Time Passes Slowly

Wales - 1998

Time became the thing that pushed them. It propelled them into the darkness seeking truths without words. It pushed them into hiding, hunting, and fighting in secret for the answers that should have once been so readily available to them. They knew they were hunted, they knew they were haunted, they knew there was no hope without what they ripped screaming from the shadows with their own hands.

So, they left behind the world and went into hiding.

How he'd used Rebecca haunted him until he finally gave up hurting and start searching for anything else to force the pain of his own guilt onto. It wasn't long before Leon Kennedy got him a message and made sure he had a reason to keep fighting. His baby sister needed him.

He stood now in the cold rain and wondered how to tell Jill what he'd seen.

He wasn't sure how to tell her. How did he tell her?

Was there words here that would be enough?

Jill, Wesker is ALIVE.

Jill, Wesker is A MONSTER.

He keyed himself into the safehouse he'd set up for himself on the west side of the Welsh countryside. It was a tiny little cottage. It looked like a fairy cottage with a thatched roof. It was protected by a fingerprint scanner and cameras. No would know but him and Barry Burton. The only two people aware of what he was doing.

He'd fled Raccoon to find the answers. He'd found Claire to see the truth. Their greatest nemesis hadn't died there in the mansion. He was simply…reborn. He'd become his greatest creation. TYRANT. He was that. And he was loose in the world trying to become something else.

Filthy, wounded, Chris opened the door to the cottage. He moved into the little sitting area, still warm from the fire that Barry had laid for him when he'd told him he was on his way back. Claire was headed stateside to be safely ensconced in the bosom of the government that Leon Kennedy had so carefully set up for her.

She'd begged him to stay with her. But he couldn't stay. He HAD to stop Umbrella. He HAD to stop Wesker. He couldn't rest, couldn't wait, and couldn't hold back until it was DONE.

Chris eased off his armored vest, letting it clunk to the floor in the tiny kitchen. He hissed with feeling as his fingers unbuttoned his shirt. When the sweaty garment peeled off with a squelch of old blood and gore, it was like breathing again. He tossed it in the trash and shifted to the sink to spill cold water into his hands and splash his face.

There was a movement behind him. He turned, so fast, and the pistol materialized in his palm to be pointed at the face that stood in the narrow hallway to the bathroom, watching him.

Her heart was hammering with it. Her heart. It was hurting. He was so bloody. He was so bruised. He was covered in them. His filthy hair was stuck to his forehead over a swollen jaw and blackened eye. His chest was a pattern of bruising and colorful pain beneath the soft spill of hair. He was bleeding on his shoulder and it trickled to the top of his disgusting pants.

The little towel she wore didn't do much to cover the bruising all over her body from her own battles. He'd fought one nemesis…she'd fought the other. Ugly and horrible, it had been designed to kill her. To kill them.

She'd watched it murder Brad Vickers. Vickers, who they all hated, the coward, the idiot, the bastard….it had lifted him and delivered a tentacle throat punch to the former pilot that had sent his body dancing in its final death throws. She'd watched the body of Brad Vickers piss and shit itself in a final parody of life and spent the next three days running toward from her own inevitable death.

She hadn't run fast enough. She hadn't gotten far enough. The Nemesis had cornered her to kill her. STARS - it roared STARS from its rotting face and with its arm that speared into her body to end her. Infected, dying, she'd crawled through the city to try to find sanctuary while she bled out. She'd awoken alive and looked into the face of man she now considered a friend. Carlos was with Barry now, working on helping them in secret. Betrayed by his own unit, he wasn't a bad man. He hadn't known what Umbrella was leading them to do. How could he?

It was horrifying. It was awful. The fevered dreams had chased her and chosen her. She'd lain in death and waited to be free. But she was still here. She was STILL HERE. And there was no release now for her. There was no end. This ended, all of it, with Umbrella gone.

