PART ONE: SOME BEACH, SOMEWHERE


"I believe very strongly that when it comes to desire, when it comes to attraction, that things are never black and white, things are very much shades of grey." -Brian Molko


Raccoon City, 1998


She was running late that morning. She dropped her keys in the toilet while brushing her teeth and had to fish them out. She burned her neck curling her hair. She poked herself in the eye with her mascara. She didn't move out of the way of the slamming fridge door while making a something to eat and almost became a Jill sandwich while making a sandwich. The irony of that would not have been lost on her.

She got caught up watching the early morning news and forgot to get in the shower on time. Her alarm clock lost power over night in the rain storm. Her little motorbike kept being a pain in the ass about firing up. And traffic was backed up because of the 100 Days of Umbrella festival rejoicing in the influx of business brought about by Umbrella Pharmaceuticals building the production plant at the edge of town.

She raced up the stairs of the RPD station almost late for work. Captain Wesker, damn his eyes, didn't miss a trick. She'd been late her first day. He'd made her very aware of the fact that it would not be tolerated. He was snooty, yes, and very strict. But he had a way of making you feel about three inches tall as well.

She raced through the lobby of the RPD, holding her helmet under her arm. She pocketed her keys as she ran and missed. They tumbled out of her hand, hit the floor, spun in a circle and were kicked by a walking man into the far corner.

He kept on walking.

"Thanks a lot dude!" She shouted snidely at the guys fat ass as she raced over to get them. She muttered under her breath, "Asshat."

Jill Valentine was notoriously late for everything. She had been most of her life. It was perpetuated by a father that didn't know how to even be remotely on time. If he showed up at all of course. Henri-Louis Valentin was seldom, if ever, around when you needed him. She hadn't heard from him in years. Being in lock up all the time tended to impact your relationships and making it home for Christmas. Landing state side a French immigrant, Henri tried to Americanize his name and added the E to the end. And so, a brief fling later with her mother Noriko – a Japanese dancer in New York long enough to birth a baby and run away, Jillian-Aime Valentine was born.

Henri was a terrible father. He did the best he could, in some ways. He was lazy and self centered and above the law. So he often times stole or lied or cheated those around him. More than once, she woke up to find him having gotten his ass kicked by someone he'd grifted and gotten caught while doing it. He did seem to love her. He spoiled her with love when he could and educated her with books and bedside speeches. He was smart and stupid and flawed. He was in and out of jail and Jill ended up in foster homes most of her youth. He'd get her out and run her around and they'd sleep in trucks and trailers and have great adventures. He'd go back in lock up and she'd go back to group living and school.

She was smart as a whip and quick on her feet. He taught her how to bleed a bastard with her little knife and crack open safes like a professional. She loved him. And it was a real and painful love. Because he was a terrible, awful, failure of a father. She'd have loved, just once, to wake up in a surburban bedroom and been normal.

Her keys were picked up by a person sitting in "chairs." Chairs was where they kept prisoners waiting to be processed and where new recruits waited for an interview. She'd spent two torturous hours in chairs her first day here bored off her ass until Chris Redfield had showed up. She'd spent the next two laughing.

The person in chairs was young and handsome. He offered her keys to her with a charming, disarming, and slightly dorky smile. He was thin, tall, and had a long ponytail tied back from a cute face that was all sharp angles and high cheekbones. The eyes were husky blue and rather haunting.

She grabbed her keys from his hand. "Thanks dude. Good luck on your interview, yeah? Just remember, don't panic. Chief Irons likes confidence. Pretend you're James Bond and you'll be golden like a shower."

"Awesome. Thanks."

God he was young. She was barely in her twenties, this was true. But this kid was fresh out of highschool young. He still had baby written all over him. He reminded her of Rebecca Chambers on Bravo Team. She offered him another little something for his chivalry: she tossed him her S.T.A.R.S. zippo lighter.

He caught it, lifting a brow.

"For when all the other lights go out my friend. Trust me…it'll happen. You can never have too much light dude. True story." And she hurried up the stairs to the S.T.A.R.S. office.

