Lost in Memories

“Yeah, I got it. I’ll look at the files you sent and see what the techs here think about it. Sure... coffee when your next here.” 
There was a forced chuckle, then the line went dead. Jill Valentine hated playing her part in company politics. That was why she jumped on every chance to be out in the field. Mutations and nasty weather she could handle... but the director of the London office who just couldn’t take a hint? That was something she would rather not deal with. She let out a heavy sigh and opened up the email that contained the files she had just been speaking about. So much for an early finish. There were pages and pages of lab reports that didn’t even make sense to her.

"Need me to answer that?" Rebecca asked, actually looking for something to do. She'd done all of her lab reports and several other people's and didn't want to go home. 
She hated going home alone. She had nightmares there. But then again all dreams were nightmares.

“Becca... you shouldn’t still be here.” Jill chided softly as she glanced up from her computer screen. “I thought you were taking some time off after all the hours you’ve been logging?” She added as she leaned back in her chair and ran a hand over her tired eyes. Apparently Jill wasn’t very good at following her own advice.

Rebecca laughed softly and shook her head. "This is my lab. Remember? Why would I ever take a break from here?" She teased, pushing Jill's chair away from the desk with a grunt. "Do I need to call Leon? What about Chris? Go home, Jill."

Jill folded her arms across her chest and narrowed her eyes at Rebecca. “Seriously? You’re threatening me with boys?” She asked before arching her brown in amusement.

What am I going to do? Threaten you with time with me?" Rebecca made a face and shook her head. "I don't even wish that one on myself." She snorted, now pulling another chair to the desk. "Seriously, Jill. People die to get away from me." She laughed. "Think it over."

Jill wasn’t smiling any more. “No, Becca, they die to protect you.” She corrected. “And for good reason, you’ve done so much good in your lab, it put us grunts to shame.” She added, the ghost of her smile creeping back. “We’re replaceable, you aren’t.”

Rebecca closed her eyes, a flash of Billy Coen appearing behind her lids. It was one night so many years ago. Why did he still haunt her so much? 
"I loved him." She breathed, not thinking Jill could hear her. "I'm not worth the sacrifice." She said out loud.

Jill didn’t need to ask who she meant. The elder woman simply reached out and grasped Rebecca’s hand in her own. “How about we both leave... and I’ll buy us dinner?” She asked, her pale cobalt eyes smiling at the woman she had come to think of as family. “And a pitcher of margaritas.”

This actually brought a sparkle to Rebecca's eyes that was rare. It was also rare that she took anyone up on a dinner offer. "All right. As long as there is an enormous lobster involved and we aren't sober when we leave." She said with a sheepish grin and she squeezed the other woman's hand.

“Lobster? Now you’re just taking advantage of my generous nature...” Jill remarked with a smirk. “Alright, you grab your jacket, and I’ll go get mine. We’ll meet downstairs in ten, okay?” Admittedly, Jill was also rather looking forward to the prospect of getting blind drunk. It seemed nightmares and an empty house plagued both women.

"You're smarter than you look." Rebecca said, tapping something into the computer and turning it off. "I don't have a jacket. I'm good, plus I'm starving. Let's go."

“Wow, someone thinks she’s the queen bee.” Jill teased, playfully shoving Rebecca to the door. “Now when we get there, am I ordering from the kiddie menu for you?”

"Of  course! We don't all have the power to lead a viral army like you do." Rebecca said, pretending to be snobish about it all. "Some of us have to take more than seven minutes to play with our food."

She knew Rebecca didn’t mean anything by the words, but Jill still faltered in her stride slightly. That day was a large part of her nightmares. In the nightmare she fought Chris, like had happened, but sometimes she killed him. Sometimes she drove his own knife through his heart slowly as he told her he didn’t blame her. But sometimes... sometimes he gave up. He knew she was the enemy and she needed to be put down. He body was left in that underground ruin as Chris marched on to save the world.
Jill sucked in a deep breath and tried to shake the icy feeling of despair those dreams left her with away. “Yeah right, one word from you about having detected a new variant of a virus and the entire BSAA is scrambling to attention!”

Chris Refield sighed as he carried Jill Valentine home from the bar Rebecca had called him from. The small woman wasn't even a little bit tipsy either. She'd pretended to be for Jill's sake at least as she helped the taller woman to his car. 
The two of them barely spoke as he loaded his lover into the back seat. This wasn't an unusual scene since getting Jill back but that didn't mean he had to like it.

