Old Vendettas

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The BSAA were as swift as ever with their rescue and clean up efforts in the aftermath of the New York attack. People were already being evacuated from the worst affected areas, a precaution they were told, nothing more. It was a chance to sweep the bodies from the streets and remove the charred remains of one Glenn Arias. There were emergency medical units being errected in many buildings. People were thankfully vaccinated, but there were still a great many wounded wandering the streets. Even the heroes themselves had found their way the one of the larger medical units, though one of their number would soon be regretting that decision. 
Chris Redfield would be given little warning before his wife zeroed in on him, lean limbs pushing people aside before she slapped him hard enough to make a sound that echoed. “You force me behind a desk, and this is how I have to find you?!” She hissed, holding up her PDA with a flashing red dot that showed Chris’ current location.
The small nurse who had been treating Chris for superficial wounds stared at the brunette with wide eyes, already quite terrified of this formidable looking woman.

Jessica didn’t seem as out out by all this as Chris was, despite the fact she had been trapped at the Baker house under control of the mold for two years. “You were done with her first.” She pointed out. 

The request surprised Wesker somewhat, or perhaps it was the thought of doing something as mundane as shopping. “Of course.” He found himself saying the words before he had even registered them forming on his lips.

"shut up, you don't know anything." Chris hissed at Jessica. "Jill chose me only because she couldn't have Wesker. She was so upset when  we thought he had died."

Rebecca was so excited, she jumped up and pressed her lips to his. "Thank you."  Finally, her smile had returned. "I see you then minutes or less." She promised.

Jessica was lying with her arms folded behind her head, staring up at the ceiling of the isolation room they had been placed in. “And it took you over a decade to realise this, marry her, then dump her?” She asked with a snort, having clearly seen the wedding ring Chris still wore. “Trust me, Redfield, there was never anyone but you. Anyone with eyes could see the way she looked at you when you found her on that damn ship.”

Wesker was left feeling rather confused. When had this happened? When had he become a man who did pointless things to make a woman happy?

"Me and Wesker and Carlos...you weren't there to see though. So I guess they don't count." Chris muttered, shaking his head.

Just as she said Rebecca showed up in less than fifteen minutes. She was wearing a nice tshirt and jeants that we're almost too tight for her. She stepped into the room blushing deeply.

Jessica wasn’t about to let Chris off that easy. “Right. She did what you never could, gave her life for the cause?” She asked. “Is that the issue here? You’re the hero? You’re the one who should be throwing the bad guys out of windows?” She asked, though didn’t sit up herself. “Seriously, Chris, you have to get over that hero complex.”

Though Wesker’s face remained ever expressionless, his fingers did flex slightly when Billy appeared at the mention of his name. “What contact?” Wesker asked thinly.

"She wasn't supposed to do that for me." Chris whispered. "I've never been worth it...her...Wesker told her from the beginning what I was. A piece of shit and he was right. I never should have taken her on that mission. Her bullshit line...we work good together. She knew what she was doing. I was doing so well and then she...fucking zipped up her boots. I'm a dog. Wesker was right." 

Rebecca's little smile probably didn't help matters either. It was nice to know something he didn't. "You don't have to know everything do you?" She asked him, making a show of looking at her nails.

“You say you never knew how she really felt... even though she thought she was giving her life to save you?” Jessica asked as she watched Chris. She knew that look; that was love. That was him loving everything about goddamn Jill Valentine. “You did work well together, shit... you had tunnel vision the entire time we were looking for her and Parker, but the second you found her... you didn’t see anything else.” Jessica had moved from her own bed and was sat behind Chris now, a slender arm reaching around him as her fingers traced over the wound around his wrist where she had severed his hand from his arm only hours ago. She simply sighed and rested her head against his back. “You think they’re just going to let us go? Were infected, Chris.”

“Yes. Yes I do.” Wesker replied thinly as he watched Rebecca. “Considering the BSAA could very well be looking for you, you think I would be so irresponsible as to not consider your safety?” He asked.

Chris sighed heavily. "I know. We're going to have to get out of here and find the anti dote. I...I need to tell Jill. She's going to yell at me but...I...owe her that much." He was pushing Jessica aside and trying to dial at the same time. "I'm such an idiot." 

Rebecca opened her mouth and then closed it again. She hadn't been expecting him to say that. She honestly didn't know how to respond. "It's not a contact." She whispered. "I was teasing you. I'm an old STARS member, remember? Everyone we know always ends up dead..."

“Yeah... you are.” Jessica whispered as she stared down at the empty spot in front of her now.
Jill hadn’t moved since her last almost phone all with her husband. She simply couldn’t bring herself to do anything at all. Everything they had been through, everything they had survived... and this was the worst for her. She had lost her entire world when Chris walked out on here, and this latest bad news... it simply felt like the universe telling her to just give it up.

