Estimated Life Expectancy: Chapter 3

Mar 13, 2009 00:50

Wasn't lying when I said I wasn't dropping off the face of the internet entirely.

Estimated Life Expectancy: Chapter 3

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. Though this story isn't...a happy one.
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 | Chapter 2

Again, a million thanks to
fiannan and Yumi for helping me with this. I dunno what I'd do without either of them. &hearts



Considering how badly he'd overslept that morning, Chris couldn't help but think he should be at least a little more rushed as he started through his morning routine (shower, shave, lunch, Jill). But, as he stepped under the rush of steaming water in his shower, he couldn't bring himself to move any faster.

Besides, the shower felt really, really good. And it gave him the perfect opportunity to laugh at himself some more.

It had been a week since he'd come up with the insane idea to use the T-virus, and almost as long since he'd axed it based on its stupidity alone. Because, really? It was such a bad idea that there were no words. For fuck's sake, he knew better than that! No good had ever come from the virus, and no good at all would come from injecting Jill with it. Hell, even if Rebecca or someone else managed to make some amazing breakthrough with it and changed it into something useful, he didn't know if he could bring himself - or anyone, for that matter - to be its first test subject.

God. Chris flicked water from his face as he stepped back under the spray, wincing when some shampoo got into his eyes and made them burn. He rubbed at them with his fingers. I would have to be really desperate to resort to that.

He yawned suddenly, shaking his head. It felt like someone was tap dancing right on top of his brain, but that was probably because it was almost noon and he hadn't had his coffee yet. As he reached over and turned off the water, he thought, I should call Claire. Have her home some coffee.

She hadn't been in the apartment when Chris finally stumbled out of his room that morning (having managed to somehow find his way there the night before). Instead, there was a neon green Post-It note on the fridge, telling him that she'd gone out to get some food - decent food (her words, not his) - and that she'd be back before noon. Claire had also written that she hoped he was awake by the time she got back, so they could go and see Jill.

Chris smiled as he finished towel-drying his hair. His sister knew him too well. Stepping onto the fuzzy bathmat next to the shower stall, he tossed the towel over the door. He pulled on his boxers before stepping over to the sink and grabbing his shaving gel and razor.

I hope Jill's doing all right. He hadn't called the hospital yet (he'd only gotten out of bed about twenty minutes ago, and it was never a good idea for him to try and do anything productive before he'd had a chance to wake up). He really hoped she was doing better - the last time she'd been in, they'd been diagnosed her with neutropenia; meaning her white blood cell count was dangerously low. Chris wasn't completely sure how everything worked, but it meant she was at risk of getting sick. They'd been working on bringing her cell counts up for the past few days, and she'd gone in overnight to potentially start the chemo again.

Barry's there, he reminded himself as he lathered up his face. He'd almost forgotten how much he liked it when he was clean-shaven. And if anything happened he'd call you. Get a grip.

They'd actually discussed it the night before. Rather, Kathy had told him quite firmly that if he showed up at the hospital before noon she'd march him straight out the door again. Or something; he'd barely been able to hear her threats over the girls' laughter. Seems they enjoyed watching their mother lecture someone else for a change.

Even from the bathroom, he could hear the front door open and swing close again. A few seconds of silence followed, then he heard Claire call, "Chris?"

"I'm up," Chris called back through the bathroom door. "Be out in a sec!" He quickly finished putting on his clothes, hung his towel up on the rack where it actually belonged, and left the bathroom.

"You look better," Claire said, grinning, when she saw him.

"I feel better," he replied, his gaze catching the half-dozen or so plastic bags gilled with food sitting just inside the front door. "Is this everything?"

"Yeah. Leave 'em, though, I'll take care of it." She looked at him, her expression a little like their old dog's had been when he was hoping to avoid trouble after digging in their mother's garden. "I borrowed the Jeep."

Chris waved her off, sliding onto one of the stools he kept at the bar. "I figured. No biggie."

"I thought you didn't like it when people touched your Jeep."

"You're an exception. You know how to drive it." He craned his neck, peering at the bags near Claire's feet. "Any orange juice in there? I drank the last of it yesterday."

