Work Text:
“Sir, I told you it’s not possible-
-Then keep searching !
-It already cost you millions, how will you finance it again ?
-That is not your business to worry about. Keep searching for a vaccine,” Chris concluded before leaving the lab room.
He kept his head down as the lockchamber threw disinfectant gas at him, before the door opened on the corridor.
The B.S.A.A. was still clean and functioning, even if the building was more than twenty years old. Chris had meetings planned this week to meet with fund raisers - and he hated it.
This was the part he did not like. Presenting reports, showing plans, building results because that was all that counted for the investors. To have enough results for them to loose money for the greater good. It was a strange ballet that he still did not got used to, even with all the times he had to do it since Jill…
Stopped taking care of it.
She always used to before. Not personally, but she was the one supervising it while he took care of the army side of the B.S.A.A. And they worked well. They never lacked funds, and the budget they had for operations was restricted, but they handled it well.
It had been another thing he had had to handle when she left. Re organizing their credibility, and finding new funds for… Well, everything.
She was not the most neat, but her office was well organized. He had not dare to brush the mess over it - it was still there, after all those years - but he had found her address book in a drawer, and used it to do what he did not know how to do : organizing the life of a whole entity that was now resting entirely on his shoulders.
Of course he had already planned excursions - with teams, in the army… But he never were the one to worry about ordering munitions, and making sure the electric portal outside worked well at the same time.
Being a leader was far from an easy position, and that only made him regret Jill harder.
Their work had been a team work. They had the same ambition, the same goal, and knew each other since so long.
They were partners.
And now, Chris not only had to stop the bio terrorism from hitting the planet, he also had to allow funds he did not have to his former partner’s disease.
He sat at his desk, opening the account book. They were obviously not good, but he could work with that. Just waiting for the next government’s subvention and-
He forgot to finish the papers. The deadline was yesterday.
Chris closed his eyes, bumping his head on the office desk. For someone who lived a life far from normal, he had very normal preoccupations, like how was he going to end the month when they were already in the red ?
Looking at the expenses lines, he could not ignore one of the biggest one : Medicine and Development. Usually, hospital bills were high when soldiers came back from mission - when they came back. Since he had brought back Jill, it was always high. Their team worked day and night on a vaccine that could help them, and of course, the bill was salty.
Chris just made note to report it on next month’s bill, since it would not be any lower.
When he had brought back Jill, he had never cared about consequences. He always did, always wondered what his action would bring as new problems.
Not Jill. He would never think of her as a problem, even if the situation they were in today did not help. But it was not her fault, and she would have done the same for him.
Now all that was left… Was to wait for them to find the cure for her heart problem, and brain contusions from the brainwash.
That would cost the B.S.A.A. a lot. But Chris was ready for it, as long as Jill came back.