The children hadn't been allowed to eat dinner with the rest of the adults when the fire of the center camp flickered the shadows of the early evening. After the attack earlier in the day, some of the adults had even elected to eat within their homes.

Jill Valentine sat leaning back once more on her hands in the dirt with her belly full, her face warm from the fire, and with a curling whisper that lingered in her chest for a yearning she was trying to figure out how to convey even in the privacy of the semi-dark.

Tonight was Pedro's night to tell a story and currently he sat with his lilting voice carrying across the planes of the tiny village. His eyes were lit with something she could view as joy and he carried the natural fluidity that came with the passion for the storytelling.

With her eyes touching on the faces present, Jill watched the interest flicker over the faces she knew and those she was still taking time to get to know.

Alex, David, and Alonzo sat across from her and Carlos. Each of them seemed to watch Pedro with the same touch of peace in their features.

It was repeatedly dawning on her that all of these men she had met next to Carlos in the slaughterhouse had their own way about them. As all soldiers did, she knew, but still she found herself shocked at the gentle nature that poured from men who had been openly tortured only a few days ago.

War and the delivery of violence in armed conflict was historically braced on the shoulders of men. Whereas the current times found women in their roles within the military or in fighter positions, the fact remained true that both the men and the women in the village had inherited a wound from those that came before and still that wound wept even today.

"We were born in this conflict and it's all most of us have ever known. How do you tell people to stop killing each other when they're trained to kill you first?" Alonzo's previous words were whispering in and out of Jill's head while she watched Pedro speak to the captivated faces around him.

She still didn't know the answer to that question and maybe she never would but when she caught Carlos leaning forward from his position next to her, she caught his eyes and let her rare smile slip.

His dark eyes were catching in the fire light, and she felt her own head tilting to take in the beauty of the man before her.

Carlos was a good-looking man. There'd be no denying it and certainly no admitting it without dealing with a portion of his ego she suspected was only a ploy he administered along with the constant good humor in such dark circumstances. Jill suspected that Carlos cared not for how he looked most days. The face he currently wore had been changed in an attempt to hide himself from his country hunting him down back before 1998.

No, what made her smile was beneath that face and inside the actions he bore as a sentinel to those he protected around him. Brought up in war, Carlos and the rest of his men had given more than any family should have to while grasping at the frayed ends of a peacetime they only knew stories of.

A better life is what they chased.

Pedro's voice rose as his story began its climax and Jill smiled wider at the brow that rose on Carlos' face while he watched her.

Jill had only known a fragment of the loss that this small village had but still she wanted to keep allowing it to cradle her night after night. A purpose developed soil-deep in a community who could show her what more life offered elsewhere; stories told under the stars and in the comfort of unity every single person seemed to convey for one another.

She had vowed herself to Carlos and she had meant it but in truth, she had been too much of a coward to tell him about the deeper meaning beneath it. She had blamed Alonzo's earlier interruption, but she knew better about herself; she could have told it to him at any point, but she was too afraid. Even though she suspected he may be more receptive than she gave him credit for, Jill Valentine was afraid to tell her growing feelings to the man who ate her imperfections whole in each gaze he held against hers.

Feet were scraping the dirt around them, and Jill realized that the story had ended. Still Carlos was holding her eyes, not moving while everyone rose around them.

Eyes that seemed to dare her to take what she was so afraid of.

Could he see it?

When Carlos gave her that slow smile that was starting to become his signature look for her, she finally broke his stare and laughed quietly before she looked toward her fidgeting hands.

His hand was lowering down for hers when he finally stood and approached her. Jill glanced back up at him and held his look once more when she took his palm and rose to her feet. Standing to her full height, she glanced to the side and caught Alonzo's gaze from across the fire.

His hands were in his pockets, and he seemed to have been watching them for a while. When he noticed her attention, his mouth quirked, and he gave her a sassy little wink.

"We're going to need to depart in the early morning and I'm determined to have a quiet evening unless you had other plans?" Carlos' voice brought her focus in front of her again.

"Depends," Jill answered tilting her head up toward his height.

