A Long Way From Home

5. Peace & Pittsburgh

October 6th, 1998. 07:15.

He woke before she did, though he couldn't be sure just how much sooner. All Carlos knew was that when his eyes opened and he saw Jill still curled into his side the way she had been when sleep had claimed them, he couldn't take his eyes off her. If he did, she would surely disappear. He wasn't this lucky – guys like him, they didn't get girls like her.

But she didn't fade into wisps of air, and when she began to stir her arm only wound more tightly around him.

"Buenos días," he said.

There was a low grumble from her direction.

"I swear to God, if you start talking to me in Spanish again…"

He was tempted, so tempted.

"You sleep ok?"

"Wonderfully."

She moved then, shifting so that her head was on the pillow rather than his shoulder, and allowed her fingers to wander up his torso, leaving trails of sparks in their wake. She was close enough now to kiss and it took everything within him to not do just that. There was a certain labour to the way she moved, and she had winced as she adjusted her shoulders – he felt the aches throughout his own body and though he knew just how powerful a drug her kiss was he didn't want to assume his was the same and risk hurting her. Or scaring her off. That was another thing.

She was really here, though? The opportunity to run, to blush, to cover herself and maker her excuses had passed. Delicate fingertips traced the outline of his muscles, slid through his chest hair and as he closed his eyes and felt her move again they drifted around to his rib cage. When her lips pressed to his skin and her hand moved lower, dangerously close to his hip bone, he whispered her name like it was a prayer. Yes, definitely here. And she definitely wanted to be.

Her hand slowed and kisses ceased when she moved back towards his chest and her thumb brushed a small patch of smooth skin on the left side of his torso, just below the last rib.

"You were shot," she said. It was a statement but he heard the question it implied.

Carlos looked down, like he had forgotten he even had those scars. The one she indicated, small and vaguely rounded, was part of set. That particular one was lucky; a clean shot, no exit wound, tore him up but at least missed his kidney. The other, further toward his chest on the right side, had been even luckier; his shitty armour hadn't held up entirely but it had reduced the impact of the bullet enough that it wasn't able to deal much more than a relatively clean break to his rib rather than tear through his lung. That one probably should have killed him. Maybe it had? Maybe he was decomposing in some ditch and Umbrella, Raccoon, all of it, had been some sort of twisted purgatory and now here he was in heaven.

"Yeah," was all he could manage in reply.

"Colombia?"

His past was the last thing he wanted to go through with her right now, but there was enough curiosity in her voice to persuade him to indulge her, even if just a little.

"Yeah. Funny thing is, I'm not even sure if it was the army or the paramilitaries," he said with a bitter laugh.

"You don't have to go through it if you don't-"

"No, I want to." And he did. If she wanted to know, he wanted to share. It's what they did now. "Someone betrayed us. Or the enemy, I'm still not sure, but it was a bloodbath. A paramilitary group, the army, us. A set-up. Most of my men were killed, I tried to stay behind to get as many to safety as I could. Got shot for it. Was wearing armour too. Farmer said if I wasn't I'd probably be dead."

"Farmer?"

He laughed again, this time a little lighter. Because it really was ridiculous now that he thought back on it.

"All I remember is being dragged through some trees and then I'm in a bed hooked up to an IV and everything hurts. One of my guys had carried me out of there, to this farmer who was basically our primary care provider at that point. Guy used to be a doctor, retired for a quiet life then made a deal with…well, you know."

She kissed the scar on his right side and he felt some of the anxiety the old memories had unearthed dissipate.

"He said I had a 50:50 chance of pulling through – 70:30 if I checked into a hospital, but that was a sure-fire way to end up in jail and I wasn't convinced it was the better option. Stayed at his a few days and when I was strong enough to walk he drove me to Bogota and left me at my apartment with a handful of cow antibiotics and a 'good luck'. Umbrella found me a few days later, paid for private medical care and rehab. Thought it was awfully kind of them, now I realise I was just more use to them in peak condition."

Jill's fingers moved back up to his chest and rested there as she pressed her warm body to his side. He was very aware of the particularly soft flesh pressed against his rib-cage and he realised yet again just what a lucky asshole he was. He should have been dead several times over, in Colombia or Raccoon. Instead, he was here with her.

