The dark circles beneath Grace Matheson's dull green eyes seem characteristic for new motherhood. Jill smiles sympathetically as the young woman shifts the weight of her infant from one shoulder to the other, muttering apologies between quiet cooes meant to suppress the newborn's cries. Chris stands awkwardly beside her on the porch, arms crossed over his chest while he leans against the wrought iron railing in his typical intimidating stance, and Jill resists the urge to roll her eyes.
It's been three days since the incident with Wesker and Chris has spoken a total of ten words to her, but she never expected any less from him. Jill gave up the hope of rationalizing what had happened with him early on because of his petty, hot-headed nature. He was bound to get over it eventually and once he blew off some steam, she'd take the opportunity to explain herself.
"She's adorable." Jill compliments as she eyes the girl swaddled in pale pink blankets.
"A hellion," Grace says with an amused smile, "But an adorable one nonetheless."
She steps aside to allow them clearance to enter her home. It's exactly the type of mess Jill would expect of a new young mother and there's a slight charm to the plethora of bottles laid out to dry on the kitchen counter and baby blankets draped over the back of the couch.
"We appreciate your time." Jill tells her once they've taken seats around the coffee table.
Chris remains standing as he paces the length of the fireplace mantle to study the framed family photos on its surface. One he finishes, he begins to walk the perimeter of the room. Jill does her best to alleviate the tension he creates.
"We had a couple of questions about your time at Umbrella." Jill explains and Grace furrows her brow in confusion.
"I wasn't there very long." Grace says, confusion evident in her voice. "Is this relevant to Sarah's disappearance?"
Instinctively, Jill looks at Chris. His dark eyes meet hers and she's surprised that he's actually acknowledging her in some way.
"We aren't entirely sure, but we suspect that it might be." Jill confesses. "If you don't mind…"
Grace smiles, shaking her head as she idly rocks her daughter back and forth in a gentle motion.
"I don't mind. I just fear that I may not be much help."
"It's alright if you don't know." Jill assures her. "We heard mention of blood drives being held at Umbrella. Do you know anything about that?"
Grace frowns in a way that unmistakably suggests that she does.
"They weren't held at Umbrella." She tells them. "In fact, you wouldn't know they were run by Umbrella. They held them at a church through a third party. One of the senior representatives coordinated them along with a local physician."
"Do you remember the representative's name?" Jill inquires and Grace nods.
"Winston Clutterbuck," she says and Jill watches Chris stop his anxious pacing.
"He was odd." Grace continues to explain as she looks up at the ceiling in thought. "He was very adamant about them. He pestered me to donate often."
"Why is that?"
Grace shrugs.
"I always just assumed it was because of my blood type," she says, "I'm O neg. The universal donor."
Chris seems annoyed. Jill sees him clench his jaw and she fears he's about to slip into his bad cop routine. Grace doesn't deserve the same treatment Mrs. Clutterbuck received.
"Was that really what it was about?" Jill quickly asks before Chris has a chance to intervene. "I mean, was it really about blood?"
Grace seems confused by the question. She ponders it for a moment as she fiddles with the blankets wrapped around her infant.
"You know," she pauses in thought before continuing, "That's a really good question. He seemed a little over the top at times, but I can't imagine what he would have to gain from it. If I had to guess, he was probably getting a nice bonus out of it. The man was obsessed with money."
Jill believes her. She admits that she had been wrong about Mrs. Clutterbuck, but Grace genuinely has nothing to lose by admitting the truth.
"Did you ever give in? Did you ever donate?"
Grace shakes her head.
"No. I had just found out I was pregnant when they started them. It's not advisable to donate while pregnant. I didn't want to risk hurting her in any way."
She looks down at her daughter and smiles.
"How long was your internship?"
"I only stayed for six months," Grace says, "I didn't plan to get pregnant. I had to take leave from my university and my internship was terminated."
Jill nods in understanding and asks, "What did you study?"
"Biomedical engineering." Grace laughs and adds, "I'm enjoying the staycation."
"Did Sarah participate in the blood drives?" Chris suddenly speaks up, voice a little deeper than usual. It's the beginning of his stupid intimidation game. Jill cringes.
"Not that I know of. She wouldn't have a reason to."
"What about the doctor?" Chris interrupts. "What was their name?"
"I'm not sure," she says with a sigh, "It was a man. Middle aged, if I recall correctly."
"Do you remember which hospital the physician was affiliated with?"
"Yeah," Grace says, "I'll write down the address."
It's an adventure for another day. Chris has no interest in working overtime that evening and they ride back to the precinct in silence. Jill has become accustomed to his cold shoulder and she doesn't push it by attempting to make any conversation with him. She knows any attempt would be fruitless and is prone to exacerbate his anger.
Jill decides to walk home. The fresh air helps clear her head and she appreciates the warmth of the setting sun's rays across her face. Being in the cramped, windowless S.T.A.R.S. office for hours on end has definitely started to have an effect on her and it only adds to the dismal mood created by Chris's behavior. The warm weather and the slight breeze perk her up a little, but it doesn't last.
Her heart skips a beat as she approaches her apartment and notices the thin sliver of light that escapes from the space between the door and its frame. There's absolutely no way in hell that Jill Valentine left her door not only unlocked, but also open, and she feels a nervous weight settle in her gut. Instinctively, she rests her hand over the handgun at her waist and she hesitates outside the door. Is there really any point in calling the police when she herself is the police?
She pulls the Beretta from its holster and gently pushes the door open.
The sight alone is enough to overwhelm her. Jill expected something to be amiss, but she didn't really anticipate the utter chaos that awaits her. The entryway to her apartment is cluttered with overturned cardboard boxes that she hadn't yet unpacked from her relatively recent move, their contents scattered across the floor in an unceremonious fashion. Her kitchen table lays on its side and she immediately notes that the stereo system on the nearby console table is missing. The air feels strange, disturbed, and violating in a way she can't explain.
Her apartment is small enough for her to assess that the culprit isn't around. Jill reholsters her gun and allows her arms to dangle limply at her sides as she merely observes the damage in defeat. The pile of cash and loose change she had thrown on her counter while emptying her pockets on laundry day is missing and the contents in the cabinet beneath her bathroom sink have been strewn about the small room.
Drawers from her desk are thrown on the floor and papers are scattered around the room. One of the windows near her bed is damaged, the view of the alleyway below obscured by the spider crack that spans the entire width of it. She anxiously eyes the nightstand beside her bed and approaches it with caution. Jill already knows it's been emptied, but she wrenches open the drawer anyway and sighs. This is just her luck.
