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Saturday 25 July 1998, 06:01 CDT
There’s less than a minute left on the mansion’s self-destruct timer when Barry finally manages to drag Jill onto the helicopter.
It's a difficult task to begin with - she's not weak by any means - but compounded with the fact that Chris is still inside the lab, it's nearly impossible. She fights him tooth and nail, even though she can hear the timer too, knows what will happen if she goes back. Umbrella doesn't need to claim another victim, not when there's a chance. S.T.A.R.S. doesn't need to return to the station a fourth of its original size, when they can save a third.
But he manages to pull her in, and Rebecca heaves the door shut; they're already in the air, hoping against hope to outpace the explosion. They do, though it rocks them, sets the forest beneath them ablaze. Jill shoves herself into the corner, takes off her beret to wring it between her hands.
“I’m sorry,” he says, for lack of anything better, but how could an apology ever make up for having a part of yourself ripped away?
“It's okay.” She doesn't look at him, eyes closed against the rising sun. “He's alive. I just know.”
Saturday 25 July 1998, 17:59 CDT
Chris isn't coming back.
Jill knows it deep in her bones, the same way she knows his coffee order and his favorite movie and the million other little things that made up the fabric of him. No one could survive that. It’s all she thinks about as she stands in the RPD lobby, only half-there while Irons demands an explanation. As she's carted off to the hospital, poked and prodded more times than she can count before they let her shower. As the four of them write up their reports and she adds his name to the list of casualties with a shaking hand.
Chris isn't coming back. Like a mantra. Chris is gone. Like if she says it enough times it will stop tasting like rot on her tongue. Chris is -
No. She can't go that far. There's a finality about it she won’t yet face.
Barry says something about a memorial, about calling Chris’s sister, and Jill nods along at all the right moments. She's not fooling him, but he doesn't comment, only gently suggests that she get some sleep and offers to drive her home. The idea of going back to her tiny apartment, boxing herself in, constricts her lungs.
“I - ” It's hard to get the words out around the tightness, the thing that's making its home in her chest. “I don't think I can be alone right now.”
Rebecca comes with her. Jill remembers, through the fog, that Richard died too. There's some kind of sick luck in that, in being the only people who can understand each other now.
Wednesday 29 July 1998, 14:40 CDT
Irons gives her a few days off. To recover, he says, though he really just wants them out of the way while he figures out how to spin this to make him look good. Make the RPD look good, when their star unit (pun intended, Chris would've liked that) returned shattered, not even enough jagged pieces left to glue into something usable.
She won't complain about the reprieve; while her mind grows restless holed up in her studio, her body makes its needs known. There's not a single part of her that doesn't hurt, arms dotted with scrapes and slathered in disinfectant, torso a mottled bloom of every color a bruise can be. Somehow, her ribcage is intact. Sometimes, she wishes it wasn't.
After being horrified at the contents of her fridge, Rebecca starts dropping by to bring her food. No big meals, because when they'd tried to cook the one box of spaghetti they found in a cabinet that first night, Jill had gotten halfway through eating it before she had to excuse herself to be violently sick. It's all small things: cold cuts, cubed cheese, bread, almonds. Some chocolate, once, to cheer her up. It hadn't worked, though she appreciates the gesture.
Barry calls Claire Redfield to break the news. He asks if Jill wants to be there when he does, but she declines, too afraid of what he'll say, of the words he'll use. He’s the best person to do it anyway; since Claire has no other known family, he's taking her in. Jill tells him she'd rather not hear the outcome of the call, either. The creases between his brows weren’t so deep a week ago.
Sunday 02 August 1998, 23:18 CDT
There's no memorial. Not even a fucking list of names in the paper. Nothing to honor the eight people who'd died so the four of them could live. Barry and Brad try to fight Irons about it - not like he'll listen to Jill or Rebecca - but it's like arguing with a wall; he’s made his decision, and that's all there is to say about it, and if they want to keep their jobs they'd best leave well enough alone.
