Estimated Life Expectancy: Chapter 2
Estimated Life Expectancy: Chapter 2
Summary: Something has happened to Jill that no one expected, and in his desperation to save her Chris might just be pushed into doing the unthinkable.
Rating/Warnings: T/PG-13. Obscenities, mostly.
Disclaimer: Any character not immediately recognizable as belonging to Capcom is probably mine (and being let out for the sole purpose of being a plot device, in all likelihood). Anything you do recognize as Capcom's is completely theirs, and I take no credit for them. I'm not here to make money, just to play in the sandbox
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1
Special thanks, again, to fiannan and Yumi. Yumi held my hand while I flailed over the ending of this chapter (and kept me from beating my head against the wall too much) while fiannan caught me in a few canon slip-ups this time around, so extra lovin's on them both. I seriously dunno how I'm gonna repay them for all the help they've given me since I started writing this thing, but I will find a way!
A malignant, inoperable glioblastoma. Cancer. Brain cancer. It had been two weeks since her diagnosis and Chris was still having trouble making sense of it. Was this really how she was going to die? Jill Valentine, dying of cancer? She was one of the S.T.A.R.S., for God's sake! She'd survived the Spencer Mansion and Raccoon City outbreaks, had helped take down one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world, and this was how she was going to die? Fucking cancer?
According to Doctor Morales, the oncologist Jill had started seeing after her diagnosis, the treatment options for this type of cancer were limited. Given its size and location, surgery was off the table. That left Jill with chemo and radiation therapies as her only real options. Even then, they could only do so much. They might buy her a few weeks, a few months, but there was no cure, and in the end…
In the end Jill was going to die.
Fucking cancer.
"Christopher Redfield. That you?"
Chris looked up, startled out of his reverie. A man in his late forties was standing just before him, wearing jeans and a red t-shirt. Though he'd gained a bit of a belly since Chris had last seen him, he still knew him - and knew him well.
"Barry Burton," he breathed, grinning. Getting to his feet (minding the extra large caffé Americano - his second that day - that he'd picked up from the coffee shop in the hospital lobby), he stepped into Barry's proffered hug. "Long time no see, Double-B."
"No kiddin'," Barry replied, letting him go and taking a step back. He looked Chris up and down. "You put on some muscle since I last saw you. They working you hard at the B.S.A.A.?"
"Not half as hard as the S.T.A.R.S. ever did."
Barry chuckled, looking Chris over again. "Might wanna check they aren't slipping you steroids there, Chris."
Now it was Chris's turn to laugh. Running a hand through his disheveled hair (he hadn't washed it since early yesterday), he said, "It's great to see you, Barry. Jill'll be real glad to see you, too."
Barry's expression faltered and just like that the good mood was gone. He turned and looked down the hall, towards Jill's room at the end.
"How is she?" His voice was heavy. He sounded old - much older than he really was - and worn.
Though they spoke often and he'd helped grease the bureaucratic wheels in Washington for them on several occasions, Chris hadn't actually seen Barry since they'd all escaped the mansion together. Now, studying his old friend, he was willing to argue that Barry had probably suffered the most of all of the surviving S.T.A.R.S. members at Umbrella's hands. After the Mansion incident, he and his family had fled to Canada. But when that still didn't feel safe enough the Burtons had begun moving almost constantly, hopping from one country to the next until Umbrella had finally collapsed. Even now, almost three years after Umbrella's collapse, the Burtons hadn't settled in any one place to stay for more than a year.
"When I left, she was a little out of it from the chemo," he said, unconsciously running his hands down his thighs as if wiping away sweat - or blood - from his palms. "But I think she's doing okay, overall." Chris flexed his jaw. "More or less."
Barry looked down the hall again. His face was set. "How long…?"
"If she responds well to treatment, maybe six months."
"Christ." Barry ran a hand down his face and tilted his head back so he was staring at the ceiling. "Christ."
"She's a fighter," Chris said, lifting his shoulders and dropping them in a feeble shrug. He knew he was stating the obvious - like Jill Valentine was going to give up, roll over, and die - but he had nothing else.
Barry didn't say anything for several seconds, seconds so long they each lasted a small eternity. He just kept staring at the damn ceiling.
We can face down an army of fucking zombies, Chris thought suddenly, but this…
Barry interrupted before he could finish that thought. "You know, somehow I'd…" He took a deep breath, his eyes never once leaving the tiled ceiling, "Somehow I'd managed to convince myself that the next time I actually saw you two it'd be at your wedding."
Chris stiffened, his gaze locking on a poster hanging on the wall across from him. He stared without blinking at the bold words at the top, the ones telling him about the link between a patient's well being and a positive attitude, but he didn't reply. He couldn't reply. What would he even say? 'Yeah, sorry about that, Barry, but I hadn't exactly figured she'd get cancer before we got the chance to tie the knot?'
He didn't even have to ask where Barry had gotten the idea of the two of them getting together. The S.T.A.R.S.' half of the bullpen back at the RPD Headquarters was pretty small, and it wasn't easy to hide any kind of office-flirtation (which was how everyone knew when Joseph hooked up with the redhead from the Crime Scene Unit, for instance). If anything, he and Jill had gotten off easy: the others seemed to assume his and Jill's relationship (or eventual relationship) was a given, though Forest used to give him so much shit for not making a move on her.
Hell, even since those days he'd only kissed her once, after fighting the T-A.L.O.S. in Umbrella's Russian-based facility. They'd both been sweaty and covered in blood - not all of it theirs - and so relieved that they'd both somehow managed to kill the damn thing that it just…happened. Jill had been knocked over and he'd gone to help her up and the next thing he knew he'd dragged her in close and he was pressing his lips against hers and she was kissing him back.
