Chapter One: Guilty Until Proven Innocent
The heavy panting was too close to her ear. She couldn't turn her head. She couldn't turn her mouth. She couldn't turn away.
The panting was deafening.
If she could just move a finger, just one, she could reach the knife on the table less than a foot to her right. Her eyes stared forward, at it, frozen there as the panting in her head was nearly cacophonous. Lift your hand - grab the knife - end the pain.
But her hand wasn't her own.
She grabbed it in her fist. She swung it up. There was a shout of horror. Someone started screaming. An alarm began to blare. But she was free.
She rolled to the floor splashed with blood. She ran for the door as the sound of the panting came from her own lungs. She just had to get there. She just had to getaway. She was free. She was ready.
She hit the hallway in a skid. Her feet slapped painfully loud on the bare metal floor. Her lungs sobbed with every breath. The knife in her hand was dripping. The world flashed red and white and red and white.
But the elevator pinged as she struck the button. She just had to get out...get out...GET OUT.
The doors whooshed open. The face in the bright white light wasn't wearing glasses. She lifted the knife, she screamed, "MOVE! DO YOU HEAR ME!? MOVE!"
And the light flickered as the face in its explosive depths was familiar. Familiar...family. "...Jill..." He didn't touch her. He didn't have to. She felt the knife fall to the ground with a clatter.
She collapsed to her knees on the ground. The feet were rushing toward her. She looked up at him desperately and lifted her bloody hands, "Chris...don't...don't let them take me...please..."
He looked so broken. He put a hand down to her and Jill felt the stabbing in her back. The shocks hit her system and she started to convulse as Chris roared, "NO! NO! She's not a fucking threat! LEAVE HER ALONE!"
"She killed that orderly! RESTRAIN HER!"
She went to her side on the floor. The stun gun kept sending sparks into her body. Above her, the man told Chris, "Captain...she's not in there anymore. Whatever he did to her, she's a monster now."
"I think you need to accept that Jill Valentine died in Africa."
She didn't. She hadn't. She was right here.
"Whatever you brought back isn't your partner anymore."
She was. Don't give up on me.
The dark slid over her vision and took away Chris' desperate face.
B.S.A.A. Holding Facility - Washington D.C.
She was handcuffed to a single link on a big table. They were reading her crimes back to her. Her "crimes" as if she were a terrorist being brought up on charges. Her heart shivered.
"Jill Valentine, formerly First Lieutenant Jill Valentine of the B.S.A.A. Field Operations Division, you are here today to answer for your actions against the state. You are being tried under the Patriot Act, guaranteeing that you revoke your American Citizenship and all rights held within if these charges heretofore mentioned are upheld in a court of law. On the night of Mar-"
Jill laughed, harshly, "The Patriot Act!? I'm not a fucking terrorist."
The faces around the table were silent, dark, and judging. She looked for one friendly one in the bunch. None. No one. Was she alone? She'd spent months in isolation with barely a face but her own.
What was this now? Charges? Crimes? She'd had no CONTROL.
They started listing the things she'd done that they knew of under Wesker. They rattled them at her like it was nothing - as if they hadn't been trapped in her body forced into action by a madman -like they hadn't woken in the night and tried like hell to escape him. They didn't care.
She tried again, "You're not listening. Listen to me - I was aware, but I wasn't able to control myself. He pumped me full of that compound, that fucking P-30. Test it, you'll see what I mean. He meant for it to make me a slave."
And the voice answered, "There were no samples left. What there was, was eradicated along with the plane that went down in the volcano. A convenient end for a madman, wouldn't you say, Ms. Valentine? A curious thing to know you directed it there."
"Hold on...I did that because Uroboros is sensitive to FIRE. I knew Chris had no chance without limiting Wesker's conversion. I had to. He knows that. Bring him in. He knew what I was doing."
"We've discussed this all with Captain Redfield. His oral report is on file. We're aware of his version of events."
Whose version were they using here?
Captain Redfield - they wanted her to know he was no longer her partner. He was her superior.
"Agent Alomar was unclear on her side. She made references to concern over your loyalty. She seemed unconvinced of your intentions. She suggested that if you knew about the fire limiting Wesker, why you simply didn't burn him at your own behest when not under the control of the drug."
Apparently, she didn't trust Jill either.
Not that Jill could blame her. Honestly, if someone had crashed her plane into a volcano, she'd have been unlikely to trust them again either. Honestly, it sounded retarded to hear it in her own ears. A volcano? If they only knew what she'd gone through to discover its whereabouts to begin with.
"I wasn't in collaboration with Albert Wesker."
