Chapter Seven

Reminisce

Chris Redfield was dreaming, and he knew it.

Or maybe he wasn't. Maybe he was remembering. Remembering while he slept which, he supposed, constituted dreaming.

In the dream he was perched on the edge of Jill's desk in the old STARS office, Barry on her other side. They had her trapped between them and were ribbing her mercilessly about a date she'd been on the night before, although Chris' teasing had a bit more venom than he remembered.

"I don't want to talk about it," Jill snapped, opening a folder.

Chris shut it and Barry slid it away. "Come on, Valentine. We want details."

She glared at them from beneath her beret. He'd forgotten how she used to love that stupid hat. "You weren't even supposed to know about it."

"What can I say? News travels fast."

"When you're snooping through my daybook, yeah, it does." She glared at Chris, who returned a teasing grin. At last, with a sigh, she shoved her chair back from her desk, rolling all the way to Chris'. "Oh, all right. If you must know it was a total bomb. The guy had no class and I took a cab home. Okay?"

Barry snorted. "That's not details."

"How bad could it be?" Chris added.

Jill sighed again. "Remember that creepy pub downtown where that guy was selling alcohol to nine year olds?"

"Oh, yeah," they chorused.

"He took me there for drinks, and that was the highlight of the evening."

"You're kidding!" Chris cried, choking on his laughter. But before he could rib her further, the door swung open and Wesker was there.

He barely glanced at them, but they shot back to their desks anyway. Not that Wesker would say a word. He never did. He expected their work to be done well and on time, and as long as it was, he left them to their own devices -- trusted them. But the STARS respected their captain, and wanted to impress him.

Respect, thought Chris as he logged onto his computer. That was the key, wasn't it? He loved working for Wesker, loved working in STARS. He'd spent one year in the army before being honorably discharged -- but that "honorably" had been a close call. They'd grilled him about it when he'd entered the academy, too, and Chris hadn't seen any point in lying -- the trial was a matter of public record after all, and he knew they'd check up on him.

He didn't regret what he'd done, either, and hadn't been able to make himself sound sorry. Besides, the army knew as well as anyone that what his CO had done was wrong. It was just that it couldn't sanction punching your superior officer in the face and grinding his nose in the pavement.

"He had a thing about picking on anyone smaller than him," Chris had explained time and again, first to his lawyer, then at the trial, then to the academy interviewers. "I made the grade, just barely, but there were three guys and two women in our squad who he just singled out over and over again. It was the stupidest thing I'd ever seen. One of the women was the most brilliant computer programmer I'd ever seen -- child prodigy or something -- and two of those guys could put a bullet in a target from fifty paces wearing a blindfold. But he didn't care. They were kind of small, you know? And that's all he saw."

He left out the details, sketching in only the roughest outline of what had really happened. Day after day, week after week, his CO had all but tortured those five people. Chris had felt the knot in his throat growing tighter every day. No one liked it, especially the other members of his squad, but what could they do? He was their CO, after all, and if they said anything they'd probably find themselves in his bad books too. So they kept quiet, and no one did anything while this creep grew more and more arrogant every day.

Until finally Chris had enough. "He'd never actually struck one of them before," he explained, noticing that he had all three interviewers' rapt attention. "But he was in a particularly bad mood this day. Everyone was walking on eggshells waiting for him to explode. He'd been screaming at us all morning, and all of a sudden, for no reason whatsoever, he grabbed this one kid -- Thompson, his name was -- and threw him into a wall. Started kicking him and screaming at him. Well, what was I supposed to do?"

Hence the honorable part of the discharge -- everyone knew you couldn't just run around beating up the people serving under you. At the same time, the army couldn't sanction beating up your CO -- hence the discharge part of the discharge.

The interviewers hadn't been thrilled with that part either. "What if you don't like your captain in the force?" one of them demanded. "Is this how you're going to respond?"

"No sir," Chris answered smartly. "I learned my lesson."

