Archive of Our Own

“Mrs Winters?”

“Ms,” Mia corrects unthinkingly. “It’s Ms Winters, now.”

The nurse has the decency to look embarrassed. “Of course. Apologies.”

Mia can’t count how many times she’s had bloods taken; how many times she’s changed scrubs, how many times someone has asked her to recount the events of the last few months. She exists in a little world of the grime under her fingernails and the scientists flitting about her like satellites. There are handcuff scars in her wrists so deep that no amount of experimental science has so far been able to undo.

They’ve asked her before if she’d like a shower. She can’t bring herself to. There’s still ash smeared across her face from the blast.

All she has left of Ethan, now, she supposes.

“Is it alright if I take today’s samples?” The nurse is saying again, and Mia is nodding, because she knows she doesn’t have a choice either way.

The needle pricks her arm but it’s a distant sensation; like the satellites orbiting her, she catches the glint of metal in her peripheral and then it’s gone.

There were psychologists, behaviouralists, psychiatrists – all offered to her like some sweet, shiny reward that made her want to scream. She knows it’s not their fault – maybe in some reality, it would help. But not this one. And certainly not right now.

She misses Rose. She misses the soap-and-skin smell of her little fluffy-haired head. She misses her pudgy baby hands wrapped tight about her own. Even the gurgling laugh as she finished her milk, blinking sleepily up at her with her dead husband’s eyes – she misses all of it.

There was a moment in time where she thought the worst of her life was behind her. That the weight of her actions was bearable.

She has never felt so wrong.

“Mia.”

She looks up. The nurse is gone (when did she leave?) and there is a familiar figure in all black with his arms folded in the doorway.

Maybe once she would have been delighted to see him. Now, she feels nothing, besides the barest flicker of contempt.

“I’m so sorry, Mia,” Chris says, and she knows he means it.

She doesn’t answer him. What is there to say? Her gaze drifts back down to her hands and the crescents of dirt under her nails. The nurse put a fresh bandaid over the needle mark. The colour against her skin is drastically mismatched. 

“Rose?” she asks, her throat rasping from disuse.

“Safe,” he answers, his own voice is thick with emotion. “Do you want to see her?”

For the first time in days, something stirs the dregs of Mia’s broken heart. She lifts her head again. Her hair hangs limply about her face, heavy with grease. The Mia that lived and breathed just a few short weeks ago would have been driven mad by the sensation.

She isn’t sure that Mia exists anymore.

 “More than anything,” she whispers, and her eyes fill with tears.

Chris leads her through a series of connecting corridors; all stark grey, all the same. She’s not steady on her feet. Chris notices, slows his pace, casting worried glances her way.

“When was the last time you ate something?” he murmurs.

“Yesterday,” she answers, but she isn’t sure. It could have been last week. “I think.”

If Chris is concerned, he doesn’t push the matter further. They cycle down some stairs and into a room that demands two different biometrics from Chris to open. Mia waits, fidgeting with the tattered sleeve of her sweater.

When the door slides back, she isn’t ready for what she sees. It’s a nursery. Painted in muted creams and golds; there’s a toybox shaped like a bear, a bookshelf decorated in animal stickers, and a crib with a mobile made to look like clouds rotating slowly above it.

“Did you do this?” she finds herself saying.

Chris almost laughs. “No, God. They don’t teach interior design in the BSAA.”

An attempt at a joke that falls flat in the face of Mia’s detachment. She steps over to the crib. Her heart flutters. She can’t help but expect the worst.

But it’s just Rosemary. Sweet little Rose in a fresh romper, scrubbed clean of blood and dirt. She’s sleeping soundly, her tiny chest rising and falling with each breath. Mia reaches for her but stops when she catches sight of the dirt under her fingernails again.

“It’s okay,” Chris encourages her, nodding. “You can hold her. She’s still yours, Mia.”

No, Mia thinks, blinking back tears. She’s not.

“I’m filthy,” she says instead, curling her palm back into her chest. “I – I shouldn’t hold her. When I’m… like this.”

Chris spares her clothing a passing glance. “Did no-one offer you a shower?”

Mia can’t tear her eyes away from her daughter. “Everyone. I should have…” she can’t find the words. It’s like searching for a needle in a needlestack. “How is she?”

 “She’s great. Tests came back clear. Vitals are perfect.”

Perfect. Mia’s eyes flick to Rose’s sleeping face. “That’s good.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to hold her?”

Mia shakes her head, turning away from the crib. Chris is standing next to her, looking wildly out of place in a child’s nursery. He’s changed and showered since last she saw him. Losing the tactical harness does nothing to reduce the imposing bulk of his silhouette.

She’s not scared of Chris Redfield. She never has been.

“Mia,” he says softly. “I know you want nothing more than to take Rose and get out of here, but… you know that’s not going to happen. Right?”

She stares at him. Hearing it out loud is a knife in her heart.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “Truly. I’m working things out with the higher ups, but… it’s not looking good. Visitations will be limited in the first few months to a couple times a week. Maximum.”

Another knife nestles right next to the first, like it belongs there. “Okay,” Mia manages to say, because she’s powerless here, and there’s nothing else to say.

Chris’s gaze softens, and there is an intensity in his voice that he reserved for talking to her husband, once. “I promise you, I will protect her. Nothing will happen to her while I’m here.”

How long is that going to last? She screams in her mind. How long before they demote you or kill you and ship her off to God only knows where? How long before she’s sculpted into the perfect bioweapon and she doesn’t even remember my name?

“If you say so,” Mia says, and watches Chris’s face crumple at her lack of belief.

“Hey,” he says, and reaches out to brush her arm with his hand. She flinches away from the contact. He hesitates, guilt flickering across his expression. “Mia. You need to trust me.”

“If you say so,” she repeats, with a little extra bitterness this time.

Chris looks like he wants to say something else but thinks better of it. He leads her out of the nursery and back up to her room (cell?), making sure one of the white lab coats in the corridor is sent to retrieve some food and drink.

When she’s sitting back on her bed again, Mia feels something other than numb. A tiredness so profound she’s not sure any amount of sleeping will ever make up for it.

“Your tests are also coming back clear,” Chris says, passing her a cup of fresh tea. “There’s just a couple of concerns before we discharge you.”

Mia holds the styrofoam between her fingers and feels the warmth seep through her skin. It can’t reach quite deep enough to dispel the ache in her bones.  

“There’s a lodge up in the hills,” Chris continues, accepting a plate of scrambled eggs that’s passed to him through the door. “It’ll be all yours. There’ll be exterior surveillance, a panic room, and emergency buttons under every table. No matter what happens, you’ll be safe. I’ve organised an armoured car to bring you to and from your appointments with Rose.”

Appointments. It’s all so neatly packaged, clinical in its precision. She would get timeslots to see her daughter. She would live out her days under permanent government supervision. She would stay quiet and do as she was told, for fear of living too loudly and attracting the attention of one of the many groups of people who wanted her dead – or perhaps worse, alive.

“Mia,” Chris says, placing the plate of scrambled eggs on the unit beside her bed. “You’re worrying me. You haven’t said anything since we left Rose’s room.”

Rose’s room. But it isn’t just a room, is it? It’s her whole world. Every aspect of her life will be monitored in that room; it will change as she ages. There will be a desk for drawing, and then for studying. There will be a nightlight for monsters, before she realises she is one. Her pictures on the wall will go from crayon scribbles to pop-idol posters to certificates and medals of valour.

And Mia will watch from the sidelines as her daughter grows up without her. They will not get to go to the park and feed ducks by the lake. They will not get to go to cafes and talk about the boys (or girls) Rose likes, or the music she’s listening to, or the places she dreams of visiting one day. If she’s lucky, her daughter will still love her. If she’s being realistic, Rose will hate her from the day that she finds out.

“Mia.” Chris’s expression is severe. “Talk to me, God damn it.”

“What do you want me to say?” Mia chokes out. Her eyes burn with tears that refuse to fall. “All I can say is yes, Chris. I don’t have a choice. Rosemary is—”

Her voice snags on the tears bubbling up in her throat and she looks away, pressing her filthy fingernails against her mouth to stop herself from crying. Chris’s brows mesh; his sympathy is like poison in her guts.

 “You refused help,” Chris says softly. “I really think you should speak to someone, Mia. I know that right now it feels overwhelming, but…”

Mia stares at him. “Because I’m sure you know how I feel,” she spits out, hand twisted in the bedsheet tight enough to scour the fabric. “Go on, Chris – how did you feel after you were kidnapped for a second time, after your husband died trying to rescue you again, and the government snatched your only daughter and locked her up for the rest of her life?”

The sympathetic expression only deepens. “You’re hurting,” Chris says. “Tomorrow, if all goes well, we can sign off on your release forms. The lodge isn’t far, maybe an hour from the outskirts.”

Mia wants to slap him. Nothing she says matters, so why bother talking at all?

“You don’t have to see someone, if you don’t want,” Chris sighs. “But I’m assigning an agent to your detail for twenty-four-seven protection.” Mia opens her mouth to protest, but Chris holds up his hand. “No buts. If I wasn’t worried enough about the Connections getting their hands on you, at least I’ll sleep easier knowing that someone I trust is on your guard.” His gaze drops to the wedding ring on Mia’s finger. “Let me do this. For Ethan. He would want to know you’re safe.”

Mia’s eyes follow his down to the gleaming band. It’s like a handcuff of its own, cutting off the circulation.

She can’t bear to take it off.

“Fine,” she says eventually, because she wants Chris to leave, and she can’t refuse him even though she wants to. “Anything else?”

“Not for now,” he says, and makes to stand. Hand on the doorframe, he turns back to look at her over his shoulder. “Get some rest, alright? For me.”

She holds his gaze for a minute and then nods. “I’ll try.”

Chris leaves her. She glances at the scrambled eggs on the unit and picks up the plate, shovelling a couple of forkfuls into her mouth. It’s bland and chewy, but her body must have needed it, because she clears the plate and her stomach feels better for it. She shoves the crockery back onto the table and curls back into the crisp white sheets of the bed.

Her eyes fall to the wedding ring again. She feels nauseous, but it’s not from the food. For a brief, fleeting moment, she’d had everything she’d ever wanted. A home, a family, a baby. They had been safe from the horrors of the world she’d left behind. She feels those tears burn her eyes again but she won’t let them fall. She doesn’t deserve it. She lied to everyone. The lies built up a beautiful house of cards and all it had taken was one wicked breath to send it all tumbling down.

She loves Rose. But she knows that one day Rose will learn the truth, and she will despise Mia for it.

Better to steel her heart now. After all, her daughter will likely want to carve it out when she grows up.

XXX

Chris is right. The safehouse is only an hour or so from the city outskirts, nestled up amidst towering pine trees that cling pillar-straight like soldiers along the hillside. Rain thrums down on the car roof, sheeting from the windscreen in a torrent so thick that her driver has the wipers set on high.

Mia’s entire life fits into one rucksack. It’s not even full.

The lodge is a squat wooden thing but modern enough in its design; one wall is entirely glass windows, overlooking an illuminated pool on the crest of the hill. No second story. The exterior is comprised of stacked logs in undulating rows, visually pleasing in their uniformity, and a pent roof keeps the steady stream of rainfall from gathering on the shingles.

They help Mia out of the car and into the lodge, pressing a set of keys into her hand as she dumps her bag on the floor. It’s dark inside. Empty, in a way that has nothing to do with furnishings.

“You can expect your security detail to arrive shortly,” the driver says, before he vanishes out into the night.

There was a gate on the way in; the lodge does its best to rise above the confines of the compound, but it is a compound all the same. An eight-foot electrocuted fence encircles the property, topped in barbed wire. No help at all if someone decides to drop down from above.

Cameras encompass the exterior; Mia counted eight on their way up the drive to the lodge perched at the top. She spares the entrance hall a quick glance. No cameras inside. Presumably for privacy reasons. She can’t decide whether to be comforted by that or not.

Mia shrugs off her sodden jacket and throws it over a coat hook by the door. She’s moving automatically, she knows; her consciousness lurks somewhere at the back of her mind, content to sit and stew in the guilt that’s locked her guts in a vice while muscle memory takes control.

The lodge has a massive open-plan kitchen-living space. The kitchen hugs the side wall; a bar in front, decorated with uniform leather-topped stools in a warm, caramel-gold colour. The sofas sprawl out across the polished floor, clustered convivially around a forty-inch TV dominating the only blank wall beside the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the pool.

“Expensive,” Mia mumbles to herself, because it’s so quiet she can’t be sure she hasn’t gone deaf. The rain thundering down on the roof and the patio is like white noise; eventually, she stops hearing it altogether.

There are two bedrooms and a bathroom in the rest of the building. A corridor lances off of the main space; the first door to the left is the guest bedroom, the second to the right is the walk-in wet room. The last door at the very end is Mia’s room.

Maybe a year ago, this would have been a dream safehouse. Huge and spacious and filled with light. Now, Mia barely acknowledges the luxury. She takes in the basics; a super-kingsize to the left, mirror suspended above it, and another row of floor-to-ceiling windows directly opposite her overlooking the rich darkness of the evergreens beyond. There’s a walk-in closet, and beside it, the panic room that Chris mentioned before, disguised as another closet door.

She dumps her bag at the foot of the bed. She couldn’t bring herself to shower back at the facility, but now she knows she needs one more than anything in the world.

Mia strips down and steps into the walk-in. The shower handle flips; near-scalding water cascades down on her and she feels more alive than she has in weeks. She fishes out the box of toiletries they gave her and spends more than an hour lathering her hair and her skin in soaps and shampoos, over and over again, until the filth of the village is scoured from her skin.

At long last, the crescent moons of wretched earth below her fingernails are gone – and with it, any trace that her husband ever existed.

It isn’t comforting. The guilt that constricts her throat worsens to see the raw pink of her nailbeds once more. A part of her knows Rose was never meant to be hers; that she is only here through Ethan’s resilience, that she only exists thanks to the man who wanted so desperately to make their marriage work he would have tried anything to save it.

If Ethan had never rescued her from Louisiana, Mia would have died in the basement of the Baker’s house.

She owes him everything.

Mia is towelling her hair in the bedroom when she hears the rumble of an engine in the driveway. She can’t bring herself to feel even a little afraid. She yanks on a t-shirt and jeans and pads barefoot to answer the subsequent knock at the front door, her hair dripping down onto the towel wreathing her shoulders.

The door opens. There is a woman standing there; mid-to-late forties, dressed in a blue turtleneck sweater and black jeans. She’s wearing a serious expression but Mia can’t tell if that’s how she normally looks or if it’s because Mia has answered the door of the safehouse to a stranger.

“Hi,” Mia manages.

The agent pushes past her into the hall, shaking rainwater from her hair. It’s cropped into a blunt-cut bob that softens her face, removing years where her severity had added them. Mia pushes the door shut behind her, noting the gun holster strapped to the agent’s hip and thigh and the harness just visible under the line of her black raincoat.

“Mrs Winters?”

Mia flinches. “Just Mia is fine.”

She nods and holds out a hand. “Special Agent Jill Valentine.”

Mia doesn’t take it. She can’t bear the normalcy of hand-shakes and how-are-yous. Instead, she moves over to the kitchen and busies herself with filling the kettle. Jill’s eyes watch her. She can feel them boring into her back.

“Tea?” Mia says, and for a minute she’s home; Ethan behind her, bouncing Rose on his hip as he smiles and blows raspberries against the top of her head.

“Coffee,” Jill answers, throwing her raincoat over the hook and kicking off her boots. “Chris – Captain Redfield – sent me to be your security detail.” She dumps her suitcase by the door. “Listen – I know you don’t want this. Nobody does. But you and I are going to be seeing a lot of one another in the coming—”

Mia waits for Jill to put a number to her prison sentence. She doesn’t. Jill clears her throat and moves across the floor in her socks, sliding onto one of the bar stools in one smooth motion.

“Anyway,” Jill says, tucking one side of her bob behind her ear. “It’s nice to meet you, Mia. And for what it’s worth – I’m sorry.”

God, what Mia wouldn’t give for people to stop telling her that. Her grip on the kettle tightens as she pours boiling water into a cup for them each.

“How do you take your coffee?” she says, because she isn’t sure throwing a scalding mug at Jill’s head is going to make a good first impression.

“Black.”

Mia makes their drinks in silence. There’s a single carton of milk in the fridge and a loaf of bread in the cupboard. Instructions have been left on the counter for how to order meals, but Mia isn’t hungry. She isn’t sure she remembers what that feels like.

She sits opposite Jill across the bar. Sipping her tea is automatic; the motion soothing and repetitive, the liquid warming her insides. Jill puts her mug down on the counter and looks at her over folded arms. Mia tries to ignore the way that her shoulder harness enhances the swell of her chest.

