The work of the human brain is arranged in a rather strange way. Sometimes it takes just one word to come to a full understanding of the situation. It can be very close, practically on the tip of your tongue, simple and obvious, but you can't formulate it until you are pushed to it. You don't think about something until one little reminder is enough to bring it to the surface of consciousness, and you would say, oh, yes, sure, I've always known that.
That's exactly what Jill was experiencing right now. Revelation. One letter and two numbers that turned her picture of the world upside down. Again.
"P-30." Wesker said calmly, adding nothing to it. But she didn't need to.
That name was all she needed to hear. She stared at one point, frozen, stunned by this confession of his. Much deeper and more meaningful than anyone from the outside might think. But Jill understood everything now. She suddenly realized absolutely everything. Every little detail. It was as if it was the answer she had always known, but had forgotten. And now the truth was filling her, making her tremble, her limbs were numb from the verity, striking in its simplicity, obviousness and grandiosity.
The P-30. It became a necessary measure at some point of their ongoing struggle with each other. No one planned to engage in this development, to conduct this experiment. It was a waste of time and money. However, at that moment, Jill was unapproachable. She struggled desperately, fought and tried, if not to destroy everyone around her, then at least to break free. Sometimes, she only harmed herself with this. Yet the main difficulty for Wesker then was not to keep her safe and sound, but to convince Excella of the expediency of her presence at the facility. The research was completed, the work on her was completed and, in fact, she was no longer needed.
Of course, Wesker's words about keeping her as a precaution in case of unforeseen circumstances worked. But only for a while. Jill was too aggressive, dangerous, uncooperative. Excella was annoyed by this and she didn't understand the motives of his actions. It was then that he decided to use the P-30. Retribution, the perverse act of turning a hero into a reluctant villain, the humiliation of having to obey people she hated. All this, coupled with the excellent qualities of a soldier. Wesker managed to convince Excella that in this form, Jill would become not just useful, but an extremely valuable asset that they would use to carry out their plan.
And yet, the Italian didn't like all this. At all. It was like she felt something. She was smart and it was unclear to her why it was necessary to develop a serum capable of turning people into super-soldiers when their work was almost completed. They stood on the threshold of a new world and no longer needed either money or a devoted army. At the same time, the drug worked only on one person, not even really causing her suffering, except, perhaps, moral. And if the device was removed, she would again be as dangerous and unpredictable as before. Perilously, short-sighted and excessive. However, Excella was in no position to argue. She risked losing his favor, and considering how far they had come, she didn't want that at all. She chose to consider it something personal and allowed Wesker this little weakness. As she thought. The right to personal revenge. And after she had the opportunity to use Jill as a personal assistant, the eccentric brunette even began to like this idea. It made her tremble. An aperitif before the main course. The opportunity to taste and experience the feeling of unlimited power over the world and people.
What Excella never realized was that the P-30 wasn't a means of torment. It was a means of salvation. That's how Wesker tried to keep Jill alive. Again. Protecting her from external enemies and herself.
But Jill, unlike Excella, understood this. Not immediately, sure. But she understood it. At some point, this realization hit her, leaving behind strange and contradictory sensations. She kept carrying it with her. That was the reason why Jill didn't want to get rid of the scars. They were a constant reminder that pain can be for good, that what is seen is not always what it really is. A reminder of the struggle not only with her, but also for her.
The P-30 allowed Wesker to completely control her, to penetrate her mind, to operate her even from a distance. But it also had a downside. Something Wesker didn't immediately figure out, because Jill didn't plan to share this information with him. The serum didn't allow Jill to enter his mind or read Wesker's thoughts, but it gave her the opportunity to feel the echoes of his emotions. However, it all turned into an unintelligible mess in her subconscious. Her own sensations, the blend of his feelings, it all became undecipherable. And when Jill got the opportunity to catch her breath, taking a break from the drug, when she again gained complete control over her own mind, it was almost impossible to realize exactly what was happening at the moment of their connection to each other. To separate all the emotions and sort them out.
But now. Now it all suddenly took on a completely different meaning and Jill understood what happened to her.
Though she couldn't fully comprehend it, she remembered what he felt and it haunted her even when the drug was inactive. Although Wesker's anxiety became less, after he killed Spencer, it couldn't go away completely. This man has been through and experienced too much. It seemed to Jill that she had coped with it, had forgotten how it felt, that all that remained with her was knowledge, understanding. And so it was. Most of the echoes of his complex, contradictory and incredibly painful emotions were only a memory for her. But there was something that stuck inside her, something that was most important to her, something that echoed her own fears. And it was impossible to get rid of it. Her own emotions and anxieties, which she had experienced even before she was around him again, her own traumas mingled with his, combining into a crazy cocktail. But until that moment, Jill hadn't understood all of this.
With the P-30, Wesker was able to experience something he had never felt before in his life. He used to cherishing Jill, appreciating her, respecting her, feeling the strongest emotions for her that he was capable of. He saved her and protected her from herself, finding an excuse for his actions in his own benefit. Even if it sometimes only created unnecessary problems. It seemed that every day she made him feel stronger than ever. But when the P-30 connected them together, he was able to not just control her, he could feel her emotions and it was overwhelming. Wesker suddenly realized that he had been feeling nothing. Compared to her emotions, his own were a pale moon versus the sun. The realization haunted him. He knew that he was a black hole in comparison with her, which wasn't capable of returning light and warm. A black hole that couldn't be filled.
