A/N: I don't own Resident Evil. Sadly.

Love and Other Drugs

Part Eight:

Arisen

You meet thousands of people, and none of them really touch you. And then you meet one person, and your life is changed...forever.

― Love and Other Drugs

Helsinki- 2008

He sat in the chair with his hands between his knees. Behind him, the wall was sprayed with blood. It was splattered in a strange spray pattern over the left side of his face. Arterial spray did that, spurting out to remind one of a hose with a thumb across the end to block it and increase the spread pattern. The popliteal artery was a squirter when you pressed down on it.

He'd broken the knee cap first before he'd nicked the artery. The crunch and drip of blood and broken bone lingered in his ears. He'd applied a tourniquet at the top of the thigh to tamponade the wound until he was done interrogating. His victim had also lost three fingers and an ear before it was done.

But it was done.

His bloody lips curled around the words as he spoke into the phone, "Africa. Irving is in Africa."

The corpse in front of him was a mess. Tortured within an inch of its life and left to bleed out while it cried. Just a man. A man connected to the wrong people. A man without a family or a past or a future.

The wallet on the ground in the blood was open. In his left hand, Leon held the one picture he'd found inside it. A little girl, about six years old, laughing and in the arms of the dead man in the chair. His daughter?

It didn't matter. She'd never see him again.

His bloody thumb swept across her smile - and the numbness inside him was more frightening than anything else.

Alexandria, Egypt- 2009

The sounds of a struggle echoed down the hallway. As he moved, Leon listened to the words: Attack. Aggressive. Severely unstable.

He turned the corner to find the padded chamber where they kept her, a battleground between orderlies and the ghost of Jill Valentine.

It had to be her ghost. The phantom had her face, but the coloring was all wrong. Her pallor was pale and tired. Her hair hip length and icy blonde. Her eyes were arctic blue. She was muscled in a way that said training and rigorous conditioning. Whatever prisoner she'd been, she hadn't been idle.

She was in a paper gown that gaped at the chest to give the viewer glimpses of that incredible bosom of hers. Her bare feet were planted for attack. Her hands held a scalpel as she warned."

"I will cut my own fucking throat! Do you hear me!? BACK OFF!"

As she shifted, he saw the scars all over her chest. They were legion. They were spread out and singed pink like burns in some places. He'd heard the whispers about her captivity. He'd heard a virus and a device controlled her.

He was seeing the proof of that now.

She looked like a raging Viking shield maiden about to battle with her foes.

The doctor in the room tried to soothe her, "Ms. Valentine...we just need a small sample of bloo-"

"NO!" She shouted it and had him cowering. The big muscled orderlies between her and the doctor didn't back off. "No more blood. No more tests. No more poking me and prodding me and sticking things in me. No. Get out of my fucking way and let me leave. Now."

The doctor spoke again, tremulously, "We can't be sure of the effects, Ms. Valentine. We can't. You might hurt someone. You can't leave here."

One of the orderlies took two steps toward her, and she laughed and reversed the scalpel from her throat toward him. "Don't be stupid. Don't. I will kill you while before you take another step."

Surely they weren't that stupid.

They were. The other one tried to get her in a rush, and she spun and slashed his palm open before she drove a kick into his knee. Her bare foot was strong enough to send him to the ground on the other knee.

The second orderly grabbed her hair in his fist and jerked. She spun the scalpel on him, and he caught her wrist to hyperextend her elbow. She reared her head back and smacked it into his mouth. With a shout of pain, the man threw her away.

She hit the bed and took it in a skid into the far wall. It struck, and she was already pushing up to rise when he grabbed her hair to jerk her up again, and the second orderly moved in to...what? Hit her?

Surely they were kidding.

Leon chucked the phone in his hand and smacked the guy in the back with his fist cocked. Surprised, he turned and got a matching fist in the face for it. It set him on his ass on the floor, sliding with a hand over his mouth.

The orderly holding Jill turned in surprise, and Leon advised him, "Don't."

But he didn't listen.

He let go of Jill and reached for Leon. Leon ducked, put his shoulder into the big man, and grabbed his belt with the effort. The momentum tossed him up and over until the big guy landed on his back on the floor.