"You're really not what I expected," Jill hummed.

"Says Supercop."

"Says the man who saved Supercop."

"This isn't a competition, Jill," he laughed. "Besides…I'm different now."

She shifted again and when he looked down at her she was leaning on his chest, her hands beneath her chin, and she looked at him like…well, like she adored him.

"This is real, huh?" he asked, dumbly. He brought a hand to her hair and she leaned into it, closed her eyes for a long second.

"I don't know," she said. "Carlos, there's so much ahead…"

"So much behind us too. The fact we're still here, able to have moments like this after all we've been through… If this isn't what we're fighting for, then what the hell are we doing?"

Jill laughed, laid her head down and rested her cheek against her hand.

"I like you." The way she said this was so matter of fact. "A lot."

He felt his heart flutter where it beat beneath her gentle weight. God, he felt so silly. He'd barely known her a week but she had him wanting to believe a more normal life awaited them.

"I like you too," he said. "Also a lot. And if this is all we can be, I get that and I'll respect it. But if you wanted more, if you have room in that chaotic life of yours for more…well, all you gotta do is invite me in. You've got me hooked, lady, I'm not going anywhere."

When she moved this time it was with a more determined grace. A long leg moved over both of his and the next thing he knew, she was straddling him, looking down at him with the fierce determination that was the reason he was in this predicament in the first place.

He was also aware that she was naked. Very naked. And so was he. More than that, she held herself with such shameless confidence that he felt his affection for her burn through his veins with renewed fervour.

"Let's take it easy," she said. "No labels, just… Let's just be us."

He was so enamoured with her in that moment he would have agreed to anything she asked of him.

"So long as I get to wake up to your pretty face, I'm happy."

Her hair fell over his face when she leaned forward to kiss him, and the hand that had been idling on her hip traced her skin up over the curve of her breast to comb that hair back. Pressure was building below his abdomen and he knew she could feel it too, for she moaned just enough into the kiss to light a fire within him.

"Was there another condom in that pack?" she asked breathlessly.

Her bluntness. This woman…

"Just one…"

"We can get more."

As she pushed herself upright she made sure to grind her hips down and he let out a protracted groan.

"Todo sobre ti me enciende," he whispered, half under his breath, half hoping she heard him.

Oh, she did. She stopped, looked down at him with a devilish look in her eyes and cocked her head to the side the way she did when caught somewhere between annoyance and amusement.

"You're really going there?"

He knew a dare when he heard one.

"What are you going to do about it?" he said with a grin.

Her eyes flitted to the open cardboard pack on the bedside, then back to him, then she half-smiled in a way that sent a jolt of delightful apprehension through him.

"D'accord," she said, leaning in, pinning his willing arms above his head. His heart stopped. She didn't- "Maintenant, c'est mon tour."

Oh…she did…

October 10th 1998. 03:00.

Pittsburgh had been a mistake.

That's what all this boiled down to. Carlos, in a motel parking lot in his sweatpants at 3am, the flickering sign chasing unease deep into his nerves.

It was a noble idea by design, one born from the hopeless romantic in him, but you know what they say about the path to hell. Jill had shared his bed for four nights at that point and he felt wholly uncomfortable with the fact that she had spent so long knowing what he looked like naked but not how well he could treat her. Now, he wasn't complaining about the sex, but she was a hell of a woman and she meant a hell of a lot more to him than that. She deserved to be wined and dined. So that's what he wanted to do – take a detour to Pittsburgh, find a nice restaurant and take her on a proper date, the way he would have if they had met under any other circumstances.

Persuading her had been the tricky part. It added a lot of time to their journey, and she had no money so it would all be on him and he'd already paid for so much. But he had taken one look deep into her eyes, had held her gently and lowered his voice to almost a purr as he told her that this may be the last chance they have in a while to do something together, and she had relented. Maybe he had told her that if she did just want to drive straight through, that was fine (after all, he wasn't her boyfriend and she wasn't his girlfriend), but if she did want him to treat her to the best damn date she'd ever go on then could she at least give him a chance to prove he wasn't all words? And maybe she had sighed and realised that yes, she did want that.

