So slow to catch on

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"I did. But not you." Chris breathed, the grief of it all taking hold of him as it hadn't done in some time. "Wesker uses you to get to me. He's always hated me. One day...I'm going to have to stop being a coward and face him head on... No one should have to suffer for me."

Chrs almost felt like he was holding everything together on his own. It was one of those days when Ark was shouting that he needed to leave, Sherry was hiding in the attic from a passing fire truck, and Jill was gone again. He couldn't even get Leon on the phone. It was a day that really sucked in his opinion.

Even if Chris had been able to get hold of Leon, the younger man most likely wouldn't have offered much help. Claire was still missing after all these months, and of course no one was looking for her. The people who had taken her had planned everything, right down to making her nearest and dearest believe she was capable of abandoning them all at their darkest hour.

"Ark!" Chris barked, feeling like he was dealing with a child. The other man was now marching through his kitchen with nothing on but a handgun. "Would you put some pants on!" He completely blamed Sherry for all of this. It was for this reason that he did everything he could to keep her away from his old friend.

"Who the hell are you to bust into my home and tell me what to do?!" Ark demanded, pulling his gun on Chris, not even caring to check whether he was wearing pants.

"I'm a friend." Chris said gently, holding his hands up in a gesture of keeping the peace. "Ark, you can't fight bad guys naked. At least put some pants on."
"I washed them." Sherry said quietly, gingerly poking her head around the corner. She held a pair of Ark's sweats out to him. At least she tried. Chris tore them out of her hands and slammed the door in her face.

Ark's grey eyes glanced to the pants, then narrowed at Chris. "What do you know about my assignment?" He asked thinly.
"You should learn to cook." Jill was somehow in the room when Sherry turned away from the slammed door. "I always heard that women were supposed to know how to cook..."

"Cause...I'm your boss?" Chris answered sheepishly, not sure what else he was supposed to say. Ark naked was something else entirely.
Sherry frowned at this idea. "You know, I've never tried. My mother was terrible at it. I don't ever remember eating a hot meal to tell you the truth."

"Oh, right..l sorry, sir, I guess I didn't recognise you." Ark replied, lowering his gun. For once, Chris had caught a lucky break.
"I'd offer to show you... But I can't cook either." Jill replied with a smile that nowhere near reached her sky coloured eyes. "Maybe that's why Chris never married me, huh?"

Chris' shoulders sagged and he closed his eyes for a long moment. This was never going to get any better, was it. "Ark, I order you to stay away from that freak girl." He muttered, wondering if that would make a difference. He held out the pants hoping for at least one out of the two.
Sherry shook her head. "You guys never slow down enough to get married." She said gently. "Marriage...at least from what I saw on TV is a really time consuming thing!"

Ark finally put the pants on, then nodded at Chris. "You mean the tall brunette you stare at, sir?"
"Or maybe I only really have one use to a guy like Chris?" Jill suggested quietly. "He can have anyone he wants, so why tie himself down to me, right?"

"No." Chris snapped as if Ark were stupid. "The little blonde that runs and hides whenever an emergency vehicle comes down the street."
"If that's all you were, you'd have been gone a long time ago, Jill." Sherry answered, relaxing in the other woman's presence somewhat.

"There is nothing wrong with her!" Ark snapped. "She has been helping me. Sir, i feel i must inform you that i have an illness, one that only she can help me through."
"How do I know I wasn't?" Jill asked. "He could have dumped me a hundred times already... and i wouldn't know."

Chris burst out laughing at this, unable to help himself. "Uh-huh. Yeah. One that she caused. She couldn't help a zombie, dude. Trust me."
Sherry couldn't help but grin at this. "Now there's an idea. A chick forgets so keep going back when she does. But...that doesn't really sound like him. Does it?"

Ark scowled at Chris, his gun pointed at him again. "Get out! I dont take orders from you!" He suddenly howled. "Get out, and take your freak girlfriend with you!" apparently, today was a mixture of things he remembered on a good day, and those he didnt from a bad day.
"That's my point... I don't know." Jill replied. "Chris knows everything about me... But I'm only permitted to know a handful of things, all of which are from the past six months, about him. Does that seem fair to you? I mean, for fucks sake, we could have had a child together and I would never have known!"

