Estimated Life Expectancy: Chapter 5
Estimated Life Expectancy: Chapter 5
Summary: Something has happened to Jill that no one expected, and in his desperation to save her Chris might just be pushed into doing the unthinkable.
Rating/Warnings: T/PG-13. Obscenities, mostly.
Disclaimer: Any character not immediately recognizable as belonging to Capcom is probably mine (and being let out for the sole purpose of being a plot device, in all likelihood). Anything you do recognize as Capcom's is completely theirs, and I take no credit for them. I'm not here to make money, just to play in the sandbox
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4
Final chapter, you guys. &hearts
Everything is going to be okay, Chris told himself as he drove down the busy D.C. streets. He had the virus. It was in his hands. He could save Jill. He would save Jill. And everything was going to be okay.
He glanced over as the evening rush-hour traffic came to a near-standstill down Pennsylvania Avenue. The virus, still in its little, dimpled silver case, rode on the seat beside him. He narrowed his eyes at it and frowned, thinking.
For all the weeks Chris had spent obsessing over this idea, that getting a hold of T-Veronica and then using it on Jill could save her, he hadn't ever come up with an actual plan. Ideas, sure. But no actual plan.
So…come up with one, he thought, turning from the roundabout on Pennsylvania Avenue onto 23rd. He wasn't a doctor or a nurse, so he couldn't just saunter into her room and inject the virus into her IV line as if it were antibiotics.
Even if injecting it would let it work faster.
He could lace her food with it, though. That might take longer, and possibly a higher dose to be on the safe side, but it should work. After all, the only means of transfer T-Virus seemed incapable of was airborne. At least, in eight years they'd never encountered an airborne strain.
Still…he'd prefer to inject it.
Then do that, he told himself as he turned into the hospital's parking lot and dropped his Jeep off in his usual spot, and put it in her food as a last resort.
Just make sure no one else is around when you do it.
He slid from the driver's seat, almost forgetting - yet again - to grab his phone. He hadn't looked at it since he'd gotten back from Cancún earlier that afternoon, and almost didn't want to check and see how many messages and missed calls he had. They wouldn't do him any good now, anyway.
The isolation floor was quieter than usual, Chris realized as he stepped off the elevator. Tyler, the leukemia patient who'd been in for a bone marrow transplant, had gone home sometime the week before - taking with him his brother, Zack (the other mother hen) and his family, leaving just two other patients on the isolation floor besides Jill. And Jill was - hopefully - going to get out of this place soon. If she kept improving, at least.
God, he hoped she kept improving.
He rounded the corner to Jill's hall. Rebecca and Barry were standing there in the hall - closer to this end than Jill's room at the other. Chris stopped, frowning, and they both turned to look at him.
Then Barry snarled, "There you are! Where the hell have you been, Chris?" He came down the hall, his hands clenching into fists.
Chris tensed, ready to dodge if Barry took a swing at him - it really looked like he might - and glanced at Rebecca. Had she guessed where he had gone, and told Barry? But Rebecca's eyes were on Barry and she seemed just as surprised at his outburst as Chris was.
To be honest, Chris had come back fully expecting everyone to be pissed off at him. He had left town without really telling anyone and it had taken him several hours longer than he had originally thought it would to get back. He deserved whatever he got; but he hadn't expected Barry to be this mad. Strong, stable Barry Burton did not get this mad about anything. Unless…
Did something happen? Something else? As if they needed more bad news. Chris started down the hall, asking, "Is Jill okay?"
"No," Barry snapped in reply, stepping in front of him and blocking the way. He clearly wasn't finished yet. "Jill is not okay. She's sick, Chris. She's dying. You know she doesn't have much - "
"Barry!" Rebecca said, her voice sharp. Her gaze darted from him to Chris and back again. "That's enough."
Chris watched his old friend deflate with a pang of guilt. He hadn't wanted to leave - he had to. He had to get the virus and Rodriguez wouldn't come to him. So he had to go. He didn't regret it, but that didn't mean he couldn't feel guilty about it.
But what happened? he thought. What happened to Jill while he was gone? Chris started to demand an answer, but Barry cut him off again.
"I called you," he said, his voice flat, "probably a dozen times. Claire probably called you even more than that. Whatever you were doing, I hope it was important enough that you couldn't take thirty seconds to answer your goddamned phone." Shaking his head, he shoved past Chris and started down the hall, his footfalls echoing loudly in the empty space.
Rebecca started after him, calling, "Where are you going?"
"It's all right, Rebecca." Barry waved dismissively over his shoulder, but did not turn around or even stop. "I'm gonna go find Claire. Let her know her lunk-head of a brother is still alive."
Chris winced as he and Rebecca watched Barry disappear around the corner. Chris's hand dropped to the deep pocket on the thigh of his pants - where he'd put the steel container for safekeeping. He expected her to turn on him next and either ask him where he'd gone or guess he'd gone after a sample of the virus. It hadn't been that long since they'd discussed it, after all - just three weeks - and she had overheard at least part of his call with Rodriguez.
"Rebecca," he began after a few minutes, hoping to break the silence.
"Don't," she warned, her voice unsteady. A few seconds later, she turned and glared at him. "I'm not happy with you, Chris. What you did…Running out on Jill like that…" Her face fell. "I just don't think we should be fighting right now."
"Be angry with me all you want," he replied, his voice harsher than he meant it to be. "I don't care. What happened?"
"Jill's gone septic."
Chris's gut twisted violently. "No," he said, but his voice had gone and no words came out.
In the first few weeks after Jill had been diagnosed, Chris had spent hours finding out everything he could about her cancer and its treatment. Neutropenia, infection, and sepsis were all things that cropped up on the List of Stuff that Could Go Wrong. They'd dealt with neutropenia and infection already, and sepsis, if he remembered it right, was the full-body inflammatory response to infection; to microbes in the blood or some medical shit like that.
Either way, it was not good. Not good at all.
"When…?" His voice was barely a whisper.
"It probably started before you left yesterday, but we didn't know 'til after you were gone. Her blood pressure and her temperature both dropped and she started having trouble breathing, so they put her on a breathing mask." Rebecca ran a hand through her hair. "Go and see her, Chris. I'm…gonna go get a drink." She lurched away from him, and walked away down the hall, leaving Chris standing there by himself.
I'm sorry, he thought, staring after her back, wishing there was a way to get them to understand without wasting the time it would take to explain. But I did what I had to do. I have to save her. He tapped his hand against the case in his pocket, then wheeled and jogged down the hall.