Jill has her own memorial instead, her and the TV and a bottle of wine she'd been saving for - she doesn't remember. Something unimportant. She lets it saturate her, blinks slow against its weight in her head, sitting on the floor with her back to the foot of the bed. Knees drawn up, empty bottle in the space between rib and thigh.
He should be here. He should be next to her, both of them half-drunk, her head on his shoulder, her bare arm warm from where it's pressed up against his side. If she closes her eyes she can almost feel it, just out of her grasp, and she tilts far enough over that her cheek presses against the rug, so dizzy that she ends up on her back for a few minutes (hours?) before she can force herself upright.
On the screen, the Arklay Mountains are on fire. It's spread so far they called the National Guard in. She stares at the static flames, wonders how many of them are fueled by Chris’s corpse.
Monday 03 August 1998, 15:09 CDT
Claire Redfield looks much the same as Jill remembers, save the red-rimmed eyes. They've only met a few times prior to this, mostly at RPD functions; still, she's familiar enough that when Claire hugs her, Jill’s not as uncomfortable as she thought she'd be. It's almost - nice. The contact. The knowledge that there's people outside her little sphere, that there's a world that hasn't stopped turning.
Cold comfort, perhaps. Better than nothing.
They sit on a bench near the station, the closest she's come to it in days. At first, they don't talk, silence broken by the chirping of birds and the occasional siren. After a while, Claire clears her throat. “I went through his things,” she says, and Jill’s stomach lands somewhere on the concrete under them. “There's - I put a box together. Of stuff I think he'd want you to have. If you want it.”
“Yes. I mean, I do. I mean - ” Her voice comes out hoarse, her face heats. She's forgotten how to talk to people that weren't there. “Thank you.”
Claire nods, scuffs the toe of her boot across the ground, watching it like it's the most fascinating thing in the world. “He loved you, you know,” she says, and Jill bites the inside of her cheek until it bleeds.
Friday 07 August 1998, 12:26 CDT
The four of them go to Irons when their reports are returned with REJECTED stamped in red at the top. It boils her blood. Playing down the casualties for the public is one thing, but here - he can't just reject the truth. Not when he's got four witnesses in front of him, all saying the same thing.
But he can. And he does.
They end up at Bar Jack afterwards, tucked into a booth in the back where no one will bother them. Jill presses herself as far into the corner as she'll go, the chill of the wall through her shirt reassuring. None of them are in uniform, and all in all they're an inconspicuous group, but she can’t shake the feeling of being watched, has to dig her nails into her arm to remind herself not to survey the room every few seconds.
She traces the condensation dripping from her untouched ice water while they talk. It's obvious Irons is in bed with Umbrella. Hell, maybe the whole damn precinct is. After the one-two punch of Wesker’s betrayal and Chris’s - goneness - there's not much she wouldn't believe.
They have to do something, she insists, the first sparks of anger flaring in the hollow pit of her stomach. It's the first time she's felt something in two weeks, something that wasn't the ache of a phantom limb, the ridiculous hope that if she sleeps long enough she'll wake up somewhere else, and he'll be next to her, warm and laughing and alive.
Thursday 13 August 1998, 10:02 CDT
The psychiatrist doing her eval is named Alex, and he's one of the most forgettable people Jill’s ever met, or he would be if he wasn't bombarding her with questions about the mansion. She’s careful about what she tells him, refrains from asking which version of the report Irons gave him as a briefing. When he pushes, she confesses how she can't sleep, how she eats one meal a day at best, how her hands shake so badly that even getting to the station this morning was a challenge because she dropped her metro card twice, earning a plethora of dirty looks from the people in line behind her. He nods and makes little sympathetic noises and writes his little judgements on his little steno pad. She wonders if he's even really listening.
“It says in your file that you were close to one of your dead teammates. Chris Redfield.” She flinches when he says it, like he's slapped her, like he's the chemical burn she left the mansion with whose outline she can still see faint on her arm. Whether it's the name-dropping or the word choice that elicits the reaction, she isn't sure, but he notices. Of course he notices.
“Yeah. We were partners.” She shifts in her chair, covered with fabric that can only charitably be called upholstery. He opens his mouth to ask for clarification. To dig deeper into what exactly she means using such a loaded word. She won't give him the chance. “Can we talk about literally anything else?”