“Your husband,” Jill says, and Mia feels her stomach twist, “He trained with Chris. Right?”

“Right,” Mia says, and its all she can do not to throw up. “Before Romania.”

“And you?”

Mia stares at her. “What about me?”

Jill’s voice is level. “Did Chris offer you any self-defence training?”

“I mean…” Mia leans forward and sets her cup down on the counter. “Sort of. I know the basics. But when I got pregnant… I guess it didn’t really come up again.”

“Right. Then tomorrow morning – ten A.M.? – we can start with refreshing those basics. Sound good?”

Mia blinks. “What?”

“Mia.” Jill says her name like she’s scolding a particularly stubborn toddler. “You’re Rosemary’s mother. If anything happens to you, she’ll be devastated.”

Mia can only stare at her.

She doesn’t know.

How could she?

“Is that really necessary?” Mia finds herself stuttering out. “I mean, you’re here to look after me, there are cameras…”

Jill refrains from rolling her eyes. “And what if I’m not around?” Her expression softens, then. “I just mean that I might not always be here to look out for you. In case of emergencies, I’d like to know that you can handle yourself.”

There isn’t much room for argument, not when Mia has nothing even remotely better she could be doing with her time. She nods, watches Jill smile at her over the rim of her coffee mug, and feels the weight of her wedding ring like a ten-tonne bit between her teeth.

Jill finishes her coffee and hops off the barstool to grab her suitcase by the front door. “I’ll take the guest room. Is that alright?”

Mia makes a vaguely acknowledging motion with her hand and Jill heads off to unpack. She stays rooted in her seat, the mug in her hands searing the pads of her fingers pink.

It’s better than the lab, she has to concede. Absent are the blindingly white overhead lights, replaced instead by the warm orange glow of a corner lamp illuminating the kitchen-living space. Night sweeps in over the hillside, bringing with it a chorus of thunder so loud it sounds like some sort of titanic battle is taking place in the sky overhead.

Mia buries herself under the quilts of her bed. Jill was still awake when she went to her room; setting up her equipment in a corner of the living area so that she could conduct her other work remotely while at the lodge. Under the safety of the ten-tog duvet Mia thumbs her wedding ring on her finger, over and over, until the faint sound of metal scratching skin lulls her wholly and completely to sleep.

XXX

Mia wakens to the smell of frying bacon permeating the lodge. Sunlight pours in through the absurdly huge windows of her bedroom, sending a prismatic collage of rainbow-bright star bursts across her bedding and floor, courtesy of the heavy dew left behind in the wake of last night’s storm.

She stretches against the sheets. She hasn’t slept so well in months. All she had left to shove in her travel bag were a couple of t-shirts and a pair of jeans, so she’d slept in one of those t-shirts and a pair of plain undies. It isn’t ideal, but the lodge is warm, and she owns literally nothing else.

“Hope you don’t mind,” Mia calls as she steps into the kitchen.

Jill glances up from her frying pan on the stove. “Not at all. I requested some stuff to stock the fridge. You’re not vegetarian, are you?”

Mia shakes her head and takes a seat at the bar. There is a glass of orange juice and a fresh mug of tea waiting for her.

Ethan never did that, she realises suddenly. He struggled with night terrors and often slept in. By the time he was awake, she’d made up her own breakfast drink.

Mia can’t bring herself to blame him for it.

“Thanks,” she says, picking up the tea and sipping it.

Jill smiles. It does wonders to soften the severe lines of her face. “Don’t mention it. I wasn’t sure what you’d prefer, so I just put out both.”

Jill fusses around the stove, putting them together a bacon sandwich each. Mia doesn’t realise she’s eaten it all until it’s finished. It goes down easy and doesn’t sit in an uncomfortable, greasy heap in the pit of her stomach like the other food she’s tried to swallow in the last few days.

“I thought we could do with something hearty to start the day,” Jill says by way of explanation. “Before we start your training.”

Mia follows her nod to a corner of the living room where Jill has shunted one of the couches out of the way to make room for a huge crash mat on the floor. She stares at it for a long moment, trying to understand how Jill snuck it in inside her suitcase.

“I had Chris’s team bring one over,” Jill says, hiding her smile in a sip of her coffee. “You were out like a light.”

“I must have been,” Mia murmurs, marvelling at how she managed to sleep through both a grocery delivery and the establishment of a home gym. “How did you sleep?” she adds, because she realises she’s being impolite.

“Fine.”

There’s a strange edge to Jill’s tone that Mia doesn’t know her well enough to prod at. They finish their breakfast and Mia returns to her room to get changed. She makes a list of things she needs going forwards; toiletries, clothing, skincare, etc. that the BSAA are happy to source for her.

When ten o’clock rolls round, she joins Jill in the living room as requested. Jill eyes her jeans and t-shirt combo. She’s wearing baggy sweatpants and a tight-fitting nylon tee. Mia tries not to stare at the way it hugs the muscles of her upper arms and shoulders, or the way it keeps riding up slightly to flash a glimpse of her abs diving below the waistline of her sweats.

“Jeans aren’t flexible for sparring,” Jill says matter-of-factly. “Do you have anything else?”

“No.”

Jill huffs out a sigh and vanishes down the corridor into her room. When she returns, she has another pair of sweats thrown over one arm.

“Here,” she says, and Mia takes them from her. “Borrow mine. Fucking BSAA. They just sent you out here with the clothes on your back, huh?”

Mia pauses, hands halfway through unbuttoning her jeans. “No, actually. They burned those. The jeans are new.”

She catches a wince flicker across Jill’s face, there and gone again before she’s finished wriggling out of her jeans. Jill turns her back to give her some privacy. Mia relishes in the soft, spongey fabric of the sweats as she pulls them on over her hips and ties the cord at her waist. Almost the perfect size. What she lacks in muscle to fill them she makes up for in excess skin leftover from her pregnancy. It’s been seven months or so since Rosemary was born, but toning her stomach to its former state hasn’t exactly been high on her list of priorities.

“Okay, great,” Jill says, beckoning Mia onto the mat with her. “Let’s do this.”

Mia can barely remember the basics she was taught. She’d received a little training prior to the fuck-up in Louisiana and where her conscious mind fails her muscles kick in, acting of their own accord that surprises even Jill. The training is very light to begin with. Jill goes over the pressure points of a body to disable an attacker fastest; their nose, their groin, their diaphragm. Mia’s hits are soft and clumsy.  She does her best, but her muscles have atrophied from weeks spent nursing a newborn and then rotting in Miranda’s dungeon.

Jill can see the frustration building on her face, she thinks. It makes her angrier, as though she’s some fragile flower that mustn’t be shaken in too strong a breeze. Hours pass. Mia can feel herself panting from the exertion. Her arms are trembling.

“You remember more than you let on,” Jill says as they break apart, circling one another. “You’re doing great.”

The praise is so hollow that Mia can’t help but bite out a laugh. Adrenaline thrums through her veins. She hasn’t exercised like this in forever and it shows.

“What?” Jill grins, rolling her shoulders. “I mean it.”

“No, you don’t,” Mia mutters, and lunges for a hit.

There’s a scuffle and suddenly Mia feels the world invert, the wind knocked out of her lungs as Jill puts her flat on her back. She stares up at the ceiling, coughing, as Jill leans over her from above. The ends of her bob dangle into her eyes.

“Oh, shit,” she says, grabbing for Mia’s hand. “That was reflex. My bad.”

Mia lets herself be hauled to her feet. The absence of air in her lungs displaces the anger building behind her ribcage, too, and now she feels cold and tired and empty.

“Stop,” she says, pulling her hand from Jill’s grip as she rights herself. “I think I’m done with this.”

Jill bites her lip. “It was an accident, Mia. Honest. You’re not hurt, are you?”

Mia shakes her head, but the absence of anger in her heart means it’s slowly filling up with contempt and more than just a little inadequacy instead.

“This is pointless,” Mia grits out through her teeth, reaching for a water bottle on the counter and taking a swig. “You’re not helping anyone here.”

Jill’s expression softens. “Give it time, you—”

“I don’t want to give it time!” Mia snaps, louder than she meant to. But the words are out now, the pressure in her chest rising, searching for release. “None of this is fair! You don’t need to train me to defend myself – I deserve whatever is coming for me, Agent Valentine. Every bit of bad coming my way. You shouldn’t even be here – you’re just going to get hurt protecting someone who should’ve just d—”

“Stop,” Jill interrupts sharply. “Mia. Don’t.”

But the words are a torrent; Mia can feel those tears she’d squashed down behind her eyes bubble up to the forefront again, only fuelling the nihilistic pain threaded like a cancer through her heart.

“Rosemary,” Mia chokes out, her hands trembling around the water bottle, “Is going to learn who her mother is. One day. And when she does, not even your DSO or your BSAA - or whoever the hell else exists by then - will be able to stop her.”

The silence sits heavy in the room. Jill’s expression has cycled subtly from alarm, to confusion, to sympathy, and Mia hates it like she can’t even describe.

“Mia,” Jill says softly, so softly that Mia’s heart aches. “You will still get to be a part of your daughter’s life. I know it’s not perfect, but—”

“Perfect?” Mia echoes, incredulous. “Agent Valentine, my daughter is a bio-engineered superhuman who will likely have half the world’s organisations hunting her to the ends of the earth should they ever learn of her existence. Nothing about our situation is even remotely alright, let alone perfect.”

Jill hasn’t moved. She stands in the middle of the crash mat, skin flecked in sweat, and holds Mia’s unsteady gaze with an even one of her own. Mia is acutely aware of her own loud and laboured breathing; a combination of physical exertion and emotion forcing the air through her lungs. She wants to cry. She wants to scream. She wants to hide.

Instead, she sits the water bottle down on the countertop forces herself to say, “I’m sorry. None of this is your fault.”

Jill hesitates for a long moment before coming over to her. The heat of her hand on Mia’s arm sends a flash of something through her skin, but she doesn’t pull away.

“You wanna go grab some drinks later?” Jill says, and it throws Mia for a loop so badly she can’t be sure she isn’t hallucinating.

“What?” she croaks out.

Jill nods her head. “There’s a bar I know just inside the city. Maybe twenty minutes from here? I can arrange a ride.”

Mia stares blankly at her. “Agent Valentine, is this – we’re in a safehouse. I’m not supposed to leave the safehouse. Am I?”

Jill shrugs and grins at her. The smile is so blindingly brilliant that Mia suddenly feels short of breath again. The hand on her arm burns hotter than a stovetop.

“I won’t tell if you don’t,” Jill says, and pats her absently. “Go get washed up and I’ll put in that request for fresh clothes.”

Jill leaves Mia to shower and grab a bite to eat. While the water thunders down over her, Mia tries to forget her outburst. She doesn’t know Jill; spilling her guts like that was a moment of weakness that she can’t afford. But a part of her wanted to keep spilling them; let her intestines ooze out through her mouth so that Jill could see just how rotten she is on the inside.

At around seven, they reconvene in the kitchen. Jill had knocked on Mia’s door to drop off a bag of supplies. There had been a collection of cosmetics in it, alongside a pretty halter neck top and a pair of navy jeans that fitted her to a tee.

It feels ridiculous; putting on mascara, pinning up her hair, wriggling into a pair of black boots with – God forbid – a cute little kitten heel tipped in gold. She moves mechanically; one foot in front of the other, jeans and shirt and shoes. Because what else is there to do?

A week ago, Ethan had still been alive.

Mia’s eyes drop to the ring on her finger. She fusses with it for a while, sliding it up to the knuckle and back down again. She wonders if there is a matching ring somewhere in the crater that was once the village. She wonders if by some miracle it survived the blast.

“Mia?”

Jill’s muffled voice startles her and she shunts the ring the rest of the way off of her finger. She stares down at it for a long minute before dropping it onto the dresser and moving to answer the door.

“There you are,” Jill says, smiling.

Mia feels her cheeks burn. Jill is wearing a navy satin top with thin spaghetti straps tucked into black jeans. There are dog tags dangling about her neck. If Mia could bear to lower her gaze below Jill’s chin, she might be able to see what’s written on them. But then, she would also have to confront the hideous scarring in a vaguely spherical pattern between and just above her breasts, and that is far too overly familiar for her to even attempt to address at this stage.

As it stands, Mia’s willpower is iron. “I’m ready,” she says, because she’s been moving on autopilot since the village, and that’s probably not going to change any time soon.

There is a car waiting for them outside the lodge. Mia doesn’t question it. She and Jill scoot into the backseats and the driver speeds off into the night. Music hums from the stereo. Mia isn’t sure the last time she heard a song on the radio; she doesn’t know what’s popular, or what came out recently. She hasn’t had a working mobile phone for at least four years. Maybe more.

Jill chats to her in the backseat, but Mia is somewhere else, floating above it all, watching the conversation unfold between two strangers from a god’s eye view. The world only comes back to her when they clamber out of the car into a sticky spring evening. Warmth and noise hits her like a wall; the honking of traffic, the rattling of train cars, the burble of people talking behind windows and walls.

“This is it,” Jill says, and drags her inside the bar.

Mia doesn’t catch its name. She’s suddenly enveloped by the bright buzz of conversation and the thrum of over-loud music. There is the crack of a pool balls breaking and a group of people laugh. Jill is in front of her, fingers laced around her wrist, leading her up to the bar to order a round of drinks.

She slips into the stool automatically, because everything she does now is automatic. Jill orders them both a round. She remembers vaguely choking out vodka cranberry when Jill asks her what her poison is.

“How long has it been?” Jill calls over the tang of music and chatter. “Since you were in a bar, I mean?”

Mia shakes her head numbly. “Before Rosemary was born. Well before.”

She thumbs the rim of her glass. She isn’t supposed to drink excessively; she needs a clear head if something were to happen. Chris would be furious with her – with Jill –  for compromising their safety like this.

I won’t tell if you don’t.

Mia lifts the drink to her lips. Half a glass of wine at dinner is the most she’s had since their initial confinement. The cranberry tinged vodka singes the back of her tongue.

Jill smiles at her and sips her beer. “How did you and Ethan meet?”

The booze sours in her mouth. Mia glances down at her hand. She is acutely aware of the absence of her ring, now. It’s impossibly loud for something unable to make noise.

“We, um, met in a coffee shop,” she says slowly. “He was a data analyst for Adamant & Co. at the time. I—” she can’t bring herself to dredge up the past, so says: “I was working out of an office block nearby. He could work remotely and spent his afternoons there. I popped in a couple of times for coffee at lunch.”

Jill watches her, tapping the beer bottle to her bottom lip. “Love at first sight?”

Mia feels sick. “Yeah,” she says, and gulps her drink. “He was kind. Caring. My favourite thing about him.” She dares to glance at Jill. “What about you and Chris?”

Jill snorts into her beer bottle. “Ha! Me and – Chris? Oh, no, we’re not together.”

“Oh,” Mia says, and feels her cheeks flush with embarrassment. “Sorry, I just assumed… I mean, he mentions you all the time.”

“He’s married. I’m not.”

“Oh.”

It’s so awkward; painfully awkward, like she’s back in college trying to make friends for the first time. Mia swears she used to be better at this. Small talk. Cracking jokes. But all of it sticks in her throat now like molasses. Every time she tries to get the words out she just chokes.

“Chris is gay,” Jill adds, shrugging nonchalantly.

Mia is surprised by the honesty. “I didn’t know,” she says, and feels stupid for it, because of course she wouldn’t know. “What… what about you?”

Jill laughs at that. It’s such a pretty sound that Mia is surprised at how eager she is to hear it again.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Jill says, spreading her hands. “Damn. I guess not.”

Mia blushes. She’s not sure what that answer means, but something in her chest flutters at the thought that someone like her has any sort of chance at being the object of Jill’s attention.

Her eyes drop to the slightly discoloured ring of skin on her left hand and the joy withers immediately.

“I dated his sister Claire for a while,” Jill says, by way of confirmation. “A couple of other women back when I was in S.T.A.R.S.. But after that…” The warmth in her expression fades. “The job gets in the way, I suppose.”

It’s an easy lie and they both know it. Mia finishes her drink and Jill orders them another round.

“You?” Jill says, tapping her knuckles on the bar top. “Was there anyone serious before Ethan?”

Mia shakes her head. “Ah – no. Not really. I dated some guys in high school, college…”

It’s on the tip of her tongue to say And hooked up with a couple of girls at frat parties, but that feels like a weird brag, like she’s just trying to relate, to seem cool, so Mia keeps her mouth shut, because she’s still miles away from ingesting enough liquid courage to admit that.