A week later would find her trapped in the first real fight of her life. The Spencer Estate was waiting for them to walk in, run, hide and almost die fighting to get out. In the lobby of the RPD that day, she'd met the other side of that long night. Leon S. Kennedy interviewing for the only night he'd ever serve on the RPD police force. A baby maybe but a hero not long after.

And the light she'd given him saved his life more than once over that long night.


Terragrigia, 2003


The early morning light filtered in through her window high above the sprawling aquapolis. Eyes as blue as the water beneath filtered through the noise and the commotion to settle on the sheer beauty of the landscape. Jill Valentine was a water baby. She did best surrounded by water.

She'd come from Russia not long before. The Umbrella facility there was now garbage, neutralized and disbanded. The B.S.A.A. was in full swing. Backed by the power of the government and infused with talent of herself, Chris, Barry Burton and a selection of others, their fledgling terror resistance organization was gathering speed and gaining ground at destroying the things that bred and bled destruction through biowarfare. But Wesker still plagued the night like the big bad wolf, eventually he'd show up to eat Granny.

She and Chris had celebrated the birth of the BSAA with a bottle of Dom Perignon and a sweaty night over looking the Mediterranean. He'd had to let out early for a mission so she'd stayed behind to play ambassador.

She was in Terragrigia making contacts with the FBC and the President. If all the fingers in the pie started playing together, they might be able to actually fight the threats out there with some accuracy. Chris had been needed at HQ so she was here making friends in the beautiful, breezy, and completely green powered Terragrigia.

He was freezing his nuts off. She was getting ready to go lay out in her bikini. Someone was getting the shit end of the stick. Whistling happily, Jill looped a towel around her hips and hurried out of her room. She perched her little sunglasses on her nose and hit the button for the elevator to the main floor. It will spill her right out onto the beach and she'd spend a few hours roasting in the sun.

The elevator dinged and the doors opened.

And she was face to face with Leon Kennedy.

She'd met him the day before of course. They'd enjoyed a fabulous evening playing footsie in the local bar. The flirting had gotten dangerous at one point and impossibly fun. He was clearly going to the beach himself. His red trunks were all he was wearing besides little flipflops and those aviator sunglasses that did wonderful things for his face. He had a towel looped over his neck and a smile on that face that haunted her sweaty dreams the night before.

God damn he was gorgeous. She could make out every line and curve of muscle on his body. He likely lived in the gym to look like that. She respected it as she lived there herself. He wasn't trying to bulk up like Chris. But he'd taken his lithe build and gone the other direction: he was finely toned and runner built. Less brawler and more boxer. It was rattling her brains where they'd met before. They had to have met somewhere in the past. Raccoon City survivors didn't go without meeting up at some point. She smiled, setting her hand on her hip.

He had a little hemp bracelet looped around his left wrist. She was curious who had given it to him. Girlfriend? Mommy? She gestured with her other hand.

"You getting on, handsome? I don't bite…too hard."

He laughed, out right, and shook his head. He got on the elevator. The doors swished shut.

"I was temporarily blinded by you in that bikini."

It wasn't much of a bikini, admittedly. It was blue in a shade that bordered on teal and had gold links for the neck. The top was little more than a couple triangles bound by a little gold strap. The bottoms tried to be panties but were closer to a thought than actual fabric. Bikinis – allowing girls to dress slutty and get away with it since their inception.

Even Chris, her best pal in the world, had tripped and fallen into a rack of clothes when she'd come out of the dressing room. Shoulders deep in dresses, he'd stuck his thumb up toward her. She'd laughed, delighted.

She glanced over at him as the elevator descended. He was trying not to grin. She found it charming. And she thought he might be the cutest thing she'd ever met.

"How'd the night treat ya?"

"Awesome," He turned a little toward her, "Couldn't sleep for shit though."

"Oh yeah? Too much scotch?"

"Nah. Hard to sleep when you're plagued by an endless erection."

Thrilled with him, she laughed loud and brightly. She patted his arm, loving the toned muscle in it. "You poor thing. They make hands to take care of that kind of thing."

"Next time I'm going to call your room like some pervert and breathe into the phone."

Yep. She kinda loved him. She dropped her forehead to his arm now and laughed again. "Sounds good to me. Better than watching porn on paper view all night like I did."

