The Goliath Protocol
Chapter Forty-Three:
Things that matter, Things that Don't
She was playing.
He stood on the stairs and listened to that grand piano in his foyer. The notes. The musical lullaby.
It filled the quiet darkness. He was on his balcony when he'd heard it. It so rarely saw any hands on it; he figured the piano was lonely.
He felt for it. He did. He was lonely. It practically covered him like the heavy blankets on his beds in his big empty house.
He was used to it. He'd grown used to being alone. It wasn't a big deal.
He reached for the glass of bourbon on the table. His hand closed around it.
He could throw it back and drown out the music, loneliness, and pain. It worked. It always worked. The hangover was always his reward for it. And that misery kept him moving. It put purpose back in his empty world.
He could just pick it up and escape.
And he left it sitting there.
He rose and left the bedroom. On the stairs, he pinpointed the song. Keep Breathing by Ingrid Michaelson. The lyrics rolled through his blood and left him raw for her. Was there anyone else in the world who understood it? She'd been so far down that she'd lost more than just her hope. She'd lost pieces of herself. She was indoctrinated and brainwashed and abandoned.
He froze, considering that. Had she been abandoned? Really? She'd been presumed dead. Sure, they'd never found her body, but the river outside the castle could have washed her out to sea easily. That was logical.
Chris Redfield had ripped the world apart, searching for her.
He'd grieved and fired the rage of a man possessed to bring her back.
And then he'd promptly cut her off from his life in any real way.
What did that mean?
It meant they were all cowards. Every single one of them. Everyone but Jill. Because she was still out there. She was still fighting. She wasn't just fighting bad guys or bioterror; she was fighting herself. She was fighting whatever was inside her that had been bred in her during her time in Wesker's hands. It made her hesitate on that mountaintop and see the bad guys where the good guys fought. It made her push to her limits to find answers.
She was out there, and she was struggling.
He kept tabs on her. He knew she was in therapy and working so hard to get her memories and herself back. He'd made sure she saw the best in the business for it. She was out there just trying like hell to stay afloat while the world sought to drown her.
And, like the song she sang so quietly in his foyer, all she could do was keep breathing.
The storm is coming, she sang, but I don't mind. It was. It was coming. In his fucking guts, he knew they were running out of time here. He was a man who saw between the lines. He saw what others missed. He saw the parallel between one thing and another.
He knew this wasn't his story. It was hers. And how it ended?
It depended on if she kept breathing.
As she hit the chorus, it went over and over again. All I can do is keep breathing. All I can do is keep breathing. It rose, a litany, a prayer. And it was right.
All she could do was keep breathing.
And if he touched her - right now - right in this moment - he'd stop. He'd stop breathing. And he wouldn't be able to do it again without feeling her.
She tried to cover her face with those hands.
Hiding.
Still hiding.
And it stopped being about what he needed and became entirely about what she did.
When his hand fell on her shoulder, she finished the song's last line with a tiny crack of pain. He turned her on that bench.
He shook his head and knelt. He went between her knees, and she tried to cover her face again like she was ashamed. She whispered, "...I'm sorry."
He kept her hands to drag them down and gruffed, "...no."
So was he. He was sorry. He'd done the best he could to help Redfield. He'd had the entire government at his disposal and couldn't find her. She'd rotted in that cage for years before a mole in Tricell had come to Leon with word of a program created to indoctrinate soldiers using Progenitor. He'd passed along the intel, and he hadn't known, not then, where it would lead.
Leon picked her up and set her on the piano. He caught her face when she tried to resist him and shook his head. He tilted her back and held her face when she tried to turn away.
Her lashes were wet. But she didn't cry. She just shook her head, trying to...what? Shake him loose?
He'd been trying to shake her loose since the moment he'd met her.
She offered, "It's ok...you can go. I'll be ok. I-you can go."
And he just...said it back to her. "No."
He did what he'd done in that cave when she'd been breaking down and falling apart. He kissed her. Her hands fisted in his shirt.
She tasted salty. Like seawater. Or tears.
Soft. Sweet. A press of lips. Her eyes opened, damp and so tired. He kept his on hers and coaxed her mouth open. On a slight sound like a whimper, when she did, he sunk his tongue into her. Her lashes fluttered, she lost the stare down, and she transferred those grasping hands to the back of his elbows to bring him closer, where he held her face up to him.