She likes women, true enough. She’s never much acted on the desire; hadn’t had cause to, after Ethan, of course. But when Jill is sitting here with her dog tags brushing the rise of her breasts and eyeing her through mascara-laden lashes, she can’t help but feel a familiar pang in her core. The unacted-upon want is there, sitting in the eight-inch gap between them. 

Ethan died a week ago.

Mia ducks Jill’s intense stare and gestures to the dog tags. “Are they yours?”

“Hm?” Jill glances down and then nods. “Oh, yeah. Mine and Chris’s. Back from our S.T.A.R.S. days. He was going to toss them, after they dissolved the unit, but…” She huffs out a laugh. “Guess I’m sappy like that.”

Mia feels her stomach knot. She knows it’s not the alcohol. “That must be nice, to have such a close friend.”

“Is there anyone back home we can call for you?”

“No,” Mia says, voice small. “Just me.”

“And Rosemary.”

She sighs. “Yeah. And Rose.”

Jill notices the fatigue but doesn’t question it. Mia is grateful. Her bones ache from sitting in this bar. Or maybe the bar isn’t causing the ache.

Fresh music comes on over the speakers suddenly. Something familiar, but it takes Mia a minute to place it. She’s mumbling some of the words, trying to reach for the name, when Jill glances at her and grins.

“The Chain,” she says, tapping her foot and bobbing her head. “Fleetwood Mac.”

“Thank you,” Mia breathes, relieved to have the name after it eluded her grasp. “This is a great song. I haven’t heard this in God knows how long.”

“You wanna dance?”

The question catches her by surprise. Mia blinks at Jill. Maybe once she’d have been too embarrassed to get up in front of a bar full of strangers. Ethan always was.

“Okay,” she says, and Jill grabs her hand.

They find a spot away from the tables in the corner, where there are other people moving to the beat. Jill clutches her beer bottle like a dance partner, eventually raising it into the air and conducting an invisible band with the mouth of it. Mia can’t help the smile that rises to her face. The vodka is warming her veins; the world is soft and bright at its edges, and for the first time in a decade, Mia Winters feels—

Something. Anything other than numb.

It’s incredible.

Jill grins back at her. “That’s the first time I’ve seen you smile since we met,” she shouts over the music.

Mia blushes but can’t fight the laugh. “Are you trying to say I’m a misery-guts?”

“Yes,” Jill says, nodding seriously before bursting out into a laugh of her own. “Yes I am. Come on, Misery, show me what you’ve got.”

Mia lets herself be pulled into a spin. Jill is wildly uncoordinated for an elite secret agent and it’s unbelievably endearing. When the music picks up and the guitar riff kicks in, they both start tapping their hands in the air. Mia feels every minute of it. She feels the buzz in her veins. She feels the laughter in her throat. She feels the sting of booze-tinged air in her lungs.

It’s heaven. She’d been on the verging of forgetting what living really felt like.

The drums drop in the track and suddenly they’re both bouncing up and down; Mia headbanging, Jill’s empty beer bottle taking the place of an air guitar. Mia leans forward, shouting the lyrics opposite Jill, who’s breathless and laughing as her air guitar spirals out of control.

When the song ends, and they both clamber their way back to the bar, Mia can’t stop smiling.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” she says, leaning into Jill as they accept their fresh round from the bartender. “When we were training. I took out my frustration on you and that wasn’t okay.”

Jill shakes her head and clinks their glasses together. “Don’t sweat it. Honest. But since we’re on the topic…” Jill takes a swig of her beer. “If I give you a card for a therapist, will you call them?”

Mia blinks at her. “I don’t know,” she says, nerves suddenly nipping her insides. “What will they do?”

Jill lays a hand on her arm. “Hey,” she says, and Mia is altogether too distracted by the blue of her eyes to be worried anymore. “I promise you: nobody is going to take Rosemary from you. Nothing you say will ever leave that room. Okay?”

Mia falters. How can she possibly explain to Jill that it’s not Rose that she’s worried about?

She doesn’t have to, evidently. Jill’s brow creases suddenly and she pulls her arm away. Mia misses the warmth like a limb.

“You’re not worried about Rose,” Jill murmurs, thumbing the neck of her bottle. “Oh, Mia.”

Mia turns back to the bar and her glass. She knows she isn’t okay. She knows that her world imploded the day Miranda came to their home. Probably even before. She’d thought that if she could scrape back some semblance of control after the Baker incident then maybe they could all move on with their lives like none of it ever happened.

“Alright,” she chokes out eventually, because Jill is still staring at her, and her stupid consciousness has slid to the front of the soup that identifies as her brain and it’s knocking insistently behind her eyes. “I’ll call them.”

Jill’s face lights up. “That’s very sexy of you,” she says, and Mia fights another traitorous blush. “I had to bribe Chris with a month’s supply of Marlboro Lights for him to even consider going to therapy for the first time.”

Mia’s ears perk up at that. “But he went?” A nod. “How did he find it?”

Jill’s expression softens into a smile. “He’s doing better, yeah. Much better than before.”

It’s the kind of encouragement Mia needed to hear. She finds the tight ball of nerves in her belly dissolve with the next sip of her drink.

“Thanks, Jill,” Mia says, and nudges her arm with her elbow. “You didn’t have to do all this.”

Jill snorts and waves her away. “Don’t worry about it. I was overdue a bender anyways.”

Mia manages a laugh at that. “And – tomorrow – can you show me that flipping move again? I want to learn that. It was really—” hot “—impressive.”

“Hell yeah I can,” Jill says. “Oh shit, Mia – you like Bon Jovi?”

And before Mia can even answer Jill is pulling her out of her seat and back into the throng of dancers across the room.

XXX

By the time they crawl out of the car and back into the lodge, it’s after three in the morning. Mia’s head is spinning. She lost track of how many drinks she had after number eight.

“Easy,” Jill murmurs as she helps Mia into the bathroom and holds back her hair. “Not sure you had enough to eat today to be knocking your shit back like that.”

Mia retches into the toilet. There is a numbness in her limbs that has nothing to do with annihilation and it feels so good she could cry.

“Sorry,” she coughs, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. “You’re right.”

Jill laughs and lets her get washed up for bed. Mia smears the mascara from her face with a makeup wipe and kicks off her jeans before crawling straight into bed. The room keeps spinning, even when she’s lying down. Not good.

Jill is by her bedside within a few minutes, clutching a salad bowl from the kitchen. Mia isn’t sure when the glass of water appeared on her nightstand – or the aspirin.

“Thanks,” she mumbles, burying her face down into the duvet. “I – I had a great time.”

“Yeah,” Jill says, popping the bowl down and ruffling Mia’s hair. “Me too. Catch you in the morning.”

“Night,” Mia manages, before she slips down into a blissful unconsciousness, the phantom sensation of Jill’s fingers lingering in her hair.

XXX

A hangover is thumping behind Mia’s eyes when she wakes up. She cracks one eye, grateful for the overcast weather outside, sparing her poor retinas from getting seared by the spring-time sunshine. The bowl left by her bed is blessedly empty of sick.

She downs the glass of water and the aspirin before pulling on yesterday’s workout clothes. The halter neck top has left an unappealing impression in her skin from falling asleep in it. Out in the corridor, Mia makes to enter the lounge, but hesitates, hearing Jill’s voice emanating from inside.

“Oh, give it a rest, Redfield,” Jill is saying. “It was just one night.” A pause. “You don’t need to lecture me on how dangerous things are for Mia.” Another pause. “Have you ever considered that the nearest and most imminent threat to her right now is herself?”

Mia bites her lip in the shadows of the corridor. Her fingers twist into the waistband of Jill’s sweats, seeking a comfort she doesn’t find.

“She’s agreed to see a therapist,” Jill says, and there’s the clunking sound of the fridge being opened. “Yeah. No, I didn’t strongarm her into it, you knucklehead. Unlike some people, she doesn’t need bribery to better herself.” Jill tuts. “Stop pouting. I can hear it from here.”

Mia debates stepping into the kitchen, but Jill says her goodbyes and hangs up before she can make her choice. There is an exasperated sigh and the sound of liquid being poured.

Better late than never, she supposes. Mia steps into view and Jill’s head raises from where she’s adding milk to a bowl of cereal.

“Morning, Misery,” Jill says, gesturing to the glass of orange juice and the mug of tea waiting for her on the table. “How’s the head?”

Mia blushes. “’S Alright. How’s yours?”

“Never better,” Jill grins. “You want some Lucky Charms?”

They sit and eat breakfast together in companionable silence. When it’s over, Jill slides a little square of card across the marble countertop towards Mia and winks.

“No pressure,” she says. “But that’s the therapist I was talking about last night. If you want the sessions held at her offices, just let me know and I’ll bully Chris into letting us out of jail again.”

The familiar nerves twist Mia’s guts but she takes the card all the same. “Okay,” she says, nodding. “Thanks.”

“Great!” Jill taps the countertop and nods. “Ten okay again for today’s training?”

“Yeah,” Mia says, and manages to summon up another smile at Jill’s enthusiasm. “Absolutely.”

XXX

Two days later, Mia wakes suddenly in the middle of the night.

It’s pitch black in the house. She raises her head groggily, not sure what wrenched her from her sleep, until it sounds again:

Jill.

Screaming.

Mia throws back the duvet, heart ricocheting up into her mouth as she stumbles out of bed, flailing for the light switch. She stubs her foot on the dresser as she flees the room. Down the corridor, Jill’s shrieks are muffled by the closed bedroom door. Mia knows the only weapons they have are in Jill’s room, but there isn’t time to call for help, she thinks, as she throws open the bedroom door and staggers inside.

Mia’s eyes take a second to adjust to the gloom. Jill is twisted in the bed sheets, clawing at her throat and neck.

“Chris!” she screams, but it’s with the slurred incoherence of sleep. “You – stop – Chris!”

Mia climbs onto the bed next to her, reaching out to shake her shoulders, her own hands trembling at the sight. Jill’s sleep shirt is wrenched tight in her grip. The square neck of it is low enough to put that terrible scar on show again that Mia had noticed from the night before, except now the scar tissue is raised and aggravated from Jill’s own nails clawing into her flesh.

“Jill!” Mia says urgently. “Jill, wake up!”

Jill doesn’t waken. Her features are warped with the strain of fighting off some invisible assailant; her hair is slick with sweat and plastered against her temple and the sides of her face. The welts on her chest look red and angry, like she’s been stabbing at the scar for a while.

It’s all too familiar to Mia. In the back of her mind, she’s shaking Ethan’s shoulders as he whimpers and howls into the bedsheets. In the back of her mind, she knows she’s responsible for all of it.

Jill lurches upright suddenly, eyes blinking rapidly, gasping for breath. Mia breathes a shaky sigh of relief and slumps back on her heels, dropping her hands from Jill’s shoulders.

“Mia,” Jill breathes, wiping her sweat-stuck hair from her face. “Are you alright?”

“Am I—?” Mia steadies herself with another deep breath. “Yeah, I’m fine, I – you were having a nightmare. Are you okay?”

Jill seems to register, then, where she is, and the pain in her chest. She raises a hand to the aggravated scar tissue and hisses between her teeth at the discomfort.

Mia seizes the chance to study the old wound. It’s strange in its shape; mottled circles like a bullet holes, but almost perfectly equidistant in their dispersal. In the centre there is a raised oval of scar tissue directly above the rise of her breasts.

“Sorry,” Jill says, clearing her throat. “I have nightmares, sometimes. Hazard of the job, unfortunately.”

“It’s fine.” Mia averts her gaze, guilty to be caught staring. “Ethan had them too. Every other night he woke up screaming.”

Jill’s expression is hard to read in the gloom. “Can’t have been easy on you. Especially when Rosemary came along.”

“It didn’t matter,” Mia says, instead of It was a light punishment compared to what I deserve. “The things he saw… I’m amazed he ever really recovered.”

“What about you?”

The silence is oppressive. It’s cloying in a way that it has no right to be; Jill has no claim to Mia’s thoughts, her fears, her burdens that should be hers alone to bear.

But the guilt is so heavy. The bit turns barbed wire between her teeth.

“I’m fine,” Mia lies, and she knows Jill thinks its bullshit. “I was just worried you were hurt.”

There’s a moment where Jill looks like she’s going to push the subject, but then she sighs, and all the fight goes out of her in the exhale.

“Sorry for scaring you,” Jill says, and she looks tired in a way that has nothing to do with lack of sleep. “You can go back to bed, Mia. I’m alright.”

Mia wavers. But she’s never been brave before, so there’s no point in starting now.

When she’s back in the nest of her own pillows and quilt, she thinks about Jill screaming Chris’s name in her sleep, and her eyes find her discarded wedding ring on the dresser.

There’s a fine layer of dust starting to gather on top of it.

XXX

A month rolls by in one another’s company. The routine becomes well established; breakfast together at eight, training at ten, lunch around one, and then personal activities and work in the afternoons and evenings. Mia sets up a therapy appointment every Friday afternoon at the lodge, and Jill makes herself scarce for those particular house calls.

Her therapist is an older woman named Jacqueline Reynolds who insists on being called Jackie, and not Ms. Reynolds. She’s in her seventies so it’s clear she’s been therapizing ex-military types for years. There’s something comforting about that, though, Mia realises halfway through their initial meeting. Jackie conducts every session like a chat between friends. Nothing seems to phase her. Mia wonders how much of the truth Jackie could handle if she really decided to spill her guts.

Once a week, Mia visits Rose.

The weight of her daughter in her arms melts all her fears to the back of her mind. The four hours or so she spends in that nursery feel like a half-hour at best. Even when Rose blinks up at her with Ethan’s eyes, Mia can squash the guilt and the grief down to the back of her mind, even if it’s just so she doesn’t waste precious time with Rose by crying.

The first Thursday of the fourth week in the lodge, Jill brings home a Monopoly board.

“They really have you on babysitting duty, huh?” Mia chuckles, pulling the board out of the black travel bag. “God, you must hate it here.”

“Are you kidding?” Jill shrugs off her jacket and pops a grape from the bowl on the counter into her mouth. “Best assignment ever. No BOWs, no giant monsters, and no getting shot at. Anyway, that’s for after dinner. What’s cooking?”

Dinner is brazed steak and asparagus and a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. A second glass of the Cabernet follows them to the Monopoly board afterwards as they pull out the tokens and instructions.

“It’s been a million years since I played a board game,” Jill mutters, frowning as she counts out the bills. “Any board game. Was it always this complicated?”

“I’ve never been very good at Monopoly,” Mia confesses. “Ethan was always better at it than me.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Jill says, shrugging. “It’s just for fun.”

Mia Winters learns that night that Jill Valentine is wildly competitive. When the game ends in Mia’s favour, Jill stalks over to the couch and flops down on it, sighing loudly.

“Not good at board games, she says,” Jill mutters, finishing the last of her second (third?) glass of wine. “Mia Winters is a filthy liar, I say.”

Mia chuckles into her fingers, pawing her own glass from the counter and moving to sit opposite Jill on the other couch. Beyond the windows overlooking the pool, the fir branches of the trees rustle in a strong breeze. For now the sky is clear of rain, but the stars are obscured by clouds, so only time will tell.

Jill sits up suddenly and moves to pour herself another glass. There’s an empty bottle by the sink, now. Mia is glad Jill bought two.

“You and Jackie seem to be getting on well,” Jill says, plonking herself back down on the couch and raising her eyebrows. “How’s it going?”

Mia nods her head noncommittally. “It’s alright.” Four sessions and they’ve barely scratched the surface. “Still feels a little awkward, but… you know…”

“It will,” Jill says. “Just give it some time. You’re smiling more, anyway, so something she’s doing must be working.”

Mia feels heat in her cheeks, because how can she possibly correct Jill that it’s not what Jackie’s doing, but somebody else?

And there it is again. The familiar guilt. The phantom weight of a metal band that hasn’t sat on her finger for weeks.

Jill’s gaze slides down. “I noticed you stopped wearing it. Your ring.”

The low-grade guilt that haunts Mia’s bones knifes up into her throat and mouth. “Uh, yeah,” she stutters. “It’s…” She can’t lie to Jill. She just can’t. “I couldn’t bear looking at it anymore,” she finishes in a whisper. “Every time I saw it I thought about Ethan.”

“You don’t want to remember him?” Jill’s voice is a low murmur over the lip of the glass.

Mia’s eyes snap up. “Of course I do. I just…” There’s a heavy beat. “No,” she manages eventually. “No, I don’t want to think about him right now.”

Jill assesses her, unblinking. “I tried to kill Chris,” she says at last, settling back against the couch cushions. “Almost succeeded, too.”

