Author's Note:

Hey again guys! So to all my readers: thanks for all the reviews, favorites, and subscriptions! I was talking to my friend about the fic and she mentioned that calling this a "Billy/Rebecca" fic is a teaser, since I've been shoving them off with other people since the beginning of the story. But thanks for staying with me so long anyway! I'm trying to make this story lifelike, realistic, and in the actual Resident Evil world, Billy and Rebecca didn't magically fall in love and live happily ever after in a zombie infested world.

But obviously, they have a connection. I wanted to make this seem as if it could be an actual plot that Capcom could make. As if this is the true storyline. It's M for a reason, and I'm glad it's so long. This is the longest story I've ever written, and I'm really proud of it! I'm working hard on it, but I'm on Jill Valentine right now as my favorite character, instead of Billy, so it's harder than before to write him. But I still want to do so much for this! I haven't even completely decided. I had something totally different for this chapter but sometimes when my fingers flow over the keyboard, things beyond my control can happen lol.

Thanks for reading guys!

Finality.

"Billy," the sultry tone woke him, roused him from fitful nightmares. A vision of Anna, grotesque and rotting flashed before his eyes. He shook his head, trying to clear the image. Even the thought made him nauseous. The desecration of her body sickened him.

"Ada?" he whispered, a paranoid superstition cautioning him to be quiet.

He tried to focus on her face peering over him intently.

"Wake up," she coaxed him. "This is important."

"What?"

"John is missing."

"John?"

"An important contact."

"The one you're sleeping with?"

"Let's call him a boyfriend. Get up."

Billy rolled over and pulled on his shoes, which were strategically placed next to the bed. Ada had warned him that the time was coming. It was his turn to do something useful. He didn't know what Ada was up to: but he had a job to do now. He thought fleetingly of his mother.

A siren wailed in the night. Ada looked alarmed. "Let's go." She urged him.

He stood and followed her out the door. He grabbed his gun and shoved it into the waist of his jeans, hiding the bulge with his coat.

"The police station," she told him.

She'd meet him there.

Billy jogged as inconspicuously as possible, keeping a watchful eye. Kyle had come and warned him about others watching them. Ada had seemed alarmed, and that's when she mentioned John.

It had been the first Billy had heard of the man, but Ada explained he was her connection into Umbrella. She had been searching for him when she found Billy in the Arklay.

She had begun to explain things more clearly.

Billy hoped that meant she trusted him.

He reached the police station in fifteen minutes. It wasn't closed, but it was quiet. Billy snuck in through a hidden entrance through the sewers. He disgustedly lit matches, kicking away rats. This fucking city and its goddamn rats. Jesus.

He made his way quietly from room to room, hoping the stench of the sewage system didn't follow him. His target was moving around, talking. The weight of the man disgusted him: what he knew about him made it worse. He was a bluff brown man with a love of money and sticky fingers.

Accused rapist, embezzler, and informant for Umbrella.

Chief of Police, Brian Irons.

Billy was so concerned with Irons, he didn't notice the man behind him until the rash-covered, pale face was inches away from his neck…

"Johnson!" Rebecca screamed.

Time was distorted.

Feet came pounding closer, comforting. Familiar.

At the sight in front of him, Johnson considered running. It was over. Umbrella had gone too far.

He considered leaving Rebecca, for a single, solid heartbeat.

He rejected the idea the instant the creature groaned and turned menacing eyes towards him. Jacob had been a gawky, gangling boy. This was a creature awkward and slow and dangerous. His touch didn't bring death: it brought infection.

"Run, Rebecca." He said calmly as the jolting walk started towards him. "Go to the police station. No one can doubt you now."

She looked at him blankly, her green eyes hazy with distress. "Johnson…" she was poised for flight. Yet she couldn't bring herself to leave without him. Despite anything, everything that had happened, she couldn't leave him. He held keys to her past, to the present, to the future. All the whys, all the whos, all the answers were his. She might never discover the answers if he sacrificed himself. She couldn't bear to let it happen.

