#p2-01

RECORD P2-01

Knew You'd Have My Back

1.5 years later...

Jill came home late that night.

The mission briefing for her next field operation had gone longer than expected.

Better to be prepared than surprised.

With a small team consisting of Chris, herself and another partner team whose names she still wasn't entirely familiar with, they would be heading out within the next few days.

Their destination was a laboratory hidden deep inside an old mine in the Alps, located in Germany near the Austrian border.

At first, they had believed it to be an abandoned Umbrella facility.

But new intelligence suggested otherwise.

There were signs of activity.

Someone had continued the research.

And worse—

there had been an outbreak.

That was why the B.S.A.A. was sending an evacuation team.

Their mission was clear:

Contain and eliminate the threat.

Rescue any survivors.

Recover any evidence before it disappeared.

She couldn't even think about sleeping.

Instead, she found herself walking into the room that had once belonged to Leon.

A faint smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as she stepped inside.

The memory of him still lingered as naturally as if he'd only left that morning.

After he'd moved out, looking for another roommate had never even crossed her mind.

She simply hadn't needed one anymore.

Living with Leon had changed something she hadn't believed was possible.

For the first time in years, the silence no longer frightened her.

The past had finally loosened its grip.

The room had changed, too.

It no longer felt like a reminder of someone who was gone.

Over time, she'd turned it into her office—a place that belonged entirely to her.

A large desk now stood where Leon's belongings had once been.

Its surface was neatly arranged with reports, mission files and the occasional piece of equipment waiting for the next deployment.

A wardrobe along one wall held her tactical gear.

Her boots were lined up neatly beneath it.

Yet it wasn't the paperwork that made the room feel alive.

Her eyes wandered across the shelves instead.

Framed photographs stood between books and neatly stacked folders.

Others were pinned to a corkboard above the desk, surrounded by small keepsakes collected over a lifetime.

There was a faded photograph of a much younger Jill sitting in the grass beside the dog she'd grown up with, long before uniforms and bioweapons had become part of her world.

Nearby hung a picture from the police academy.

Followed by an old S.T.A.R.S. team photograph she still couldn't bring herself to take down.

Chris stood in more than one frame.

Barry, too.

Rebecca's bright smile somehow made every picture feel lighter than the memories surrounding it.

Claire appeared in a handful of more recent photographs, usually laughing at something just outside the frame.

And tucked almost casually between them all was a newer picture of Leon, taken by Claire after Alcatraz.

Neither of them had even noticed she was holding a camera that evening.

A small yellow sticky note sat beneath the frame.

In case you're hungry... I left you a Jill Sandwich.

Jill smiled to herself.

She still couldn't believe she'd kept it.

None of it was there because she refused to let go.

Quite the opposite.

For years she'd believed healing meant forgetting.

Moving on meant leaving everything behind and pretending none of it had ever happened.

Somewhere along the way, she'd realized how wrong she'd been.

These weren't reminders of everything she had lost.

They were reminders of everything she had survived.

Of the people who had stayed.

The family she'd found along the way.

The room no longer belonged to the woman who had been haunted by silence.

It belonged to someone who had finally learned that the past would always be part of her story—

without defining the chapters still waiting to be written.

And somehow...

Leon had been the one who helped her understand that.

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