Author's Note:

Hii guys, it's me, updating earlier than I thought. :D Thanks to all my reviewers and my subscribers, you all are so nice!

The ball's starting to roll now…

Settling the Score

She opened her eyes: feeling warm and safe, breathing clean air. Between her slowly separating lids was a soft light. She opened her eyes eagerly, and saw Jill Valentine sitting quietly in a chair.

"Jill!" she sighed in relief, her throat hoarse and dry. She tried to sit up, but felt a dull roar echo in her stomach. "What happened?" she hissed in pain, sliding back down.

Jill looked at her. Her left arm was cradled by cloth: she had probably sprained her wrist. She had several scratches and bruises decorating her arms, and her face was brightly colored by a purple-blue bruise, covering half her face. Rebecca guessed she was in equally bad shape. "Wesker led us into a trap. Brad, Chris, Barry, you and I managed to survive," she answered somberly, in her clear, strong voice. "He ran away. You managed to blow up the place, which is such a relief, but we were attacked by something called the Tyrant: that huge thing nearly killed you, and Chris told me how Wesker shot you. You bruised your liver, fractured two ribs, and sprained your ankle when Tyrant attacked us."

"What happened to you?" Rebecca asked the older women, referring to her face.

She touched it tenderly and replied. "Wesker kept us separated. He hit me in the face," Her expression showed disgust.

Rebecca had so many questions. "Barry? Brad? Chris?"

Jill answered each one carefully, in her meticulous way. "Barry was part of Wesker's plot," her sad voice carried around the room. "He changed heart, though, when he discovered Wesker's true nature. He's mostly unharmed. Brad is completely fine. The coward flew away before anything even started. He rescued us though," she reflected, mostly to herself. "So I can't be too cruel."

Can't be too cruel? Rebecca was horrified at the very idea of it. "And Chris?" she asked, holding her breath. She could hardly remember anything: nothing but the creature slamming up behind her.

"Chris is perfectly fine," Jill's disgust was half amusement. "Besides for a few cuts that needed stitches, he had no broken bones, few bruises, anything."

"He's inhuman," Rebecca rolled her eyes and let out a choking giggle. They were alive. She was giddy: ecstatic. Until something hit her. "Everyone else is gone," she realized, sobering quickly. "I saw Edward and Forest myself."

"I watched Enrico and Joseph die," Jill answered somberly.

Rebecca nodded sagely. "Chris told me Richard—" tears welled up in her eyes. Something about Richard's death was particularly repulsive. "Sacrificed—"

She couldn't finish. The grief was finally hitting her. It was too late to be scared: to be relieved. The moment was past. But now she could fully experience what it felt like to shoot Edward, to lie to Enrico, to lose Richard, to see Forest. Her friends: her comrades.

It felt like a lifetime ago that she had bonded with Billy, had trusted him and let him leave. She touched her lips, remembering the quick kiss of ecstasy he had given her in his relief and excitement. She remembered their good bye.

She remembered him almost dying, she remembered her terror when she had left him for seconds: meeting Edward's undead frame, lying to Enrico, straight to his face. She remembered holding Richard's hand as the poison seeped through his bloodstream, healing Chris as he grinned bravely and unconcernedly, the front all of them had put on.

The façade of bravery was no longer necessary, but Rebecca found she preferred it. As much as she respected Jill Valentine, this wasn't the time to burst into girlish tears of sorrow.

"Are we going to have a service?" Rebecca asked quietly.

Jill's grief was evident in every life of her serious face. Her blue eyes seemed to be a pool of tears. "Irons—" she took a second to compose herself. "He doesn't believe us. He thinks that someone killed the team, that we all went mad from the shock. Barry's planning on moving away, far away, as soon as he can get a house. He wants to be somewhere he can protect his wife, his kids. Wesker threatened them." Jill paused, as if she knew she was rambling. She took a calming breath. "That's why Barry did what he did. But Chris wants to take down Umbrella."

"What are you going to do?" Rebecca asked the older woman.