Thursday 13 August 1998, 22:02 CDT
She leaves Alex the psychiatrist’s office with one prescription for antidepressants, one for panic disorder, and one for sleeping pills, along with a referral to a primary care doctor who can prescribe something to settle her stomach. It can't possibly be good for her to take them all at the same time, she thinks, though she brings them to the pharmacy anyway. Tries insisting on generics, but the little paper bags they hand her are printed with Umbrella’s logo.
It doesn't matter, anyway. She only filled them so nobody would get suspicious.
It's late now, orange bottles and blister packs staring up at her from the bathroom counter. This is the worst part - those few minutes right after she gets out of the shower, where her body cools and she has to remind herself she's still alive despite the chill. She used to take her time, but now she rushes through the motions. Limits the seconds she's vulnerable.
The sleeping pills are tempting, the promise of a night’s unbroken rest almost enough to make her open the bottle, but the sight of the red-and-white logo stops her. She should flush them. Instead she shoves them in the cabinet under the sink and continues on with her nighttime routine.
The toothbrush sits between her fingers like a weapon. She scrubs until her gums bleed, tastes mint and rust.
Monday 17 August 1998, 16:42 CDT
S.T.A.R.S. is disbanded.
Irons sits behind his desk while the four of them stand on the other side, the perfect picture of composure while they exchange bewildered looks. There have been talks about changing the nature of S.T.A.R.S., now that there are so few of them left. Of integrating them further into the RPD, assigning them to other departments where their talents could be of use. This had never been on the table. She hadn't even thought of this.
And she's not the only one, because once the news sinks in they're all protesting over each other, some quieter than others - Brad is conspicuously near-silent. Irons holds up a hand to stop them. His mind is made up, he says, and even if he disagreed, it's not solely his decision. He's about to segue into platitudes, some bull about how there's still a place for them at the station, but something inside her snaps when he starts to talk.
“So it was all for nothing,” she says, staring straight at him, daring him to look away first. “All of this shit was for nothing, because you won't even tell the city what they should be looking out for. Eight of us never left that fucking mansion and you want to cover it up. You want to sit on your ass and do nothing while Joseph is dead. Richard, Enrico, Forest.” She's breathing heavy by the time she stops, preparing to rip down the last barrier between her and the truth. “Chris is dead.” A pause, a trembling inhale. “And this is your solution.”
Irons’ eyes narrow when she says it, like he's spotted the chink in her armor and he's lining up the killing shot. “I see what this is about,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “You have my condolences, Miss Valentine, but in the future I’d recommend finding a more productive outlet for your grief.”
It's quiet. Silence so absolute that her every ragged breath sounds like a gunshot. Barry looks like he's ready to jump in at any moment, should Jill decide to launch herself across the desk. The thought crosses her mind, but in the end, all she does is take her beret off. She tosses it on the desk with enough force to startle, but nothing more. Her building keys follow. The badge and gun stay on her belt. It's the least they can do.
“You won't have to worry about that anymore,” she says, and leaves to the sound of his enraged shouting behind her.
Tuesday 18 August 1998, 00:39 CDT
She doesn't go home until she has to - meaning when she's politely but firmly asked to leave the bar after haunting one of the back booths for hours while only having a couple drinks. She's just drunk enough that getting the key in the lock is a challenge, that she keeps a hand on the wall for balance as she stumbles to the bathroom despite not really needing one. Her earlier bravado has worn off, leaving in its place a strange heaviness congealed at the back of her throat. She hates it. The numbness was preferable to this.
Her clothes fall to the floor in a pile. The shower is turned up as hot as it will go, mirror already fogged when she steps in, wincing at the initial burn of the water before it shifts to something more welcoming. This pain, at least, is familiar. This pain, at least, she can control.
Her earlier rant plays in her head on repeat. “Chris is dead,” she whispers again, barely audible under the spray, testing how the words feel on her tongue. “He’s dead and he's not coming back.” Her fingers curl against the tile wall, seeking something to ground her and coming up empty.
