Barre, Vermont
June 9, 1999
1:40pm

Once there was a man named Murphy. Real nasty son of a bitch. Anyway, Murphy had ratified exactly one law in his miserable life, and that law was: Whatever Can Go Wrong, Will Go Wrong.

Daniel was very familiar with Murphy, especially since the first day he'd begun working at Summer Forest Townhomes, an umbrella company that owned four different properties within a ten-mile radius.

It was a real sucker punch of a day, sunny and hot, the fragrance of blooming tree-branch flowers overpowered by a sudden, choking wall of baking cement and the meaty smell of human sweat. Humidity coiled off the blacktop like a stink; houses and trees danced in real-time distortion past Daniel's field of vision, pools of phantom liquid on the tarmac dissipating as his car approached. Daniel took off his ball cap by the bill, wiped the slick off his brow with the back of his arm, then affixed the hat back over his head. It didn't do much; the sweatband inside the hat was already warm and soaked. No surprise. Today was hot, hard work. Daniel was en route to put in work on his fourth AC unit of the day. As luck would have it, during the first real heatwave in the great state of Vermont, every single Godforsaken AC unit in the westernmost—and largest—complex had decided to unilaterally shit themselves. Some sort of blockage in the single vent duct (which had turned out to be a week-dead raccoon carcass; a real treat to clear out, now dug in with undulating pits and trails of maggots). Some generic song ended on the radio, and then a roiling Spanish guitar, electric and looming:

She can do anything at all, have anything she pleases
Power to change what she thinks is wrong, but what could she want with me, yeah?

Daniel sighed, tweaked at the brain with a thread of annoyance that, once tugged, threatened to unravel all of it. The unseasonable heat, the work ahead of him, the stupid fucking song that followed him everywhere (he wasn't sure if he preferred this one or Train's Drops of Jupiter—both were equally annoying and equally overplayed on every station this state had, and as Murphy would have it, Daniel's CD player had also stopped working about a month or two ago). If one of these things had happened by themselves, it would have been okay. But all at once? It was like his belt loop had gotten caught on the doorknob of the universe, all tiny happenings aligning just so to drive him out of his fucking mind.

Daniel changed the radio dial.

"Drama again this morning out of Washington D.C. surrounding the infamous case of The United States of America v. Umbrella Incorporated, with—"

It was then that the right side of Daniel's Buick sunk with a slow, nefarious creep, impotent rubber slapping at the road. Daniel took a deep, stilling breath and pulled to the shoulder. Gravel scraped underneath his three remaining tires, and he folded his arms on the steering wheel, took a moment to rest his head on them.

"—but all eyes were on Raccoon City survivor Jillian Valentine, formerly of the Special Tactics and Rescue Service, who is being hailed for defending a former Umbrella employee from what she says are 'predatory and unconstitutional efforts to undermine' the former employee's right to free speech. Here's a clip."

A woman came on the radio. A lawyer or something, maybe, or maybe someone who'd seen too much Law and Order. She sounded pissed, but then again everyone was pissed these days, and seemed to get more pissed the closer you got to Washington D.C. Daniel tuned out. Did he have a spare? A jack? Surely he had a jack, but had he used the spare already?

"In a trial where most of the witnesses have been tight-lipped on the proceedings, human rights groups are describing Ms. Valentine as a surprising ally in the fight against legal overreach and victim's rights. We're being told the court's lunch recess is coming to a close, so we're going back to the proceedings, Jim, where former officer Rebecca Chambers is being questioned by Congress. Let's listen in."

Daniel paused. He couldn't listen to this. Not anymore. His fingers hesitated over the knob but he forced them, searched the airwaves for anything else—even Chris Cornell would be preferable to this, but the strains of music had disappeared under the bombastic voice of another radio announcer.