Then the rest of the team had arrived and she was only leaning against him, using him for balance against a badly twisted knee. The only reason he'd even been able to tell he hadn't hallucinated the whole damn thing was because she'd reached up and smoothed his hair - hair she'd messed up - back down against his head as they'd followed the others back outside.
They hadn't mentioned it since.
And the truth was he'd been in love with her for a long time. He'd wanted to marry her for a long time. Hell, he still did -there was no past tense about it. But the last thing he wanted to do was give Wesker and the rest of Umbrella yet another tool they could use against them. Because given half a chance, they would. Wesker proved he was more than capable right there in the Spencer mansion, when he'd used Barry's family to blackmail him, and he had done it over and over again - with himself and Claire, and Claire and Steve, and even, arguably, Leon and Ada.
So he'd kept telling himself to wait. Wait until they'd taken down Umbrella. Wait until they'd destroyed Wesker. Wait until the T-Virus was just a nightmare they could leave behind. Wait until this whole fucking mess was finished. Wait and pray that she didn't find someone else in the meantime. And then when it was all over, he'd ask her out. They could have a normal relationship.
Jill getting cancer…nobody had planned on that.
How could we? We'd always figured it'd be Umbrella. If we died because of anything, it would be because of Umbrella.
And now it's too late, he thought, his hands clenching into tight fists. Now it's too late and there's nothing I can do and Jill is going to die.
Fucking cancer.
"I'm sorry, Chris," Barry said, interrupting again.
"No, it's okay." Chris took a deep, steadying breath, let his hands fall loose at his sides, and forced a smile. He jerked his head down the hall. "Come on. I told her I'd be back in just a few minutes - " He looked at his watch. " - almost twenty minutes ago."
The blinds were wide open in Jill's room, letting the warm spring sunshine in. Chris and Barry slipped quietly inside, taking care not to disturb her as they did. Jill's eyes were closed, her chest rising and falling rhythmically. She looked like she was asleep, but as the door clicked behind them she asked, "You get lost or something?"
Chris grinned. "Nah. I ran into someone. Take a look."
Jill opened her eyes. "Barry!" she said, her expression brightening. She sat up, and Chris darted over to steady her. She leaned against him without question and continued, "It's been so long! How are you?"
"I should be asking you that."
"I'm alive. That's good enough for now." Jill reached out for a hug, and when Barry obliged she added, "How're Kathy and the kids?"
Barry trotted over to the window and took a look out. There wasn't much to see from here - just a couple of other hospital buildings. They were still several blocks away from the closest of the D.C. sights, and though the Washington Monument was visible on good, clear days, it was too hazy to see it at all today. Turning back from the window, Barry said, "If they've been following Kathy's schedule, they should be enjoying the Lincoln memorial at the moment."
Even Chris was surprised at this. "They're all in town?"
"Are you kidding? I couldn't keep them at home! Moira's hoping to use the trip as a way of getting some extra credit outta her history teacher, and Polly…" He motioned to Jill. "Polly wanted to see you."
"She's here?" Chris felt her lean away from him, peering around Barry towards the door. He tensed and almost reached for her, worried she might slip and fall off the bed, but she settled back against him after a moment.
Barry shook his head. "Not today. I hadn't heard much on how you were doing, so I told them to go and see the sights and came by myself today."
"Oh. They could've come. I'm okay. Just a little tired."
"Have the nurses been by since they hooked up your IV?" Chris asked.
"Camille came by just after you left." Jill smiled wryly and turned to Barry. Cupping a hand around her mouth she said conspiratorially, "She likes to call him the Mother Hen behind his back. For the way he's always hovering around."
Barry laughed, looking at Chris out of the corners of his eyes. "That sounds like him."
Chris opened his mouth to argue, but stopped. There wasn't really anything he could say to that. So he simply shrugged, smiling sheepishly.
Jill reached her good arm around his back and gave him a hug.
"Will that get me a hug every time?" he murmured. "'Cause I'd like that."
"We'll see."
"So tell me, Jill," Barry said suddenly (kindly reminding them both that he hadn't gone anywhere in the past thirty seconds), grabbing a stool from the corner of the room and setting it down closer to the bed. "What's the B.S.A.A. got you doing?"
"When I'm not here? Same kind of work Chris does. Since we're both high-grade special agents - which is just their way of saying we've got more experience with Umbrella and the T-virus than everyone else combined - we don't get called in on every case. Just the ones that get flagged as high risk. We don't even get to work together half the time, anymore." She shook her head. "Half the nation's convinced a simple head cold's gonna turn out to be another outbreak."
"And the rest of the world isn't much better. I just got back from a mission in the Middle East with my team," Chris said. "We got some reports of some possible labs out in Iraq and Afghanistan - not Umbrella, but it's not that hard to pick up a sample of the T-Virus on the black market."
Barry nodded.
"Why, Barry? You thinkin' of joining up?"
"Dunno. It's possible. I'd love to stop moving around so much - it's not a good life for the girls." Barry shrugged, shifting his weight on the stool. "Have either of you heard from Rebecca?"
"Yeah," Chris said. "She joined the Alliance about two years ago. Been working with the biochemistry unit, trying to figure out just what the hell T is. She hasn't changed much."
Chris would have gone on; told Barry more about what Rebecca had been up to, but he was interrupted by a faint knock on the door. It opened, and a short, plump, Hispanic woman stepped inside.
"Oh," she said, her gaze falling on Barry, "And here's another one. Jilly-bean, you've sure got a lot of friends."
"Hey, Camille. This one's Barry. We used to work together. Barry, this is my nurse, Camille."
"One of her nurses, at least. We've got a small army here." Camille hooked a loose strand of curly black hair behind her ear and put her hands on her hip. "How you feeling, kiddo?"
"I'm all right," Jill said with an exasperated sigh.
"Don't gimme that tone," Camille said. Her voice was stern, but she was smiling. It faded quickly, however, as she added, "You're gonna get people asking you up and down how you're doing, and being able to say you're all right is a good thing. You're not nauseous at all? Feeling any pain?"