Mia stares at her. She feels her fingers tighten around the delicate neck of her wine glass because she can’t imagine a word in which Jill Valentine, who sings the praises of Chris Redfield like he’s her own flesh and blood, would ever want to murder him.

“Why?” she says, after a long beat of stunned silence.

Jill thumbs the dog tags hanging around her neck. “In two-thousand-six Chris and I raided the old Spencer estate. Spencer as in Osweld E. Spencer, the—”

“The eugenicist behind the Progenitor Virus,” Mia finishes, because she knows the history of Umbrella probably about as well as Jill herself. “He was still alive?”

“Not by the time we arrived.”

Jill’s eyes focus at a point on the coffee table between them. If Mia concentrates, she can swear she’s seeing memories flickering in front of Jill’s eyes like a film reel.

“We ran into an old friend,” Jill says, but she hesitates on the word friend. “Albert Wesker. Our old S.T.A.R.S.’s Captain. Betrayed us, back in Raccoon City. Ruined a lot of lives. Chris and I held our own, but… he’d been enhanced. I thought we were done for. Chris could barely stand.”

Jill takes a sip of her wine and forces a smile at Mia. “I tackled Wesker out of the window. A stupid Hail Mary. We fell over a hundred feet into the ocean. The percussive force knocked me out cold. Pretty sure I went hypo the minute my body hit the water.”

Mia is staring at Jill, because she’s recounting facts, not reliving the story – not, at least, in the same way as it’s playing out across her face.

“Anyway. I didn’t die – obviously – and Wesker pulled me out of the ocean and for the next three years I was as good as dead.” Her voice drops. “I wished I was dead.”

Mia’s not sure when she started pinching her pant leg, but she suddenly becomes aware that the fabric is puckered beyond repair between her fingernails. Jill sets her wine glass on the coffee table and tugs the neck of her shirt down, revealing that same scar on her chest that Mia thinks about almost every time she lays eyes on her.

“Wesker implanted a device that regulated my autonomy,” Jill says softly, tapping the scarred skin with her index finger. “I was useful to him for my antibodies from the Raccoon City incident, but not as a test subject for the fresh strain of the Progenitor Virus that Tricell were working on.” She looks Mia in the eye. “I was under for three years. Three years of working for the man who ruined my life – a hell of a lot of lives – and the whole time I was sitting in my own head, watching myself commit atrocities that would’ve put Umbrella to shame.”

Mia doesn’t have to imagine what that was like.

“Chris rescued me,” Jill says, plucking her wine glass from the table again and letting go of her shirt. It pinged back up to hang awkwardly around her collarbones. “Him and another agent, Sheva Alomar. We’re good friends, now. But before Chris managed to break Wesker’s control I almost killed them both.”

“I’m sorry,” Mia says, her throat thick. “That must have been awful.”

Jill smiles but doesn’t answer. They each sip their wine. Mia feels an admission bubbling in the back of her throat so damning that she can’t believe she’s even entertaining it.

Instead, she finds herself saying: “Something similar happened to me. Back in Louisiana. When our tanker overturned in the storm and the Bakers took me in.”

Jill waits for her to continue. Mia shifts uneasily; embarrassed by her own honesty. “You probably know this already,” she says, pinching a sore spot on her forehead with her finger and thumb. “You read my file?”

“I’d like to hear it from you,” Jill says. “If it’s all the same.”

Something that Mia can’t bear to indulge flutters in her chest, delicate and desperate. She takes a gulp of her wine and nods, because she’s not been able to refuse Jill Valentine yet.

“When I was infected,” Mia continues, “I hurt Ethan. A lot. I put a knife through his hand. I—” she huffs out something between a laugh and a sob. “I took a fucking chainsaw to his arm. And he still forgave me.”

“It wasn’t you,” Jill says.

“But I was still in there,” Mia grits out, and there are tears stinging her eyes now, which she knows she has no right to cry. “I tried to fight Eveline’s influence, but I wasn’t strong enough. Every time I saw him after we escaped, I just remembered the look on his face when I was hurting him. He loved me so much, Jill. He died - twice over - to save Rosemary and I.”

Her voice trembles but she forces it to come out steady. “And the worst part? The whole thing was my fucking fault.”

The silence is unbearable. Mia’s admission is poison; her throat feels thick, her guts are agonised knots, and the pinch of her pant leg between her fingernails is making the joints of her fingers ache. She’s telling Jill because Jill deserves to know. Not because she believes she has any right to a post-calamity absolution.

“Your fault how?” Jill says, perfectly impartial. For a split second, there is something of Jackie’s mannerisms in her expression. Mia supposes it only makes sense; you don’t escape three years of mind-control without going through a psych eval or two.

She scrapes a hand through her hair, digging nails into her scalp. If it was a night for honesty, then she might as well go the whole way to hell and back. “I was working for the Connections for years and I lied to Ethan about all of it.” The words tumble out of her, shattering the dam she’d erected years ago to hold them back. “Told him I was in international finance. When we were transporting Eveline back to the US, I thought about telling him. I thought about it so much I made myself sick. But I couldn’t. I fell in love with Ethan because he had nothing to do with my mistakes. I’d come home to him and I could forget about all of them. It was just us and our little apartment and it was like the evil beyond the walls didn’t exist. I didn’t think that that kind of normalcy was afforded to people like me. I guess, in the end, I was right.”

 Jill says nothing. Her finger toys with the rim of her wine glass, expression neutral. Mia knows if she stops now, she’ll never get this off her chest, so she ducks her gaze and keeps talking.

“When I thought we were done for, I told him to forget about me. But he didn’t. He tracked me down to Dulvey. He rescued me from Eveline. He put leagues between us and the hurt and worst of all, he fucking forgave me for all of it.” Mia blinks the sting from her eyes. “I tried to kill him. Eveline succeeded. And he still loved me like nothing had changed.”

The guilt has snaked its way up into her throat now and grips it in a vice. Mia can feel herself fighting the urge to cry. So stupid, to think tears can solve any of it – or worse, that they can ever absolve her of her sins.

“After Luisiana,” she continues, but her voice trembles now, a pained rasp against the razor blades of her teeth, “I thought about ending things with Ethan. It would have been a mercy to him. But I’d hoped the worst of it was over. I thought if I just kept my mouth shut I could resurrect that perfect world from before. I didn’t tell Chris about Ethan’s condition – fuck, I didn’t even tell Ethan about what had happened to him. I just… I wanted my husband and my life back. Back to the way it was before. When Ethan suggested a baby, I realised that maybe I could have everything I wanted. Maybe the Dulvey incident had been some kind of blessing in disguise.”

Mia reaches up to wipe the hot guilt from her cheeks. Embarrassing, to cry in front of Jill Valentine, but an inevitability, she supposes. She takes another gulp of wine because it’s the only thing stopping her hands from shaking.

“Turns out that lying just makes things worse,” Mia says, clearing her throat, blinking her eyes. “Ethan died knowing that I lied to him, knowing that he never got to make a fully informed choice about our future. Rose is as good as gone. And the day that she finds out I chose to have her with Ethan – even though I knew he wasn’t human, even though I knew she wouldn’t be either – that’ll be the day that maybe, just maybe, she gives me the only kind of forgiveness I’m ever going to get.”

Jill stands up from the couch. The motion startles her but Jill has crossed the room before Mia has a chance to speak. She sits down beside her, the length of their thighs pressed close, and she pulls Mia’s hand into her own.

“You thought it was over,” Jill says, and her expression is tinged in equal parts empathy and concern. “You chose to build a new life for yourself, for Ethan. You couldn’t predict that Miranda would kidnap you, or hurt Ethan, or steal Rose. You thought you were safe.”

Mia stares at her. Jill’s hand is warm in her own. “I lied to Ethan. I exploited his kindness – just kept digging that same fucking hole I’d started the day that we met. God, and he would have done anything to keep our family alive, even if it meant grabbing a shovel.”

“Mia,” Jill says, and her voice is low and serious. “You can’t exploit something that’s freely given.”

“Then I should have left when I had the chance!” Mia bites out, her grip on Jill’s hand tightening. “I should never have lied to him. I should have told him the truth from the start. All of it – everything – happened because I was so fucking selfish I couldn’t bear not to have my cake and eat it too.”

“Maybe,” Jill says softly, bobbing her head. “But you didn’t leave Ethan. And you do realise that doesn’t matter, right? Because he stayed. Even after he found out about everything, he chose to stay.”

“He didn’t have a choice,” Mia whispers, but doubt has already begun sowing itself into her bones. “We had to stay together after Luisiana. Chris, the BSAA—”

Jill laughs gently. “You don’t really believe that, do you? Let’s pretend for a minute that Ethan felt compelled to stay by your side. Did he also feel compelled to have a child with you? To track you and Rose through the freezing Romanian mountainside to rescue you from Miranda? Be realistic, Mia. That man loved you regardless of what you did or didn’t tell him.”

Mia feels more traitorous tears roll down her cheeks and she scrubs them angrily away. “That’s just the problem,” she chokes out. “He loved me so much and I just let him die.”

“Mia,” Jill says again, and every time she says her name it sounds like absolution. “He was already dead.”

“But—”

“Mia,” Jill says, tugging on her hand. “Let it go.”

“I can’t,” she sobs, and suddenly Jill is pulling her into her lap, lacing her arms around her shoulders and waist, and holding her like any minute she might up and vanish into thin air.

Mia cries brokenly into Jill’s shoulder. The shame of being seen like this is only offset by the way that Jill is murmuring reassurances into her neck and running her fingers through her hair. Maybe tomorrow she’ll feel so humiliated about this whole thing that she won’t be able to look Jill in the eye. But right now? She lets herself sob until she can barely breathe, because she’s not sure she’s let herself shed a tear since Ethan died.

“I know it hurts,” Jill whispers. There’s a hitch in her own breathing that has nothing to do with the uncomfortable position she’s sitting in. “Trust me. I know.”

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye,” Mia cries, words breaking into single syllables past the tears lodged in her throat. “The last time he saw me, it was Miranda – wearing my fucking face.”

Jill’s grip around her imperceptibly tightens. They sit like that for God knows how long. Their wine glasses are empty. The Monopoly board lays abandoned on the countertop, Mia’s victory immortalised in its neglect.

“What did you tell Chris?” Mia finds herself whispering, withdrawing from Jill’s embrace so she can look her in the eye. “When you broke out. When he came to get you. What did you say?”

Something shifts in the cerulean of Jill’s eyes. “I told him that I was sorry.”

Mia feels her heart ache. “And what did he say?” she whispers, because she has to know, because this is suddenly the most important thing in the world to her.

Jill’s voice wavers. “He said it was alright,” she says, and there are tears in her own eyes now. “He said there was nothing to forgive.”

Mia nods. Her hands are shaking so badly it’s a wonder she’s holding onto Jill’s shoulders at all.

“He would have said the same thing, Mia,” Jill murmurs.

Mia’s lips feel numb. “You don’t know that,” she mumbles, shaking her head. “You never met him, you—"

“No, I didn’t. But he’s not here, and I am.” Jill lifts her hand and takes Mia’s chin in her grip, forcing her to look Jill in the eye. “And from everything you’ve told me tonight, I know how much you love him. How guilty you feel, like it’s eating you up from the fucking inside. If he had even half the heart that you say he did, then I just know he would have forgiven you for it all. But since he’s not here – I forgive you for it. Alright?”

Mia can’t decide whether to laugh or cry. “Jill, I—”

“Mia,” Jill says, and her tone is steady and serious. “There is nothing to forgive.”

Mia stares at her for a long moment, her legs draped over Jill’s lap, her arms wreathing her shoulders. She doesn’t deserve this kind of forgiveness. Hundreds of people have died because of her, and the one person in the world who ever mattered was among them.

But Jill is right. Mia is still here.

And Ethan is gone.

“Thank you,” Mia whispers, because no amount of forgiveness can exonerate her guilty conscience, but it feels like some small mercy to know that there is at least one person left in the world who doesn’t hate her more than she hates herself.

“Any time,” Jill whispers back. “God, remind me not to get two bottles of wine next time.”

Mia manages to dredge up a laugh at the half-hearted joke. “If you want to see me really messy, you should get tequila.”

Jill grins. “Is that a challenge?”

“Oh God, no,” Mia says, laughing as she scrambles off of Jill again, cheeks already burning from the shame of sobbing in the agent’s lap. “If you’re as competitive a drinker as you are at Monopoly, you’ll have me under the table in the hour.”

Jill winks, brushing the remnants of tears from the corners of her eyes. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

XXX

It's easier to talk to Jackie after spilling her guts to Jill. Mia finds herself coming apart in their sessions, now; laying out each organ on the table in front of her like a pathologist on day shift. Heart, liver, lungs. Grief, guilt, regret. Jackie dissects them with care; kind words a scalpel, peeling back the sinew and studying the sorrow etched onto the inside of each one.

Mia hadn't realised how heavy her heart had become until it's sitting on the scales in front of her.

Jill keeps up their routine unflinchingly. Mia feels her muscles thicken and tone, all her energy poured into training for an inevitability that is as certain as tomorrow. She makes an offhand comment about snipers and the sprawling windows of the lodge; Jill shoots the glass to demonstrate that it's bulletproof. It actually works wonders to put Mia at ease. In a similar vein, Jill moves on from self-defence training to marksmanship. They spend several sessions going over the anatomy of different firearms before Jill sets up some targets out in the grounds.

Mia is a good shot. Texas born and bred, after all.

But she lets herself be guided the first few lessons, shamelessly indulging in Jill's hands on her body, correcting her posture, straightening her spine. When Jill realises that Mia isn't new to shooting a gun, Mia mourns the loss of that guiding touch like a sailor missing the sea.

She puts her wedding ring back on. This time, it sits on her right hand; a reminder of what her selfishness cost her, and at the same time a tribute to the man who no amount of tears or apologies will ever be able to bring back.

Mia isn't sure at what point she makes peace with that. All she knows is that years down the line she can say his name without guilt knifing up through the ventricles of her heart.

Eight weeks roll by. March bleeds into May. Mia is terrified to realise that she's grown fond of the lodge, and her training, and of Jill.

Jill Valentine. Mia can’t get her off her mind. She thinks about her when she lays in bed at night, just a few short strides down the hall. She thinks about her when she’s out of the house; wonders what she’s doing, who she’s with. She thinks about her when they’re in the same damn room, sitting in companionable silence with differing tasks in hand.

As the ninth week of confinement sweeps in, Mia asks Jill a question that she's only been thinking about since they started living together.

"Would you come with me to visit Rose?"

Jill blinks up at her over her morning coffee. She's got a laptop on the breakfast bar; one of those chunky military-grade types with satellite access. Papers flush with redacted paragraphs litter the counter. Jill is wearing tinted reading glasses; little black-rectangular frames with yellow lenses that Mia is resolutely pretending she's not obsessed with.

"Of course," Jill says, hooking her palms around her mug so that her thumbs can touch. “Can I ask what changed?"

Mia disguises her blush with a wave of her hand. "Nothing changed, I just — it would be nice to have company, is all. But if you don't want to..."

"I'd love to meet Rosemary," Jill says, a little too quickly. "I was just surprised. I wasn't sure you'd want me there."

Mia wants Jill everywhere. She wants her on the counter, over the sofa, in her bed. She wants Jill in her combat gear or her slacks or in nothing at all. She wants Jill in a way that makes her guilt about Ethan teel like a bear trap snapping shut over her heart.

"I'd love for you to be there," she answers instead, because she can't bring herself to confront any of those feelings just yet.

As they sit in the car together on the drive over to see Rose, Mia tries to assess the realistic probability of anything happening between her and Jill. Jill Valentine, decorated military officer and US Government special agent. Jill Valentine, personal protective detail to the woman who was partially responsible for the E-strain outbreak in southern America and central Romania. Jill Valentine, who takes her coffee black, wears tinted reading glasses, and who is overly competitive at Monopoly.

Mia has limited experience with other women asides from a couple of hookups and first-to-second dates in college. It doesn't make her shy. She's imagined everything she would want a hundred times over if Jill gave her half a chance. Not that that's practical, or sensible, or realistic. But Mia's never been good at being any of those things.

Ethan haunts the comers of her eyes when she glances at Jill. Jackie has worked hard to exorcise him, but he always reappears when Mia is alone again.

The car door clicks open and Mia leads Jill down into the facility where the nursery is. A timer somewhere is set for her allocated visitation time as they step into Rose's room.

Mia scoops up her daughter from the crib, delighted to see her smiling. She bounces her on one hip and turns to Jill, who is staring at Mia as if she's bouncing a priceless glass sculpture and not a baby.

