hovering over the doorknob, afraid to look inside and face whatever she might see.
In the kitchen, she heard Michael's and Alice's voices rise; like a small child unwilling to witness her parents fighting, she turned the knob and slipped inside.
It was pitch black in the room, the faint light from the hallway doing nothing to break the darkness, and she closed the door behind her, waiting for her eyes to adjust.
The first thing Rain saw was Matt, almost invisible in the corner.
He was facing the wall, folded into himself, and despite a slight shiver and the blindfold covering his eyes, looked far more relaxed than he'd been earlier.
Taking Matt home had been a fucking nightmare. Once Umbrella had realized Alice was missing, they'd flooded out into the surrounding forest to search for them.
They'd split into groups, Rain, J.D and Alexei providing both cover and distraction while Michael and Alice had hustled Matt through the forest, saddled with the unenviable task of calming him down whenever a gunshot rang through the quiet forest.
Eventually, they'd made it back to inner-city Vegas, and Alexei had chosen a house and broken into it with the relaxed ease that came with experience.
They'd split into two groups again; this time, Michael, Alice and Rain had converged in the kitchen, while Alice and J.D had been left to look over Matt.
While Michael had seemed exhausted, weary and worried about Matt—something they could all relate to—Alice had somehow seemed recharged, almost relieved by what they had both seen in the last hellish hour.
Rain hadn't—didn't—know what to feel; logic was tangled with emotion, and at the moment, she didn't know what she wanted or what she truly believed regarding Matt.
And so she'd left, unwilling to take part in what was obviously going to be a fairly emotional, logic versus emotion argument—she already had enough of that going on in her head, she didn't need to deal with it played out vocally as well.
"Hey."
Rain jumped, pulled from her thoughts, and turned to see J.D sitting on the bed by the door, his eyes dark.
"Hey," she whispered back. "What's with the blindfold?"
"The light was bothering him," he answered shortly, his gaze still uncomfortably intense.
"Is he okay?" she asked.
J.D shrugged.
Stifling a weary sigh, Rain glanced around the room, looking for Alexei and seeing no sign of him.
Besides Matt, still locked away into the corner, her and J.D were alone.
"Where's Alexei?"
J.D scowled, but only shrugged, clearly unwilling to talk about it; Rain didn't bother to hide her exasperated sigh this time.
"What the fuck are you mad about now?" she demanded, raising her voice thoughtlessly—
In the corner, Matt twitched, and their reaction was instantaneous—Rain clamped her mouth shut, angry at herself for her thoughtlessness, and J.D shot to his feet, training his gun carefully on Matt.
He only shifted slightly, resting his head against the wall and raising a tightly clenched fist to his chin.
They didn't wait for anything more to happen; J.D grabbed her arm, dragging her outside; she let him, closing the door softly behind them.
It was quiet in the house now, Michael and Alice's voices having given way to quiet murmurs, and J.D dropped her arm immediately.
"Alexei," he spat the name, "Told me what happened with you two yesterday."
Rain stopped, and stared at him, surprised to see that he was completely serious. "So what?"
"So he was bragging about it, that's what," he snapped at her. "He was trying to piss me off, and guess what? It worked."
She glared at J.D, feeling distinctly angry at both him and Alexei now. "So what? You don't trust me?"
"I don't trust him," he corrected her, "And neither should you. You don't even know anything about him—"
"You don't trust me," she spat at him, "To make my own judgments."
"I don't—" J.D started, and then seemed to cut himself off, staring at the floor as he finished vehemently, "I just don't want the same thing to happen to you."
He was obviously referring Olivia, and despite knowing he was only trying to look out for her, the reference brought a wave of anger crashing over her logical explanations. "It's my decision, J.D, not yours. I let you fuck everything up with Olivia, and you need to let me do the same."
"Right," he scoffed in response. "Because you stayed out of my relationship with Olivia."
"Why the fuck do you have to be so difficult?" she nearly shouted at him. "Just because you fucked up with Olivia—"
J.D looked apoplectic with rage, but was silent, glaring at her, and finally she exploded. "What?"
"How's Matt doing?" someone asked mildly behind her, and Rain spun to see Alice standing behind her, a wholly tired expression on her pale face.
Rain felt the guilt washing over her in waves again as she replied, "I don't know. He seemed okay."