"No."
"Good."
"I think she looks a little pale," Chris said.
Jill gave him a look. "I'm fine," she insisted.
"I'm on his side for once. You do look pale." Camille checked the IV, clicking her tongue against her teeth. "You might be getting a little anemic, girl. I don't want to do it now, since we've got a bit of time before you can even think about getting outta here and back to your real life, but I'm going to need to take some blood before you leave tomorrow."
Chris demanded, "Why aren't you doing it now? If she is anemic, it's better to know sooner, isn't it? Then you can do something about it."
"I wanted to give her a little longer with you and Barry, without a nurse getting in the way." Camille sighed. "Jill, I don't know how you put up with this one."
Jill chuckled and said softly, "Thanks, Camille, but you might as well draw it now. He's not going to stop until you do."
Wagging a finger in his general direction (since she was way too short to waggle it in his face), Camille went on, "You just make sure you don't tire her out too much, you understand? She needs someone to support her, not hen-peck the doctors about every little thing. We got support groups if you want the chance for all of that. You understand?"
"Yes, Camille."
"Good. 'Cause I haven't got the time to make sure you don't run everyone else completely ragged."
"I won't, Camille."
She snorted. To Jill, she said, "You have fun with the boys. I'll be back in a few minutes."
Shortly after Camille had come in to check on Jill, Chris had watched Barry slip off his stool and step out into the hallway. Now that she was leaving, he came back inside. Chris saw him slip his phone back into his pocket.
"That was Kathy," he said.
"You gotta go?" Jill asked. Her voice was softer than it had been, and Chris realized that the circles under her eyes were growing even more pronounced.
"Yeah." Barry leaned in and gave her a hug. "I'll be back in the morning, if you're feeling up to it."
"Bring Polly along."
"I will." Barry stepped back. Meeting Chris's eyes, he continued, "Kathy wanted you to come along with us. We're going to dinner."
"Oh. Barry, tell her thanks, but - " Chris looked from Barry to Jill and back again. She was looking worse by the minute.
"She insisted. Told me to use force if I have to. She wouldn't budge even when I told her that force probably means nothing against you."
"Go, Chris," Jill said sternly. At least, she tried to be stern, but her voice wavered and cracked.
"Jill, I don't want to leave you…"
"Chris." Jill's voice was still shaky, but sharp. "Stop. It's okay. I'm all right." She sank back against the pillows. "You should go to dinner. Go to dinner and go home and get some sleep."
"I'm not leaving."
Jill would have none of this tonight. Pressing one hand over her eyes she said, "Chris, go. I'm not going to die tonight. But I would like to get some rest."
His stomach twisted at her words. He wanted to smile and mean it. But he could only force the expression, not the emotion, as he asked, "Do you promise?"
"Get out. I'll see you later."
Chris slunk towards the door after Barry, but lingered just inside the doorway. "Tomorrow."
She waved a hand - details, details. But her eyes, peering out at him from under her hand, were brighter than they had been and her smile stronger as she said, "Fair enough."
Chris smiled. I love you, Jill Valentine.
He wished he could bring himself to say the words. Now, before it was too late.
When he finally got back to his apartment that night, full and so bone-tired he almost fell asleep right there in his parked Jeep, Chris planned to shower, put his feet up for a few hours (maybe watch some TV for a while, since he was shelling out an arm and a leg a month for it), and go to bed - in that order. As soon as he opened the door, however, he noticed three things very quickly. First, the lights in his living room were on. Second, his kitchen was spotless. Third, his sister was sitting on the couch, watching some cop show on TV.
"I was wondering where you were," Claire said, getting to her feet.
"Claire?" Chris frowned, squinting at her in confusion. "When did you get here? How did you get in?"
"It's nice to see you, too, Chris." She put a hand on her hip and held up one of his spare keys - the one he liked to keep in the never-fixed light by his door. "You need to find better places to hide these things. I'm going to assume you've got the other in the vent just outside the door?"
"That's…none of your business."
"It is if I could find it."
"You're my sister. I'd expect you to be able to find it." Chris was tempted to take the key back from Claire, but decided to let her keep it. Without it, there was a good chance she'd steal his set. And he needed those keys.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then abruptly crossed the room and dropped onto the ottoman and began unlacing his shoes.
Claire said suddenly, "I told you I was coming. Don't you remember?"
Chris did not remember having that conversation. At all. Actually, he didn't remember having any contact with his sister since before his mission out in the desert. Running a hand down his rough, stubbly face, he asked heavily, "What day?"
"Last Monday." Claire's voice was soft.
Oh. Monday…Chris wracked his stress-addled, sleep-deprived, caffeine-overloaded brain, trying to remember. Jill started chemo that Monday.
No wonder he didn't remember the conversation. Well, even if he couldn't remember having it, it still sounded like something he'd say. He wouldn't turn down his sister, anyway.
"You look like hell," Claire noted, by way of changing the subject.
"Really? Because I always thought women dug the scruffy look." Chris forced a joking smile as he finally reached out to his sister for a hug.
Claire rolled her eyes, but accepted the hug anyway. "Have you been sleeping?"
Chris gave his head a little shake and replied, "Is it that obvious?"
"Don't forget - I spent the first twelve years of my life with you. I know you."
"You don't need to worry about me. I'm fine."
"You are not fine. I might be your little sister but that doesn't mean I'm stupid or…or blind or…" Claire trailed off as Chris cocked an eyebrow at her before throwing up her hands and snapping, "It's kind of an instinctive thing, okay? I can't help it." After a brief pause, she added, "You need to get some sleep. And eat right. How long had that bread been sitting there, anyway? It was a mold factory. If any of that was penicillin you could've made a small fortune off it."
"I take it you cleaned the kitchen, then?"