Tearing apart by the darkest feelings and emotions, feeling constant anxiety, hopelessness, the realization that he was an emptiness, a contradictory creation of the crazy old man, he felt that death was following him, breathing down his neck. No matter how many times he ran away from it, cheating time after time. Despite all his strength and superiority, Wesker was drowning in his own powerlessness. Deprived of the right to life, to freedom, to sincerity, to emotions. He knew that he was doomed from the very beginning, and he didn't decide anything, couldn't rectify anything. It was simply impossible, too late for him.
There was always something special about Jill. And even despite the fact that in Africa she was in the status of a prisoner, she managed to melt his cold heart with an unexplained, completely unjustified trust and reverent attitude towards him. Gradually, she was giving up, even if she created the appearance of an ongoing struggle. Even before he used the serum. Perhaps if they had more time, this stage could have been avoided altogether. But its use has made everything more intense, sharp, frank.
Her subconscious told him much more than her words, and there was no reason not to trust it. It would be ridiculous to deny what you can feel. He didn't understand this behavior of hers, but he was still ready to let his guard down himself, give her more freedom, stop controlling her unnecessarily and manipulate her. And that was already a lot for him.
This was going too far. Their ever-existing bond was only getting stronger. And at some point Wesker was even ready to admit that he loved her, as much as he could love. He had to admit to himself that it had lasted longer than he would have liked, that she had crept into his mind long before all this. Back in the days when they were one team. Of course, he had never planned to let her in on all this.
Jill was wary of him, distrusted him, felt thrill to him, but still clung to him, almost desperately, with a bitterness that was hard to explain. He sensed that these feelings of hers were not new, that she herself was confused by her own thoughts and emotions. He knew that every day she trusted him more and more, changed her attitude towards him more and more, longed for communication with him more and more. He knew this, but the longer he used the P-30, the more he realized that she would always need more than he could give her, she would never be able to accept what he was. Maybe she didn't understand it, but sooner or later, she would. It would destroy them both. It was only the matter of time. They were too different, despite all their similarities, which he always felt. Sooner or later, this obsession had to dissipate, and then she would realize that she didn't need him That she never needed him. Who needs an emotionally castrated creature doomed to perish?
Hatred was his master, he hated who he was, who he was made. Hated to the pain and darkness before the eyes. He might not have been born like this, but the damage had already been done, and no one could mend a broken branch, not even her. Absolute despair devastated him, turning into an insensitive, weak-willed puppet, thrown on the carpet and trampled by her future indifference. Understanding the weakness and inferiority of his own feelings, he only drowned them out more, because he couldn't do anything else.
Wesker was fully aware that she was beginning to gain power over him. He knew that she would be able to hurt him like no one ever had. She discovered his weak spots, which even he didn't know about and could destroy him morally. It was far worse than any physical pain.
He was stronger than this. A number of times in his life he managed to cope with feelings, even quite intense ones. He looked at everything from a practical point of view, approached everything rationally, never allowing his own feelings and emotions to guide his actions. Never allowing inner anguish to break through to the surface. And he wasn't going to let her presence change that. He had a solution, he needed to finish what he had started. Even before she was there. To realize his long-standing plan capable of ending his torment and destroying the threat that he himself was, taking with him the last of the biggest remnants of the corporations that begotten him.
Wesker, just like always, was right. They let each other get unacceptably close to each other. Jill was very aware of that now. The use of the P-30 turned into an endless cycle of feelings and emotions, which were distorted every time passing through the consciousness of each of them. This wouldn't have happened if they didn't care, if they weren't so attached to each other, if it wasn't so important to them what the other felt. Everything would have gone smoothly if they hadn't let it pass through themselves, trying to analyze, feel, understand the other, look into the most hidden corners of the soul.
They both needed answers, and they only were getting more bogged down in it. He could feel her, and it affected him. And she felt the echoes of these emotions, so strong that Jill was amazed how a person could experience something like this. How can a person remain so calm at the same time. Because it seemed to her that if she let it into herself completely, she would just die on the spot. At first, she had tried to distance herself from it, to protect her psyche, before she gave a damn about herself and began to crave more.
It made him feel that his feelings were too weak compared to hers, that she was shunning him, that she would always need more.
They intertwined with each other, merged into one, and it was difficult to understand where he ended and where she began. And although the P-30 was already in the distant past, its influence could no longer be canceled.
While Jill believed she no longer sensed his dark emotions, in fact, she continued not only to remember, but also to feel what he felt. Although she wasn't able to understand what were his feelings and what were her own, what related to him and what to her. Everything was jumbled up, driving Jill almost to insanity. Only now did she realize that many of her thoughts were not hers but his, that some of them were not about her, but about him himself.