Chris is dead. Like a mantra. Chris is dead. Like if she says it enough times it will settle in her stomach and calm the constant sickness. Chris is dead.
Jill covers her mouth with her hand and screams.
Thursday 20 August 1998, 18:10 CDT
Rebecca asks before she leaves town. Like she needs Jill's fucking permission or something, like she thinks Jill will fall apart the second she turns her back. Maybe she would. There's nothing to keep Rebecca here, though, so Jill puts on the mask she'd worn to the station right up until she quit, the one that says yes, I’m doing okay, I’m fine . Rebecca’s too smart to buy the act, but she goes along with it, opening the boxes she brought with her and stocking Jill’s fridge one more time.
If Chris were here, he'd tease her about having spent the last month being mothered by an eighteen-year-old. It wouldn't be out of malice, he was never like that, but because he'd be worried. No one’s ever seen her like this, not even him, not even after their toughest, most draining missions. Not even when she found him locked up in that cell and his hands were warm wrapped over hers around the bars and the lock was fucking automated so there was nothing to pick and it was the last time she saw him alive. The last time she saw him at all.
She's good at wearing the mask, but her confrontation with Irons widened the fissure in her chest into a crack and she can't reseal it. She cries all the time. Even now, as she's watching Rebecca wrestle a flat pack of bottled water onto the fridge’s bottom shelf, there are tears collecting on her lashes, crystallizing her vision. Rebecca notices when she stands back up; her face crumples, mouth twisting. “Are you sure you'll be okay?”
No, she wants to say. I’m not, and I never will be. But she fixes the barest approximation of a smile on her face and nods. “Maybe I’ll get out of here soon too,” she jokes. The more she thinks about it, the more she likes the idea. Leave. Start over somewhere new, without Umbrella breathing down her neck. It can never happen, though. Not when Chris’s ghost is tethered to her and if she snips the cord, it'll kill her too.
Friday 28 August 1998, 21:36 CDT
The box that Claire dropped off at her apartment becomes a fixture in the corner of the room, lodged between the dresser and the TV, Jill's name scrawled across it in Claire’s untidy script. It's large enough that there could be any number of things in it. As she sits on the edge of the bed and stares at it, empty beer bottle in hand, it feels as though the loose tape at the end is taunting her. Daring her to pull it open.
It's not heavy when she tugs it into the center of the room and kneels beside it, taking the tape's edge between her fingers and peeling it off. One of the flaps lays open; she pulls the rest aside in quick succession, snatches her hand back like it'll bite her.
(And the thought of it alone - the biting - almost sets her off again. Grief is only half the reason she barely eats. She still feels phantom teeth in her shoulder.)
But there's nothing inside that will hurt her, at least not physically. First come several shirts in various states of wear. She recognizes them all: two that he wore often during S.T.A.R.S. training, one from a fundraising event, one from a 5k they'd both run, and that she'd beaten him in. He came back to her apartment after, and they ordered a pizza and talked over the TV until she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer. It was the first time he'd been there, but far from the last.
She refolds them and sets them aside with careful reverence, spread out on the rug around her. The next thing her hand closes around is much smaller - his lighter. Not the one he always carried with him at the station (that one's currently scattered ash), but the nice one, the engraved one that had been his father’s before him. She only saw him use it a few times, and it never left his house.
But she has it. It's resting on her damp palm. He wanted her to have it - because she sees his hand in this, in the particular selection. Claire wouldn't have known to gather these things for her without instruction. And after what happened to his parents, he would've been prepared for the worst.
It's hard to keep hold of it with how she shakes , so she sets it in front of her and reaches back into the box. A few books, spines creased, that he always said he would lend her. A necklace that was supposed to be a gift to her, a simple silver charm that she tries several times to fasten around her neck before she gives up, her fine motor skills not up to the task. A half-empty bottle of his favorite cologne, which she always teased him about wearing to work. An envelope containing copies of every picture they're in together, which isn't many, and when she peeks inside it and sees his face she drops it like she's been burned. Maybe someday she'll be ready for that. Not tonight.
