Code Name: EVE

A/N: I was going to wait longer, but this is a 'Happy Friday the 13th' update. If you see something inconsistant with previous chapters, point it out so I can fix it (nicely, please).

The rest of the day was spent with her stumbling along in his wake. Her only consolation was that as long as he was in a hurry to get out of the area, he wouldn’t make any… pleasure stops. This was especially good because the two times he stopped for water breaks she could barely do more than flop back on the nearest stump or rock. It was tiring to even think about fighting him off. And he didn’t even stop when the sun sunk below the horizon, instead moving closer to the moonlit tree line along the ravine. As much as she didn’t want to show weakness, she knew she couldn’t keep this up all night. That and the water she’d been craving at both stops had just about finished making its way through her system. The only thing that kept her from finally breaking down and asking him to stop was his slowed pace. He appeared to be searching for a wide enough patch of ground between the trees and the cliff to settle down.

If he hadn’t noticed how exhausted his more delicate travel companion had been, he would have forced himself to keep going all night. She was part of his colony, possibly the only survivor besides him, and his plaga was adamant that the colony stay together. Speaking of which, when was her damn plaga going to kick in anyway? While greater bursts of speed wore him out over long distances, he could still have covered twice as much ground if he’d been allowed to move as fast as he could. He stopped and looked over the edge. Only about five feet down at this point, a rock jutted out into the air. “Wait here,” he told Ashley, stripping off his bag.

“Um… I kind of have to…” she fidgeted, blushing.

Jack glanced back at her, assessed her body language, and said, “Don’t get lost.” Then he turned and slipped over the side to check out the ledge. Overhead, he heard her discard her own burden and then the fading crunch of leaves. The ledge proved to be sturdy, and there was a crevice in the wall that he hadn’t been able to see from the land. That could be useful. He was sure the girl would object to the close quarters, but she’d just have to deal with it.

At first, the president’s daughter had been terrified about going into the woods on her own. She was only about three feet in before the tangle of branches cast her into a world of strange noises and colors. Or more accurately, a lack of colors. The darkness seemed to eat it all away until everything was a washed out mass of shapes. And as the colors faded, noises became more distinct. There were leaves rustling above and below and all around her, up in the trees, down under foot, and in every bush. They pressed in from all sides, a thick, impenetrable barrier. Her stomach churned and she doubled over, clutching it with both hands. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to block out the nauseating jumble surrounding her. Images of swaying tree branches, something slithering through the leaves, and something else taking flight amidst a tangle of colorless lines paraded across her vision so vividly they may as well have been painted on the backs of her eyelids. She almost screamed, but she’d be damned if she let Jack catch her having a panic attack just because it was dark. Besides, she could still see, so it couldn’t be that…

And then it clicked, what he’d meant about being able to see at night. The reason everything was so colorless was because she wasn’t seeing with the light but with the sound. Apparently her plaga was somehow picking up every tiny bounce of a sound wave and feeding it into her occipital lobe in one jumbled hunk of information. Maybe it was only trying to help its host, but the world looked so alien like this, it gave her a headache trying to make sense of it all.

The girl took a few deep breaths and tried to forget about making sense of anything for the time being. Instead, she focused on feeling the air rushing past her lips and her heart thundering in her chest. Once the headache faded, she looked around again. The forest wasn’t a solid, choking wall. After she’d picked up on some basic depth cues, she realized it only looked that way because there was a point where the sound waves starting from farther away were broken up by the foliage. She still felt really ill, though. Now that she didn’t feel like her head was going to explode, she quickly and awkwardly fumbled through what she came out here to do. The mechanics weren’t as easy as they sounded on paper, but she finished and scrambled back in Jack’s direction. He was back up at the edge of the trees, digging through their packs and removing things that would be immediately useful. Ashley just stood and stared at him for several minutes before asking, “How are you not nauseous all the time?” At least the persistence of the… echo location, could she call it? Well, it was easier to ignore now that she was surrounded by moonlight again.

“Hm?” Krauser looked up from the sheet folded over his knee.

“This… seeing sound stuff…”

“Oh.” He went back to what he was doing. “I only use it when I really need it.”

Ashley’s mind drifted back to the showers, the sound of the drops hitting her skin. “You… Haven’t ever used it to peep at me, have you?”

“Peep at you?” Krauser snorted. “Not worth the headache to get a blurry peek at something I could see anyway.”

Her arms darted up impulsively to cover herself. “What was that supposed to mean?”

He stood up, carrying a pack on one shoulder. “What was what supposed to mean?”