"Of course I cleaned it. It was disgusting. I thought I saw it move when I walked in."
Chris only nodded, dropping his head and staring at his hands. Though he loved that she'd come to see him, and was glad to have her, having Claire around wasn't going to do much to help. Between her and Barry it was like the start of a reunion of all the survivors of Umbrella's horrors. But they were only here because Jill was dying. The countdown had begun and everyone was just trying to make the most of what little time they had left.
Claire came over to the ottoman and dropped down beside him. She put an arm around his back, hooking it over his right shoulder while she leaned against his left. "I'm sorry, Chris. I'm so, so sorry." When he didn't reply, she asked, "How is she?"
"Anemic and hating the chemo. She was throwing up when I called at dinner."
"Don't they have drugs to help treat the nausea?"
"Yeah, but it's the first time she's ever reacted badly to it. The other times, she was just fine…" He took a breath, but his chest was tight and only let in a little air. His stomach twisted violently and Chris covered his face with this palms, dragging them down along his cheeks, before he tried to breathe again. This time it came easier, but he still felt sick. "Barry and his family got in yesterday, and Barry came in to see Jill today. You remember them?"
"Yeah." Claire had met the Burtons once, way back in the day, at one of the RPD's annual picnics. "They had two little girls."
"Moira and Polly. They're teenagers, now." He trailed off, and they sat in silence for a few moments. "You been talking to Leon much?"
Claire sighed. "No more than usual."
"Why don't you ask him to lunch or something?"
"Relationship advice. Coming from you." Claire chuckled and shook her head. She didn't actually give him an answer right away, and Chris wondered if he'd hit a nerve accidentally.
He was just about to apologize when she cut him off, saying, "Leon's still working on the A's, and hasn't even found anyone in the B's yet. I'm a C. It'll be a while."
"What?"
"If you don't get it, I'm not going to spell it out for you. Oh. That was a terrible pun." Claire stood up and stretched, yawning. "I dumped my stuff in the other bedroom."
"That's fine."
"Good. I'm stealing the bathroom for a bit."
"All right."
Claire shuffled off towards the bathroom, leaving Chris alone with his thoughts.
He ran a hand through his hair and turned to the TV, staring at it blankly before getting up and flopping out on his couch, grabbing the remote as he fell. He flicked through channels, lingering for just a few seconds longer on the news. He watched the stocks scroll past on the bottom of the screen. Almost everything was down, but that was nothing unusual any more. Somehow, Umbrella had almost single-handedly brought on the economic boom of the early nineties, and when it collapsed the economy had taken a turn for the worse. Things had been slowly picking back up when Harvardville happened.
Just one fucking thing after another, isn't it? With a growl, Chris turned off the TV and threw the remote at the chair. It bounced off the back cushion and onto the floor, skidding to rest somewhere under the ottoman. He did not move to get it.
Closing his eyes, Chris lay back against the couch's arm, covering his face with one of his own. The Umbrella Management Training Facility and the Spencer Mansion. Raccoon City, Rockfort Island, Antarctica, Russia, India, Harvardville. And those were only the confirmed outbreaks - for all he knew at the moment, there'd been more. Hell, for all he knew there was going to be another tomorrow, or next week, or maybe next year. Maybe New York City was going to be the next to fall to the virus. Or Seattle. Or some other major city on the globe.
And for all he knew, the next one wasn't going to be about Raccoon City, or a ploy to prove some vaccine worked, or some accident during Umbrella's mad scramble to save itself. The next outbreak could very well be a bona fide terrorist attack, committed by someone who'd bought up some sample of the damn virus from the black market. This was exactly why there was an entire section of the B.S.A.A. devoted to simply watching the black market and tracking all the shit sold there.
All he did know was that it wasn't going to end soon enough. It wasn't going to end soon enough and even if they managed to catch Wesker tomorrow he didn't know if he was going to have enough time left to make up for all the years he'd wasted.
There has to be something else we can do. That's all there was to it. Something more. There has to be a cure out there, somewhere.
For a long time he didn't move from the couch. He heard Claire leave the bathroom and come out into the living room, and he still didn't move. He heard her slip around the room, switching off the lights, then close the door to the guest bedroom, and still he didn't move.
Finally, he found himself on the very edge of sleep, his mind replaying everything that Wesker and Umbrella had ever done. His last, feeble thoughts were coming in to him in an incoherent jumble when one image - a memory - floated right to the front and center of his mind. It was a memory of Wesker, lying in a pool of his own blood on the floor, back in the Spencer Mansion's underground labs. He was dead, a gaping hole laid open in his chest. Even in death, his dark sunglasses where still, somehow, undisturbed.
After learning everything that Wesker had done to betray them over the course of the night, Chris couldn't say he'd felt any remorse at all for his former captain's death.
Except…
Wesker wasn't dead. Not anymore.
Chris's exhaustion suddenly dissolved. He bolted upright, staring hard down the short, dark hallway that led to his bedroom.
If Wesker did it…
Chris rolled off the couch and began to pace back and forth along the swatch of carpet between the couch and the coffee table.
We don't know what changed Wesker. But it had to be something. They - he and Rebecca and maybe some of the rest of the B.S.A.A. - could figure out what it was, and they could find some way of using it to save Jill. After all, Wesker was the one and only survivor of some sort of T-virus-based genetic manipulation.
He was all they had.
No, Chris realized with a start. Not the only one. Wesker's not the only one.
Steve. According to Claire, Steve had survived the initial infection. And what had killed him, in the end, wasn't the virus. Alexia herself had done it.
And what had Wesker said about Steve?
"Steve might come back just like I did."
And just like that, there it was. The solution. The way to save Jill.
Jeez, Nebraska. Your weather patterns = the ultimate in crack weather this year. Seems like every Friday (or every other Friday) the temperature plummets and we get another snowstorm, which lingers around for all of four days before melting away.