The last thing in the box is his jacket.
It takes her a minute of staring at the stitching to recognize it, she's so confused by its inclusion. She'd been certain something like this would go to Claire, but then again, it had hung in the office for over two years. She saw it every day. He never wore it, but he'd talk about it to anyone who asked, his enthusiasm clear.
She holds it to herself, burying her face in the leather (it doesn't smell like him, not like the shirts do, but it's still his). Falls asleep like that, curled up on the hardwood floor, arms wrapped around it like a lifeline.
Tuesday 02 September 1998, 11:34 CDT
The three S.T.A.R.S. members left in the city convene at Barry's house, risking an in-person meeting over phone lines that are almost certainly tapped. Jill wears one of Chris’s shirts tucked into her jeans, but they're both too nice to comment on it, nor do they mention the faint smell of cigarette smoke that lingers on her. She's been limiting herself - trying not to tip over the line into outright self-destruction - but it's often enough to be noticeable.
They're good to her. Maybe a little too good.
Barry's daughters are nowhere to be found, nor is Claire (who Jill suspects is avoiding her), but Kathy greets her at the door, folds her in a hug before she has the chance to protest. She looks Jill up and down with an eye that misses nothing, but she, too, is quiet. Barry probably warned her about Jill's fragile mental state. As if they aren't all mourning not just Chris, but two thirds of their team.
Then again, the other three have pulled themselves together. Jill’s the only one who hasn't. The only one, as far as she knows, who takes showers a bit too hot and a bit too long so she can cry without the neighbors hearing. Who sleeps on the floor half the time because it's where they used to sit. Whose nightmares aren’t about the zombies or the Tyrant, but the betrayal he must have felt in those final seconds when he realized she wasn't coming back.
She's still handling it, though. She's handling it just fine.
Barry watches her like a hawk until she manages to choke down two slices of pizza, swallowing the final bite with an eyebrow raised at him. (She wonders how that warning went: oh, and don't be too alarmed if she doesn't eat anything; we haven't seen her do that in weeks.) The conversation dances around the topic at first, but eventually Brad says what they're all thinking: they have to leave town.
Barry’s already made plans with his family and Claire to leave the country. He suggests Jill follow next. Brad is the only one of them still working with the RPD - Barry resigned, and a formal letter suspending Jill had come two days after the incident with Irons - and insists on staying as long as he can. They'll need a man on the inside, after all, if they're going to take down Umbrella on their own.
Jill doesn't know if it's the subject or the fact that she's just eaten her first full meal in days, but she’s clear-headed and focused now in a way she hasn't been for the past month. They have a goal. They have a plan, albeit a loose one. The bastards responsible for Chris’s death are going to pay.
Monday 21 September 1998, 19:51 CDT
Time flows strangely in the weeks that follow. Before Barry leaves he brings her everything he dug up on Umbrella, boxes upon boxes of files that commandeer an entire corner of her studio and then some. He makes the drop-off in the middle of the day, when her building is less crowded, but Jill can't shake the feeling she’s being watched.
Brad promises to keep her updated, but the updates are few and far between, delivered in unorthodox ways - which mostly means that he's supplying her food and leaving coded notes with the delivery drivers. It works well enough, she supposes. If nothing else, it's better than the phones.
She's leaving on the 30th, but until then, her own little investigation takes up the majority of her time, though it's restricted to going through the files and trying to connect all the dots that led to them in that mansion. She's got a document-covered wall that could rival any conspiracy theorist’s, complete with thumbtacked red string, and by the time she starts packing she's convinced it's burned on the backs of her eyelids.
On the nights she can't sleep - which is most of them - she lays curled up on one side of the bed, staring at the empty space beside her and trying to picture Chris there. He'd be helping, that's for sure. At this point, with his sister safely out of the country, he'd have all but moved in so they could crack this thing. When she makes a connection that seems particularly important, she imagines him standing next to her, grin on his face, excited to finally be getting somewhere.
She keeps the heater turned up despite the weather, falls asleep with the TV flickering and a pillow clutched to her chest. As far as she's concerned, September 30th can't come soon enough.