But it hadn't been the best damn date she'd ever been on. It might have been the worst. Because he had taken one look around that urban sprawl and seen nothing but Raccoon City, and his brain hadn't liked that. Shadows in the alleyways, pedestrians stumbling or swaying, sirens that cut through the city noise – they all hit differently now. Jill had noticed, of course she had, and she had found a small restaurant in a quieter area of the city and had even swapped her pasta for his steak when he realised that perhaps he shouldn't order it so bloody these days.

"It takes time," she had told him. "It will feel normal again and there's no shame in taking it easy until then."

But that didn't make him feel any better. He had tried to do a good thing for her and had fucked it up. She deserved better than that. So now he had guilt on top of the nightmares and of course insomnia had chosen that night to stop by for an unwelcome reunion.

So here he stood, letting the cool October breeze chill him back to sanity while the flickering neon of the motel sign threatened to send him right back into the fire.

He needed a drink. Or a smoke. He'd never smoked in his life but it was something people did when they felt like shit, right?

Alas, Jill had wrangled two promises out of him following her invitation: conditions for the road ahead. The first was that he would call his family and square things with them before they left. To anyone else, he would have said no, that they were better off believing he was dead, but that had apparently hit a particularly sensitive spot and she had gone on to give him a lecture he was admittedly only half listening to. In the end, he had agreed, and it had been painful but they knew he was alive, safe, and was taking some time out to heal from the ordeal of Raccoon City. They didn't need to know the finer details, but at least they still seemed to be on talking terms.

The second promise came a couple days before departure, when she was cleaning out the kitchen and found that he had worked his way through two and a half bottles of his favourite rum. It had been a promise they had made to each other, really, as she also discovered that she had done the same with most of their beer. This promise was best summed up as 'don't drink away your troubles'.

The first had been over quickly, but the second…he was struggling with that right now. And he realised that maybe what he had told his family wasn't as long an extension of the truth as he had thought.

Eventually, he realised that no good would come of pining in a motel parking lot so he turned back towards the door of their room and slid the key into the lock as quietly as he could.

The room was still dark, but something raised the hairs on his arms as he locked the door behind him. He turned, cursing at himself for leaving his gun beside the bed, and froze when he saw Jill, upright, looking desperately over at him and clutching her pyjama top tightly with one hand.

"Hey, hey," he called as he rushed to her side, taking her hand in his as soon as he was close enough. "Are you ok?"

Jill closed her eyes, breathed through her nose for a second, then laughed bitterly.

"Another nightmare?" he asked. She nodded.

"Fuck," she cursed. "It was so real… Then I woke and you were gone and I thought…"

A different kind of guilt coursed through him and he pulled her into his arms.

"Shit, Jill, I'm sorry."

"No, you did nothing wrong. I'm just…"

"Struggling with being in unfamiliar surroundings?"

Her silence told him all he needed to know. She pulled away from him and swiped at her face with her hands. Was she crying? It was too dark to see. But she made no attempt to reach out to him again so he just sat there, next to her, ready for when she needed him.

Suddenly, she froze, looked at him, took in his clothing and sighed as she realised just exactly why he had not been there. He couldn't hide anything from her.

"Carlos, you should have woke me."

"Not a chance."

She glared at him now. If only he didn't find that so endearing.

"You're not waking me from peaceful dreams," she said. "I'd much rather be keeping you company."

"Then who is going to drive tomorrow?"

"You're letting me drive now?"

"Not all the way, but that's not my point."

"You're really not making a coherent one right now…"

Carlos opened his mouth to respond, but he closed it when he realised no good would come from arguing with her. It wasn't that she looked for arguments, but it was painfully clear that she had spent too much time alone, too much time being hurt by others and not enough being cared for, so she had a tendency to push defensively when she felt vulnerable. It was why persuading her to detour to Pittsburgh had been a huge victory. It was why fucking up the way he had hurt so much.

Because it wasn't just him – she was still hurting too. And he would have taken all of her pain and made it his own if it would give her some respite. She didn't deserve to feel like that and it killed him that he couldn't do a damn thing about it.

"You're thinking about Pittsburgh again," she said. Well, she had him there. He looked up at her and her expression had softened, her shoulders relaxed and she was reaching for his hands.

"Can I say I'm sorry one more time?"

"No."

It was his turn to frown, but maybe he did it a little too dramatically. And there was his defense mechanism. Humour. Pretending not to take things seriously when really he was screaming for help.

