Je reviendrai au tournant de la marée
She stared ahead, not quite recognizing the woman standing before her. Her skin, once a healthy peach tinge, was reduced to an ashen tone. Pale, sunken blue eyes ringed with many sleepless nights glumly gazed back as fingers played with mousy strands of greasy hair. She winced, dropping the towel she held in her other hand into the washbasin.
'Do I really look that bad?'
The medical examiners at the North American BSAA headquarters told her that the pigmentation change was due to her extended stay in the cryostasis- more specifically because of the experiments Tricell and Wesker had done while she was unconscious. Attempting to subject her to Lisa Trevor's fate, stealing her antibodies, using them to perfect the ultimate bioweapon, and using her to spread the very thing she spent most of her life trying to contain- it was all just so much like that sleazy bastard to do that and more. The medics poked and prodded her for hours, keeping her up for most of the night with their questions and lab results. Miserable, Jill tried to appease them and subject herself to their endless requests for blood draws and what happened over the three years she went missing, but without P30, it was taking a far more mental and physical toll than she expected.
P30… Her body both craved and hated it. It burned in her veins, thrumming with every heartbeat and every cursed dose, but gave so much more than it took away. Her body had never been physically fitter and never had her muscles stood out against her flesh as much as they did now. Additionally, her reaction times and healing rate increased exponentially, which was both a blessing and a curse when it came to sparring with Tricell's flunkies and the demon-god himself. Without it, her mind was on edge, gnawing with anticipating at the next hit, being at war with itself until it was time for medications.
The hand dropped, lightly scratching at the scar tissue over the sternum. The irritated site had been bothering her for quite a bit ever since the scarab's removal. It wasn't just the itchiness that bothered her-it was the feeling of multiple catheters piercing her skin and feeding poison into her veins. Ghosts, from a past left behind. Something less than but akin to stories about phantom limbs, only it was paradoxically and simultaneously her enabler and disabler.
A violent thought seized her, and her hand flailed, scratching at bare skin as visions of the P30 device's placement wracked her. Jill groaned, holding her head in between both forearms. Her heart pounding in her ears, her vision turned red and the strong scent of antiseptic invaded her nostrils. Quite suddenly, she wasn't in the bathroom or in the Redfields' house anymore. In her mind's eye, she was lying on an operating table, dressed in nothing but sterile surgical garbs.
"You're saying she can't be awake for this procedure?"
Jill was sure he was frowning- she could practically feel the radiating waves of disappointment. She tried forcing her body into a more appropriate position for attacking, but the only thing she managed to move was her fingers into a clumsily made fist. Jill inwardly sighed. It would have to do. And once his smug face came close enough, she'd-
"No sir."
"What a shame," Wesker mused, toying with the red scarab-like device in his gloved hands. "I was hoping to teach Miss Valentine the values of being more… grateful to those that saved her life."
Albert looked down, noticing the former STARS member tensed, like a snake in the grass about to strike. He smiled. It was as ugly as the parasite that lurked with him and as welcoming as an arctic storm. "Perhaps this can in my stead. Now, relax, Jill."
Fisted hands splayed apart, unbidden. Jill glowered, the mask of hatred briefly changing into a pained one as the surgeons inserted IVs into her wrists. There was enough P30 in her system to render the use of restraints unnecessary with the right commands, but enough to keep her thoughts somewhat coherent.
"We're ready to start, sir."
A grunt of affirmation responded.
"Applying analgesic in 3..."
Wesker leaned over her bedside, feigning concern. The BSAA operative snarled and fought against her own body for the chance to punch his face in, much to his amusement.
"Don't worry. This won't hurt a bit."
"2… 1..."
The traitor stepped back as the IV flow started and the Tricell doctors converged on her. Then, her vision went hazy, as if she were underwater, and she remembered no more.
She awoke sitting on the bathroom floor. Chris's urgent knocking shook the door in its frame. Jill smiled; she almost forgot how nigh-on freakishly muscled he had gotten since her 'death' almost three years ago.