Again, Wesker’s face gave little away. “That was a long time ago. I expect you have several contacts from the university.” He replied coolly, even if he was fighting the urge to smirk somewhat.

"Jill...I need you." The conversation began the way it had the last time. He couldn't think of anything better to say. "There's an antidote and we'll need help getting to it...I'll send you coordinates on my phone..." He was blabbering now, forcing words out so he didn't cry. He was so weak when it came to her. His mind was hazy. He was remembering the day when she was hooded...when Wesker, leering at him had pushed back the hood to reveal his beloved. He'd nearly lost it, fallen at her feet. He was nothing without her. "Jill..." He said it was same way he'd said it then.

Wesker had something over her and now he was trying to be cruel. She could feel it. Rebecca began chewing on her nails. This was something she'd always done in his presence. It was a terrible habit. 
"I never tried to contact them..." She admitted.

Jill hadn’t said a word as Chris blurted all this down the phone at her. She wanted to scream at him, tell him he had no right to ask anything of her after what he had done. But seriously, how could she? She had no problem saying no... except to Chris Redfield. He asked her to give up her entire life’s work, to sit safe and sound behind a desk. Had she told him no? Of course not. “What do you need?” She finally breathed, though her voice was hoarse. She couldn’t tell Chris about the baby over the phone. She couldn’t be that callous.

Wesker reached out and pulled Rebecca’s hand away from her mouth. “Because you don’t care, or because you’re afraid that you do?” He asked, knowing she would squirm under the heat of his gaze.

Again he got the odd feeling that she didn't want to be with him. Chris was suddenly feeling angry and rather surly. He'd lost a hand and his wife all in one day. "Screw you!" He shouted into the phone. "I can get myself out of a mess! I don't need anybody! I never did! You were on your knees sucking Wesker's...Just forget it. I don't need you!" 

He was still doing it and he got what he wanted. Nothing had changed. Rebecca felt like a teenager again, squirming under that icy gaze of his. Only this time she could feel something different in it. "I never really got on with any of them..." She breathed.

Jill thought she was going to be sick. Chris of all people knew the hellish things Wesker had done to her over the two years she was captive. “Fuck you!” She gasped through tears she didn’t think she had left in her. “It’s a blessing I lost our baby if this was the man she would have to look up to!” There. It was done. Let him do with that painful piece of information what he liked. 

This time Wesker did finally smile. “Liar.” He told her coolly. “I know you had them all at your beck and call. Does dessert coffee sound familiar?” He added, still holding the fingers he had pulled from her mouth.

Chris heard nothing but the roar of silence in his ears. He hated that sound. It made him sick. He shoved off the bed and suddenly his world spun. The next thing he knew was darkness. His phone clattered to the floor, leaving his hand and shattering though he had no idea.

There were fine lines on Rebecca's forehead as she tried to hide her frown. How did he know something like that? It was almost like he had been watching her. "It's not dessert. It's just sweet coffee." She said softly, glancing toward Billy.

As the line went dead, Jill dissolved into further sobs until finally she was dashing for the bathroom, feeling the empty contents of her stomach about to try and make a hasty evac. She didn’t know why she had told him like that. He said it, he was infected. Infected with what though? As she sat there with her cheek pressed to the cool toilet, Jill knew she couldn’t just abandon him. She was also wise enough to know she would need help.

Wesker saw the realisation spark in Rebecca’s eyes and he finally let go of her fingers. He had planted the seed. She would refuse to accept it, but yes. She wasn’t as off his radar as she had thought. “Must you take that thing with you?” He finally asked, gesturing to Billy without even glancing at him.

Chris woke to small fingers touching his face. He groaned and opened his eyes, not sure who was bothering him. "Rebecca?" He whispered. "Where's Jill? Did she call you?" 

"Yes." Rebecca's voice cracked, as she quickly turned her head toward Billy. One wrong move on her part and her whole plan to free him could be ruined. She'd come too far now to let it all fall apart. Even if she was being watched.

Jessica huffed from where she sat on the other side of the room. “Just give it up, Chris. Jill didn’t want you, Rebecca is a lost cause.” She added, proving to be as duplicitous as Ada Wong, and just as savvy with information. She clearly couldn’t see what he could.

Wesker let Rebecca go. He thought she needed space after the buttons he had just been repeatedly punching. 
Billy walked in silence behind Rebecca, much as Jill had been forced to do with Wesker. He knew he had to keep her safe, that was the extent of his orders.

