Author's Note: If you have been following Ultra Somnium, you should know that I moved the previous chapter 6 to chapter 7 and added this new chapter 6, as I felt the flow works better this way.

Chapter 6: The Weird Part

WASHINGTON, D.C.

JUNE 11, 2009

1711 HOURS

She walked back into his life with the same confident, purposeful, efficient stride she'd used to leave it.

Peter Girard was pretty sure he'd hoped to never see Jill Valentine again. Not entirely sure. But mostly certain. Whatever he'd hoped for, though, she was here, walking right towards him.

Okay, Pete. Play it cool. Don't give her the satisfaction.

Peter watched Jill stride through the busy newsroom, with its sea of cublicles and clatter of keyboards. Her eyes met his and locked. Neither looked away. Peter, for his part, would not let her see the slightest sign of weakness. Not this time.

Her journey towards him seemed excruciatingly long, but finally she arrived and he realized he wasn't ready.

"Jill Valentine," he finally said, trying to muster an air of chilly disdain. "I'd heard you were back from the dead."

"Peter," she returned warmly. "It's good to see you."

It occurred to him that she probably meant it.

The thing between them hadn't lasted long, but it had been intense. They'd both been quite young, her a rising star in the Army, him a trouble-making cub reporter on the military beat of the Raccoon Sun-Journal. And then she was chosen for Delta Force. He knew it was a great honor for her, the culmination of her life's ambition, and yet he allowed himself to think she might turn it down to stay with him. Yeah, right. Stay on a dead-end military base, in a dead-end town, with a loser like Peter Girard. It seemed funny to Peter in retrospect. But at the time, it had shattered his heart into a fine powder.

Without Jill to give him a reason to live like there was a future to look forward to, he let his life spiral into ruin, into unemployment, alcohol, drugs. He almost died several times before getting his life on track. He tried to blame her, to hate her, but he was too smart to fool himself into thinking that way.

And so he continued his life's journey, ending up here in D.C. with a by-line. He managed to mostly forget about her – until he heard she'd died, and felt his heart break again.

But then the word had gotten out. Largely classified info supported by rumors, but the gist was that she was alive and had been rescued from some unimaginable horror.

And Peter decided it was best not to care anymore.

So why was his heart racing? Why were his palms so damp? It wasn't cool disdain that stopped him from shaking her hand, it was flopsweat.

And he realized that she had no idea what he'd gone through all these years. To her, it was undoubtedly ancient history, the memory long since consigned to scrapbooks and photo albums, an artifact with little remaining emotional power. Must be nice.

"So what brings you to my neck of the woods?" he asked. Did I just say 'neck of the woods'? I'm a professional writer, for God's sake! I can do better than that!

"My partner is giving a seminar at Quantico," she answered, "and I'm just tagging along for the scenery."

"Well," he said in as even and steady a tone as he could manage, "I doubt you came up here for the view. Or for a walk down memory lane." Memory lane? Jesus, she brings out the hack in me.

She just smiled. "No, I suppose not. I don't know if you know what I've been up to, but I was working with the BSAA for a while…"

The reporter in him decided to cast a line. "Yeah, I heard. We all thought you were dead. But I heard you were in Africa? Something about you being a prisoner, a test subject?"

The smile left her face, as did much of the color. "Something like that."

An awkward silence followed. She wasn't in a mood to discuss the topic, understandably. Can't blame yours truly, Ace Reporter, for trying.

Oh God, he thought. I just called myself 'Ace Reporter.' I've got to get away from her before I lose whatever shred of talent I have left.

"Well, whatever it was you went through," he finally said, "I hope you're all right and I'm sure glad you're alive."

The smile came back as rapidly as it had left. He'd said exactly the right thing. "I'm doing all right, Peter. Getting better every day."

God, that smile. She was so devoted to business and duty that he'd hardly ever seen it, but whenever it appeared, it was like the sun peeking from behind the clouds. Fucking intoxicating.

Thankfully, she got right to the point of her visit. "Listen, Peter, I'm not currently active in the BSAA, so I don't really have any clearance or authorization to ask the authorities anything…"

All the pieces fell into place. He knew exactly why she was here. And, knowing her history and achievements, he was damn glad. Some terrifying things were happening in D.C., and if Jill got involved, she'd get to the bottom of things sooner or later.

"You want to know about the deaths. The melting deaths." He picked up a pile of papers off a chair for her to sit, which she did gladly.

"Lips are tight on this, Jill. Info is hard to come by."

She smiled that radiant smile again. "What's hard for some isn't always hard for you, though, Peter."