Alice turned to look at J.D, who only shrugged, looking mutinous, and Rain felt a hot flash of anger go through her at his selfishness—she didn't care what he thought about Matt, he didn't have to brush Alice off like that.
"He's better than he was," she added in a belated comment meant for reassurance, and Alice smiled slightly at her.
"He will be," she said simply. "Can you two take this argument elsewhere?"
The calm, even tone was totally juxtaposed against her tearstained cheeks and red rimmed eyes, and the bright hope in her blue eyes was almost eerie to behold under the circumstances.
"Yeah," J.D spoke up finally, looking guilty. "Sorry."
Rain scowled at him. He scowled back at her.
Alice ignored them both and opened the door, sliding inside gracefully and closing it behind her; they could both hear the distinct sound of the lock sliding closed.
"You could have said something when she asked about Matt," she hissed immediately. "You were only already with him for half a fucking hour."
He continued to glare at her, but with a different sort of intensity, and asked, "You want to know what I think, Rain?"
"Yes," she spat at him. "So did Alice."
"I think Matt is beyond help," J.D said bluntly. "I think Michael thinks the same thing, and I think you think so too—you're just too afraid to admit it."
The accusation left Rain blindsided by the undeniable accuracies of it, and she finally said, her voice horribly tiny to her own ears, "I'm not scared."
"You're not stupid," he said sharply. "And you're not blinded by love, like Alice. So why else would you refuse to choose a side?"
"I'm not—" she began, and he cut her off.
"And as far as Demitrov is concerned, I don't fucking care what you do with him. I think you're wrong, and I think you're going to get hurt, and I think you're going to bring the group down with you."
"I don't—"
"But you don't want to listen to me," J.D finished, his gaze intense as he stared at her. "So if you don't want me to talk about it, than keep it the fuck away from me. I don't want to hear about it from you, and I sure as hell don't want to sit and listen to Demitrov talk about you like you're just some stupid whore."
The words stung, despite her best attempt to keep herself detached from them; and she closed her mouth as he turned and walked away, feeling sick.
Sick, and tired, and vulnerable—and angry beyond words.
J.D hated Alexei. But whatever Alexei had said, it had to have been a lot to make J.D react this way to her.
Yelling at Alexei wouldn't fix things between her and J.D.
But it would get her some answers, at least.
xxxxx
All alone again.
People had been here, they'd been here—he knew them somehow, he knew he did, but it hurt his head to try and remember, and after awhile it hurt just to look at them.
But they had been here, and then they had left, and now Matt was alone again.
The darkness that encircled him was warm and comfortably blank—he couldn't remember much, but he could remember black, that same absence of light that had enveloped him for so long.
He couldn't close out their voices, though, and somehow the pitches of them—loud, angry, hurt and frustrated, all at once—brought back so much more than their faces had.
Matt could remember shouting, Matt could remember laugher, screaming and tears, not all of which were his own—
And then out of nowhere an image occurred to him. Carrying the brunette girl in a dark tunnel, the weight in his arms weightless and yet somehow heavy, heavy like he himself had already been.
He couldn't remember her name or what she'd said, but he could remember the low tones of her dialogue, the same forced calm that had been in her voice inside Umbrella, the same forced calm he'd heard now.
And there were other people around him now—the man standing outside with her, tall and angry, tall and smiling; and someone with bright green eyes and a tired face, and another girl, although her face was still blank to him.
And leading the group, another woman, strong and tall, her blond hair shimmering even in the cloudy light; but she was walking away from him, and he couldn't see her face.
The voices outside were faltering even as he strained to remember more; and as the image winked out, he was left wondering if he'd ever been that strong.
It was silent again, and Matt opened his eyes, staring into the blackness.
But the door behind him was opening again, and he could hear it, didn't need to be that thing to hear what was right behind him.
Light footsteps, too soft to be the man's, too deliberate to be the girl's.
And then he heard her voice.
"Matt," she said softly, and she seemed tired. She seemed assured.
She seemed familiar.
"I'm going to turn on a light, okay?"
He didn't nod, didn't shake his head. He didn't even think he was trembling anymore, not really, so wrapped up in that soft, crystal tenor that made every part of him ache to remember.
Sudden light; he flinched, remembering the lights, the bright spotlights that had burst and burned in his eyes—
But this light was warm and soft, and he pushed the white lab coats and screaming syringes from his mind.