Jill's first instinct is to bang on her neighbor's door. She's met him once before when he tried to bum a lighter off of her and he hadn't been pleased when she informed him that she didn't carry one. Jill suspects that he won't be much help, but she still continues to furiously knock until the lanky, unshaven man answers the door.
"Shit," he greets, holding one eye shut as he tries to shield his face from the hallway light with his hand, "I was tryin' to sleep, lady."
"I'm your neighbor." Jill says, pointing down the hall at her door. "Someone broke into my apartment."
He quickly becomes defensive, holding his hands up in surrender and shaking his head as he insists, "Whoa, it wasn't me."
Jill sighs.
"I know. Did you hear anything?"
He scratches at the stubble on his neck and purses his lips as he seems to think about the question.
"I dunno." He grins sheepishly. "I took a shit ton of Benadryl to help me sleep. Not even the living dead could wake me."
The guy leans forward, causing Jill to step back as he peers out into the hallway.
"How bad is it?" He asks as he steps out of the threshold of his own apartment. "Did they take anything? Break stuff?"
Jill crosses her arms over her chest. Chris really is rubbing off on her.
"Don't worry about it." She says, waving him off with a lazy pass of her hand. "I have it under control."
She calls it into her own precinct because she really isn't sure what else to do. Jill sits on the edge of her bed as she waits, staring at the mess before her in a stunned silence until a loud rapping echoes through the room. The two officers that greet her don't seem particularly stunned by the wreckage. They ask her a few questions before requesting that she wait outside.
Jill sits on the floor in the hallway. She tilts her head back to look up at the ceiling and closes her eyes, letting out a long sigh that seems to relieve some of the tension in her body. A break-in is the last thing she needs right now given the stress of the missing persons cases and her partner's childish behavior. Part of her wonders if it can get any worse. She realizes that it can when she hears loud stomping on the stairs that seems strangely familiar.
Seeing Chris confuses her just as much as it surprises her. Jill can't even begin to guess why he's there and he takes long, quick strides down the hall in her direction. He looks pissed, brow set hard and chest rising and falling faster than usual, and she wonders how he will manage to blame her for this.
"What are you doing here?" She asks as she rises from the floor.
Chris doesn't answer her because of course he doesn't. He stops and stands a little too close to her, close enough for her to consider stepping backwards to salvage her personal space.
"Why didn't you call me?"
She doesn't really understand the question. Why would she call him? He's hardly even acknowledged her existence over the last few days and S.T.A.R.S. isn't really meant for solving burglaries.
"Why would I?"
He shrugs, shoving his hands in his pockets as he says, "I dunno, maybe because I'm your fucking partner?"
Jill almost laughs. Some partner he's been. Since when does he give a shit about her personal life?
"Are you?" She tilts her head to the side and eyes him carefully. "Because it sure hasn't seemed like it over the last few days."
He's mad. She knows it. Chris rakes his fingers through his hair and curses under his breath as he stares down at the floor.
"Yeah, well…"
He grimaces like what he's about to say hurts.
"I'm trying, okay?"
His voice is strangely soft as he says it and Jill doesn't know how to react. She looks up at him, but he keeps his attention on the floor. The moment of quiet they share is awkward and uncomfortable and Jill feels her face grow hot.
"I'm gonna make sure they're doing their damn job." Chris announces, resting his hand on her door in preparation to push it open.
"How did you know?"
It's the question that's been pestering her since he came storming up the stairs.
"I was still at the precinct when it got called in. Marvin told me on my way out."
Chris approaches the door, but pauses before entering.
"Wanted to make sure you were okay." He mumbles, hand splayed across the door's surface. "May I?"
Jill doesn't know what the fluttering feeling is in her stomach, but it feels a lot like butterflies. She doesn't really know how she feels about Chris seeing her apartment in its current state, but she reminds herself that he's a cop. There isn't a logical excuse as to why he can't, so she just nods her head and says, "Pardon the mess though."
Chris is relieved that Branagh's team is handling the investigation. He's not sure why he's so bent out of shape about someone ransacking Jill's apartment, but seeing Ford and Edwards standing in her kitchen makes him feel a little more at ease.
"Glad to see you guys," he says, but grimaces at his own words and adds, "Aside from the circumstances, that is."
Edwards laughs good-naturedly and offers him a handshake.
"Nice to see you too." He tells him. "Heard about all that shit S.T.A.R.S. is dealing with. Sounds like a fuckin' nightmare."
"That's not far off." Chris admits as he surveys the state of disarray around him. "You guys have any input on it?"
Believe it or not, he genuinely cares about their opinions. Chris knows Branagh's team is good, a compliment that he uses very sparingly because of the general incompetence of the Raccoon Police Department. He thinks he could count the number of good cops in that precinct on his hands and it's a disturbing realization that he isn't ready to admit to himself.
"It's hard to say, man." Ford says as he scratches the back of his neck. "Seems like Raccoon is just going to shit these days."
"What do you mean?" Jill asks and Chris inwardly laughs. Leave it to overly analytical Jill to ask the questions.
"She's new." Chris explains. "Moved here for S.T.A.R.S."
"The city isn't usually rife with disappearances, murders, and drug trafficking."
Ford seems to reflect on his thoughts, pausing for a moment before he shrugs.
"It's hard to explain some of the things that are going on."
"Like what?"
Jill doesn't hesitate at all. Chris smirks a little. Ford appears a little flustered by her questions. To be fair, he wouldn't have expected her questions either if he hadn't known her.
"Aside from your cases?" Edwards teases.
"We've had some weird calls lately," Ford tells her, "Calls up to Arklay about 'strange noises.'"
"What does that mean?"
"Your guess is as good as mine. We never hear or find anything."
"How many of these calls have you had?"
"A few."
Edwards interrupts to say, "Young kids romping around in the woods late at night reporting weird sounds? They're probably high. I don't think it's a big deal."
"I dunno, man," Ford sighs, "You never know these days. Feels like the apocalypse is comin' with all these crimes going on."
Chris doesn't necessarily disagree.
After they leave, Chris finds himself standing with Jill in the entryway of her apartment in an uncomfortable silence. He looks around the area and coughs.
"I'll help you clean up."
Jill shakes her head and tucks her hair behind her ear.
"Thanks, but it's not necessary."