Jill shifted as he entered, her eyes flashing weakly in recognition when she saw him. An even weaker smile flashed across her face, but he barely saw it because of the breathing mask she was wearing.
"Hey," he said softly, grabbing the same stool he always did. As he sat down he went on, "Rebecca says you aren't feeling so good."
She snorted softly, closing her eyes. "I'm dying, Chris." Her voice was raspy and distorted by the mask. "Didn't think that was supposed to feel good."
"Don't say that."
"It's true." She reached for his hand. Her fingers were cold. Chris took her other hand in his as well, covering them up to warm them.
"You're gonna get better," he told her. "You will."
"Cancer…" she murmured, turning her head on the pillow and meeting his eyes. "Who saw this coming, huh?"
Chris's chest tightened. "Don't joke," he begged her. "Don't joke about this."
They fell silent for a few minutes, and Jill turned her gaze to the window.
Chris shifted and felt the steel case fall against his leg. How would it go, he wondered. His ears suddenly tuned in on the slow, steady beeping of her cardiac monitor. Would she die and then come back, or would she just start to get better?
One thing for sure, he couldn't do it without asking her first. He loved her. He trusted her - and she trusted him. And he knew her. They knew each other so well they didn't even need to talk sometimes. But this…this was nothing like their other plans or, hell, even remotely like anything they'd ever done. This wasn't something they could discuss in hand signals and looks shared across a room. This wasn't something he could explain to her without words. Where would he even start?
Even using words, where would he start?
"Jill," he said, staring hard at window, "if I knew about something that might make you completely better, but it…" He trailed off, looking for a way to phrase it. "…But it would change everything, would you want me to do it?"
"Nnn…" she began, and he felt her hands tense in his. Chris looked down as Jill's eyes fluttered closed.
"Jill?"
And then the machines around her head began to scream.
Chris jerked back, his eyes darting from one machine to the next. "Jill? Jill!" Her hand had gone limp in his - limp and cold.
Oh, no. No, no, no. "Jill!"
The door opened and he whipped around, yelling, "Do something!"
Summoned by the sounds of the alarms, four nurses rushed into the room. They pushed him out of the way, forcing him to let go of Jill's hand. Chris stepped back, his heart racing and his gut twisting.
The nurses quickly set to work, poking at Jill, prodding at her, checking the IV lines of saline and antibiotics leading to her arm and the monitors that just kept on screaming. They shouted at each other - words Chris heard but didn't know, medical jargon he could never, ever hope to keep up with at this point.
No, no, no, he thought. No, oh please, no. Finding his voice again, he shouted, "What's going on? Someone tell me what's going on!"
One of the nurses pushed in front of him, forcing him to the back of the small isolation room with a glare. Two more wheeled in a cart with about half a dozen little red drawers on the front and an IV pole on the side and a machine with…
Oh God. It was a crash cart. The damn thing looked just like the ones he'd seen on TV. Chris looked on in horror as Dr. Morales sprinted through the door, calling for them to charge the paddles.
"What are you doing? What's happening to her?" He was fully aware that he sounded like a scared child. He didn't care.
Dr. Morales finally looked up. "Chris, you really shouldn't be in here." He jerked his head towards the door. "Out, please."
Chris dug in his heels. No way they were kicking him out before he knew what was going on with Jill. "Not until someone tells me what the fuck is going on!"
In a sharp, authoritative tone, Dr. Morales barked, "Chris! Out! I'll send someone to talk to you after we finish saving her life!"
He felt hands take his arm, and another pair against his back, but he neither saw nor cared who they belonged to. His eyes were on Jill, on her pale skin and dark hair, on the tubes and wires leading to and from her body, on the way her back arched under the shock from the defibrillator.
Chris let the nurses herd him out the door, though he threw himself at the glass as soon as they'd closed the door on him. He flexed his fingers against the glass, barely aware and hardly caring about the greasy streaks he'd leave be leaving behind.
God, if this were something happening in the mansion or on a mission or something else, anything else he'd be fine. He'd be just fucking fine. But this? He had seen a lot of terrible things in his life. He had seen things no one else should ever have to. But so far, neither zombies nor tyrants nor giant spiders nor mutated plants nor the monster that was the T-A.L.O.S. could have prepared him for this. Compared to this, those things were cake.
He reached for his phone, planning to call Barry and Claire and Rebecca and tell them to get up here, now, but his hands were shaking so much he could barely hold onto it, much less dial any of the numbers.
"Chris!" He looked up, and there was Rebecca. "What's going on?"
"I don't know! We were talking and then these alarms started going off!" He pushed a hand through his hair, stalking back and forth in the hall - first in front of the glass, then between it and the bench across the hall. His heart was slamming in his chest and though he felt like he'd just jumped in an icy lake in the middle of winter, he was sweating.
Rebecca took one glance inside the room and turned. "I'm gonna go get Barry," she called, taking off down the hall. "I'll be right back!"
Chris continued to pace, pressing the palms of his hands against the sides of his head. He glanced inside the isolation room every now and again, but each time he did he felt his heart jump again. No, no, no. Oh, God, don't go, Jill, don't go, I don't want you to go yet! I haven't even had the chance to save you!
Jill!
It was only when a couple of the nurses in her room looked up that he realized he had called her name out loud.
At a word, it seemed, from Dr. Morales - Chris couldn't hear a damn thing over the sounds of the alarms - Camille stepped away from Jill and over to the glass. Chris moved to the door, expecting her to come out and tell him something, anything about what was going on.
But she didn't. Instead, shooting him a pain-filled look, she hit a button on the wall by the door. The blinds slid closed, completely hiding what was going on inside from Chris's view.
"No!" Chris slammed his palms against the door. "Jill!"
"Chris!"
Chris turned. Barry and Claire were sprinting towards him, Rebecca trailing a little further behind. She had her cell phone pressed to her ear, though Chris had no clue who she might be talking to.
"What's going on?" Barry asked, skidding to a halt outside the door.
"I don't know!" Chris pressed the heels of his palms against his temples and stared hard at the tile floor. The alarms were still screaming, echoing loud and shrill inside his skull. "She just went limp and then the alarms started to go off and then they closed the blinds!"
Someone grabbed his arm, and Chris lifted his head to look. Claire was at his side, her arms wrapped around his, her cheek pressed hard against her shoulder. He reached out with his free hand and took one of hers, plucking it off of his bicep, then motioned for Rebecca and Barry to come and join them. The other survivors did just that; Rebecca falling in on Chris's free side while Barry took a position by her flank.