Monday 28 September 1998, 20:07 CDT
She's ready when Brad’s call comes. She's been ready for days, watching the city deteriorate, the chaos edging closer and closer to her side of town. Despite every instinct screaming at her to leave, she waits. They'd planned for this, though on a much smaller scale. If she fucks up by leaving early, it could cost her her life.
As it is, waiting nearly does just that. She tosses the phone on the bed as soon as the call disconnects, shoving her gun into its holster and her arms into the sleeves of Chris’s jacket. She’s managed to cram quite a bit into its pockets - first aid supplies, mostly, and some other small things she can't bear to leave behind, sealed up tight.
There's not much room in the plan for sentiment, but when she thinks about leaving the jacket something pulls tight in her chest, her throat. It fits her well enough to use practicality as an excuse, so she does, and she's wearing it when she shoulders her front door open and sprints down the hall.
She’s halfway down the fire escape when there's a crash from inside the building so forceful it rocks the metal beneath her feet.
Monday 28 September 1998, 23:49 CDT
Carlos reminds her a little of Chris. Something about the voice, the demeanor, the dedication to keeping innocents out of the line of fire. Chris would've never taken a job working for Umbrella, but after it becomes clear Carlos doesn't know even a little of the information she has, she lets it slide. She needs a new way out of the city, anyway, after the zombies caught up with Brad and the thing that had caused the crash in her apartment pulled the helicopter down. If a temporary alliance with a member of the UBCS will get her away from here, so be it.
She bristles when he calls her partner over the radio, though. Not your partner, she snaps back, and cuts the connection before he can respond. She can't blame him for not knowing, but it still stings, ripping the dressings off a wound that's only just beginning to heal.
Tuesday 29 September 1998, 02:01 CDT
When she makes it back to the subway station a second time, she's covered in wounds to rival those she left the mansion with, and a healthy coating of blood on top of that. She's tired , too, the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that Chris’s death had preempted before, but she can't stop moving now. If she does, she might not get back up.
The other UBCS members she encounters aren't as trustworthy as Carlos. Mikhail seems sincere in his desire to evacuate civilians, but the fact that he recognizes her on sight tells her everything she needs to know. And Nikolai - something is off about him, something harder to pinpoint, and it's not just the comment about dead S.T.A.R.S. members, though it doesn't help his case. No, it’s his disregard for his team’s lives that has her on edge.
Chris’s jacket sticks to her with sweat and blood. She cringes at the thought of trying to get the stains out later, but that's less important than the fact that it's still over her shoulders and in one piece. She worries the edge of a sleeve between two fingers as she talks to Carlos, and his eyes follow the movement.
I’m not gonna die on you and leave you in a cold, cruel, Carlos-less world, he jokes, but he must see her flinch, because the soft smile drops as quickly as it appeared. He glances over at the others, then draws her aside, far enough down the tunnel that even with the echo, no one can hear them.
“You sure you're alright?” he asks, brow creased with worry. Jill swallows, air raking its claws down her dust-coated throat, and doesn't meet his eyes. “You don't gotta tell me, but - something's bothering you. Is it what I said on the radio?”
She wants to bless and curse him at the same time for being so perceptive. There's no harm in telling him, she supposes, though the words burn on their way out. “I had a partner until about two months ago. Umbrella’s research got him killed.” She thinks about her desperation to get back inside, Barry’s arms tight around her ribs as he all but threw her into the helicopter. “ I got him killed.”
Tuesday 29 September 1998, 05:03 CDT
It fucking hurts when the thing hits her with its tentacle through the gate, leaving a stinger behind that's nearly the length of her hand. She waits a few seconds to wrap her fingers around it and pull it out, which hurts even more, and leaves a hole in the sleeve of the jacket. Blood wells up in the puncture left behind, but that's not all. She can see the discoloration, she knows what's going to happen.