Her response annoys him. He's only trying to be nice. She could let him try to make up for the stupid shit he's done for once.
"Jill," he says with an exasperated sigh, "Just let me help."
In retrospect, he guesses he understands why she's so reluctant to accept his help. He has been a bit of a dick.
She stares at him for a moment and he almost asks her what her goddamn problem is. Chris doesn't know why she's looking at him the way she is, but it makes him nervous for some reason.
"Okay," she relents, "Thank you."
He tries not to be mad as he tidies up, but he's not successful. Chris wants to know what punk ass kid had the audacity to break into her apartment and fuck the place up. As he flips the kitchen table upright, he thinks about how unnecessary turning it over was, and he thinks maybe the culprit deserves a little unnecessary roughness in return.
Once he feels the area is sufficiently straightened up, he finds Jill kneeled on the floor beside her bed. She's gingerly lifting pieces of broken pottery out of a pile of soil that's strewn across the floor near some house plant that looks as though it's been trampled.
"Never took you for the gardening type."
Jill stops for a moment before placing another shard of the destroyed planter into the pile she has collected.
"I'm not."
Chris knows there's something more to this. The softness of her voice has a strange quality to it and it makes him feel embarrassed about his innocuous comment. He decides to assist her in collecting pieces of the broken pot and tries his best to push all the soil together into a single mound with his hands.
"I guess it's dead."
She's staring at the sad, wilted plant on the floor. Chris didn't expect her to be so sentimental about a plant. He learns new things about Jill Valentine every day.
"I dunno," he admits, "But, look…"
Something clicks in his head. Chris thinks he's a fucking genius.
"If it means that much to you, I can have my sister look at it. She's good at that kind of stuff."
The next part of his half-baked plan requires some guts to say aloud. He nervously coughs.
"I bet she can fix it. I mean, you probably shouldn't stay here anyway. I mean...you know, because your apartment was just broken into. You could…"
He cringes at himself.
"I mean, if you want to, you could stay the night at my place. My sister lives with me, you know. I mean...she can probably fix your plant for you."
Scratch that. Chris thinks he's a fucking idiot. Why the hell did he have to say it like that?
"What I'm saying is…"
What is he saying?
"You should stay the night at my place. We'll bring the plant and I'll get Claire to look at it."
He's definitely a fucking idiot.
"Claire is," he lets out a long sigh, "Claire's my sister."
Jill's staring at him like he's the one who just killed her plant. He's never been good at this kind of shit.
"Didn't you call me a bitch three days ago?"
Chris flinches. He couldn't remember if he had only thought it or said it, but he apparently knows the answer now.
"Yeah…I guess I did."
"And now you're inviting me to stay the night at your apartment?"
"Well, yeah, but—"
"I just have one question."
Jill stands up, folding her arms over her chest as she looks down at him. The cross expression on her face and the way she's hovering over him make him feel a little nervous.
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
In all fairness, that's a question he asks himself every day.
"I have no fucking idea." He admits. "But I'm trying, okay? I have a fucking problem and I'm trying to fix it."
He points at the busted window behind him.
"All I know is that some shithead broke into my partner's apartment and stole a bunch of shit and I don't really feel comfortable with her staying here tonight, alright? Just...let me do the right thing for once."
Chris is good at what he does. Sure, he's a little rough around the edges, but he never said his technique was perfect. Despite that, he's good at being a cop and even better at reading people. He's observant. He knew Mrs. Clamberbutts or whatever the fuck was lying because he's a goddamn expert in body language.
Despite this, he can't tell what the hell is going through Jill's head. Not now and not hardly ever. She doesn't say anything to him and instead goes back to cleaning.
Chris thinks he knows how to take a hint. He keeps his mouth shut and starts putting the drawers back into her desk.
It isn't until forty-five minutes later when they're nearly finished that she speaks.
"Alright," she tells him as she throws her pillow back onto her bed, "But I'm doing it for the plant."
Fuck.
"Of course."
He didn't expect her to say yes. He didn't even expect to ask her to stay with him. Why the fuck did he do that?
What the fuck is Claire going to say?
Her decision to accept his offer wasn't an easy one. Initially, her instinct was to outright decline his proposition, but his sister's alleged gardening skills were what kept her from telling him off. She pondered it for a while and carefully weighed her options.
If she stayed at his place, she wouldn't have to pay for a hotel. Not that she needed company, but she wouldn't be alone at his place, either. They could talk about the case. Maybe her plant would live.
This was Chris though. Chris Redfield, her seemingly borderline partner who apparently had two very distinct personalities, invited her to stay at his place. It seems weird to stay with a coworker. It seems even weirder to stay with the coworker who called her a bitch.
Jill did it for the plant. As she sits in the passenger seat of Chris's car, she stares down at the crumpled remains of her plant sheltered within the cardboard box that rests in her lap and reflects on his bizarre behavior.
Chris knew he had a problem—he admitted it to her during his awkward monologue at her apartment. It made her feel a little sympathy for him. For the first time, she's able to imagine what it must feel like to be Chris Redfield and she feels bad about how frustrating it must be to know you're an asshole but not be able to control it.
That man needs therapy. No doubt about it. Sure, she feels sorry for him, but it doesn't excuse his behavior either. Chris clearly needs to learn some self-control.
"So," she says, feeling a little annoyed by her own thoughts, "Your sister is okay with some bitch staying the night?"
She sees his grip tighten on the steering wheel. He leans forward to turn down the radio that's playing some shitty love song.
"Look," he runs his hand through his hair as they wait at a red light, "I'm sorry about that, okay? I was just fucking mad. It doesn't make it alright and I regret saying it, but I was pissed off."
The apology is surprising. It isn't particularly sweet and it certainly isn't a good one, but she can tell he's being genuine. She watches him anxiously tap his fingertips on the back of the steering wheel as they wait.
"I'm sorry too." She thoughtlessly blurts out, surprising even herself.
Well, no going back now.
"About the Wesker thing," she clarifies, "I really didn't mean to talk about you. He pulled me into his office to ask how things were going and one question led to another."
She sighs.
"I was overwhelmed. Wesker is kind of...intense sometimes."
Chris makes a sound that's a mix between a laugh and a snort.
"I prefer to describe him as a fucking sociopath, but to each his own."
She can't suppress her slight smile. It's not unfitting.
Holding up her hands in defense, Jill laughs, "Hey, I didn't say it."