"I saw. Here." Claire plunked a fresh carton down on the counter and slid it towards him, along with a clean cup she rescued from the dishwasher.

"Thanks, Claire," he said as he poured himself a glass. Sure, it wasn't coffee, but nothing woke him up in the morning like a little orange juice.

"Any time." She began loading up the freezer with foods Chris barely got a glance at as they went from the bag into storage. "Someone's gotta look after you."

"You're my little sister. I'm supposed to be the one looking after you."

Claire shot him a look. "Please don't tell me you spent the morning getting mopey and sentimental." She paused suddenly, her brow furrowing. "Is that your phone? It's not mine."

"What?" Chris turned his head back and forth, listening hard.

She was right. His phone must have fallen out of his pocket while he'd been lying on the couch the night before, because it he could hear vibrating from somewhere under there. Chris darted for it - a few quick strides and he was ducking to grab it out from under the couch - but he was too late. The phone stopped ringing just before he got his hands on it.

He flipped the phone open and checked the caller ID. Barry. And before that, the hospital.

His stomach sank. Oh, no.

Calm down, he ordered himself. You can't always assume the worst-case scenario. They might just be wondering where the hell you are, since you're, like, four hours late. He hit redial on Barry's number and waited.

"Chris." Something was wrong. He could hear it in Barry's voice.

"What is it, Barry? What's wrong with Jill?"

"It's…" Barry trailed off, and Chris could almost see the worry lines on his face growing deeper by the second. "She's bad, Chris."

He heard a jingle and whipped around - Claire was holding out his keys. Chris jerked his head, and she threw them his way. He caught them in his hand, wrapping his fingers around them tightly. The keys' teeth dug into his palm, but not deep enough to draw blood. Motioning for Claire to follow him, he headed for the door. "I'm coming, Barry. I'm on my way."

The skies were beginning to cloud up again as he whipped his Jeep into his spot in the parking lot. Thanks to the clouds rolling over the sun, the world shifted from light to dark as he charged the hospital's doors. The weatherman had said something about another storm cell coming in that afternoon, but Chris hadn't really been paying attention so he couldn't say said when or how bad it was going to be.

Let it come, Chris thought, jogging past the elevator (no time to waste waiting) and bounding up the stairs two at a time. He didn't know if Claire was behind him and he didn't care. She'd find him.

Right now, he just needed to see Jill.

Don't let it be serious, he begged, skidding around the corner and hauling for her room. Please don't let it be that bad.

Jill wasn't there. Her bed was unmade and all her things were right where they'd been when he left the night before - the duffel with a change of clothes still sitting by her bed - but she was gone.

He stood just inside the door, staring, confused. "Jill?"

No answer, but he hadn't really expected one. Chris stuck his head back out into the hall, hoping to spot a nurse or a doctor or someone who might be able to tell him what the fuck was going on here. The halls were mostly empty, though. They often were. The oncology wing was surprisingly quiet, even on its worst days.

Where would she have gone? Where's Barry?

"Chris!"

Claire had finally caught up with him. Chris winced, suddenly feeling guilty for running off. He turned, saying, "I'm sorry, Claire, I - "

She cut him off by pressing his phone into his hand. "Barry called again. He, Kathy, and the girls are up on the fifth floor."

"Did he say why?"

"Just that he wants us to meet him there."

Barry and his family were sitting in a waiting room on the far side of the fifth floor. Camille and Dr. Morales were with them, and they were all talking softly. Barry kept looking at his feet, it seemed like Kathy was doing most of the talking. The girls were a few rows over - close enough that Chris imagined they could hear everything being said, but not so close they might be tempted to interrupt. Aside from their little group, the room was empty. Everyone else was probably visiting family, safely in their rooms.

Where Jill should be.

Chris didn't even bother with formal greetings. As he slowed from his jog, Claire following closely, he demanded, "Where's Jill? She's not in her room…"

Dr. Morales stood up. The oncologist was an older man with black-rimmed glasses and thick, graying hair, and Chris guessed that his age landed somewhere between his late fifties and early sixties. He was a nice guy, warm and friendly despite his professionalism, but Chris had noticed that he sometimes had issues explaining things. "I had her moved upstairs. She's in isolation."