She remembered how tenacious he had been as a cub reporter in Raccoon City. Reckless was more like it. And he had to admit, his methods may have been tempered by age and experience, but he still had trouble dropping a lead. He smiled back.

"Jill, have you ever heard of a private military company called Purple Mountain?"

She nodded. "Cooper Trask, right? Eccentric billionaire."

"Right. Well, they have an advanced weapons research division. I can't verify the story yet, but I'm hearing about a very secret project called Ultra Somnium."

"Ultra Somnium," she said thoughtfully. He remembered she always did that when a key piece of info came up that she needed to remember.

"Targeted remote assassination. That's what it is, supposedly."

"What does that mean, targeted remote assassination?"

"Not entirely sure. The way I put it together, it basically means: what if you could kill someone from far away, at a time of your choosing, no matter where they are or how well protected?"

"That's a terrifying thought," she responded. The hairs stood up on the back of her neck. This was Umbrella or Tricell territory.

Her eyes went wide as she put it together. "You think these deaths are actually murders? That Purple Mountain is testing its weapon system on random people?"

"I don't know, Jill. This is something people want buried deep. Hell, it could be a massive malfunction of the program – the system is out of control, killing people at random, something like that.

"Now here's the weird part," he said, quickly following with, "I mean extra weird. Have you heard of Vernon Veers?"

"Just what I remember from science class – he's a Nobel-prize-winning scientist, right?"

"Right. Well, for the past twenty years or so, he's headed up Purple Mountain's R and D efforts. So, apparently, Veers came to D.C. around two weeks ago – and promptly vanished."

"Jesus, Peter!" she said in an exclamatory whisper, a hand going involuntarily to her mouth.

"I know. Before, this shit was just scary. But you add a few details, and it has the potential to be a living goddamn nightmare. Veers made his mark in evolutionary theory before turning to weapons research. But do you know what he wrote his thesis on?"

Jill shook her head, knowing she was about to hear an answer she wouldn't like.

"Xenobiology."

Xenobiology. Unknown biology. Theoretical life forms. Like the Progenitor virus and all the myriad terrors it had spawned.

Jill sat back, processing all he had said. "Is that all you have?" she asked.

"For right now, yes. But I'm meeting a source later. I shouldn't tell you this, but that's not about to stop me. He's a coroner for the county morgue and I'm meeting him at 110 Police Plaza this evening. He's going to give me a look at the autopsy results for the melting deaths.

"Jill, I know you're not active BSAA – are you on good terms with them?"

She nodded. "If I tell them they need to get involved, they'll listen. But we don't know anything yet – they'll only intervene if it's a weapon that's biological in nature."

"Well, the melting part sure is biological in nature," he joked humorlessly, "and the Veers angle doesn't give me warm and fuzzies. Look, Jill, I'll be honest with you – this whole situation terrifies me. You wanna meet me at the morgue later, take a look at the results with me?"

She leaned forward again. "I'm no scientist – any chance I could get hard copies of anything?"

"No can do. That's why we gotta go in person. We can look at a computer monitor and do our best to remember what we see. This guy's scared too, and not just about the deaths, if you know what I mean."

She got that look in her eyes that he knew all too well – the look of determination to see something through. She was in. As hard as it was to see her, to be with her, he was glad. She just nodded.

"Good," he said. I'm meeting him there at 8. Here's my card," he said, fishing his business card out of a rolodex. "Call my cell when you're close and I'll tell you where we're meeting him – probably some maintenance entrance."

"I will, Peter. Listen, thanks. Thanks for this."

He shook his head. "You don't have to thank me. I should be thanking you."

They looked at each other for a moment, sharing a silence that was not awkward. It was nice. Peter suddenly realized that he might not be over her entirely, but that that day would come, and he was glad if it meant she could be in his life again. She made him feel safe. Always had.

"Okay," she said, standing. "I'll call you later."

He stood as well, not sure whether to shake her hand or hug her. Luckily, she decided for them, throwing her arms around him. He responded, for the moment feeling nothing for her but affection and gratitude.

Pulling back, he couldn't help but comment. "You're different now, Jill. Something about you."

She flashed him that enigmatic smile she had perfected. "You too, Peter. I'm not sure what it is, but it's definitely for the better."

He smiled. She stepped back, returning his smile, then turned on her heel, leaving with the same confident urgency with which she'd entered.

He plopped back into his seat, still smiling. Smiling from relief, relief over a great many things. That went well. Somehow, that went well.

He thought for a moment about the hundreds of things he'd thought of to say to her if he ever saw her again. They were mostly pretty nasty. Mentally, he tossed that whole file into the trash, and man did it feel good.

Jill Valentine was back in his life, and the pain was at a manageable level. It was more than he would have dared to hope for.