“That thing about something you could see anyway…”

She sounded so concerned that it almost mad him laugh. “I can’t see through barriers, princess. It’s echo location, not x-ray vision.” She sidestepped to avoid touching him as he brushed past her. “So, it’s finally starting to take root. Good, maybe you’ll be able to keep up with me for once.” As he spoke, he jumped and pulled himself up into a nearby tree so he could hang the bag in his hand out of sight and reach—of anything that might try to steal the food or anyone who might be stalking them. Once the first one was secured, he hung upside down by his knees and gestured to the girl. “Hand me the other one.”

She suppressed a smile and a giggle as her eyes roamed over him once, but she still moved swiftly to obey. He took the pack from her and pulled himself back into a sitting position using primarily his abdominal muscles. She’d even caught a glimpse of that chiseled six pack as gravity had tugged on his shirt. Groaning, the young woman turned her back on him and wandered over to where he’d left the bottle of water sitting out. Christ, why did he have to push himself on her so insistently from the beginning? If he’d just waited, she might have come around on her own… Actually, there was a word for this sort of thing, wasn’t there? Some kind of syndrome… Stockholm’s syndrome. She uncorked the bottle and took a swig. Naming psychological disorders wasn’t going to help that she still had to follow this guy around the woods for weeks upon weeks. If only he’d do one thing to prove he wasn’t such a bastard, she could look at him without feeling guilty.

There was a soft thump as he dropped out of the tree. “Come here.” He gathered up the sheet from the castle and the quilt he’d stolen from the town. Then he led her to the edge and jumped.

Ashley looked down at the ledge nervously, watching Jack disappear somewhere under her feet with the blankets. The landing was wide enough that she wasn’t in any danger of slipping and tumbling into the river, but she was still nervous. The soldier popped back out and looked up at her, breaking her dazed stare into the pit.

“Come on, princess, you can do it.”

That did it. With an annoyed sigh, she turned backwards and slithered over on her stomach. No, it wasn’t that far, but she was still relieved when her feet touched solid ground. Then she turned to see what he had found. The size of the little cave did make her bite her lip. “It’s kind of small, isn’t it?”

“You want to walk another several miles?”

No. No she didn’t. She crawled in first and cocooned herself tightly in the sheet. Hopefully it would be hard for him to get it off in the claustrophobic space. He didn’t crawl in all the way after her, though. He stayed near the entrance, leaning against one side with his feet tucked up on the other. The quilt was wrapped around his shoulders. He had the air of someone guarding the entrance, but whether it was to keep others out or to keep her in was still debatable. She drifted off staring at Jack’s silhouette.

XXX

The sun hit her eyelids too brightly the next morning. The first thing she noticed when they slid open, squinting, was that Jack wasn’t there anymore. Yawning, she shifted around to stretch, extricated herself from the sheet, and crawled out into the sun light. The quilt was gone too. “Jack?”

“Up here, princess.”

Ashley got to her feet, gripped the rocky ledge, and jumped as she tried to pull herself up. She landed on her chest with a grunt and her lower half still dangling. Stopping to take some breaths, she clawed her way forward a few more inches and was able to swing one leg up. As she scrambled to her knees, she noted that Krauser hadn’t so much as commented and looked up to see if he was even watching. He wasn’t. He was sitting on a rock with an apple in one hand and his knife in the other, using the latter to cut chunks off the former. Chunks he then dipped in a jar of what looked like peanut butter between his feet.

When he heard her approaching, he used his knife hand to gesture at the bag with the food in it as he swallowed. “We need to eat the apples first. They won’t last as long.”

He hadn’t even bothered to look at her. She followed his direction, though, getting an apple and her knife, and then sat to one side of him. He moved the jar to where she could reach it too, but didn’t say anything else. It felt weird to be quietly mimicking him like this. The girl peeked up at his face and then looked back at the fruit in her hand as she asked, “How long have you had your parasite?”

“Heh. I prefer to think of it as a symbiote.”

When he fell silent again, she thought he wasn’t going to answer. As she was debating whether to ask again or to try to follow a different line of conversation, his voice suddenly cut the silence.

“I injected it a day or two before I kidnapped you… So maybe a week, or just under that...”

“Huh…” She slipped a jagged slice of peanut butter slathered apple into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “I thought that Saddler controlled the distribution.”

“He does. I did it behind his back.”

Her head snapped up. “You stole it?”

“I guess you could put it that way.” He turned the core over in his hands. Krauser remembered clearly the fit Ada had thrown when she found out. It wasn’t something she’d been looking forward to breaking to Wesker. He snickered at the memory. “The bitch was pissed when she found out. Kept yelling at me about jeopardizing the mission, but I know she just didn’t want her precious Albert to be anything less than impressed.”

The president’s daughter had no idea who he was talking about, so she just asked, “What did Saddler do?”