And more to the point, he'd learned why he had to get out of the army, discharge or no. He told them, too: "I joined up because I wanted to serve my country, protect its people. But I realized I'd picked the wrong place. The army's a great thing, and it serves a great purpose. But the army doesn't deal with the people. It protects indirectly through attack. Me, my main instinct has always been to protect, not to hurt. That's why I'm here. That's the reason I want to be a cop -- to protect and serve."

Later, Claire had agreed it was his master piece of bullshit. But it had also been true. And he'd made it into the academy by the skin of his teeth, graduated at the top of his class, and whipped through the force until he found his way in STARS. Here he'd stopped -- not because they'd stopped offering advancements, but because he'd finally found a place he belonged, colleagues he respected and cared for, a captain worth serving.

Even in the dream he knew what a crock that turned out to be.

But the memory/dream continued regardless, Wesker taking his seat, everyone else on their computers. Chris opened a file and began typing out a report with his index fingers, scowling a bit. He hated paperwork; all cops did. It was part of the job, though.

He was just rifling through a file searching for the transcript of an interview when a shadow fell over him. "Looking for this?" Wesker asked in his cool, commanding tone.

Chris took the transcript from his hands. "Yeah. Thanks. Where'd you find it?"

"I saved it from the janitors last night. It was on the floor under your desk."

Chris flashed his boss a rueful smile. "Thanks."

He expected Wesker to walk away, but instead he hesitated, his eyes on the framed picture beside Chris' computer. "Is that your sister?"

"Yeah, that's Claire." Chris snagged the shot and grinned affectionately, passing it to the captain.

Wesker took it and raised his eyebrows. "She's much younger than you."

"I know. She's a good kid, though."

He returned the photo and walked away without any further comment. Jill half spun in her desk and rolled her eyes, teasingly and without menace. "Leaving files all over the floor again, Redfield?"

"Cool it, Valentine, or I'll spill the beans about your hot date in the cafeteria."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Wouldn't I?"

She didn't answer because she knew he was capable of it. They both knew too, though, that he wouldn't do it, if only because Jill's revenge would be swift and brutal. "Buy me lunch and I'll forget about the whole thing," he offered.

"Buy you lunch?" she hissed, one eye on Wesker as he bent over his work. "That's rich. You're the one who was rifling through my desk. I think you owe me."

"Deal," he replied immediately, earning a grin. "I'll drive, you pick the place."

They both swiveled to their computers as Wesker glanced up, but Chris felt a surge of elation. Stupid Jill and her stupid dates -- he'd show her how she should be treated.

Uh oh, he realized in a single breath.

Not good.

Jill was his friend, his co-worker.

Yes, but he wanted something more. And he'd known it for a long time. He closed his eyes for a moment, then shrugged. Well, he and Jill were both adults; they would take things one step at a time and if it didn't work out, they'd find a way to work together. They had to. He wasn't going to let someone that amazing pass him by because she happened to work at the next desk.

From that moment, although she didn't know it, Jill's days as a single woman were numbered.

A week later, they received a distress call from the bravo team and entered the mansion.

-----

Chris rolled over, wincing at the kink in his neck from sleeping on the couch. Jill was curled against him, pressed tightly to keep from falling to the floor. Her head nestled against his shoulder, and his arm had gone to sleep where she'd been leaning. Gently, he worked it free, lowering her head to his chest as he sat halfway up. She stirred and mumbled something, then rested again.

He stroked her hair and stared into the dark living room. He'd dreamed of Wesker -- of Wesker and Jill and STARS, still the best time of his life, right up to the moment Wesker betrayed them. He thought how different things would have been if not for that betrayal. They'd have taken on Umbrella as a team, as they always had, Wesker cool and competent and in control, relieving Chris of this burden of guilt and hatred.

Claire, he thought, closing his eyes against a sudden sting of tears. Where was she? Why hadn't Wesker contacted him?

Oh God, Claire, I hope you're all right.

Please be all right.

He lay back on the couch and stared at the ceiling, all hopes of sleep passed.