"This is Rosemary," Mia says, and she can't help but smile at Jill's expression. "Do you want to hold her?"

Jill nods and Mia hands her over, showing Jill how to support her head. Jill cradles Rose in her arms and instinctively sways her back and forth, smiling as she whispers her introductions under her breath.

"Oh, you're simply gorgeous," Jill breathes, glancing up at Mia. "Your mother has told me so much about you, kiddo. You're a lucky girl to have a mom who loves you the way that she does."

Mia blushes. She can't stop smiling. Jill makes a pretty picture in her nylon tee, gun holster, and combat pants, cradling her sleepy infant in her muscled arms. She can't remember the last time the grief in her heart has been so completely eclipsed by joy.

"You really don't have any children?" Mia finds herself asking. "You're a natural."

Jill shakes her head. "Always wanted some, but... no." Jill bites her lip and Mia pretends she doesn't want to bite it too. "God, Mia, she's perfect."

They sit down together in the comfy armchairs in the corner of the nursery by the sticker-spruced bookshelf. Rose drifts off in Jill's arms, cradled against the crook of her shoulder and chest.

Mia loves seeing Jill hold Rose the same way she loved seeing Ethan hold Rose. The realisation punctures through her idyllic bubble with a resounding pop.

"What's wrong?" Jill murmurs, looking up at her from cooing over Rosemary.

"Nothing," Mia breathes, but it's a little too quick to sound true. "I just…”

Jill waits. She never rushes Mia, and it’s one of the things on an endless list that she adores about her. Mia feels her fingers twisting into the hem of her shirt. Self-regulating behaviour, she knows now, from Jackie's diligent teachings.

"I didn't realise how much I wanted you to meet her," Mia says at last. And it's not a lie, but it's a white and sweet subversion laced with enough truth knock Jill off the scent. "Thank you for coming."

"Anytime," Jill replies. "Every time, if you want me."

You have no idea, Mia thinks.

When they'd escaped Luisiana, Mia had been forced to confront what her future was going to look like.

She'd foreseen switching safehouses as often as swapping clothes; predicted Rose growing up in isolation from other children, imagined them keeping in regular contact with Chris and his squad to ensure their continued protection into her teenage years.

There are no changes to this likelihood, she realises. Only that she and Ethan and Rose are no longer advancing towards it together.

When they get back to the lodge, Mia feels lighter. In the days that follow, she thanks Chris Redfield in her mind, over and over again, for assigning Jill Valentine to her detail.

XXX

Another week goes by, and Mia wakens in the middle of the night to the familiar sound of Jill screaming.

She throws herself down the corridor, grabbing a glass of water from the kitchen before she pushes into Jill's room and deposits it gracelessly on the bedsit.

“Jill”, Mia says, reaching for Jill's shoulder as she thrashes beneath the duvet. "Jill, it's just a dream, you're—”

Jill's hand flails out and snatches her wrist. Mia flinches back in surprise but doesn't pull away when Jill tugs her up onto the bed.

"What happened?" Jill mutters, breathing heavy, smearing her sweat-thick hair out of her eyes. "Mia?"

"I'm here," Mia says, lacing her fingers through Jill's and swiping the water from the nightstand with her other hand. "Night terror. You're alright now. You're safe."

It takes a long minute for Jill to calm down. Mia pushes the glass into her free hand and Jill wriggles up in the bed to gulp the water down. When she passes it back and settles into the sheets again, Mia studies the stabbing inhales of her breath as they soften and the erratic leap of her pulse in her throat as it steadies. She lets her own body relax, shuffling back so her head can rest next to Jill's on the pillows.

Jill takes a couple of deep breaths and then rolls her face to look at Mia. Their intertwined hands sit between them, among all the other things unsaid.

"What was the dream?” Mia whispers. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Jill hesitates. "It's always the same. I'm back in Africa. Chris and Sheva are there."

Mia nods. She remembers the story. Her eyes fall to Jill's chest and the horrific scar that is a permanent reminder of what she endured.

Three years. The same amount of time that Mia lived through hell and back with the Bakers.

"You were there, too," Jill says softly, and Mia looks up. "Rose. Fuck, it was so awful."

Jill's fingers tighten around Mia's hand. Light catches the tormented whites of her eyes from some faint moonlight that spills in through the window like an oil slick.

"I'm right here," Mia murmurs, and squeezes Jill's hand back. “I'm alright."

"I’m not in control," Jil mumbles, wiping her cheek on the pillow. "When I'm dreaming, I'm not in control, and it feels just like—”

She cuts herself short. Her other hand comes up from under the duvet to thumb absently at the scar tissue on her chest.

“Sometimes I see him," Jill continues, in such a soft whisper Mia thinks for a moment she's imagining it. "See a dark coat and a pair of shades and I'm twitchy like a fresh fucking recruit." Jill sucks in a breath and forces a weak smile to her face. "Not very reassuring, is it? That your bodyguard's still afraid of a ghost? Sorry, Mia, I - I shouldn’t be telling you this. I’m not trying to scare you."

"You don't scare me," Mia whispers, because nothing really scares her anymore, and that's the truth. “I'm just glad you're here."

Mia thumbs the skin of Jill's knuckles. The rustle of the bedsheets between them are loud in the silence.

Jill smiles at her. "Stay?" she murmurs, and there is a transparent humility in her expression that sends Mia's heart fluttering.

"Of course," Mia says, braver than she feels, and slips under the covers when Jill pulls them back.

Jill doesn't let go of her hand. When Jill drifts off to asleep, it is with Mia keeping careful watch over her and their fingers still entwined.

In the silence left behind, Mia reaches out to tuck a curl of hair behind Jill's ear. Memories float across her mind of falling asleep with Ethan's head in her lap and her nails brushing his scalp. She can't be upset that two people she cares so much for still feel safe enough to fall asleep beside her.

Mia isn't stupid. She knows that if she acts on her feelings for Jill, the best she can hope for is a quick, secret fling before the BSAA or the DSO or whoever else the Government send blows the lid on it and reassigns Jill to another detail.

But Mia also knows she hasn't felt anything in such a long time that neglecting this would be like striking a match on a propane tank. She's not sure that her heart can survive it.

Her eyes drop to the wedding band on her finger as she withdraws her hand from Jill’s cheek. She thumbs the cool metal and flops onto her back, staring up at the ceiling.

“Would you be able to forgive me?” she asks.

The room is silent.

The ceiling doesn’t answer.

XXX

When Mia Winters wakes up the next morning, she is still in Jill Valentine's bed.

She blinks open her eyes to a stream of sunlight spilling in through the windows and the sound of the shower running across the hall. Mia can't bring herself to be embarrassed. She reaches across the duvet and pulls it against her face, breathing in Jill's scent lingering on the fabric.

It was easy, forgetting how to be happy. She never imagined it could be just as easy to remember.

Mia slips out of bed and wanders into the kitchen, tying her hair up as she stars making breakfast. Jill has monopolised the morning shift for so long it takes her a minute to get back into the swing of things. By the time Jill is padding into the kitchen with damp hair, Mia has fresh omelettes and black coffees waiting for them both.

A smile breaks out across Jill’s face. "You made breakfast."

"I did," Mia says proudly, nodding as she slides onto a bar stool and picks up a fork. "Thought it was about my turn. Don't you?"

Jill sits opposite her, tucking her wet hair behind her ears. "I like making you breakfast," she says, looking up at Mia through dark lashes as she sips her coffee. "But... this is a nice surprise."

Mia feels her stomach do some interesting flips. "My treat," she jokes, but it comes out a little breathless. "Don't get used to it."

When breakfast is over and the both of them are rested and dressed, Jill calls Mia back to the living room for training. She's waiting for her in a pair of silver-grey sweats and a cropped black t-shirt with a logo - S.T.A.R.S. - embroidered on the back.

“I thought you said the S.T.A.R.S. unit was disbanded?" Mia asks, pointing at the shirt.

“It was," Jill answers, shrugging. "But we kept our gear. What was left of it, anyway. Call me sentimental."

"Did Chris keep his too?"

"Yeah, think so.”

Jill gets low on the mat in front of her; stance wide, arms raised. "Alright. Let’s get to it.”

It’s been three months since they started this. Mia knows what to expect now; knows when to duck and dive and dodge, knows when Jill is going easy on her or when she’s pushing her harder because she thinks she can take it.

She’s pushing her today. Sweat rolls from Mia’s shoulders and forehead. Her muscles ache; her breath is a rasp in the back of her throat. But it feels good. The burn is warm and right and Jill’s smile is doing miraculous things for her stamina.

“That’s it!” Jill pants encouragingly. “Watch your left side, you leave that open when you parry!”

Mia grits her teeth and nods, rolling forwards and landing a nice hit on Jill’s shoulder. Jill makes an approving noise and grabs for Mia’s arms. Mia ducks. Jill’s foot comes out, twists round Mia’s ankle, and suddenly the world is sliding sideways.

Mia’s used to this move by now. Jill is good at knocking her off balance, but today Mia is ready for it. She feigns falling, and when Jill’s arm comes out to steady her, she latches onto it, bending at the knees and hauling Jill over her back.

“Fuck!” Jill yelps, slamming into the mat.

Mia doesn’t let her recover, dropping to straddle her waist, pinning her arms back against the mat above her head. Jill stares up at her in shock, winded, eyes shimmering from the adrenaline spike.

“Checkmate,” Mia pants, winking.

There’s a flurry of Jill’s legs and suddenly they’re wrapped around Mia’s torso at the knee. Mia feels the room slide backwards and suddenly she’s the one on the ground, right hand wrenched tight in Jill’s grip, the left flat back on the mat with Jill’s foot on her wrist. Jill’s sitting on her ass with Mia’s legs split around her waist.

“Holy shit, Mia,” Jill says. “That was some serious technique. You almost had me.”

Mia blinks and takes a couple of deep breaths. She’s ignoring Jill’s fingers locked around her wrist, and she’s ignoring her knees brushing Jill’s ribs, and she’s definitely ignoring the fact that Jill’s abs are pressed tight against the burgeoning heat between her thighs.

“Thanks,” she manages, as Jill drops her wrist and rolls off her.

Jill extends a hand down to her and Mia claws for some semblance of willpower to accept it. The world wobbles for a minute as she’s hauled back to her feet. When it rights itself, it locks back onto the effervescent beacon of Jill’s eyes.  

They’re still holding hands, Mia realises. Panting. Drenched in sweat.

“Shower?” Jill offers, and at last their hands part.

Mia misses the warmth the same way she misses holding Rose. “Um, yeah. You can go first.”

Jill nods and heads for the bathroom. Mia braces herself against the kitchen counter and exhales a shaking breath.

“Fuck,” she whispers, because she’d been half a second from pinning Jill Valentine to that crash mat and confessing her feelings like they were in some sort of cheap rom-com.

The rest of the day does not pass any easier. It’s as though Mia’s decision not to act on her feelings have only doubled them tenfold; when she takes her own turn in the shower that afternoon, she fucks herself breathless against the tiles hoping that the drumbeat of the water is enough to drown out the sound of her pitching breaths and keening moans. She’s only able to finish when she imagines Jill’s fingers in place of her own.

Day bleeds into night; sundown is much later as summer creeps in. By nine, the sky is still in an extended state of twilight. A golden haze permeates the deep blue of approaching dusk, highlighting the black points of the pines ringing the lodge.

Mia is curled in an armchair, conducting what she hopes is a convincing performance of reading one of the books Jackie recommended her. Every so often, she sneaks glances at Jill. She’s sprawled out on her stomach on the opposite couch. There’s the contents of a case file littering the coffee table; if Mia squints, she can make out some photos of some sort of flesh-eating bacteria scattered amongst official-looking papers with government seals. In front of her, Jill scrawls into a notebook, pausing every few minutes to tap her lips with her pen.

“You should take a break,” Mia finds herself saying. “You’ve been at that for hours.”

“Mmm.”

Jill doesn’t look up. She makes another notation and then swaps the photo she’s currently holding for a different one.

“Hey, Valentine.”

“Mhm.”

“Jill.”

Jill looks up.

“Take a break,” Mia says, with what she hopes is a forceful sort of kindness.

Jill looks as though she’s going to argue but thinks better of it. “You’re as bad as Chris,” she mutters, chuckling as she slides her notebook and photos aside. “Fine, fine. I’ll take a break. What are you reading?”

Mia sticks a thumb in her page and folds the book so Jill can see. “Recommended by Doctor Reynolds. Riveting stuff.”

“I bet,” Jill says, grinning as she rolls over onto her back and stretches.

Mia watches the way her shirt rides up far enough for her to glimpse the fabric-wrapped cups of a black bra. Jill tugs it back down, but the damage is done, and Mia is scrambling to douse all thoughts of wrenching the shirt the rest of the way up and trailing kisses down the pronounced line of her abs.

“What are you working on?” Mia chokes out, because otherwise she’s going to ask Jill if she can eat her out on the kitchen counter. “You’re always busy with… whatever that is.”

“Don’t be jealous,” Jill ribs affectionately, sitting up and gesturing to the photos. “Boring BSAA stuff. Chris sent me a case to look over, see if I could shed any additional insight on a potential virus outbreak in Minnesota.”

“And?”

“And it’s probably nothing. Just another back-alley pharmaceutical trying and failing to recreate Umbrella’s better projects. We should keep an eye on it, but I’m not too worried right now.”

Mia finds herself sympathising with the exasperated look on Jill’s face. “Sorry. You’re a special agent and you’re stuck on perpetual babysitting duty.”

“Stop calling it that,” Jill says, rolling her eyes. “Plus – Chris gave me the option to switch. A month or so ago he offered me a case in Ohio. Active bioweapon outbreak originating underneath an abandoned high school.”

“Oh?” Mia manages, because suddenly her throat is fused with apprehension at the idea that Jill Valentine might one day up and vanish from her life without warning.

Jill smiles at her. “I didn’t take it, obviously.” The smile is soft and sappy and it does horrendous things to Mia’s heart. “I wouldn’t trade this for the world.”

“Oh,” Mia repeats dumbly, because the apprehension switches so rapidly from fear to relief that she feels sort of sick. “That’s – yeah. Nice. Thanks.”

Jill laughs, but it’s just something to fill the space. “You don’t have to thank me. I like looking after you.”

It’s too sincere. Mia feels her heart seize and her guts squirm and a heat flush her cheeks at the mere idea that Jill Valentine has never done this out of necessity, but out of actual, honest to God affection for her. Mia doesn’t know what to say, and Jill notices her distress in a heartbeat.

“Besides,” Jill says, clearing her throat and attempting a smile. “The big forty-eight is approaching and I’m not getting any younger. I could do with a couple more gigs like this one. I’m sure my physio will thank me for it.”

“Forty-eight?” Mia echoes, incredulous enough to be knocked from her adoration-induced spiral. “There’s no way you’re forty-eight. You’re joking?”

“You’re a bad liar,” Jill laughs, “And a terrible flatterer. I’ll turn forty-eight in November. How old did you think I was?”

“I don’t know,” Mia splutters. “Maybe forty?”

“Oh, shut up.” But Jill is laughing harder – and is that a blush on her cheeks? “No you did not think I was only forty.”

“I did! I did!”

Mia is laughing now, too, protesting desperately as Jill picks up a throw cushion and launches it at her head. Mia shrieks and ducks; her place in her book lost as she dodges the projectile and it thumps into the kitchen counter behind her.

“I’m ten years your senior,” Jill warns, grinning. “You should know better than to lie to your elders.”

Mia’s laughter fades to a chuckle. “I’ve never lied to you,” she says, and the chuckle softens to a painfully honest smile. “Not once. Can’t do it.”

Jill holds her gaze. Mia burns under the intensity of it; lost in the way that Jill is staring at her and biting her lip hard enough for a bubble of blood to blush the skin. For a split second, Mia swears there is something in the air between them, something charged and bright, and then Jill’s head swivels to check the clock.

“Oh, shit,” she says. “I didn’t realise it was so late.”

Mia doesn’t have to glance over to know it’s after midnight. The world beyond the windows has long gone dark; the golden glow of the corner lamp the only thing permeating the gloom.

Don’t go, she wants to beg. Stay awake. Here. With me.

“I’ll catch you in the morning, Mia.”

Jill rises from the couch, stretching, and Mia feels her heart pang with longing as she watches Jill pad across the lounge to the hall connecting their bedrooms.

“Goodnight,” Mia calls.

Jill waves. “Night.”

Mia tosses Jackie’s book onto the coffee table and drags a hand across her face before fisting it up into her hair. This is agony, she decides. Resolving she couldn’t have Jill is a special kind of masochism she must think she deserves.

Doesn’t she?