"Paid for courtesy of the BSAA?"

"You bet."

Leon nodded. "Your tax dollars hard at work."

The elevator dinged and spilled them out to the sand and the beautiful bar, beach, and playground of sand and sun beyond. It was spotted with tourists and swimmers. The sky was cloudless and endless. The temperature was balmy but breezy. It was a perfect day.

She said, "What do you say we put our towels together?"

"You read my mind, sweet cheeks."

Jill chuckled and they found a bare spot to lay down their towels. She pulled hers off and laid it down. He made some sound, "You're going to start a riot in that damn swim suit."

She lowered her glasses and eyed him. "You're one to talk. How many sit ups does it take to look like that? Like a Men's Fitness magazine."

"You don't want to know." He watched her slather on some kind of oil on her skin. She was something in that suit. All tits and ass, for sure. She hid the tits pretty well under business casual but they were all kinds of sweaty fantasy amazing. And her ass? Well he couldn't think of any words good enough to describe it. She was all legs, ass, flat toned tummy and pin up girl breasts. It was a crime against nature.

"Seriously…you and Chris. You guys a thing?"

She chuckled, "We're a thing."

"Got it."

"No you don't. He's my counter weight. Do I love him? You bet. I'd cut your fucking hands off if you touch him."

"And the sex?"

"What about the sex?"

"Don't be coy here, Valentine. Spill the beans."

"He's not going to knock your teeth down your throat for looking, Kennedy. If that's what you're asking." Although maybe he would. Chris was an odd duck about men looking at her sometimes. "Not sure if it's really your business if I'm sleeping with him though. He's the Ren to my Stimpy."

"He's the Stimpy, by the way."

She laughed, "Ok. He's the Stimpy. You ready to swim, hot shot?"

He was ready to do all kinds of things. But swimming sounded about right. He chased her into the water.

She laughed with delight and swam like a fish. Slippery, smooth, and tantalizing they played in salt water like eels. They bobbed together out toward the farthest buoy.

She pushed that handsome face under the water and watched him come up, sputtering. His hair looked ridiculous now and was in streamers down his face. Laughing, she smoothed it back…and caught her breath. Yeah. That was the magic of him. The hair made the face…at least you thought that until you took away the hair.

Nope. The face made the hair.

He hooked an arm around her waist and dragged her against him. Her hands lingered on his face and then lowered to his upper arms. She'd known, of course, in two seconds that she was interested in him. But she knew now that she was sort of painfully attracted to him.

He grinned at her. She rubbed her thumbs over his biceps, contemplating how far she was willing to take this thing. And he didn't give her any time to think about it…he dunked her.

She came up, laughing. Defeated by her own hormones. It was embarrassing and sobering.

Taking pity on her, he scooped her wet hair out of her face. She bobbed in the water and her hands settled on his chest. Oh, he thought as his brain settled in his groin and hung out there like a teenager, so that's where the wind blew.

She said, "Hi."

He said, "Hi."

She slid her hands around his sides and over his back. His moved to grip that perfect ass and pull her against him. They both made some sound of surprised delight.

"Dangerous," She said softly, "Very dangerous game here, Mr. Kennedy."

It was. Yep.

"Yep," He leaned down to put his lips beside her ear, "You want to stop playing?"

She laughed, thrilled. "Nope." She wrapped her legs around his waist. They were both aware what kept them apart here. It was the people that floated and laughed and played around them.

The thrill of being bad was also what kept them stuck together. He slipped his hand into the top of those tiny little bikini bottoms and she lifted a brow at him. "I usually ask a guy to buy me dinner before he tries to grope me." She punctuated this by rubbing herself against him enough to torture them both.

Leon chuckled, "I will buy you dinner. I will buy you groceries for the next year. Just keep doing exactly what you are doing. If you don't stop, I will create a make shift spear from a pencil and a rock and go and slaughter a cow to feed you."

Jill laughed and shifted herself to feel the press of their chests together. He looked at her like he was drowning. "You're trying to kill me. This is obvious."

"Probably. Possibly. Or kill us both."