The same light footsteps, circling around him and slowing as she knelt in front of him, and he battled between the instinctive desire to pull into himself and the somehow much stronger desire to lean further forward.
She took his hand.
He tensed only briefly, the warm, comforting sensation of her hand in his like being pulled into an embrace, like coming home again—and she was squeezing it gently, making him feel close, safe, protected—but not trapped. Never trapped.
Matt didn't want to be trapped. Not again.
He couldn't remember much about who he had been. Not even who he was now.
But there was a veil, some dark, opaque curtain of darkness that covered every memory he knew, every remaining vestige of thought or detail from those times before. And it wasn't like the hazy, cloudy vision that obscured all his other memories; this one was dark, threatening and vaguely suffocating.
This one was—had always been—trapping him. It still was, even now.
But he was standing, as if he had no will of his own, letting her lead him blindly, and for a moment, he felt safe again.
There was a pause; and then another tug on his hand, and he let himself relax slightly, flopping onto a soft, unfamiliar surface, wanting to giggle at the strange sensation—
Waking up in the middle of the night, looking next to him—blond curls, long eyelashes, beautiful angels sleeping in the middle of darkness—
There was a brief moment of silence, of stillness—
And then her hand was caressing his face, the touch soft and gentle, and he let out a soft sigh, barely aware that her other hand had inched around behind his head.
The black silk of the blindfold fell away like a wasted curtain, and he saw her.
That same strength, that same beauty, same hair that glittered even in the dim lamplight; but he could see her face now, and it was so much more, the perfect symmetry of her features, her full mouth and wide-set blue eyes, shining, sparkling, with tears and laughter and trust and promises—
Those same blue eyes, half closed in a sort of sleepy ecstasy as he'd touched her, taking his pain and sorrow and driving it into that complete trust, the wholeness of the love they'd shared, feeling his problems stripped away as she'd returned those same touches, the heat of her mouth on his like fire and ice and something he'd never known, never imagined could exist before now—
Those same blue eyes, fixated carefully on him now, mouth curved into a small, almost hesitant smile—
Alice.
The name burst into his head, along with a whirlwind of emotions, of images and memories so alien to him and yet so painfully familiar, and he fought to say the name, force it out of his mouth.
He realized too late that he was doing it wrong—that it was coming out wrong, in stutters and strange, monosyllabic sounds, and was horrified to realize that, like everything else, he could no longer say her name.
There were real tears in her eyes now, he realized dully. Tears that were starting to fall, and he could feel tears on his own face, but these ones were different—there was no fear, no anger or frustration, only sorrow that cut through him like a knife and threatened to tear him apart.
And then she seized him, driven by thoughtless emotion he knew even now was only known to him, and pulled him to her, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his chest.
The sensation was terrifying; and yet, there was something familiar, something that seemed repetitive and perfect in the way they fit together, in the way Matt so easily sought out that small crook between her neck and shoulder, kissing it carefully, unsure of what he was doing, knowing only the familiarity of the action.
She whimpered, and if in automatic response he slid his hand lower, felt one of her own hands entangle in his hair as he kissed her more deeply.
This was right, this was good—it was warm, and comfortable, and safe. Umbrella wasn't here; they couldn't hurt him, not anymore. Not as long as she was here with him. Like she'd been before, and like she always would be.
He didn't know how he knew that. He just did.
His hand slipped between them of it's own accord, sliding itself underneath her shirt; she arched towards him, a soft sigh escaping her lips.
All instinct, all emotion, all passion and fire. All familiarity.
This was who he was. This was who Matthew Addison had been.
He was still Matthew Addison.
And he loved her. Alice.
He slid his hand higher—
And she tensed, suddenly, horribly, abruptly, and tore away from him, ripping away a part of his soul in the process.
He stared at her, dazed, lost confused—but then Alice smiled at him, and even though something was wrong, there was something bad and sad and angry in her eyes, he smiled back.
He was still Matthew Addison.
Everything was going to be okay.
"We should sleep," Alice whispered, her voice hoarse.
There was something lost in her voice, too—and for a moment he wanted to ask her about it, wanted to know if the dull ache in his chest was something she was experiencing too.
But she was pushing him down gently, pulling the covers over him, tucking them in around his chin in a manner reminiscent in such a different way—bringing up images of a cool brick house, small green spectacles, a smiling apron and red headed girl.
