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.
Chapter Summary: In which Alice finds Matt, Hades escapes, and poor Michael gets found out.
Author's Notes:
Thanks very much to Sakura123, sarah-vs-psychotic, rain1657, XMaster, and maskedinyourshadow for your reviews—I really appreciate it :)
This is the second last chapter, in which most of your questions are answered. The very final chapter, a denouement of sorts, will be updated on Friday, March 3rd. During which, par-end-of-fanfic author's notes, I will be begging for reviews, so be there! I think it'll be a fun time ;)
My apologies for not having this up last week. To be totally honest, I got the dates mixed up! Which, of course, won't happen again :)
Chapter Ten: Detonation
Nobody knew it, nobody particularly acknowledged it, but when it came to assignments, J.D had to admit he had probably the stupidest, most boring ones to complete.
Alice was the resigned leader; Michael, the resident science nerd; Alexei, the double crossing spy, and Rain, the requisitely reckless idiot.
And J.D? Was some strange combination of all of the above.
So while Alice was commanding, Michael was rewiring and Rain and Alexei were doing what they seemed to do best—either arguing, or shooting stuff—he was here, rechecking the explosives to ensure they were fully prepped for detonation.
Basically, it was a technically unnecessary job Alice had originally given Alexei to ensure him and Rain and J.D would stay out, to some point, of any disasters regarding the current mess of relationships in their group.
So technically, it was J.D's own fault he was here.
Also technically, he'd done it in the best interests of Rain.
Not, of course, that it meant she'd be grateful. In fact, he had a feeling Rain Ocampo was going to be pretty pissed off once she caught up with him.
J.D grinned. If anyone knew how to fight with Rain it was him; they'd been practicing for five years now.
He bent, checked the last explosive, was slightly disappointed to realize Rain's craftsmanship was still in perfect condition, and straightened up again, entirely unsurprised despite the disappointment.
He had, after all, already checked it. Three times.
He was leaning against the wall, checking his watch—thirty minutes had already gone by and there was no sign of any Umbrella agents, which was strange considering the cameras had been up and running again for the last twenty minutes—when Rain himself interrupted him.
"J.D," she began simply, and he looked up to see her sauntering down the hallway, MP-5 held loosely in her left hand, looking far more relaxed than he'd seen her all day.
"Rain," he replied carefully.
She grinned at him, that angelic, Cheshire-cat grin that on a normal person would have been reassuring, but on Rain was only slightly dangerous. "How's your arm, J.D?"
Confused, he glanced down at his left arm, where the gunshot wound was still healing slowly and entirely painlessly, thanks to the fantastically huge amounts of drugs Michael had pumped into him before he'd left.
"Better," he said suspiciously. "Why?"
"No reason," she said, and still smiling angelically, punched him hard in the right arm.
He shouted, grabbing his arm automatically, and scowled at her. "I take it the talk went well?"
"No thanks to you."
He grinned at her. "You know you'll thank me someday, Rain."
"Thank you, J.D," she said, still grinning, and moved to punch him again.
Knowing Rain as well as he did, J.D was better prepared this time and blocked it—Rain laughed, and he elbowed her slightly.
"What exactly are we doing?" he asked, somewhat rhetorically, and she shrugged.
"Alexei went to get Alice," she said, "And then we're detonating the place."
"Sounds like fun," he said, grinning slightly maniacally at Rain. "Are you sure you're up to it, Rain?"
She laughed, and said, like it was some brilliant inspiration, "Us."
J.D stared at her. "What?" he asked, regarding her suspiciously again.
"You asked me earlier what we're fighting for," she said simply. "Us, J.D. That's what's left, in the end. You and me. Alexei and me. Michael and Alice, if she wants to stay. That's what we're fighting for. "
He stared at her for a moment, felt the corners of his lips lifting slightly—whatever Alexei had said, it had left his best friend in a mood he could only describe as sentimental.
He wasn't sure yet whether he liked the change or not.
In the end, though, it was true—and looking back, he didn't think he'd ever been fighting for justice, or revenge. J.D didn't like being used, but then, he didn't particularly like traipsing underground and risking death when he could be sitting on the couch watching TV or out at target practice instead.