There. Did they need her to say it aloud?
The voice returned, "Ms. Valentine, you were his accomplice for three years. You never escaped. There was no evidence in the compound of his that we raided that you'd ever even tried. You were found through leaked information that brought the BSAA to Kijuju to hunt down Ricardo Irving. The data was buried for years. Then? One day it just pops up. Poof. Like someone had planted it."
They thought she'd come back to spy for Wesker. They thought she was a sleeper agent.
They thought she was a bad guy.
Terrified of what that meant, Jill tried once more, "I was his captive! I was his slave! I was in a tank for half the time and in his control the other! I couldn't escape! I couldn't even take a shit without his command!"
There was murmuring around her. It went on until the voice said, "We are divided on our ability to rule one way or the other in this matter, Ms. Valentine. Until a ruling can be made, Captain Redfield has petitioned us for clemency."
Like she was on death row here?
Their faces said she was indeed.
The doors to the chamber opened and spilled light in. The face of the man speaking was familiar. Who was it? He spoke again into the quiet, "It would appear you have a guardian angel on your side, after all. The committee was inclined to place you in confinement at Rikers Island until your arraignment, but the Director of the DSO has convinced us to allow you to be placed under house arrest with a guardian barring completion of time in service."
Aloud, she wondered, "What the hell does that even mean?"
"Ms. Valentine - you are no longer a lieutenant in the BSAA. You are now the property of the United States Government. From this moment on, you will operate at the behest of your guardian in completing a required amount of service to your nation to atone for your crimes against her. If you refuse, you will be placed before the Supreme Court and tried with treason."
Treason because she'd gone out a window to take down a madman and save her partner's life. Treason - for doing her goddamn job.
"The punishable offense for treason is death by lethal injection."
Jill felt her guts turn cold with lead. "I don't understand what you're saying here. Who requested I be detained with a guardian?"
"Captain Redfield. He's the only reason you're not on death row at the moment, Ms. Valentine. I would be grateful."
Grateful. He'd made her a ward of the state. She'd been one once, as a girl, she'd grown up in foster homes at the behest of her government. It was like being a child again and knowing you had no control. She'd spent the last three years without any control of herself. It would seem she was to be that way again. Her life - always in the hands of someone else. She was never, it seemed, destined to be free.
"You will be watched, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You will have no privacy, no leniency, and no rights. The Patriot Act reduces your wants and needs to negligible, Ms. Valentine, until further stated ...you are the property of the Department of Security Operations."
Her mouth felt like she'd been licking sand it was so dry, "What fucking idiot agreed to be my guardian?"
Out of the shadows, she got her answer.
She couldn't make out a single face of the assholes in the dark condemning her...but she could clearly see the face of Leon Kennedy.
Aloud, she cursed, "Oh, fuck you."
And all he did was laugh, "You have to buy me dinner first."
The car hummed like a jungle cat. Sleek, purring, and hugging turns with a predator's deadly grace. Cuffed to the dashboard, Jill watched the scenery race by as they left the city behind.
She didn't know where he was going. At this point, it didn't even matter. It could be the seventh rung of Hell and it would be the same. She said nothing as he handled the roads with a master's precision.
She'd heard somewhere he was a shitty driver. You couldn't prove it by the way he handled the Jaguar they were in.
Kennedy. She was his captive now it seemed. Like a prize that no one wanted, she was forced into his custody to be babysat until she'd proved herself. First a slave, now a prisoner. Her eyes watched the sun tickle down the horizon to head toward evening.
The collar at her throat beeped once to signal it was active. Like a fucking dog. As he'd secured it around her, Kennedy had said, "It's got a timer on it, Jill. If you go too far for too long, it will put you down."
Her brows had shot up, "Kill me?"
She saw the look on his face. The look that wanted to get smart with her about it, but he'd replied, "No. It will incapacitate you until you can be collected."
When he'd shifted the tail of her hair off her nape to snap it shut, she'd spat, "Enjoying yourself?"
Honestly, he couldn't blame her for the ire. She'd been naked. It was the way it was done in holding like that. She was stripped down, hosed off, thoroughly inspected by guards, and left naked during the placement of her containment device.
Her time with Wesker had left her in supreme physical condition. She looked like she could snap your neck without breaking a sweat. He'd arched a brow at her, "Sure. I love playing babysitter to a pissed off potential traitor."
She'd cocked her head, "No? I heard groping traitors was a favorite past time of yours."
Interesting. She knew about Ada. He'd felt his mouth twitch. "Not lately." As he'd turned away, the female guards stepped up to dress her again. She was cuffed and handed to him like a dog on a leash.