Jacob moaned, a spine chilling, blood curdling groan that echoed in her teeth.

Johnson looked at her, resignation in his eyes. "Go, Rebecca."

Then he was down, screaming. Jacob hunched over him, and Johnson fought. Not to try and stop the inevitable, but to buy her time, to run. Because he knew she was rooted to the ground, staring, broom in hand.

Rebecca quietly walked out and locked the door behind her.

Then she started to run.

Billy turned around at the cool, foul scent reeking at his neck, ducking in time for the teeth aimed at his jugular to snap at air.

Billy looked at it.

Deceptively, the creature was slow and easy to avoid.

But the horror wasn't the creature's speed or skill. It was a mutation, a sin against humanity. It was a mockery of life. It was a graveyard terror come to reality.

Billy's shock was greater than anything. After all he thought he'd left behind, he had only fallen right into another trap. He was destined to never escape.

To aim and fire was to create a commotion, to jeopardize his mission. To not, was to die, to risk the lives of innocents who had nothing to do with anything.

His target was Irons. Not an anonymous man who had the misfortune of infection.

Christ, infection.

T.

One infection meant others.

He blew a hole in the creature's brain and ran to hide.

Rebecca's thought process completely stopped as she ran. She catalogued everything she saw in her mind, stored away for later. She had a stitch in her side. She couldn't breathe. She was sweating. Her hair was greasy, her clothes slipping from her wasting frame.

She witnessed two car crashes and five zombie children.

Beyond functioning, she avoided the children.

One little girl was maybe five years old, a teddy bear backpack strapped to her, her blond hair tangled and red with blood.

Rebecca saw a flash of her face, a missing tooth in the front, flesh hanging from her mouth, dark and cocoa colored, in contrast to her pale white and red complexion, riddled with a rash and the pallor of death.

Of infection.

Safely arriving at the police station, she sat, gravel grinding into the seat of her pants. Tiredly, she closed her eyes, trying to gather strength to face Irons, when she heard a bellow beyond any terror she had ever felt in her life.

"STARS!"

Lifting the phone from the cord, Irons grumbled onto the line. "What?"

"We need STARS!" a voice frantically cried over the line.

Suspiciously, Irons snapped back. "STARS was dissolved!"

A scream later, the dial tone beeped. "Sonovabitch," he muttered, irritated at the constant streams of calls that had been flowing in for the past hour. "Goddamn crank-calling kids."

Again, the phone's loud jingle broke through his concentration. "Help!" the voice begged abruptly. "Where's STARS?"

Irons hung up, ready to disconnect the phone when another call came through.

"WHAT?" he roared, hoping to intimidate the caller.

"Zombies!" a sobbing voice broke through the line, before going dead.

Irons listened to the dial tone, a sudden realization sinking into his heart. It hadn't been crank callers, it had been real people.

Dying.

A smile broke across his face. Playful. Predatory.

He wasn't a stupid man by any means: he knew when to accept Umbrella's offers, and when to begin backing away. He'd been informed somewhat of their going-ons, but when STARS had returned with the outlandish story, he'd contacted his source.

Stifle the story, the man told him. Irons obeyed, piecing together enough information to understand what had happened.

If it was happening again, he'd simply play around a bit, then take his leave. His men could subdue the outbreak in danger zones. He could stay right here in his office, until he decided what he wanted to do with this dangerous… delectable information.

Billy reeked of sewage. The scent followed him the same way the creatures did. They multiplied in an hour, infecting one another, attacking former allies, eating their own comrades. Cannibalism wasn't a word to be applied to this, because the humanity in these monsters no longer existed.

Billy made his way to the front of the police station, fully intending to get the hell out of there. After that… he didn't know. Second by second, he was trying to improvise. The very appearance, the continued existence of the virus completely tore up his plans.

Survival was the only matter of importance now.