"On?" The corner of his mouth was lifting in the sly smile she was also becoming very familiar with.

Jill gave him a tiny tug with her hand while she began to lead them toward the path that would bring them back to his home.

"On how quiet you're aiming to be," she boldly answered.

When his hand tightened in hers, she knew she had elicited the right response.

Letting her teasing remarks drop for now, she instead asked him about their journey for the next morning.

The resistance members of Peru and Colombia would be meeting in less than two days, and Carlos hadn't even hesitated to say yes when Jill asked to join him in representing Bolivia earlier.

Jill hadn't expected him to agree so quickly, given what had transpired earlier in the day, but in the end she wasn't entirely surprised. Carlos had become more protective in the short hours of their developing relationship, but he seemed to have not forgotten what she could do on her own and what she had done to rescue him and his men.

He was still a man in his own war who respected her position as another soldier and as a capable agent in modern warfare. It showed in his very eyes when he regarded her at times.

"What do I need to know about your members?" Jill asked while she thought further about the actions she took at the slaughterhouse.

"Each of us work closely with different areas of the local government. Believe it or not, cartel members are bad for business and reelection. That is, if the politician is not paid off first." Carlos supplied easily while his thumb rubbed the back of her held hand.

"I've met with the Bolivian President, Juan Evo Morales Ayma, several times and it's no secret where his support lies when it comes to the resistance." Carlos continued.

"Why is that?" Jill asked when he paused.

"Because he comes from an Aymara family of subsistence farmers in Isallawi." Carlos smirked beside her. "Although, he's got some conflicting interests when it comes to the 'War on Drugs' your country seems to struggle with the most. He still believes in Bolivia's right to grow coca."

Jill sighed and shook her head at the mention of the global campaign before she muttered, "Let's not bring up President Nixon's favorite idea just yet. I'll start to feel like I'm at home with my parents at that rate. So, you have some political backing. What about Peru and Colombia?"

"Peru's president, well," Carlos whistled low before he laughed. "Let's just call him charismatic and interesting. Alan Gabriel Ludwig García Pérez is their president and as far as I know, we don't deal much with him as we do Luis Giampietri, a former retired admiral of the Peruvian Navy and is the First Vice President of Peru. Peru supplies us with the most weapons but it just…"

Jill didn't have much problem reading between the lines when she filled in, "Feels wrong morally?"

"A bit," Carlos agreed. "I've come to accept that most politicians have a dirty backstory as it is and I'm not naïve enough to think they didn't make their own deals with the cartel in specific moments. Money is money and always has been."

Carlos opened the door to his home and glanced at Jill to let her enter first.

"A gentleman and a moralist," Jill crooned before she stepped inside. Her fingers dragged across his chest when she passed.

"Don't forget you think I'm hot, Supercop. To think you were only asking about cuddling not so long ago." Carlos' voice followed her in before he shut the door. "And we'll call it morally grey when it comes to protecting my people or what's mine."

Jill turned her head over her shoulder and watched his eyes make a slow climb up her figure. Knowing the very same desire lay in her blood, she decided to be quick about her intel gathering.

"My eyes are up here, Oliveira," she said with the known jut of her hip and a wave of her hand. "C'mon, tell me about Colombia before you undress me with your eyes."

Carlos muttered something about 'mean women' before he relented and sat in the wooden chair next to the oven to take his boots off.

"Juan Manuel Santos is president of Colombia, and he has his hands full with a few things including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or better known as FARC," Carlos spoke as he struggled with his injured hand and untying one of the laces.

Jill kneeled down in front of him and set her hands atop his before she began to untie the boot for him. When Carlos didn't continue speaking, she lifted her head to see him staring down at her with one of his elbows on his knee.

"We need to talk faster," he said then, voice deepening.

"I'm literally all ears, captain," Jill winked up at him as she slid his right boot off and went for the other lace.

"Alright, fuck, where was I?" Carlos shook his head. "Colombia arguably has the toughest position out of all of us, but in that it also bears the most responsibility with the cartels. This spans back generations and honestly, Jill?... My dick is becoming too hard for me to recount all of that to you now."

