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“You could have told me this before.” Jill said as she sat at her desk, she could see Chris glance up at her, then duck back to his work. She’d tell him in a minute.
“Sweetheart-” Her dad said through the phone. “It just… well I wasn’t sure how to bring it up.” He paused. “I didn’t want you to feel… even more different.”
“I know.” She sighed. “But it could have caused more problems! Why did you bring this up now?” She paused as her dad filled her in.
“... No, no. I’ll go talk in person. I should talk at least once. Bye dad, love you.”
She put the receiver down, her dad always impressed the importance of an analog land line and it’s saved her life on more than one occasion, and looked over at Chris who took it as his cue to stop fake doing paperwork.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I’m… adopted!” Jill made little jazz hands. “My dad actually changed our name to my bio dad’s last name. He’s apparently in town so Mom and Dad figured we should meet.”
“That’s… a lot.” Chris replied after a moment. “Want me to come with you?”
“Sure, but just stay near by. If he tries anything, I can handle him.” Jill got up and stretched. “Dad told me he will be at that cafe on 3rd and Garden, he probably doesn’t have a cell phone and “you will definitely know him when you see him.” “
“Could be a trap.” Chris offered. Jill shrugged.
“My family is kept out of… this.” she waved her hands at the office that Chris had set up. Maps, a whole rolodex (yes, they still used rolodexes. Cheap and can’t be hacked) of science labs that could help, a massive board full of major BOW players, and a list of the fallen. (So far, Barry wasn’t there. Which was good, man deserved retirement.) “I mean… they obviously have some idea after everything in Africa and the fact I…” She glanced at Chris’ face. They were about the same age, but while he showed his 50+ years - not helped by all the stress they had been under for half their life - she still looked like she did back in Raccoon City. Somewhere in that cocktail mix of viruses she’d been infected with over the years, she’d gotten either lucky or was what they were looking for. She didn’t age.
She looked at Chris’s crow’s feet and sun spots and the gray in his hair.. And sighed.
“I’ll buy.” She finally said, and went to grab her coat. Before she did so, she felt Chris lay one of his hands on her shoulders.
“We’re partners.” he said quietly. “I’ll always be here for you.”
Jill blinked back tears, before going into the hug.
An hour later, Jill and Chris stared at someone.
“No, your dad wasn’t kidding when he said we’d recognize him immediately.” Chris said. Jill nodded.
A man, maybe her age, maybe a bit older (how?), sat at the cafe. He was dressed mostly in a black suit but that would be normal. What was not normal was his red head band, the gold clawed glove on his left arm and a large, tattered, red cape wrapped around his body. It moved a little too much in the breeze and left Jill worrying it was alive.
“I’ll pay you back, Chris.” Jill finally said. “I think I’ll appreciate it if you bring my drink in about five minutes?”
“Got it.” And Chris melted into the restaurant.
As Jill approached him, he half turned in the wrought iron seat, and Jill could see the table in front of him had a single cup of what looked like black coffee and two of the pastries.
“Are you Jill?” he asked. Jill nodded and held out her hand. “And you are?”
“Vincent Valentine.” He rose and shook her hand, before gesturing across from him. Jill sat down and began to tap nervously on the table. Vincent said nothing, then-
“I thought you’d be older.” they both said at the same time. Jill gave an embarrassed grin, which he did not seem to return but at least seemed amused by. Then they both went quiet again.
“So, uh… is my mom still in the picture?” Jill asked instead. Vincent tapped the table with his gloved hand again.
“I’m not sure.” he finally said. “I used to work security and shortly after we put you up for adoption we broke up because my next assignment was far away for several years. I didn’t see her after that.” he paused. “Her name was Biru.”
“Biru.” Jill repeated. “It’s really pretty.”
Vincent smiled. “You got her blue eyes and her brown hair.”
Chris came back then, and put Jill’s cup in front of her, before sitting at a table about 15 feet away. Enough to be private, but he would be right there if Jill needed him.
“Who is he?” Vincent asked, looking towards Chris.
“That’s my friend. My partner more like.” She could almost see Vincent’s eyebrows raise under his bandana. “Not like that, we’ve just… been through a lot. I, uh…” how do you put this “I was almost killed a while ago, trying to save him. And the people who found me… they didn’t exactly rescue me. I got put under these… experiments.” Jill pulled down her top slightly, showing the upper edge of the scarring from Wesker’s implant. “Chris, he… he searched for me for years. Refused to believe I was dead. Managed to find me, free me. I really can’t pay him back.”
Vincent was quiet again, his eyes half closed as he looked between her and Chris.
“Guard friends like that very carefully.” He finally said, a twinge of bitterness in his voice. “Those that save you are worth more than those who simply say they will stay by your side.” there was another pause. “Those that hurt you, are they all dead?”
Jill snorted.
“Chris shot the main one with rocket launcher while he was in a volcano.” she said. “Somehow footage of it got on the news.”
“Ah.. I don’t… really watch TV.” there was another pause. “I was killed and experimented on too. I thought..” he held up his gloved hand. “I thought maybe that’s what made me like this. But instead, maybe it’s just me.” Jill went back to sipping her coffee, in the quiet.
“... Do you have a phone?” She finally asked. Vincent looked at her. “I’d like to keep in touch. If for no other reason that my medical chart apparently needs an update.” Vincent’s face almost twitched into a smile, then pushed over a flip phone.
They met up a few times a year after that. Not always in the same place, but they always looked the same, never aging. Always fighting against SOMETHING.
“You think we can die?” Jill asked 50 years later, Barry had died 20 years ago, old age. His daughters and wife all around his bed, Jill hadn’t made it in time.
“We could be killed possibly.” Vincent said as he reloaded his pistol. Zombies outbreaks had become less frequent, but not completely gone. “Marlene is going to be a grandmother soon.”
“Oh, really?” Jill smiled. “Well she’s going to be such a good one. Barrett raised her well.” Barrett wasn’t dead yet, but Vincent never stayed too long, any day now maybe.
Chris had been buried for about 10 years now, and Jill still checked his grave. He’d gotten sick in the end. Pneumonia. She had promised to kill his zombie if it came to it, but Chris had never been infected like she had, and his grave stayed quiet. Vincent was there to support her, and had brought Red XIII too, if he wasn’t immortal like them, he at least had a VERY long life.
“Everyone always thought we were a couple.” She said softly one night by his grave. “I think we promised one time to marry if we didn’t find anyone, but when it came down to it, Chris was never my type in that way.”
“Love… can be complicated. Romantic or otherwise.” Vincent finally said, sitting next to her, moonlight reflecting off his glove. “I tried to sleep through my pain. It didn’t really work.”
“No.” Jill pulled her legs up to her chest. “It never really does.”
Raccoon City had been reclaimed by nature, and humanity this time was working with it. Jill and Vincent sat above the crater of the city, watching humanity try again. It had been.. What, 300 hundred years? Jill had lost track. But Humanity knew things now.
“I think it will work.” Jill finally said. “After all, they know more now. WE know more now.”
“Oh maybe. Provided no one finds any secret umbrella files.” And with that, Vincent held up a 300 year old hard drive in his metal hand, and crushed it. Jill rolled her eyes.
“That could have been someone’s Pride and prejudice fanfic.”
“I’d rather not find out.”
Jill woke up sometimes to Vincent’s cape covering her.
As the years rolled by, as neither aged, as Vincent finally relaxed enough to give his daughter hugs and kisses on her forehead… Jill was never sure if she liked this immortality thing. She’d stopped trying to find her friends and family, It had all faded out of memory.
But at least she had someone with her as they both traveled.