To his surprise, Jill leaped on his back and had Leon swinging around with her riding him. She put the scalpel to his throat and hissed, "Thanks for the help, big hero, now walk toward the door and get me out of here."

He did. He walked with her on his back and a scalpel at his throat. She kept one hand in his hair, and her legs wrapped around him from behind like an octopus. As her hostage, he was entirely at her mercy.

Not really, but he let her have the power of the moment anyway. It cost him nothing and got her out of the facility's door.

The moment they cleared the gates, she demanded, "Where is your car? I don't have time for games here. Your car - now. Before they send back up and I give your throat a big bloody grin."

Without a word, he turned toward his dark sedan. Releasing the locks, he offered her the keys over his shoulder, and she shook her head, "No. You drive. Now."

"You have to get off my back first."

She slid down his back but grabbed his belt as she backed up to the car. She backed into the driver's seat and tugged him in after her. With her perched on her knees in the passenger seat, she kept the scalpel on his thigh as he started the engine and pulled away from the curb.

As they turned down a side street, he heard the sirens that signaled the cavalry's arrival.

She told him, "I will cut your goddamn femoral if you stop this engine or get brave. You hear me?"

He nodded as he followed her directions. She had a strangely clear knowledge of the city that impressed him. How long had she been in Africa? Not just confined to Kijuju, apparently.

"Turn here. Now."

He turned into an alleyway as a blaring police car soared past moments later and barely missed them.

After about ten minutes of evasive driving, until the sun began to set, he finally spoke, "...I missed you, Jill."

Surprised, she glanced at his face instead of the dark street. Her eyes narrowed. She seemed to be trying to figure out who the hell he was. It irked him a little that she didn't remember him.

But maybe she'd been brainwashed.

She said, "Pull in here and put the car in park."

He turned the car into a dark-covered parking garage and a space near the back end. She slapped the button to kill the headlights and hit the one overhead instead. It put dreary yellow light on his face as she caught a handful of his hair and turned his face to her.

She shifted the scalpel to his carotid and advised him, "No sudden moves. Do you hear me?"

"I hear you."

"Take off the sunglasses...slowly. I can't fucking stand sunglasses at night."

He did, easing the expensive frames down his nose as he answered, "It wasn't night when I put them on."

The second the glasses slid off his nose, she lowered the scalpel as her angry face collapsed into complete shock. "Leon?!"

He shrugged where he sat, watching her face, "Depends on if you plan to stab me or not, I think."

Shaking her head, Jill let the scalpel fall to the floor in the backseat. She let go of his hair to cup his face. She was looking at him like she'd never seen him. They stared at each other until he finally apologized softly, "I wasn't fast enough...I swear to god I tried to find you."

Her hands trembled on his face. She shook her head. He filled the silence again with a desperate assertion, "I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."

Her eyes closed. She shook her head in denial again and dropped her forehead to his. With a sound like surrender, his hands touched her face like his. They held on until she broke first with a small whisper, "...you knew I wasn't dead. How did you know?"

And he answered gruffly, "Because I wasn't ready to let you go."

Jill's breath trembled. She rubbed her mouth to his and shivered before telling him, "...you won't want me when you know what I've done, what I became. What I am."

His hand shifted. It fisted in her hair and drew a small gasp from her mouth as he answered, "There is nothing you could ever do to make me stop wanting you. Jill...Jill...you're alive. You're alive."

She tilted his face up a little and pressed their lips together. His whole body just angled toward her like an offering. The complete trust of it left her breathless. She whispered against his lips, "I could kill you before you could blink. Leon...I'm not Jill Valentine anymore. Not like I was. I can't...I don't-I don't know how to turn it off."

Her fingers slid against the fluttering pulse below his jaw, tucking there to feel the beat of his heart as he asked, gruffly, "...what?"

"The need. He...I...it's like a drug, Leon. The want of it."

They held eyes in the dark car as he finally asked softly, "What need?"

And she confessed, harshly, "The need to kill. He made me his puppet. I was his dark weapon. I killed for him because I couldn't say no. I couldn't do anything. The P30, the device...it made me a vessel to his will. I don't know how to stop feeling it."

He tilted his head at her face, staring at her hand on his neck, "What?"

"The hunger." She lifted her eyes to his face, "I want to rip your throat out."