"A captain should always be able to maintain the head on his shoulders in war," Jill flicked her gaze up toward him before she tossed his second boot away. She slid her hands over his knees and gripped his thighs. "Keep talking."

"The captain is about to teach his little B&E specialist a thing or two here in a minute." Carlos' fingers reached forward and intertwined in the hair falling over her right shoulder. "Colombia's president consorts with the resistance but it's information only and he's rather careful not to be seen face to face with any of us."

"Mhm, good to know," Jill toned before she leaned forward and pushed open his legs to scoot her kneeling position closer into. Her hands were quick when his belt buckle came undone, and the sound of the zipper was loud between them both. "What about the resistance leaders themselves?"

"They…" Carlos was beginning to pant when she looked up into his eyes and reached into his now open clothing. Fingers closed over and gripped the straining erection in her palm before pulling it from his pants. "Jill…"

"I'm serious. If you stop talking, I stop moving and trust me, Oliveira you don't want that." Jill pushed him back into the chair with her other hand. A sweet smile on her lips before she lowered her head and licked his tip.

"I cannot talk about other guys while this is happening—" Carlos hissed out.

"Get creative." Jill ran her tongue along the bottom of his cock and hummed low when his hips jerked in response.

Carlos let out a long groan when she leaned forward further and gripped his base while she closed her mouth over the head. Jill began a slow downwards crawl of inching him back into her throat.

Carlos was somewhere easily over six feet tall, and he didn't lack the muscle that a heavy weapons specialist required. Throughout their time spent learning each other's bodies, he had lifted and tossed her with ease and that was with his injuries. That being noted, Jill would never tell him that his size was capable all around—she'd never hear the end of it.

Jill worked her hand around the base of him while she began to add gentle suction.

"You'd think it would be as simple as seeing you on your knees for me," Carlos finally panted out from above her. "But that's not really it."

On an upwards stroke with her mouth, Jill tilted her head back from his lap and looked up into his dark eyes. His handsome features were twisted in pleasure and also the yearning she had seen from him before. She showed her approval by giving him a squeeze and taking him further down her throat on the next go. Jill made sure to look up into his eyes when the position would allow it.

The result looked like madness in his eyes, and it had Jill's heart beginning to race.

Carlos' hand was threading through her hair, and he kept it back for her as he gripped the strands in his good hand.

The cunning portion in Jill's chest was awakening while she continued to steal glances up at him while she worked her mouth slowly. The vulnerability and pleasure in his face was hers to consume. He had stopped talking and his mouth was open slightly in bliss. Jill's hand squeezed his thigh.

"You keep doing things," he paused in between an inhale. "That make me want to absolutely own you."

Jill increased her pace slightly and she felt when her own thighs had begun to shake at the deepening of his voice.

"Never mind the rescue, that speaks for itself. No, Jill, it's—" His hand gripped her hair tighter, and his hips pressed forward slightly. "It the way you look at me—the way you search for me in a room—"

Jill pulled her head back and lightly scraped her teeth on his shaft when he paused in speaking.

"Fuck—you're going to—" Carlos was unraveling above her when she continued to bob her head. Jill felt her heart begin to truly race in her own need and in her curiosity.

"It's also the way you look to serve me, care for me—that's old here, Jill." Jill could feel Carlos lean himself back in the chair when his frame began to shake from the demand of his release. "Bringing me coffee, bringing me food before anyone else, trusting and seeking me out to protect and comfort you when you're hurt—"

On another back pull, Jill took a breath and hadn't meant for the whimper to be released from her throat as it did, but when Carlos heard it, the hand in her hair pulled her head all the way back. He released her hair and stood abruptly.

Jill feared she had hurt him somehow when she craned her head up at his towering form above her.

Carlos kicked his pants off without a care to the injuries to his legs. After ripping his shirt away with a quick yank behind his shoulders, he was pulling her up by her arm and crashing his lips down on hers. His hands were hot on her skin while they yanked at her clothes.

"Did you think I was going to allow you to finish me like that without touching you?" He demanded against her mouth when he pushed her pants down from her hips and allowed her to kick them the rest of the way off. "No, Jill, I was already going to fuck you."