No mad rush now. No race. No fire of the blood and the loins and the lungs. That kiss in the hallway when she'd told him she was falling for him. It was that, and it was this, and it was perfect.
When the kiss broke, he warned her, "...I'm not what you want, Jill."
Her eyes fluttered. They met his and held, and she leveled him with two words, "I know."
And he just...he had to ask because he had to know. "Then why are you here?"
"...because you're what I need." Jesus. His breath caught and held, and she avowed, "I need you."
He dashed his gaze over that beautiful face. He tried to see below the skin, the bone, and into the soul. He tried to see the truth. Even as he demanded, "...why?"
I care about you, Leon, she'd told him. And he'd demanded then the same. Why?
So, she told him. She just...told him. "Because when I'm with you...I don't feel broken...I just feel...alive."
She'd been dead before he'd found her. Dead. The body had worked. It had functioned. She'd breathed and bled and slept. She'd gone through the motions. But she'd been sand and water - the years rolled by and turned her into stone. He hadn't looked at her like she was dead. He'd looked at her like she could be saved. Like there was something in her that was worth the risk.
Maybe it was just his job. Maybe it was just who he was - the great hero, the savior—the guy who rescued the girl and rode off into the sunset.
Maybe that's where this ended - her alone in the sunset.
But at least she'd be alive.
She wouldn't try to trap him. She wouldn't try to keep him. She'd just do what Rebecca had suggested and take him as he was. For as long as he wanted. And then she'd survive him.
Because she'd died before she'd met him, he'd risen above her in the dark and brought her back to life.
He murmured, "...what do you want from me, Jill? What do you want?"
Soft. Questioning. Afraid.
So, she gave him what he wanted. And said what he needed to hear. And released him from the chains that bound him to the fear of a life where she'd be waiting for him to love her.
She whispered, "Just now. Just here. It's all there is. It's all we have."
And no one knew that better than they did.
She thought she was nothing. She thought no one saw her or would mourn her or need her. She wasn't. She was rapidly trying to become something. Something he'd have to survive. Something he'd have to risk. Something he'd have to lose.
Eva would go to her new family. And Jill...Jill should go back to Redfield. She was his. She'd always been his.
Could he stand there holding her when he knew it?
He'd done for her what he'd done for thousands: he'd pulled her back from the brink to give her hope. And now he let her go. Now was when he let her go, live her life, and find her happiness.
He didn't. He dropped his mouth to kiss her.
Because he didn't want to give her back.
And he'd never say it. He'd never ask. He'd never offer. And he would never fight to keep her.
It was the only battle he'd never win.
Stop fighting and feel it, she told him. Feel it.
So, he stopped fighting, and he felt it.
It was the last thing he wanted.
And he invited, "Come to bed with me, Jill. Say yes."
Always asking. Always asking when he could just take. He didn't take. He asked. And the answer was so simple, "Yes."
He walked up the stairs with her hand in his. Escorting her. Like a gentleman or something. He pressed her into the wall in his bedroom. He'd had women all over the world. In bars. In alleys. In bathrooms and hotel rooms and on floors.
He'd never had one in his bedroom.
It didn't take a psychiatrist to explain that to him.
He knew why.
His hands trembled on the buttons at the front of her shirt. He blew out a breath and felt seventeen years old. She was the last thing he'd wanted. And the only thing he craved.
She was booze. He knew it the moment his hands shook. She was liquor for the soul. He didn't want the drink when she was there. He just wanted her. She soothed the savage beast. He'd never had something he couldn't walk away from.
His self-control was paralyzed.
He inhaled sharply and grumbled, "I'm screwing this up...shit."
Her heart melted. It turned warm and soft in her chest. Nervous. He was nervous. The man who'd stood down a thousand enemies and faced giants and dragons and destruction. He was nervous.
Jill helped his fumbling fingers on her blouse and whispered, "...no."
That word again. Sometimes, it only took one - just one - to say it all.
He spread the shirt. His mouth pressed, just once, at the scars just above her breasts. It speared into flesh and bone and heart beyond.