This is not your winter weather. I do not know what to think about it any more.
Summary: Something has happened to Jill that no one expected, and in his desperation to save her Chris might just be pushed into doing the unthinkable.
Rating/Warnings: T/PG-13. Obscenities, mostly.
Disclaimer: Any character not immediately recognizable as belonging to Capcom is probably mine (and being let out for the sole purpose of being a plot device, in all likelihood). Anything you do recognize as Capcom's is completely theirs, and I take no credit for them. I'm not here to make money, just to play in the sandbox
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1
Special thanks, again, to fiannan and Yumi. Yumi held my hand while I flailed over the ending of this chapter (and kept me from beating my head against the wall too much) while fiannan caught me in a few canon slip-ups this time around, so extra lovin's on them both. I seriously dunno how I'm gonna repay them for all the help they've given me since I started writing this thing, but I will find a way!
A malignant, inoperable glioblastoma. Cancer. Brain cancer. It had been two weeks since her diagnosis and Chris was still having trouble making sense of it. Was this really how she was going to die? Jill Valentine, dying of cancer? She was one of the S.T.A.R.S., for God's sake! She'd survived the Spencer Mansion and Raccoon City outbreaks, had helped take down one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world, and this was how she was going to die? Fucking cancer?
According to Doctor Morales, the oncologist Jill had started seeing after her diagnosis, the treatment options for this type of cancer were limited. Given its size and location, surgery was off the table. That left Jill with chemo and radiation therapies as her only real options. Even then, they could only do so much. They might buy her a few weeks, a few months, but there was no cure, and in the end…
In the end Jill was going to die.
Fucking cancer.
"Christopher Redfield. That you?"
Chris looked up, startled out of his reverie. A man in his late forties was standing just before him, wearing jeans and a red t-shirt. Though he'd gained a bit of a belly since Chris had last seen him, he still knew him - and knew him well.
"Barry Burton," he breathed, grinning. Getting to his feet (minding the extra large caffé Americano - his second that day - that he'd picked up from the coffee shop in the hospital lobby), he stepped into Barry's proffered hug. "Long time no see, Double-B."
"No kiddin'," Barry replied, letting him go and taking a step back. He looked Chris up and down. "You put on some muscle since I last saw you. They working you hard at the B.S.A.A.?"
"Not half as hard as the S.T.A.R.S. ever did."
Barry chuckled, looking Chris over again. "Might wanna check they aren't slipping you steroids there, Chris."
Now it was Chris's turn to laugh. Running a hand through his disheveled hair (he hadn't washed it since early yesterday), he said, "It's great to see you, Barry. Jill'll be real glad to see you, too."
Barry's expression faltered and just like that the good mood was gone. He turned and looked down the hall, towards Jill's room at the end.
"How is she?" His voice was heavy. He sounded old - much older than he really was - and worn.
Though they spoke often and he'd helped grease the bureaucratic wheels in Washington for them on several occasions, Chris hadn't actually seen Barry since they'd all escaped the mansion together. Now, studying his old friend, he was willing to argue that Barry had probably suffered the most of all of the surviving S.T.A.R.S. members at Umbrella's hands. After the Mansion incident, he and his family had fled to Canada. But when that still didn't feel safe enough the Burtons had begun moving almost constantly, hopping from one country to the next until Umbrella had finally collapsed. Even now, almost three years after Umbrella's collapse, the Burtons hadn't settled in any one place to stay for more than a year.
"When I left, she was a little out of it from the chemo," he said, unconsciously running his hands down his thighs as if wiping away sweat - or blood - from his palms. "But I think she's doing okay, overall." Chris flexed his jaw. "More or less."
Barry looked down the hall again. His face was set. "How long…?"
"If she responds well to treatment, maybe six months."
"Christ." Barry ran a hand down his face and tilted his head back so he was staring at the ceiling. "Christ."
"She's a fighter," Chris said, lifting his shoulders and dropping them in a feeble shrug. He knew he was stating the obvious - like Jill Valentine was going to give up, roll over, and die - but he had nothing else.
Barry didn't say anything for several seconds, seconds so long they each lasted a small eternity. He just kept staring at the damn ceiling.
We can face down an army of fucking zombies, Chris thought suddenly, but this…
Barry interrupted before he could finish that thought. "You know, somehow I'd…" He took a deep breath, his eyes never once leaving the tiled ceiling, "Somehow I'd managed to convince myself that the next time I actually saw you two it'd be at your wedding."
Chris stiffened, his gaze locking on a poster hanging on the wall across from him. He stared without blinking at the bold words at the top, the ones telling him about the link between a patient's well being and a positive attitude, but he didn't reply. He couldn't reply. What would he even say? 'Yeah, sorry about that, Barry, but I hadn't exactly figured she'd get cancer before we got the chance to tie the knot?'
He didn't even have to ask where Barry had gotten the idea of the two of them getting together. The S.T.A.R.S.' half of the bullpen back at the RPD Headquarters was pretty small, and it wasn't easy to hide any kind of office-flirtation (which was how everyone knew when Joseph hooked up with the redhead from the Crime Scene Unit, for instance). If anything, he and Jill had gotten off easy: the others seemed to assume his and Jill's relationship (or eventual relationship) was a given, though Forest used to give him so much shit for not making a move on her.
Hell, even since those days he'd only kissed her once, after fighting the T-A.L.O.S. in Umbrella's Russian-based facility. They'd both been sweaty and covered in blood - not all of it theirs - and so relieved that they'd both somehow managed to kill the damn thing that it just…happened. Jill had been knocked over and he'd gone to help her up and the next thing he knew he'd dragged her in close and he was pressing his lips against hers and she was kissing him back.
Then the rest of the team had arrived and she was only leaning against him, using him for balance against a badly twisted knee. The only reason he'd even been able to tell he hadn't hallucinated the whole damn thing was because she'd reached up and smoothed his hair - hair she'd messed up - back down against his head as they'd followed the others back outside.
