Chapter Text
Chris wishes he was the one losing his mind as he watches Jill cough into a crumpled up ball of tissue. It's a violent spell, one that makes her splutter and gasp for air, and it takes everything in him to keep from cringing at the sudden splatter of dark fluid that bleeds into the flimsy fabric of the tissue that she's clutching. He averts his eyes and finds interest in something else just in time to feel her gaze as she frantically attempts to discern if he had seen it.
He lets her have this, lets her believe that he doesn't know that she's slowly withering away right before his eyes. Chris pretends he didn't see what came out of her last night - a fat, wriggling, worm-like creature that convulsed about in her handful of tissue. He doesn't comment on the way she pushes food around on her plate in a futile attempt to hide her lack of appetite and he allows her to think that he doesn't hear her speaking in low, hushed tones to herself in an empty room.
Jill is fading away. She's weary and pale, so thin that he has to do a double take to ensure he can't see through her. Jill Valentine, once the strongest woman he knew, is now made humble by a monster that he cannot see and he cannot keep from blaming himself. Albert Wesker should have died by his hands on that fateful night in the Arklay Mansion. At the very least, Chris acknowledges that he should have been the one to break the raging, frozen waters outside of the Spencer Estate.
He wonders if Wesker would have taken him, if he would have been the one to succumb to the torture that Jill endures. Somehow, he doesn't think he would have lasted as long as she had.
Chris watches her with a watery gaze, but manages to blink away the tears that cloud his vision with impressive haste. Jill is poised on the edge of the porch, clad in a sweater that's inappropriately heavy for the light brisk of autumn. Her legs are drawn to her chest and her chin rests on her knees as she watches the sun slowly drift below the horizon, her long, pale braid draped heavily over her shoulder.
For a moment, the orange glow of the sky makes her seem alive. It bathes her in a warm, healthy light and Chris is briefly reminded of the woman he once knew. There's a lively radiance that dusts over her nose and cheeks and the light reflecting off her pale eyes hides the dullness that has long since settled in. Her lips curl into a ghost of a smile and she lets her eyelashes flutter closed while she takes in a slow, deep breath through her nose to appreciate the clean, crisp air of the beach.
Something twists in his chest at the sight of it.
His mouth crashed against hers with more force than intended, but Chris struggled to contain his fervor. Without missing a beat, he tangled his fingers in her dark hair, forcing it out of the tight ponytail it had been pulled into. His opposite palm came to rest at the swell of her hip and he groaned at the feel of her warmth that radiated through the thick fabric of her wetsuit.
Jill felt so right pressed up against him, all flat planes and smooth curves pinned between his hard body and the sand beneath him. Under other circumstances, he would have been annoyed with the substance and the way the grains filled his boots with an uncomfortable coldness, but he found it difficult to care with the taste of her in his mouth.
She pulled away to cup his face in her hands and he relished the warm press of the pads of her thumbs against his cheekbones as she murmured, "Chris, what's gotten into you?"
He turned slightly in her hold to press a kiss to the soft skin of her palm.
"Nothing." He insisted, briefly catching her lips with his own before breaking away to press his forehead against hers and breathe in the salty air. "I just…almost lost you, Jill."
He felt his blood begin to simmer at the recollection of O'Brian's words - "We've lost contact with Jill."
Before his rage could get the best of him, she brushed her lips against the rough stubble sprinkled along the cut of his jaw.
"But you didn't." She whispered, lifting her hips to meet his in order to emphasize her final words, "You have me, Chris. Always have, always will."
Chris feels something hot begin to pool in the pit of his stomach. It causes him to shift uncomfortably even as he stands, arm extended to offer Jill his hand. She breaks her gaze away from the shoreline to give him a perplexed look and he smiles with that sideways, boyish grin that captivated her on day one.
"What?" She breathes, unable to fight the slight smile that breaks out on her own face.
He laughs and stretches his arm further, putting his expectant palm closer to her.
"Come on." He insists. "You love the beach."