The conversation isn't deep, but the apologies are enough to make Jill feel a little lighter. For the first time in three days, their relationship seems to be back to its bizarre normalcy. In all the chaos that is S.T.A.R.S. and Raccoon City, Chris feels like the only constant in her life and she's grateful to have him back in whatever strange capacity that she does. He's still a broody asshole, but Jill decides she's willing to try to understand him better.
Jill suddenly understands Chris a hell of a lot better when they step foot in his apartment. Chris is barely able to close the door behind them, keys still jingling in the lock when the shouting begins.
"How nice of you to come home, you fucker!" A loud voice calls, growing progressively louder as the speaker approaches. "I started to think you wouldn't dare come home after you took all of last night's leftovers to work and left me here to starve, but h—"
A redheaded woman appears from around the corner and comes to a complete stop mid-step, staring Jill directly in the eyes. Although Chris had mentioned living with his sister earlier, the resemblance between them is undeniable in both appearance and personality it seemed. The intense look in her eyes matches his and there's a similar bounce to their gait.
"Hello." She quickly says, leaning her shoulder against the wall and crossing her arms over her chest. "Who are you and why are you with my brother?"
Jill is nearly rendered speechless. She absolutely understands why Chris is the way he is now. Common decency wasn't in the Redfield genome.
"I mean," she continues, "You could do a lot better. Trust me."
"Fucking hell, Claire. She's my coworker." Chris grunts, wrinkling his face in an expression of disgust.
"Even worse!" Claire exclaims, throwing her hands up in the air. "What are you trying to do, get fired?"
Jill tries not to laugh. Chris glares at her. She thinks he deserves a taste of his own medicine.
"It's not like that. Her apartment got broken into and…"
He turns, taking the box from Jill's arms and shoving it into Claire's.
"And I thought you might be able to help her with this."
Claire peers down into the box and starts to laugh.
"That makes so much more sense," she says, seemingly relieved, "Because she's way out of your league."
Chris mumbles something under his breath.
"This is my sister." He announces. "And this is Jill, my partner. Work partner."
Although he had already made that obvious, Jill smiles and awkwardly waves.
"I'm sorry you have to work with my brother." Claire tells her as she sets the box on the countertop. "And I'm sorry your apartment got broken into."
Claire is a lot like her brother, but she's much more charming. Jill is almost a little inspired by her energy.
"Yeah, well, the only thing you need to worry about fixing is her plant." Chris declares with a scowl. "Can you do it or not?"
Claire rolls her eyes and stands on her tiptoes to peek over the edge of the box again.
"Maybe." She looks back over her shoulder at Jill and winks. "I'll try."
Jill feels a little uncomfortable standing in the entryway of their apartment because it's almost as though she's witnessing something that she shouldn't. Forcing a smile, she nods and thanks her. She reminds herself that she's doing this for the plant. After all, it's the only thing she has left to remember her late foster mother by and Jill laments the possibility that it might not survive.
"Thank you." She earnestly says with a smile that she hopes seems more warm than it is forced. "It means a lot to me."
Claire nods her head, but her cordial expression falls as she narrows her eyes at Chris and gives him a nasty look.
"Well?" She asks, tapping her foot expectantly. "I can't save a life on an empty stomach."
Chris looks less than impressed.
"It's a plant, Claire."
"It's still alive."
Jill steps back a little to watch the two of them bicker. It seems appropriate for two hot-headed siblings to behave in such a way. Chris doesn't seem to get a break at work or at home and she feels a little apologetic about it. She should cut him a little more slack.
"Fine," Chris forfeits, "But you better fix the fucking plant."
Surprised seems like an understatement when describing the feeling he experiences upon finding Claire and Jill sitting beside one another on his couch, the two of them engaged in what seems like casual conversation. Claire doesn't bother to acknowledge him when he walks in with a heavy cardboard box full of steaming Chinese food, but Jill pauses mid-speech and turns to greet him with a smile.
As he sets the box down on the coffee table, he thinks about how odd the scenario is. Seeing Jill in such a relaxed state is almost jarring. She's always so uptight at work and is never the type to speak unless spoken to. Watching her chat and laugh with his sister and being greeted by her soft smile instills a foreign feeling in him, one that he ponders on even as he's chewing a mouthful of noodles.
"The plant must be pretty special to you." Claire muses aloud while gesturing towards Jill with the end of her chopsticks. "What's the story behind that?"
In response, Jill seems a lot more like herself. Her shoulders slump slightly and there's a moment of despondent silence between them. She tucks her hair behind her ear—her nervous habit that she uses to buy herself time to think, Chris has realized—and averts her blank stare to her plate. It's a question she doesn't want to answer.
Thankfully, Claire picks up on that, too.
"Oh," she shifts the subject, "Tell me about the case you guys are working on because Chris sure as hell won't."
Leave it to Claire to bring up tough subjects. He's about to reprimand her for being so daft, but Jill seems to perk up at the invitation to discuss the case.
"It's so weird," Jill tells her, "All these missing people with seemingly nothing in common."
"Maybe they're not all connected?" Claire asks as she pushes her pile of rice around on her plate.
Jill pauses at the thought and asks, "What do you mean?"
Claire shrugs nonchalantly and says, "Maybe they're not all connected and you're just getting too hung up on the details."
It's a valid suggestion. He's surprised it came from his sister.
"Like," Claire continues, "Maybe there's something going on with some of them, but the rest might just be something else."
"A few of them are connected to Umbrella in some way." Jill reveals. "Former employees and interns."
"Everyone in Raccoon is connected to Umbrella." Chris reminds her and Claire nods in agreement.
He watches Jill sigh and press the pads of her fingers against her temples in apparent frustration.
"The only lead we have is this blood drive Umbrella sponsored and even that is weak." Jill laughs bitterly. "It's not even a lead, really. It probably means nothing, but we have nothing else to investigate."
"What's that all about?"
"Some dead guy," Chris contributes, "This creepy old fuck who preyed on young girls. He was in charge of arranging some blood drives at Umbrella or something and told his wife it was about making drugs or some shit, but I'm pretty sure he was just a fuckin' pervert."
Claire furrows her brow and asks, "Using a blood drive to fuck young girls? It doesn't really make much sense."
"Makes enough sense to me." Chris tells her. "The crusty old fuck probably played the hero card to impress girls. Kids are stupid."
"They were women, not kids." Jill corrects him. It's semantics.
"Kids to me." Chris retorts. "Doesn't it really matter?"