If he'd been fighting for justice, J.D would have been dishonorably discharged from this battle months ago.
He'd stayed because of Rain. He'd stayed because he owed it to Alice and Kaplan, his teammates. He'd stayed here because he'd owed it to Matt, because he hadn't known Matt, and had treated him like the prisoner he was, and still, in the end, Matt had probably saved Rain's life. He'd stayed because of Michael, because he'd joined their group and helped when he should have been trying to escape with every other unfortunate Raccoon citizen; he'd stayed because of Olivia, even though that had fallen apart in the end.
Looking back, he didn't think he'd ever been fighting for himself.
Rain was grinning at him somewhat triumphantly now—she may have been acting somewhat sentimental given her overall personality, but she was still Rain, after all.
He grinned at her.
"Wow, Rain. Did you come up with that on your own?"
She rolled her eyes at him but grinned, and tried to hit him again—he blocked her, and they tussled briefly, both laughing, until she pushed him back and said with great finality, a small smile on her lips:
"Shut up, J.D."
He laughed.
xxxxx
She was only halfway to the labs when the alarms went off.
This time, the sound was familiar—these weren't intrusion alarms, these were bomb alerts.
J.D and Alexei's handiwork had obviously been discovered.
Her own headset blipped as well as someone in her group paged her—either Michael or Alexei, wanting to know where she was, or J.D or Rain needing to know what to do next.
Without a second thought, she detached the headset from the loop on her waist and dropped it, barely slowing her strides as she headed through the maze of pathways that made up Umbrella headquarters.
Something in her had stilled, had halted—had forced her hand to do things she had never thought she would do. Killing Archangelo; mutilating Crawford, decimating the guards outside his door and the ones she had come across on her way down here.
Something that had forced her to abandon all prerequisites of contact with her team, and the guilt was hardly abated with the knowledge that there would be no guards rushing in to stop them—not this time.
Crawford was dead, and like ants in a Hive, Umbrella's minions had died along with him. Those still inside were hiding, or rushing to escape the empty shell that had once been a booming multinational corporation not so long ago; there was no longer any threat.
Alice had less than thirty minutes left.
Less than thirty minutes to slip through this last mission, less than thirty minutes to pillage and kill all that was in her path—less than thirty minutes to find Matt and rescue him.
Something told her he was already beyond rescue.
But she refused to accept that, because if Matt was beyond rescue—she was too.
She couldn't do this anymore. She loved her team, every single member—what she had said in the van had not been a lie.
But she loved Matt too—and there was no other choice but to save him. To plunge recklessly into this web of desperation and death, as he would have done for her.
She had thirty minutes left, and what happened in those thirty minutes would determine the success or failure of her thrown together plan—whether she found Matt again, or lost him forever this time.
Whether she lived or died.
xxxxx
Thirty minutes left, and Michael was barely halfway to the labs, all too aware that they were running out of time.
All too aware that Alice, having been here before, had a huge head start and advantage over himself, following along with his hastily drawn directions.
The bomb alerts had gone off no less than five minutes ago, and, throwing all caution to the wind, he'd taken his headset and dumped it, unwilling and unable to allow any distractions.
Rain and J.D would fend for themselves—they always did—and Alexei, doubtlessly, would follow suit.
The person Michael was worried about right now was Alice.
Whether she wanted to believe it or not, she was blind; Crawford had been evidence of that.
He had deserved what Alice had done to him. He had deserved worse, deserved to be tormented, tortured, mutilated for the rest of eternity. Michael knew that.
He also knew that, three months ago, Alice would never have even considered carrying out the actions she had taken with him on another human being.
Love did strange things to people—it had made both Alice and Matt better people together than they had been on their own, and it had probably brought each of them more happiness than either had known in their respective lifetimes, from the beginning to the end.
It also made them desperate, and ruthless, and as Michael followed Alice, he couldn't help but feel like he was no longer chasing Alice Parks, but the shadow of what her love had made her.
xxxxx
"Fuck," Alexei swore harshly.