Carlos flung her shirt away from them and would have nearly torn her bra off if it hadn't been for her nimble fingers reaching back to unclasp it preemptively. When she was bare before him, he was still kissing her while his hands gripped her waist and forcefully turned her around, ripping her mouth from his.

Jill whimpered again when he sat back down into the chair and hauled her backwards on top of his lap. He was positioned and thrusting up into her before her hands could even come down onto his bare thighs. She cried out at the entry and when he shoved her back into his hips.

"There it is," he breathed into her ear from behind her. "Those beautiful fucking sounds you make."

Carlos was reaching forward and spreading her knees open over his legs before he gripped her hips again and grounded further into her.

A shudder so strong ran through Jill at his voice in her ear and his forceful countenance had that those sounds he loved were pouring from her without care.

"You're so damn wet, Jill," he teased into her ear. "What did it for you? Was it you making me come apart in this chair, or was it when I told you why I wanted to own you?"

Jill turned her head back towards his and when their noses bumped into one another's, the grin he gave her was a thing of absolute hunger. His hands continued to lift and slam her down onto him when he leaned over her shoulder and sealed his mouth over hers. Jill was threading a hand back into his thick hair when he pulled away slightly.

"I'd answer, Jill," he said with the voice that owned her very heart.

"All of it," she uttered and then cried out when he tilted his hips forward in reward for her breathy tone. "Fuck, all of it, Carlos, don't stop."

"I thought about coming back the night I left you at that lake in '98," his panting breaths had returned, and he gave a sound of approval when she faced forward and leaned her head back against him. "I wouldn't have even asked for more than just to be able to learn more about you. You had embedded yourself so deeply into my heart even then."

"I told myself I didn't deserve you and I never will," his lips were on her neck, and he gave a few little nips to her skin.

Jill knew she would only need to brush her clit and she would come in seconds, but she waited as his voice had become like a drug in her system.

"I'd never considered you'd come back for me," he uttered with a groan. "Never considered you'd let me touch you, taste you, and have you like this. You gave yourself to me."

Carlos let her slide down him slowly with one large hand gripping her hip tightly. His other hand whispered down her stomach before his two fingers slid down to where he was buried inside her. He scooped the evidence of her excitement in his fingers before he pressed his digits into her clit. With slow circles, he was kissing her shoulder when she fully seated herself back on his cock and came with the added pressure of his fingers.

Jill arched her back in climax and whimpered his name when she clenched around him. The blonde strands of her hair when sticking to her forehead while her heart pounded out a beat in her chest. The force of it had her legs tightening over his.

Carlos let her rest in his lap for a moment as both of his hands roved slowly over the expanse of her stomach and lifted to cup her breasts while he whispered into her neck.

"You are the loveliest thing I have ever seen," Carlos bade into her skin. Jill let out a vulnerable sound at the pure honesty in his voice when he spoke. "But I thought that about you back in Raccoon City when you were covered in wounds and dirt too."

For a few minutes Carlos allowed her to catch her breath and come down from the high of her orgasm. She wasn't able to stop the shaking in her legs, but it caused Carlos to grab her leg and release a chuckle into her ear.

"Get up and turn around," Carlos said after a few more moments of worshipping her skin.

Jill took a breath and sat up with some difficulty. Her legs continued to shake as she followed his command and lifted knee to slide back over his hip after she managed to turn around.

Jill took the sight of him, and she clenched at the heated look waiting for her there. As he sat waiting for her, he was all bronzed skin, hard lines, and hungry eyes.

"You're beautiful," she found herself murmuring out her thoughts while she braced a palm against his hip while she made to climb back fully into his lap.

Carlos tilted his head and gave her a smile that looked like awe.

Physical attraction aside, the way he looked at her was always what struck her most.

Jill found herself cycling her old thoughts.

Carlos didn't give his smile to what he thought was a murderer, but he was holding her accountable for the way she viewed herself. It also wasn't redemption he could give—Because no one could give her those things without her consent.