She tugged up his shirt and trapped his hands behind his back. And turned it back on him. She pressed a kiss, just one, over his chest, dead center. If she were a shot of adrenaline, he'd be kicking up dust with the energy it put through his blood.
The shirt fell to the floor, and he caught her face to kiss her. He backed her into the wall. He warned, "I don't know how to do...this."
Jill laid her palm on his kicking heart and assured him, "Yes, you do. Trust me...and I will pull you clear."
He surged a little forward and tried to make it fast and furious. Jill let his mouth trail down her throat, and she pressed that hand on his chest and warned, "Easy. There's no battle here; there's nothing you have to prove. It's just me."
His hands stopped groping and lifted to cup her face, and they weren't steady. The man with the nerves of steel - his hands shook.
That he trembled when he touched her meant more than any damn thing he'd ever done before. She echoed the move and held him to her. He kissed her forehead. He slid his lips to her nose. She kept her eyes open, watching him.
And she demanded, "Look at me."
He did that too. He breathed, "What do you want, Jill?"
She simply said, "Look at me. See me. That's all I want."
She kept her eyes open as she leaned in and kissed his mouth. Delicate. Testing. He tilted her jaw up and answered it. Sweet. Gentle.
No anger. No fire. No fight. Just tender and raw. He looked like he might rabbit on her at any moment. All the fucking in the world couldn't make this anything other than what it was - lovemaking. And that was something that scared him to death.
She whispered, "What do you want, Leon?"
His answer was all she needed. Whatever came next, it was all she needed. "...this."
His thumb pulled her lower lip to open her mouth so he could claim it with his tongue. Still looking. Still looking at her.
And she gave up. Her tiny sound of surrender was all he needed.
He fumbled at her pants twice and made her blood warm in her veins like a fever. She steadied his hands and soothed, "Easy. I got you. You just have to trust me."
Leon pressed her into the wall and vowed, "...I trust you."
Jill whispered against his mouth tenderly, "What do you need?"
Gruffly, he confessed, "...just you."
"...show me."
It was shaking hands and wet mouths. It was gasps and groans and touching. A tumble into the bathroom. He twisted on the hot water and took her under it. They never made it to the bed. He finished her off right there against the wall. He touched her like he'd wanted since the moment he'd met her. Smooth, slow, pleasure, and promise. Hips and hands and heavy petting. When her eyes flickered, he commanded gruffly, "No. Look at me."
She kept her eyes open to see him. He played his fingers at the apex of her body, where they blended together. Her grip around him shook with tremors. Her body quickened, and her breath sobbed out of her lungs as the emotion stabbed through the groin into the heart and split her in half.
Naked, clutching at him, one leg trying to hold her up and the other wrapped around him. The beat of the water was fast and furious on slick skin.
Her soft sob was high and almost frightened before he demanded, "...go...go...I've got you."
She brushed his hair back to see him, body jerking in his arms when she came. She quaked in his grip like she might have a seizure. His tongue went into her mouth, his body went into hers, and he filled her up, clutching her with one arm and holding them both up with the other flat-handed against the slick tile.
He slapped that tile once as he came, breathing harsh and slow into her neck. Her mouth rooted to the side and found him; it was water, lips, and whimpering release.
He trembled in her arms and finished them both off.
He should let her go.
It was time.
It was the right thing to do.
He just stood in that water holding her and all he could do...was keep breathing.
On the balcony, he sat at the small table and smoked a cigarette.
Jill perched on her butt against the wall across from him.
It was cold as a witch's teat, but he seemed unconcerned. He sat shirtless in a pair of gray sweatpants with the R.P.D. Logo on the hip. Jill studied him where he sat. He braced an elbow on the table and kept looking right back at her.
No flinching.
She figured out why he was a master interrogator. He didn't blink. After a long moment, her mouth twitched. "What's my soul look like?"
Without missing a beat, "Wicked."
Her mouth lifted into a smile. "Charmer."
"I'm gifted."
"You're something." Jill's hands came up to play with his shaggy hair. She ruffled it until it was around his face in a riot of tossed locks.
"Better."
"Maybe it'll start a craze."
She laughed, "Why keep it long?"
He considered that, tilting his head a little. "At first, to piss off the old granddaddy Senator. Nothing like rebellion to spur the old man to apoplexy. And then? It seemed to suit me."