For a moment, she forgets she's broken; that she's a traumatized, fucked up survivor of a bioterrorist experiment gone horribly right. Chris's skin is hot and calloused against her own and she entwines her fingers with his, gripping his hand with as much strength as she can muster. She lets him lead her to the sugary sand and she laughs as she slips, catching herself on his bicep with white-knuckled fingers.
Chris wraps his arm around her and has to draw it in a little closer than he's used to. Her waist is more narrow than his muscle memory recalls it to be, but he quickly corrects the action before she can dwell on it. Jill leans into him and nuzzles his shoulder as he leads her close to the water's edge.
The crash of the waves against the shore is loud, but she appreciates that about it because it drowns out the whispers that have become white noise in her mind. She feels the bite of the October air against her cheeks and can feel the flush begin to surface and she rubs at the sting with the back of her sleeve. The chill creeps into her lungs and she coughs hard - once, twice - and swallows down something thick that surfaces in her throat.
She doesn't want to know what it is and Chris doesn't ask if she's alright because he knows she's not.
"It's been a while." He comments and Jill nods her head.
They stand like that for a while. She leans against him and watches the water lap at the edges of her toes, bubbling and saturating the sand as it retreats. It isn't long before the crystal clear foam froths with pink and she clenches her eyes shut to dispel the image from her mind because she knows it's not real, but the sea bleeds red for a fleeting moment when she finds the courage to glance back up at it.
Out near the sandbar, she sees something bob in the water - fleshy, pink, and slimy with bloated skin like those slithering bastards that had once washed up on the beach back in 2005. She looks up at Chris to determine if it's real and his neutral expression confirms that it's not. You're just crazy, she thinks to herself, but she can't manage to stare back out at the ocean just yet.
Instead, she studies Chris. She takes in the fine creases that have formed in the corners of his eyes and the hints of silver that pepper his sideburns and beard. He doesn't look the way he used to and she wonders how much blame she can shoulder for his greys. His build is thick and wide, more so than it ever has been, but she knows he's wearier than ever. She sees it in his eyes, in the dullness of his dark irises that once burned with the liveliness of his youth.
He catches her gaze and turns towards her with an unsure smile.
"See something you like?" He teases and a flush bleeds across her cheeks as she turns away to stare at her toes that have half sunken in the sand because his stare makes her feel so stupidly small.
A sound of discomfort rumbles in his throat and he cups her shoulder with his hand as he gives it a reassuring squeeze.
"Jill, you know I love you, right?"
The question catches her off guard. She does know that, doesn't she? He would have left her in Kijuju if he hadn't, right?
"Don't flatter yourself." An accented voice admonishes. "Chris simply likes to feel like a hero."
Jill closes her eyes and tries to focus on the oceanic breeze.
"He would have done it for anyone." Excella laughs as she appears in Jill's periphery, elegantly tiptoeing her way to the ocean's edge with the gauzy skirt of her dress gathered in her hands. It leaves the long, sleek curves of her calves on display and she looks back at Jill from over her shoulder with a sneer as her long, wavy hair catches in the wind.
"You know you're nothing special, Jill."
She doesn't want to entertain it. Jill tells herself that if she ignores her, Excella is bound to disappear.
"Oh, right." Excella pauses as she turns to face Jill, already up to her knees in the water. "It must be hard to speak with Uroboros crawling out of your dirty throat."
Jill's breath hitches and she takes a sudden step forward.
"Is that what it is?" She asks, eyebrows raised in alarm.
Excella smiles, all bright, pearly teeth as she rolls her shoulders in a shrug before allowing herself to fall backwards. Jill hears the splash of water as she lands, but the water remains undisturbed, crashing on the shore with the same repetition that it always had.
Chris's hold on her hand tightens and he has to restrain himself from squeezing too hard, fearful that her brittle bones may snap.
"I missed this." He comments offhandedly and Jill just nods, appreciative of his feigned obliviousness to her outburst.
"Me too." She lies.
Jill wishes she would have died when she crashed through that fucking window.