After a handful of moments where they continued to stare at each other, he finally told her, "Do it. If it makes it easier to breathe, do it."

Jill shook her head no. She scooped his hair back off his face and studied him before speaking softly, "...I fucking forgot how handsome you are. How did you find me?"

He said nothing. She tugged his hair and made him gasp a little, but he stayed mum. Finally, she demanded, "What did you do, Leon? I know Chris was out there digging, but Chris would never hurt anyone to find me. What did you do?"

She tugged his head back, and he finally spat between clenched teeth, "What I had to. I'd do it again...and again...and again to find you."

Humbled, she zipped her eyes all over his face and wondered, "...why?"

With his face calm, he spoke into the charged silence, "...you know why."

Her hands jerked in his hair again, making his breath hitch as he hissed with pain. Her face said she kind of liked hurting him. What had she been through? A puppet. A monster controlled by a monster. He wanted to ask.

He didn't know if she'd ever tell him.

Quietly, she commanded, "Say it. Say it out loud. Say it...after all this time."

Without missing a beat, he returned, "I love you."

Her breath hitched as she denied that with a desperate little laugh of derision, "Still? Why?! I'm a fucking wreck. I'm a monster. I was a wreck before too. I'm damaged. I'm broken. Stop loving me."

His mouth smiled sadly, "...I can't. It doesn't work that way."

She tugged his hair again until he gasped and demanded, "Kill me. Ok? You should kill me. So I don't have to see it anymore, hear it, or feel it. Kill me."

His hands caught her arms above the elbows. He watched the panic of that restraint shoot across her face as he told her, "I can't. Let me help you, Jill. Please. Let me try."

She laughed and slapped his face. It hurt; it surprised him, but he understood it. It was easier to hurt him than to let him help her. "You can't! You can't! You idiot! You fucking fool! Don't you understand? I can't be fixed, Leon! I'm not a car engine! I'm a monster! I'm a murderer!"

She slapped him again, and he nodded, encouraging it. "Yeah. Hit me again. Does it help? Hit me until it stops killing you. I can take it."

She didn't want to hurt him. She wanted him to fix her. But he might be the biggest hero in the world, and he still wasn't a miracle worker. He couldn't fix her. She didn't want to drag him into her darkness and drown him with her.

"..shut up." She whispered it. She jerked on his hair and had him inhaling sharply, "Stop trying to help me."

"...I won't. I won't stop. Hit me again, Jill. I can take it."

Damn him.

She didn't want to hit him again.

Her face collapsed in pain as she confessed, shaking beside him, "...a whole village. It was a whole village once. Women. Children. Elderly. Gathered in a town square and burned alive. He had me lock them in. He had me burn them because I resisted his control. Because I denied it. He pumped me full of his fucking drug and dressed me like a puppet, and sent me out to kill for him. I can't unsee it. I can't forget it. I can't sleep without feeling it. I can still hear them screaming. How can you help me, Leon? How?"

His hands tugged her in. She resisted, at first, before she let him. When he wrapped his arms around her, she panicked. She jerked a little and released. She was no longer imbued with power from the goddamn device she'd worn for so long; she was just mortal. She was just a woman. She was just a mess.

His arms bound her close as his mouth whispered beside her ear, "I'm compressing your central nervous system. You'll fight me at first -" She did, making small sounds of distress and panic as he kept holding on, "But you'll give in. You'll give in, Jill, and let me hold you. Give in...I've got you. I'm gonna keep holding on until you just give in and let me."

She felt her body relax from the constant pressure across her body. It calmed her in a way that sent messages to her brain to soothe her. She whispered desperately, "I don't want to give up."

Leon shook his head and responded, "Not up..in. Let me hold you. There is no judgment here, Jill. Ever. Ever. What you did...it wasn't in your control. It wasn't you. You didn't choose to be a monster...but I did. I chose it. I can live with myself because you're here. I can feel you and smell you and see you. I can live with myself. I'm gonna help you do the same."

Softly, Jill murmured, "...it won't get any better."

Soothing her, he laid his cheek against her head and told her, "No, but it gets easier to live with it."

Quietly, she whispered, "...maybe I don't want to live with it. Maybe I should walk out into the ocean and just...die with it."

