The final part.
Not that I can seem to stop writing these, but this so far, these are most of the ones fit for public consumption. Perhaps if I make another set, there may be more parts. We shall see.
Disclaimer: Resident Evil's characters, settings, and events all belong to Capcom. The song bits featured below all belong to their artists and labels. I own nushing, I am just over in the corner, scribbling strange things.
Disclaimer 2: Angst angst angst angst Jill and Chris Jill/Chris angst angst angst. Another title for this part was "The Post-Spencer Estate Blues," so spoilers for everything Resident Evil 5 are present. The title for this part came from thelexhex, who offhandedly referenced Excella's "Jill Jill Jill - you're like a broken record, you know that?" from Resident Evil 5 in a comment. It fits.
Rating: Still M. Bad language and a couple instances of erotic vocabulary are down there in the angst soup.
Thank you: To everyone: those behind the scenes, and those reading right now. You look awesome today, by the way. :)
Poe - "Spanish Doll"
This place feels so unfamiliar
And yet I know it well
I think I used to belong here
Chris came back to the BSAA, and everyone bent over backwards to make it seem like nothing had changed.
Which is why he left, as soon as he could. Paper work was filed; clearances were in. Other branches of the BSAA had use for him, and he had use for the work.
- Christ, they put her in the ground. His partner. No body, sure, but they - the two of them - had stood by so many empty coffins or coffins filled with tatters at this point that it barely registered anymore. It was an amazing, odd thought that they would ever be buried fully, that their caskets would be open, that there would be anything left to them but a memorial with their names on it and a mouldering pine box underneath.
Neither had ever specified cremation in their wills. They didn't think they needed to, given how little would actually be left if they ever went down in this fight.
It wasn't that he was angry about not having a body. He was angry he had to do this at all. Angry at the BSAA, angry at Wesker, angry a little at Jill and hell, of course, angry at himself.
So he left. DC had been a place of promise just a year prior, but now it had nothing left. Maybe with time, some of that promise would return. And he, too, would return, if only to pay his respects to that marker.
Wonder if one day, he'd be there beside her, sharing that emptiness.
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Sufjan Stevens - "The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get Us!"
Though we have sparred, wrestled and raged
I can tell you, I love him each day
At first, she can get hold of him on the phone. She does it mostly through texts, because Chris isn't always in the position to pick up, but he's picked up texting pretty well. She taught him, after all. She made him learn.
He had promised her once, in the low light of a European airport, that he would do better about keeping in touch. She did her best to make him keep that promise with every update to technology that came along.
But then he starts traveling. He starts taking missions from each Branch of the BSAA, rather than having them funnel through to him through the North American BSAA or the main HQ. And she knows he's grieving, she knows he's putting himself into his work to process all of this. It's what he's done since they were kid. It's why he ran to Europe in the first place.
Funny how things don't change in eight years: once he ran to Europe on a quest of vengeance! And now he goes to Europe because it is, apparently, the only place to purge himself of his sorrows. Not just Europe anymore, either; he's all over the place. And texting doesn't reach him so well anymore.
She complains to her friends about it, talking about her no-good brother. She complains to the men or women in her life, whoever she can get to stay around long enough to unload some of her problems. She quietly switches to e-mail to keep in touch, and she sends one off at least once a week. The replies that trickle in come back with much more time between them than that.
She doesn't realize how much it's bothering her, though, until she and Leon finally go for coffee. And that's only because Leon looks at his watch once, then up at her, and says, "You realize you've been telling me about Chris for twenty-five minutes, right?"
"No clue." She sinks in her seat, rubs her hand over her face. "I'm sorry, Leon, I just - "
"Love him," he says.
"Yeah," she replies. "Can't help that now, can I? Especially when he's hurting."
(And if I'd had time...
He nods. "Then maybe we should figure out new ways for you to bug him."
"I have always loved a man with a plan." She sits up in her seat. "Lay it on me, oh wise agent. How can I better bug my brother?"
Because yeah, he's pigheaded and grieving in all the wrong ways, and she will tear a strip out of him the next time she gets a chance. But he's still her brother, and even when he's an asshole, she loves him.
Besides, she knows he'd do the same for her. 'Cause he already did.)
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Evanescence - "My Immortal"
Your presence still lingers here...
There's just too much that time cannot erase
"Mr. Redfield! Mr. Redfield!"
Chris turned just in time to catch a barreling intern by the shoulder. "Whoa! Careful there."
She ducked his hand and shoved a stack of papers at him. "The reports you asked for," she said.
"Thanks, uh, Sara," he replied, taking the stack.
She beamed, and dashed off before he could finish, "You could just e-mail these, you know."
But she was gone, off with much more energy than he had these days.