Claire's knuckles are stinging from the force with which she pounds on Chris's door. She doesn't know if the bastard is home or not because it's not unlike him to ignore whoever decides to drop by when Jill isn't around to greet them. In the case that he is home, she looks up at the nondescript security camera poised up in the corner of his porch railing and flips it off.
"If you're ignoring me, you're going to be sorry." She hisses through gritted teeth before slamming her hand against the door once more.
She feels as though she's being watched and she looks back over her shoulder to see the elderly woman next door standing in the midst of her driveway. Her mouth is agape as she watches Claire's antics and the small dog she's attempting to walk is wildly thrashing about, testing the length of its leash as it gnashes its teeth at her.
Claire forces a smile and waves to the neighbor.
"It's okay, I'm his sister!" She shouts as though the explanation is all the proof the woman needs.
The woman narrows her eyes, squinting to get a better look at Claire and she wonders if she's going to call the police. With her back turned to the woman, Claire rolls her eyes before she begins to fish through her key ring. They all look so damn similar, but she finally procures the right one and triumphantly holds it in the air, giving it a little jingle.
"See? I have a key." She doesn't bother to look back at the woman as she mumbles, "Nosy bitch."
She pushes open the door and is greeted with the welcome scent of jasmine and vanilla. Claire knows it's Jill's doing and she briefly smiles to herself, proud of the subtle ways in which the woman has been able to tame her animal of a brother. Were it not for her influence, she assumed his house would reek of soiled laundry and stale beer, just as it had whilst Jill was...well, dead.
There's a quiet stillness in the air that leads her to believe the home is empty, but Claire kicks off her shoes in the doorway anyway. She makes her way into the living room and eyes the blanket strewn across the couch with particular scrutiny. Jill's far too neat to leave the house amiss and she wonders if, perhaps, someone is home after all.
"Hello?" She calls out as she regards the staircase curiously before making her way upstairs.
The emptiness of their bedroom makes her uneasy. Claire feels something heavy settle in the pit of her stomach and she hovers in the doorway for a moment with one hand poised on the doorframe as she studies the room. The bed is unkempt, sheets tangled and halfway on the floor, and she takes note of the half empty glass sitting on the bedside table. She doesn't know why it makes her feel so terrible, but she can't shake the gut feeling that something is terribly wrong.
She takes a deep breath, one that does nothing to calm or cleanse her mind as she steps into the room. Swallowing hard, she takes a seat on the side of the bed and steels her body as she attempts to convince herself to open the drawer of the bedside table. From where she's seated, she smells Chris - a mixture of clove and citrus - and she feels the familiar, pinprick sensation of tears forming behind her eyes.
Claire doesn't know why she's feeling like this.
With a final sigh, she leans forward and wrenches open the top drawer of the bedside table, but finds it to be offensively empty. The handgun Chris ordinarily keeps stashed away is missing and Claire feels her heart rate begin to accelerate. She doesn't know what she fears that its absence connotes-or, rather, she does, but doesn't want to admit it.
She stands on shaky legs and tucks a strand of auburn hair that's fallen loose from her ponytail behind her ear. Something compels her to enter the bathroom and she freezes mid-step as she pushes open the door. Taped to the mirror is a white envelope, one with her name scrawled across the front in Chris's familiar, slanted script.
Time seems to trickle slowly in that moment as she stares hard at the paper, not daring to move. From her vantage point, it obscures the reflection of her face in the mirror and she finds herself stuck in a trance, gawking so hard that the lines of her name almost seem to disappear before her very eyes.
She snatches it away with a sudden movement and flips it over in her hands, slipping her nail beneath the sealed edge and tearing it open. As she retrieves the note from inside, she briefly worries her lower lip between her teeth as her blood beats loudly in her ears.
Claire,
I'm sorry. I can't expect you to understand, but know that I love you.
Chris
No matter how many times she reads it, Claire can't shake the cryptic nature of it. What the fuck did it mean? Since when did Chris keep secrets from her? Why couldn't he get the fuck over himself and let her help?