Jill looked thoughtful. "I might go with Chris: but I might stay here. This town needs someone to tell the truth. Brad's staying too."

They had plans. What could Rebecca do now? She was beyond her usefulness as a medic for STARS.

Umbrella was behind this all.

"I'm with Chris." Rebecca stated decisively. "I'm going to take down Umbrella. From the outside in."

Jill looked amused. Rebecca wasn't offended. She'd gotten that reaction before. "And how are you going to do that?"

Rebecca looked straight at Jill, deciding to trust her. "Umbrella wants to hire me as a scientist." She answered simply. "I'll keep in contact with Chris, and you."

Jill gazed at her, wordlessly disbelieving. Rebecca nodded emphatically to prove her point.

"As soon as I get out," she told Jill. "I'm going to accept a position at Umbrella. I'm going to find out as much as I can."

"They aren't going to make you head researcher of the T virus as soon as they hire you!" Jill pointed out logically. "What are you going to do until then?"

Rebecca was young. She had more than plenty of time. "I'm going to wait," she answered simply, and settled down in her pillows.

Billy Coen had been spying on the Richmonds for three days. He was far from a master, like Ada, who'd followed him for years without him having even an inkling of her presence. But they noticed nothing. And Billy learned.

Anna's mother was a tall, beautifully blonde woman. Unlike her daughter, her stature came from her towering height, rather than any voluptuousness. She shared eyes with Anna, but her nose was a beak. She reminded Billy of an ostrich.

Her father, however, was portly, as tall as his wife, and classically good-looking. He had a sculptured face, as if it had been carved from marble. Billy was impressed.

He inconspicuously went through the streets and saw people he recognized: Rosa, smiling and athletic as ever. Fucking Charlene, always hanging on the arm of some guy. Christ, she was twenty six. John, with a hugely pregnant wife. He watched them too, out of morbid curiosity. Could his life have been like that?

What if they'd been free from conspiracy, Anna and he. What if they'd been married by now: Billy working an average job, with Anna pregnant and bloated and moody and beautiful. Absolutely beautiful through it all.

It wouldn't have mattered if her ankles had swollen, or if she broke out, if she was cranky and craved weird shit. He loved her. He still did. He still longed to hear her voice, and hoped proximity to her parents would cause her to stir.

Billy was walking along the road, quietly, alone. It was early in the morning, and there weren't many people out yet. The occasional car, people calling for taxis, people opening their shops.

What set him off was harmless really. A simple horn honking.

But when the sound reached Billy, it became gunshots. The dew on the street, the cool air, became blood and water, the water of the ocean, the blood of the tribesmen in Africa. The simple, inconspicuous outfit he wore became his well-worn uniform. He ducked for cover when he heard the gunshot, rolled around, searching for the shooter.

Where had it come from? Had it shot anyone?

But when Billy turned, he had no comrades. Not even goddamn Chet. All he could see for miles was plain earth.

So where was the shooter? A sniper was possible: he might not even see it, might mistake it for a goddamn pebble.

So he had to move.

Billy ran, fast as he could, making sure he wasn't an easy target. Fucking snipers. Where the fuck was his gun?

He stopped.

Why the fuck didn't he have a gun?

"Billy," a faint, hoarse voice whispered to him.

He didn't even breathe.

"You have to move forward. Take three steps." The voice coaxed, so quiet he had to strain to hear it over the hundreds of gunshots that were suddenly happening around him.

Why weren't they hitting him?

"Billy…"

He did as the voice had told him and stopped again. The voice was irresistible.

Anna!

Billy woke up with a flash and realized that fucking cards had been honking at him. He'd been standing in the middle of the godforsaken street like an idiot. Fucking shit.

How did he always manage to make himself look like an ass?

He privately hoped Ada didn't know about his PTSD. It was one thing for a girl like Rebecca to know: but if Ada knew, his ego would explode, disintegrate. Poof.

Fucking poof.