"Frankly, it's bullshit. And you know why it's bullshit? Because zombies don't exist. I know they call them infected or victims or whatever but lets call a spade a spade, alright, they're fucking zombies, people in terrible Spirit Halloween costumes, probably on some set somewhere in liberal Hollywood. This is just another socialist scheme from the far left, folks, and don't think it isn't, oh no, because they're not after Umbrella, they're after tax dollars. That's what they want, folks, first it's the guys with the deepest pockets and then when those pockets are empty they're coming for yours, so some fat-ass welfare queen in Detroit can sit on her can all day and—"

Daniel twisted the volume knob to the left with a testy crank, and was left with blessed silence under the chitter of the only animals left in this EZ Bake Oven of a day; birds and insects. He climbed out of the driver's side door, and set about righting what little he could, even if it was only a tire. It would have to do.

Washington, D.C.
June 9, 1999
9:00 AM

Rebecca didn't swear on a Bible, the first and only witness in this particular trial to eschew the tradition. She opted to hold up one small hand next to her shoulder and affirm her commitment to telling the truth. Her round chin tilted up just so in what might have been defiance, but her large green eyes were fearful, her breathing nervous.

"You may sit, Miss Chambers," the Justice said. Rebecca did so. "Mister Bates, from New Jersey. You have the floor."

"Thank you, Honor. So…" Mister Bates ruffled through the sheaf of paper before him. Pretended to be interested, though it could have been condescending theater. Rebecca couldn't tell; his tone was friendly enough. "There's quite a bit here about you, Miss Chambers," he said, "a bit of a child genius, maybe it's fair to say?"

Rebecca shook her head. "I just came from a home that took studies very seriously. The bar was set high."

"That seems excessively modest. You graduated with a double-major in biochemistry and biology at eighteen? Is that correct?"

"That's correct."

"And you're how old now?"

"I'm twenty-one."

"And what are you doing now?"

"I'm a doctoral candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology."

"At twenty-one."

"That's correct."

"So it's fair to say you're a very intelligent person. You can look at patterns and identify trends. Would you say that's true?"

"I'd say so."

"So a trend I notice is there's a very swift change in your resume. From police officer to…" he shuffled his papers, again, "immunology doctoral candidate some states away. Care to fill in the gaps?"

"There's no gaps to fill in. I had a traumatic experience, decided that police work wasn't for me, and my talents were better served in an educational and research capacity."

"And you were hired by whom?"

"During my time with STARS?"

"Yes, Miss Chambers."

"I was hired by Albert Wesker, Captain of STARS. I was admitted as a part of the Accelerations program, which provides clinical hours towards an approved field of study, given my medical knowledge."

"Albert Wesker whom was also revealed to be a stakeholder and operations director of Umbrella's direct rival Tricell International. Correct?"

"Correct. That's him. He also worked for Umbrella."

"Well…" Mister Bates laughed, sensibly, "that's yet to be proven."

"No it isn't. It's in the evidence."

The man paused, a wide smile on his face. "Miss Chambers, are you here to argue, or are you here to testify?"

"I'm a scientist. Our entire job is precision," Rebecca said, "if something you say is incorrect, and you build on it later, it can make more things incorrect down the line. So it's important to clarify Albert Wesker also worked for Umbrella, per the evidence, as I assume we'll be talking about that."

"…right," he said, sarcastic, "thank you for that."

Rebecca nodded, blinked her thick eyelashes, as if she hadn't read his tone as the insult it was and she was instead listening, rapt, to an interesting conversation. She told her story. Some people, enticed by the drama that pumped through such a lurid case like blood through a vessel, turned her testimony off halfway through. For those viewers, there was nothing to latch onto. None of Mister Kennedy's honest, open insistence on the virtue of truth, even in the case of the unflattering. There was none of Doctor Hamilton's dutiful, perhaps even self-sacrificial enduring of verbal whips, his discussions of human failing and cost, his sympathy—for and against. No arguments, no backhands. Just precision to the decimal point, told with a pair of sea-green eyes earnestly gazing out into the Congresspeople, the cameras, occasionally interrupted with a with sweet, slightly shy smile. Her testimony later on down the line would be used as an example for trial witnesses on how to conduct oneself. It was pure fact, delivered kindly and professionally, nothing added or left out.

Almost.