"Hey, are you alright in there? You've been in there for 40 minutes, and Claire-"
She figured she must have replied, because he tried talking with her through the thick slab of pine before leaving. Jill waited until the padding feet disappeared down the hall before getting up. In her peripherals, she noticed movement in the mirror. Cautiously, her eyes trailed upward, meeting the hidden gaze of her ex-captor.
There he was, right behind her!
In the blink of an eye, she whirled around and kicked. Powerful, well-practiced muscles carried the roundhouse, but the leg was left harmlessly flying through the air.
"Getting antsy, are we?"
The heel touched the floor for the briefest of moments, and then carried the lithe body into a high kick. Nothing.
"Too slow. I expected better from you."
Jill looked back. He wasn't there anymore.
The operative scowled, shaking her head to clear the memory and remind herself that he was unmistakably and irrevocably dead. She made a mental note to ask Dr. Warbler to up the dosage of her medication. 'Damn that man.'
She stripped, careful not to tangle her newly installed line with Claire's borrowed clothing- her stuff was in the back of a storage warehouse somewhere in the city. Gently, Jill applied the plastic Tegaderm cover over her PICC line and stepped in the shower. The first thing she wanted to do when the helicopter landed outside the BSAA's West African branch was to eat proper, cooked food, but her system outright rejected the sustenance. It wasn't that she hadn't eaten at all during her imprisonment in West Africa per say, but the fact that Wesker preferred IV sustenance because it meant less time wasted doing such trivial human things. In fact, Jill wasn't sure he ate at all after the mansion incident.
The doctors originally suggested inserting a Hickman catheter where that thing was, but later changed their recommendations to a PICC line after examining the site for themselves. Seeing as the area was healing slower than expected and was a large risk for infection, Jill agreed. Hickmans were more permanent than PICC lines, and the stubborn woman wanted little to do with them once her system was retrained to accept orally ingested food again. Privately, she believed it would keep the visions away- at least, until they were resolved with the therapist Claire practically dragged her to see the moment they exited the airfield.
She showered, relishing the feel of hot water in gods knew how long. Right now, Kijuju felt like eons ago, and not even the blood-loss induced dizziness could pull her away from the intoxicating feeling of cascading water. In the corner of her eye, she noticed body wash and a loofah with a small note adorned with the younger Redfield's writing. Jill grinned, obliging by fastidiously washing away the accumulated dirt and grime and noting with vested interest the brown swirls that ran down her legs and spun in a whirlpool into the dark recesses of the plumbing.
She didn't know how long she stayed in the shower, but the water ran tepid and unpleasant to her wounds. Jill cut off the water supply and stepped out, securely fastening a beach towel around her before venturing outside. To her pleasant surprise, nobody was there. She could hear the buzzing drone of the TV as it switched to a commercial, Chris talking with Rebecca on the phone, and Claire leaving the building. However, that wasn't the only thing what she was looking for.
"Gotta face what you want to forget to move on, I guess… Here goes nothing..."
Jill briefly shut her eyes and reopened them, sighing in relief when her former boss failed to materialize in front of her.
Grimly smiling, she tiptoed to the guest room, still watching, still waiting for any sign of him. Her current shattered state was the unfortunate byproduct of a not-so-secret war, a twisted plot by an equally twisted "god" to end humankind. She considered it disgraceful. As one of the core founders of the BSAA, she was the very representation of the ideals of the BSAA and an exemplary role model to those that heard her story, an unstoppable courageous woman. Jill wanted to go back in time, back before the suicide dive and the ill-fated trip to the Spencer estate. She wanted to believe she was still the same Jill as the Jill from three years ago, untouched and optimistic despite everything that happened to her. But at the end of the day, all she was was a broken soldier currently on indefinite leave who could do little but carry on and try to leave the past behind as best as she could.
As the former STARS member closed the door and shut herself off from the rest of the world, she swore she could hear his soft laughter reverberating from the walls.
AN: Might make this into a 3 part series once finals are finished even though I think the Jill post-Kijuju thing is a bit overdone (Planned schedule published in profile). For now, consider this my first foray into the RE fandom.