Mia blinks at that thought, staring at a point on the floor. When she first arrived here, she would have gratefully let the guilt of her past actions drag her under. Now, her resilience against the current surprises her.

When she makes it into her bed, she lays awake for a long while, thinking about everything and nothing at all. She revisits her decision to abstain from Jill Valentine. Jill’s disclosure that she’s been offered other missions while working this one has Mia’s guts in knots. The idea that Jill would one day be called away and might not return feels like someone has set a timer off in her head.

Mia falls asleep wondering what might happen the day that Jill is taken from her side.

She does not have long to wait to find out the answer.

XXX

The next day is the same – breakfast, training, pretending she is not infatuated with Jill Valentine to an embarrassing degree – until Jill dumps a bag on the kitchen counter with a victorious grin.

“I’m heading out for a bit,” she says, pausing with her hand on the entrance way wall and looking back at Mia over her shoulder.  “Got us something for later. A little treat for all your hard work.”

For a blinding second, Mia thinks Jill somehow knows about her little crush. When Jill leaves and the door clicks shut, Mia scrambles to open the plastic.

A swimsuit. Two swimsuits. One in Jill’s size, and one in hers.

Mia blushes. She’s not sure how to take the insinuation, but a part of her worries about wearing something so skimpy in front of Jill. Both suits are bikinis and Mia knows that despite her training, her body is still not back to its pre-pregnancy glory.

But maybe that’s stupid to fret over. She’s survived two kidnappings and infection by the E-Type. She can handle wearing a bikini in front of Jill Valentine.

Mia bites her lip. But can she survive seeing Jill Valentine in one?

Only one way to find out, she supposes.

Dinner is delayed to allow them both time to enjoy the pool without a full stomach dragging them to the bottom. Mia stands in her costume in front of the bedroom mirror, poking and prodding her skin around until it sits better inside the fabric. Breastfeeding has done wonders for her chest, but the rest of her body can’t claim the same. Scars warp her arms, her stomach, her legs; memories of the Baker’s house burnt into her skin.  The raised welt of her C-section scar in particular draws her eye; the way that it stands out, red and relatively fresh in comparison to her other battle wounds.

Mia wishes she didn’t care about how she looks, but it’s impossible not to. She grabs a sweater from the wardrobe and pulls its around her shoulders to stave off a non-existent chill.

Jill is waiting for her in the lounge, a glass of red wine in each hand. Jill’s bikini is a black-and-white striped racerback two-piece and it leaves nothing to the imagination. Mia forces herself to meet Jill’s eye instead of raking her gaze over every inch of mouth-wateringly muscled shoulder and abdominal on display.

“There she is!” Jill smiles, sipping her own glass as she hands Mia hers. “Come on. I turned the heating on so it should be toasty for us getting in.”

Mia lets herself be led out on the patio surrounding the pool. It’s a warm night as summer creeps in; very little breeze stirs the trees shielding the lodge. Jill propels herself down into the shallow end, taking her weight on her arm as her body twists into the water with a splash.

She’s raked her hair back into a claw clip, Mia notes distantly, and the shortest sections of the bob have sprung loose to frame her face.

“Come on in,” Jill calls encouragingly. “Water’s gorgeous.”

Mia eyes the pool. Faint wisps of steam curl off of the surface, the pool lights refracting geometric shapes across Jill’s face and shoulders.

“Coming,” she calls, and shrugs off her sweater.

There’s a lounger nearby where Jill has tossed some of her own items. Mia’s sweater joins them, and when she turns back to the pool, she swears she catches a glimpse of Jill’s eyes on her ass before they flit away.

Mia descends into the water, balancing her wine glass in one hand and feeling for the tiled bottom with her toes. Jill was right; the temperature is like bathwater and it seeps into Mia’s bones in a way that the shower can’t. She lets herself sink down and enjoy it; lets her head fall back, her eyes closing, as she permits the chlorine-sharp water to wash over her hair and soak into her scalp.

When she lifts her head and opens her eyes, Jill is watching her again. A faint smile tugs at the corners of her mouth.

“You’re right,” Mia manages, hoping the heat of the pool is disguising the blush on her cheeks. “Why didn’t we do this months ago?”

Jill chuckles. “We didn’t have swimwear. I did try, but I don’t think swimsuits were particularly high on the BSAA’s list.”

Mia manages a little laugh of her own at that. “You’re going to get yourself in trouble one of these days, you know. Sneaking me out to bars? Suiting me up for the pool?”

“Oh, please,” Jill snorts, taking a placatory sip of her wine. “Chris would be lost without me. And besides – drinking and swimming are good for the soul. Most of the world forgets that if you don’t have a healthy mind, you’re not going to be any good at your God damn job.”

Mia drifts over to Jill, running her hand through the water, letting it spool between her fingers until every inch of her feels cradled and warm. She can’t remember the last time she’d been swimming (the overturned ship in Dulvey doesn’t count, she decides). There are a lot of things her life has been missing, actually, when she thinks about it. She can’t remember the last time she ate fast food, or watched daytime TV, or heard a brand new song on the radio. She can’t remember ever going for a hike, or exploring a new city, or doing anything that didn’t involve running or fighting for her life.

She hasn’t had sex in God only knows how long. Before Rose, things were tense enough with Ethan without throwing some mediocre lovemaking into the mix. After Rose, things improved, sure, but Ethan treated Mia like some fragile ornament to be placed out of reach on a high shelf. Admire, but never touch.

Mia supposes she is partly to blame. She fell in love with Ethan for his heart. Unfortunately, his heart meant that he rarely indulged in exactly what she wanted in the bedroom. He was too sweet and too gentle to treat her like she begged him to. Mia can hear him now in the back of her mind; his awkward sigh and his tender suggestions to try something else.

She stopped asking, after a while. It doesn’t mean that her cravings to get fucked over the kitchen counter with his fist in her hair and his handprint scorched on her ass ever went away.

“What’re you thinking about?”

Mia almost chokes on her wine. She’d drifted off into a little world of her own, content to sit and steep her marrow in the pool water like a human stew. Jill is looking at her, eyebrow raised, smirk twisting her pretty mouth as she languidly sips her wine.

“Ethan,” Mia splutters out, because she’s not been able to lie to Jill Valentine yet.

“Oh.” Jill’s smirk vanishes. “Everything okay?”

Mia curses her own stupidity. “Yeah – yes, absolutely, I… I just think about him, still. Sometimes. I can’t help it.”

Just like how she can’t help imagining Jill bending her over in Ethan’s place.

“Yeah, of course,” Jill says, nodding. “It’s alright, Mia. You don’t have to apologise for thinking about your husband.”

Sure, Mia thinks. But I probably do have to apologise for criticizing his sex game when he’s dead.

The heat of the water thrums the wine through their veins. Arteries expand; the alcohol floods her system, and Mia realises by their second glass that she’s a lot more lightheaded than she’d expected to be.

“The temperature,” Jill says, by way of explanation. “We should probably wrap up here and head inside, unless you want a repeat of the Fleetwood Mac night.”

Mia’s mind flashes back to emptying her guts into the lodge’s toilet. “Yeah, no, you’re right. Just – five more minutes, maybe?”

“Sure,” Jill affirms, smiling. “No rush.”

Mia bobs over to the side of the pool, discarding her empty glass on the tiles before drifting back to brush arms with Jill. Jill’s own glass has already vanished. Mia suspects that Jill drinks less than she makes it seem, considering her role as protective detail likely demands a clear head.

The alcohol makes Mia brave. “I’d like to ask you something,” she murmurs, and the only sound is the lap of the water against their bodies as night falls beyond the pines.

“Shoot,” Jill says, and there’s an amusement to her tone that Mia seizes like a vice.

“How do personal relationships work in your, um, line of work?”

Jill tilts her head, smiling and assessing in the same beat. “Personal… you mean like, romantic?”

Mia shrugs. It’s neither nonchalant nor dismissive. “Sure.”

“We can date, same as you, same as anyone. They can’t stop us, if that’s what you’re asking. Just… the job comes first. Always.”

“Us…” Mia echoes. “What about Chris?”

“He’s married.”

“You told me that.”

Jill makes a vague motion with her hand that disturbs the water. “Chris is different. His husband is another agent.”

“Oh, shit,” Mia says, because she’s genuinely surprised by that. “How does that work?”

“Mia,” Jill says, in that no-nonsense tone that does something simultaneously incredible and unpleasant to Mia’s guts. “You’re not asking about Chris. Get to the point.”

Mia squirms. Her earlier bravado has slipped away with the current and now she’s left in the awkward wake left behind. The practical thing to do here would be get out of the pool; clear her head, shock her system back to life with the temperature change. The sensible thing to do would be apologise for the inappropriate subject change and stop it from going further. The realistic outcome of the whole thing is a forgettable conversation over a glass of wine and an empty stomach.

But Mia's never been good at being any of those things.

She lets herself float closer to Jill in the water. Jill stays where she is, amusement still twisting her mouth, and lets Mia’s fingers trail over her wrist.

“What about you?” Mia murmurs.

“I’m not married,” Jill answers.

“I can see that.”

Mia snags her fingers through Jill’s and lifts her hand above the surface. The water breaks, beads, and rolls from their skin as Mia twists Jill’s hand to showcase the obvious lack of a wedding ring.

Her own shines in the reflected pool light like liquid silver.

“Mia,” Jill says softly, and its pleading, almost, in the intensity of her voice. “You were just thinking about Ethan.”

Mia snorts. She can’t help it. “Yeah, thinking about how I haven’t had my brains fucked out since before Rosemary was born because he was too scared to even touch me in case I tried to kill him again.”

It’s harsh and awkward and Mia regrets the truth just as soon as it’s out of her mouth. But Jill doesn’t pull away. There is a tense beat, and then she tugs Mia closer, fingers tightening around her own.

Mia’s heart flutters. They can still stand on the bottom at this depth, but Mia feels like she’s a hair’s breadth from drowning.

“Mia,” Jill says, and they’re pressed close now, an agonising six inches or so apart. “We can’t.”

We can’t. Mia’s eyes flick up to Jill’s face, heart suddenly racing, because Jill knows.

Because Jill wants to, too.

Their breathing is loud, too loud, bouncing back against the surface of the water. Mia searches Jill’s face; memorising every bead of moisture clinging to the weathered lines of her cheeks and the round sculpt of her chin.

“I won’t tell if you won’t,” Mia whispers.

The distance between them shrinks. Mia drifts forwards in the water, slipping her arms around Jill’s shoulders and meshing her fingers where they meet behind her head. Jill’s fingers ghost along the lines of Mia’s torso under the water, coming to rest in the small of her back, locking around her waist.

“Mia,” Jill says again, a warning, but her voice is breathy and hitched with want. “You were just talking about Ethan. You don’t want me. You want him.”

“No,” Mia whispers, the tip of her nose brushing Jill’s. “I really don’t.”

They stay like that for a long moment, breath mingling in the hot, moisture-thick steam billowing off the pool top. Mia is acutely aware of Jill’s hands still wreathing her waist.

Jill pulls away first.

Mia stares after her, suddenly cold despite the temperature of the pool and the buzz of the wine. Jill wades over to the edge of the tiled wall and hauls herself out amidst a cascade of chlorinated water. It’s on the tip of Mia’s tongue to call after her, but something tells her that Jill doesn’t need persuading – she needs permission.

“For the record,” Jill says suddenly, her hair ruffled half-dry with a towel from the lounger. “You’re wonderful.”

Mia smiles. She stays floating in the pool for a minute after Jill leaves, letting the water carry her weight as she reclines.

Maybe not now.

But maybe not never.

Eventually, Mia sloughs her way to the edge and hauls herself out. She pads from the lounger to the patio doors and slips inside to the smell of something hot and cheesy heating up in the oven.

“Pizza okay?” Jill calls over her shoulder.

Mia glances over at the plates with assembled side salad and sauces and can’t help but smile. “Sounds great,” she says, and joins Jill at the breakfast bar as her food is served.

 They eat idly, too much unsaid between shared glances over oozing, mozzarella-topped slices. Mia catches Jill’s eye trailing down to her bikini-clad chest. When she raises an eyebrow, Jill glances away, blushing furiously.

“Also for the record,” Mia says softly, as she finishes her plate and pushes it away from her across the counter. “I’m well aware that Ethan’s gone. That he isn’t coming back. I know I can’t replace him, or recreate him, or God forbid resurrect him. So I’d like you to take that into account when I say that this—” she gestures between them “—has nothing to do with him.” Her voice softens. “But it has everything to do with you.”

Jill slows in her chewing.  “I’m your security detail, Mia.” Her tone is rich and sincere. “I have a responsibility to keep you safe.”

“I can’t think of anywhere safer than right here, Agent Valentine.”

Jill bites her lip. “You’re terrible. You know that?”

Mia laughs, tucking a wet lock of hair behind her hair. “I’m just teasing.” A pause and a tender smile. “I’m gonna grab a shower and head to bed, I think. That wine went straight to my head.” She glances up as she slips off of the barstool and reaches over to squeeze Jill’s shoulder affectionately. “Goodnight, Jill.”

Mia resists every urge in her body to turn back around and press Jill against the bar top and kiss her until they both run out of breath. As the bathroom door clicks shut behind her, she hears Jill’s faint echo of “Night, Mia,” and her willpower feels about as durable as a porcelain vase in an industrial blender.

The water helps to clear her head, but by the time Mia crawls into her bed at eleven, she’s so exhausted that even the lingering traces of their earlier exchange can’t keep her awake.

XXX

Mia’s eyes flicker open in the pitch darkness of her room. It can’t be more than an hour since she fell asleep. Something woke her, but it isn’t Jill’s night terrors, and it isn’t her own.

There is a perfect fractal of shattered glass in her bedroom window about the size of a golf ball.

Bullet hole.

Mia’s heart lurches up into her mouth. She chokes on it, scrambling out of her bed and throwing herself down onto the floor. The window creaks as three more shots lodge into the bulletproof glass, stopped in their tracks by the structure’s last line of defence.

Mia knows the drill. Keep low, keep quiet, get to the panic room.

Her eyes find the door handle across the way. Then they slide to the right, to the corridor door that leads to Jill’s room.

If the worst happens, Jill told her months ago, don’t worry about me. Just get yourself to safety.

Yeah. Right.

Mia lunges for the corridor door, pushing out in the hall and squashing the panicked spikes of her breathing down deeper into her chest. Glass shatters in the lounge. Mia watches fragments of it spill out into the kitchen, blown inwards by some sort of expulsive force. She chokes on a curse as she wrenches Jill’s doors open and falls straight into Jill’s arms.

“Shit, Mia!” Jill hisses, grabbing her shoulders and checking her over at a glance. “What are you doing here? Are you hurt?”

Mia shakes her head, barely able to appreciate Jill in her full tactical gear for the fear knifing its way up into her throat. “I’m fine, I—”

“Get behind me,” Jill whispers, pulling Mia’s wrist. “Why aren’t you in the panic room? Is it compromised?”

“No,” Mia mumbles. “Yes, maybe – I don’t know.”

She can’t say I came for you, because Jill would kill her for doing that, if whoever was breaking in didn’t get there first.

“Did you see who it is?” Jill asks, and she’s loading a magazine into her forty-five. “Affiliations? Numbers?”

Again, Mia shakes her head, feeling stupid and useless in equal measures. Jill grabs for her hand and pulls Mia behind her, checking the chamber and flicking off the safety on her gun.

“This might get messy,” she mutters under her breath. “I pressed the alarm for the Hounds but even with a bird it’ll be at least ten before they get here.” She grabs for Mia’s hand and gives it a squeeze. “If you see an opening, take it. I’ll get you to the panic room. Okay?”

“What about you?” Mia whispers, and Jill’s reassuring smile isn’t reassuring at all.

The door to the bedroom slams open. A figure is silhouetted in the entrance way; black-and-grey camo, a variety of military-grade weaponry affixed to the criss-cross of a body harness, a balaclava-clad face further obscured with night vision goggles.

Jill drops the body without blinking. Mia’s heart thrums blood up into her ears, ears that sting from the aftershock of the bullet firing in an enclosed space. Jill pulls her out in the corridor and there are more shapes moving in the kitchen, guns trained on them now as they dive for Mia’s open bedroom.

The door bangs behind them, the wood turned shrapnel under the hail of AR-fire from don the hall. Mia feels a flash of pain in her lower back but ignores it, scrambling to open the panic room door as Jill unloads cover fire through the compromised door.

The bedroom windows explode inwards in a haze of glass and smoke. Mia hears herself scream as she ducks, flattening herself against the door of the panic room as it slides aside to bid her entry.

