Work Text:
Your footsteps echoed in the hallway of the quiet trauma center, fingers clutching a crisp white letter with bold red numbers written on the top corner. You’re searching for a good room, 204, and a specific individual that would be inside.
When Chris called you at two in the morning, you didn’t believe him. When he emailed you a photo of her thirty minutes later, you printed it off and hurried to your car in the hush of the night. It had taken you a day, getting a plane at the last minute had been an additional challenge, and your arrival had been to a rain soaked street and nerves eating away at your system.
Could it possibly be true? You had wondered and studied the printed off email for the entirety of your plane. Wondering if had been a setup, maybe Chris was forced to—
Could Jill Valentine be alive? After all this time?
You pause at the desk in the corner of the hall, a nervous tremble crawling over your skin as the nurse looks up from her computer.
“Do you have a patient by the name of Jill Valentine?” You questioned, quietly drumming your fingers against the counter.
The smell of lemon cleaning material and that stale scent that belonged solely to hospitals makes you inhale a little shorter, not keen on the invasion of your senses. The nurse checks something on a clipboard, gazing up at you with a confused look.
“Are you family?”
“I’m…I’m her fiancé.” You tell her, receiving a nod in return.
Were. You were her fiancé. Before she disappeared and gave you no clue to her whereabouts or why she had left you for three years.
“Please have a seat in the waiting area, she’s currently with the doctors.”
So, you follow her direction and make your way to the little waiting area. An older man is seated by the television, watching some news program speak about the anniversary of Terragrigia. He gives a dismissive shake of his head.
Your thoughts wander to Jill: would she even want to see you? You wanted to see her, despite the hurt and confusion roaming through your head. You had been left alone to try and figure out what happened, where she had gone and if she was dead or alive out there. You had always hoped she was alive. So, at the very least, you would like an explanation about what happened to her.
Before her disappearance, Jill had proposed to you. She had promised that her work wouldn’t separate you, that she would always come back to you. And most of the time it was true, she always came back, but the one time she didn’t hurt the most.
A nurse glances around the corner to look at you, giving you a warm smile and waving her hand. “You can see her now, miss.”
You swallow, getting out of your seat before joining the nurse. She guides you around the hallway, stopping once to slide a file into another patient’s door folder. “Miss Valentine may be a bit disoriented, at first. The man who brought her in said she may have experienced some form of amnesia.”
You nod. “The man, is he here?”
She nods her head. “I believe he went to the cafeteria just before you arrived. He had mentioned you might be coming in.”
You come to a stop outside of a door, the low murmur of a television can be heard from inside the room. She opens the door, glancing inside to make sure it’s okay for you to enter, and steps to the side.
“Thank you.”
You pull the door closed behind you, hands shaking slightly at the realization that Jill was just around the curve in the entrance. Amnesia. Would she even recognize you? A sigh leaves your lips and you take the final step into view of the full room. There’s a single bed in the middle of the room, a recliner in the left corner next to the window, a jacket with the BSAA logo–likely belonging to Chris Redfield–stitched on the arm resting on it, and monitor machines beeping continuously beside the bed.
The person in the bed is what startles you. She looks like Jill, but at the same time she doesn’t. Her hair is a light shade of blonde, ivory skin ghostly in the pale luminescent hospital lights. It’s Jill, but not your Jill. Not the same Jill that left you.
“Jill?” You softly speak, unsure if she had even heard your voice until her head turns away from the window. Her eyes widen slightly at the sight of you standing there.
You take a step closer to her, lowering yourself to sit on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know if you remember me, the nurse said you had amnesia, my name is Y/N. I’m your–”
“–fiancé,” she finishes for you, pain flashing through her eyes as she studies you. It’s been so long, she knows that, but you still look like the same woman she’d found herself head over heels for. Your lips curved into that frown that she hated so much, eyes red from very likely crying.
Jill swallows, pushing herself to sit up. The bedsheets fall away from her form, giving you a view of her chest. It’s red, imprinted slightly with the shape of curved lines, skin scarring on the sides. “I’m so sorry,” she reaches a hand towards yours, hesitating at the last second.
You stare at the blonde hair, the markings on her chest. “What happened to you, Jill?”
You can tell the question brings up unwanted memories for her. She knows you deserve to know, she knows you need clarification on what happened and why she disappeared. You deserve it.
“I never meant to disappear, never.” You nod, telling her to continue. “We ran into Wesker, there was a fall and he took me against my will. He put this device on me, some sort of controlling device that gave him control over me. There's a lot to explain, there’s so much that I don’t know how to put into words, but Chris saved me. Even after I tried to kill him, he got the device off.”
Out of all the bizarre theories you had come up with over the years, none of them came close to her finding Albert Wesker. You’d never met the man, only heard talk of him from Jill and, sometimes, Chris. You knew he was a great threat to the both of them, before that a friend and companion, but you had no idea of the capabilities he had. Now you understood why Jill had always tried her hardest to keep her work as far away from you as possible.
You nod, trying to quietly piece together her words. It must have been a lot for her and you certainly didn’t want to overwhelm her with all of your questions. She can tell you’re silently debating something in your head, she doesn’t know what, but she decides to quietly await your response.
“I wish there was something I could have done to help. I thought you were dead, I hoped you weren’t, but I spent months, years, trying to figure out what had happened. And that bastard was behind it this whole time?”
Jill shakes her head dismissively, resting her hand on your shoulder with a gentle squeeze. “I know it’s a lot to take in and there’s so much more I need to tell you. But I’m okay now, I have a lot to work through, but I’m alive.”
You nod, still bubbling with emotions, but at least you had some sort of idea on what had happened to her.
Jill takes your silence as an opportunity to air out something that’s lingering on her mind. “I thought about you, a lot, I wasn’t in control but there were times when I could vaguely remember things. I remember thinking about you, your laugh, a brief flash of your smile in my head, the way you scrunch your nose at me when you’re mad. It was little things, some of them completely random, but you were always in my mind.”
“When I could finally think for myself again, Chris said he was emailing you the hospital. I was so worried you wouldn’t come, not that I would have blamed you, but I hoped you would come.”
You shakily smile, lip quivering with tears welling in your eyes. “Of course I came, I thought about you all the time, Jill.”
She reaches forward to wipe a stray tear from your cheek, cupping it in her hand with a gentle touch. “I’m so sorry, Y/N. For disappearing, for making you think I was gone, for everything that has happened in the last three years.”
She stares at you with several emotions running through her, followed by even more thoughts. “I don’t want you to feel like we have to pick up where we left off, especially if you’ve moved on, as much as that pains me to think about. I have...a lot…to work through and every single night I have these nightmares. But I still love you, I never stopped. And if you’re willing, if you want to, maybe we can start fresh?”
Her expression is hesitant, bracing herself for you to decline. She would understand if you did, of course she would. Jill selfishly hoped you wouldn’t leave her, though.
After a moment, you sigh. “I’m willing to start fresh, I want to help you and I want us to move forward from this. You’re still my Jill, even if you are a blonde now.”
She chuckles at your comment, wiping at her eye before a tear can fall. She holds her arms open to you, relieved when you lean into them, squeezing her gently in your embrace. For the first time in three years Jill can smell your perfume, feel your hair tickling her cheeks and feel your breath warm against her neck. She feels relieved, happiness for the first time in a very long time.
It won’t be an easy process, she knows that. But with you by her side, Jill’s certain she’ll be okay.
“What did I miss?”
Both of you turn to see Chris Redfield in the doorway, a plastic tray of food in one hand. You chuckle, followed by the sound of Jill’s laughter, and push yourself up.
“Thanks for bringing her home, Redfield.”