He swears he can hear the gears in Claire's head turning. She narrows her eyes as she thinks and idly taps her fingers against the edge of the table.
"Maybe you're wrong." Claire looks at him as she speaks. "Maybe that's not it."
He really didn't want to talk to her about this and he didn't expect Jill to be so open about it. Isn't she the one who plays by the book?
"The guy was a pervert." Chris insists, feeling a little annoyed by Claire's participation in the discussion. "Why else would some old fuck be hanging around teenagers?"
"Oh, oh!" Claire exclaims with excitement. "What if that's the connection?"
Chris tries not to get frustrated, but isn't that what he said?
"Yeah, the pervert. We're working on it."
Claire glares at him.
"No," she hisses in a reprimanding tone, "Umbrella is a research facility, isn't it? Maybe they were really using the blood for research and that's the link between all your missing people, not Umbrella. There's something special about their blood that they all have in common."
How is it possible for his teenage sister to connect dots before he can? Fuck, he really is a shitty cop.
"Could be," Jill mumbles, "But why kill one of the girls?"
"Maybe the research is sketchy and she found out about it. Maybe they experimented on her and it went bad. Maybe it has nothing to do with it, I dunno."
Chris rolls his eyes. It's not a fucking movie. If Umbrella was involved in some conspiracy, someone would have ratted them out by now.
"I was almost on board, but you're starting to sound like Joseph now."
Unless...someone did plan on ratting them out and now they were rotting in the RPD's morgue. What a fucking headache this was turning out to be.
"Oh, come on. Joseph is way more ridiculous." Jill says with a laugh. "I mean...sasquatch?"
"Yeah, she's smarter than Joseph, but that doesn't mean she doesn't sound like a paranoid conspiracy theorist either."
Claire flips him off. He goes back to eating.
"I think we should check it out." Jill quietly says after a few moments have passed.
"It's weak." He tells her. "We can't get anywhere with that."
"It doesn't mean we can't try," Jill argues, "I mean...what do we have to lose?"
Her words sting like a slap to the face. She's right. They have nothing to lose because they've been too incompetent to find any breaks in the damn case. Jill has that faraway look in her eyes and he hates it. It's a look that doesn't belong to her, one that's best suited for the broken and disturbed.
"Yeah, alright." Chris says. "We'll look into it in the morning."
The hopeful smile on her face almost makes him grin in kind. He hopes it's enough to appease her worries for the night because she deserves some fucking sleep for once.
Claire makes small talk with Jill. Chris is impressed by the careful and innocuous conversation because it isn't like Claire to show self-restraint when it comes to butting into the business of others. She plays it safe, asks her about her favorite films, musical tastes, and other shit that doesn't really matter in the long run. It's a nice change of pace.
Once Claire bids them goodnight, they find themselves alone on the couch. Chris leans into the couch and sighs with content. He appreciates the quiet.
"You know," Jill speaks up, "About the case…"
It's always about the case. He's so tired of the fucking case.
"Jill, look," he says with an exasperated sigh, "You've been working the case nonstop, your apartment just got broken into, and you never fucking sleep."
She looks surprised. Her blue eyes are wide and her jaw slackens as her lips part in awe.
"Get some rest tonight, alright?"
He doesn't know why he sounds so angry. He's not trying to sound angry.
"That's why I brought you here. You need to sleep, not worry all night about the fuckhead who broke into your apartment and the one running around killing people."
Jill is silent for a moment before her lips curl into a small smile.
"I thought I was here because of the plant." She teases.
Chris coughs.
"Yeah," he quickly says, "And the plant."
He feels like a fucking idiot. He shouldn't have brought her here. He sounds like a dumbass.
"Hey Chris," Jill softly says, "I…"
She looks him in the eye, tucks her hair behind her ear, and smiles.
"Thanks."
It makes him feel something and he's not sure how to feel about it.
The acrid smell of bleach and antiseptic reminds him of parts of his childhood that he'd rather forget. Chris has hated hospitals ever since he first stepped in one at eleven years old and it's a sentiment that has persisted even after a decade of being away from one. He decides to hold his breath as they walk down the blindingly white hallway and only lets it go in a harsh exhale once they're safe inside the elevator.
Jill gives him a strange look.
"The smell was bothering me." He explains as he leans against the back wall of the cab, doing his best to ignore the residual burning in his oxygen-starved lungs. "Must be allergic or something."
It's only a half lie and she seems to buy it. Jill turns her attention to the keypad and presses the button for the third floor with surprising confidence.
"It's the oncology floor." She explains to him. "I think oncologists usually specialize in hematology too."
"Sure."
Chris agrees because he really doesn't know what the hell she's saying, but she sounds like she knows what she's talking about. Whatever gets him out of there the quickest is fine with him and he's happy to let Jill take the lead on this one.
The elevator lurches forward in a way that makes him nervous as it starts its descent. He looks at the fluorescent lights above them and tightly clenches his eyes closed. Chris tries to preoccupy his mind by counting the seconds that pass and he pretends he doesn't hear machinery squeak under the burden of their combined weight. He clenches the metal safety rail behind them in his fist and finds that it's a lot smaller than the one he remembers hanging onto to keep from stumbling on shaky legs when he was a child.
He suddenly feels a lot like that child now. It's something he doesn't want to think about.
The chime that sounds when they reach the third floor is exactly as he remembered. He assumes that all hospitals employ the same elevator manufacturer and he thinks it's stupid. Chris blames corporate America or something, anything to keep from noticing just how much the nurses' station that awaits them looks like the one he's dreamt about a thousand times.
The woman at the desk keeps her eyes glued to the computer screen in front of her as they approach. Her fingers move rapidly across the keyboard with practiced precision and her forehead is wrinkled in a way that threatens anyone who dares to break her concentration. Jill patiently waits at the edge of the desk as she types away and Chris keeps his distance by feigning interest in the generic painting of an oceanscape that's plastered on the wall. It's probably not even a real place.
"Sorry," the woman finally says, "I had to get it all down before I forgot."
Once he has committed the arrangement of seashells on the probably nonexistent beach to memory, he supposes that the jig is up and it's time for him to pretend to be a half-decent cop. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he saunters over to Jill as she's in the midst of conversation with the woman.
"You know about the blood drives?"
The elevated pitch in Jill's voice suggests that she's surprised. To be fair, he is too. Chris never expected this to pan out to be fruitful in any way.
"Sure," the woman says, "One of our physicians was in charge of them."