Jill doesn't want to die, nor does she want to become one of the hundreds of shambling corpses populating the city. But of the two, death seems the better option, and she's reaching for her gun when she falls, muscles seizing. White-hot agony sears through her; for a moment she can't see anything despite her open eyes. She's got hours. Maybe a day or two, if she's lucky, but luck seems to have deserted her as of late.
If this is penance - if she's meant to die here, alone and afraid and abandoned - she'll take it. Maybe if she sees Chris wherever she ends up next, he'll forgive her.
Thursday 01 October 1998, 00:27 CDT
Somehow, she's still alive.
She’s on a bed in the hospital, Chris’s jacket draped over a folding chair beside her. An ache blankets her body, sharper pain in her arm where clean bandages wrap around the puncture, but she's breathing, a small miracle in itself. Tyrell informs her that Carlos had vaccinated her, then set off to try and stall the city's destruction. When she tries to follow, she finds he locked the door to the sublevels behind him.
It wouldn't be a problem any other time - that's what she was trained for - but it's now and she's tired and it would be so much easier to limp back to the room she woke up in and curl around herself on the bed. Wait for it to be over. That's what Chris had ended up doing - but he wouldn't want the same fate for her. If he’d been given the choice, and staying in that mansion would save her, he'd have done it.
The knowledge sits heavy on her shoulders.
Chris is dead. Like a mantra. Chris is dead. Like if she says it enough times it will coat her tired muscles like a balm. Chris is dead, and you're alive, and if you want his death to be worth anything you'll make sure it fucking stays that way.
She crouches down in front of the lock and pulls the picks off of her belt.
Thursday 01 October 1998, 06:13 CDT
“Who’s Chris?”
Jill doesn't have it in her to tense up at the question. They've been flying in silence, headsets more a courtesy than anything else. Carlos keeps his eyes on the sky ahead of them, but every now and then his gaze darts to her, like he's checking to make sure she's still there. Still alive.
“How do you know that name?”
She hadn't mentioned it earlier, though he could have seen it in the S.T.A.R.S. office, put two and two together. It wouldn't take a genius. “The desks in the RPD,” he says. “And a report I read, about some stuff that happened in July. He was listed as KIA.” One hand leaves the controls, goes to rub the back of his neck. He won't look at her now. “And you said his name when you were out.”
Her face heats. She shoves her hands into the pockets of her - his - jacket, curls them into fists. Part of her is embarrassed that the mansion’s hold on her is so strong, that even the thought of it affects her like this. She remembers little of the past forty-eight hours, but she'd dreamed about him. About that night. The relief in her voice when he saw her still rings in her ears.
Now that she's sitting, the inventory she takes of her body doesn't paint a promising picture. Scrapes, bruises, the puncture on her arm that refuses to stop pulsing, at least a couple fractured ribs. But she's breathing, at least, she can feel that pain. “That's why they sent that thing after me. Because of what happened.”
She pauses. Wants to shift in her seat, but resists; she's only just started to relax, and the slightest movement could set off god knows how many injuries. “Maybe it's good he wasn't around for this,” she says. “He’d want to play the hero. It would've ended the same.”
Her hand lifts, fingers curling over the charm around her neck. She’s got the lighter and photos in one jacket pocket, one of the shirts in the other, all sealed, as waterproof as she could make them. If she were alone, she'd pull them out, look them over, but she can't do that in front of Carlos, not when she's so strung out that the slightest hint of damage would set her off. No, she'd rather do that alone.
Carlos isn't smiling, exactly, but his face softens, and there's a hint of amusement when he looks back over at her. “Sounds familiar,” he says, and it would, it's the same thing she was doing at the subway station, drawing fire. “He get that from you, or the other way around?”
The corner of her mouth twitches. Part of her wants to smile back. The other part is so caught off-guard by his immediate show of respect for a man he’s never met that she might just start crying anyway, or she would if there were any tears left in her. She aches, not with the pain of his missing presence, but with an overwhelming fondness for them both. They would’ve liked each other, she thinks, once they got over the whole Umbrella thing.
“I don’t know.” She shrugs, ignores the pain in her left arm. Slips a hand into her pocket and curls her fingers around the plastic-wrapped lighter. “Maybe a little of both.”