There was the barest tingle on the back of his neck, and then her presence settled on his shoulders, light as a butterfly's touch. "She's cute," came the ghostly whisper.
"She's young," he said, turning back to the elevator.
"Thought that didn't matter." Teasing. Always teasing.
"And I'm not interested," he said, stabbing the button.
Her presence sifted off him, but barely was he in the elevator when she came through the door, arms folded over her chest.
"I'm the dead one, you know," Jill said, eyes sharp on him.
"Oh, I know."
She made an annoyed face. "You'd think it was yesterday, not eighteen months ago," she said. "What's it going to take, Chris?"
He reached up - because he couldn't help himself, even now - and brushed at the outline of her face. "Time," he said.
"Patience and time?"
"To do it right," he finished, and let his hand fall. "We were partners for eight years, Jill. Eighteen months...just isn't enough."
Her eyes lost their hard edge, that narrow look, and became one of sorrow and sympathy.
She faded from view.
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Theophilus London - "I Stand Alone"
The journey starts beneath the stars
I stand alone
I put all my fears to all these years
Swept away they're known
Chris arrived back from yet another mission, and he followed his usual routine: check in at the office; make sure there were no urgent messages on mail or phone; pick up something full of meat and a six pack of beer; go home.
Normally when he got home, he'd eat, drink, and let the mission out of his pores. He wouldn't think about her. He might call Claire, though, if She got to prey too much on his mind.
This time, though, was different.
He bought the wrong six pack and didn't even notice. He skipped right over a message at the office. And when he got home, he didn't relax, didn't check to see what sports were playing or what mail he'd missed.
He pulled out his laptop, fished out a data stick, and plugged it in again. He found the folder without a problem and opened it up, staring at the data the same way he had for the last three nights.
It said that Jill was out there.
And that meant he suddenly had a new mission.
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OK Go - "Let It Rain"
Let it rain, Let it pour
Let it rain, Let it pour
The day of Jill's funeral is sunny, blue, and a little humid. Well, it's DC. It's always a little humid, but as far as swamp city days go, it could be worse.
Every other time he goes to visit her grave is a copy of that day: sunny, blue, and a little humid. Sometimes there's a little more grey than others, but Chris seems to instinctively time his visits for good days. He prefers to see her on those days; or really, this memorial to her.
He wonders if everyone felt as stupid talking to an empty grave as he did. He wonders if they all got over it as quickly as he did.
So of course, the time he goes to visit her grave before Africa, when he has a thimbleful of proof that he might find a reason to tear down this gravestone - it pours. The sky opens, and it fucking drenches him, his gear, and his flowers, all before too long passes.
This is fitting, too, he thinks. No time to talk. Just time to lay his wishes and go.
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Shiina Ringo - "Yame ni Furu Ame"
Whether what rains down on you is rain or fate
It doesn't mean you can forgive it
I'll always protect it with this hand
Keep it by your side
If there's one thing Jill knows when she gets back from Africa, it's that all of them are just waiting for her to crack.
Surviving the Mansion? Raccoon City and Nemesis? Europe with the Zenobia and the Caucasus? Watching friends die, watching her partner grind himself down in the search for Wesker, both feeling that it's hopeless? Waking up from dreams in the dark of the night of Chris dying, Chris always impaled on Wesker's hand, of Wesker's smile and Wesker's laugh as that bloody hand reaches for you?
Yeah, none of that really *registered*. She has always been a paragon of mental health! But two years spent being used an experiment - none of that is gonna come into play to shield her against any of that. She never needed to cope! So she never has had a coping mechanism. Ever.
(Not when she was a little girl and her dad used to sit there with a shot glass and lock, smoking as she worked the picks, that cherry hot brand of it waving close to her hair or her face or skin. No. Nothing from that. Or the Army. Or any of that other training. Had no bearing.)
Chris is different. He doesn't expect her to crack. He has no expectations about it at all. What he does understand is that she is going to hurt.
So when she says, "I fucking hate this, you know," out of nowhere on a slightly cloudy day, just because DC's pre-rain smell reminds her of some of those labs and that was ground into her nostrils - he's alarmed for a moment. But he doesn't pull over and try to piece her back together. He just lets her talk for a while.
He just lets her get out what she needs.
And then they don't talk about it anymore until she needs it again.
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Thea Gilmore - "God Knows"
I think you know I still love you
You're still the brightest glow around
After Africa, Jill learns the meaning of patience.
Patience with the BSAA, with all their testing and verifications. Patience with all the forms, all the red tape, every last bit of bureaucracy she has to endure in order to get her identity back. It's not even her life, really, just her ability to have that life. She never understood the sharp difference until now.