They hadn't mentioned it since.
And the truth was he'd been in love with her for a long time. He'd wanted to marry her for a long time. Hell, he still did -there was no past tense about it. But the last thing he wanted to do was give Wesker and the rest of Umbrella yet another tool they could use against them. Because given half a chance, they would. Wesker proved he was more than capable right there in the Spencer mansion, when he'd used Barry's family to blackmail him, and he had done it over and over again - with himself and Claire, and Claire and Steve, and even, arguably, Leon and Ada.
So he'd kept telling himself to wait. Wait until they'd taken down Umbrella. Wait until they'd destroyed Wesker. Wait until the T-Virus was just a nightmare they could leave behind. Wait until this whole fucking mess was finished. Wait and pray that she didn't find someone else in the meantime. And then when it was all over, he'd ask her out. They could have a normal relationship.
Jill getting cancer…nobody had planned on that.
How could we? We'd always figured it'd be Umbrella. If we died because of anything, it would be because of Umbrella.
And now it's too late, he thought, his hands clenching into tight fists. Now it's too late and there's nothing I can do and Jill is going to die.
Fucking cancer.
"I'm sorry, Chris," Barry said, interrupting again.
"No, it's okay." Chris took a deep, steadying breath, let his hands fall loose at his sides, and forced a smile. He jerked his head down the hall. "Come on. I told her I'd be back in just a few minutes - " He looked at his watch. " - almost twenty minutes ago."
The blinds were wide open in Jill's room, letting the warm spring sunshine in. Chris and Barry slipped quietly inside, taking care not to disturb her as they did. Jill's eyes were closed, her chest rising and falling rhythmically. She looked like she was asleep, but as the door clicked behind them she asked, "You get lost or something?"
Chris grinned. "Nah. I ran into someone. Take a look."
Jill opened her eyes. "Barry!" she said, her expression brightening. She sat up, and Chris darted over to steady her. She leaned against him without question and continued, "It's been so long! How are you?"
"I should be asking you that."
"I'm alive. That's good enough for now." Jill reached out for a hug, and when Barry obliged she added, "How're Kathy and the kids?"
Barry trotted over to the window and took a look out. There wasn't much to see from here - just a couple of other hospital buildings. They were still several blocks away from the closest of the D.C. sights, and though the Washington Monument was visible on good, clear days, it was too hazy to see it at all today. Turning back from the window, Barry said, "If they've been following Kathy's schedule, they should be enjoying the Lincoln memorial at the moment."
Even Chris was surprised at this. "They're all in town?"
"Are you kidding? I couldn't keep them at home! Moira's hoping to use the trip as a way of getting some extra credit outta her history teacher, and Polly…" He motioned to Jill. "Polly wanted to see you."
"She's here?" Chris felt her lean away from him, peering around Barry towards the door. He tensed and almost reached for her, worried she might slip and fall off the bed, but she settled back against him after a moment.
Barry shook his head. "Not today. I hadn't heard much on how you were doing, so I told them to go and see the sights and came by myself today."
"Oh. They could've come. I'm okay. Just a little tired."
"Have the nurses been by since they hooked up your IV?" Chris asked.
"Camille came by just after you left." Jill smiled wryly and turned to Barry. Cupping a hand around her mouth she said conspiratorially, "She likes to call him the Mother Hen behind his back. For the way he's always hovering around."
Barry laughed, looking at Chris out of the corners of his eyes. "That sounds like him."
Chris opened his mouth to argue, but stopped. There wasn't really anything he could say to that. So he simply shrugged, smiling sheepishly.
Jill reached her good arm around his back and gave him a hug.
"Will that get me a hug every time?" he murmured. "'Cause I'd like that."
"We'll see."
"So tell me, Jill," Barry said suddenly (kindly reminding them both that he hadn't gone anywhere in the past thirty seconds), grabbing a stool from the corner of the room and setting it down closer to the bed. "What's the B.S.A.A. got you doing?"
"When I'm not here? Same kind of work Chris does. Since we're both high-grade special agents - which is just their way of saying we've got more experience with Umbrella and the T-virus than everyone else combined - we don't get called in on every case. Just the ones that get flagged as high risk. We don't even get to work together half the time, anymore." She shook her head. "Half the nation's convinced a simple head cold's gonna turn out to be another outbreak."
"And the rest of the world isn't much better. I just got back from a mission in the Middle East with my team," Chris said. "We got some reports of some possible labs out in Iraq and Afghanistan - not Umbrella, but it's not that hard to pick up a sample of the T-Virus on the black market."
Barry nodded.
"Why, Barry? You thinkin' of joining up?"
"Dunno. It's possible. I'd love to stop moving around so much - it's not a good life for the girls." Barry shrugged, shifting his weight on the stool. "Have either of you heard from Rebecca?"
"Yeah," Chris said. "She joined the Alliance about two years ago. Been working with the biochemistry unit, trying to figure out just what the hell T is. She hasn't changed much."
Chris would have gone on; told Barry more about what Rebecca had been up to, but he was interrupted by a faint knock on the door. It opened, and a short, plump, Hispanic woman stepped inside.
"Oh," she said, her gaze falling on Barry, "And here's another one. Jilly-bean, you've sure got a lot of friends."
"Hey, Camille. This one's Barry. We used to work together. Barry, this is my nurse, Camille."
"One of her nurses, at least. We've got a small army here." Camille hooked a loose strand of curly black hair behind her ear and put her hands on her hip. "How you feeling, kiddo?"
"I'm all right," Jill said with an exasperated sigh.
"Don't gimme that tone," Camille said. Her voice was stern, but she was smiling. It faded quickly, however, as she added, "You're gonna get people asking you up and down how you're doing, and being able to say you're all right is a good thing. You're not nauseous at all? Feeling any pain?"