His blood ran cold. "What? Why?"

"Last night she started showing signs of an infection."

"An infection? What kind of infection?"

"It could be anything," Camille said, taking over with a look at Dr. Morales. "She might just have a cold. But with her white counts as low as they are, even a cold is bad juju. We knew this was gonna happen and we were watching for it, but…"

"You knew she was at risk?"

"We did. And we gave her a booster when her counts started to drop last week. You werehere when we gave it to her. But Jill went ahead and lost white cells anyway."

"Chris," Dr. Morales said. He met Chris's eyes and held them. "Jill is very, very sick. Her tumor is in a very advanced state. Anything we do for her carries risks that it doesn't for any other patient because of how advanced the cancer is. If she hadn't insisted on trying chemotherapy and radiation, I wouldn't have recommended it at all. But I promise you, we are going to do everything we can to make her well again. Right now, we just want to get rid of this infection and get her cell counts back up."

"What about the chemotherapy?" This time it was Barry asking. He'd been so quiet Chris had almost forgotten he was even there.

Dr. Morales shook his head. "The chemotherapy drugs we've been giving her are immunosuppressive. If we keep her on them, she's only going to get worse."

Barry nodded, leaning his forehead against his wife's when she reached up and put an arm around his shoulder.

Chris looked away, his gaze falling on the open window. He had read about them - the immunosuppressive drugs, that is. Most chemotherapy drugs were immunosuppressive to a degree, at least as far as he'd found. It was just one of the side effects. In their efforts to kill off the tumor cells, they sometimes killed off the good cells, as well. He'd meant to look up Jill's specific drug cocktail and see what their specific side effects were, but he hadn't managed to get around to it yet.

Without turning from the window, where the first fat raindrops were beginning to splatter against the glass, Chris took a deep breath and asked, "Can I see her?"

"You can't go in to visit her yet, but you can see her." Camille stood up. "Come on, I'll take you."

She led him down a hallway lined with glass-walled rooms. Some had patients in them, but several were empty - and, to be honest, Chris liked them better when there wasn't someone trapped inside.

"You must be really sick to wind up here," he said as they passed by a tiny room with a young kid inside - boy or girl, Chris couldn't say.

"You're either really sick or you might get that way," Camille agreed. "Don't you worry about Tyler, though. He's going to be getting a bone marrow transplant this afternoon, and then we're hoping he'll be fine. I'm surprised his brother isn't here yet. Zack's a mother hen just like you, only worse." She looked at him, waiting for a reaction, but Chris didn't offer one.

"Jill's just up here."

Like the others on the floor, Jill was being kept behind glass. Chris balked a few feet away from the room. Even from there he could see the deep, dark purple circles under her eyes.

"God," he breathed.

"She looks worse with the tubes and the mask on. She was talkin' to us just this morning."

"When…?"

Camille bit her lip as she thought. "Mary said she was starting to feel sick around midnight - like she had the flu."

"You didn't think it was just another side effect of the chemotherapy?"

"Honey, have you ever had the flu? There's feeling like you're gonna be sick, and then there's feeling like you've got the flu. Besides, she wasn't on the chemo last night. We stopped that, remember? Last night she was just on the booster."

"I didn't know any of that."

"That's because we've all gotten very good at hiding these sorts of things from you. Jill knew what was going on, of course."

"That…doesn't seem right. Or fair. Or legal."

"Given how you behave? Any jury would side with us. I never lied to you, anyway. I just didn't tell you everything."

"That's lying by omission."

"Actually, it's called HIPAA."

She had him there. Deciding not to push the subject any further, Chris asked, "Do you think it is just the flu?"

"Could be. Could also be a systematic infection - some other bug harassing her whole body."

Chris shook his head. Now he didn't want to know. He shifted, watching Jill breathe. "How do you do it, Camille? How do you come in here every day, knowing there's a good chance these people aren't going to make it?"

"You're a soldier." When he looked at her, startled, she waved a hand at him. "No, don't look at me like that. I'm not dumb. My brother's in the Air Force; you move like he does. But tell me: how do you go off to fight when you know that not all your buddies are going to come back with you?" She paused, watching Jill breathe for a moment, then said softly, "For me, I go in hoping I can either help them or hold them while they go."