Forcing his voice to be as steady as possible, Chris said, "We'll get through this. We'll get through this."
And then, at once, the alarms stopped.
Chris looked up, then quickly glanced at the others. They were all staring at the blinds, and he got the feeling they were all holding their breath as they waited.
The sounds were still ringing in his ears when the door finally opened and Camille stepped out into the hall.
Rebecca was the first to move, breaking away from the rest and asking, "Is she okay? Camille, is Jill okay?"
Camille's voice was flat as she said, "We've gotten her stabilized, yes."
"What happened?"
"She's gone into what we call septic shock." She looked at each of them in turn as she spoke.
"Septic shock," Chris repeated numbly, taking a small step back. He looked towards Jill's room, but with the blinds still drawn he couldn't see anything. He could only picture her lying there and getting weaker and weaker and weaker…
"What is septic shock, exactly?" Barry asked. "Is it some sort of second stage to the sepsis?"
Camille nodded.
"How does that happen? I thought you were treating the sepsis."
"We still are." Camille pushed a loose strand of sweat-drenched hair off her face. She explained, "Sepsis releases a large amount of toxins into the blood. In Jill's case, those toxins were staphylococcus bacteria. Her body reacted to fight them off, but in doing so prevented her muscles and organs from getting all the food and oxygen they need to survive, sending her into shock. We're doing everything we can for her now, but…" Camille glanced inside the room, then said, "You guys need to be aware that there's a very good chance she won't last much longer."
"How long?"
"I don't know. Might be tomorrow. Might be the day after. Might even be sometime today."
Over the next few hours, other people began to stop by to visit. Apparently, Rebecca had been under strict orders to call the B.S.A.A. main office whenever something changed. His team came - Brooks and Lancer first, then Eppley and Gomez and Griff. Morgan, Bell, Baker, and Gray - Jill's team - dropped by later that afternoon. So did Barnes and Ross and Coleman and Colonel Graves - some of the higher-ups at the B.S.A.A. Leon even dropped by - Chris saw him in the lounge talking to Claire once while he was on his way to the bathroom.
Chris hadn't seen some of these guys in quite some time - Graves and Leon, for instance, because the former had been on a tour of duty in Qatar and the latter spent more time with the President's family than he did anywhere else. But they were here, now, trickling in one by one.
Some reunion it was, though. All of them were here to say goodbye.
Unfortunately, they were interfering with his plan. He had figured it would be hard enough with Barry and Rebecca and Claire and the doctors and nurses ducking in and out - sometimes without warning - but he couldn't dodge all of them plus more than a dozen others.
Finally - finally! - he got his chance. All of the others had finally gone home, leaving Chris alone in the hospital with her.
Do it! He screamed at himself, looking at the IV line dripping morphine into her veins. Goddammit, if you were ever going to do it now would be the time! He raised a hand towards the IV piggyback, shifting his grip on the virus.
What if someone comes? He thought. Then, No one is coming. They're all gone.
You shouldn't be doing this. God, that voice! That stupid little voice that had tap-danced around his skull every time he thought of using T, nagging him, reminding him how stupid and dangerous this whole plan was.
He hated that voice. It got in his way.
I have to do it, he told himself, if I want Jill to live.
With his left hand, his free hand, Chris reached out towards the IV bag. He'd grab it and fill the syringe and stick the needle right in the drip, in the same part of the line he'd seen Camille and Mary and Dr. Morales inject her meds into. He'd inject the virus right into her veins and wait.
But his hand fell short.
Chris held it suspended, halfway between his body and the IV, for a few beats longer before dropping it heavily back to his side. He couldn't do it. He couldn't do it, and it wasn't a matter of timing, or the risk anyone would come in and see, or because he didn't desperately want Jill to live, or any of those things. This was Jill. Jill-fucking-Valentine. His Jill. And she wouldn't have wanted him to cross that line.
Chris clenched his hand into a fist, holding it stiffly down by the seat of the stool while he stared at the syringe in his other hand. He hated himself right then, for even once considering using the T-virus on her. It was such a stupid idea. He'd known it all along, even if he'd managed to convince himself that he had to at least try.
And who could blame him? This was Jill Valentine. Member of the S.T.A.R.S., survivor of Rwanda, honorary part of the Delta force. She'd faced down armies of zombies, surviving where some of her teammates fell. She'd helped bring down Umbrella. She was strong, she was beautiful, she was amazing…
And she could blame him. She probably wouldn't, but she could. And he'd want her to, actually, because it would mean that someone on this God-forsaken earth still gave a damn about morals and rights and ethics.
Chris roughly put the syringe back in the case, and then stuffed the case back in his pocket. He looked at Jill again, studying her face - the way the dying sunlight curved over her cheekbones and caught in her still-thinning hair, sending tiny sparks of copper and bronze and gold up and down the strands. He thought of her eyes, hidden underneath her deeply shadowed, bruised-looking eyes, and how full of life they always were.
He would have gone to the ends of the earth to save her, if that's what it took, and he'd have done it without a second thought or a single question. Hell, if Wesker had stopped by the hospital that morning and offered her a cure in exchange for his life, he'd have accepted every last one of that bastard's terms and conditions in a heartbeat.
Because that was how much he loved her.
"I love you, Jill," he said, his voice breaking. He folded his arms on her bed and rested his head on them. The top of his head lightly grazed her side and he tightly closed his eyes, whispering, "I love you."
Some time later, the door opened, and he jerked awake as Rebecca came in.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to wake you. How is she?"
Chris shook his head. He ran a hand down his face, then rubbed at the back of his neck. He was stiff and sore and dead tired and he was sure he looked like hell. "What time is it?"
"Nearly one," she replied, then added, "In the afternoon."
"Really?" God, he'd slept a while.
"You should go get something to eat," she said. "If nothing else. I'll stay here."
Chris nodded, but didn't move. He wasn't hungry, though he couldn't remember what he had to eat last, or even when.
He inhaled deeply, shifting his position on the stool. The virus case glanced against his thigh.
If he wasn't going to use it, there was no point in keeping it. Chris reached a hand into his pocket and pulled out the sample, looking at it once more before closing it up in his fist.
"Here," he said, holding it out.
"What is it?"
"Just take it, Rebecca."
He felt her fingers graze his as she held out her hand, and he pressed the vial into her palm.