Jacob's smiling face peered over Rebecca as she opened her eyes, her head aching. "Rebecca!" he crowed. "I'm so glad you're alright!"

Despite his smile, Rebecca could see the stressed lines of his face. She immediately felt guilty. She had hardly thought about him in the past few days.

Then she realized the ridiculousness of her guilt. She'd been fighting for her life, and she was feeling guilty for not calling her boyfriend?"

"Of course I'm fine," she reassured him, wondering what he'd been told. A field injury, obviously: but what?

"I can't believe this was a success," he confessed to her, his eyes troubled. "Rebecca, those cannibals were crazy! They could've killed you. Do you really think this is the kind of job you should be pursuing?"

Rebecca inwardly seethed. How could he tell her what was dangerous or not?

Surprised by her own reaction, she held her tongue. He had no idea. He couldn't understand. How could she even understand?

But she had a plan now.

"I'm resigning from STARS," she told him. "I'm going to be in Umbrella like Johnson."

The name felt ages away.

His smile was brilliant as it broke across his face like cracking cement, his white teeth bright and the lines of worry disappearing. "I'm so glad!"

Rebecca, for perhaps the first time, looked at the young man she'd called hers for so many years. Why was she with him? Really and truly, why did she spend so much of her life with him? Why did she share so much with him?

She honestly couldn't remember. But guilt flooded her. How could she just end it, with him constantly worrying over her?

He loved her.

She suddenly wished beyond anything, beyond Umbrella and Billy and Chris and Claire, beyond STARS, that she loved him back.

Pushing aside her own emotions, she tried to think about Jacob's. He loved her. She focused on that.

"Yes…" she said quietly to herself. "When can I go home?"

Jacob's young, relieved face beamed. "Johnson said he'd pick you up today. I got here early. Lots of bed rest and everything…" as he chattered, a thought struck Rebecca.

Was Umbrella paying for this hospital visit?

The answer would prompt her next move.

Billy killed them.

He killed his dead girlfriend's unfeeling parents. He tried to justify it by telling himself the world was better off without them, but he knew it was a lie.

He killed two people.

"Just add it to the total," he scoffed to himself. Twenty-five. That was more than two dozen. Billy Coen, serial killer.

He didn't shoot them: Ada warned him it was a bad idea. Loud and messy. Instead, he quietly knocked them out and injected them with a serum Ada had given him. He planted heroin throughout the house, in odd places, so that would be accepted as the cause. Odd, but possible.

The bruises would never appear, so no one would know. The serum would disappear from their systems without a trace.

He had killed two people.

Not a whisper from Anna.

He left silently, leaving not a trace or fingerprint.

Instead, he left his soul.

Billy felt distant from the real world. It didn't feel as if it had really happened. The past few days had been surreal. He could hardly believe it had been days.

Fucking zombies.

When Billy returned to the tiny, inconspicuous apartment he now shared with Ada, a man was waiting there with her.

He noticed she wore a figure-flattering red shirt that reached her thighs, wearing tight black shorts beneath them. The man sat at the rickety kitchen table, a mug of coffee held in his hands protectively. He stood when Billy came in.

Billy merely looked at him, still feeling off. It had been so easy to kill them. He couldn't believe he'd taken two lives.

He suddenly felt an intense desire to go to church.

"You guys are moving," the man told him briskly. "You've accomplished your first assignment, Coen, and so you and Ada are going to go to Raccoon City for your next one."

Billy wondered how he could be so business-like and nonchalant.

The man was younger than Billy himself. His brown eyes and hair, as well as an average frame gave the impression of a normal guy.

But the grace of his movements showed Billy a man long used to this job.

"Raccoon City?" Billy asked, thinking of the Arklay Mountains. "What are we doing there?"

The man looked at Ada briefly before answering. "You, Coen, will be helping Ada hunt for the locations of the more well-protected Umbrella labs…"

"Then what?"

"Then Ada will tell you," the man promised before downing the coffee. "I'm leaving. Be out of here in an hour. The van will arrive in exactly one hour, so be ready."