"Helluva way to die."

"Definitely." She leaned over him, "You're something, Mr. Kennedy."

His hands slipped a little lower in her bottoms. His voice was a little hoarse and utterly charming when he said, "I'm thinking that something is horny as hell. So, I'm not sure that's as charming as you make it sound."

She rocked against him again and they both moaned a little.

"I should get off of you."

"You should."

"You want me to?"

"No. No I don't."

And they both laughed in a kind of desperate way. The playfulness of it was both sexy, tantalizing, and damning. He slipped his hand down and completely cupped her ass. She murmured and turned her head.

He turned his. They brushed their mouths together, once, twice. She said, "I want to kiss you."

Amused, aroused, he studied her from an inch away, "So kiss me."

"No. I want you to kiss me first."

His head tilted. He was so painfully gorgeous in the dying sun. She wanted to kiss him. She did. But she wanted him to do it first. It was that simple. It was that complicated.

She unhitched herself from around him. "If I kiss you first, you'll fall in love with me. You'll start calling me all the time and leaving messages on my answering machine at 3 am. Next thing I know you'll be under my window at midnight with a boombox."

The humor on his face was bright and joyous. "Oh yeah?"

"Oh yeah. It happens. I had to stop Chris from singing a love song to me atop a table in J's Bar one night."

He tried to drag her back against him but she floated little further in shore. "Is that so?"

"It's so. Boys can't help but love me. It's my curse on the world."

"Helluva curse."

"Oh yeah. You'll start following me around and stalking me. You'll wait in my lobby to wax intellectual about the color of my hair. It'll be awful."

He kinda thought that might be true. She was something all right.

"I do tend to pick the wrong girls to flirt with."

"I heard that about you. Your timing needs work, Mr. Kennedy."

"How's the timing now? Come back here." Leon followed her out of the water. He caught her hand and dragged her into him, wrapping his arm around her waist. She put her hands on his wet chest and avoided his mouth. It glanced off her cheek.

She laughed and moved away again. "Not like that, hotshot. Nope."

"Tease."

"Probably. But when you kiss me, I want fireworks. I want…the blood to boil and for both of us to drown in it. And I want it to be somewhere where I can kiss you back."

"You give me five minutes, we can go upstairs and I will kiss any part of you, you want. As many times as you want."

Jill smiled, wolfishly. "Five minutes? A whole five minutes? You charmer."

"I lose my charm under pressure."

Jill laughed again, delighted, "I doubt that. You can kiss me, Leon Kennedy, when you can't think of anything else but that. You can kiss me when you will absolutely die if you don't. You can kiss me when you want me and only me."

"You see anybody else? There's only you."

"Liar," Jill wrapped the towel around her and he groaned in disappointment.

"You're killing me here."

"That's the idea." She danced a little up the beach from him, "There's somebody else in there, Mr. Kennedy. Look at you. There's somebody else. You can kiss me when there isn't."

"Come back here."

"Can't do it. Gotta go to work," She waved at him from the top of the rise on the beach, "It'll be a helluva kiss, Leon. I promise you that."

"I have no doubt."

"Might be the best kiss you've ever had. You've heard stories about me having the best hands in Delta right?"

"Yeah? The surgeon."

"How's that heart of yours doing?"

He rubbed his chest. "I think it's still in there. Come back and check for me."

Jill's laughter was musical now and thrilled. "I don't just operate in combat, handsome. I have the best hands in the bedroom too. Not bragging, just saying."

"Show me. I'll let you kill me after."

Oh, he was something. She turned away laughing and ran up the beach toward the hotel. He wasn't a betting man but he was betting she wasn't bragging at all about those hands. But one thing was very clear: she had the best ass in the BSAA and there was no way he'd lose that bet at all.

And Jill? Well she hadn't had a man flirt like that with her in years. Chris was blunt and straight forward. It was charming in its sheer ineptitude. Leon Kennedy knew his way around flirting. He'd made her feel like the prettiest girl on the beach.

She turned back to see him standing by the water, watching her. She laughed with delight and waved. He watched her run into the hotel and rubbed at his chest.

Yep..it was still in there. But she'd almost taken it with her.