Figures swarm the shattered window; three special ops with their weapons raised high. Mia flinches, holds her hands high, but they’re ignoring her. She watches with her heart in her mouth as they acknowledge her standing by the panic room door and then the muzzles of their firearms sweep away, looking for—

Jill.

Mia screams as Jill lunges out from behind the bed, unloading a full clip of her magnum into the first op. There’s a spray of blood as one of the bullets clips their carotid and the figure drops. The next Jill meets in close quarters, bouncing the barrel of their rifle upwards so a spray of gunfire perforates the ceiling. The third slings their AR to the side and draws a knife.

Adrenaline and instinct drives Mia forwards. She lunges for the third op, slamming into them side on and sending them reeling. She wasn’t prepared for the weight of their body or the uncomfortable needle of their tactical gear in her bare skin. When their fist comes up Mia dodges, rolling to one side and bringing up her foot to plant it square in the small of their back. They stumble forwards, slam into their comrade, and they both go staggering into the foot of the bed.

It gives Jill the opening she needs. Her hands are under the second op’s chin and suddenly there is a muffled bang and a flush of red blood spatters out across the stark white sheets.  The knife-wielder brings their blade round and Jill muffles a shriek as it bites into the crook of her neck. Mia feels all the breath in her lungs evaporate, replaced instead by the suffocating dread of her worst nightmares brought to life.

She runs up and slams her foot down into the crook of the op’s knee. There is a sickening crunch and a scream. Jill is on them, then, disarming their attacker and driving their own blade backwards into their abdomen. It finds its mark between the lines of the body armour and sinks into the soft skin just above their waist.

“Go,” Jill croaks out, pushing Mia towards the panic room as she drives the knife in harder with her other hand. “The others—”

The bedroom door slams open. Four more agents spill into the room and Mia does the only thing she can think of to save Jill Valentine’s life: throws herself between the attackers and Jill.

“Mia!” Jill hisses, blood flowing freely from the gash on her neck. “Go!”

“Trust me!” Mia whispers back, her hands flung wide in front of Jill. “They need me.”

The assailants do not open fire. They flock outwards to fill the bedroom, checking corners and making note of their dead comrades on the floor. Jill’s eyes are all over them; Mia can see her assessing their formation, their weapons, their physiques. A warm summer breeze billows in through the shattered bedroom windows. In the distance, Mia swears she can hear the thumping of helicopter blades.

“Mia Winters?”

Mia looks up. The operative in the lead speaks to her, his voice a garbled distortion of radio static. She nods and in the same moment feels Jill’s arm sneak forward to press against her waist.

“I’m going to apologise in advance for this,” Jill mutters, and uses Mia’s shoulder as a mount for her magnum as she unloads her clip.

The room erupts in flashes of light. Each round Jill fires is perfect; their attackers scramble for cover but don’t dare retaliate for fear of hitting Mia in the chaos. Mia would be impressed beyond belief if her right ear wasn’t completely silent and eye-wateringly sore.

Jill’s clip is empty, Mia realises suddenly, as her hand returns to Mia’s waist and she throws her aside. Mia hits the bedroom floor, winded, head buzzing, and watches Jill lunge for their assailants.  There’s a rattle of gunfire that definitely doesn’t come from Jill’s gun. Mia’s feels sick in a way that has nothing to with the pain of her perforated ear drum.

She tries to prop herself up on her arm but she’s shaking so badly she loses her purchase a couple of times before she manages to stagger to her feet. The room spins around her. The pain in her lower back from before flares with a sudden heat. Mia reaches for it, finding her fingers coming away stained in blood.

“Mia,” Jill says, and her voice is the strained gargle of someone fighting for breath.

Mia looks up. Two of the ops are dead on the floor, joining the three Jill already dropped. One of the remaining two has Jill in a headlock, her arms wrenched back and away from her face by the force of their grip. The second op draws a combat knife and plunges it into Jill’s exposed stomach.

Mia screams. She screams like it’s her who’s been stabbed, because in a way, she has been.

Her wedding ring burns white-hot on her hand.

She won’t lose Jill too.

Mia can’t feel a thing through the adrenaline rattling through her veins. She grabs for one of the dead ops’ discarded ARs on the floor, slots it into her shoulder, and unloads into the first op she can see.

The second drops Jill, knife still sticking out of her stomach, and reaches for their own gun. Mia ducks. Her first target collapses and she throws her leg out, whip-crack sharp, displacing the last op’s balance. While they fight to regain balance, Mia runs up, brings her knee up into their groin, and then slams it back down onto their foot in the downswing.

“Fuck!” the operative wheezes, scrambling for their AR.

But Mia is faster. She’s got herself nestled between their legs and hooks her arm up under their shoulder, biting out a scream as she rolls them over her back and slams them onto the floor. While the op fights for breath, she snatches the AR from their grip, jams it against their visor, and pulls the trigger.

Bullets explode their skull apart and reverberate through the floor. Fragments of bone and splatters of blood decorate Mia’s arms and face. She lets the clip empty before her finger retracts. Her hands are shaking so badly it’s a miracle she managed to keep the barrel steady.

“Mia,” comes a pained groan from behind her.

Her stomach drops. “Jill,” she cries, biting back tears.

The gun is forgotten as she turns and crawls across the carpet to Jill. She’s lying at an awkward angle against one of the op’s bodies, her hands wreathing the blade still protruding from her stomach. Blood oozes out in thick, dark streams to spoil the cream of the bedroom carpet.

Mia’s adrenaline spikes and she feels panicked breaths ripping out of her lungs. Tears sting her eyes. She reaches for Jill’s shoulder, trying to roll her onto her back to stop the blade digging any deeper. Jill complies, shrieking through her teeth at the pain.

“Hey, hey, look at me,” Mia says, because Jill’s eyes are fluttering open and closed, and she’s lost so much blood that Mia doesn’t even know how she’s still awake. “You have to stay with me, Jill. You have to. Chris is coming, okay? He’s on his way.”

“Chris,” Jill mumbles, and there are tears in her eyes now too. “Thank you, Mia. You s-saved me.”

“Anytime.” She laughs, but it’s a strangled and tear-thick sound. “If you stick around, I’ll save you as many times as you need. Alright?”

Jill’s hands are slick with blood. Her fingers fumble for Mia’s and Mia obliges unthinkingly, letting Jill lift her hand to her mouth and press a blood-stained kiss against her swollen knuckles.

“You were i-incredible,” Jill says softly. “You a-are incredible.

Mia smiles, but her cheeks are hot with tears and she can barely see Jill’s expression past them. “Thanks. You aren’t so bad yourself.”

Jill’s own smile falters and falls. Her grip on Mia’s hand goes slack.

Pain rips through Mia’s chest that has nothing to do with her physical injuries. She leans over Jill and shakes her, mumbling her name, tears splashing down onto Jill’s shirt where they’re knocked from her eyes by the motion. At some point, the mumbles turn to screams.

XXX

“Mia.”

Chris’s voice. It filters into her subconscious like sunlight on water; warm and indistinct.

“Mia, look at me.”

Mia looks at him.

They’re sitting in the lounge of the lodge. Shattered glass litters the floor like an incomplete mosaic. One of the sofas is overturned. The corner lamp is snapped in half and the bulb flickers weakly in the gloom.

Jill’s case files are still flopped open on the coffee table.

Jill isn’t here.

Mia remembers them wrenching her away from Jill’s body as a medic bundled her up onto a stretcher and carried her out of the lodge. Chris had been talking to her, asking her things, but his voice had been so soft and far away, like he was talking to her underwater. She could have blamed it on the perforation to her ear drum, but it would have been a lie.

“How is she?” Mia croaks out.

The overhead lights are on in the lodge and they’re nothing short of blinding. Mia’s sanctuary from the horrors of the last few years is desecrated by the footfalls of soldiers she doesn’t know the names of and soldiers she killed before she could ask.  

Chris is standing over her while a medic checks her injuries. He rakes a hand through his hair and sighs.

“We don’t know,” he grits out through his teeth. “The strike team were Connections. Our medic says you have a perforated ear drum and some lacerations to your lower back.”

“Dislocated shoulder, too,” the medic adds in a mutter. “Subdermal bruising to both hands and right elbow.”

“Mia,” Chris repeats, and this time he crouches down so that they’re eye level. “You weren’t in the panic room. What happened?”

Mia feels like she’s back at the lab. It’s like no time at all has transpired between then and now. Her ring sits like barbed wire on her finger.

“We tried to stop them,” she rasps out eventually, and Chris blinks in surprise.

“’We’?”

Mia nods. “I couldn’t leave her. There were so many of them. She would have died.”

Other agents are picking about the wreckage of the lodge. Bodies are being carried outside, laid by the pool and identified. Someone is dusting for fingerprints. Another agent has helped themselves to the milk in the fridge and is taking orders for coffees.

Mia’s gaze remains fixed at a point on the floor in front of her. She can’t bear to look up. She can’t bear to take in the room and the startling absence of Jill Valentine in it.

“Chris,” a voice comes, and he stands to talk to the newcomer as they step into the lounge. “Fuck, what the hell happened?”

“Connections.” His annoyed growl morphs into a sigh. “Any of them look familiar?”

The newcomer shakes their head. “Is this her?”

Mia registers Chris crouching down beside her again, and suddenly the newcomer also drops into her line of sight. He’s not much younger than Chris but his hair has this floppy boyish quality to it that knocks a couple of extra years from his face. His eyes tell a different story. Mia knows the haunted look in them so well they could be her own.

“Mia,” Chris says softly. “This is Special Agent Leon S. Kennedy of the DSO.”

Mia’s eyes flick to Chris’s hand where a silver band wraps his fourth finger. There’s a matching one on Leon’s and the familiarity of it makes her heart ache.

“Why are you here?” Mia asks, and raises her head.

She realises, then, what she’s been ignoring: Chris is not dressed in his usual practical tee and tactical gear. She assumes Leon should be wearing something similar. Neither of them are. Chris is dressed in a mauve turtleneck and fitted black slacks. Leon is wearing a tight t-shirt and black biker leathers.

“Leon and I were nearby when we got Jill’s call,” Chris says by way of explanation. “Figured we’d both come along and make sure you were alright.”

Leon nods. “Don’t worry.” He proffers a wry grin. “The reservation was for nine. Lobster was great.”

Mia wants to smile at his joke but her face won’t cooperate. She’s so exhausted she can’t guarantee it wouldn’t turn out like a grimace, besides. The two of them exchange a glance and then Leon nods.

“Mia,” he says, and rests a hand on her own. “It’s not safe for you to stay here. But right now, we don’t have another option.”

“Jill,” Mia eeks out again, pathetic and repetitive. 

Chris sighs. “We’ll let you know as soon as we hear something. For now…” he gestures to the lodge. “We’ll make up a bed for you in the panic room. Leon and I will be right outside if you need anything. Alright?”

Mia shrugs, because it’s not alright, but she doesn’t have a choice. She never does.

XXX

In the end, she can’t bring herself to sleep in the panic room, despite Chris’s insistence. Leon keeps watch while they wrap up. She takes a blanket and a pillow on the couch, and Chris deploys his squad in and around the lodge, ensuring twenty-four-seven surveillance in case the Connections operatives return.

They don’t. Mia isn’t surprised; they dropped at least ten of their strike team in the scuffle. Is Mia worth sending more?

When light starts breaking the sky in the east, Chris gets a call.

“You’re joking.” A pause. “Fine, yeah. Bring her here.”

Mia hasn’t slept. She’s lain on the couch in a half-delirious haze. The medic gave her an injection for the pain and its left her all foggy but agonisingly awake; trapped inside her own skull as she waits for news of Jill Valentine.

At around seven, a car pulls up outside. Mia is resolutely ignoring a coffee on the table in front of her when the door to the lodge opens and Jill steps inside.

Life lances its way up through her bones. Mia struggles to her feet, locks eyes with Jill, and all but throws herself into her arms in the middle of the lounge. Jill chuckles, wrapping her hands down and around Mia’s back and squeezing tight. Gone is the awkwardness of last night’s conversation. Now, there’s only a relief so profound that Mia feels slightly sick.

“Oh my god,” Mia breathes, tears stinging her eyes as she breaths in Jill’s scent, soured by blood and sweat. “You’re alright. You’re alive.”

Jill pulls back, taking Mia by the shoulders and looking her in the eye. “I survived Raccoon City and the Spencer Mansion, Mia,” she jokes softly. “Not to mention the P30 from Tricell. A little stab wound is nothing. Promise.”

Mia isn’t listening. She’s pulling at Jill’s bloodstained night shirt, leveraging it high enough to see the bandages wreathing her torso where the knife pierced her stomach.

“I’m fine, see?” Jill laughs, lifting the bandage.

There’s a wound there, sure, but its small and its edges are tacky with a whitish green substance that seems to be slowly shrinking what’s left of the hole. Mia pokes at the edges and Jill laughs, waving her away and yanking her shirt back down.

“Decades of bio-medicinal research has its benefits,” Jill grins. “The good stuff is just as good as the bad stuff is bad.”

Mia doesn’t have the words, so she just seizes Jill in another hug and holds her there until her recently reset shoulder starts to ache.

“Right,” Chris says eventually, clearing his throat. “The Hound Wolf Squad are going to keep an eye on things for now. We’ll barricade these windows and make sure no-one gets within ten miles of the place without proper clearance. Jill, can you look out for Mia just now until we can locate a new safehouse to move her to?”

“I think I can do that,” Jill says, smiling. “Captain Redfield.”

Chris knuckles her affectionately in the arm. “I’ll be a phone call away if you need me. Both of you.”

There is a flurry of activity which Mia ignores; Chris and Leon leave together, other operatives pass through, sweeping up glass, righting furniture. They can’t unmake bullet holes or replace the windows, but they put up screens instead, blocking off views (and any further bullets) from the outside. Mia sits next to Jill on the couch and doesn’t take her eyes off of her for a minute. Someone hands her a tea which she sips intermittently. The warmth of Jill’s knee resting against her own is a reward she has never deserved.

The day bleeds from dawn, to noon, to night once more. The Hound Wolf Squad flit about the perimeter of the property but never close to the lodge itself. Mia catches a glimpse of them a couple of times between the pines. She’s grateful they’re there, but she’s not afraid. Not now that Jill is back. Alive and alright.

She’s boiling pasta in the kitchen when Jill comes in behind her. It feels like such a stupid, mundane thing to do after her whole world almost imploded for a third time, but life goes on, whether she wants it to or not. She’s eaten nothing since last night and her stomach gurgles ravenously. Her body can’t run on adrenaline forever. Eventually, she has to feed it.

“Smells great,” Jill comments, nodding to the pan beside her pasta where a combination of garlic, oregano, pork, and pecorino cheese are sizzling invitingly on the hob. “I’m starving.”

“Ready in five,” Mia murmurs, smiling. “Or maybe ten, give or take. Grab a seat.”

Jill sits down at the breakfast bar. “You came after me,” she says softly. “I told you to run.”

Mia nods. “You did.” A pause. “I did.”

“Why?”

The ladle stills in Mia’s hand and she lets the lid she’s propping open slip back over the pot. A sigh works itself out between her lips, but it has nothing to do with Jill, and everything to do with the last decade of her life.

“Because I couldn’t lose you,” she admits. The firmness in her voice surprises even herself. “Because I can’t lose you.”

“You could have died.”

Mia turns around. Jill is looking at her, arms folded, biting her lip. “And?” Mia says. “So could you. Fuck. You almost did.”

“You care that much?”

Mia blinks. “Jill. Really?”

“Really.”

“You don’t know?”

“Maybe I need to hear you say it.”

Her tone invites a challenge that Mia is in a mind to accept. She steps forwards, tosses her ladle onto the worktop behind her, and lays her palms flat on the counter either side of Jill so that they come face to face.

Her wedding band gleams on her right hand, but the glow is dull and distant.

It doesn’t phase her anymore.

“When this is over,” Mia murmurs. “When Chris moves us – what happens next?”

Jill’s breath hitches in her throat. Her hand comes round to Mia’s waist and Mia’s body burns at the pressure of Jill’s fingers against the small of her back.

“In what sense?” Jill asks.

Mia ducks her head forward so that their noses brush. Eyes half-lidded, their breaths mingle in the two-inch gap between them.

“I want you on my detail, Agent Valentine,” Mia whispers, and her own heart flutters anxiously at the raw confession. “I want you on my detail for as long as you’ll have me.”

Jill’s chuckle is too breathless to sound nonchalant. “You won’t get bored of me?”

“Never.”

Mia’s hand, unbidden, lifts off of the counter and slips forwards to anchor itself around Jill’s belt.

“It scared me,” Jill says suddenly, “When I realised how much I care about you.”