She nodded in ascent, "It does. Of course, you realize now you can't ever cut it. You realize that."
"It'll look a little silly when it's gray."
Wow. That struck her in the funny places. She pictured him gray. He tilted his head, watching the emotions shoot across her face.
"What?"
Her eyes were contemplative and shiny in the moonlight, "You just turned me on."
Now he laughed and teased, "Yeah? Like old dudes, do ya?"
"I like you. That's about all I know."
They sat there looking at each other until he finished smoking. When he rose, he put his hand down to her. Jill took it, and he tugged her to her feet and then just kept on going. He tossed her over his shoulder while she laughed and swatted her ass.
She was still chuckling when he laid her on the bed.
She kept lying there while he shut the balcony door and returned to her. He climbed onto the bed, Jill parted her legs so he could move between them, and Leon laid his head on her belly. His ear and cheek rested against her and allowed her to smooth his hair back.
There it was again, she thought, gentle. Her sleeping pants whispered as he settled down. While she petted him, he scooped her sweater up and put a kiss against her belly before he laid his cheek against her again.
Touched, she skimmed her fingers through all that blonde hair and wondered, "Who are you, Leon Kennedy? A mystery, I think."
He braced his chin on her belly to look at her. "Just me. I might have had a better answer before I met you. Now? I don't know."
Jill touched his ears and shook her head, "...I don't expect anything here."
His brows arched, and she laughed lightly. "I know I...forced myself on you."
His eyes sparkled with amusement, and she scoffed, "Not like that, you pervert. I mean...I wouldn't go when you asked. I kept sticking around. I liked...how you looked at me, ya know? Like I'm something. Like you needed me. I'm not deluding myself thinking that means you'll keep me."
He was quiet now, studying her in the dark. This might be the most verbose she'd been since he met her. She was talking, and it fascinated him, "I know you think I'm just...lying or saying whatever to get what I want. But I want you to know that I don't expect this to change how you see me. I don't expect you to get on one knee, marry me, or stand in the rain and confess undying love. Whatever this is, however long it lasts...I'm happy. And I haven't been happy in a long time."
He considered her before he answered, "...me either."
She feigned shock, "You're kidding! You radiate joy."
His mouth twitched, "I do. I fart pheromones and pleasure. It makes women chase me. I try to beat them off, but they just hold me down and rape my poor bones."
Jill gave him wide eyes, "You poor thing. Then all you can do is just rut on them, right?"
"It's a defense mechanism," He agreed and looked solemn, "But I don't like it."
"Oh, no?"
"Oh, no. It's hard being me. The girls just pour in and molest me. My dick gets raw servicing so many, but I do my best."
Quietly, she murmured, "...I bet you do."
And his eyes flared a little. "Jealous?"
She skimmed his face with her eyes and let her fingers follow. "Hmm. That wouldn't be wise on my part, I think. But it would be a stupid girl that wasn't."
He laid his ear on her belly and muttered, "I'm sure Kevin would know just what to say."
Oh.
Her belly warmed as Jill mused, "Hmm. Likely. He is good with words."
Leon grunted and had her grinning above his head as she continued, "...he was a good kisser too, from what I remember."
"Oh, I bet...right before he barfed on you."
Jill chuckled, "I have a thing for drunks, apparently."
"Lucky for me...not so lucky for Kevin, who is home alone...jerking off."
Jill sighed, "I hope so...since I nearly got him killed."
Leon lifted his head and held her eyes, "Kevin didn't call me either, did he? Don't take all the blame for it. He knew what he was doing."
Trying to lighten the moment, she teased, "He always did from what I can remember. I bet that wizard tongue of his just...finds the right way to open your lips."
"Hard to speak when I knock all your teeth out."
Now she just laughed. She laughed and shivered with it. God, he thought, was there anything else on Earth quite as remarkable as the sound of her laughter? He needed to thank Kevin later for inadvertently bringing them closer. Jill decided, "I like the jealousy on you."
"...I'm not jealous."
She gave him a long look that had him shifting a little uncomfortably. "...what?" His annoyed tone made her feel like gold in his hands.
"Oh, just wondering if your pants are on fire - liar, liar."