"T-Veronica," he said, without meeting her eyes. "Probably the only sample Rodriguez will ever be able to get for us."
"Chris, you - "
"I didn't use it. It's all still there." He dropped his head, staring hard at a worn spot on the knee of his jeans. The fabric grew blurry and began to swim. "You can take it to the labs and do…whatever it is you'd do with it."
For several long minutes Rebecca neither moved nor said anything, and Chris never once stopped looking at that blurry, worn spot on his knee. Then, breaking the heavy silence, he heard the swift tapping of her shoes on the tile as she walked around the bed. Before he could even so much as look up she had thrown her arms around his neck, pressing her face into his shoulder. Her frame, still as tiny as it had been when they'd met on the S.T.A.R.S., shook with soundless sobs.
"Hey, now," Chris said, reaching up and patting her shoulder. "Don't cry. It'll be okay."
He had meant to comfort her with that, but seemed to make things worse instead. Rebecca sniffled, the trembling growing more pronounced, and choked out, "She's really going to die. I'm glad you didn't use it, but…now Jill is really going to die."
Chris felt his throat and chest both tighten, and suddenly it was hard for him to breathe. He tilted his head back so he was staring up at the tiled ceiling.
"Yeah," he managed, but that was all.
Jill Valentine was going to die. She was going to die of fucking cancer, and there was nothing more he could do.
Jill continued to get progressively worse over the next couple of hours. She barely moved and hardly even seemed aware of what was going on. She would flinch sometimes in pain, or squeeze his hand when he held hers, but that was really it.
The others came and went, but Chris refused to leave at all. Fortunately, it seemed that the hospital staff had given up trying to make him leave.
He was coming back from a very short trip to the bathroom when he nearly ran into Camille. The nurses had all been coming periodically to check Jill's vitals and meds - the IV lines that dripped nothing but painkillers into her veins now.
"How is she doing?" He asked, more out of reflex than anything. He could see for himself that she was only getting worse.
What he really meant, but couldn't ask, was this: how long did she still have?
"She's sleeping," Camille said, squeezing his arm to draw his attention back to her. Chris turned from the glass reluctantly, but when he did she went on, "Don't force her to stay awake. But talk to her. She can still hear you. If she does wake up and says she's thirsty, we've got ice chips. Just hit the call button and we'll bring them."
Chris nodded, but he barely heard anything she was saying. He just wanted to get inside.
"She's probably going to be disoriented and restless, but don't force her to stay put. Try and talk her into it. If she won't listen, let us know."
"Call button," Chris said faintly.
"That's right." Giving his arm another squeeze - this time a gentle, supportive one - Camille released his arm. "Go."
Swallowing thickly, Chris slid open the door and slipped inside.
There was a faint smell in the room - one he knew all too well. The Spencer Mansion had been saturated with it, a smell not unlike raw hamburger that had been left in the sun to thaw for a little too long.
It was the smell of death.
Chris pushed the smell aside out of habit as he slipped onto the chair beside her bed. Someone had taken away the stool at some point, but he couldn't remember quite when. He reached out and took her hand. Her skin was mottled and discolored, and her hand was cold, almost icy to the touch.
"Jill," he said softly, giving her hand a little squeeze, "It…It's Chris. I'm here, okay? I'm here. And I promise I'm not going to leave you again, okay? I promise, I won't ever leave you again." He turned to look at her face - that beautiful, warm, familiar face. In the intermittent silence between the beeps of her cardiac monitor, he could hear her gurgling faintly; yet another a sign that her body couldn't take care of itself any more.
He went on, "I'm sorry I left before. I had to do something. It was stupid, but I had to…I had to try, Jill. I didn't want to lose you. I still don't want to lose you. But…I couldn't do what I had planned. I just couldn't do it. You'd have hated me forever." He ran his thumb over her fingers, back and forth, wanting her to wake up and smile at him and laugh at how much of a wreck he was.
But she didn't. Jill didn't move at all.
So Chris kept talking.
"You know," he said, surprised to find his voice thick and the words hard to come by, "I had always wanted us to…to get married." He forced a laugh, hoping it would either clear his throat or drive away the hot tears burning his eyes. "I kinda had it all planned out. Not the wedding - that was supposed to be your thing - but where we'd live, how many kids we'd have…"
He had to stop again. Chris took a deep, steadying breath. Closing his eyes tight, he rested his forehead against her cold fingers.
"I wanted at least two," he went on. "A boy and a girl. And a dog. And a house in the suburbs. No white picket fence, though. We'd have six-foot cedar, like I always had growing up, and there'd be a big tree out back so I could build a tree house for the kids. And we'd have a big patio with one of those fire pits, so we could all make s'mores in the summer."
Chris looked at Jill again. She was barely breathing, her chest rising and falling only shallowly. It looked like she wasn't breathing at all.
He looked away, swallowing thickly and gritting his teeth. He hated himself for having waited so long to say these things to her. He hated that he had had to wait till the last possible minute to tell her everything that he had thought about her for the past eight years.
And he hated that there was nothing more he could do but sit there and wait for her to die.
The minutes ticked by, marked by the twitching second hand on the clock in the hall. Chris watched it, counting off the beeps of the cardiac monitor as he stared hard at the clock. The beeping filled his ears with its incessant sound; the rhythmic beeping that let him know that, beyond all appearances, Jill was still alive.
Something changed in the rhythm. Chris snapped his head over to look at her. He listened, jaw clenched so tight he wouldn't have been surprised if it broke under the pressure.
The beeping started to slow.
No. No, no, no, no. Not yet, please, God, not yet. He pressed his free hand over his eyes. The other was still holding on to one of hers. Not yet, please, I'm not ready to live without her. I can't live without her. I need her, oh, God, I need her, please…
The beep became a whine, loud and grating in his ears and not the sound it should be making. Chris tightened his grip on her cold, cold, icy cold fingers.
Chris heard someone come in, but he didn't look to see who it was. The whine stopped with the click of a flipped switch, and a startlingly deep silence fell on the room. Chris tightened his grip on Jill's hand, but otherwise didn't move.
He heard the nurse leave, and he pulled his hand off of his eyes.
Jill was lying still on the bed. The monitors all around her head were off now, for the first time in a month, their dark screens distorting and throwing back her and Chris's reflections.
Chris's throat and chest both tightened. His eyes burned, his vision swimming. He tried looking away, but that didn't help, and all he saw was a blurry figure standing outside. He couldn't tell who it was, and frankly he didn't care.
He leaned forward, resting his head against Jill's stomach.