Furious, she slams the note down on the marble countertop and buries her face in her hands. Sighing so hard that the action seems to rattle her bones, Claire lifts her face away from her palms and looks up at the ceiling for a moment to collect herself before continuing her search. Out of the corner of her eye, she notes the reflection of light off a surface, and she frowns hard when she realizes Chris left his phone behind. Arranged neatly in the corner of the countertop, it seems to taunt her with its presence. She feels that its abandonment contains a jarring sense of finality.
Chris didn't want to be found, but that was a challenge that Claire was willing to accept. She would find him regardless of whether he wanted her to or not.
The loud knocking at her office door tears Rebecca from her reverie. She jolts to attention and, in her surprise, knocks over a cup that had been placed dangerously close to her hand. Rebecca curses under her breath as she watches the coffee spill across her desk and claim a stack of papers nearby, but she allows it to flow over its surface as she rises from her chair.
As her hand hovers over the handle of her door, she hesitates. The last thing she needs is another accusatory interrogation session with some jackass on a power trip.
"Beck!" Claire's muffled voice echoes through the thick material of the door. "I need to talk to you!"
A chill run downs her spine, a sensation that Rebecca can't suppress. She feels a sense of trepidation as she opens the door and casts Claire a weak smile. Claire does not return the gesture and instead hurries past her, shutting the door behind her and engaging the lock with a loud click that's suddenly one of the most unsettling sounds Rebecca has ever heard.
"Chris…" She begins, eyes flitting to everything she can find but Rebecca's face.
"Chris is…"
Her voice cracks and she holds her eyes closed as she lets out a shaky sigh. She procures a small white card, the one she found taped to the mirror, and Rebecca reads it with a perplexed expression.
"Claire, this doesn't mean anything." Rebecca rationalizes, but Claire interrupts her by jabbing a wrinkled, folded sheet of paper in her face.
Rebecca's skin tingles with guilt. Suddenly, breathing feels like a chore and her throat is impossibly dry even as she swallows.
"This…"
She looks at it once again.
Lethal dose of midazolam.
Respiratory depression with midazolam.
Midazolam overdose.
Chris's incriminating search history.
"How did Chris get his hands on a sedative?"
Rebecca flounders at the question, lips parting and closing stupidly as she splutters for a response. She reads the words again and again, the questions Chris didn't have the confidence to ask her in secret. Rebecca feels ill and she tears her stare away to locate the trash bin nearby in case she truly does vomit.
"First, do no harm." She whispers, eyes shimmering with the onset of tears.
It's the biggest lie she's ever been told.
"I can't expect you to understand, but…" A sob breaks through and she sniffles, pale skin flushing with the strain of holding in her breakdown, "Sometimes, there are worse things than death."
Claire's face twists into a pained expression. Her eyebrows furrow together and her lips form into a deep frown as she begins to cry. With trembling hands, she bats the tears away as best she can, but they continue to spill down her heated cheeks.
"It's mercy." Rebecca says, voice so soft it's hardly audible. "It's the most humane thing to do. I've...I've been studying it for months, Claire! It doesn't die. Biologically, it's perfect."
She grimaces at her own choice of words.
"I've never seen anything like it. Nothing stops it and…" Rebecca pictures the dozens of half-eaten Petri dishes in her mind, "It's ruthless."
For a while, the silence between them is only broken by an occasional sniffle or wet sigh. Claire digests the information slowly, eyes locked on Rebecca's face but unseeing as she drowns in her own thoughts. Finally, she collapses into a chair nearby and looks pointedly at Rebecca.
"Why did you put it on Chris?" She spits the question like venom. "You should have done it yourself."
Rebecca inhales deeply as her hands ball into fists.
"You and I both know he wouldn't have it any other way. It's catharsis."
Claire laughs.
"It's murder."
It sets her off. Rebecca stomps forward with an accusatory finger pointed in Claire's direction as her lips pull back into a near snarl.
"You don't know the guilt Chris lives with, Claire!" She nearly shouts. "How he feels responsible for all of this. Jill died for him and he brought her back like this."