"So, I would assume someone very intelligent would be able concoct any number of stories that could cover for shortcomings," Mister Bates said, "given how talented at noticing patterns and building on them they might be, as we've said. With both Mister Kennedy and Doctor Hamilton's testimony, there were… pieces, that didn't fit, even just so. But with yours, I can't help but notice everything is very… clean. No loss of memory or things you've forgotten."

"Objection," Congressman Graham interrupted, "being intelligent doesn't mean you're a liar. We have no reason to assume Miss Chambers has mislead us."

"Sustained." The Justice said. "Rephrase."

"What I'm saying is," Mister Bates said, "normally trial witnesses have an organic decay of what they remember. Their responses are not pitch-perfect, like yours."

"I suppose you could say that's true," Rebecca said, "but I have no story to cover. Like Mister Kennedy said, there's things that happened and things that didn't. I promised to testify about what did. But that's very flattering, Mister Bates." She smiled. "Thank you."

They cut that day short, filling in the hours after Rebecca's testimony with exhibits and physical evidence: samples and huge blown-up pieces of posterboard on easels that listed charts of numbers. More exciting, vital exhibits like broken metal phials, pieces of clothing splattered with blood long since decayed to flaking brown cakes inside clear plastic bags. When the trial let out, Rebecca stood and shook Congressman Graham's hand, then let out a long breath.

From her left, a large hand touched against Rebecca's shoulder. When she turned, Chris gave her an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

"That was incredible," he said.

Rebecca laughed. A part of it was incredible—Mister Bates of New Jersey, slimy and slippery Mister Bates—had gotten so close, but still a mile away.

They had believed her.

"Well, you know." Rebecca said. "That's me."

Barre, Vermont
June 9, 1999
5:06pm

This particular unit was being rented to a gaggle of college girls, all of whom lounged on furniture, fanning themselves with glossy magazines and unopened mail, as if interpretive dance of just how little they were enjoying the heat in the apartment would somehow make Daniel's work faster. Daniel wished so as well; his back hurt. His neck hurt. His head was starting to pound, jumping in on the end of the train of misery that was his spine, protesting against too many hours spent bent over malfunctioning electronics and bending in every possible direction in an attempt to work within the dusty, dark confines of the spaces that housed the units. Daniel's ponytail slipped off of his shoulder for the third time in so many minutes. He paused, sighed, then stood to tie it back, and banged his head against the cabinet. Two of the girls looked back at him, annoyed, then went back to fanning themselves.

A set of footsteps pattered against the hardwood floor. Daniel ignored them, trying to thread the head of his driver into a screw that was just out of his reach. He might have needed trigonometry to figure out how it had been installed in the first fucking place.

"Why don't you take a break?" The girl asked. "Looks like hard work. You want something to drink?"

Daniel paused and stood back up, carefully avoided the top of the cabinet. He wiped the sweat from under the fabric of his ballcap. "Some water might be okay."

"Sure." The girl's gaze flickered over him. A deep part of him recoiled at being sized up so, like she was internally judging him, figuring him out. She left for the kitchen, and Daniel watched. She went to the fridge, not to the phone screwed to the wall. He released a breath. She returned with a plastic bottle of water with a white label. Daniel unscrewed the cap, and took a healthy gulp.

"I'm gonna turn it on," said one of the girls, "I have to study this stupid thing for AP Intro, anyway. Might as well just watch while it's going on."

One of the girls heaved a great, testy sigh, rolled onto her bare feet, and slapped away into her room.

"What's her problem?" One of the other girls said.

"What's not?" They all laughed.

"Yesterday in the hotly contested trial of Umbrella Incorporated, emotional testimony from Doctor George Hamilton, a trauma surgeon at Raccoon City's medical center. Doctor Hamilton recounted stories of incredible amounts of loss, testifying under oath that—"

"Shit, it's over already? …well, he's pretty hot."

"He's single," said another, "he said his ex-wife."

"Ew," said the first girl, "if you want some zombie doctor dick, that's all you."

"Sorry about them," the girl beside Daniel said, with a long-suffering smile, "they're always fighting. When the semester started everyone got along, but…" she sighed. "You know."