No one in their right mind would have agreed to what he was doing, but him. Of course, no one said he was in his right mind. Chris had asked. He'd said yes. The entire conversation was better left for another day...but it was done.
Karma would surely reward him for his good deed.
The Jaguar rolled into the underground parking lot he guided it toward. He was curious about Jill's hyper-awareness. She was mapping in her head. He knew it, he did it himself, she was remembering everything.
Most likely, it was so she would know how to escape. Why? To reunite with her people?
He wasn't sure what he thought about her potentially playing to the other side. He understood the caution. She'd told a pretty tall tale so far about her captivity. First to survive the fall and not be crippled was impossible. It just was.
According to her report, she'd been in cryostasis recovering from massive internal injuries. During that time, Wesker discovered she'd had latent evidence of the T-Virus dormant in her body from her infection via the Nemesis in Raccoon City. The fall had killed her, officially, and the T-Virus wasn't wiped out by the prototype vaccine she'd received - it had just gone to sleep. It activated to save her life.
By trying to save Chris Redfield and sacrificing herself, she'd handed Albert Wesker the perfect weapon - the rare one percent of the population that was immune to the Tyrant Virus. It was the last piece he'd needed to finish his prototype for Uroboros. Jill was responsible for its final form. She was the key to its creation.
After its creation, why keep her alive?
He'd had what he wanted from her. Why spare her life?
But he had. He'd made her his handmaiden. He'd outfitted her with a device that Redfield had removed in the field and was never recovered. Without the device, they couldn't verify it had been used to control her via the alleged P-30 she spoke about.
The speculation from Redfield was that Wesker had kept her alive to torment him and revenge himself on her. It made sense, in a perverse way, but it was also vaguely narcissistic to assume the global aspirations of a megalomaniac had anything to do with a single former member of his failed S.T.A.R.S. unit.
It was more likely Jill Valentine had always been his disciple. A follower of Wesker to the point of being a sleeper agent when he knew his plan to use Uroboros might fail. He'd sent her back with Redfield to infiltrate the government and destroy it from the inside.
That was the thought here.
Leon wasn't sure what he thought. He was never inclined to agree with the majority because so often they were wrong with their assumptions.
He only knew that keeping her under constant surveillance was the only way to make sure she was just another victim of a horrible master of destruction. If she was innocent, she'd benefit from a slow reintroduction into society. Her adjustment to life outside had been traumatic. She'd responded like victim suffering from massive PTSD, but that happened with Stockholm Syndrome as well. She was possibly mourning the death of her master.
In this case, Leon was the best case. He had no family. He had no friends. He had no live in lovers or ties to the community. He was all work and no play. He was the Director of the newly formed bioterror response unit within the DSO. That meant tons of paperwork and prep work before missions, so he was often out of the field while he built the unit from the ground up.
If Jill was innocent, she'd make a helluva an addition to that unit. What was clear? She was done with the BSAA. She was no longer trusted in the organization. She'd been removed from duty, disavowed from the field, and taken out of play as an asset. Her only hope now was to find a place in the DSO with Leon's recommendation and that came with proving herself in his custody.
Sadly, it wasn't going to be a comfortable fit for either of them.
Valentine was an asshole.
There was no getting around it.
She'd taunted him, nagged at him, needled and poked at him to try to get him to snap before they'd left the facility. She'd called him names, suggested he'd slept his way to the top based on his looks, and remarked about his drinking. She'd read his file, clearly, so she knew what buttons were sharp and raw on him.
Now, she muttered, "Don't wreck, hotshot, because I promise you I won't pull you from the fire."
He laughed and steered the car into a private enclosed parking garage. A metal door lowered to seal them in as he killed the engine and stepped out. Two guards were waiting to help escort her to the elevator that would take her to his floor.
She said nothing again until he let her into his apartment. The whole top floor was his. Having a father who was a senator and a job at the right hand of the most powerful man in the world paid well. The old man was a waste of space as a parent, but he'd pulled the right strings to get Leon into a place to make a difference. It was the only thing he'd ever be grateful for.
Jill was quiet as she stood in the wide-open beauty of his massive penthouse apartment. He walked through it like a lord of the manor. He didn't even seem to stop and care about the amazing gift that was each corner. She'd never understood the kind of money and power that came with the blase acceptance of massive wealth.
His apartment was floor to ceiling windows on one side that opened to an incredible balcony. The view was the twilight magnificence of the New York skyline. The Empire State Building glistened like a Christmas tree. She watched a helicopter circle and land on a rooftop. She watched clouds filter over the ball of blazing beauty that was the sun starting to turn pink and red in the swirling sky.
