Long, Long Way from Home

[m0therlove]

Who: Billy and Rebecca
When: This evening
Where: Billy's apartment, Starter 1307
Summary: Studly convict, cute cop, erstwhile partners in zombie genocide reunite.
Warnings: Let's just say Billy is gifted in language.

Comments

[clevermedic]

Rebecca had very plainly never expected to see Billy Coen again, after leaving him on that hilltop in the Arklay Mountains. The fact that he was in this weird city, trapped, just the same as her... It was a whole new level of surreal.

Still, she'd certainly been speaking with him, and she'd promised to stop by, so after making sure she didn't look a total mess she made her way up the two flights of stairs to the room Billy had designated as his. When she located the correct door she knocked, before stepping back and crossing her arms loosely in front of her.

She was taken a little bit by surprise when he opened the door sans shirt, and blinked, before she managed to speak.

"Um, hey."

[m0therlove]

"Hey."

He paused, smiled a little smugly and then lowered the towel off his shoulders. After two and a half months of an ordeal every time he wanted so much as a shower (the total number of showers could be counted on one hand, he was sorry to say), it was nice to relax for a while and he'd gotten a little liberal with the shirt.

"You come in, I'll get decent," Billy said, turning around and heading back to the duffel bag on the couch. He dug inside for a minute and pulled out a crumpled T-shirt for a roadside truckstop, the tags still on it-- and once he pulled it over his head, he turned back to face Rebecca again. "Good to see you, dollface."

[clevermedic]

She glanced down at the floor a little sheepishly when he turned away, before stepping into the apartment and shutting the door behind her. When she'd turned back around she was glad to see he was wearing a shirt.

The nickname got a bit of an eyeroll, and she walked further into the apartment, looking around out of habit. Pretty much the same as hers. When her eyes landed back on him, she smiled, dropping her arms.

"It's good to see you too, Billy. I honestly never thought I would, again."

[m0therlove]

"No kidding," he agreed, having a seat on the couch as he set his gun down on the coffee table in front of it. "Small parallel universe, or whatever."

He glanced down at his shirt and started working on ripping off the tags. "Honestly, the less you saw of me the better. Thought I'd pretty much heard the last of you, though, especially after hearing about the missile."

[clevermedic]

"You thought I'd buy the farm that easily?" She replied, sounding a little mock offended, working her way over to sit down on a nearby chair. She smiled, leaning her arms on her knees.

"After everything that happened in Arklay, I was pretty determined not to die."

[m0therlove]

Billy smirked slightly and looked up at her briefly, before staring back down at the carpet in front of him. "Yeah. Hell, dying after all that bullshit would be pretty pathetic."

He crumpled up the tags and left them in a pile on the table. "Guess you must've found your team okay."

[clevermedic]

The smile faded from her face at the mention of her team, and she straightened up, but glanced down, absently picking at a loose thread on her jeans.

"I only managed to find Richard, actually. And he died not long after." She still felt like she was partially to blame for that. Richard had been injured watching her ass, and he'd really had no business being up and about after the attack. She should have been keeping an eye on him, so he needn't have died the way he did. She cleared her throat a little, glancing back up at Billy and attempting a forced smile, before looking down again.

"Most of Alpha team survived, once they were sent in to find us. I escaped with them."

[m0therlove]

Billy's expression evened out and he let out a little breath. "Oh." That was probably a stupid statement to make. The kinds of things crawling around that forest made it pretty damn unlikely that most people would get out unscathed.

"Sorry," he added a moment later.

[clevermedic]

Rebecca sighed, nodding her head and staring at her knees a moment longer.

"It's okay," she finally replied, managing to look up at him again and shrug a little. "You couldn't have known, anyway. They kept most of what happened that night secret."

[m0therlove]

He looked up from the carpet and that and glanced at her, looking a little incredulous. "Seriously?"

They'd kept most of what happened that night a secret? "How? Seemed more than obvious to me."

[clevermedic]

She reached up to absently rub the back of her neck, looking down again, before slowly dropping her hands and clasping them in her lap.

"Raccoon City became the flourishing place it is- was, because of Umbrella. They... owned most of the town." She frowned, looking up at Billy. "Our captain, Wesker. He was... one of their chief researchers. And while he died in the mansion... we were in Umbrella's pocket the whole time and we didn't even know it." She looked stressed out by this, biting her lip and glancing away from him for a moment, before looking back again

[m0therlove]

Billy listened quietly while she explained, his expression impossible to read. When she was finished, he was silent, tapping his fingers on the arm of the couch, and finally stood up.

"Fucking figures," he muttered as he stood, heading over to the window and leaning on the sill, looking down at the city below. "Everybody's in somebody's goddamn pocket."

[clevermedic]

She smiled a little grimly at that, her eyes following him to the window.

"I don't think they're going to have such an easy time covering up the destruction of an entire city, however." It was terrifying that it had come to that, an entire city lost for Umbrella to finally be exposed for their crimes, but there was nothing that could be done about it, now. No one had believed their story.

[m0therlove]

"Yeah," Billy replied coldly. "Took a couple thousand people to die for it, but they'll be boned soon enough."

He was quiet for an uneasily long moment, finally letting out a sigh and looking up at her again. "You want a beer?"

[clevermedic]

Rebecca looked a little surprised at the offer, her brow furrowing briefly.

"I'm eighteen Billy, I'm not old en-" she paused, remembering where they were, and tilted her head to the side. "Actually maybe I am old enough."

[m0therlove]

He almost laughed at her protest. "Do you really give a shit?" he asked, heading into the kitchen and opening up the fridge. It was basically empty-- nothing but a six-pack of beer and a half gallon of milk. Billy had been in the middle of trying to grocery shop at the corner store when the sirens went off, and ended up jogging back to his apartment with little to show for his trouble.

Priorities, though. "It's that or milk."