Daniel took another gulp of his water to fill the silence. Umbrella this, Umbrella that. Daniel was sick and fucking tired of hearing about Umbrella; he'd done his best to block this whole sordid affair out of his brain, and had succeeded, until today. It was inescapable. Then, he made the mistake of looking at the television screen, and felt something hard and eventual pelt against his mental defenses.

"Yeah." He said, finally.

The unit beside him puffed out a gust of rancid air and then rattled to life, hummed and clicked with renewed vigor. Thank GOD, said one girl, tossing her head of thick blonde hair back, dramatic. Daniel thanked his host for the water, tossed the bottle in the recycling bin on the way outside, and drug himself down the stairs to his car before they could decide that the successful repair meant more conversation.

Daniel drove to a familiar installation after long, hot days like this: a pub lit by blinking neon lights calling out the name of brands of beer, built on a corner, between a fried chicken shack and a gas station run by a Palestinian couple. He opened the door and took off his hat, shook his hair out. Ike, the guy behind the bar, smiled at Daniel as soon as he saw him. Ike was always quick with a joke or a friendly welcome. His presence was comforting and jovial, like a huge, black-skinned Buddha given life through some sort of magic spell.

"Evening Dan," Ike said. His white t-shirt and smock were spattered with grease stains. "Usual?"

"Sounds great," Daniel said, and sat on a stool. Every muscle in his body let out a sigh of relief and he rubbed his face. When he removed his hand, Ike had already placed down a glass of amber beer, capped with a thick head of white foam. Daniel took a greedy swig.

"Hey. Hey," said a man, dressed in a cheap grey suit a few sizes too large for him. Daniel didn't recognize him. The man pointed at the box television mounted over the mirrored backsplash behind the bar. "Turn it on Fox. I got family in D.C. and they said some shit went down today."

Daniel sighed. Not here, too. This might have been the quickest drink in history. When no protests presented themselves, Ike turned and aimed the remote at the set.

Today in news out of Washington, Rebecca Chambers, a member of the storied Special Tactics and Rescue Service—or STARS—took the stand to tell her side of the story. Former Officer Chambers recalled a harrowing journey full of danger and betrayal, a recount that was pressed for hours by members of Congress.

"I'd like to press her for hours," said one of the men at the bar. A smattered, knowing round of chuckles responded. Silent, Daniel cracked open a peanut, chewed the solid flesh, threw the shell into a nearby metal bucket that doubled as a trash can.

Last night's apartment fire is being labeled witness intimidation by Jill Valentine, the de facto spokesperson for the witnesses in this trial. She had this to say:

A pretty brunette with bright gray-blue eyes appeared on the screen, a freeze-frame of a picture from some kind of court room. She was looking directly at the camera, her expression impassive but alert. Her words were typed in large white font alongside her photo as she spoke.

"I absolutely think it is witness intimidation. Just last night we lost a good man, Doctor Raj Behara of the Federal Bioterror Commission, to a supposed gas leak. Nurses, doctors, patients, all dead with no further explanation. Then the next night, two days before I am slated to testify, my apartment building goes up in flames and three people are killed. I don't think these are coincidences. As I've said before, this is how Umbrella operates. They killed an entire city worth of people and now they're killing more people to cover it up, and the fact they're doing it in plain sight—with nobody is calling them on it—is just emboldening them."

The anchor's voice.

"So you think it was Umbrella that did this? You don't think that's sort of… trending in the direction of being a baseless conspiracy theory?"

"Yes, I do think it was Umbrella that did this. And I also think that calling a violent trend a baseless conspiracy theory while innocent people are losing their lives is giving Umbrella the benefit of the doubt, so before I spending my energy answering that question, I'd like for you to tell your viewers if Umbrella is one of your advertisers."

"Even if Umbrella is one of our advertisers, that doesn't mean that our journalists are trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, as you say."

"Okay. I think I've got my answer."

