The Bench

"Here's the truth...he was never going to let me go. I wish I'd died the day I'd gone through that window...because I've been dead every day since."

St. Louis, Missouri

Jill huddled on the floor with her face in her hands. She let the tears come, sharp and swift. They squeezed between her fingers to drip wetly onto her knees. If she could get into a human ball and absorb herself, she'd have done it by now. She'd never felt more alone.

She was free. She was back. She was returned to a life where she was "safe." She was terrified of what happened when she left this room. They'd "treated" her, they'd listened, they'd pronounced her "adequately dealing with her psychosis" and released her to her own recognizance. They didn't hear a word she said.

Chris was pulling strings somewhere, he had to be, for her to still be free. He'd greased palms and kept her from the electric chair. Hell, after what she'd done, she was as good as a terrorist on domestic soil. The only reason she wasn't rotting in prison or at the bottom of a hole somewhere had to be him arguing on her behalf.

He didn't understand that part of her wanted to be in prison. Part of her knew she deserved it. She was a murderer. She was a killer. She'd stood above dignitaries and innocent people in Wesker's way and slaughtered them in cold blood. His right hand, his avenging weapon he'd selectively sent her to dispose of those who would prevent his "ascension." Deluded in his final days, he'd been relentless in his pursuit of pure power.

On the chopper, as they'd left his memory in lava and regret, Chris had simply asked her, "...what happened?"

What happened? Like it was that simple. Like it was a single set of words that would free her from the truth. But it had never been a question of what...it was a question of who. Who she'd killed. Who she'd become. Who she was now.

She was still Jill Valentine, but she wasn't. She died that day. What had come back from Wesker's control was a ghost. If she closed her eyes, she could still see the faces of those she'd felled at his behest. They often cried, they often begged, they all died in pools of blood.

Wesker was careful. He was wise. He'd sent her only when he knew she'd stay beyond the reach of anyone who might know her. He had her dispose of those who offered resistance to his great scheme. The first - an investor who'd backed out when he'd discovered the truth of Uroboros had begged and shown her pictures of his children. One was blonde, one was a redhead - two pretty little girls with his eyes. They'd be alone if he left them. His wife had died of cancer the year before. He'd thought Wesker was working on a cure for cancer. He didn't know, couldn't have known what horrors he'd helped fund. She'd spoken mechanically, the mask obscuring her voice, "...Wesker sends his regards."

She'd stabbed him in the stomach and watched him recoil. He'd stumbled into a desk and slid to the ground, cupping himself. He'd lifted his gaze to her in horror and pleaded, "...call for help...please? Call for help."

She'd stood over him instead and watched him die. You never forgot the moment the light left the eyes of a man. They fixed above his tear-stained cheeks and the breath had left his body. He'd jerked twice, body resisting even at the end, and gurgled wetly before he went still.

Inside the shell of herself, she'd been screaming. She'd wept wildly when the P30 had worn off that evening. She'd huddled then as she did now against the horror of it. She'd orphaned two children that day. She'd orphaned a piece of her soul as well.

What happened? She'd lived in solitude like a slave for so long she'd forgotten who she was. She'd tried, at first, to push him off. She'd say she didn't remember. She'd tell him to leave her be. He'd stared at her like she was speaking another language.

He kept saying she'd be fine. He meant it. For Chris, a battle inside your body was as easily handled as punching a boulder. He was a big hero, after all, he'd rescued her. He'd brought her back. He'd liberated her from confinement.

He'd bring pictures. He'd ask questions. Did she meet this man? Did she know who Wesker was dealing with on the side? Did she have intel on where and who was still waiting for them to take down? She'd shake her head and retreat to her room. She just wanted to be left alone. She didn't want to see them and remember. Half of them were dead, at her own hand. She didn't have the heart to tell him.

He'd blocked her from rejoining the BSAA. He'd insisted she take some time to ease back into life. He'd set her up as a liaison for relations. She was to sit in board meetings and make nice with money men looking to invest in the future of Bioterror Defense.

Every night she went to sleep and dreamed of death and blood. Every night she thought about the roof of whatever hotel she was staying in and considered leaping to her own death. Who would care if she died? Who would notice? She'd been gone so long. She had no one. No friends, no family, no one waiting at home for her return. Chris had brought her back to solitude and a new kind of torture. Her mind simply wouldn't relent.

She'd been aware of every move her body had made. She had no control. The last of the P30 had died with Wesker, so proving it's control was impossible. It was her word against a dead man's. The truth of what she'd done had died with Albert Wesker. If they could tie her to all the murders, not even Chris' golden reputation could save her.

She'd been free for three months now. Three long months of her own company and her own misery. She'd done her job, robotically, serving the BSAA with a mindless series of motions motivated by a simple need to exist. She felt nothing.

She was dead inside.