Patience with people, who treat her with a careless curiosity or like a vase of the most fragile porcelain already showing cracks. They don't seem to remember that she was cracked before, that this life she chose has been all about her putting the pieces of herself back together for years.
Patience with herself, and those days when all she wants to do is curl up in shadows under the bed because for two years, they were her best friend. When she has to remind herself to eat because there is no more feeding tube. When she has to remember all the intricacies of being with other people, and when she has to tell herself to sleep some more, because no one is coming to give a drug that will keep her on her feet for hours.
And patience with Chris.
Chris, who she just wants to wrap herself around and feel the heat, feel the touch, that used to sear her skin so. But she has to wait until he's ready for her feelings again.
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Matthew Good Band - "Carmelina"
my filthy mouth
well it hides my clean selves
It only takes a few weeks of them, uh, fucking, for Jill to realize a very important facet to Chris Redfield's personality.
Namely, that he has two of them. At least, that's all she's found so far, just the two of them.
There's the one that's with her at work, quiet and kind, hating on reports, prone to rolling his eyes at Forest and Dewey and standing up very straight when Wesker calls them to attention. He's a good worker, and he's obviously a good guy.
Then there's the one that's with her when she calls up and asks, "What are you up to tonight?"
It's the one that pins her to the door, hand under her skirt, finger slipping so deftly between panty and skin that her gasp is both from that first touch and his touch on her clit.
It's the one that holds her above him, hands clasped, as their bodies rock together and he strains her name between her teeth.
It's the one that whispers to her in bed when the dark isn't quite on them both, talking of things hot and hard and slick, that can often get them going yet another time.
She can understand it, of course. She was in the military, too. You learn to hide what they want you to hide.
And she can whisper to him, right back.
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The Killers - "Romeo and Juliet"
When we made love you used to cry
Getting Chris Redfield to cry - out and out cry, with tears and hard breaths and lumpy throats and everything - is not as hard as it seems. But getting him to do it outside of certain contexts is nigh-impossible. It is not an emotion that takes him by surprise. It is one that he rations out, controls in all its degrees, and outside of that, doesn't let show. That's Chris's way: his heart may be on his sleeve, but he knows it, and keeps a handle on it.
Jill knows this. She's gathered the data over years of the two of them together, put together the pieces of the puzzle, and figured out when it's most likely to happen. She carries tissues. She does not offer condolences. He is crying because he allows it, and she's got that one down pat.
So when she leans over him, rolling her hips against the stretch of him inside her, the last thing she expects to see on his face is tears.
Her eyes go wide. His immediately close. Another tear streaks down from his eye, bright neon against his cheek.
"Baby," she whispers, leaning in, kissing the corner of his eye. "I'm here, baby."
His hands shake as he touches her, smooths them over her skin, and they don't stop. Shaking. Touching. And it takes him a long time, a painful long time, with those touches and kisses, to whisper back, "I know. I really know. Jill - "
She kisses him, and he her, and in the wake of tears comes the frenzy, kisses and touches and in the end, straining against each other, as if they could break through skin to touch what lay on the inside.
They don't talk about it afterwards.
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UA - "milk tea"
Don't hesitate, just hold me
Bring your gentle shoulders close to mine
They choose to be together, and it's not an easy thing.
She's recovering. He's recovering, though people like to ignore that fact. Two years of guilt and self-recrimination, of course that's gone once she's back from the dead. Of course! People are just like paintings; you can just paint over old feelings with new coats of happiness!
Yeah, no. Neither paintings nor people work like that. He knows it. She knows it.
They choose to be together, and it's not all sunshine and roses.
She wants back in on this war they're fighting. And it's still a war. Just because you win a major battle doesn't mean the fight ends. Wars don't end without surrender, and this war on bioterror? No one is lining up to surrender to them. There are no white flags being waved. There are just...less options...sometimes.
And that's not getting into what it does to both of them to know that they're going to be out in the field again. They train other people, and they do their best to prepare them, but the human mind doesn't always work like that. You can't scare someone without making it a tangible fear for them. And that's hard with zombies. Harder than anyone would expect.
They choose to be together, and it's not easy.
But it's their choice.
And some days, like this day, when he comes in and gives her that look, she knows what the best thing to do is. She comes to him and puts her arms around him, and he puts his arms around her, and for a moment, the circle of the world is just them.
They choose to be together. For this, and what comes with it. They choose.
Author's Note: I know better than to promise 'fic again, because then life and Capcom FUBAR all my plots. So let me just thank everyone who read through to this author's note. Much appreciated, as always :)
Ack, and before I forget again - Chris and Jill's shade quote the song "Got My Mind Set On You" by George Harrison in the "My Immortal" response. Which is, come to think of it, more meta than I had been intending with that.