Later, Congressman James Graham appeared to support Miss Valentine's opinion on the matter:

"Earlier Jillian Valentine was on air with us, suggesting if not outright stating that the violence in D.C. is somehow connected to the United States v. Umbrella Incorporated. Your thoughts?"

"Well, my thoughts are that we should probably listen to the people who've been fighting this fight, and not questioning the integrity of a woman who's shown time and again that she's willing to proverbially and literally throw herself into the fire for our safety. She's earned our trust—the trend is definitely suspect. And with Umbrella, nothing is just suspect, so we'll see where it goes."

"Attacking the witnesses now. Does seem pretty suspect..." Ike said, a note of wonder in his voice while he wiped down the inside of a glass with a clean rag. His dark eyes studied the lurid car-crash nightmare told in fuzzy, shaking clips of human violence. Daniel had seen them by now—everybody in America had. It somehow didn't make them easier to digest. And if it hadn't by now, time's amnesiac magic probably held no sway here.

Daniel took a long swig of his beer. The man beside him scoffed, struck a match on the carbon strip run down the side of its book, and lit the cigarette perched between his lips. His oily blond hair reflected the light.

"There's always something going on in that shithole," he said, "D.C., I mean. Probably best if Umbrella just offs all those fucking yahoos and calls it a day. You got innocent people dying, the economy's probably gonna fucking tank… all because of what? Natural disasters happen all the god damned time. Just let those poor people rest in peace."

"Hey," Ike said, stern. "Can that shit in my bar, man. There could be cops in here."

Daniel felt his throat become solid with unspoken words that fought to claw their way out of his mouth and into the air. He was not a weak-willed man; he'd proven that over and over, and his opinions were not so flimsy to be swayed by one greasy drunk in a bar. But he was open to being convinced. In the end, he pursed his lips and said nothing, drained the last of his glass.

"What do you think, Dan?" Said Ike. Daniel glanced up to him.

"Not into politics." Daniel said, with a note of finality. His eyes were on the image of an entire building engulfed in robes of orange-and-yellow flame from a vantage point high in the sky. He stood and put down a crumpled, dirty ten dollar bill. Ike nodded in recognition and thanks, shoved the note into the front pocket of his smock.

"A-fuckin'-men," said the man beside him, Mr. Kill-Em-All-And-Let-God-Sort-Em-Out. "Keep it that way. Just a bunch of stuffed-shirt idiots anyway. They don't know shit."

"Yeah," Daniel said, "right."

The heat of the day had died into a tepid humidity that clung to the chilly breeze, the last kick of a burst of heat that was being thrown out on its ass for coming to the party too early. Daniel got into his beat up Buick, and sat in thought for a long few minutes. Some things had to be set right. You got innocent people dying, the economy's probably gonna fucking tank. Probably best if Umbrella just offs all those fucking yahoos…

Daniel was just one guy, with no dreams or ambitions to change much of anything except for his clothes or maybe a lightbulb here or there. But there were things that had to be done, now that he knew where they were. If only for his own peace of mind. Things that he might not get a chance to do again if he let this opportunity slip.

He checked the glove compartment. His trusty 1911 sat in silent compliance, its slide catch gleaming in the dim sodium glow of the lights outside Ike's bar. He closed the glove compartment.

Couldn't be too sure. There were crazy people everywhere.

Washington, D.C.
Later that Night

Chris and Rebecca were unique in that they had nobody to talk to, nobody to hobnob with after the trial let out. Chris seemed to avoid wherever Jill and her new boyfriend were like the plague—which Rebecca didn't think of as strange. She wasn't really sure Jill and Chris were dating back in the day, but Rebecca wouldn't want a new partner rubbed in her face either, and not one that was Tall, Dark, and Handsome or as well-liked as this guy apparently was. All of Chris' friends grouped around the two of them, a good-looking, sweet little nucleus in the middle of their orbit, and Chris was happy to excuse himself from the festivities. He insisted on escorting Rebecca home—"With all the explosions and fires, who knows what they'll try to pull."