His arms bound her tighter against him. He closed his eyes and prayed for the words to make her stay with him. He prayed for the words to give her hope and said, "I won't let you. I'd just swim right out there and bring you back."

Her blonde hair spilled around them as she put her ear against his chest and finally shifted until she clung. What had he done to find her? She didn't think he'd ever say. She'd never ask.

And they'd both just learn to live with it.

There against his chest was the first time she'd slept in three years.

When she awoke, she was on her side in the softness of expensive sheets. Her eyes blinked into the semi-darkness. There was just enough light from the bathroom to cast a bar of white across where they lay.

She could feel him in the room behind her.

She didn't know how they'd gotten here. Apparently, she'd fallen asleep in the car and slept like the dead. No dreams. No nightmares. No panic. No pain. Just peace. He'd given her that but just holding on.

Jill shifted around to look at him where he slept.

He'd fallen asleep in a chair across the room. Half slumped with his face on his fist. The sharp blue button-down shirt he wore was open two buttons at the throat. The sleeves were rolled up his forearms.

He was bigger than she remembered, more muscular, denser, and darker. That hair of his remained rock star hot. She slid over the bed and discovered she was in an oversized shirt that was likely his. It was red and down to her knees when she put her legs off the bed.

The suit jacket he'd worn was tossed over a chair beside the hotel room desk. He'd agreed not to take her back to the clinic. She knew she needed deprogramming and therapy. She knew that.

But she needed freedom first, just for a little bit. She'd been in a cage of her flesh for too long.

She needed no boundaries, just for a few days.

Just a few.

Her gaze turned down to find him barefoot. For some reason, she was charmed by his bare feet. They were cute, objectively, with no fat toes or ugly hobbit hairy appendages. She wiggled her toes over to touch his, and he murmured something like gibberish in his sleep.

Her butt slid against the cool cotton, and she knew she wasn't wearing any panties. He'd undressed her and put her to bed. Did he cop a feel? She knew the answer was no on that too. He wasn't that guy. Not three years ago...but did she really know him now?

Maybe he'd raped half of the bioterror world while she'd been gone.

Maybe he was a pig.

A pig who held you and offered his throat for you to slice if it helped you.

No pig. He was still incredible to her. When Chris had left her to chase Wesker, she'd been afraid she'd die on that floor. Josh had helped her to safety, but she'd hoped against hope that Leon might be waiting for her on the other side.

She knew now why he hadn't been.

He'd been eyeball deep in some kind of shit storm he'd made for himself trying to find her. She'd heard whispers in the clinic that he'd been held prisoner in Helsinki and tortured for what he'd done to get the information to locate her. It was Claire pulling political strings that had gotten him released.

Jill slid off the bed and toward him. Without a word, she straddled his lap. He came awake so fast that it made her breathless. His hands shifted like he'd attack her, and she bound his wrists to the chair above his head.

Faster, he thought; she was faster than him. What kind of training had she endured?

Both of their breaths came in sharp pants for a long, long, long moment. She didn't let go of his hands. She kept them over his head. After a long moment of silence, her mouth lowered and rubbed against his. He sat motionless, watching her like a mouse watches the snake before it strikes.

Her nose nuzzled against his jaw and her mouth slid wetly against the pulse there. She felt it jump against her as she sucked the feel of it gently between her lips. Her teeth settled against his skin, just a little, just enough to make his breath catch.

Just enough to let her feel him get hard against her where she straddled him.

She let go of his wrists and lowered her hands to his shirt. Her fingers deftly slid one button out and then another. She paused, watching his face, and she liked that he didn't touch her. He laid his palms on the arm of the chair and let her feel him instead.

Three buttons down, she changed her mind and grabbed two handfuls of the fabric. His body jerked as she ripped it open. Buttons pinged and popped and shot off into the dark. His eyes flared and hooded as she put her mouth to the hollow of his throat.

His chest was peppered with warped scars over the left side. Her mouth slid down them, sucking against the tortured flesh to favor it above the perfect surrounding skin. He made a slight sound and trembled.

Yeah, she thought, torture. He'd been tortured. It was all over his body.

Her mouth sucked his nipple between her teeth and bit down gently until he writhed a little against her.