Without thinking, she exhaled a heavy breath and remarked, "...fucking incredible."
Leon paused, brows arched, and glanced at the view. He couldn't remember the last time he'd bothered to notice it. He looked at it now as someone who might have been underground in a cement cell for years. He glanced at her face and the push of purplish light over her delicate features.
If she was acting awed and relieved, she was doing a damn fine job.
Softly, he returned, "Yeah. It's what they call a million-dollar view."
"Take it for granted, do ya?"
Surprised, he realized he did. He had, for quite some time. He started to say something and she added, "Nevermind. It's not like I care."
Shaking her head, clearing her throat, Jill jingled her cuffs as she turned away from it and crossed through the huge space toward the open door beside a curling set of stairs. The place was done in shiny mahogany and white. It was classy and fancy and smelled like good taste and money. She felt dirty just walking through it.
She paused beside the massive Schiller Berlin grand piano poised prettily and surrounded by those huge windows on three sides. The fourth side traveled a wide-open hallway filled floor to ceiling with books. He was a man who enjoyed music and literature. She'd heard somewhere he was a genius. It wasn't a surprise to find his was a mind that required constant stimulation.
Her cuffed hands touched the soft keys on the piano. The music tinkled prettily. He'd read in her file she was musically inclined. It was, it would appear, something they had in common after all.
To his surprise, she spoke again, "Why not a Steinway?"
He arched his brows as he set aside the mail he'd been going through. "What?"
"You're a guy with thousand dollar shoes. Why not a Steinway piano? That's what the fancy pants fucks usually own."
He tilted his head at her, "Do they?"
"Yeah." She curled her lip at him, "This is a Schiller. It's old. It's scuffed but well-loved. Why not upgrade?"
And he answered, without preamble, "Because new doesn't always mean better. You oughta know that better than anyone."
Jill shrugged and turned to face him. She lifted her cuffed hands. "What's the deal? You gonna lead me around like this forever?"
He shifted toward her. She studied him as he moved. The navy vest he wore complimented the powder blue tie and crisp white shirt. He was missing the jacket for the suit. His hair was shaggy and attractive. It was something he was known for, that face of his.
It was graced with enough scruff to make the perfect cheekbones masculine instead of pretty.
He wasn't her type. He never had been. She didn't like girly faced pretty boys. She liked them even less when they were her babysitter.
He put his hand out and waited. Jill sighed and lifted her cuffs toward him. He waited until she placed them in his open palm. Neither said anything as he turned the key in the cuffs and released her hands.
The moment he did, he warned her, "If you try to run, I will bring you back. If you do this, Jill, and behave - you'll get your freedom. How fair you play, is how fair I do."
She studied him with intelligence that looked good on her. It was still odd to see her with the ice blonde hair and nearly white blue eyes. He hadn't recognized her when Redfield had invited him into the facility to study her in recovery.
The jumpsuit she wore was beige and boring, but the scars peeking out of the zipper weren't. They were the evidence of the device she'd worn. It was still unclear if she'd worn it by choice to enhance her abilities.
Jill surprised him by appealing to his common sense, "Kennedy, I'm not a threat. I was, I was for a long time because he made sure I wasn't able to stop myself. I'm not going to hurt anyone. Hell, I don't even want to go back into the field. I swear to god, I just want to be left alone. Let me go, tell them I beat the fuck out of you and escaped. I don't care, but let me go."
He scanned her face and finally answered, "You can have the bedroom because I'm a gentleman. The door stays open, always. The penthouse is wired with cameras in every room but the shitter. When you bathe, the door stays open. When you shit, the door stays open. Unless you're sleeping, you stay with me. If I even think you're attempting to make contact with anyone, at any time, I will immediately revoke your parole and put you back in the facility to rot. You don't get to spend three years as the right hand of a monster and get away with a story about mind control, Jill, you know better than that."
The softness on her abated. She was back to staring at him like he was a bastard. He was, but it was for a good cause.
To his surprise, she snatched his tie and jerked him forward. He let her, curious about her response. She spat at him, "When you're sleeping, do it with one eye open. The things I learned..it's not something you forget just because you're free. You won't be so fucking pretty when I'm done with you."
His brow arched, "You have no idea what I'm capable of, Jill. Don't fool yourself. You wanna be enemies, that's fine with me, but I'm not just a pretty face."
"Funny thing, Kennedy, I was about to say the same thing."
She let go of his tie and turned away. "I'm gonna take a shower. Have a blast watching me, you fucking peeping tom."