Rebecca didn't deny the offer. The two of them rode in Chris' truck to some burger joint nearby where they indulged in greasy food and milkshakes, talked like old friends. He seemed relieved to have somebody around, somebody who understood. Rebecca was happy to oblige. The two talked deep into the night, and when Rebecca began to yawn and stumble over her words out of fatigue, Chris paid for their meal and shuttled them away.

Chris dropped her off outside the door to the hotel, kept the engine running. Rebecca reached across the console and the e-brake and gave him a hug. Chris never knew how to respond to simple human affection, not then and not now, but he tried. He hugged her with one arm, the injured one. Crushed her close. Still didn't know his own strength, either.

"I appreciate you looking out for me," Rebecca said, "it was really nice catching up."

"It was," Chris offered her a crooked smile. "Good job today. You be careful, okay?"

Rebecca nodded. "Always am."

She hopped down out of the cab and waved to him. Chris honked the horn once, waved back, and then pulled away into the darkness, the red brake-lights of his truck bouncing and wobbling into the night like a pair of eyes that winked out of view and into the fog. When Rebecca attempted to open her door, the key would no longer fit. The large white fob read her room number—301. Fatigue had not quite set in that deep yet, at least. She walked back to the front desk.

"Oh," the girl in the business suit behind the desk said, "your husband called earlier and said you'd lost your key, so we swapped out the lock."

Rebecca smiled, confused. "I'm not married."

The girl raised her eyebrows. "Hm. That's what it says here in the notes... well, I'm not sure. Probably just a mix-up. Here's your new key."

Rebecca considered pressing the issue, but the societal forces of Being Nice—don't rock the boat, don't make a scene—and her mental fatigue convinced her not to.

"Probably. Thank you."

Rebecca trudged back to her door, which now obediently opened with the click of tumblers. She checked the room, not entirely convinced of the desk girl's conclusion, but when she found nobody, Rebecca assured herself she was being paranoid. She showered, and fell fast asleep diagonally across her hotel bed.

When the banging on her room door sounded and plucked her abruptly from her sleep, it was nearly 5am.

Rebecca craned her head up. Her body was still swallowed by one of the bathrobes supplied by the hotel, its plush white collar crowded her throat like the cowl of some species of bird, flocked with feathers but bone underneath, slender and hollow. Rebecca stood and crossed the room, pulled the door open halfway, peeking her tired, lined face into the gap.

The unfamiliar figure on the other side spelled immediate danger, tall and broad, like opening a door straight into the arms of a towering scarecrow. Daniel, his nametag said, shining thread embroidered against a white canvas background, enclosed by a border. His light blue collared shirt, smeared grey with ash or sweat or dirt, gave the impression that a gas station attendant, or maybe a sorely lost mechanic, had come to visit her at some five in the morning. Though strange, none of this was what gave Rebecca pause, made her heart seize and squeeze with a breed of free-floating panic; it was the fact that she couldn't see his face, only the thick, dark gloss of a beard, two or three inches long. His contours and angles obscured by a wedge of shadow beneath the bill of his ballcap, denim-blue and faded to white threads around the edge. She knew his name. But if she had to, she couldn't identify him in a lineup.

"Can I help you?" Rebecca asked. She put on her best forceful voice. Tried to let him know she meant business. Even to her own ears, it sounded thin like paper, frightened.

The man named Daniel looked to each of his sides, up and down the hallway.

"Look," he said in a quiet, raspy smoker's rattle. His voice perked Rebecca's ear, cocked to danger on the wind like a prey animal, deciding whether to fight or run. "I've been driving all night. Can I come in?"

"I don't think that's a good idea," Rebecca said, and moved to shut the door. "You've got the wrong room. Goodnight."

The door hit against one of Daniel's workboots with a dull, defeated thump, blocked from meeting its jamb.

"Just wait a minute." He said.

"I'm calling the police," Rebecca's plans for the door to end this encounter were abandoned as fast as they'd been imagined. Daniel pushed the door opened and approached; Rebecca drew in a sharp breath to fuel a scream for help. One of his hands, strong and long enough to palm her head like a basketball, buffered hot and calloused against the bottom half of her face. The scream rang out, but spiraled into little more than a muffled cry against his skin.