And Chris Redfield cried.
Summary: Something has happened to Jill that no one expected, and in his desperation to save her Chris might just be pushed into doing the unthinkable.
Rating/Warnings: T/PG-13. Obscenities, mostly.
Disclaimer: Any character not immediately recognizable as belonging to Capcom is probably mine (and being let out for the sole purpose of being a plot device, in all likelihood). Anything you do recognize as Capcom's is completely theirs, and I take no credit for them. I'm not here to make money, just to play in the sandbox
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4
Final chapter, you guys. &hearts
Everything is going to be okay, Chris told himself as he drove down the busy D.C. streets. He had the virus. It was in his hands. He could save Jill. He would save Jill. And everything was going to be okay.
He glanced over as the evening rush-hour traffic came to a near-standstill down Pennsylvania Avenue. The virus, still in its little, dimpled silver case, rode on the seat beside him. He narrowed his eyes at it and frowned, thinking.
For all the weeks Chris had spent obsessing over this idea, that getting a hold of T-Veronica and then using it on Jill could save her, he hadn't ever come up with an actual plan. Ideas, sure. But no actual plan.
So…come up with one, he thought, turning from the roundabout on Pennsylvania Avenue onto 23rd. He wasn't a doctor or a nurse, so he couldn't just saunter into her room and inject the virus into her IV line as if it were antibiotics.
Even if injecting it would let it work faster.
He could lace her food with it, though. That might take longer, and possibly a higher dose to be on the safe side, but it should work. After all, the only means of transfer T-Virus seemed incapable of was airborne. At least, in eight years they'd never encountered an airborne strain.
Still…he'd prefer to inject it.
Then do that, he told himself as he turned into the hospital's parking lot and dropped his Jeep off in his usual spot, and put it in her food as a last resort.
Just make sure no one else is around when you do it.
He slid from the driver's seat, almost forgetting - yet again - to grab his phone. He hadn't looked at it since he'd gotten back from Cancún earlier that afternoon, and almost didn't want to check and see how many messages and missed calls he had. They wouldn't do him any good now, anyway.
The isolation floor was quieter than usual, Chris realized as he stepped off the elevator. Tyler, the leukemia patient who'd been in for a bone marrow transplant, had gone home sometime the week before - taking with him his brother, Zack (the other mother hen) and his family, leaving just two other patients on the isolation floor besides Jill. And Jill was - hopefully - going to get out of this place soon. If she kept improving, at least.
God, he hoped she kept improving.
He rounded the corner to Jill's hall. Rebecca and Barry were standing there in the hall - closer to this end than Jill's room at the other. Chris stopped, frowning, and they both turned to look at him.
Then Barry snarled, "There you are! Where the hell have you been, Chris?" He came down the hall, his hands clenching into fists.
Chris tensed, ready to dodge if Barry took a swing at him - it really looked like he might - and glanced at Rebecca. Had she guessed where he had gone, and told Barry? But Rebecca's eyes were on Barry and she seemed just as surprised at his outburst as Chris was.
To be honest, Chris had come back fully expecting everyone to be pissed off at him. He had left town without really telling anyone and it had taken him several hours longer than he had originally thought it would to get back. He deserved whatever he got; but he hadn't expected Barry to be this mad. Strong, stable Barry Burton did not get this mad about anything. Unless…
Did something happen? Something else? As if they needed more bad news. Chris started down the hall, asking, "Is Jill okay?"
"No," Barry snapped in reply, stepping in front of him and blocking the way. He clearly wasn't finished yet. "Jill is not okay. She's sick, Chris. She's dying. You know she doesn't have much - "
"Barry!" Rebecca said, her voice sharp. Her gaze darted from him to Chris and back again. "That's enough."
Chris watched his old friend deflate with a pang of guilt. He hadn't wanted to leave - he had to. He had to get the virus and Rodriguez wouldn't come to him. So he had to go. He didn't regret it, but that didn't mean he couldn't feel guilty about it.
But what happened? he thought. What happened to Jill while he was gone? Chris started to demand an answer, but Barry cut him off again.
"I called you," he said, his voice flat, "probably a dozen times. Claire probably called you even more than that. Whatever you were doing, I hope it was important enough that you couldn't take thirty seconds to answer your goddamned phone." Shaking his head, he shoved past Chris and started down the hall, his footfalls echoing loudly in the empty space.
Rebecca started after him, calling, "Where are you going?"
"It's all right, Rebecca." Barry waved dismissively over his shoulder, but did not turn around or even stop. "I'm gonna go find Claire. Let her know her lunk-head of a brother is still alive."
Chris winced as he and Rebecca watched Barry disappear around the corner. Chris's hand dropped to the deep pocket on the thigh of his pants - where he'd put the steel container for safekeeping. He expected her to turn on him next and either ask him where he'd gone or guess he'd gone after a sample of the virus. It hadn't been that long since they'd discussed it, after all - just three weeks - and she had overheard at least part of his call with Rodriguez.
"Rebecca," he began after a few minutes, hoping to break the silence.
"Don't," she warned, her voice unsteady. A few seconds later, she turned and glared at him. "I'm not happy with you, Chris. What you did…Running out on Jill like that…" Her face fell. "I just don't think we should be fighting right now."
"Be angry with me all you want," he replied, his voice harsher than he meant it to be. "I don't care. What happened?"
"Jill's gone septic."
Chris's gut twisted violently. "No," he said, but his voice had gone and no words came out.
In the first few weeks after Jill had been diagnosed, Chris had spent hours finding out everything he could about her cancer and its treatment. Neutropenia, infection, and sepsis were all things that cropped up on the List of Stuff that Could Go Wrong. They'd dealt with neutropenia and infection already, and sepsis, if he remembered it right, was the full-body inflammatory response to infection; to microbes in the blood or some medical shit like that.
Either way, it was not good. Not good at all.
"When…?" His voice was barely a whisper.
"It probably started before you left yesterday, but we didn't know 'til after you were gone. Her blood pressure and her temperature both dropped and she started having trouble breathing, so they put her on a breathing mask." Rebecca ran a hand through her hair. "Go and see her, Chris. I'm…gonna go get a drink." She lurched away from him, and walked away down the hall, leaving Chris standing there by himself.
I'm sorry, he thought, staring after her back, wishing there was a way to get them to understand without wasting the time it would take to explain. But I did what I had to do. I have to save her. He tapped his hand against the case in his pocket, then wheeled and jogged down the hall.