J.D and Rain both turned to look at him, guns held loosely at their sides.
Then J.D asked, "What?"
Alexei looked at them both, thumbed the trigger on his headset impatiently again, and said finally, "They're not responding. Both of them."
"Maybe they just looked at the Caller ID," J.D said halfheartedly, but the strained tone Rain had become so familiar with was clear in his voice, and Rain glanced at him.
"Do you think they're okay?" she asked lowly. He shrugged.
"I think," Alexei said shortly, "That what we need to be doing is getting the fuck out of here."
Rain turned, and scowled at him automatically, checking his expression for any signs of indecisiveness, worry, or guilt—any evidence of humanity, basically—and said, her tone acidic, "You can't be serious."
He sighed, for the first time looking even slightly nervous, and part of her was delighted that she could provoke that response in him—that basic evidence of any sign of caring. "Rain, there's eight fucking floors in this building, and they're not responding. If you think you can search every square inch of them in twenty minutes, be my guest."
She felt the guilty pang of the fear that comes with unwanted knowledge striking somewhere inside her, and turned to look at J.D.
His expression was about the exact same as the way she felt, and before she could say anything, he asked, "What do you want to do Rain?"
She blinked. "We can't just leave them," she argued, her words sounding unreasonable to her own ears.
"They might have already left," J.D said reasonably. "Maybe they couldn't contact us—maybe something went wrong with the headsets, maybe they ran into a situation outside."
"Or maybe they're in trouble," she countered. "Maybe that's why they're not contacting us."
"We can't know that," he said simply. "The only thing staying here will do is get us killed."
She blew out a short breath of air, looked around, and said finally, "I know."
It was almost a relief to hear the words—and even as a part of her forced on in the empty argument, demanding to go back and make sure, a far more reasonable part of her realized it was useless.
J.D's expression was stoical, barely shading the same internal battle she knew he was going through right now, but set—they were leaving.
Michael and Alice were on their own.
"What's the fastest way out of here?" she said finally, the words nobody particularly wanted to either hear or say, and Alexei answered immediately.
"Through some of the heavier security labs," he said simply. "We'll have to move fast—the security should be wearing off in about another fifteen minutes."
Rain looked at J.D, and he looked back at her, expression unchanging.
"Let's go," he said, and she nodded.
They went.
xxxxx
Something was going on.
Something was going on, and he couldn't remember what to do.
His fingers twitched nervously, and he recalled holding a weapon; his eyes tore through the blank white walls around him, and he remembered a room like this one, and a forest, and a room with shadows and lamplight and safety.
He looked in the mirror across the room, and saw his reflection, as he had seen it in the eyes of another so long ago.
The walls were falling, outside, and he could feel them in his bones. He could feel Nemesis inside him, struggling to get out and join in the havoc. It hurt, and he cried, and wondered if this was the end.
He was in the corner of his room, curled up against the wall; they didn't chain him up, not anymore, not like last time, but he didn't want to leave the room, didn't want to hurt anyone again.
He felt trapped; he felt caged, he felt desperate, and he felt scared.
He wanted Alice.
Alice.
The name was there, the name was important; but he couldn't remember why, couldn't remember who she was.
Like everything, she was a part of a past that had become distant, sunken far beyond everything in the immediate present.
A low rumbling found it's way through the room, resounding through his skin and bones, and he cried out, curling further into himself even as some part of him realized what it was.
Doors were opening. Doors were opening, and they weren't good ones, they weren't his doors.
He could hear things, things like him, waking up inside those rooms, and the doors were opening, and they were going to get out.
They were going to find him, and Nemesis was going to get out. Was going to take over him again, and maybe—maybe this time, he wouldn't return.
Doors were opening again, and this time they were quiet; and the footsteps that followed were quiet, but quiet was deceiving. Quiet could mean doctors, quiet could mean people that would hurt him, would poke and prod him and bring Nemesis to life again.