Claire's face scrunches into a miserable expression as she takes a fistful of the front of her shirt in an attempt to alleviate the sudden burning chest pain that overtakes her.
"Why wouldn't he tell me?" She whispers.
"Because he loves you too much to break you." Rebecca says. "You're all he has left now."
"I'm sorry." Jill manages to cough out as the toilet greedily drinks up the contents of her stomach with a loud gurgle.
Chris smiles and leans forward to wipe away the dark fluid that's smeared across the edge of her lower lip. His touch lingers for a moment as his eyes meet hers and he closes the small distance between them to press a kiss against her temple.
"Don't worry about it." He murmurs, letting his lips brush over her skin.
She laughs bitterly and shakes her head as she looks down at her hands that tremble in her lap.
"I'm sure you're disgusted with me." Her voice cracks as she speaks. "I know I'm-"
"You're beautiful." Chris interjects as he cups the side of her face with a warm palm, "You always look so fucking beautiful."
Jill's lips part in surprise, cracked and pale, but it doesn't matter to him because she's Jill goddamn Valentine and he loves her more than anything he's ever known. The skin beneath her eyes has become so thin, perpetually stained with a dark shadow, and he nearly shivers at the cold feel of her hand against his.
"You don't have to lie." She says, laughing awkwardly as she speaks.
She doesn't anticipate the warm press of his lips against hers. Jill's eyes widen in surprise, but she gratefully accepts the gesture. One of her palms rests against his chest and she clasps his hand in her other, holding on more tightly than necessary.
He doesn't mind. Chris kisses her slowly and softly as she grabs him as though she fears he might slip away. He's slow and methodical in his movements, occasionally nipping at her lower lip or allowing his tongue to meet hers. It's a far cry from his usual fervent mannerisms, but Jill takes what she can get.
His hands tangle in her hair and he slips a finger beneath the elastic band that holds it in a messy bun. With an eager tug, her long, pale locks tumble free and he loosely fists them to angle her jaw more appropriately. Chris rises on his knees and holds her beneath him as he groans into her mouth, desperate to lose himself in her.
Jill feels starved for air and she breaks off the kiss. Her breathing comes in short, staggered pants, but it doesn't deter him. Chris trails wet, open-mouthed kisses along the long column of her throat, eliciting a quiet moan on her part. He smiles against her skin and repositions the collar of her shirt, pulling it down as far as the fabric allows.
He presses his lips to the grooves of her ribs that have become apparent in her chest as a result of her dwindling appetite. If her bony appearance disgusts him in any way, Jill wouldn't know - not with the way he worships her body with his mouth. She gasps when he nips at the tender skin and tangles her fingers in the hair at the base of his skull.
Chris pulls off her shirt with ease and crushes his mouth against hers once again. He traces the bumps of her spine with a curious hand until he finds the clasp of her bra and deftly releases it. His other hand slides along the flat of her belly and over her ribs, coming to rest at the underside of her breast.
"I love you." He gasps into her mouth, tugging at her lower lip with his teeth.
Jill makes a quiet sound in response, unable to properly speak with the way he's ravaging her mouth. She takes fistfuls of the front of her shirt in an attempt to keep grounded as he suddenly slips his hands beneath her thighs and lifts her from the ground. Her legs lock around his waist and she nervously laughs as he lays her down on the mattress.
Chris hovers over her and pulls off his own shirt before lifting her bra away from her body. He counts the spaces in her ribcage as she lets her eyes follow the chiseled lines of the musculature he has worked so hard to craft. She idly thinks that they must look awfully silly together, her body an angled, grotesque mess of pale skin stretched taut over bone and a stark contrast to the healthy, tan flesh and athleticism that he boasts despite his age.
He buries his face in her sternum and loops an arm around her back to hold her against him. She feels the hot, moist puffs of her breath against her skin and wiggles uncomfortably beneath him, an action that earns a lighthearted chuckle on his behalf. He notes how he can nearly encompass the entire width of her ribcage in one palm as he slides it along her side and brushes his thumb over her nipple that's already begun to pebble in the chilled air.