Jill shifted as he entered, her eyes flashing weakly in recognition when she saw him. An even weaker smile flashed across her face, but he barely saw it because of the breathing mask she was wearing.
"Hey," he said softly, grabbing the same stool he always did. As he sat down he went on, "Rebecca says you aren't feeling so good."
She snorted softly, closing her eyes. "I'm dying, Chris." Her voice was raspy and distorted by the mask. "Didn't think that was supposed to feel good."
"Don't say that."
"It's true." She reached for his hand. Her fingers were cold. Chris took her other hand in his as well, covering them up to warm them.
"You're gonna get better," he told her. "You will."
"Cancer…" she murmured, turning her head on the pillow and meeting his eyes. "Who saw this coming, huh?"
Chris's chest tightened. "Don't joke," he begged her. "Don't joke about this."
They fell silent for a few minutes, and Jill turned her gaze to the window.
Chris shifted and felt the steel case fall against his leg. How would it go, he wondered. His ears suddenly tuned in on the slow, steady beeping of her cardiac monitor. Would she die and then come back, or would she just start to get better?
One thing for sure, he couldn't do it without asking her first. He loved her. He trusted her - and she trusted him. And he knew her. They knew each other so well they didn't even need to talk sometimes. But this…this was nothing like their other plans or, hell, even remotely like anything they'd ever done. This wasn't something they could discuss in hand signals and looks shared across a room. This wasn't something he could explain to her without words. Where would he even start?
Even using words, where would he start?
"Jill," he said, staring hard at window, "if I knew about something that might make you completely better, but it…" He trailed off, looking for a way to phrase it. "…But it would change everything, would you want me to do it?"
"Nnn…" she began, and he felt her hands tense in his. Chris looked down as Jill's eyes fluttered closed.
"Jill?"
And then the machines around her head began to scream.
Chris jerked back, his eyes darting from one machine to the next. "Jill? Jill!" Her hand had gone limp in his - limp and cold.
Oh, no. No, no, no. "Jill!"
The door opened and he whipped around, yelling, "Do something!"
Summoned by the sounds of the alarms, four nurses rushed into the room. They pushed him out of the way, forcing him to let go of Jill's hand. Chris stepped back, his heart racing and his gut twisting.
The nurses quickly set to work, poking at Jill, prodding at her, checking the IV lines of saline and antibiotics leading to her arm and the monitors that just kept on screaming. They shouted at each other - words Chris heard but didn't know, medical jargon he could never, ever hope to keep up with at this point.
No, no, no, he thought. No, oh please, no. Finding his voice again, he shouted, "What's going on? Someone tell me what's going on!"
One of the nurses pushed in front of him, forcing him to the back of the small isolation room with a glare. Two more wheeled in a cart with about half a dozen little red drawers on the front and an IV pole on the side and a machine with…
Oh God. It was a crash cart. The damn thing looked just like the ones he'd seen on TV. Chris looked on in horror as Dr. Morales sprinted through the door, calling for them to charge the paddles.
"What are you doing? What's happening to her?" He was fully aware that he sounded like a scared child. He didn't care.
Dr. Morales finally looked up. "Chris, you really shouldn't be in here." He jerked his head towards the door. "Out, please."
Chris dug in his heels. No way they were kicking him out before he knew what was going on with Jill. "Not until someone tells me what the fuck is going on!"
In a sharp, authoritative tone, Dr. Morales barked, "Chris! Out! I'll send someone to talk to you after we finish saving her life!"
He felt hands take his arm, and another pair against his back, but he neither saw nor cared who they belonged to. His eyes were on Jill, on her pale skin and dark hair, on the tubes and wires leading to and from her body, on the way her back arched under the shock from the defibrillator.
Chris let the nurses herd him out the door, though he threw himself at the glass as soon as they'd closed the door on him. He flexed his fingers against the glass, barely aware and hardly caring about the greasy streaks he'd leave be leaving behind.
God, if this were something happening in the mansion or on a mission or something else, anything else he'd be fine. He'd be just fucking fine. But this? He had seen a lot of terrible things in his life. He had seen things no one else should ever have to. But so far, neither zombies nor tyrants nor giant spiders nor mutated plants nor the monster that was the T-A.L.O.S. could have prepared him for this. Compared to this, those things were cake.
He reached for his phone, planning to call Barry and Claire and Rebecca and tell them to get up here, now, but his hands were shaking so much he could barely hold onto it, much less dial any of the numbers.
"Chris!" He looked up, and there was Rebecca. "What's going on?"
"I don't know! We were talking and then these alarms started going off!" He pushed a hand through his hair, stalking back and forth in the hall - first in front of the glass, then between it and the bench across the hall. His heart was slamming in his chest and though he felt like he'd just jumped in an icy lake in the middle of winter, he was sweating.
Rebecca took one glance inside the room and turned. "I'm gonna go get Barry," she called, taking off down the hall. "I'll be right back!"
Chris continued to pace, pressing the palms of his hands against the sides of his head. He glanced inside the isolation room every now and again, but each time he did he felt his heart jump again. No, no, no. Oh, God, don't go, Jill, don't go, I don't want you to go yet! I haven't even had the chance to save you!
Jill!
It was only when a couple of the nurses in her room looked up that he realized he had called her name out loud.
At a word, it seemed, from Dr. Morales - Chris couldn't hear a damn thing over the sounds of the alarms - Camille stepped away from Jill and over to the glass. Chris moved to the door, expecting her to come out and tell him something, anything about what was going on.
But she didn't. Instead, shooting him a pain-filled look, she hit a button on the wall by the door. The blinds slid closed, completely hiding what was going on inside from Chris's view.
"No!" Chris slammed his palms against the door. "Jill!"
"Chris!"
Chris turned. Barry and Claire were sprinting towards him, Rebecca trailing a little further behind. She had her cell phone pressed to her ear, though Chris had no clue who she might be talking to.
"What's going on?" Barry asked, skidding to a halt outside the door.
"I don't know!" Chris pressed the heels of his palms against his temples and stared hard at the tile floor. The alarms were still screaming, echoing loud and shrill inside his skull. "She just went limp and then the alarms started to go off and then they closed the blinds!"
Someone grabbed his arm, and Chris lifted his head to look. Claire was at his side, her arms wrapped around his, her cheek pressed hard against her shoulder. He reached out with his free hand and took one of hers, plucking it off of his bicep, then motioned for Rebecca and Barry to come and join them. The other survivors did just that; Rebecca falling in on Chris's free side while Barry took a position by her flank.