Chris watches a woman stumble out of her room halfway down the hall. Her bony white fist clenches an IV pole and the edge of her pale blue hospital gown slips down her sharp shoulder. She looks up from her sock-covered feet and he catches a glimpse of her dull green eyes that rest in the sunken-in bone around them. He thinks she looks familiar. The pale, paper-thin skin stretched over bone and the gaunt appearance of her face reminds him of his mother the last time he ever saw her—cold, pale, and dead.
"This Dr. Lester," he hears Jill say, "Is he here?"
He returns his attention to the woman at the desk and she briefly glances at him through her periphery before looking back at Jill. He remembers that his mother was a redhead. This patient doesn't look anything like her. He needs to get a fucking grip.
"Not anymore."
She glances from one side to the other as if to ensure they're out of earshot. Satisfied with her findings, she rises a little from her chair and whispers, "Just between you and me, the guy was absolutely nuts."
Jill tilts her head to the side and leans in a little closer.
"What do you mean?"
He can tell Jill's excited, but it's hard to summon the same feeling. All he can focus on is the faint beeping sound that's coming from one of the rooms down the hall. He's heard it before, but he can't place the source of it.
"He used to be a good doctor. He was always up here with us and jumping in when things went south. A while back, he started disappearing and was never around. We'd page him over and over and never get a response…"
She cups the side of her mouth with her hand to muffle her voice and points down at the floor.
"You'll have to talk to the ICU nurses about it. Rumor says they had some kind of mold growing in one of the rooms and they found him down there talking to it. He started neglecting his patients because he was always looking for excuses to go down there. He eventually just stopped showing up to work."
Jill looks at him. He shrugs because he was only half-listening and isn't entirely sure of what's going on.
"Where's the ICU?"
"Second floor."
He follows her back to the elevator after she thanks the woman for her help. As soon as the doors begin to close, she whips around to face him.
"Are you alright?" She gently asks.
Is he alright? He's not sure he's ever been asked that question before.
"Yeah." He chokes out. "My breakfast just isn't sitting well with me."
He doesn't think Jill's buying it, but he's glad she doesn't press him any further. Chris acknowledges that he's being a bitch and tells himself to get it together. Now isn't the time to wallow in childhood trauma. He needs to man up and help Jill out. This could be a huge break.
His bravery is short-lived. As they walk through the sliding glass doors leading to the ICU, he's overwhelmed by the rhythmic sound of the respirators that force oxygen into the lungs of the dying. The puffing is slower than he remembers or maybe his father was more fucked up than the sad saps lying in the beds of this ICU. Regardless, he fucking hates this sound.
"Hello," Jill greets one of the nurses sitting outside of a room, "Do you have a moment?"
She doesn't seem sure how to respond. Chris flashes his badge at her. The sound of the ventilators is deafening.
"O-oh," she stutters, "Of course, officers."
Jill asks her about Dr. Lester. Chris watches the forced rise and fall of the man in the room's chest through the glass that separates them.
"It was room fifteen." He hears the nurse say. "It was this drug-resistant mold or something. They had trouble eradicating it."
"Is that normal?"
"I mean…ICUs are breeding grounds for drug-resistant organisms, but I've never seen mold like that before."
He stares at the monitor at the man's bedside and watches the jagged line that denotes the man's heart rhythm. It's moving faster than his father's did.
"He was in there a lot. I didn't ever go in there, but one of our charge nurses said he was always talking like someone was there. There wasn't ever anyone in there but him. They think he was talking to the mold."
Jill nudges him softly.
"Why…" He pauses, fumbling for a question to further a conversation that he wasn't really listening to in the first place. "Why would he talk to mold?"
"It happened before I started working here, but…" She turns in her chair to peek at the man in the room before turning back to the two of them. "I heard that his wife died in that room. There's a rumor going around that he thought it was her."
"He thought the mold was his wife?" Jill asks, her skepticism evident in her voice. "Why would a doctor think that?"
"I don't know." She replies. "Grief affects people in weird ways. It doesn't care what kind of education you have. I mean, maybe the spores did something to his brain."
That green line looks more reminiscent of his father's now. Chris doesn't know what that means.
"When did you last see Dr. Lester?"
Now it's slower than his father's was. He wonders if that's supposed to happen.
"It's been a while. Six months maybe?"
That sounds like more than enough time to become a serial killer. Maybe they really are onto something.
"Do you have any idea what happened to him? We heard he stopped coming to work with no explanation."
The nurse nods.
"Yeah, the rumor is that he holed himself up in his cabin in Arklay."
Jill immediately looks at him and he finally knows what she's trying to say. Strange noises. Arklay. Dr. Lester.
"Thanks." Chris says. "You've been very helpful."
Jill looks like she has more questions, but he thinks they have more than enough to work with. Dr. Lester sounds fucking insane and he has a cabin in Arklay. They can look up the details later because he needs to get the fuck out of there—and he does.
He mills about near the elevator. Jill sprints up to him.
"Hey," she breathlessly says, "Are you sure you're alright?"
"Peachy." He lies.
Chris prays that he's only imagining the visible tremor in his hand as he presses the elevator call button. At the very least, he hopes she doesn't see it.
All eyes are on her as she announces their findings to the rest of the team. Chris is uncannily quiet as she explains the potential connection between the missing persons and the likelihood of Dr. Lester being involved in the matter. Even as Joseph throws out his far-fetched theories in support of their claims, Chris doesn't even seem to react.
"Maybe he was experimenting with blood to cure his lycanthropy." Joseph spitballs. "He's tired of losing control and mauling innocent hikers in Arklay. All he wanted to do was live a normal human life, but his bloodlust finally took over."
"I really can't stand you sometimes." Kevin grumbles. "Do you really believe the shit that comes out of your own mouth?"
"Don't ever lose your imagination, Jill," Joseph advises, "You'll end up lame and old like Ryman over here."
Jill smiles politely. She's too preoccupied with Chris's morose behavior to entertain Joseph's antics.
"It sounds plausible." Wesker decides. "Good work, Valentine."
She flinches at the compliment. Why only her?
"Chris is responsible for a lot of the findings as well, sir." She defends him.
Wesker doesn't give her much of a response and only grunts, "Hm. Of course."
The snarky tone in his voice is apparent to her and it irritates her a little. Chris deserved just as much credit as she did, if not more. She expects Chris to call Wesker on his prejudice, but he doesn't. Something isn't right and it's starting to worry her. This isn't the Chris she knows.