"What the hell are we?" he said with an unconvincing laugh. "Two broken things."

With a move so graceful he barely noticed, she reached up and brushed his hair back over his ear (of course it didn't stay there), then brushed a thumb over his cheek and tucked her fingers behind his neck to bring him closer to her. As their foreheads touched, he felt her other hand slip into his and suddenly everything felt still.

"Pittsburgh was perfect," she said. "I…Having someone that even just wants to do something like that for me…that's something I'm not used to. And I know it didn't go the way you planned, but it was more than I could have ever asked for. So please, don't feel bad about doing a good thing."

There were words he wished he had the courage to say to her, sentiments he knew would do him no good to express. So, he kissed her, quickly and softly, but of course that was never enough for either of them and next thing he knew her tongue was teasing his and he was again marveling at how damn good she tasted. When they parted, breathless, he kissed her nose, and then her cheek, and she laughed and playfully pushed him away.

"Come back to bed," she urged. "If you can't sleep then just hold me."

He really didn't need to be told twice. So, he shed his hoodie and sweatpants and climbed eagerly beneath the bed sheets. She was there, waiting for him, wrapping her arms around him and tucking herself into his chest before he had fully settled.

This would never get old, he decided. Jill was very 'all or nothing' when it came to displays of affection, but no matter what her mood it didn't take much coaxing for her to fold into his arms at night. And whenever she did, she would let out a little sigh like she did right then, and all of her armour would just melt away. Here, he knew he had the real Jill Valentine, the one he had utterly fallen for. No masks, no pretenses, no excuses. Already, he knew how rare it was to catch her with her guard down and the fact that she trusted him enough to see her that way was nothing short of an honour.

"Promise to wake me if you need me?" she asked. Her voice was already heavy, sleep already come to claim her.

"Sleep, beautiful lady," he told her. "I'll be okay."

There was no energy left in her to protest now, and he felt the swell of her chest steady as she slipped back into what he hoped was a far more peaceful sleep than the one that awaited him.

October 10th, 1998. 15:00.

It was warm within the car but Jill kept the windows closed. Carlos had been asleep in the passenger seat for almost two hours now and she cast him the same kind of glance a mother would a sleeping baby, easing off the gas when it looked like he might wake and even killing the radio.

It had been more of a fight than she would have liked to get him to switch at the last pit stop but she was worried he would fall asleep at the wheel if they hadn't. Apparently, he was as stubborn as she was when he put his mind to it. It was a battle she had won, however, and now that he was sleeping she didn't care if she was adding time to the journey to ensure he remained that way.

Alas, as the rural roads gave way to more defined stretches and the traffic increased she was forced to reach over and squeeze his thigh.

"Wake up, sleepy head," she urged.

Carlos woke with a snort.

"Wha-"

"We're almost there," she said, smiling at him from behind the aviators she had claimed as her own.

"Fuck. How long was I out?"

"Couple hours. You obviously needed it."

He shielded his eyes from the sun as he adjusted to his surroundings and she had to force herself to keep her eyes on the road and not on him.

"Sorry," he said. "You could have kept the radio on, you know."

"Wouldn't have been able to hear it over your snoring."

"Did you wake me up just to insult me?"

"You don't need to be awake for that," she pointed out. "But I'm about to introduce you to my friends; I don't want you half-asleep and drooling."

She could feel his eyes on her and it was all she could do to not burst into peals of laughter. This was still new to her. Not so much laughing in general but laughing and really meaning it.

With every day that passed she felt more and more confident that inviting him along had been the right decision. The morning after that night, when she had woken in his arms, she worried that perhaps she had opened herself up too far, let him in more than she had intended and now she had to deal with something she really hadn't bargained for. But when he had woken too and had expected nothing of her she knew that she had been so wrong to have ever held any doubts. They had too much ahead to call it a loving happy relationship and be done, but neither was content just being friends, even ones who fucked. So, they had found a happy medium. Neither really knew what that meant, but she knew that she felt at peace when she was with him, and a few weeks ago she hadn't thought that was something she would ever feel again.

"Barry and Rebecca, right?" he asked, snapping her from her thoughts.