She hisses at the contact and he teasingly circles it with a finger as he presses kisses along her sternum. His actions are slow and deliberate, careful and conscientious because he wants to ensure that he's committed every last inch of her to his memory. The rough, raised scars on her chest tickle the soft skin of his lips and he counts each and every mark with a chaste kiss. His hands find the puckered flesh that runs along her side, a reminder of the haphazard stitches that once held her together during a particularly rough mission in the past when immediate evacuation wasn't an option.
When moves to slide his hand between her thighs, he feels the rough, dark flesh that has begun to claim the inside of her leg. Perhaps it's contagious, but he doesn't particularly care. He pays it no mind because he wants to convince her that she's still his Jill Valentine.
For now, she doesn't question it - not with the way his fingers are pumping in and out of her with lazy, practiced strokes.
"Chris." She murmurs and he smiles down at her before pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth. "I love you."
He grins as though it's the first time he's heard it and kisses her deeply with an insistence that makes her shiver with need.
"You're the best thing that's ever happened to me." He confesses as he slides into her.
The last best thing that'll ever happen to me, he thinks, but doesn't dare say it.
"I'm just going to spend the night tonight. Just in case he comes home, you know?"
Leon knows Claire well enough to tell she's holding back a snivel even through the phone.
"That's fine," he assures her, "Do you need me to bring you anything? Do you want me to stay with you?"
"No, it's fine."
He smiles wryly at his wife's stubbornness.
"You sure you don't want to borrow my pillow?" He snickers, "You might miss me too much."
Leon can practically hear her roll her eyes through the phone.
"I'll enjoy getting a good night's sleep without having to endure your snoring, actually."
He laughs to himself as he unlocks the door to his car as quietly as he can manage, hoping she doesn't hear it over the phone.
"It's the other way around, dear." He insists. "You're the one who snores."
Claire doesn't put up much of an argument because they both know that he's the one with the sinus issues, but he enjoys teasing her anyway, given the context of the situation. It doesn't take much effort for him to convince Liv that a sleepover with Moira is well overdue - only simple bribery with a box of cake mix and a jar of sprinkles with the promise that she can eat as many cupcakes as she wants as long as she doesn't tell her mother.
His demeanor shifts the moment he gets in his car. There's something solemn that hangs in the air, an ominous feeling that he can't shake. Leon won't allow himself to think too deeply about the potential outcome that lingers in the back of his mind because, if he's being honest with himself, his intuition is rarely wrong.
He thinks he knows where Chris has gone.
"Hey, man. I know it doesn't do shit to hear it, but...I'm really sorry." Leon lamely offered, sinking down into the couch beside Chris as he cracked open his own beer.
Chris nodded quietly to himself before taking a healthy mouthful of his drink.
"Thanks." He finally responded, gaze unwavering from the surface of Claire's coffee table.
They were quiet for a while, each of them nursing their alcohol as the gravity of the situation weighed heavily between them. Jill had officially been declared dead and Claire refused to allow Chris to return home in a poorly veiled attempt at a suicide watch.
"If you want," Leon speaks up, "I can...clean out your place for you."
Chris knew what he was suggesting, that he could erase Jill's existence from the house they once shared.
"Thanks, but I'm good."
Leon nodded and the conversation fizzled out into an awkward silence before Chris unexpectedly broke it.
"She left everything to me." He admitted, still engaged in a staring contest with the beaten up coffee table before them. "I don't understand why she'd do that."
"Because she loved you." Leon coolly responded without even a fraction of hesitation.
"It feels wrong." Chris sighed as he leaned back into the couch and Leon caught a glimpse of the alcoholic flush that dusted his cheeks. "I don't want to benefit from it."
"You could donate it." Leon suggested. "Or use it in a way that'd make her proud."
In retrospect, Leon didn't know much about Jill. Did she have hobbies? What did she like aside from Chris Redfield and kicking bioterrorist ass? Was she as serious in casual situations as she was on the field?