"Don't do that," he said, and with his other hand grabbed the bill of his hat, pulled it off of his head. A flock of stray black baby-hairs, too short to reach the ponytail on the back of his head but too long and thick to stay in place with the hat missing, fell about the sides of his face. "All this time, and now's when you narc me out?"

As fast as Rebecca's mind worked, as fine-tuned to detail and meaning and nuance a machine as ever there was, the meaning of the voice, the face, the very situation clouded her faculties. Nothing matched the images; there were no black slash marks up and down one arm. A thick, dark beard had taken the place of the sharp, wide bone structure. Free from the obscuring shadows, his brow was strong, dark, tilted; his eyes, almond-shaped, bore a permanent squint. Rebecca quieted, and he removed his hand from her face.

"…Billy?" Rebecca asked. Something blocked her breath and it came out as a weak, strangled whisper.

"Ah ah. Daniel," he said, indicating his nametag with a tap of a callused finger. He smiled, as if enjoying having revealed the solution to a puzzle she hadn't first figured out for herself. "But close enough."

"I just—how did you—when? Your…" Rebecca stopped and laughed at her own sudden strike of inarticulate confusion. "Sorry. It's just… I wasn't expecting… you look so… different. Like good different! Not like you… oh, man." She turned a mortified shade of pink. He didn't seem to notice, busy pulling his long black hair from the tie that held it fast to the back of his head, shook his fingers through it until it laid as naturally as it would after being crammed under a hat for so many hours. "You know what I'm trying to say."

Billy just laughed at her, like he was in on some kind of joke that hadn't been shared. "Good to see you too, kiddo. Look—I'm not gonna take much of your time, but I saw you on the TV and didn't know how else to… you know… get in touch."

"At least come in and rest." Rebecca said, her panic and discomfort forgotten under the weight of someone to care for, some wound to mend. "I have this room for the rest of the week. I can get you some breakfast?"

"No need to do all that," he said, "just saw that you were around, too. And wanted to…" he trailed off, "I wanted to say thank you. And… I watched yesterday. You did a good job." The words caught, difficult to free at first. "Not easy to do what you did."

Rebecca sighed. "You saw, huh?"

Billy nodded. "Yeah."

"Not my best outing… but it brought you here, so it's looking better and better by the second." Billy... no, no. Daniel. Daniel looked down, pressing his hands on the edges of his hat. Rebecca spoke again. "How have you been? Its been… I was worried."

"Life's… good. It's good." He took a breath in. "You ever… gone on a run or working during a long hot day and then had a beer? A real cold one, right when you needed it."

Rebecca laughed. "What?"

Daniel looked serious. "Have you?"

"Of course."

"It's a weird way to say it, but it's all I keep thinking of. I didn't think I'd ever get that feeling again. You know? A beer. Or a steak, when you're real hungry and the direct deposit just hit. Listening to music—going to a concert. I always wanted to see Iron Maiden, you know? And I thought I'd never get to. But I went, just in April, when they were in New York." A beat of silence between them. "Guess what I'm trying to say is—you gave all of it back to me. All of that was going to be gone, forever. No more beer, no more payday steaks, and definitely no Maiden. But I got to experience it. Because you trusted me. You're the first person who's done that in a long time." He paused. "So… thanks."

It was a strange thing, the way the air softened, malleable and thick like butter. "Are you sure you can't stay for a while?"

Daniel shook his head, pulled his hat back over the bulk of his hair. "Nah. Don't want to mess up what you've got going on. I just saw you were in the neighborhood, and thought this is better than an email. You know. Little more personal."

"Thank you for coming." Then, "I'm sorry I slammed the door on your foot."

There she was, always so concerned about the niceties, the manners, the hurts. "Small price to pay. Well... I'll see you around."