Chris sat up, looking at the dark haired little girl. She looked like him. She had the same cleft to her chin. "Did...Jill...send you?" He breathed, not hearing a word Jessica said. He reached out, wanting to touch the girl but not quite making it. 

Rebecca took several long minutes to calm down, her chest aching from the deep breaths she tried to catch. She hated how easy it was for him to control her. Albert Wesker was a true monster. There were none like him.

The little girl had her mother’s blue-grey eyes, which were looking up at Chris in that very moment. “What... what’s a Jill?” She asked, small fingers reaching out and poking at Chris’ face.

“Do you need to sit down?” Billy asked when he saw Rebecca almost struggling to breathe.

Chris reached out for her again, this time looking down to see his hand back in place. Something wasn't right...
"Your mother..." He breathed. "Jill is your mother."

"When we get to bus...yeah." Rebecca muttered. Her tiny fists were clenched at her sides. "I swear he knows something."

The little girl’s nose wrinkled up at this revelation. “I don’t like her. All she does is cry all the time and hug a shirt that has ‘Redfield’ on the front. She can’t play with me.”

Billy again walked in silence for some moments before he spoke again. “He was watching you.” He finally remarked. “Always watching.”

"Yes she can. You'll see. When we get home we'll be the best family you've ever seen." Chris said with a smile, reaching out to pat the little girl on the head. "Now, come on. Let's go home to Jill...ah, mommy." He added with a sheepish smile. How long had he been out? Jill told him he had a little girl. But never how old she was? Had the infection kept him away from them that long? "You don't hate me for leaving you too, do you?" He asked her softly, revealing the very thing that had kept him from Jill even in their marriage; his fear that she believed he'd left her with Wesker on purpose.

Rebecca was the one who was silent this time. She was thinking of the many times she'd slept on a cot in the dean's office when she couldn't afford student housing. Had he seen when the dean tried to force himself on her too? Had he seen her struggling through the years when the other students were cruel to her, the ones that told the dean she was part of Umbrella and gotten her kicked out of the University?

“You make mommy cry.” The little girl replied, clearly that was the thing that would hurt Chris the most. “She asked me why you didn’t love us.”

Wesker has seen it all. He had watched it make her a stronger person than she had been. He wasn’t Chris Redfield, he didn’t wish to make a woman weak by constantly feeling the need to rescue her.

Chris' fingers curled in on themselves and he backed away, shaking his head. "I...ah...I don't know...I've never said that to her." He breathed, his heart dropping into his stomach. "Why would she tell you I didn't love either of you?"

Rebecca settled herself into the aircraft, watching Wesker go through preparations in silence. Billy climbed in and she patted his leg, trying to reassure him that his nightmare was soon to be over. She was hopeful this would work. It had to. She owed him that much.

The dark haired little girl with Jill’s eyes shrugged her shoulders as her father backed away from her. “She said you wrote her a mean letter, then ran away from her.” She replied, her little face wrinkling into a scowl that was entirely her mother’s. 

Billy knew better than to react to Rebecca’s gentle touch. He simply looked directly ahead of him, not wanting to give Wesker any hint of how overjoyed he was to see Rebecca again. 
Wesker was obviously not one for small talk as he prepped their flight. He could do this with his eyes closed, but chose to focus on anything other than those slender fingers on the thigh of his useless project.

Chris shook his head. The letter wasn't mean. It was his best attempt at a kind break. Jill deserved better. "Wait...You...This..." He closed his eyes tightly and shook his head. When he opened them again he was in the dark hospital room, alone with Jessica. "What the hell?" 

Rebecca loved to fly. She finally turned away from Billy and pressed her face to the glass. It was early evening and she could see the sun beginning to set. It gave her no clue to their location as the entire area was surrounded by trees. She didn't have to be stupid to guess there was a reason for this. Probably more than one.

Jessica had just slapped Chris the second after he came back to his senses. “Shit, Chris, don’t do that!” She whined. “You’ve been freaking out for a while now, wailing about Jill and talking to someone who you wanted to take back to her!”

It had been months now, but Wesker was paranoid enough that he didn’t entirely trust Rebecca not to be playing both sides. She wouldn’t get much of a view, as he took an indirect flight path that meant by the time they flew over anything other than trees, it’s was total darkness below.

Chris looked at Jessica with a dark frown and shook his head, almost warning her not to do that again. He didn't have to say it aloud. "I was doing that before I blacked out." He grumbled, rubbing his cheek. "We have to get out of here. I don't know what the hell that was but...we're not getting any help and well...you get the point." 

Darkness had always made Rebecca sleepy. Comfortable in her seat she nodded off, her head now resting on Billy's shoulder.