He supposed he wouldn't ever know.
"There's this…" Chris hesitated, taking another swig of his drink for courage, "This strip of beach a few hours out. She really liked it. It meant a lot to her."
Leon swore he saw Chris's shoulders tremble.
"You could buy it." Leon affirmed. "She probably would have liked that."
Chris laughed and ran a hand over his face in exasperation.
"I was going to pop the question after that fucking mission. Right there on that beach."
"Sounds like a good investment then." Leon advised, doing his best to hide his surprise, "I know a good realtor."
Leon sighs as he clicks his seatbelt into place and turns up the radio. It's a few hours to the coast and he might as well enjoy it while it lasts because he knows a wicked storm is coming.
Jill's eyes are heavily lidded with sleep as she lays beside him. There's a small ghost of a smile on her face as she studies him through her heavy lashes and Chris presses a kiss to her forehead.
"Get some sleep." He encourages her as he runs a hand along her upper arm. "I know you're tired."
Jill thinks it might be the understatement of the year given the weight of her bones and complete lack of energy that kept her from pulling on her own clothes after they were sweaty and spent. Chris slipped his shirt onto her and it dwarfs her cachexic frame in an almost comical fashion.
"I love you," she mumbles, "No matter what they say."
Chris has a hunch as to who she's referring to, but he doesn't ask her to elaborate because it doesn't really matter. He pulls her closer so that her head rests below his chin and he buries his nose in her hair as breathes her in.
"You're everything to me, Jill." He impresses himself with the way he says it, confidently and without even the slightest hint of the tears that run down his cheeks. "I'm so sorry that all of this happened."
Jill shifts in his hold and he feels her nose brush against his collarbone as she shakes her head.
"I'm not." She whispers. "I'd jump out that window a thousand times if it meant saving your life, Chris."
He takes in a shaky breath and does his best to ignore the way her words roughly tear at his heartstrings.
"Maybe in the next life," he says, "Maybe we can have picket fences and a happily ever after."
"And a dog." She sleepily mumbles. "A dog that never listens."
Chris laughs and pulls her closer as he swipes at his eyes with the back of his hand before whispering, "As many dogs as you want."
He feels her grow heavy in his hold and waits until her breathing evens out to move. Chris runs his thumb over the curves of her lips, anxiously worried scabs and all, and cups her face in his hand. He rakes his fingers through her hair, memorizes the softness of it, lines her palm up with his to compare sizes.
"God forgive me." He pleads, but he doesn't truly believe that such an entity exists. Chris doesn't want to worship a God that would let her suffer the way that she has.
The syringe feels heavier than lead in his hand and he swipes his thumb over the pale blue vein in her arm. He presses a kiss to her temple as a sob chokes free, but he pulls her skin taut with his free hand and moves. The needle sinks in with disturbing ease and Chris breaks down as he presses the plunger with a trembling hand.
He holds her tight as he listens to her breathing slow.
"I'm so sorry, Jill." He gasps against her ear and feels her hair become damp with his tears. "I love you so fucking much, I just can't…"
She takes a long breath.
"I can't let you suffer anymore." He whimpers. "I…"
Her next breath is short and staggered, strained.
"I wish you would have died when you fell through that window." He chokes out. "And I hate myself for it."
Chris wraps his hand around her wrist and feels the faint, slow flutter of her pulse.
"If there is an afterlife," he says, "I'll find you and...I hope you'll forgive me."
He laughs because he doesn't know what else to do.
"You're the only good part of me that I had left."
He nuzzles the side of her face.
"I don't know how to do this without you."
Jill takes her final breath and Chris begins to weep.
The little seaside cottage is more charming than he would have imagined it to be. Leon finds that he's impressed by a side of Chris that he never knew existed as he made his way onto the small porch that's accented by blush pink peonies. He notes the small pair of flip flops that sit beside the welcome mat-Jill's, he assumes-and he knocks a few times before pushing the magnolia wreath that hangs on the door aside to peer through the windowpane.