The humor trembled under the look he gave her. He kissed her belly again and lifted her sweater to deposit another at the base of her ribs. She shivered a little as it tickled and added, "Ah, deflecting the feelings with sex? Is that what you like then?"
He stopped. He gave her a thoughtful expression. She tilted her head, and he simply gave her words back to her, "I like you. That's all I know."
After a moment, as tender as the kisses he'd put on her belly, she returned, "...I'll take it."
It wasn't a boombox under her window.
But it was close.
For him, it was close.
When the night was long, she laid in the curve of his arm while they talked. No filter now, she thought; he just...talked to her. He wasn't playing games. He wasn't trying to be something he wasn't. He didn't say the right things or the careful things.
He talked about who he'd been before. He spoke of who he'd become. He talked about growing up a cop's kid. She told him about her mother - the dancer- and her father - the thief, turned convict. She was a one-night stand baby. Her mother had dumped her off the second she was born. The only daughter of a Japanese merchant, it wasn't the custom to have a baby out of wedlock.
She confessed, "I tried to see her once."
Leaning up on his elbow, Leon stroked a thumb over her forehead, "Didn't go well; I take it."
"Hmm. No." She laughed a little, but it was bitter. "She didn't want anything to do with me. Sent me away. She was married and had real children of her own now. She didn't care how I'd been raised. She didn't want any part of it. She didn't accept any blame for how I was raised either. Henri knew what he was getting into, she claimed."
Leon did that thing he was so good at while she talked. He looked at her like every word she said was the gospel from the mouth of angels. Jill added, "Henri did his best. He loved me. He was in jail every few years, so I bounced around the system for a while. Finally, I landed with an aunt I didn't know I had. It got better. She had no children, and couldn't, so she was excited to have me. Raised me well. Taught me something besides grifting strangers."
She smiled now, and it wasn't bitter at all. "The thief training helped me out, though. I landed in Raccoon City because of it."
He considered that. "It's a good thing you landed in Raccoon City?"
She laughed lightly. "Sure. Before it all went bad, it was good. I had a good life. Friends. A hole in the wall for an apartment that I loved. A shitty boyfriend that Chris fed his teeth to when he found he was cheating on me."
Leon snorted. "Redfield - punching shit even then."
She smiled with nostalgia. "He was my best friend."
Was, Leon thought, the syntax was important there. Was. Would he ever be again? It was hard to say. He was hoping for Logan, Jill, and the monkey-faced Redfield himself.
"You never tried dating?"
She laughed now and shook with it. "God, no. You don't date Chris Redfield. He was the freight train. He mowed girls down and kept going."
"Not all of them."
She studied his face in the cool moonlight. "Are you jealous?"
It was his turn to chuckle. "No. There's a lot of history there, is all I'm saying. Might be worth considering. He loves you. It's all over him like a skunk's ass exploded."
Jill gave him a considering look, "Loves me? Chris is the mission. He's always the mission."
"He spent weeks looking for you after you went out that window."
And now she just laughed. "Of course, he did...for once in his life? I was the mission. And you know why he stopped?"
Leon tilted his head as she stated, "Because someone gave him another mission."
She smiled sadly and shrugged, "I had his undivided attention for the first time in our lives...I just had to die to get it."
Leon shook his head. "What a fucking idiot. And a coward. Seriously. I bet he's been pushing you away as long as he's known you."
"...why?"
"Why else? Loving you means he has something to lose." Leon sighed a little, "I hate that I feel for the guy."
Jill arched her brows. "Are you laying here naked with me trying to convince me to chase after Chris?"
He gave her a look that made her bones warm. She melted into the mattress when he leaned back and responded, "Nope—just saying. Sometimes we can fix things. Sometimes we can't. Maybe it's not a love story, but it's a good one. You went out a window for the guy."
Serious now, she touched his face. Her thumb traced the little scar on his cheek as she confessed, "I'd do the same for you."
He softened. She literally watched it happen. He softened and reminded her he was a guy who just...needed love. Maybe not the kind that meant forever. But the kind that meant something. The kind that meant you went out a window for each other.
And because he'd never give her the words, he gave her him instead. He leaned down and kissed her. And it was soft and sweet and yearning.
For Jill, at that moment, it was enough.