She kissed him on the forehead.
Then the light went out.
She settled in beside him, and he could feel her shivering next to him.
He smiled.
"Alice," he whispered, and the word came out right this time, with every syllable correctly pronounced and every letter where it belonged.
She froze.
He smiled again, and closed his eyes.
Just when he was dropping off to sleep, dozing off for the first time in weeks without the aid of tranquilizers or medicines, he heard something that sounded familiar—not only because it had been one of the only things he'd heard at Umbrella, but because it was something pretty and heart achingly sad that Matthew Addison—that he—had heard, many times before.
It sounded like Alice was crying.
xxxxx
Matt fell asleep within minutes.
Alice stayed awake for what felt like hours, staring at the ceiling.
She had never thought it would be like this.
She had known that it would be hard. She had prepared himself to lose Matt, but she had never prepared herself for the possibility of losing herself in the process.
And how could she stay sane, when things had been so right? When Matt had touched her, had kissed her, in exactly the same spots, in exactly the same ways? When he'd smelt the same, clean and familiar, and felt the same in her arms, warm and solid and so comfortably there.
For a moment, she'd gotten lost in a memory she was beginning to realize was fading, far too fast for her to do anything about it.
But there had been a new sort of eagerness, unsureness, childishness to Matt—and despite all she tried to tell herself now, all the little lies that had kept her sane in those five minutes, she felt dirty, wrong.
She felt like a seductress, seducing a child too young to possibly know what he was doing or why he was doing it.
He was like a child, and although there had been a certain familiarity, a still existing sexual aspect to his touches, everything else—all of the warmth—had been painfully lacking.
What had started as a kiss had ended up feeling like rape.
Unholy, and dirty.
And beautiful.
Because no matter how hard Alice tried to deny it, no matter how hard she tried to make herself believe she'd simply been unaware of the differences, of those slight, tiny little details that made everything so horribly wrong, she had known from the very beginning that things had changed.
But he was Matt. He was her's, and he was back, and when he'd been touching her in that way—
Pushing him away had been the hardest thing—besides leaving him—that Alice had ever had to do in her life.
She was terrified to imagine how far it would have gone if those lines had blurred completely; if she'd gotten lost, tangled in the web of emotion and passion, too far in to see properly anymore.
It hadn't been easy, but it had been right—and even though the look on his face, like she'd shoved a knife through his heart, had been almost unbearably painful to see, she'd taken comfort in that fact, taken comfort in the fact that she still had a chance.
Alice choked back a sob.
And then he'd said her name.
"Alice."
And in the dark room, where shadows became truth and light became the romanticism of opaque blackness, it had been Matt speaking to her—as if, somehow, he'd found himself again, reached far enough inside to bring out that one word.
And then he was gone again, reverting back into the shadow—still himself, but not himself. Not Matt, but not quite a stranger, either.
Some days, Alice would have wished for everything to be resolved. Other days, she would have wished for the strength to slit her wrists, to finish this, to find Matt, wherever he had gone, and stay with him forever.
She didn't know what she wanted anymore, and so she no longer wished for anything.
Her last hope was the anti-virus.
Alice would stay until the last mission. She would stay until they got the anti-virus—or until they failed in their mission, and Matt was once again doomed.
But either way, she was finished.
They were falling apart. She was the center, and she was cracked, fraying, breaking on all the edges in her desperate war against Umbrella and her own losses—and now the team was falling as well, breaking into their own little pieces and spinning away, their edges sharp and jagged.
It had to end.
Unholy, and dirty, and beautiful.
Alice stared at the ceiling.
After what seemed like an eternity, she finally drifted off to sleep.
xxxxx
Panic.
Waking up at what felt like midnight, what felt like the day, what felt like darkness and fear and death.
He saw Alice, lying next to him, curled into herself—tearstains still horribly evident on her pale face—and for the first time in what felt like years felt clear-headed, felt himself again.
But there was something wrong, something was changing, something that was twisting his sorrow into anger, his fear into ruthlessness—
His love into hatred.
And then he was changing, his emotions and thoughts giving way to the empty, blank darkness of Nemesis, leaving everything behind.
Even now, he could still hear Alice screaming, before the covers slipped over his head, the blindfold back over his eyes—
And then he was gone.