"Don't you point that gun at me!" Chris roared, losing his temper as well. "I'll knock your head off your shoulders! And if you call Jill a freak again...you'll be eating from a straw!"
Sherry knew that there would be no answering her in that moment. With the shouting coming from the kitchen she knew it would take both women to calm things down.

Jill could hear the word 'freak' being thrown around, and she didn't blame Ark. Even she knew she wasn't exactly normal.
"Chris... Maybe he's right, maybe I should just go away, for a while. Just until Ark gets better?" She suggested when she fond both men staring each other down.

"And leave him alone with monster girl?" Chris snarled, grabbing the back of Sherry's shirt before she could make it to Ark. "Not a chance. I'm calling the BSAA. You should be back with them anyway, girl."

Jill didn't like this idea one little bit. "Why get them involved?" She asked. "Is that what we do? Give up on our friends and pass them on to be someone elses problem?"

Chris gave Jill a pouting look. "You wouldn't say that if you remembered her. You hate her too." He muttered, turning to glare at Ark again.
Sherry was trembling violently, tears streaming down her cheeks. She couldn't go back there. She couldn't let them experiment on her again. "Ruby wouldn't let you." She whispered. "Neither would he...if he knew me anymore.."

"Ruby?" Jill asked Sherry with a puzzling look. "Is she 'different', too?"
Ark was holding his head, a pounding pain rippling through it with all the different voices shouting their opinions around him.

Sherry didn't say anything to this. She twisted out of Chris' grasp and all but threw her arms around Ark. "I'm so sorry." She breathed, clinging to him as tightly as she dared. "This is all my fault."

Ark's arms circled around Sherry and he breathed her in, his mind always seeming that little bit clearer when she was close to him like this. "I wont let them bring in the BSAA, I promise." He whispered into her hair.
"Is this really what you wanted?" Jill asked Chris quietly. "It's clear to anyone how much she loves him..."

"I know." Sherry whispered back. "I trust you, Ark." She added. "Just please...forgive me for whatever it is I've done to you."
"Monsters like her don't love!" Chris hissed, making a grab for Sherry again. "Jill, you don't remember what she did. What was done to her. It's not the same. Not anymore."

Ark was still holding on to Sherry, clinging to what lucid thought he had right then. "You didn't do anything wrong, princess." He breathed. "Not a thing."
"And what about what was done to me?!" Jill suddenly roared. "Does that mean I can't love either?" She didn't know where those had come from, but now she had said them... She couldn't hide from the nagging thought that terrible things had indeed been done to her too.

Sherry didn't answer. She believed Chris when he told her that she'd been the reason Ark was so sick. She was certain he was right. "Don't hate me." She begged, burying her face against his chest.
"It's not the same." Chris muttered, hating that she remembered something like that. He'd been trying so hard to keep her from it.

Ark hugged Sherry tighter, breathing her in as he did so. At one time even holding her like this had seemed like something he would never do. "Sherry, I could never hate you. If anything... You should hate me. I was the one who was jealous of your friendship with Ruby. I was the one who took your only friend from you."
"Explain to me how it isn't the same. I'm a monster too, aren't I?" Jill replied. "Don't deny it, we both know there is something not quite human about me."

"No. It was him." Sherry muttered, feeling a bit overwhelmed. She remembered that night clearly and she remembered exactly what Wesker had said to her.
"It was him!" She shouted out, all but knocking Ark over in her excitement. "He did this! It wasn't me!"
Chris was glad for the distraction, though he knew it would come back to bite him later. "Him who?"

Ark wasn't following either. "Sherry, princess, you're going to have to slow it down a bit. He who?"

"Albert Wesker." Sherry said the complete name, something she hadn't done since she was a child. She and Ruby had always just referred to him as he."He told me that he did something to Ark. I didn't understand him at first but...what else could it be?"
"You making up a story so you won't have to feel bad?" Chris snorted.

Jill suddenly punched Chris hard in the shoulder, hard enough to leave a nasty bruise. "What is your problem?!" She hissed. "Can't you even for a second think that whoever this Albert Wesker is, he may actually be the one responsible? Why do you blame everything on a meek little girl?"