The Nemesis had mutated, mutated, mutated and come again and again. It was relentless, it was driven…it was never going to win. It couldn't understand that she was the nemesis. She was the monster. She would never stop, never quit, never surrender…until it was over.

Barry had told her that Chris was saving Claire. Claire had been taken trying to find him in France. Claire was in trouble. Claire had survived Raccoon City in tandem, nearly side by side, with Jill. Claire…and Leon Kennedy. The sweet faced rookie cop had risen a hero from the ashes of the burning city. He was now working with the government in some kind of Black Ops division. Apparently, he was a genius, a commodity of massive proportions, and a key ally in the fight against Umbrella.

Umbrella wasn't just making monsters with its madness…it was making heroes.

Jill had a horrible pinkening scar on her shoulder where the tentacle had struck, impaling her, limiting her, CHANGING her. She lifted a hand to rub it while she stood there…staring down the barrel of her best friend's gun. She held his eyes and waited.

The gun wavered, it shifted, and down it came to clatter on the table. Chris turned back to the sink and filled his hands with more water to splash his face. "Barry let you in?"

"Are you kidding? Who do you think I am?"

"…the master of unlocking."

It should have made them laugh. They didn't laugh. When had they laughed last? Would they ever laugh again?

"Tell me what happened."

Chris' back was almost as bad as his front. He had slashes down it. Slashes. Knife? It looked like knife slashes. Like someone had played with him and cut him up. God. What had he seen?

His voice was low and gravelly, "Wesker isn't dead."

He might have shot her. She lifted her hand to her chest to see if she was bleeding. Nope. She was alive. Sorta.

"What?"

"He's alive. He survived. He injected himself with some fucking shit and he's alive. He's got the body of Claire's friend that had the virus we were chasing. He's not human anymore. He's something else. He tried to kill me….but then he left me alive."

Jill took a step toward him….stopped. "You defeated him?"

And now he DID laugh but it was empty and pained. "No. HAH. No. I defeated the monster he was after. I did that. Claire did that. But not him. He just…left me alive, Jill. He was burned. It was gonna blow…he could have finished me….he left me alive."

They were only human. They were only people. How did they survive this? How did they come back from it? Each step they took was deeper, farther, another step down the path into the abyss. When and where did it end? This man that had manipulated them. This man that had pushed them together. He'd played them, molded them, poked and prodded at them like experiments. Why? Would they ever really know the answer?

Human, he'd been the best they'd ever seen. What chance did they have now that he was no longer even that? Where was the equalizer? Where was the chance of victory? How did they stop him now? What kind of deal would they have to make with the devil to win?

His back was covered in bruises, in blood, in pain. His hands shook as he gripped the sink and stared into the reflection of himself in the tiny window above it. What would he trade to get the power to destroy him?

Jill saw the cost all over him. She saw it in his eyes as they stared, so tortured, into the rain that tickled the glass before him. How could she protect him? How could she save him? So good, so wonderful, he was so close to the edge of something that would break him and make him lose pieces of himself to survive. She was already there. She was wounded inside. Not from a tentacle, not really, her body would heal…how did she heal her heart?

It ached, it quaked, it shivered raw and wounded within her throbbing chest. She was one half revenge – that bled madness and need in her blood like poison. And one half fear – that wanted to grab him and hold on and run until she could find shelter for them both from what they would have to do now, in this moment, to be strong enough to keep on fighting.

She'd pay it. She'd pay the price for both of them. She'd take the devil's bargain and trade her soul to save him. It was how she paid homage to the man who'd loved the girl when no one else was looking. And never given up.

She whispered now, so softly, "Did you want him to kill you, Chris?"

And that laugh again. That laugh. It killed her. "At least it would be over right? I could sleep at night and not be afraid. I could wake up and not taste his fucking blood in my mouth like some kind of animal. All of my life, I've tried so hard to be the best at everything. And right now? Right now, all I can do is stare at my fucking hands that weren't good enough to end him. He wanted to kill my sister to hurt me. Just to hurt me. Why? Why? I can't understand that. I can't make sense of it. And I don't know how to fight it."