It wasn’t unusual for the simple reason Jill hadn’t been given the chance to come to terms with what was done to her. She had always been athletic and wasn’t someone who really got sick, but the remnants of the drug had meant she now healed impossibly fast, and never got sick. This had been too much for the BSAA to simply let slide by. They had pressured her back into active duty, of course with her Redfield watchdog as her side. Drinking numbed the memories of her capture, for a little while, but again, another affect of the drug was that it had bonded with the t virus antibodies inside her and meant that it burned off the effects of alcohol all too quickly. Even now, as she lay in the backseat of Chris’ car, Jill could feel herself sobering up. She could feel the fear returning as she thought about falling asleep, only to wake Chris with screams that ripped her throat raw. He deserved better than the broken mess she had returned as. Jill has tried telling him this on several occasions, which had only led to arguments.

Rebecca called a cab and sat outside the door to the bar, intending to head back to the labs. She shouldn't have let Jill take things this far. It wasn't right. All it did was remind them both of everything they had lost. None of it helped them. In fact it had ended up with her crying in the bathroom and confessing to the porcelain god that she hated herself. It was a worthless girl's night. 

Chris knew Jill was awake when he picked her up and took her inside their tiny apartment. He laid her on their bed and went to shower without a word. 
 This was a typical weekend. He knew better than to rock the boat.

“You’re friend’s husband didn’t want to give you a ride?” A male voice asked as he sat down beside Rebecca, pulling a cigarette out and placing it between his lips before patting his pockets for his lighter.

Jill stared at the wall when she heard the bathroom door shut and the shower start. No one but Chris knew what a mess she really was. The rest of the BSAA, even Rebecca to an extent, saw just the well balanced agent she presented within work hours. His silence gnawed at her insides, as she knew he he had been beyond patient with her. He was suffering too, and Jill blamed herself for it.

"I wasn't going to the same place as they were." Rebecca said. Without thinking she reached over and handed the man the lighter that had fallen out of his pocket. It was nothing but a beaten up Zippo. She'd seen plenty like it before. "Smoking is bad for you. Vaping is better, you know." She pointed out, something she couldn't help herself but do. "If you must do it that is. It's better if you don't do it at all. I mean...vaping kills you slower but still..." She shook her head. "And before you get like my friends...I am aware of the fact that bio-hazards kill everyone much faster than nicotine." 

Chris closed his eyes and rested his head against the shower wall, listening to the water run into the drain. He wished he could take away the nightmares that Jill still lived through. He wished that he had truly saved her that day that he and Sheva had brought her home from Africa. But really he'd done nothing. She'd saved herself. 
Albert Wesker had torn her apart from the inside out and he couldn't fix her. His former Captain had finally managed to find a way to hurt Chris Redfield and he hadn't even known it. He thanked whatever gods there were that how he never would. 
Chris slowly slid to the ground in the shower and let the water pour over him completely. He was more than a little broken and he was finding it harder than ever to continue being strong for everyone else. 
His sister was gone. Jill was shattered into tiny pieces that he couldn't put back together. He'd failed so many people. Piers. His STARS teammates. What good was he to anyone anymore? Lately it seemed the more he tried the more he seemed to destroy things. He was exactly what Wesker had wanted him to be. A complete and total failure.

The man next to Rebecca arched his dark brow in amusement before blowing out a cloud of smoke. “You think about stuff like that, little girl?” He teased as he slid his lighter back into his pocket.

Chris would miss the shadow in the door way. Jill was watching him, feeling just as much of a failure as he was. The harder you tried to save someone, the less like a hero you felt. Without making a sound she had stepped into the shower and crawled into his lap, pressing a gently kiss to his temple as she ran her fingers through his wet hair. She didn’t know what else she could say, that wouldn’t just cause him more pain. “Let’s take a vacation...” The words had tumbled out even as she was still forming that last thought.

"I'm not a little girl." Rebecca corrected him without thinking. She poked her toe at a rock, watching it bounce toward the street. She was starting to wonder where her ride was. "And yes, I do. You should too. Everyone should. Death is a serious thing, you know. It's practically everywhere." She muttered. "You don't know how many good people step out of their homes...their cars...take a drag of that cigarette and that's it." She gave a soft snort of laughter. "Geez. Jill is really getting to me lately. Maybe she's right. I need to get out more. Or maybe I need to get laid. Nevermind. Forget I said anything." 