The pager at her hip began to buzz, and she looked at it. "Gotta go save one of my nurses. Sounds like the other mother hen is finally here, and he's trying to make up for lost time." She touched his arm lightly and flashed a smile as she left, nearly colliding with Barry as he came around the corner.

Chris forced a smile as Barry joined him just outside Jill's room. Neither said anything for a few minutes. They both just watched Jill.

Barry broke the silence first. "She was already in here when I came by, Chris. I called you as soon as I found where they'd moved her."

"I know." Chris let one hand fall from the glass, but left the other resting there. "Did you see where Claire went?"

"She's with Kathy and the girls. I think they decided to go see the FDR memorial."

"In the rain?"

Barry scratched at the back of his head. "Well, they went somewhere."

Chris nodded, closing his eyes. He was tired again. Flexing and then clenching his jaw, he leaned his forehead against the glass. But he didn't look at Jill, sleeping in the room. "What do we do now, Barry?"

"I don't know."

"I don't, either." That was the problem. There were no solutions. No answers. No way to change her fate. Just modern medicine, which could give a man a robotic heart but couldn't find a way to cure cancer.

There is one idea, he thought, dropping his other hand from the glass and lifting his gaze. There is one idea we haven't really tried. It was stupid, it was insane, it probably wasn't going to work - but what could looking into hurt, after all?

Chris pushed away from the glass. "Barry, I've got to go."

"What? Where, Chris…?"

"I'm going to go see Rebecca. Call me if anything changes. I'll be back as soon as I can."

He was standing just outside Rebecca's apartment complex when he finally gave her a call. It was only about four-thirty in the afternoon, but it was so dark and overcast it felt like much later. He knew he probably looked suspicious, making phone calls while standing outside in a torrential downpour, but he didn't give a rat's ass.

"Rebecca?" Get an answer, he told himself firmly. For Jill.

So you can at least tell her you tried.

"Chris?" Rebecca replied, her voice slow and groggy. It sounded like hse'd been sleeping before he called, but she woke up quickly enough. Her voice was sharp when she continued, "Did something happen to Jill?"

He'd tell her everything when he got inside. "Look, I know it's kinda sudden, but have you got a few minutes? I need to talk to you about something."

He heard the door unlock with a heavy clunk as she buzzed him in, not long after he was sitting at her kitchen table.

After he told her what was going on with Jill, he started to ask about her job. She'd joined the B.S.A.A. a year before the Harvardville incident, and now she worked at their labs, studying the virus. Thanks to a couple of black market deals inspired by WilPharama, the Alliance had managed to get its hands on samples. This included several strains of G, as well as a number of viruses tweaked by a few enterprising scientists hoping to make big money selling the samples to terrorists.

Chris was careful to keep his questions hypothetical. One wrong slip, one detail too many, and Rebecca was likely going to figure out what he was thinking. Not planning, not yet - just thinking. He'd only come up with a rough idea of the next step on the drive through the rain. It wasn't even worthy of the title of plan yet, and it would only work if this idea of his were at all possible.

Unfortunately, Rebecca hadn't lost any of her genius over the years.

"You aren't planning on using this on Jill, are you?" She asked with a little half smile, stunning Chris into silence.

His stunned silence gave him away.

Her expression changed almost immediately: her face fell, first into horror, then into fury, then to a mix of fury and disgust. "No," she said vehemently, recoiling from him. "No!" She stood up and began to pace around the room, gesturing wildly. "Chris, that's nuts. Completely nuts! Did you even stop to think about this? About the consequences? Did you even hear what you were saying?"

Chris didn't reply.

She broke it down for him. "You want to infect Jill. Jill Valentine! Our Jill! Your Jill! With the T-virus! There's just…there aren't…it's just…" Rebecca pressed one hand to her forehead, shaking her head. "Chris, that virus destroys lives. It's ruined ours, and Barry's and Claire's and Leon's and B…"

She stopped herself suddenly and shook her head again. "And that's not even getting into the number of people it's actually killed! Do I need to start listing some of them? Let's see, there's Fo…"

Chris cut her off. "I have thought about it, Rebecca. More than you're giving me credit for."