"Interview him." Wesker commands. "And Redfield…"
Chris regards him with a bored look.
"Do your best to refrain from botching the investigation with your temper tantrums."
Wesker is quick to leave in his usual infuriating way. The tension in the room is palpable as they wait for Chris to react, but he only takes a healthy swig of his coffee and begins to type away on his computer.
"Creepy fuckin' asshole." Joseph mumbles in place of whatever retort Chris would have summoned.
"Looks like he has a place downtown," Chris announces, "And one in Arklay."
Jill feels the thrill of excitement.
"So the rumors might have been true."
Chris nods and says, "Let's hit Arklay first."
Jill's already getting up from her desk when Joseph shouts, "Wait a sec!"
He crosses his arms over his chest and leans back in his chair, glancing up at the ceiling as he seems to think.
"You should get some wolfsbane just in case, don't ya think?" He asks. "And some silver. Werewolves hate silver."
Barry laughs quietly from the back of the office while Brad and Kevin both groan. Joseph takes his anger out on Brad, pointing at him accusingly as he yells, "No one asked you, Vickers!"
"Wolfsbane and silver," Jill comments with an amused smile, "Got it."
Barry makes eye contact with her and it makes her a little uncomfortable. He doesn't speak often, but when he does, it's always of value.
"Werewolves aside, it could get messy," he tells her, "Be careful."
Jill nods.
"Always."
She suddenly feels incredibly nervous.
"Do you want me to drive?" She quietly asks him as they approach their assigned car.
Chris shakes his head. She hesitates, but ultimately hands him the keys anyway.
It feels like her blood is buzzing once they hit the road. This could finally be it. This could be the end of the sleepless nights and impossibly heavy burden that has threatened to smother her ever since she moved to Raccoon City. Dr. Lester could very well be the man responsible for all of this and she might play a role in bringing his victims to justice. Maybe they'd even find some of them alive.
"This could be it." She announces aloud, turning her attention away from the road to Chris. "This might really be the end of it."
Chris pauses for a moment. She catches a glimpse of his dark irises as he momentarily regards her from his periphery.
"Maybe," he says, "But don't let your excitement introduce any bias to the investigation."
Jill almost gets pissed off by his comment, but the rational part of her knows that he's right. Innocent until proven guilty. Wasn't that one of the basics?
The weather doesn't fit the occasion. Arklay is welcoming thanks to the bright sunlight that filters between the leaves of the thick clusters of trees. A warm breeze combs through the vibrant patches of wildflowers that line the roughly graveled road that makes the ride uncomfortably turbulent. The engine of the police car whines as it attempts to traverse a particularly steep incline and Chris curses under his breath once they've made it over.
"Typical of Irons to issue pieces of shit like this." He grumbles, gesturing towards the dashboard.
That's the Chris she knows. Jill smiles with relief.
"You know, I can almost see the appeal now." She admits, rolling down the window a little to let the early summer air in. "The mountains are a lot more charming when the sun is out."
And, you know, when there isn't a bloated, rotting corpse sitting in front of her, too. That probably has something to do with it.
"It really is nice up here in the summertime. I used to spend a good bit of the summer on the river with the guys and my sister."
He grimaces before continuing and adds, "You know...before there were bodies in it."
Morbid, but there's a little dark humor in it, too. Jill grins slightly and nods her head in understanding, but it's hard for her to imagine Chris relaxing near the water. She doesn't think she's ever seen Chris relax anywhere if she's being honest with herself. Chris is always tense.
Dr. Lester's cabin doesn't appear to be the lodging of a murderer. She isn't sure what she expected when she imagined how it must look, but the carefully manicured lilac bushes that sit before the quaint little cabin weren't what she anticipated. Thanks to Joseph's antics, she supposes that she expected a run down shack shrouded in billowing fog and warning signs threatening any visitors to turn back.
Chris kills the engine and rests his hand on the gun at his hip. He looks over at her with a stern expression.
"Remember," he advises, "The priority here is your own safety."
Jill feigns a polite smile. Does he still think she's incompetent? She knows that a dead partner is of no use to him.
The warped boards on the porch groan beneath Chris's weight as he approaches the front door. He leans in close, ear hovering close to the door's surface as if concentrating to hear anything within. His brow furrows in concentration and he sighs, stepping back to knock loudly at the door.
Silence.
"Dr. Lester!" He shouts, palm curved around the grip of his pistol. "Police! We have a few questions for you!"
Jill has a hunch that no one is home and Chris apparently senses this too. He takes in a deep breath, steps back, and gives her no warning before forcing the door open with a swift ram of his shoulder.
It's the smell that gets her. That familiar, sickly sweet, rancid smell that assaults her senses the second the door flies open makes her stomach turn and she swallows hard in an attempt to force down anything that threatens to come up. She remembers this, the stench of decay, from their last visit to Arklay, but Michelle Sanders didn't stink quite like this.
"Holy fuck." Chris coughs, lifting his arm to shield his nose and mouth in a way that doesn't seem the least bit effective given the disgusted look on his face.
The golden sunlight filtering in through the grime-covered windows doesn't detract from the scene that greets them. Her attention is immediately drawn to the rope that's stretched across the width of the cabin, slightly weighed down by the weight of the various dead animals that dangle from it. Jill's not even sure what half of them are on account of the degree to which they're rotten and mutilated, but she can make out pieces of feather and fur amid the viscera and bone.
Chris makes the first move, entering the cabin with a timid step. He takes care to avoid the blood that's splattered across the wooden floorboards in a way that suggests the animals were part of some deranged bloodletting process. Jill isn't sure that woodland creatures have enough blood to make the mess that's splashed across the walls and furniture alike.
The stone fireplace nearby is filled with a pile of bones. Jill looks away, but there's death all over this fucking cabin. Everywhere she turns, she sees some evidence of it—errant blood splatters, tufts of fur, sharpened blades, and splintered shards of bone. It's almost cliche enough to fit in with Joseph's werewolf theory and she might have laughed if she wasn't so disgusted by it all.
"Jill."
There's something strange about his voice, a tremor of some sort that doesn't fit Chris Redfield. Jill looks away from the scratches in the floorboards to see him standing in the kitchenette, his broad shoulders and back blocking her view of whatever's sitting in front of him. She makes her way to him hesitantly, not entirely sure that she wants to see what he has discovered.