The footsteps stopped in front of his room—his room, where he knew there was a window, where he could feel the person staring in at him, and he forced himself to look up at what was there, terrified and feeling the stirrings of Nemesis inside him—
The first color that caught his eyes was a piercing blue—was the pale pink and peach tones of fair skin, blonde hair—
There was an angel there, and the words came to him without any thought, but straight from inside, where Nemesis could not destroy them—
"Alice," he whispered. "Alice."
But the footsteps were coming closer, the doors were breaking, the walls were falling, and he knew it was too late.
xxxxx
They were halfway through a maze of shadowy corridors and windowed walls, housing creatures J.D didn't even want to think about, when Rain whispered, "Look."
All three halted, and Alexei said edgily, "Rain, we need to go."
Rain, true to her form, ignored him, and J.D moved back despite his better interests to take a peek inside the room she was looking in.
The figure inside was shadowy and still; but their last encounter had left his appearance firmly imprinted in his mind, and he said flatly, "Hades."
"Spence," Rain countered absently, and J.D saw for the first time the words imprinted upon the brass plate on the wall.
Execution Date: November 10th.
Rain turned to him, her gaze clearly reluctant, and said, "We should let him go."
"Ocampo," Alexei said, looking distinctly irate now. "We have five more minutes before the entire security system goes to hell, I really think we should be leaving."
"Demitrov," she drawled impatiently, "Give me a minute."
J.D couldn't help but grin slightly at the expression on his face—the reluctant, exasperated acceptance he figured every man was all too familiar with.
She looked at him, and J.D gazed back at her steadily. "If you want to let him go," he said gently, "Do it."
"He betrayed us," she countered, looking thoughtful, and he shrugged.
"It'll make more trouble for whatever Umbrella henchmen are left here," he pointed out with a brief smile, one that faded when he looked at Spence again, frozen inside his chamber. "Anyway, nobody deserves to die locked in a cage."
He was thinking of Matt, of the cages he was doomed to die inside—the room Umbrella had imprisoned him within for three months, and the shell of Nemesis that surrounded him at all times—and by the look on her face, he could tell Rain was too.
"No," she said distantly, and she hesitated only once, hovering above the keypad next to the brass plate, before pressing down on the button marked for awakening processes.
The gas began to flood out of the chamber immediately, and almost instantly, the monster within began to awaken.
"Great," Alexei said, and although he was smiling patiently, his voice now had a distinctive edge to it. "Are we ready, then?"
Glass shattered, and the sound of it resounded through the room as Hades drew back his fist and punched it through the walls surrounding him, and neither had to answer him; they were already on the move again.
xxxxx
The world was ending. The walls were crumbling, the sky was collapsing in on itself, and this was the end.
And she was here. She was with Matt; and although a pane of glass separated them, Alice could not help but feel like she had returned to some sort of eternity. Some sort of glazed over impression of perfection, and as she looked through the window, searching for Matt, she saw him mouth her name—
And for a moment felt whole again. Felt like she was coming home again, into the sunlight, and out of the blazing cold this winter had brought her.
The distinct rumble of footfalls and screams of the monsters Umbrella had so long ago created brought her back to reality within an instant, and she shook her head, frustrated with her inability to focus, to rationalize as she had once been so adept in.
She realized, perhaps for the first time, that she had no idea how to open the doors, and took a step back, forcing the sound of Matt's pained, keening cry of loss out of her mind as they lost sight of one another.
Like all the rooms in the corridor, it was basic; one huge windowed wall that was obviously a two-way mirror, and a single doorway with a slatted window, directly in front of her.
There was a keypad next to the door, and she flipped the top open impatiently, glancing over it for some clue as to which buttons to choose—
4, 7, 3, 2…
She strained to remember the code to Archangelo's inner sanctum—it was worth a try, although she highly doubted it would be a match—
She jumped when the reverberating scream echoed it's way down the hallway and winced with the pain of it—she could hear Matt crying out and placed her hand on the glass as an unconscious, helpless attempt at comfort even as she recognized the sound, shutting it out and returning to the keypad, desperate know because she knew what it was—who it was—
Hades.