Carlos was a hope and belief that she was worth those things. That there was a way back to forgive herself for failing those impossible odds. She knew he had also been right; she had never forgiven herself for being a victim.

Presently, said man was wrapping a hand around her other knee to haul her forward back into his lap. When Jill slid back down his length, her face turned up toward his and she gasped into his mouth when he pressed it back into hers gently. Gently, as if he knew what she was balancing in her mind when she took the affection he gave her.

"I did give myself to you," she uttered when she pulled her head back slightly and began a slow pace with the help of her hands on his shoulders. "I am yours, and not just because of how good you feel to touch. No, Carlos, I want everything you have. Including your heart."

Carlos' breaths were ragged as he stared down at her face and helped to lift her once more. Jill buried her hands in his hair and pushed his head back in another kiss while she twisted her hips into his in a slow grind.

When she felt him stiffen beneath her and buck against her one last time before he reached his peak, she nibbled his bottom lip as he moaned deep from his chest.

Carlos' head was still tilted back when Jill came to rest in his lap and leaned forward in her panting breaths to just hold him. Her lips trailed the skin over his heart.

"That belongs to you too," he breathed above her before his hands wove into her hair.

His lips found hers again and Jill's heart beat out the words that were as true as anything she had ever known.

After a few minutes, Carlos picked her up and carried both of them to the bathroom to clean up.

Jill paused and lifted her eyes to his and those words found themselves working up her throat when he sat her down on the counter in his bathroom. She saw when a different smile came to Carlos' mouth then.

He watched her like a hunter that knew what he had caught. With the patience of a man who had been through hell and back for others, he seemed to wait for her own arrival.

Once finished with the cleanup, Carlos made to turn from her, but Jill caught his good hand gently and stopped him in the doorway. When he lifted those dark eyes to hers, her breath caught.

She had come here for him, a version of him and what she had found was something worth so much more.

Her mouth opened and closed once when fear curled around her heart.

Did he understand? Did he know?

"Carlos," she whispered. "I…"

"You finally going to tell me, Jill?" he asked when warm hands were running up her arms before collecting beneath her jaw, his thumbs pressing gently on her chin.

"Didn't you hear me earlier? Old rules," he murmured, kissing her gently. "It's in the actions, it's in the looks, and it's in everything you do. Tell me, Jill. Don't be afraid."

Through the streets of Raccoon, she had followed him. In the arms of war, she had trusted him.

They had departed as near-strangers that knew the other's heart and conviction. Her with redemption and vengeance at her back and him with a home that still needed him.

His memory had saved her from madness, but his current presence had penetrated the deepest sense of her recovering identity.

"I wanted to know more about you a long time ago, Carlos. When I was at my worst, I recalled you above anyone else. From that, I fell in love with the memory of a man who was more genuine with me than anyone else had been since and after the encounter. In the last few days, I've done so again while I've learned who you've become and who you are in your home." Jill spoke at last. "I've fought for you; I've vowed to protect you and your home. I've asked you to be mine…"

His palms lowered to rest on the counter on either side of her knees while he watched her face. That hunger that lived between them shined brighter and brighter with every word she said.

"And I need you to know that I'm falling in love with you," Jill let the words break free. "In love with you, not the version of you I created after so many years, but the one in front of me. I love your loyalty. I love this place that makes you who you are and what you value, and I love who you've become."

The crinkle of Carlos' eyes and the true smile he gave her then was something she'd remember for years to come.

"I told you all of it was yours, Supercop," Carlos said, clasping her hand on the counter. "I fell for you years ago."

Jill slid from the counter before she slipped her arms around his neck and pressed in close.

"Just like that, huh?" she uttered at the simplicity that the truth made her feel.

Carlos laughed in response and lifted his shaking hands to cradle her face when he responded, "I haven't found a strong enough word for what I feel for you, but yeah, we'll settle for the easiest one. I do love you, Jill."

"Well, good, 'cause I was getting tired of dropping hints," she leaned forward to kiss his lightly bearded cheek. "How many times does a girl need to save you to get your heart, Carlos?"