Jill answered him now, so softly, "I can fight him."

And he turned back to look at her.

"Yeah. I can fight him. The bastard. The fool. He gave me all the tools to fight him. He taught me how to fight him. He wanted me for himself right? The girl no one loved. He looked at me and saw himself. Something dark, something lost, something looking for purpose. But he was WRONG. Because I'm not lost." She shifted in that towel and her face. He'd never forget it. Her face wasn't afraid. It was determined. "He pushed us at each other Chris to play a game. But he LOST. He did. Because you found me. You found me when no one else was looking. And it wasn't him that gave me the strength to learn. It was YOU. I won't let him destroy you. And I'll spend every waking minute of the rest of my life finding a way to destroy him."

She is so much stronger than you, Wesker had taunted in that lab, she is stronger than you'll ever be. And he was RIGHT. Because Jill would never stay down. She'd keep getting up. She'd keep going. And she'd destroy him. Because she didn't have Claire to protect. She didn't have anything he could use to hurt her. Not anymore.

He stared at her across the room, breathing. "I can't risk Claire."

"I understand that. Go back to her. Go back to her and live your life. Let me do this for you. Let me do this for her. Go meet a girl and have babies and live. I will find him. I swear to GOD I will."

They held eyes for a long, long moment. "….that's the dumbest shit you've ever said to me, Valentine. I look like the type of guy that runs?"

She smiled a little and her face didn't break. It just…smiled. Turns out she could after all. "You look like the type of guy girls run FROM at the moment, Redfield. You smell like the bathroom at J's Bar."

Oh god.

Cheese and rice, he'd missed her.

Why did it feel like a betrayal to want to laugh with her?

How far had they fallen down the fucking rabbit hole?

Chris shifted, feeling each ache and throb in his body. "Let me take care of that, you stop talking stupid shit about running away, and we'll do this."

"What's this?" She did air quotes.

Beat to shit, bloody, swollen and sore…nearly broken and suffering, abused and used up and exhausted…and he just…looked at her. He looked. And her heart hammered a little in her chest.

Oh.

That was the power of Chris Redfield. It wasn't charm. It was flirting and winking and any of that shit. It was that balls-out honesty that enthralled you. Even if she didn't know he fucked like a freight train – she'd be wet now looking at him. Because he should have looked like shit and instead? He looked like he'd SURVIVED. A fighter. A warrior. And a good fucking could purge both of their demons and cut them loose to heal.

He looked at her in the towel. She lifted a brow at him. And apparently, THAT part wasn't dead either. Laughter could still be felt. And this between them? That was always there. She smirked a little.

"Get your head out of your dick, Red, and focus."

"…side stepping the dick head reference…"

"…..sorta."

"Hah. THIS means ending Umbrella. It's risky. It's dangerous. And it needs to be JUST US. I won't risk Claire. She's out of it. OUT OF IT. You and me against the world kid. You ready for that?"

Jill studied his face. Part of her wanted to drop the towel and mount his filthy body and fuck him stupid. The other part wanted to strap on his filthy vest and march out into the pouring rain to hunt down Albert Wesker to destroy him.

She latched on to the second part and yearned, a little, for the first.

"I'm ready. I should tell you about Raccoon City."

"…yeah. I'll tell you about Veronica. Come with me." He turned down the hallway and she followed him. He hissed, unable to bend down to untie his boots.

With sympathy, Jill knelt to unlace and ease them off. He unhooked his belt and shed his torn and ruined pants.

He rose with a wince and his teeth were the only clean thing in his face.

He said, softly, "Thanks."

"Yep."

It was a small bathroom. Small. He took up most of it just standing there. She stood between him and the heated spray that was whistling out of the ancient pipes behind her and into the clawfoot tub.