Forcing his voice to be as steady as possible, Chris said, "We'll get through this. We'll get through this."
And then, at once, the alarms stopped.
Chris looked up, then quickly glanced at the others. They were all staring at the blinds, and he got the feeling they were all holding their breath as they waited.
The sounds were still ringing in his ears when the door finally opened and Camille stepped out into the hall.
Rebecca was the first to move, breaking away from the rest and asking, "Is she okay? Camille, is Jill okay?"
Camille's voice was flat as she said, "We've gotten her stabilized, yes."
"What happened?"
"She's gone into what we call septic shock." She looked at each of them in turn as she spoke.
"Septic shock," Chris repeated numbly, taking a small step back. He looked towards Jill's room, but with the blinds still drawn he couldn't see anything. He could only picture her lying there and getting weaker and weaker and weaker…
"What is septic shock, exactly?" Barry asked. "Is it some sort of second stage to the sepsis?"
Camille nodded.
"How does that happen? I thought you were treating the sepsis."
"We still are." Camille pushed a loose strand of sweat-drenched hair off her face. She explained, "Sepsis releases a large amount of toxins into the blood. In Jill's case, those toxins were staphylococcus bacteria. Her body reacted to fight them off, but in doing so prevented her muscles and organs from getting all the food and oxygen they need to survive, sending her into shock. We're doing everything we can for her now, but…" Camille glanced inside the room, then said, "You guys need to be aware that there's a very good chance she won't last much longer."
"How long?"
"I don't know. Might be tomorrow. Might be the day after. Might even be sometime today."
Over the next few hours, other people began to stop by to visit. Apparently, Rebecca had been under strict orders to call the B.S.A.A. main office whenever something changed. His team came - Brooks and Lancer first, then Eppley and Gomez and Griff. Morgan, Bell, Baker, and Gray - Jill's team - dropped by later that afternoon. So did Barnes and Ross and Coleman and Colonel Graves - some of the higher-ups at the B.S.A.A. Leon even dropped by - Chris saw him in the lounge talking to Claire once while he was on his way to the bathroom.
Chris hadn't seen some of these guys in quite some time - Graves and Leon, for instance, because the former had been on a tour of duty in Qatar and the latter spent more time with the President's family than he did anywhere else. But they were here, now, trickling in one by one.
Some reunion it was, though. All of them were here to say goodbye.
Unfortunately, they were interfering with his plan. He had figured it would be hard enough with Barry and Rebecca and Claire and the doctors and nurses ducking in and out - sometimes without warning - but he couldn't dodge all of them plus more than a dozen others.
Finally - finally! - he got his chance. All of the others had finally gone home, leaving Chris alone in the hospital with her.
Do it! He screamed at himself, looking at the IV line dripping morphine into her veins. Goddammit, if you were ever going to do it now would be the time! He raised a hand towards the IV piggyback, shifting his grip on the virus.
What if someone comes? He thought. Then, No one is coming. They're all gone.
You shouldn't be doing this. God, that voice! That stupid little voice that had tap-danced around his skull every time he thought of using T, nagging him, reminding him how stupid and dangerous this whole plan was.
He hated that voice. It got in his way.
I have to do it, he told himself, if I want Jill to live.
With his left hand, his free hand, Chris reached out towards the IV bag. He'd grab it and fill the syringe and stick the needle right in the drip, in the same part of the line he'd seen Camille and Mary and Dr. Morales inject her meds into. He'd inject the virus right into her veins and wait.
But his hand fell short.
Chris held it suspended, halfway between his body and the IV, for a few beats longer before dropping it heavily back to his side. He couldn't do it. He couldn't do it, and it wasn't a matter of timing, or the risk anyone would come in and see, or because he didn't desperately want Jill to live, or any of those things. This was Jill. Jill-fucking-Valentine. His Jill. And she wouldn't have wanted him to cross that line.
Chris clenched his hand into a fist, holding it stiffly down by the seat of the stool while he stared at the syringe in his other hand. He hated himself right then, for even once considering using the T-virus on her. It was such a stupid idea. He'd known it all along, even if he'd managed to convince himself that he had to at least try.
And who could blame him? This was Jill Valentine. Member of the S.T.A.R.S., survivor of Rwanda, honorary part of the Delta force. She'd faced down armies of zombies, surviving where some of her teammates fell. She'd helped bring down Umbrella. She was strong, she was beautiful, she was amazing…
And she could blame him. She probably wouldn't, but she could. And he'd want her to, actually, because it would mean that someone on this God-forsaken earth still gave a damn about morals and rights and ethics.
Chris roughly put the syringe back in the case, and then stuffed the case back in his pocket. He looked at Jill again, studying her face - the way the dying sunlight curved over her cheekbones and caught in her still-thinning hair, sending tiny sparks of copper and bronze and gold up and down the strands. He thought of her eyes, hidden underneath her deeply shadowed, bruised-looking eyes, and how full of life they always were.
He would have gone to the ends of the earth to save her, if that's what it took, and he'd have done it without a second thought or a single question. Hell, if Wesker had stopped by the hospital that morning and offered her a cure in exchange for his life, he'd have accepted every last one of that bastard's terms and conditions in a heartbeat.
Because that was how much he loved her.
"I love you, Jill," he said, his voice breaking. He folded his arms on her bed and rested his head on them. The top of his head lightly grazed her side and he tightly closed his eyes, whispering, "I love you."
Some time later, the door opened, and he jerked awake as Rebecca came in.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to wake you. How is she?"
Chris shook his head. He ran a hand down his face, then rubbed at the back of his neck. He was stiff and sore and dead tired and he was sure he looked like hell. "What time is it?"
"Nearly one," she replied, then added, "In the afternoon."
"Really?" God, he'd slept a while.
"You should go get something to eat," she said. "If nothing else. I'll stay here."
Chris nodded, but didn't move. He wasn't hungry, though he couldn't remember what he had to eat last, or even when.
He inhaled deeply, shifting his position on the stool. The virus case glanced against his thigh.
If he wasn't going to use it, there was no point in keeping it. Chris reached a hand into his pocket and pulled out the sample, looking at it once more before closing it up in his fist.
"Here," he said, holding it out.
"What is it?"
"Just take it, Rebecca."
He felt her fingers graze his as she held out her hand, and he pressed the vial into her palm.
"T-Veronica," he said, without meeting her eyes. "Probably the only sample Rodriguez will ever be able to get for us."