"Pretty sure you had it when you told me to fuck off about that fire in the alleyway, but who's even counting anymore?" he asked.

Jill opened her mouth to retort but he cut her off.

"I also told you I wouldn't leave you in a cold, cruel, Carlos-less—"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, don't say it."

His booming laugh was echoing in the bathroom before she shut him up with another kiss.

"Are you familiar with the story of Jonah and the whale?" Jill asked the next morning when their truck was bouncing along the trail towards their meeting destination of Ayacucho, Peru.

The dust trail of Alonzo's jeep followed along behind them while Carlos' vehicle led them further away from their village. Madris hadn't been pleased about their departure, but she had seen them all off, nonetheless. The look she had given Jill before they left had been all too clear without someone to translate.

Protect them.

"Guy forsakes his mission, runs, gets punished by God on the sea and gets swallowed up by a whale, right?" Carlos' voice came from beside her.

"Essentially." She nodded while brushing her blonde hair behind her ears.

"Why? You drownin' today?" Dark eyes cutting to hers.

"Not today, no," she countered, and he quirked an eyebrow at her before he rested an elbow on the driver's side door. "But I had been waiting for a 'whale' to swallow me for a long time."

"You ever considered being your own whale?" Carlos turned his eyes back toward the road, but his head was still slightly angled toward hers.

"As in to save myself? That didn't work out so well," she gave him a pointed look.

"Save, prolong, whichever you prefer. Rarely is anything ever so cut and dry like in those books. I like religious stories and their take on moral lessons, but they fail to talk about the in between; the variables. The sacrifices made when man's evil becomes more complicated than that age had ever seen." Jill was lifting her own brows as he spoke.

"You often save yourself, Carlos?" Jill asked curiously.

"No, I often drown myself." One of his hands lifted from the steering wheel to clasp her leg while she thought about the meaning behind that.

"Sounds like you might need the whale once and a while." Jill wound her hand around his.

"You volunteering, Jill?"

"What are cute little blonde nurses for?"

Carlos flashed a grin at her and gave her a shrug before he said, "Oh, lots of things, apparently."

Jill continued to hold his hand while she considered the landscape before her and the one they may soon be facing.

The resistance members had called a meeting to talk about the fall of Marcos Lehder and the information that Carlos now held on the entity known only as the Blood Alliance. Carlos had said it a few times and each time it had caused a twitch in the back of Jill's mind. The name was familiar, but it felt off.

That S.T.A.R.S. and the BSAA were unique both in their circumstances, but Jill hadn't been too far removed from the world beyond. Raccoon City had been a town like any other. You'd find substance abuse issues in any city in the United States and with that, most drugs could be traced back to the overland flow through the San Diego border to Tijuana or the El Paso border to Juarez. Maritime smuggling was still common and still viable but had unique challenges as any shipment with the variables that came along with sea transport.

Most of the U.S. imports of drugs come from Mexican and South American drug cartels. Only a few other countries even came close to the impact seen from America's borders. Throughout the 20th century, narcotics other than cocaine also crossed the Mexican border, and met the US demand for alcohol during the 1920s Prohibition, opiates in the 1940s, marijuana in the 1960s, and heroin in the 1970s.

The Drug Enforcement Administration or the DEA as most Americans knew it, had a long history and mission to stop the sale and trade of illicit drugs. However, America also had a hand in its own downfall. Politicians had made their own deals, created stigma around substance abuse, cultivated prison sentences by state that discriminated against minorities, made access to recovery programs difficult under the prices of insurance companies—and the list would go on.

Jill hadn't been far from it, but she had instead focused on a different form of manmade evil: Bioweapons.

As she sat there gazing out at South America's landscape, Jill knew there was something that she was missing and admittedly it didn't help that she had been far removed from world events after her escape from Albert Wesker.

"I killed those men," Jill spoke into the comfortable silence that had settled in the truck.

She felt Carlos' eyes on her before he squeezed her hand he still held in his.

"You did," he agreed quietly.