"Barry Burton, Rebecca Chambers. Barry was S.T.A.R.S. Alpha team, Rebecca Bravo – he loves guns and she's smart as hell."

"And Chris is in Europe?"

"Paris. Chris Redfield. Also Alpha team, my partner, my best friend, smokes like a chimney, total asshole."

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Carlos grimace. She had already briefed him on her friends and while he seemed confident with the two they were heading to, Chris was still an uncertainty. She knew for a fact that Chris wouldn't trust him, not at first. It wouldn't be personal - his ties to Umbrella were too much of a red flag and Chris didn't trust anyone anymore, not after Wesker. But he would learn, in the end. Chris trusted her and while he didn't always accept her judgement he came around eventually. Above all, she hoped that when he realised how much Carlos had helped her he would at least be grateful and that would be their common ground to start from. Maybe he would see how happy Carlos made her and that would in turn make him happy enough to forget the rest.

"They know I'm coming?"

Jill nodded.

"They…even know about…'us'."

She saw him turn in her periphery but kept her eyes fixed on the road as the scenery turned residential and the empty land on either side of them began to sprout houses.

"You told your friends we're a thing?" He seemed half amused, half flustered. "Have we even told each other we're a thing? Are we even a thing?"

"We're…a thing," she said, mildly annoyed. "Of course we're a fucking thing. And I didn't tell them, Rebecca kind of…figured it out. Told you she was smart."

It was the first time she had vocalised their relationship as such, perhaps the first time she had truly admitted it to herself. And what kind of admission was it really? They were in a relationship but they also weren't in a relationship? They were a thing, but not that kind of thing? They weren't friends with benefits, more lovers with less strings? She couldn't find words to put to it so she guessed 'a thing' would have to do.

She chanced a look away from the road long enough to catch his smirk, like he'd won some sort of victory. And maybe he had.

When her eyes flitted back she saw a white villa up ahead, a black truck parked in the driveway.

"Here we are!"

She brought the car to a slow rolling stop at the curb. It was just as pretty as Rebecca had promised; considerably less lived-in than the farmhouse they had left but with a similar albeit more modern rustic charm. The engine had barely died when she saw a twitch in the curtains of what she assumed to be the front room.

Excitement swelled within her. It had been a month since she had last seen her friends but so much had happened since then it may as well have been a year. She had missed them so much.

A hand on her thigh brought her attention back to the car and Carlos was smiling at her when she turned to him.

"You go on ahead," he said. "Go see your friends, I'll get the bags."

Jill didn't move, not even as she heard the front door open. This wasn't how she had pictured this moment. She should have been the one opening the door, running to greet them, helping them with their bags and explaining excitedly that their favourite drinks were already in the fridge and the oven was on but they could always order takeout tonight, if they wanted. But she wasn't. And that was okay. But she wouldn't have been here at all if it weren't for Carlos. The man she had almost left behind.

Not caring who could see, she pulled his head towards her and kissed him furiously, intensely, feeling her affection for him in places that weren't even physical. That sensible part of her brain warned her that she had already fallen for him by the time she was aware of any attraction at all, that one day she would wake up and realise she was in love with him and it would be too late. Another part of her thought maybe she already was so fuck it, in for a penny…

"We're a team," she told him when they parted. "We're in this together. The bags can wait."

His smile showed his gratitude, and she wanted to repeat herself just so she could see it again. God, he was so handsome when he smiled. That was how she knew she was in trouble – it wasn't about the sex, and never truly had been. She wanted to make him happy, wanted to chase away his troubles, sing him to sleep when he struggled. And she wanted to show him her scars and let him help her heal, wanted to just lay there with him, feel his warmth and hear him whisper softly to her. She wanted to show him how vulnerable she felt so she didn't have to bear that weight alone.

With one last slow peck of a kiss, she turned to the familiar figures emerging from the house and stepped out onto the sidewalk, comfortable in the knowledge that he was right behind her, and that he always would be.

AN - Thank you to everyone who stuck with this to the end! This is the end, though I have ideas for spiritual sequels of sorts, set further down the timeline. Whether or not they will come to fruition remains to be seen, but it has been fun writing this and I hope you all enjoyed reading it!

Oh, and for a couple of translations:

Spanish: "Everything about you turns me on."

French: "Ok, now it's my turn."