Mia’s eyes flick up. There is the bright shine of fear in Jill’s eyes. Mia’s heart thrums in her chest, simultaneously desperate with want and overcome with relief.

Jill’s hesitation last night had had nothing to do with propriety and everything to do with avoidance.

The realisation hits Mia like a freight train.

“Is that why you abandoned me in the pool?” she says, a wry smile curling her lips. “The indomitable Jill Valentine – frightened only by ghosts and recently widowed women.”

Jill huffs out something that doesn’t have half the courage it needs to be a laugh. “You caught me.” Her hand reaches up and thumbs a lock of Mia’s hair behind one ear. “In my line of work, Mia, caring gets you killed. People you love become targets. Pawns. Playthings to egomaniacs and murderers. You learn to push them away before they get used against you.”

“You’re preaching to the choir.” Mia smiles empathetically. “I’m already a target, Jill. They might as well brand one on my back. It’ll be there until the day that I die, whether you’re watching it or not.”

At that, Jill’s fingers press harder into Mia’s waist. “I could put in for a permanent position,” she suggests softly. “It would take me out of active fieldwork, but… we could do more of this.” She gestures vaguely to the lodge around them. “It won’t be perfect. There’ll be questions, and expectations, and extra measures. When Chris first started dating Leon, it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing for them either. Time has moved on since then, but… some people don’t move with it.”

“I don’t care,” Mia murmurs. She’s never lied to Jill yet. “Nothing scares me anymore.” Humility, raw and vulnerable. “Except maybe losing you.”

Jill inhales, the rasp of blade leaving its sheath. “I knew you were going to be trouble, Misery,” she murmurs back, and leans forward at last to kiss her.

It’s slow and soft and Mia can barely breathe past the affection lacerating rings around her heart. Jill’s grip on her back tightens and she pulls Mia up against her. Her other hand cups her neck and jaw, subtly guiding her position to better accommodate Jill’s lips. Mia’s hand works between them, slipping up under Jill’s shirt to thumb at the bandages wrapping her abdomen. Despite her overwhelming relief and rampant desire, Mia does her best to stay conscious of Jill’s injuries.

“You’re still hurt,” Mia murmurs between kisses. “We shouldn’t.”

“Not a good enough excuse.” Jill’s breath is hot in her mouth. “Try another one.”

Mia stifles a moan as Jill’s hand slides down to squeeze the bare skin of her inner thighs. “C-Chris’s squad are patrolling the grounds outside. We might get caught.”

Jill smiles against her mouth. “There’s bulletproof black-out panels replacing the windows. Anything else?”

“You think I still miss Ethan.”

Jill pulls back from her at that. She regards Mia with such languid eyes and kiss-slick lips that Mia can barely restrain herself from devouring her whole.

“You always will,” Jill says softly, reaching up to brush the back of her knuckles against Mia’s cheek. “That’s a good thing, Mia. I’m glad you love him.”

Mia catches Jill’s wrist before it drops back down. Her fingers curl around it, taking in the erratic pulse jumping below the skin. “I love him,” she whispers, and presses a slow kiss against Jill’s knuckles, “But he’s not you.”

Jill’s arms snake forward around Mia’s waist. She manages to catch her surprised gasp as Jill lifts her up, legs instinctively hooking about Jill’s waist as she spins them and pushes Mia back to sit onto the counter.

“Shit,” Jill groans, rolling her shoulders. “I gotta stop doing that. I’m not getting any younger.”

Mia leans in, twisting one hand in the front of Jill’s shirt. “Are you kidding?” she breathes against Jill’s lips, legs still propped wide around Jill’s waist. “That was so fucking hot. You have permission to lift me like that whenever – wherever – you want.”

She feels Jill’s grin against her mouth. “Yes, ma’am,” Jill murmurs, and Mia feels the heat in her core so intensely she could die.

They weren’t wearing a whole lot of clothes to begin with. Jill had been returned to her in her sleepwear, minus the tactical harness and blade in her belly. Mia has been in her t-shirt and undies since the Hound Squad left.

Jill’s fingers curl under the edges of the tee to flip it up over Mia’s head, withdrawing her kisses just long enough to rake her eyes admiringly down Mia’s exposed breasts and stomach. In the very back of her mind, Mia wonders if her scars bother Jill. But the question is answered for her as Jill lifts her right hand and traces the tips of her fingers down Mia’s breastbone, between her breasts, and stops right above the long red scar above her underwear.

“God,” Jill breathes. “Every inch of you is fucking gorgeous.”

She ducks forwards, pressing her lips to Mia’s neck. Mia rolls her head and proffers it willingly, eyes half-lidded. She drops her elbows down onto the counter to support herself as Jill’s mouth works lower, over the flat of her clavicle and further south, soft and warm as she presses kisses into the curve of Mia’s breasts.

“You’re such a tease,” Mia breathes, watching Jill’s head dip lower, feeling her warm against her stomach now.

Jill’s mouth twitches into a grin. “And you love it,” she hums in answer, as her tongue dips out to run against the line of fabric where Mia’s underwear meets her waist.

“Fuck,” Mia pants, but it’s closer to a whimper.

Jill chuckles and reaches up, guiding Mia’s hand into her hair as her tongue explores further down, slipping below the fabric, but only by an inch or two. Mia grips a fistful of Jill’s hair and tugs languidly. At the same time Jill’s arms cradle Mia’s hips and ass against the counter, fingers digging into tender flesh.

A hot flash of heat and need pools between Mia’s thighs. She feels her knees press into Jill’s waist, desperately trying to inch forward on the countertop to find friction.

“Jill,” she insists, trying to guide Jill’s head lower.

“Show me how you like it,” Jill murmurs, and Mia’s reply of Oh, God, is lost in a gasp as Jill nips Mia’s underwear between her teeth and drags them down her thighs.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve imagined this,” Jill says, hooking her fingers around the fabric to discard the underwear unceremoniously on the floor behind them. “What I’d say. What I’d do.”

“You’re not the only one,” Mia says, and it’s a breath and a laugh combined.

“Wasn’t sure if you swung my way.” A kiss, pressed hot and slow against the inside of Mia’s thigh.

Her skin burns at the touch. “Wasn’t sure how to bring it up.”

Jill’s tongue runs across the crease at the top of her leg, nose brushing the downy hair between. Mia chokes on a moan and crooks her left knee obligingly, letting Jill slide it up over her shoulder.

Another kiss, this time pressed against hot, wet flesh. Liquid heat coils through Mia’s core. Then the soft swipe of a tongue against her opening, slick and wanting.

“Oh my God,” Mia manages to bite out, as Jill pushes her tongue inside of her.

Her hips buck up involuntarily, desperately seeking pressure. Jill chuckles, humming against the sensitive skin, sending Mia into gasping spasms against the counter. Her hand is still in Jill’s hair and it grips tighter at her touch. When Mia can wrestle her eyes downward, she is rewarded with the sight of Jill Valentine’s head moving in practised strokes between her thighs.

It’s maybe the hottest thing she’s ever seen. But it’s not enough, not to get her off like she wants. She wants rough and mean and edged into oblivion.

“Jill,” Mia breathes, and Jill raises her head obliging from between her thighs, nose and mouth and cheeks glistening. “Put your fingers in me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jill says again, and Mia groans at the pulse of heat it sends through her body.

Mia pulls herself upright and leans forward, lifting herself just clear of the countertop by hooking her arms around Jill’s neck. Fingers trace down her torso and curve against the contours of her body where the skin is already hot and slick. Mia lifts her hips complaisantly and Jill’s fingers easily part flesh to dip inside her, a soft and careful caress.

Mia does not want gentle. Her breathing deepens, nuzzling in against Jill’s neck as her motions make a slow rhythm against the burning heat of Mia’s core. Her fingers snake up the back of Jill’s head to anchor in the base of her hair again.

“Jill,” Mia mumbles into her clavicle, breathing hitched with each rhythmic stroke. “I’m not – ah – going to break. Fuck me like you mean it.”

Jill curls her fingers hard enough that Mia sees stars. “Better?” she murmurs back, and Mia nods eagerly, hips bucking up involuntarily at the sun-bright burst of heat that rolls through her.

“What else do you like?” Jill says, her voice a breathy rasp somewhere against Mia’s ear. “Anything Ethan was reluctant to try?”

Mia laughs but it pitches into a moan. “Everything,” she pants out, trying to lift her head enough to ghost a couple of appreciative kisses down the side of Jill’s neck. “Bite me. Choke me. Tie me up. Just – fuck, leave a mark.”

Jill’s other hand comes up and Mia almost comes just at the sensation of Jill’s fingers flaring around her throat. She’s close, now, she can feel it; each flash of deprivation sends a skittering of sparks through her fingers and feet.

“If I leave a mark,” Jill murmurs into her ear, “They’re definitely going to know.”

The idea of that just about puts Mia over the edge. “Fuck,” she hisses, her breaths deep and desperate, her moans almost impossible to supress. “Yes. Do it. Please.”

Jill’s hand disappears from Mia’s throat. Mia rolls her head back, eyes closed. She lets Jill’s mouth at her neck morph from a kiss, to the subtle snag of teeth, and then down into a bite.

A flash of pain-pleasure rips through Mia and she moans shamelessly as her skin breaks under the pressure. She clenches around Jill’s fingers, trying to convey harder without having the words or the breath left to say it. Jill obliges; pushes with greater pressure, slips a third finger in for good measure, tongue swirling against the fresh blood of her neck wound.

Mia feels dizzy from the thrill. She’s shaking, now, she’s sure of it, trembling with Jill’s arm locked around her and her hand between her legs.

“You take me so well,” Jill murmurs. “You ready to come?”

Mia shakes her head. “Not yet,” she whimpers, nuzzling her head against the underside of Jill’s jaw, hoping for a kiss. “Just – ah – a little longer. Want to earn it. Ah - Make me work for it.”

 Jill chuckles, ducking to award Mia the kiss she’s seeking. Mia kisses back, eagerly tasting herself on Jill’s lips. Her kiss turns into a broken gasp as Jill slides her thumb hard against Mia’s clit.

Her hips buck instinctively; knees tightening, fingers digging into Jill’s scalp. Jill works her like a pro, the pressure building to an intolerable ache. Mia flails for Jill’s other hand, guiding it back to her throat. An obliging squeeze of her fingers; just enough for Mia to feel a heady pulse in her head. Jill’s hand slides up further, tilting Mia’s jaw back again to suckle kisses into the hollow of her throat. Fresh bruises bloom in their wake.

Mia’s thoughts are nothing but the elysium of being fucked out of her mind by Jill Valentine. She’s losing herself in the feeling; leagues between her and the usual spectres of her past that haunt her headspace.

“Jill,” Mia begs, dropping her forehead against Jill’s shoulder. “I have to – I need – ah, fuck – need to come.”

“Yes ma’am,” Jill murmurs, and it buzzes against the raw skin of her bite.

Her limbs are trembling. Jill works her harder, the pressure building to an intolerable ache. In a euphoric burst Mia feels herself tip over the edge. She sinks her mouth down into Jill’s shirt to muffle her cries and holds onto her for dear life as she rides the shocks of her orgasm out against Jill’s hand and the kitchen counter behind her.

When the haze clears, Jill pulls herself free of Mia and rests her back down against the bar gently. Mia is trembling all over; giddy and grateful for Jill Valentine in a whole other way than before.

Ethan never touched her like that. Ethan never drew blood with his teeth or fucked her so hard she saw stars.

She’s already imagining what else Jill can do with a little more time. If this is really might be their last night together, Mia is damn well going to make the most of it.

Jill grins at her, hair mussed from Mia tangling her fingers through it. “Looked like you enjoyed that.”

Mia splays her hands out behind her and exhales a few breathy laughs. “Enjoyed it? Jill Valentine, your talents are wasted in your field.”

Jill laughs and Mia’s eyes slide to the hob behind her, where her saucepan has begun smoking slightly and turning an alarming shade of orange-brown.

“Shit!” she yelps, scrambling down off the counter. “Oh, fuck, I forgot!”

The meal is ruined, of course. By the time she gets it off the heat and the pasta drained, the sauce is burnt and the pasta is soggy. Mia deposits it all in the garbage with a groan of frustration.

Hands come up behind her and wind around her exposed stomach. Mia turns, surprised, and melts into Jill’s arms as she pushes her back against the counter and kisses her.

“Dinner’s ruined,” Mia mumbles, chuckling as Jill’s kisses explore down the bruised skin of her neck and jaw. “Hope you’re not too hungry. It might be a long wait for attempt number two.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Jill smiles wryly, and Mia shivers with pleasure when Jill’s tongue prods the sticky mess of the bite mark again. “I already ate.”

XXX

That night, Mia joins Jill in her bed again. But this time it’s not as a guardian against her nightmares, but as an aide to resurrect some of her wildest dreams.

If Mia ever had sex this good in her life, she can’t remember it. Not even her own explorations have ever had her feeling this exhausted and delirious. Jill ravages her and Mia returns the favour in praise and reverential kisses, as Jill confides in her that she is more inclined to give than to receive.

Mia is more than happy to receive it, over and over and over again, until her extremities feel so numb that she can’t wipe the blissed-out smile from her face no matter how hard she tries.

They’re curled up on top of the sheets, slick in sex and sweat, and Mia isn’t sure she can move. Can’t bear to drag herself to the bathroom and wash herself down, not when her limbs feel like lead and her brain is dissolving into a puddle of euphoric mush between her ears.

Jill props herself up on one arm on the pillow beside her. Mia shamelessly rakes her eyes down Jill’s body; counting each old scar and fresh love bite in between. There’s a particularly pretty one over Jill’s right breast that sort of looks like a heart.

“What’re you thinking about?” Jill murmurs, smiling, and reaches over to kiss her.

Mia leans into it, exhausted and aching but basking in the adoration all the same. When they pull apart, she says: “Thank you,” and the sincerity of it catches Jill off guard.

“For what?” Jill quirks an eyebrow and grins roguishly. “Apart from the mind-blowing sex, of course.”

“Of course,” Mia echoes, laughing. “Just… for this. For everything. For trusting me when I said that I needed you. And everything else besides.”

Jill’s fingers brush Mia’s hand and she lets Jill take it. Jill’s expression softens as she thumbs the only material left clinging to Mia’s skin.

“My reservations were my own,” Jill says softly. “They had nothing to do with Ethan. He was just a convenient excuse that I had no right to abuse.”

Mia’s heart does some concerning things in her chest. “Reservations?” she says, in a small voice.

Jill continues thumbing her wedding ring. “Professionalism. Your safety. Your state of mind. Complications of an agent dating their charge.”

Mia raises an eyebrow. Single words seem to be all she can manage with Jill’s eyes on her like this. “Dating?” she teases, but its breathless with desire.

“If you’ll have me.” Jill’s mouth presses a slow kiss to the tip of Mia’s finger. “Like I said – I can speak to Chris. Pull some strings.” Another kiss, to the first knuckle this time. “He’s not the only one who knows people.”

The possibility of some kind of future with Jill Valentine has Mia’s veins singing. “I want you,” Mia says, and they share a brief, sincere smile that says everything in just a glance that Mia’s spoken words do not.

When Jill’s mouth reaches the base of Mia’s finger, she presses a slow, respectful kiss against the wedding band, but doesn’t completely withdraw.

“Thank you, Ethan,” Jill whispers against the metal. “For taking such good care of her. For sending her to me. I promise—” her eyes flicker up to Mia’s “—I’ll keep her safe.”

Mia feels emotion swell and lodge itself in her throat. She curls her hand around Jill’s and uses it to tug her forwards, pressing their lips close as her eyes sting.

“I wish he’d got to meet you,” Mia says, her tears smudged against Jill’s cheek. “But I’m glad you got to meet Rose.”

“Me too,” Jill smiles. “You’re an amazing woman, Mia. Your daughter is lucky to have you.” And then, more diffidently: “I’m lucky to have you.”

Mia smiles, because if she says anything else, she really will start sobbing, and she’s not sure she has even an ounce of energy left to spare for it.

Mia falls asleep that night in Jill Valentine’s arms. In the days to come, they move safehouse and Jill applies for permanent protective detail over Mia Winters. In the years to come, Mia will realise that atonement doesn’t come from abstention, and she will continue her training with Jill until Agent Winters is capable and ready to join Agent Valentine in the field. In the decades that follow, Mia watches her daughter grow into a brilliant young woman, cared for by an unlikely family unit who each know exactly what it’s like to feel alone, and they all strive in their own way to ensure Rose never knows what that feels like.

But for right now, Mia has tonight.

And she’s pretty sure that it’s all she’s ever wanted.