The room was moist and steamy.

He had bruises from hip to groin. Wesker had beat the SHIT out of him. She lifted her fingers, just a little, and traced the wet spill of blood on his collarbone. She was…ungodly aware that she needed to step back. That he was too close.

That was the thing that made them friends. It was the thing that bound them in a way. They had inappropriate reactions to bad situations. She whispered, breathily, "….I could use some help too."

And his voice came back to her, so gruff, so low. He watched her mouth form the words. The boil of need in him for her was insane. Months since he'd seen her. Months. He didn't know if she was alive or dead or missing him.

Had he gone so much as a day without her since the moment they'd met?

"Help with what?"

She slid her hand off his chest. Her fingers caught the top of her towel. She might as well have caught his breath with those fingers. It felt like she gripped his lungs in her fists and squeezed. He couldn't breathe in the foggy and humid air anymore.

"I need someone to check my back for wounds."

Christ, he thought wildly, don't.

And she dropped the towel.

It pooled at her feet.

Her eyes stayed on his face. His filthy face. His swollen face. His dropped…and devoured her. The tips of her breasts and those pink nipples, tight and shriveled in the warm air. She couldn't be cold, not here, not now. So, he knew she was excited for him. Her hips flared out beautifully from her narrow waist, hip bones jutting against her velvety skin. The toned and smooth spill of her belly was eloquent and erotic over the spill of perfect thighs and the springy dark hair that barred the entrance to her needy heat.

She had bruises like soft kisses of purple and pink and pretty flowers under that pale skin. He could see the closed and shiny pink scar where something had stabbed her. If he stepped forward, just a fraction of an inch, those breasts would touch his chest.

He said, softly, "Maybe you should...turn around."

"I should." She turned and his eyes slid over her again. The swanlike curve of her neck. The dancer's spill of her spine and back, so smooth, so perfect…bruised, yes, but beautifully poetic to the body of a Valkyrie. Her ass was lush and incredible. There was a fist sized bruise above her left hip that drew his attention.

Christ, he thought wildly again, don't. And then his thumb brushed over the bruise there. "Does that…hurt?"

Jill turned her head over shoulder at him, "…I don't know. Try again."

JESUS.

His palm opened and skimmed over her whole hip. It brushed the bruise. "Anything?"

Jill shook her head. "It feels ok. A little sore but right here?" She took his hand in hers and slid it over her hip. She slid it down her groin…and she put it over the bruise on the inside of her thigh. The backs of his fingers brushed the springy hair of her mound. Her voice was whisper quiet, "That one…aches."

Cheese and rice.

Jill was breathing slow and steady. He was breathing short and fast. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. And this one?" She guided his hand up her belly. The side of it brushed against one of her breasts. He was fairly sure he might pass out from not drawing a full breath. She put it over her collarbone. His wrist was laid up against the side of that breast. "This one stings."

Chris' voice broke a little, thrilling her, "Does it?"

"Mmm." Jill guided his hand again down her belly. She slid it over her hip again and the tips of his fingers passed over the edge of her needy little center. She slid his hand around and curved it with hers over the left cheek of her perfect little bubble butt. The wicked thing that she was. She cupped his hand over her and pressed, just a little. "This?"

"Hmm?" He didn't think he could make words right that second. A sound would have to do.

"This throbs."

His voice was hoarse, "Throbs huh?"

Her skin was covered now in goosebumps. She shifted her hips and the throbbing of his own painful need brushed against the tempting, taunting, wonderful crack of that ass. Damn her. She knew what she was doing. She knew. They both knew. He was filthy, he was bruised, he was wounded…she was bruised, she was wounded, she was hurting…and she was trying to turn him away from it.

He shifted into her enough that the veiny throb of his erection nestled there, snuggled there, between the cheeks of that taunting ass of hers. And he…rubbed. He rubbed against her. Just a little. Just a little bit. Just…to feel her.

Just to feel...alive.