Jill isn't an expert, but the long bone sitting on the countertop certainly didn't come from any woodland creature she knows of. She stares at the yellowed surface of the bone and the porous filling made visible by the crack in its shaft and feels a little woozy.
"I don't think this came from an animal." Chris murmurs and she watches his gaze fall on the length of her thigh.
It's suspiciously comparable in length to her own thigh. She thinks it looks a lot like the bones she has seen on the plastic skeleton shoved in the back of her high school science classroom. It's a fucking human femur and she knows it, but she doesn't want to admit it.
"I'm gonna call it in." Chris tells her.
She can't look away from it. She doesn't want him to leave her alone in this cabin, not even for a fucking minute, but she doesn't dare say it aloud.
"Be careful." She whispers hoarsely and Chris cracks the slightest hint of a smile and tells her that of course he will in his usual confident way.
Jill preoccupies herself by pacing around the cabin. She looks for any semblance of normalcy that she can find—a photo of Dr. Lester with who she assumes to be his late wife, a light jacket hanging on the wall, a jar of peanut butter sitting on the kitchen counter, a backpack carelessly discarded on a nearby chair.
She isn't one to judge, but she doesn't think that the various band patches sewn all over the face of the bag look like Dr. Lester's taste. Jill knows what she's going to find, but she ignores the alarm bells ringing in the back of her head. She rifles through the bag and finds various items—a water bottle, beef jerky, a first aid kit—and frowns when she procures the worn leather wallet from inside.
Eric Andrews is—was?—a bright-eyed, twenty-one year old man from Tennessee.
Jill cringes when she sees his height printed on the plastic card. She looks back over her shoulder at the bone sitting on the counter. Eric Andrews is—was—5'5".
She's 5'5".
"Chris!" She calls out on instinct, hands trembling slightly as she pulls the ID out of the wallet.
He's already rushing inside when she looks up and she hands him the card without a word. He looks down at it, presumably reads over it a few times, and then looks up to stare at the bone sitting on the counter.
"Fuck."
Jill's sitting in the seat beside him with her knees drawn to her chest and her temple pressed against the window. She sighs softly and closes her eyes, rubbing at them with the backs of her balled up fists.
"I wonder if he knows." She wonders aloud, looking over at him as she asks, "Do you think he's coming back?"
Chris shifts in his seat. His neck is stiff from staring at the cabin and sitting in place for so long.
"Doubt it."
He should have had Jill call it in. Wesker was quick to order them to stay in place for surveillance while deploying the others. If Jill had called, they'd probably be on their way to arrest the fucker.
Barry's voice comes through the radio, broken by static. He and Vickers have reached their destination.
"Do you think they'll find him?"
Chris shrugs.
"Barry and Ryman are good cops, but they're handicapped by Vickers and Frost."
Jill smiles for the first time in a few hours. The sun is starting to set and the warm orange light gives her a healthy glow that makes her grin seem just a little brighter.
"I'm sure they'll find him." He tries to reassure her. "It'll all be over soon."
He doesn't really know if he believes his own words, but he likes the way they make her smile.
The radio stirs to life again. Ryman announces that they've arrived at their location.
"You're right," she says, "Probably."
They're quiet for a while. He watches the wind rustle the leaves of the nearby trees and wonders how long this will take.
"I can't believe this is almost over." Jill sighs. "What are we going to do with all our free time?"
She laughs awkwardly and he smiles.
"I guess we'll just wait for the next psychopath to start committing crimes in Raccoon City, but…"
He swallows as he tries to summon up the courage to say what comes next.
"Even if we aren't the ones to catch him, you should be proud of yourself. I mean, we didn't have any leads until you showed up."
Jill laughs nervously and tucks some of her hair behind her ear.
"You all would have figured it out eventually," she insists, "I was just lucky."
He can't tell if the hint of red in her cheeks is from the sunset or her own humility.
"Nah," he shakes his head and holds in a laugh, "Frost probably would have convinced us that it was a sasquatch. We'd have been chasing nothing."
"He still could be a werewolf, you know." Jill teases. "Joseph could still be right."
Static comes through the radio. He can't make out anything on the other end.
"Could be." He tells her. "And monkeys could fly out of my ass."
Jill rolls her eyes. The radio crackles again.
"—can't believe it!" Joseph's voice comes through at an ear-piercing volume. "We got him! We fuckin' got him!"
Jill looks at Chris with wide eyes. He isn't sure he heard him right.
"You got Lester?" He asks for confirmation.
"You bet we fuckin' got him! Creepy ass fucker!"
He can't fight the grin that breaks out on his face. Jill laughs, all teeth and smiles, and she grabs his hand tight.
"Oh god," she breathlessly says, "It's over. It's over."
Her hand is warm and soft in his. Their palms fit together so well.
"I can't believe it!" She presses a hand to her chest, right over her heart. "We were right. We were right, Chris!"
He wants to correct her. Chris wants to tell her that she was right, that everything was her idea and he merely followed her around. He wants to tell her that she's sharp, that she was right all along, that they should be the ones thanking her for solving this case. He wants to tell her that he doesn't think they would have solved it without her.
Chris looks at her, into her pale blue eyes and along the soft edges of her face. He thinks about how wrong he was about her, how he was a huge fucking asshole and took his shitty attitude on her on the first day. He thinks about the dark circles under her eyes, the visible evidence of all her sleepless nights that she has poured into this case, and he thinks about how alive she seemed that night at the bar.
He glances down at her mouth. The scabs are gone. Her lips look so soft.
Closing his eyes tightly, he swallows hard to find some sense of relief. He doesn't know why he feels like this.
When he opens them again, she's looking up at him with those pretty blue eyes. Her smile is gone and she tilts her head to the side just slightly. She's concerned about him.
"Hey," she whispers, "You okay?"
She has this little dimple in her chin that he's never really noticed before.
"Yeah," he lies, nodding his head, "Just...in shock, I guess."
Shocked because he's thinking about how pretty Jill Valentine is.
"I get it. I mean, I can't believe it's over. It happened so fast and…"
He watches her mouth move, but he doesn't really hear what she's saying.
Chris doesn't understand what's happening to him, but he's starting to suspect that Jill Valentine is gonna break his fucking heart someday and he doesn't know what to do because he's never, ever felt like this before and he's sure as fuck not ready for it.
Not yet.
Thank you so much for all the views and sweet reviews. You all keep me sane in otherwise overwhelming times. I appreciate you so much.