Billy skidded to a halt in the front of the police station, dazed by the sight of a creature beyond his wildest imagination.

The creature slightly resembled the creature he had seen in the facility. Twice as muscular, eight times as menacing, and a hundred times as smart.

"STARS!" it bellowed, stomping forward, clearing Billy's vision.

Sitting on the earth, dumbfounded, weary, shaking and alive, sat Rebecca 'Officer Chambers'.

The split second of relief and incredulity was shoved out of the way by terror.

The creature charged and Rebecca rolled out of the way, scrambling up, scrabbling against the gravel and cement, scraping herself in her frantic rush. She ran inside the police station, barricading herself inside, never even seeing him.

His urge to protect her overrode everything. The creature turned on him and Billy collapsed in the middle of the street, his will breaking. The effort to try and stand, to keep his dignity, his life, was a literal weight pressing upon him. Gravity fought him and his vision swam. He heard gunshots in a distant place, surrounding him. He could not sense if they were close or far, left or right, in front of him or behind him.

"Billy," a soft voice whispered insistently in the back of his head.

He was drowning, battling himself. It was a never-ending struggle to even find the will to live. His instinct was to give up, to fall apart, to just close his eyes and relax, never have to fight again. It would be so nice to just stop.

To see Anna again.

Once more, the voice haunted him, coming from around him, as if someone was whispering in both his ears, but echoing within his head, bouncing around within the confines of his skull. "Get… up…"

The voice was fighting for power as much as he. Blinking sluggishly, trying to get up, trying to clear the blurry image of the monster that attacked Rebecca, Billy forced himself to breathe, and at the same instant, a shout burst through his skull, racing through his veins, a shot of espresso to his adrenaline as Anna Richmond screamed his name, warning him of the approaching horde of undead…

Rebecca doubled over in pain, panting. Saliva dribbled from her mouth, and she was too exhausted to wipe it. Her body was beyond strength, beyond caring. She was surviving off pure adrenaline.

The sight of the bellowing monster had triggered the natural fight or flight reaction within her. The sight of waving purple tentacles, the enormous body, the armored scaled figure made her decide to escape as fast as she could.

Trying to ignore the apparition that had also appeared behind the demon had been even more terrifying.

Billy.

He'd been there.

She saw him.

He didn't exist.

But he had been there.

Chief Irons.

Even remembering what happened just minutes ago terrified her. She was scared. She didn't know where to go.

She just wandered. Avoiding creatures when she could.

Avoiding Irons more.

Arguing with herself internally did nothing. She wandered about the police station. She saw no one else.

Nothing but slowly creeping zombies, arms outstretched. But that was the norm now. Humans were a rarity. What if it was she and Irons, the only ones left?

Occasionally, she thought she heard the cry of a child, or the grunt of human life. But she knew not to be fooled. The second she reached the source of the pain, she'd find nothing but the decaying corpse of an infected person.

She opened the door to the STARS office.

A human stood before her, his shoulders taut. Something about him seemed familiar. "Ada," he began, turning.

Then he paused.

The dark eyes studied her intently. He raised a gun to her. "Who are you?"

She was beyond fear of death. She noticed the walls seemed dingy. She'd never noticed that before. They should've painted the building. She always thought it seemed sort of dreary.

"I'm with STARS," she said, wondering if the creature had been a figment of her imagination, the way Billy had been. If her terror made her imagine the horrors. If she was crazy. Maybe none of this was real. Maybe she had lived her whole life in a dream. She was still a child at the orphanage, where Umbrella was good, where Lindsey was human, where Johnson was alive, where Kyle was a steady source of comfort, of familiarity.

His hand never wavered. His finger was a hair's width from the trigger. She wondered if it would be fast.

Not why, never who, just if.

Not why she deserved to die.

Not who was judging her right to live.

Just if it would hurt.

But then he wavered.

"Rebecca?" he asked, his voice alight with wonder, curiosity lining the previous smooth contours of his face. His youthful face.