"No."
"Good."
"I think she looks a little pale," Chris said.
Jill gave him a look. "I'm fine," she insisted.
"I'm on his side for once. You do look pale." Camille checked the IV, clicking her tongue against her teeth. "You might be getting a little anemic, girl. I don't want to do it now, since we've got a bit of time before you can even think about getting outta here and back to your real life, but I'm going to need to take some blood before you leave tomorrow."
Chris demanded, "Why aren't you doing it now? If she is anemic, it's better to know sooner, isn't it? Then you can do something about it."
"I wanted to give her a little longer with you and Barry, without a nurse getting in the way." Camille sighed. "Jill, I don't know how you put up with this one."
Jill chuckled and said softly, "Thanks, Camille, but you might as well draw it now. He's not going to stop until you do."
Wagging a finger in his general direction (since she was way too short to waggle it in his face), Camille went on, "You just make sure you don't tire her out too much, you understand? She needs someone to support her, not hen-peck the doctors about every little thing. We got support groups if you want the chance for all of that. You understand?"
"Yes, Camille."
"Good. 'Cause I haven't got the time to make sure you don't run everyone else completely ragged."
"I won't, Camille."
She snorted. To Jill, she said, "You have fun with the boys. I'll be back in a few minutes."
Shortly after Camille had come in to check on Jill, Chris had watched Barry slip off his stool and step out into the hallway. Now that she was leaving, he came back inside. Chris saw him slip his phone back into his pocket.
"That was Kathy," he said.
"You gotta go?" Jill asked. Her voice was softer than it had been, and Chris realized that the circles under her eyes were growing even more pronounced.
"Yeah." Barry leaned in and gave her a hug. "I'll be back in the morning, if you're feeling up to it."
"Bring Polly along."
"I will." Barry stepped back. Meeting Chris's eyes, he continued, "Kathy wanted you to come along with us. We're going to dinner."
"Oh. Barry, tell her thanks, but - " Chris looked from Barry to Jill and back again. She was looking worse by the minute.
"She insisted. Told me to use force if I have to. She wouldn't budge even when I told her that force probably means nothing against you."
"Go, Chris," Jill said sternly. At least, she tried to be stern, but her voice wavered and cracked.
"Jill, I don't want to leave you…"
"Chris." Jill's voice was still shaky, but sharp. "Stop. It's okay. I'm all right." She sank back against the pillows. "You should go to dinner. Go to dinner and go home and get some sleep."
"I'm not leaving."
Jill would have none of this tonight. Pressing one hand over her eyes she said, "Chris, go. I'm not going to die tonight. But I would like to get some rest."
His stomach twisted at her words. He wanted to smile and mean it. But he could only force the expression, not the emotion, as he asked, "Do you promise?"
"Get out. I'll see you later."
Chris slunk towards the door after Barry, but lingered just inside the doorway. "Tomorrow."
She waved a hand - details, details. But her eyes, peering out at him from under her hand, were brighter than they had been and her smile stronger as she said, "Fair enough."
Chris smiled. I love you, Jill Valentine.
He wished he could bring himself to say the words. Now, before it was too late.
When he finally got back to his apartment that night, full and so bone-tired he almost fell asleep right there in his parked Jeep, Chris planned to shower, put his feet up for a few hours (maybe watch some TV for a while, since he was shelling out an arm and a leg a month for it), and go to bed - in that order. As soon as he opened the door, however, he noticed three things very quickly. First, the lights in his living room were on. Second, his kitchen was spotless. Third, his sister was sitting on the couch, watching some cop show on TV.
"I was wondering where you were," Claire said, getting to her feet.
"Claire?" Chris frowned, squinting at her in confusion. "When did you get here? How did you get in?"
"It's nice to see you, too, Chris." She put a hand on her hip and held up one of his spare keys - the one he liked to keep in the never-fixed light by his door. "You need to find better places to hide these things. I'm going to assume you've got the other in the vent just outside the door?"
"That's…none of your business."
"It is if I could find it."
"You're my sister. I'd expect you to be able to find it." Chris was tempted to take the key back from Claire, but decided to let her keep it. Without it, there was a good chance she'd steal his set. And he needed those keys.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then abruptly crossed the room and dropped onto the ottoman and began unlacing his shoes.
Claire said suddenly, "I told you I was coming. Don't you remember?"
Chris did not remember having that conversation. At all. Actually, he didn't remember having any contact with his sister since before his mission out in the desert. Running a hand down his rough, stubbly face, he asked heavily, "What day?"
"Last Monday." Claire's voice was soft.
Oh. Monday…Chris wracked his stress-addled, sleep-deprived, caffeine-overloaded brain, trying to remember. Jill started chemo that Monday.
No wonder he didn't remember the conversation. Well, even if he couldn't remember having it, it still sounded like something he'd say. He wouldn't turn down his sister, anyway.
"You look like hell," Claire noted, by way of changing the subject.
"Really? Because I always thought women dug the scruffy look." Chris forced a joking smile as he finally reached out to his sister for a hug.
Claire rolled her eyes, but accepted the hug anyway. "Have you been sleeping?"
Chris gave his head a little shake and replied, "Is it that obvious?"
"Don't forget - I spent the first twelve years of my life with you. I know you."
"You don't need to worry about me. I'm fine."
"You are not fine. I might be your little sister but that doesn't mean I'm stupid or…or blind or…" Claire trailed off as Chris cocked an eyebrow at her before throwing up her hands and snapping, "It's kind of an instinctive thing, okay? I can't help it." After a brief pause, she added, "You need to get some sleep. And eat right. How long had that bread been sitting there, anyway? It was a mold factory. If any of that was penicillin you could've made a small fortune off it."
"I take it you cleaned the kitchen, then?"
"Of course I cleaned it. It was disgusting. I thought I saw it move when I walked in."