"I enjoyed that." She gave her voice to the truth. "You asked me a few days ago if I enjoyed killing the innocent in Africa. I didn't, Carlos. I don't know how to reconcile that yet but those men in the slaughterhouse? I did enjoy that and I—"

Jill grimaced and turned her face away.

"Which ones?" Carlos asked. "The ones upstairs that were raping the women they took before they killed them, or the ones who were torturing kids and recording it? There were also the ones downstairs putting my men through meat grinders, so you'll have to be specific."

Jill turned her eyes back at his hardening tone.

"All of them," she declared with that malice in her eyes once more.

Carlos met that look and although he didn't smile, Jill saw an answering call in his features.

"I'm a—was a police officer, Carlos." Jill said. "If it's ever found out what I did, I'm still listed as—"

"I mentioned morally grey once," Carlos cut her short before lifting her hand he still held. He kissed the back of her knuckles before he brought it to his chest and held it there. "Do you know what that really means?"

Jill remained quiet while she thought.

"It means," Carlos continued. "That I have a moral code that doesn't involve the blind servitude that comes from the varying world laws we have, or the religions we choose to follow. It means, Jill, that I've decided some things aren't forgivable and the punishment that follows is something I also choose to allow me to fall asleep at night."

"Thou shall not kill?" Jill asked about the commandment sardonically.

"Tell that to the father whose daughter was raped and killed in front him." Carlos muttered. "What you were forced to do in Africa was not the same as what you did to punish those men. They would have come after our village and the cycle would continue. All in the name of greed and drugs." He paused. "I've killed plenty of men, Jill, and I can't hide that from you."

"I don't need you to," Jill answered while she realized that she was beginning to edge toward a new line of justice. One she didn't think she'd ever consider. "We both did leave Nicolai on that roof after all."

Carlos did smile then and he glanced from the road to give her another one of his looks.

"Yeah, we fucking did." Carlos conceded. "And if the U.S. government ever finds out what a hero I think you are, then we'll just have to utilize those other languages you know."

Jill raised her brows.

"Didn't I tell you I'd follow you anywhere?" Carlos gave her a wink.

"Don't think you're getting out of buying a bed tomorrow." Jill accused while ignoring how her chest fluttered from the sight. "And we're not leaving the village behind. That's not an option."

After their meeting, the plan was also to do some shopping in the city. Not only was she running out of a wardrobe considering the clothes she had destroyed since coming to South America, but she had been quite serious about abolishing the couch as their main bed.

"I would never," Carlos shot back with a mock-scandalized look on his handsome face. "Especially when you have such noble reasons for redecorating our little home on the prairie, Rhamnusia. And you're right, I probably couldn't leave that village behind again but the fact that you feel that way too…"

The hand he had holding hers to his chest lowered to his lap and he chose not to let go.

Our home he had said.

Jill felt herself smiling bashfully and when she tried to hide it, Carlos released her hand and leaned over to wrap his large arm around her waist. With ease, he slid her body closer to his on the bench seat of the truck while he kept one hand on the wheel.

"Valentine, had I known you would blush so pretty over our sirwisiña, I would have brought it up sooner." Carlos' chest rumbled against her cheek as she allowed him to curl her body around his.

She was frowning over the word she didn't recognize when she said, "Our what?"

"It means, our home together. Well, that's a rough translation; I'll explain it later when I teach you Aymara." Carlos pressed his lips into her hair above her and kept his eyes on the road. "I know it's not much. Truth be told, it's just a house. My family home is still under siege, but my true home remains with the people I got out. I just live where I need to."

"I think it's wonderful," Jill spoke into his chest while she settled in. "I'm technically homeless, so you won't catch me throwing stones about someone's living quarters. They rented out my apartment I had after I disappeared and was thought dead. The only legal space I have is a 2.5' x 8' grave that's still empty and a storage unit full of useless things."

The hand at her waist curved up her chest and splayed beneath her chin. Carlos jerked her face up toward his before he glanced down at her from beneath his dark messy hair.

"Your home is with me now, so let them keep their gravesite." He declared.

With her lips wobbling, Jill wasn't ashamed when she leaned her head back into his chin, clutched his wrist, and let her tears for a new home fall while they continued down the road.