"What?" she asked dully. Her name?

He hardened. "I thought you were—"

"I'm Rebecca."

"Don't lie to me," his hand as steady.

She looked at the man in front of her, her surprise yanking her from her apathy. "Kyle," she breathed.

He didn't hear her.

"Kyle!" she croaked, her surprise breaking her voice.

A shout behind her broke both their concentration. A yell. A human.

"Rebecca!" the voice shouted. A masculine voice. Deeply, unforgettably, powerfully masculine.

"Billy!"

Kyle's cry came in unison with hers. Their surprised was mirrored in each other.

Rebecca's apathy was gone. Suddenly she felt light, optimistic. She didn't care how. But Billy was here. She wasn't crazy, but even better, Billy was here.

He wasn't in danger, any more than she was. The old rules were gone. It was only time to survive now.

He burst in the door, cracking the hinges. "Rebecca," he breathed, his voice low and thick with emotion.

He wrapped her in his arms, and she didn't have time to react. But just as fiercely, she threw her arms around his muscled frame, relishing the feeling of human touch, of the sweat and life and vitality that was Billy. He was warm, and she felt heat seeping into her. She felt tears well up in her.

Johnson was gone. Lindsey was gone, Jacob was gone. Chris was gone, Jill and Brad and Barry… who even knew? But Billy was here.

She felt a flood of joy, and when Billy released her, she hurtled into the arms of the astonished Kyle, and began to sob.

"You're here!" she hiccupped, wails wracking her frame. "Kyle, you're alive, you're alive…"

Kyle looked down at the girl who tossed herself at him. Rebecca. Coen stared back at him bemusedly, his eyes mirroring the same expression as Kyle's own.

She shook with powerful sobs, her body thin and fragile. She eventually subsided to teary gasps, and tenderly, he looked at the little girl he'd once regarded as his best friend. This was a young girl who couldn't help but inspire emotion.

"I can't believe you're here," she whispered incredulously. "I was so lonely when you were gone."

He didn't know what to say. Kyle had lost his way with words a long time ago. But he cradled her small head in his hands and looked at her, into her enormous green orbs, the color of celery, fresh green, bright and pretty. But when he spoke, his words were directed at Coen.

"Ada lost contact with me. I won't be able to reach her." he admitted soberly. "I've got a route out, by car." His voice trailed off. "Let's go."

The indomitable Ada Wong, the legacy of Maggie Coen, was probably dead. But it was over anyway. The Organization was over, and all of the agents were freed.

His last favor to Maggie was to save her son from the mess that was his fault.

Rebecca followed Kyle dazed, clutching tightly to Billy's hand. Kyle handed them both pistols, and she cradled it to herself like a godsend.

They reached the car without incident. She couldn't decipher between reality and insanity. Kyle. Billy. Alive. Here.

Protecting her.

It was surreal when they calmly drove out of the city, safely. But then Kyle just kept driving.

She drifted off, still holding to Billy's hand. He radiated heat, comforting warmth. The scenery outside the window rolled comfortingly. The scenery was alive.

"I was searching for her for hours. It didn't even occur to me that you'd be there. Or that Ada wouldn't…"

"Hours?" Kyle's voice was sharp from the front seat. "After you saw the creature?"

"Yeah." Reflexively, he squeezed her hand. She struggled to awaken, but exhaustion shut her down.

"Did you happen to find Irons?"

"No. But there's no way he can survive. I don't understand how you got us out."

"He won't survive either way. And I mapped this carefully the instant I found out. I never would've sent you and Ada in there if I had any idea. We're over. But it's only a matter of time for Umbrella anyway. That was your mother's goal."

"You're so blasé," Billy looked at Rebecca, his throat convulsing, tears making his pitch deeper.

"There's nothing I can do." Kyle's voice was threaded with bewilderment, with hopelessness. "There's nothing I can do anymore."