No. She wished she was dead inside. The only thing in her was pain. It ate around her heart like a vampire, trying to drain her dry and leave a hollowed out shell behind. She was one anyway. She'd been one for years. She'd wept inside her body while it went on without her, mindlessly murdering while she'd died a piece at a time.

She stared at her face in the window across from her. Blonde. Pale. Pointless. Even her face wasn't her own anymore. The first time she'd passed a mirror after waking up in Wesker's control, she'd screamed inside her own head. She looked like a barbie doll; she killed like a machine. Even her face he'd stolen from her.

She fingered the knife on the floor beside her. She could slit her wrists and end it. It would be over so quickly. She'd die in a pool of her blood like all those she'd left behind. Fast. Fearless.

Only a coward chooses death, Jill. A weapon has no choice. A weapon kills. You are a weapon.

He'd stopped her from ending it all once. He'd knocked the blade from her hands and bound her right wrist. He'd kept her entirely under the influence of the P30 after that day. He made sure she knew where her place in the world was - at his side, in his control...forever.

You are mine.

He was dead. She was safe. She saw his face in the glass beside her own. He haunted her.

She pushed the knife away with a grunt of anger. She was no coward. She wouldn't die like one.

She was already dead anyway.

She rose from the floor and put on the suit hanging on the back of the door. She went to the meeting. Faces watched her blandly as she offered all the details for the future of the war she'd died fighting. She kept darting her gaze to a curious set of blue eyes at the big round table. He rolled a paperweight in one hand and considered her quietly. HE didn't ask questions like the others, he just listened.

Familiar somehow. She kept trying to place him. She left the meeting with commitments from six different sources of funding. It was a success. It was a good day.

She went straight to the roof and felt the cold air on her face. The dark closed around her. The city twinkled prettily around her. New York in Autumn. A pretty time of year.

Her toes touched the edge of the roof and a voice inquired, "A long fall...where's your parachute?"

Jill froze. She whipped her head to the side. Handsome, she thought objectively, in a gray peacoat and white scarf. His hair tickled his face in the breeze. He'd been handsome in that boardroom too. Not that she cared. Handsome men were a dime a dozen.

She gave him a look cooler than the air around them, "I left it in my other suit."

His mouth twitched, "So...this goes one of two ways. You try to jump and I tackle you, ruining both our nights. Or? You step back and maybe we just stand here in the cool air and share a cigarette."

She hesitated. Had she really been planning to jump? She glanced down at the steep fall to her own release. Maybe she was a coward after all. A sobering thought to know she might have done it.

Jill stepped back from the edge of the roof and turned toward him. He offered her the lit cigarette he'd been smoking. She took it and inhaled sharply, wincing at the acrid smoke in her lungs.

Quietly, she told him, "...whatever you think you saw..." She trailed off.

He finished, "Just a woman on a roof enjoying a quiet fall night."

With relief, Jill studied him and finally queried, "...Kennedy?"

There it was. That's why her memory was trying to kick something up at her. Leon S. Kennedy - the president's golden boy. The other survivor with Claire from Raccoon City who'd made a name for himself in the right circles. Apparently, he was there on behalf of USSTRATCOM. They hadn't officially met, that she could remember now, but she'd seen his file.

Hell, everyone had seen his file.

He was better looking than the pictures.

Kennedy nodded slightly. "So they tell me. You'd be Jill Valentine. A mystery we've never met before now, isn't it? Knowing how small the circle of survivors of Raccoon are."

She shrugged a shoulder. "Does it matter? Here we are."

She stared off into the distance for a long moment. He finally surprised her by speaking again, "I almost jumped after Raccoon."

Her gaze flicked back to his face. He gave her a muted smile, "Yep. Newly minted as an agent. Supposed to be on top of the world. Just back from my first mission...which was a success...and was a total fucking mess from start to finish."

She shifted where she stood and he continued, "I took down the target...but I cried so hard afterward I thought I'd never get over it."

The look she gave him was so bald that he actually smirked a little, "Yeah. Even tough guys break down, I guess. So there I was...a baby in a big bad business. I knew they had me tethered and there was no getting out for me. I figured...I can't do this, ya know? I can't kill people like that. Not even for the good of the nation."

Jill licked her cold lips and nodded a little. Encouraged, he finished, "So...I found myself on the roof of my hotel. I thought...maybe this is how I go out. My rules. My choice. My last fuck you to the powers that be."

After a moment, she whispered, "...what stopped you?"

He gave her a sad smile, "Sherry."

Jill tilted her head and he went on, "I protected Sherry by agreeing to get into this business. I meant it. Who would protect other girls like her if I leaped off that roof? What if, right in that moment, there was a kid out there that no one but I could save?"

He lit another cigarette and the smoke haloed around his face in the dark, "So I stepped back. I lost the right to off myself the second I agreed to protect kids like that."

Jill pursed her lips as her eyes teared up a little, "...kids?"

He blew out a hard breath, "Kids. They're the future, right?"