Chris only nodded, dropping his head and staring at his hands. Though he loved that she'd come to see him, and was glad to have her, having Claire around wasn't going to do much to help. Between her and Barry it was like the start of a reunion of all the survivors of Umbrella's horrors. But they were only here because Jill was dying. The countdown had begun and everyone was just trying to make the most of what little time they had left.
Claire came over to the ottoman and dropped down beside him. She put an arm around his back, hooking it over his right shoulder while she leaned against his left. "I'm sorry, Chris. I'm so, so sorry." When he didn't reply, she asked, "How is she?"
"Anemic and hating the chemo. She was throwing up when I called at dinner."
"Don't they have drugs to help treat the nausea?"
"Yeah, but it's the first time she's ever reacted badly to it. The other times, she was just fine…" He took a breath, but his chest was tight and only let in a little air. His stomach twisted violently and Chris covered his face with this palms, dragging them down along his cheeks, before he tried to breathe again. This time it came easier, but he still felt sick. "Barry and his family got in yesterday, and Barry came in to see Jill today. You remember them?"
"Yeah." Claire had met the Burtons once, way back in the day, at one of the RPD's annual picnics. "They had two little girls."
"Moira and Polly. They're teenagers, now." He trailed off, and they sat in silence for a few moments. "You been talking to Leon much?"
Claire sighed. "No more than usual."
"Why don't you ask him to lunch or something?"
"Relationship advice. Coming from you." Claire chuckled and shook her head. She didn't actually give him an answer right away, and Chris wondered if he'd hit a nerve accidentally.
He was just about to apologize when she cut him off, saying, "Leon's still working on the A's, and hasn't even found anyone in the B's yet. I'm a C. It'll be a while."
"What?"
"If you don't get it, I'm not going to spell it out for you. Oh. That was a terrible pun." Claire stood up and stretched, yawning. "I dumped my stuff in the other bedroom."
"That's fine."
"Good. I'm stealing the bathroom for a bit."
"All right."
Claire shuffled off towards the bathroom, leaving Chris alone with his thoughts.
He ran a hand through his hair and turned to the TV, staring at it blankly before getting up and flopping out on his couch, grabbing the remote as he fell. He flicked through channels, lingering for just a few seconds longer on the news. He watched the stocks scroll past on the bottom of the screen. Almost everything was down, but that was nothing unusual any more. Somehow, Umbrella had almost single-handedly brought on the economic boom of the early nineties, and when it collapsed the economy had taken a turn for the worse. Things had been slowly picking back up when Harvardville happened.
Just one fucking thing after another, isn't it? With a growl, Chris turned off the TV and threw the remote at the chair. It bounced off the back cushion and onto the floor, skidding to rest somewhere under the ottoman. He did not move to get it.
Closing his eyes, Chris lay back against the couch's arm, covering his face with one of his own. The Umbrella Management Training Facility and the Spencer Mansion. Raccoon City, Rockfort Island, Antarctica, Russia, India, Harvardville. And those were only the confirmed outbreaks - for all he knew at the moment, there'd been more. Hell, for all he knew there was going to be another tomorrow, or next week, or maybe next year. Maybe New York City was going to be the next to fall to the virus. Or Seattle. Or some other major city on the globe.
And for all he knew, the next one wasn't going to be about Raccoon City, or a ploy to prove some vaccine worked, or some accident during Umbrella's mad scramble to save itself. The next outbreak could very well be a bona fide terrorist attack, committed by someone who'd bought up some sample of the damn virus from the black market. This was exactly why there was an entire section of the B.S.A.A. devoted to simply watching the black market and tracking all the shit sold there.
All he did know was that it wasn't going to end soon enough. It wasn't going to end soon enough and even if they managed to catch Wesker tomorrow he didn't know if he was going to have enough time left to make up for all the years he'd wasted.
There has to be something else we can do. That's all there was to it. Something more. There has to be a cure out there, somewhere.
For a long time he didn't move from the couch. He heard Claire leave the bathroom and come out into the living room, and he still didn't move. He heard her slip around the room, switching off the lights, then close the door to the guest bedroom, and still he didn't move.
Finally, he found himself on the very edge of sleep, his mind replaying everything that Wesker and Umbrella had ever done. His last, feeble thoughts were coming in to him in an incoherent jumble when one image - a memory - floated right to the front and center of his mind. It was a memory of Wesker, lying in a pool of his own blood on the floor, back in the Spencer Mansion's underground labs. He was dead, a gaping hole laid open in his chest. Even in death, his dark sunglasses where still, somehow, undisturbed.
After learning everything that Wesker had done to betray them over the course of the night, Chris couldn't say he'd felt any remorse at all for his former captain's death.
Except…
Wesker wasn't dead. Not anymore.
Chris's exhaustion suddenly dissolved. He bolted upright, staring hard down the short, dark hallway that led to his bedroom.
If Wesker did it…
Chris rolled off the couch and began to pace back and forth along the swatch of carpet between the couch and the coffee table.
We don't know what changed Wesker. But it had to be something. They - he and Rebecca and maybe some of the rest of the B.S.A.A. - could figure out what it was, and they could find some way of using it to save Jill. After all, Wesker was the one and only survivor of some sort of T-virus-based genetic manipulation.
He was all they had.
No, Chris realized with a start. Not the only one. Wesker's not the only one.
Steve. According to Claire, Steve had survived the initial infection. And what had killed him, in the end, wasn't the virus. Alexia herself had done it.
And what had Wesker said about Steve?
"Steve might come back just like I did."
And just like that, there it was. The solution. The way to save Jill.
Jeez, Nebraska. Your weather patterns = the ultimate in crack weather this year. Seems like every Friday (or every other Friday) the temperature plummets and we get another snowstorm, which lingers around for all of four days before melting away.
This is not your winter weather. I do not know what to think about it any more.