Most of the time, Jill managed to lock it in her subconscious. But at critical moments, when she felt what she had experienced during the days of Raccoon City, it all broke through the dam and washed Jill away. She was drowning and choked in the ocean of their joint doubts, pain, fears, agonies, conflicting feelings. She felt all his emotions, but they were interpreted by her subconscious in their own way, lining up around one of the strongest and most terrible feelings for her, his doom. This emotion especially clearly and distinctly echoed her own fear. She was terrified of losing him again.
Wesker's death haunted her for a long time. Even after she found out that he was alive, images from the past kept popping up in her mind over and over again. Three months before the incident, he began keeping her at a distance, shielding himself from her. He was colder than ever, completely blocking her attempts to reach him. She believed that the reason was that difficult case that kept the whole city in anxiety. And yet, she began to feel a frightening sense of approaching something terrible. She never completely got rid of this feeling that she would lose him. Neither before the incident, nor ever after.
She might have managed to grab onto him, maybe she was holding him close to her, she knew that sooner or later fate would tear him out of her hands again. She felt it. They both felt it, and her terrifying, overwhelming sense of the inevitable tragic end was doubled. And every time it seemed to her that he was pulling away from her again, that she was close to losing him again, panic gripped her. She was loosing herself, stopped acting logically and rationally, jumped to extremes, became hysterical, tried to find a way out of this emotional torture chamber, not understanding what needs to be done for this. Trying to find solace and comfort in what she never really needed.
Jill clearly understood that this was a war that couldn't be won. It doesn't matter if she would leave or stay. You can't run away from yourself, from your own phobias, your own thoughts that catch up with you again and again.
But all this has ceased to matter right now. All this didn't matter anymore. All her fears fled, allowing her mental clarity to return. Jill was almost lost in the feeling of absolute serenity, safety, which she hadn't experienced for a very long time in her life. What she was feeling at the moment was like catharsis. The wave of pain and horror was followed by relief, utter calmness and confidence. She was no longer afraid of monsters which turned out to be just shadows from tree branches swaying in the wind.
Jill looked at him again. Wesker was leaning with his back and hands on the chest of drawers. Immersed in himself, he once again shielded himself from her with an impregnable wall. This no longer frightened her. This didn't cause a feeling of panic. Instead, Jill understood him only better now. This is how a person infected with a dangerous, deadly disease that was easily transmitted from person to person, felt himself. Doomed to death, he doomed other people who approached too close to him.
She already had time and opportunity to think, to weigh the pros and cons. Whatever Jill did, she was doomed to defeat, but now she knew for sure that it was better to be with him and live in eternal expectation of tragedy than being without him at all. Although Jill couldn't accept it, she wasn't ready to lose him and never will be.
He was giving her a chance for salvation, but Jill didn't want that chance. She didn't want to be saved. Frankly speaking, she has almost got used to and resigned with this feeling of the ever-approaching end. Did he feel the same way? Sure. And it changed him a long time ago, changed both of them. However, if these feelings had frightened her up to that moment, now she knew that she shared them with him, and this helped her to accept and come to terms with this.
For so long she had been afraid that it was all her own fears, doubts and concerns, her own seething hatred, appearing from nowhere. It seemed to her that she was looking for excuses to abandon him. Invented problems from a void.
She couldn't even imagine that he felt all this, that it was so strong, so powerful. She didn't understand how she could forget that she had already felt how it was coming from him, how it was tearing them both, intertwined together, apart. But now she knew that all this didn't come only from the depths of her subconscious, it came from outside, from him. It calmed her down and really made her overjoyed. They were so incredibly close. Much closer than she could even imagine, than she could think, than she could wish for. There was really nothing insurmountable between them, no spacing, no distance, no chasm.
Perhaps someday they will try to unravel this tangled skein of painful emotions. But Jill wasn't sure she really wanted to. It didn't matter whose feelings tormented her heart, what mattered was that she and Wesker shared emotions together. And now, understanding more, she was sure that she would be able to meet them with the same fortitude and calmness as he did.
The tension in her eyes changed to sympathy and Jill was looking at him for a moment with almost pleading look. He stood motionless, not raising his head. Jill approached him again, slowly, like to a wild and dangerous cat that could attack or run away at any moment. Eternal unpredictability. Eternal danger. But Jill loved danger, it made her feel alive.
Maybe they were doomed, but now they were together. And she was ready to try to stop the approaching destruction. Could they hover above the ground, avoiding a collision? Could they cheat fate? Haven't they already managed to do it once or even several times? Was there anything in this world stronger than them? Unless their own subconscious. If only he would give her this chance to try.
Wesker raised his head to look at her. Red-rimmed tired eyes were burrowing into her own, captivating and enchanting her. Gently, she placed her hand on his chest, then the other. The hands slid up to his neck, and she carefully slowly brought her face closer to him. He didn't react, but he didn't pull away from her either, and this was already her small victory.
Jill rose slightly on her tiptoes, her lips faintly touched his, softly and gently. She pulled back to look into his icy eyes again. Focused, frowning, but he was still there. And Jill pressed her lips to his one more time. After a few moments, his own barriers that he had set for himself collapsed under her pressure, and Wesker began to respond to her kiss with no less passion and desire than she did.