"Chris, you - "
"I didn't use it. It's all still there." He dropped his head, staring hard at a worn spot on the knee of his jeans. The fabric grew blurry and began to swim. "You can take it to the labs and do…whatever it is you'd do with it."
For several long minutes Rebecca neither moved nor said anything, and Chris never once stopped looking at that blurry, worn spot on his knee. Then, breaking the heavy silence, he heard the swift tapping of her shoes on the tile as she walked around the bed. Before he could even so much as look up she had thrown her arms around his neck, pressing her face into his shoulder. Her frame, still as tiny as it had been when they'd met on the S.T.A.R.S., shook with soundless sobs.
"Hey, now," Chris said, reaching up and patting her shoulder. "Don't cry. It'll be okay."
He had meant to comfort her with that, but seemed to make things worse instead. Rebecca sniffled, the trembling growing more pronounced, and choked out, "She's really going to die. I'm glad you didn't use it, but…now Jill is really going to die."
Chris felt his throat and chest both tighten, and suddenly it was hard for him to breathe. He tilted his head back so he was staring up at the tiled ceiling.
"Yeah," he managed, but that was all.
Jill Valentine was going to die. She was going to die of fucking cancer, and there was nothing more he could do.
Jill continued to get progressively worse over the next couple of hours. She barely moved and hardly even seemed aware of what was going on. She would flinch sometimes in pain, or squeeze his hand when he held hers, but that was really it.
The others came and went, but Chris refused to leave at all. Fortunately, it seemed that the hospital staff had given up trying to make him leave.
He was coming back from a very short trip to the bathroom when he nearly ran into Camille. The nurses had all been coming periodically to check Jill's vitals and meds - the IV lines that dripped nothing but painkillers into her veins now.
"How is she doing?" He asked, more out of reflex than anything. He could see for himself that she was only getting worse.
What he really meant, but couldn't ask, was this: how long did she still have?
"She's sleeping," Camille said, squeezing his arm to draw his attention back to her. Chris turned from the glass reluctantly, but when he did she went on, "Don't force her to stay awake. But talk to her. She can still hear you. If she does wake up and says she's thirsty, we've got ice chips. Just hit the call button and we'll bring them."
Chris nodded, but he barely heard anything she was saying. He just wanted to get inside.
"She's probably going to be disoriented and restless, but don't force her to stay put. Try and talk her into it. If she won't listen, let us know."
"Call button," Chris said faintly.
"That's right." Giving his arm another squeeze - this time a gentle, supportive one - Camille released his arm. "Go."
Swallowing thickly, Chris slid open the door and slipped inside.
There was a faint smell in the room - one he knew all too well. The Spencer Mansion had been saturated with it, a smell not unlike raw hamburger that had been left in the sun to thaw for a little too long.
It was the smell of death.
Chris pushed the smell aside out of habit as he slipped onto the chair beside her bed. Someone had taken away the stool at some point, but he couldn't remember quite when. He reached out and took her hand. Her skin was mottled and discolored, and her hand was cold, almost icy to the touch.
"Jill," he said softly, giving her hand a little squeeze, "It…It's Chris. I'm here, okay? I'm here. And I promise I'm not going to leave you again, okay? I promise, I won't ever leave you again." He turned to look at her face - that beautiful, warm, familiar face. In the intermittent silence between the beeps of her cardiac monitor, he could hear her gurgling faintly; yet another a sign that her body couldn't take care of itself any more.
He went on, "I'm sorry I left before. I had to do something. It was stupid, but I had to…I had to try, Jill. I didn't want to lose you. I still don't want to lose you. But…I couldn't do what I had planned. I just couldn't do it. You'd have hated me forever." He ran his thumb over her fingers, back and forth, wanting her to wake up and smile at him and laugh at how much of a wreck he was.
But she didn't. Jill didn't move at all.
So Chris kept talking.
"You know," he said, surprised to find his voice thick and the words hard to come by, "I had always wanted us to…to get married." He forced a laugh, hoping it would either clear his throat or drive away the hot tears burning his eyes. "I kinda had it all planned out. Not the wedding - that was supposed to be your thing - but where we'd live, how many kids we'd have…"
He had to stop again. Chris took a deep, steadying breath. Closing his eyes tight, he rested his forehead against her cold fingers.
"I wanted at least two," he went on. "A boy and a girl. And a dog. And a house in the suburbs. No white picket fence, though. We'd have six-foot cedar, like I always had growing up, and there'd be a big tree out back so I could build a tree house for the kids. And we'd have a big patio with one of those fire pits, so we could all make s'mores in the summer."
Chris looked at Jill again. She was barely breathing, her chest rising and falling only shallowly. It looked like she wasn't breathing at all.
He looked away, swallowing thickly and gritting his teeth. He hated himself for having waited so long to say these things to her. He hated that he had had to wait till the last possible minute to tell her everything that he had thought about her for the past eight years.
And he hated that there was nothing more he could do but sit there and wait for her to die.
The minutes ticked by, marked by the twitching second hand on the clock in the hall. Chris watched it, counting off the beeps of the cardiac monitor as he stared hard at the clock. The beeping filled his ears with its incessant sound; the rhythmic beeping that let him know that, beyond all appearances, Jill was still alive.
Something changed in the rhythm. Chris snapped his head over to look at her. He listened, jaw clenched so tight he wouldn't have been surprised if it broke under the pressure.
The beeping started to slow.
No. No, no, no, no. Not yet, please, God, not yet. He pressed his free hand over his eyes. The other was still holding on to one of hers. Not yet, please, I'm not ready to live without her. I can't live without her. I need her, oh, God, I need her, please…
The beep became a whine, loud and grating in his ears and not the sound it should be making. Chris tightened his grip on her cold, cold, icy cold fingers.
Chris heard someone come in, but he didn't look to see who it was. The whine stopped with the click of a flipped switch, and a startlingly deep silence fell on the room. Chris tightened his grip on Jill's hand, but otherwise didn't move.
He heard the nurse leave, and he pulled his hand off of his eyes.
Jill was lying still on the bed. The monitors all around her head were off now, for the first time in a month, their dark screens distorting and throwing back her and Chris's reflections.
Chris's throat and chest both tightened. His eyes burned, his vision swimming. He tried looking away, but that didn't help, and all he saw was a blurry figure standing outside. He couldn't tell who it was, and frankly he didn't care.
He leaned forward, resting his head against Jill's stomach.
And Chris Redfield cried.