A/N: A huge thank you to my lovely reviewers! And to the rest of you who have made it this far.
DarkElegantGothGirl22: Gran's fun! It was an episode of Criminal Minds that inspired her!
AryaRiker: Funny how the mind works sometimes. I was in a car accident once and all I could think of was missing biology lab. Silly. There's a fic around somewhere about a cat named Albert. I don't know who wrote it, but the credit is all theirs for the idea.
Revising. Sorry.
Valkyrie
I've often seen a cat without a grin...but a grin without a cat!
- Alice
The room is pitch black. He can see without difficulty, glowing hellfire eyes floating in the darkness.
Careful hands delicately balance the three of spades against the jack of clubs at eye level in front of him. His own card castle.
Waiting for the cadaverous sleeping beauty to wake to her monster prince. Waiting for the valiant to wake to Valhalla where she will live forever.
White teeth flash in the dark.
The worthy will be found. The Immune.
Like her.
She is irrevocably his now. Made in his image pale, blond, and ethereal.
Beautiful.
Humanity will never be enough for her now.
Chris will never be enough.
Lips twitch in a smirk.
After Raccoon City humanity would never be enough again. After the screams of the dying, the rending of flesh from bone, the smell of decay...no, she can never go back to the bloated corrupt civilization that does nothing to prevent its own downfall.
Humanity is at its best when faced with its own mortality. The only way to find the worthy.
She is his first warrior. Jill Valentine will become the righteous right hand of God. It will take time. Her delusions will have to be broken, her mind trained.
P30 will be her jeweled collar.
Waiting.
Remembering.
White teeth and floating eyes.
The house of cards grows ever higher.
Jill's eyes are pale blue. Like his own from a time before hellfire.
He has dreamed of ripping those eyes from their sockets. No one has ever been like him, even then.
Laughing and crying as they fell, blue eyes sparkling so near his own. His face in her hand, baptized in her blood.
What the fuck was so funny?
His hands clench on the lax body sinking slowly in front of him as he rockets to the surface. From such a height hitting water is like hitting concrete. His body protests the unnecessary burden but indomitable strength of will overrides convenience. Jill's corporeal form hits the rocky beach in front of him, dropped like a sack of potatoes.
"Jill jill jill jill..." Chris Redfield's cry for his fallen partner dances across the water, bouncing off the rocks in a fading refrain. Wesker spares an upward glare.
Fucking thorns in my side the pair of them.
A glint of blue catches his eye. Floating slowly down, knocked off by the wind, is a blue trucker hat.
It reminds him of another blue hat she used to wear in another lifetime. A time when he was a fragile flawed thing leading a petty band.
My petty band.
Molded and forged in his furnace, S.T.A.R.S. Alpha squad had acquitted itself well. Surviving long after so many "elite" units had failed.
She had called him a traitor once. He'd tried to shoot her. Alpha squad should've followed him into hell itself without complaint. It was not their place to judge him.
A muscle twitches in his jaw.
They would've made worthy servants except for their stupid sentimentality. Fools.
Red gold eyes glare down at the lax form of Jill Valentine, S.T.A.R.S. Rear security officer, who threw herself out a window to save her partner. Who smiled into her enemy's eyes as she fell.
Loyal to the end.
Perhaps that loyalty can be twisted. The prodigal children brought back into the fold.
He shakes off the nostalgia, gathering her bleeding body in his arms.
Or they will die.
White teeth flash in a perfect smile.
Reincarnated into his world, strong and thrashing. Fighting already. One of his own.
She calls his name.
She will be as loyal now as she was in another lifetime. When he was frail and flawed.
"I dream of falling and dying." She is murmuring in her infancy.
A memory half forgotten.
A hand goes for the gun on the nightstand, throwing bedding aside. The ringing continues, unafraid of the weapon. Numbers glow. Three am.
Its not an biohazard alarm. Its just the phone. Stupid. Could be about the virus...
Albert Wesker is brilliant. Each piece on the chessboard of his fate has been placed with care, each move made three steps ahead of his opponents. Few variables. All angles weighed dispassionately. It makes him a brilliant scientist and equally brilliant Captain.
Damnit.
He snatches the phone from its cradle, not bothering to put the gun down. Three am phone calls mean sex or emergencies. Or both. He wants neither distraction.
"Wesker" Irritation makes the odd accent he has a bit more pronounced, the hiss more apparent. Cold blooded nature coming to the surface, mask almost slipping. A snake among the pigeons.
"Captain?" The voice is shaky. Female. He can place it in an instant, incredible memory unstrained. That voice has crackled over enough radios for him to recognize it over phonelines with ease. It's owner has blue eyes so like his own it irritates him.
Windows to the soul.
Its a cliché and he shakes it off. Unimportant. Labored breathing comes through the speaker.
Sex and emergencies...
A muscle twitches in his jaw.
"Valentine. What happened?" Emergency then? She doesn't call him at three am off duty. Barry is on duty tonight.
Probably eating sandwiches and smearing the paperwork with mayo again.
His wince is reflexive. The thought is shoved ruthlessly aside. Focus, he needs to focus. Maybe someone has been injured...
"Sir..." A sniffle. Her voice trails off, thick with...tears?
Fought with the idiot again?
A hand smooths back blond hair, frown becoming more pronounced. Redfield. Shooting something looks a bit more attractive, but the silence is thick and he can brood on his dislike later. She's smart enough to know he has no patience for self-inflicted stupidity.
"Valentine?" Something is wrong. He feels uneasy, something twisting in his gut. The gun is a familiar, comforting weight in his hand. Unknowns are variables. He hates variables.
"Are you alright Captain?"
He stares at the phone cradle. Blinks.
What the hell?
"Outside of it being three am Valentine I am fine - " Its a snap. He sets the gun down, back on the table by his bed. Cobra spreading its hood, ire aroused ready to strike.
"You died. I dreamed you died. I dreamed of you falling and dying." The words cut him off, thrust out with effort intense and raw. A warning of some kind. "Captain stay away from windows. Alright? I..didn't mean to wake you...I...Sorry sir. Ignore it. Please."
He stares at the phone in his hand.
Vaguely he hears the dial tone, and he sees blue eyes in his mind.
Windows to the soul.
Are tears the blood of souls? Does hers bleed for my "death"?
He lets the thought stay.
Pleased.
She will find the worthy, fill the halls of his Valhalla with fit warriors.
She will be Valkyrie.
He turns over the last card. The Queen of Hearts.
Maybe.
Hellfire eyes glow dully.
Jill Valentine is stirring.
Glory to the fallen! Valhalla for the victorious dead!
- Anon