Ada nodded, used to this protocol.

After the man left, Billy looked at Ada. "What the hell?"

"We don't stay in the same place long." She answered coolly.

"What happens when Umbrella's over? What will you do?"

She looked at Billy piercingly. Then, amusement in her sultry eyes, she answered sarcastically. "If I told you, I'd have to kill you."

Before Billy could respond, voice his annoyance at his ignorance, Ada continued in a gentler tone. "Give it time. You'll know everything you need to know, soon."

Billy rolled his eyes at her glib assurances, but before he could formulate a scathing response, he caught a glimpse of something in her eyes, different from her usual sarcasm and enigmatic responses. Something akin to empathy.

"Who was that man?" he asked in a warmer tone.

She looked at him, and decided it was safe for him to know. "He doesn't have a last name, that I know of, at least."

Billy couldn't help but desire for more knowledge: he thirsted for answers, for information. Raccoon City? Umbrella facilities?

Was everything they did part of a greater scheme? Was everything entangled like a goddamn web? Was any step taken without carefully referring to the previous movement, to how it would ripple the next one?

Billy couldn't continue to wonder for much longer. But hopefully he'd get more answers soon. The least he could get was this single one.

"What's his first name?" he asked her.

She looked at him briefly. They had no clothes she couldn't stick in a backpack, and that was all they needed. He assumed that there'd be everything they needed at the next place, as there had been here. A basic, dingy apartment with the necessities, a fresh toothbrush and toilet paper.

Ada wiped down the coffee cup belonging to the man, and set it back in the cupboard for whoever would come next. "You can call him Kyle," she answered simply.

Rebecca was stuck in a wheel chair and rolled out to Johnson. She ignored the nurse's chatter and sat in the back, mindful of her painful midriff. Johnson looked at her painfully. She wished Jacob weren't in the car, so she could talk to him. She wondered what he knew, if anything. She wondered what she could tell him. Could she trust him?

She wondered what Claire would do. What Chris would do, or Jill. What Billy would do.

But she wasn't any of them, and they weren't her. She had to make the decision herself: she had to make her own choices and live with the consequences. She needed to trust herself, because if she messed this up, she could be jeopardizing everyone, even Billy.

She focused her thoughts away from Billy and towards herself. She didn't see Jacob's smiling serenity, or Johnson's weary eyes in the mirror. All she could see was the future: the possibilities.

Good or bad.

But she didn't even imagine what lay ahead.

Johnson carefully helped her to her room, and closed the door behind her and Jacob.

For the first time in years, Rebecca didn't know what to say to him.

Billy had shown her what real men did, what they were like. There had been nothing between them: romance couldn't exactly sprout life in that cesspool of zombies. But she had relied on him: he had been her rock, her stronghold, her grip on reality. She couldn't have survived alone.

Jacob wouldn't have survived at all, she realized.

Rebecca didn't know what made her do it: she heard that feeling alive was the best way to combat death. She didn't want to feel nothing. Even if it hurt, she wanted to feel something.

So she took Jacob and kissed him, and let his fingers trail hot fires all over her body. She ignored the awkwardness of his shy and eager caresses, and just let him kiss her, all over her body until she felt a slow burn within her skin, as if her very blood was boiling from his touches.

She let him have his way with her, treating her carefully, gently, her sweat making her clothes stick to her body, until he peeled them off. And then, somehow sensing her need for human contact, he slid inside her, not asking for permission, not stopping.

It was awkward, but when he filled her, she felt a bit of the emptiness soothe away. She was alive, and so was he. It wasn't his fault she had gone through what she did. All Jacob had ever done was love her.

And when he groaned into her shoulder and collapsed on top of her, Rebecca just wound her fingers in his hair, not minding his premature finish. She wasn't done, but it wasn't the pleasure she needed now, the gratification. What she needed right now was the reassurance, the smell of live sweat and Jacob's happiness permeating the air.

She sat there silently, Jacob sleeping on top of her, and thought.

And when she cried, she pretended it was only her sweat.