Alice remembered the burn marks he had left on Rain's shoulder; the haze of blood she'd watched him inflict them through, hearing him crashing through the windows and screaming even as they'd ran.
She could hear the footsteps clearly now, and knew that there was no longer a question in her mind—Hades was coming here, and she abandoned her efforts, digging frantically through her pockets and finally coming up with a pen, which she jammed mercilessly into the card slot.
Sparks flew, and she pressed down, grinding it into the surface—
And through the haze of a dream, she saw Spence, saw Hades, round the corner.
Later, Alice would wonder exactly how long she'd stood there—what exactly had rooted her to the ground in such a way. Whether it had been the strong but assumingly shakable shock she'd received from the doorway; the stress of the past few days; or simple, unadulterated fear at the sight of what had once been her husband slinking around the corner.
She was flying through the glass of the window before she could react, slamming into the wall and hitting the ground.
One hand curved protectively around her stomach, the other bracing herself against the floor, she pushed herself to her knees.
She could hear the crunching of glass as Matt crawled across the floor to her—could hear the sharp cries of pain each time his hands found the tiny shards of glass scattered over the cold linoleum, and looking at his hands, minced and bleeding, felt pain far worse than anything the glass had already inflicted upon her.
He grabbed at her, caught the material of her jacket in one hand; he was crying, and the recitations of her name had become blurred in his fear.
She grabbed his hand, still bracing herself with the other, and looked straight at him.
Blue eyes met her own, and she held his gaze, shaking, shivering, looking for something she didn't know existed—some promise, some hope of any sort of future.
She was looking into the eyes of a child.
She could feel hot tears escape the corners of her eyes, pouring down her cheeks, and a part of her broke—staring at him, staring at the features that had once been so familiar to her, and knowing that Matt, that all he had been, was unreachable to her now.
"Matt," she whispered, and her voice caught; he didn't react, and she knew he wouldn't.
He was gone. The child scrabbling at her—wasn't him.
It was that last, prevailing sense of loyalty—of desperate hope that still refused to die—that forced her to catch his hand in hers, that let her grip him hard, as if he was still there, and would hold her, and rescue her—
That last remaining vestige of feeling and now misplaced love that forced her to stand, bone-weary and exhausted, in front of him, and wait for the end.
xxxxx
By the time he reached the end of the corridor, gasping and terrified, Michael was sure he was too late.
Hades was already there—Michael had heard it scream, and some part of him had known that it would find Alice.
Umbrella had planted their devices in Hades, created him so he would dispose of any former member of their team.
But some part of Spence was still there; and ironically, befittingly, that element would create in Alice a primary target impossible to extinguish.
Michael could hear a man sobbing, and felt sick to his stomach to realize it had to be Matt.
Michael hadn't seen Matt vulnerable, not ever. When he'd first joined this group, Matt had been almost a parental model—someone to look up to, someone he respected and adored with the idolization a small child might hold.
Matt had never let things fall apart any more than Alice had, and while both Rain, J.D, and Alice had seen Matt break down, it was a sight Michael was still terrified to see.
He braced himself—and finally, took a step forward.
He took in the scene immediately, saw what Hades was looking at so intently—
Alice, standing, looking brave and exalted and undefeatable, all of the things that had made Matt love her so very much and had created in her so many leadership qualities—
And behind her, Nemesis, menacing, powerful, and cruel.
"Alice," Michael whispered, and then, slightly louder: "Alice."
She looked at him.
And, like some signal they had all been waiting for, the eerie tableau gave way to utter pandemonium.
Hades threw himself into the room, screaming it's terrible scream—
And Nemesis screamed in response, the sound so horribly reminiscent of their time in the Hive, even in the safe house, that Michael felt a sudden, crippling sense of loss.
He shook himself off, leaning forward, expecting to have to fight Alice—
But she had slid out from between both, dodging them deftly even as they slammed into walls, screaming and fighting in a last, brutal fight to dominate.
The alarms were screaming now, counting down the final five minutes, and she threw herself out of the window.
Broken glass caught on her arm, her legs, ripping gashes down them; but she hardly seemed to notice, taking off at a blind run down the hallway.