"Yeah? Well, you'd be violating everything from the Nuremberg Code to the new FDA mandates if you did this. Did you consider that?"

He exhaled sharply, the air in his lungs escaping in a rush, and ran a hand through his hair. "I know. I know! But Jill is dying. I just…I want to know if there's a way to save her."

Rebecca looked at him, her expression torn between fury and heartbreak. He could almost see the struggle going on inside her - how she wanted to help Jill, but experience and science told her no, absolutely not, don't even think about using T to do it. She wanted to use this virus for something other than causing death, but knew it might be days or weeks or months or years before she came up with something useful - days and weeks and months and years that Jill didn't have.

He could guess all of this because he'd gone through the same debate with himself every day for the past week.

"And you think, somehow, that T might be able to help." Her voice was heavy, and her expression hard.

Chris stared evenly back.
She broke eye contact first, sliding back into her seat. "Okay. Okay. I'll play this game. I don't like it, but…" She snorted, then thought for a minute. "I wouldn't be able to engineer anything good, not in time, so you'd have to use what we've already got. And, uh, the closest we'd get using virus that's already out there is…is Wesker. And we don't know what changed Wesker."

If she thought he had come completely unprepared, she was wrong. "Steve turned out okay. Steve Burnside."

Rebecca rounded on him again. "I hope you haven't mentioned that to your sister." She studied the clock on the wall, watching the minutes tick by. It was getting late. "Besides, Steve died before he and the virus really… And we don't even have a sample of T-Veronica. Wesker has the only samples."

"The only samples that we know of."

She looked at him. Her voice was sharp as she said, "What, you think he's sold some of it?"

"Maybe not him. Maybe someone he worked with."

"So you think it might be on the black market somewhere."

"The G-Virus was," Chris reminded her. "It's possible, at least."

"Possible. Not probable." Rebecca sighed heavily. "Okay. Fine. Let's say that you get a sample of T-Veronica somehow. That shady black market contact of yours, or something."

"Rodriguez."

"Yes, him. Let's say you get a sample of T-Veronica from him and let's say I could take a look at how it and see how it's different from T or G or any of those other strains. I still can't guarantee that it would do anything good. For anyone. It might, but…" She trailed off and took a deep breath. "That virus, Chris. Marcus and Spencer made sure nothing good would come of it. They made damn sure."

"I know. But…maybe it's because it's never been in the right hands before." Chris stood up, ready to leave. He'd gotten what he came for and then some, and it was time to get back to Jill.

This time, when he met her eyes, she looked like she was about to cry. "Hey, now, don't…"

She shook her head vigorously and waved him off.

She keeps that up, she's gonna give herself whiplash. Or something.

He was almost to the door when she called out to him, "Chris. Does she know?"

There was something in him, right then, that strongly felt that Rebecca was asking him if Jill knew he loved her.

"No," he replied, starting down the stairs. "I haven't told her anything."

Funny how that answered both of the questions she could have been asking.

Chris had barely turned off of Rebecca's street when he pulled his phone out of his pocket and flipped it open. Glancing from the rain drenched road (though the rain itself had stopped about an hour ago) to his phone and back again, he quickly punched in a number.

He pressed the phone to his ear, waiting, drumming his thumb against the steering wheel and begging the call to go through. He was calling one of the B.S.A.A.'s contacts on the black market, the very contact Rebecca had mentioned in their earlier conversation: Guillermo Rodriguez.

"Rodriguez?" He said, turning another corner. "Yeah, it's Chris Redfield. Listen - I need a favor. Yeah. T-Veronica."

In other news:

GONNA GO GET MY COLLECTOR'S EDITION OF RE5 IN THE MORNING. I AM SO EXCITED. I'M SUPPOSED TO GET A CHRIS REDFIELD FIGURINE WITH MINE.

A FIGURINE YOU GUYS.

EXPECT DORKY PICTURES COURTESY OF YUMI. AND FANGIRLISH UPDATES AS I START TO PLAY.

[fic] post, !fic, [fic] estimated life expectancy, [videogames] resident evil

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