"Please. With this face, you think I have trouble getting a woman? I don't need to creep on girls in the shower."
She rolled her eyes as she stepped into the bathroom and reached for the zipper on her jumpsuit.
"Leave the door open, Jill."
"I fucking heard you the first time...and stop calling me, Jill. We're not friends. We never were. Right now? We're closer to enemies."
"...only if you make it that way, darlin. Your choice."
She dropped the jumpsuit and stepped into the glass shower. He picked up his mail and turned into the small kitchen to see about dinner. He'd just lit up a cigarette and took a long drag when he saw a flicker of movement in the glass of the wall beside him.
He turned and got an arm up, but it didn't stop him from getting the fire extinguisher to the side of the face. He should have known she'd try to escape first thing. The hit threw him into the sink and clattered dishes as he nearly went down.
The partial block of his arm kept him from being knocked out completely, but he was still dizzy as he stuck a foot out and tripped her when she turned to run. She stumbled, picked up a chair from the dinette and turned, launching it at him. He caught it, threw it aside, and rushed her.
Jill wasn't sure what she thought would happen, in truth. She'd panicked the second she realized she was going to be at the mercy of a man, naked, with no way to escape. What did she think happened if she managed to get away from him?
To his surprise, she tossed her legs to the side and vaulted over the sofa...in a towel. She was in a towel and running. It might have been comic if it wasn't so ridiculous. Leon cut right around the sofa and Jill reached the door.
She grabbed for the knob, found it locked, and spun back as he cornered her.
He lifted his hands and soothed, "Easy. Easy. Even if you get out, there's no way you'll get to the ground level. The security in this building is top notch, Jill. It's why I chose it. You have to be cleared to get on the elevator to even attempt to run."
Jill, breathing harshly, lifted the razor in her hand at him. "Stay back, do you hear me? I will cut you."
He arched a brow, "With a dull razor?"
Jill narrowed her eyes at him, "How brave are you? Get close and find out."
Leon shrugged...and surprised her. He grabbed for her and got a razor across the palm for it, but it didn't stop him. He grabbed her anyway. He caught her wrist, twisted, and dragged her toward him. She shouted, threw her foot down, and...lost it.
It was more than surprising, it was shocking. She panicked like nothing he'd ever seen the moment he caught her against his front with her back to him. She screamed and struggled, roaring like a wild lion. He actually let go of her in utter surprise as she scrambled away and heaved out breaths like she had run a mile. She backed up toward the bathroom with the bloody razor, gasping, "Don't. Don't. Don't ever touch me! Don't."
Hands lifted, he looked at her like she'd grown an ugly second head. "Ok. Alright. Ease down. I won't touch you. Put the razor down and kick it over to me."
"...I need to shave my legs."
Leon shook his head, "Not anymore you don't. You want them shaved, you have to let me do it. Your shaving privileges just got revoked." He lifted his bloody palm, "This is your official notice."
What the hell had happened to her to cause that kind of reaction? It was startling.
Jill backed into the bathroom, panting. She dropped the razor and kicked it across the floor. "I can't stay here. I can't. Do you understand that? I'm going to get away. You should accept that now."
"Ok." He stared at her, hard, "You won't get passed me, Jill. You just won't. You need to accept that."
Jill backed into the bathroom. She got into the shower still the towel and stepped under the spray. He advised her, "I'm gonna come in there and treat my hand. Alright?"
Huddled in the heavy steam, she whispered, "If you even attempt to open this door, I'll break your wrist."
"I'm not interested in spying on you, Jill. When are you gonna get that?"
To his surprise, she told him, "Your fucking job is to spy on me, Kennedy. So stop lying."
He stepped into the beautiful bathroom and moved toward the sink. One side was the shower, one side the "water closet" which was a glass enclosure containing a bidet and a toilet. The sink and the tub were left in the middle graced by the overlooking eyes of Manhatten beyond the windows. It was a helluva thing to lie in that enormous tub and watch the world pass you by 96 floors up.
After a moment of binding his palm and cleaning it, he heard the towel plop wetly to the floor of the shower. To his continued surprise, she spoke again, "Why would you agree to this? Don't you understand what you're getting into?"
Under his breath, he muttered, "More now than I did an hour ago."
And she added, "I'm gonna drive you crazy until you agree to my release."
He had no doubt. Sadly for them both, she was officially his problem. He was stuck 96 floors above the rest of the world with a crazy woman. Hell hath no fury was taking on new meaning.
To his reflection in the steamy glass, he murmured, "...fuck." And he so, so, so was.