Jill shifted away to watch the moon, "I don't like kids."

He snorted a little, "Sure you do. Everybody likes kids. Although liking them is irrelevant. They're helpless. They need heroes. Like it or not...we're kinda all they've got."

He was. Sure. He was a hero. She wasn't. She was a traitor. She was a terrorist. She was a murderer. She didn't deserve to rescue kids.

She turned and started back toward the door off the roof. He called after her, "If you're ever curious why...there's a bench at the corner of 6th and Washington. Every answer you need is right there."

Jill kept walking with her brow furrowed. He was an odd duck. There was no getting around that. Why did he care what happened to some woman he'd never met? Why was he up on that roof in the dark like that?

What made him think she cared about the reasons behind what he did?

And yet...somehow...she found herself sitting on that bench the next afternoon. It was simple and wood and across the street from an old building. The fenced in yard was empty at noon on a Thursday, but the breeze was nice so she just kept sitting there.

After a while, the seat next to her was claimed by a familiar face.

She said nothing. He said nothing. A bell tolled on the old building and made her aware it was a church. The doors opened and the courtyard was suddenly full of running and laughing children.

She jerked where she sat. He nodded and mused, "Yeah. It's recess."

Kids.

An orphanage full of them.

Jill watched them run and jump and play ball. She felt her eyes tear up. He leaned back on the bench and told her, "It's easy to forget what I'm doing sometimes. I get wrapped up in the action and the money and the fame. Had my head up my ass for a long time there."

Jill, finally, murmured, "So, why come here?"

"...my Mom worked in a state home when I was growing up. She liked to say being around all those kids reminded her that life is full of surprises. Hell, she even brought one home with her once."

Jill glanced at him and he nodded, "Yep. Adopted. Though I never felt like I was."

She sighed heavily, "So why not just adopt a few?"

He twisted his lips a little, "I couldn't give them any kind of life. Not with what I do. I could retire I guess, but I made a promise to a little girl in a dying city once...I keep my promises."

"...and what did you promise your Mom?"

He blew out a hard breath, "That any time I was starting to doubt who I was, I'd find a bench and remind myself."

They sat in silence for a while until Jill inquired, "...what happened to your Mom?"

Leon shifted on the bench, "She died after Raccoon City. I wasn't there. I wasn't able to see her or tell her I was alive."

Jill gave him a sad look, "I'm sorry...she was sick?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. She could tell he was uncomfortable, but to her surprise, he answered, "She swallowed a bottle of pills."

Suicide.

That explained his wanting to stop her on that roof. He'd lost his mother to it. Jill felt a twinge of guilt and told him, "I'm sorry."

Leon nodded lightly, "Yeah. After my Dad was gunned down growing up, she never really came back as she'd been."

Jesus. Jill turned her entire attention to him. "...your Dad was...?"

"A cop." He laughed once with ire, "Irony, right? He died in the line of duty. Drug bust gone bad. I took up the shield to follow in his footsteps...served one whole day on the force and ended up in this mess."

After a long quiet moment, Jill wondered, "No other family?"

He shook his head, "Just me. No brothers or sisters. No wife or rugrats. Just me...and this bench."

So to honor his father, he'd become a protector. To honor his mother, he'd held onto the innocence that came with watching children play. Moved a little by him, Jill sighed, "...I lost my brother in the Gulf War."

Leon tilted his head, "...rough. Army?"

She nodded, "His convoy was delayed and under fire. He took a stray bullet to the femoral artery and bled out in the field."

Leon studied her profile, "Sucks."

"Yeah...sucks." She blew out a breath, "My Mom died of cancer about two years before that. I never knew my father...so there's my whole sad story."

He leaned back on the bench, "Pretty short story."

"Not much to tell. I left the military after Mark died and joined S.T.A.R.S...any file out there has the rest."

Leon pursed his lips. There was more to that story, but there was plenty of time to tell it. Today? It was about this bench. It was the first time he'd ever shared it with anyone. What had possessed him to invite her?

He'd seen his mother on that roof?

Maybe it was that simple. Maybe it was just his pathological need to save someone. Maybe he was just that lonely. He considered that. Was he lonely? Of course, he was. He'd been busy busting asses and saving lives. He'd lost so much he was still trying to piece together what was left.

Maybe it was as simple as two lost souls looking for a place to sit and just exist.

He glanced at the kids playing. It was Dodgeball day. They slung those balls and laughed and lived. A note of envy hung in the air around him as he told her, "Tomorrow is freeze tag."

She glanced at him. "Oh?"

"Yeah...tomorrow the little kids getting their asses lit up out there have a real chance of outrunning the bigger ones. An even playing field."

Jill felt her lips twitch, "A chance for redemption?"

"...we all deserve one."

Did they?

She didn't.

But she also didn't have anything to do tomorrow.

So? Maybe she'd find her way back to the bench and witness someone else's. She figured at this point...what did she have to lose?