Unsure of what else to do, Michael followed, wondering, uselessly, exactly when he had completely lost all control over this situation.
They had barely cleared the building, leaving the screams and destruction behind them, when it exploded.
It hit hard—imploding from within, it still managed to lift Michael off his feet, and for a moment he was aware only of heat and fire and pain as he went flying, landing hard on the ground amid a series of resultant aftershocks.
He saw Alice on the ground in front of him—saw her push herself up and collapse again, shaking violently.
The others were coming, running through the trees, looking shocked and anxious.
He forced himself to his feet, ignored the ringing still resounding in his ears, and made his way over to Alice.
The world tilted dangerously as he did; he felt like a fishbowl, trapped in a burning dish, and for a moment, with the sun beating down on him, felt like he was burning away; and in doing so, being absolved of his sin, of what he had caused.
Alice was on her knees, bracing herself with her hands, looking desperately ill, and again he felt that unwavering guilt that came with seeing an idol fallen.
And knowing that he, in part, had caused that fall.
"Alice," he said, and reached out for her—
The reaction was violent.
Alice yanked herself out of his grasp, pulling away from him as if he had burned her.
"Don't touch me," she commanded sharply, her voice coming out in a sharp hiss of pain and disgust. "Get away from me."
He flinched.
Some part of him was aware that Rain and J.D and Alexei had reached them by now and stood, staring.
His gaze remained transfixed on Alice.
"Alice," Rain said, her voice worried and unsure. "Are you okay?"
As if awakening from a dream, Alice spared her a glance—and Michael could see every ounce of reassurance, of love that went into the look and left Rain, left all of them slightly mollified before she shut them out. Before she did what she had to do, turned them away and pushed herself to her feet.
Michael was taller than her, had always been taller than her and had always felt, somehow, immeasurably smaller.
When she turned to look at him, he felt like he was three years old again.
"You lied to me," she said coldly.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
She was breaking away, and all excuses—all reasons, all knowledge that he had been doing the right thing faded within moments as he stood looking into her eyes.
The anger he saw there, the fury bordering on hatred, was hard to bear.
The loss of faith, sorrow and complete misery was excruciating.
And the complete and utter lack of recognition that had washed over her features was intolerable.
Without knowing why, he felt, suddenly, like crying; like throwing himself at her feet and begging for her forgiveness, for her to look at him again like he was Michael, and not some monster.
He had done all of the right things, made all of the right choices—he had gotten them out alive, wasn't that what counted?
It wasn't, and that was becoming heartbreakingly, painstakingly clear as he looked at the rest of them now too.
Alexei was staring at him as if he were a piece of dirt on his shoe; but that was nothing, not when he looked at Rain and J.D and saw the same look of complete lack of recognition on their faces.
And even through this haze of pain Michael knew that what he had done was right—and that someday, they would realize it too.
But right now, he couldn't help but wish he had stayed quiet; that he had let Alice run, that he had let them fall apart, and that he had buried his head in a hole and hidden himself from the truth.
"You're not a fucking saint.
He was only human.
Alice turned away.
"Alice," he said, pained, and reached out to her without meaning to—
And she turned around, made two quick movements towards him—
And hit him, hard, across the face.
She didn't hold back anything, and he went sprawling into the dust.
He closed his eyes; and heard her above him, walking away, and wanted to burrow into the ground and die.
When he opened them again, J.D and Rain were there; they helped him up, looking horribly sympathetic.
His gaze was drawn to Alice—she was halfway across the black strip of concrete now, the sun highlighting her hair, turning it to pure gold. Walking alone, like an angel, barely seeming to touch the ground; her shoulders stiff, head high, striding into infinity.
Watching her, Michael felt, for the first time, a sense of hope.
Alice had been slipping for the past days, weeks, months; she had always been falling, and even though he, all of them, had tried to stop it, part of him realized now that it was simply another part of life, and a part of who Alice was.
Alice had been falling further and further inside her own darkness.
Now, even walking away from them, into the sunlight—maybe she would finally find a degree of the peace she'd always been searching for.