The corners of Chris' eyes wrinkled as he smiled at his lover. "We could call it a honeymoon." He breathed. "I was going to ask you in some cheesy way and get everyone involved...but...maybe...." He laughed softly, leaning forward to rest his forehead against hers. "Maybe this is better?" 
Chris didn't think his proposal was going to go over. No matter where he did it. He didn't for a moment think Jill would accept. He was prepared for her to turn him down. It would add to the failures he was getting used to.

There was a rumble of laughter from beside Rebecca, and another cloud of smoke. “Somehow, I find it hard to believe to have trouble getting laid.” He replied. “You might be right though, a few more dark thoughts like that and you’ll be throwing yourself under a bus.”

“I don’t want everyone. Just. You.” Jill breathed, punctuating the last two works with a kiss. “Are you sure about this?” She added nervously a moment later. “I...” Even after all these years there was still that worry that she simply wasn’t good enough for him. “I love you, and I only ever wanted to make you happy, you know that, right?”

Rebecca laughed at this, shaking her head. "I'm right and so are you. Dark thoughts are a bad thing but necessary in my line of work." She pushed to her feet, her mind now completely on the fact that her ride had never arrived. "Excuse me. I need to call my ride again." She said softly, never turning to give the man a second look. 

"I keep telling you never to do that." Chris said gruffly, reaching over Jill's shoulder to turn off the water when it began to run cold. "That's what got us in trouble in the first place. You care too much for a screw up. You shouldn't."

“Little girls shouldn’t have so many dark thoughts. How are they supposed to save the world that way?” The man replied, but if Rebecca turned around, she find the step empty with only a still smouldering cigarette butt left behind.

“Oh? And you’re any different?” Jill challenged. “You went running headfirst after Rebecca without even telling me! Shit, you preferred to get Leon involved before you would ask for my help! I won’t apologise for loving you, Red!”

There was a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach as Rebecca returned outside and found the step empty. A part of her had wanted to invite the stranger home with her. But she knew better. Jill would have had a cow if she even suspected the younger woman was thinking it. 
She sighed deeply and headed for the cab that had finally shown up. One of these days she was going to have to beg Chris to marry Jill. Those two needed each other and she really needed to just get it over with and decide to experiment on herself. It wasn't worth it to leave the lab anymore.

Chris lifted Jill into his arms and carried her back toward the bed, not bothering to dry off. "You're going to figure out one of these days that you are better than me and you deserve better." He breathed, laying her down on their bed again. "You have to listen to me before it gets you killed. Again." He added, kneeling down beside her to rest his head on her shoulder. "I don't even pretend to know how you keep surviving the things you do but...you shouldn't....not for me."

When Rebecca returned to her lab, she wouldn’t find anything out of place, but someone had definitely been there. On her desk was a thin, gift wrapped box. Inside the box was a photo of the old stars team all together. All the faces of those long deceased were crossed out with red marker, nothing overly serious there. The problem arose when you came to Chris and Jill’s faces; their’s weren’t just crossed out, they had been scratched through with hatred. Only one either item lay inside the box; Billy Coen’s Dog tags.

Jill’s fingers gently ran through Chris’ dark hair, the seconds seeming to simply tick by. “You still don’t get it, do you? I’ve only survived these things because of you. If you hadn’t found me in Africa... I’d still be a mindless puppet, or worse. The things Wesker made me do... they would only have gotten worse. You’re a hero, Chris. Even when you refuse to see it.”

Rebecca couldn't catch her breath. She'd lost those dog tags in the mansion. They never should have turned up again. 
She didn't dare pull them out of the box, even if she sorely wanted to. Her chest was on fire. "Billy." She breathed his name. It hurt more than she thought it would. She still loved him. She had failed him. He had never left the forest alive. She was sure of it now. Just as she certain Albert Wesker was still alive. 

"Jill...you saved yourself." Chris said firmly. "All you needed was a reminder of who you are." He didn't smile at her that time. He was serious. She didn't need him. She never had.

“Rebecca?” One of her lab assistants was hovering in the doorway. “I thought you had left for the night with Agent Valentine?” The young woman was toying nervously with the ends of her blonde hair.

“And that reminder had to come from you, no one else.” Jill pointed out sternly. “Anyone else would’ve given up, but you didn’t! Two years, and you were still looking for me! You should’ve moved on, Chris. I highly doubt you were lacking in offers once I was out of the picture.”

"Amy?" Rebecca hurriedly dropped the box in a drawer and turned to the young woman with a frown. "Why are you here? This place should be empty right now."

"You know I never take no." Chris said. "And the last time we were together, you'd told me no." He kissed the tip of her nose. "I can't remember what for but...you know...I was half naked and you weren't." He teased. "That was a problem."