He doesn't see anyone and he wonders if he's made a mistake. Maybe he found the wrong strip of beach, but just as he's about to step away from the door, he catches a glimpse of a familiar, charcoal grey cardigan draped across the back of a chair. It's an article of clothing that's nearly become synonymous with Jill in his mind as of late and he feels his gut sink for reasons he can't necessarily explain.
It doesn't take much effort to get through the door. Leon isn't so impressed with Chris's security measures as he hears the lock give once he's shoved a credit card between the door frame and the knob, but he supposes the handgun on the coffee table is as much security as a man with Chris's caliber of marksmanship would need.
The cottage is eerily silent and Leon pauses in order to summon his resolve. It's a small structure, thus far composed of a living area and a kitchen, and he can only assume that the closed door across the room leads to a bedroom. He waits outside with an ear pressed to its surface while he works up the courage to enter.
Leon thinks about a lot of things as he leans against the door, lungs swollen with a breath that he refuses to let escape. He imagines that Chris will come barging in with a handgun drawn, windswept from a day spent at the beach with a slightly sunburnt Jill in tow. He thinks that maybe they're naked, entangled in the sheets and sleeping in one another's arms in their post-coital bliss that he's about to ruin. He thinks about Claire and the sigh of relief that'll sound in his ear as he calls to tell her that he's found Chris and then the subsequent gasp that she'll make when he reveals that her brother broke his nose in surprise after having assumed he was an intruder.
And he thinks about Uroboros squirming across the ashen hardwood floor beneath his feet.
Leon squeezes his eyes closed, lets out the breath he's held hostage, and counts to ten before slamming open the door.
The moment he sees it, he knows there's no point in checking for a pulse. Living tissue doesn't lack color and he finds that 911 isn't so easy to dial when your vision is blurred with tears.
Claire buries her face in the curve of Barry's shoulder as he pulls her into a tight embrace. He lingers as he crushes her against his chest and Claire imagines that Barry gives the same type of bear hugs that her father would have, had he lived long enough for her to remember him. She appreciates the way he squeezes the air from her lungs because it reminds her that she's alive even if Chris isn't.
"We love you, Claire." Barry's voice rumbles in her ear. "Me, Kathy, the girls. You've always been one of our own."
She rests her chin against his shoulder and nods as she grips the lapels of his suit because she doesn't want to let go, but Barry pulls away and dabs at his eyes with a piece of tissue.
"Just…" He laughs because he doesn't know what to say. "Fuck. Fuck."
Claire's eyes are aching and swollen and she's surprised when her vision becomes distorted with more tears because she could have sworn she had used them all up.
"Fuck." She echoes as she anxiously wrings her own handful of tissue in her hands.
There's only one casket because Claire insisted such. It only seems fitting to bury them together; Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, two sides of the same coin. Leon had found them tangled in each other's arms with a needle still halfway buried in Chris's arm and Claire begged the undertaker to leave them that way, but whether or not he did, she'd never know.
The casket remains closed and there is no priest or prolific eulogy to be read. It's just the few of them - Barry, Leon, Rebecca, and herself - solemnly surrounding the hole in the earth as it steadily fills with dirt.
Claire looks up at the sky, boundless blue and without a cloud in sight. She feels the chilly breeze lick at her wet face and she closes her eyes, breathing in the scent of fresh earth and the brisk air. The weather is nice and the leaves are stained with a fiery series of color that doesn't seem appropriate for such a sad occasion, but she appreciates it in some strange way.
She stares hard at the neat rectangle of dirt that sticks out above the earth and kneels beside it to lay a bundle of peonies atop of it.
"The Redfield curse." She jokes, knowing Chris can't hear her. "First mom and dad and now you. You're such a bastard."
Claire laughs as she wipes away tears for what she assumes is the thousandth time that day.
"I hope you're at peace now, Chris." She whispers before rising to stand and turn into Leon's embrace.
"Are you alright?" He murmurs into her hair and she nods against his chest because Claire finds that she can find solace in one thing.
If nothing else, it was a beautiful ceremony.