Daniel turned and left without looking at her. He had never been nervous around women, and "nervous" wasn't quite right for what he was feeling; it was closer to a jumping, jittering emptiness, all else blocked out in the effort to still himself and make sense of what had just happened. He had said his piece, expressed his thanks, and got out of there before something could change his mind. Exactly what he'd intended. Clean. In and out, no problem, no mess. But like all best laid plans, there were pebbles that stuck in the machinery, and they made the thoughts back up and spew smoke; time's abrasive march had worn the edges of his memories round and smooth, eaten away at details that now were fresh, painted over in brighter detail. She was smaller than he remembered, compact and tiny. But more than the physical, he remembered the irony of, despite their size disparities, how safe he felt in her presence.

Daniel waited for a car to pass. It kicked up a great, wet, rushing sound against the rain on the pavement. When his key was in the door, footsteps fast and light approached behind him. Rebecca stopped a few paces away; she had thrown on a white dress shirt and a pair of black shorts. Grey spots of translucence pattered against her shoulders from above and she took a great sudden suck of air, then said, faster than comfortable speech: "Here's my email." She thrust a small rectangular sheet of paper in his direction, emblazoned with the hotel's insignia. "We should keep in touch. More often than once a year, at least."

Daniel leaned against the roof of the car, regarded her with squinted eyes like he wasn't certain he'd heard her correctly, or if he had, he was critical of what was communicated. "You sure that's a good idea?"

"Well, I knew this guy… Billy? Kind of rough around the edges. Lot of baggage. He might have been a bad idea… but he's got this friend who seems pretty nice." She tilted one of her slender shoulders in an affable shrug. "I might like to get to know him better. You know?"

Daniel puffed a halfhearted laugh from somewhere dry and dusty in his chest. "This new guy might have baggage too. You don't even know him. Maybe he just seems nice."

"Well… he drove all the way from Vermont to see me. I call that pretty nice." To his look of confusion she said: "Your plates. And you said you drove all night-you've got dirt all over your shirt. Nobody's just around in their old work clothes at five in the morning." She gestured with the paper again. "Take it. It's getting wet."

"Well…" Daniel said, struck with sudden distrust. Not of the woman before him, but of something important finally going well. Going right. It had been so much time since anything he'd done had worked out in his favor that he'd forgotten what that felt like. Now it felt suspiciously like a rug, plush and soft under his tired feet, waiting to be yanked out and sending him tumbling to the floor. Charlie Brown revving up to kick his football, only to have it snatched away and leave him with nothing but a mouthful of mud and a mind full of wonder at his own gullibility.

Daniel accepted the paper, looked it over. "Yeah. I mean—I can try. No promises."

"Of course." Rebecca said. Her face didn't look like hope or happiness. She crossed her thin arms across her chest to stave off the cold rain as it rolled down her skin. "Drive safe, okay?"

"You got it."

"Thanks for coming. I mean it. This meant a lot to me." She spoke with an earnestness that sounded like fragility. Like presenting something easily broken for safekeeping. Daniel couldn't decide if that capacity for vulnerability after all she had seen, they had seen together, was foolish naivete or the enviable capacity of a heart much larger than his.

Maybe it was both.

Rebecca turned, walked the way she came through the rain. The slight dip of her head craned on a long neck, the way she hugged herself against the early morning cold, the receding of her back into the unknown; it all filtered into place in his mind like a candle being lit in a dark window. His brain threw up another obstruction. Another doubt. That same force, that eventuality, struck against it. Smashed it into glittering chips that fell around his feet.

"Hey," Daniel called after her. It sounded like someone else's voice, unsure and tense. Maybe it was someone else's voice.

Rebecca turned and looked at him, her green eyes wide, blinking and inquisitive.

"You know," he said, "now that you mention it, I am kind of hungry. You uh… have time to maybe go get a coffee? Or… something?"

There was a moment of silence. A smile spread slow and sweet over Rebecca's face.

"Coffee sounds great."

((Showing one of my favorite ships some love :) if you'd like more Billy/Rebecca, I have an entire story over on AO3 that branches off from this one named "Anesthesia". I'm under the same username over there as well so it should be easy to find! Be aware it's a fair bit more explicit than Call & Respond, which is why I can't post it here. lol Enjoy!))