Jill lifted her mouth off him and tilted her head. His hands were fisted on the charm arms. Hers slid up his chest and raked with her nails, just hard enough to make his nipples peak. She rolled her hips on his lap, painfully slow. When he held so carefully still against her, she finally gripped his wrists and took his hands to slide them over her hips to her butt. She put them on her and used his hands to roll her body against him.

It was permission to touch her. He took it, working her hips in a smooth motion while she reached for his zipper.

He tensed, quivering a little, and finally gruffed, "...you sure? Jill?"

Freedom.

This was how she claimed hers again.

This was how she claimed herself.

She jerked on his zipper. She pulled him free into her fist. He moaned and let her, tugging her body forward enough that he could feel her wet sliding against her eager pumping fist.

Jill shifted over him. She felt his hands roam up and down her back and finally settle on her ass as she guided him into her and sank on his lap to claim him.

Into the electrical dark, he grunted, "...fuck."

And she did that too. She started rolling and raising her hips to swallow him into the heat of her. His hands guided her into a smooth wet ride. When the shirt got in the way, she whined softly, and his hands moved to take it off her.

With a gasping panic, she grabbed for his wrists, "...wait...wait..don't."

Surprised, he surged into her hard enough to make her keen a little and grab for his face. Voice hoarse, he demanded, "Take it off, Jill. Let me see you."

She denied that, shaking her head no, "..please. No. I'm ugly."

His heart hurt. His hands slid around her hips and up her undulating belly. He cupped her heavy breasts in his palms and made her mouth open with a needy gasp. She gripped two handfuls of his hair and angled her body to start slapping down on his lap harder.

When she was so wet, it nearly killed him, and her body was trying to suck him in and keep him there forever; his left hand shifted off her breast to lay flat over the scars on her chest. She panicked, trying to grab for his wrist to stop him, and his other hand looped around the back of her neck to drag her forward.

He kissed her instead, all tongue and sucking and plunging. Undone, she opened her mouth and let him. She stopped fighting and let him stroke her scars as she rode him.

When her thighs quivered, his right hand cupped under her butt as he lifted her with that hand still on her scars and dumped her back on the bed. His pants fell uselessly to the floor. Her thighs spread desperately as the shirt bunched just under her breasts. His shirt flapped around him as he fucked her into the mattress while she gasped and bounced.

Her neck arched for his mouth. He kissed her and cruised his hand down to slip against the moist folds of her. His fingers skimmed, she keened and humped toward him, her body bucked and swallowed his - and he tugged her shirt up to feast on her breasts.

Jill grabbed for his ass to jerk him into her faster. Faster. Faster.

She announced, high and hoarse, "I'm gonna come, ok? I'm gonna come."

And she did. She tightened so hard around him it felt like she was dying. His hand jerked up her shirt to see her, and he curled his tongue over the scars on her chest while she mewled and humped toward him.

Her hands slapped at his back. She fisted one handful of muscle, and the other smacked his ass while he fucked her through her release and favored her scars with his mouth. She gasped and tried to stop him, weakly warning, "...don't...Leon...it's ugly."

Angry, he shook his head. He caught her hands that were trying to pull his mouth away and licked a wet line down her belly while he told her, "You're beautiful, Jill. Beautiful. You survived. Stop fighting me, and let me show you."

Her hand slapped his ass as the orgasm made her seize up and arch, and he answered it. He came in her with a grunt and a trembling curse. He sucked one of her nipples into his mouth and moaned his release around her sweaty skin.

As he thrust rapidly into her and pumped her full of his seed, she gasped and rolled him beneath her. She rode him through it, her hair falling around them. They clutched hands over his head and held until the gasping, shivering, and shaking stopped.

And she collapsed on the bed beside him.

Into the trembling aftermath, she whispered, "...thank you."

She remained the only woman in the world to thank him for sex. His hand roved over her belly. It tucked possessively between her legs and made her tremble and gasp as he stroked his fingers against and inside her to feel where he'd claimed her.

And he answered, "...I fucking missed you, Jill. Tell me what you need."

Her hand slid against his, where he fingered her. She moaned and humped her hips into his hand. Trembling, she pleaded, "...just don't stop, ok? Don't let go."

Didn't she realize? He didn't know-how. He only knew how to hold on to her.