“Not much. The bitch heard about their plans to kidnap you and hustled me off to do it as quickly as possible. Saddler must’ve thought I’d just fall under his control eventually anyway, so it wouldn’t matter too much.”

“Did you?”

“Nope.” He bit the core in half and chewed on one side while he twisted the stem off the other piece.

That caught her attention. It was information that could be potentially useful to her here. “Why not?”

“Dunno.” He wasn’t even certain why he’d been offended by what Saddler had said to Leon about his ‘death.’ It was a moot point, now. The old man was dead. But that was still strangely satisfying to Krauser. He popped the last bite of the apple and got to his feet.

Her eyes followed him. “Why’d you take it to begin with?”

Krauser paused on the edge of the cliff staring at sheet on the ledge. “Power, I suppose…” It was the generic answer, and he thought she’d accept it.

Ashley, however, was skeptical. “What’s the point in having power if someone else is controlling it?”

“But he couldn’t control me.”

“You didn’t have any reason to believe he wouldn’t be able to, though…”

No, he hadn’t. Krauser had been entirely ready to accept the risk of surrendering his identity to the mind of the hive. Maybe even hoping for it just a little. There wouldn’t be much for him to miss, after all. Instead, he shrugged and tried to smirk at her over one shoulder. “I’m a risk taker.”

“You’re too dominant to take a risk like that.”

That was enough. He whirled on her, eyes burning. “Who the fuck are you that you know enough to judge me, huh?”

She recoiled instantly, eyes wide. “I… I didn’t mean anything… I was just… just…”

“What? Curious?”

Ashley could only nod. Her heart pounded against her ribs and she couldn’t take her eyes off the knife still in his hand.

The soldier noticed and took advantage of it. Raising the blade to point at her, he snarled, “Yeah, well, you go sticking your nose where it doesn’t fucking belong again and I just might cut it off. You get me, bitch?” It had sounded better in his head, but it looked like it scared the crap out of her anyway. Then again, why shouldn’t it? Nearly getting his own face cut off hadn’t been any kind of picnic either.

“I…. I’m sorry…” she stammered softly. “Please… I’m sorry…”

There was a tense moment, and then he relaxed again. He wiped his knife on his shirt and put it in the sheath. “Yeah. Fine. Just watch your step.”

Oh, she most certainly would. She had no idea what button she’d pushed, but from now on she was going to try to avoid it like the plague. For the rest of their stay at that location—while he packed things up and she ate mechanically—she ran over and over the conversion in her head, trying to zero in on what had set him off. Things had been fine until she’d asked him why he’d stolen the plaga. She was sure of that.

They had to get moving. He could feel the carefully blocked emotions rattling the fence he’d shoved and locked them behind. No way in hell they were getting out. That wouldn’t do at all. He had to start moving and keep moving until his heart thundered in his chest and his lungs burned. Like he always did. It was the only way to make them be quiet. So that’s what he did. For the next several days. Fortunately, with the help of her plaga, the girl adjusted to his pace quickly. They fell into a pattern of traveling for six or seven hours and then sleeping for two or three before starting off again. The time of day—or night as they case may be—didn’t affect this pattern.

It would have been easier if he didn’t insist on pressing her on so hard. Why was he so insensitive, anyway? Did he get some sick pleasure from watching her struggle to keep up? Well, it was a moot point now. Whether it was just the constant exercise or some kind of mutation, Ashley still felt immensely better since the second or third night. Little three hour bursts of sleep could heal all of her aches and pains almost instantly, despite the fact that they were sleeping on rocks more often than not. There were a couple times when she’d looked at the warm expanse of his rising and falling chest—especially nights when her breath showed in the air—and contemplated sprawling her torso across his to use it as a pillow. She doubted he’d object, but considering where they started, it could never be deemed platonic. Ashley didn’t want to lead him on, not after what had happened when she’d gone along with his games.

Supplies were dwindling. They were on their last bottle of water. Fortunately, their path seemed to have taken a turn downhill somewhere. The walls of the gulley were shrinking noticeably. He hadn’t bothered to count how many days had passed, but he did know that one day they found themselves walking right along the bank. There was a pocket where the water swirled away from the rest of the current into an eddying pool. It was here that Krauser stopped. His plaga had staved off what would have certainly been a devastating infection from all of those gunshot wounds. He was back up and functioning normally again, so… He decided to risk it. Just a handful, to see if he’d get sick.

Ashley watched him kneel down and scoop some water up to his lips. She wrinkled her nose. “Aren’t you not supposed to do that?”

“Probably not,” he smirked up at her. “We’ll know in a few hours, won’t we?”

The girl just shook her head and fumbled with her pack. She was beginning to believe his statement that he was just a risk taker, but she didn’t understand what he got out of gambling his health. Of course she never pried. Though it had seemed like an idle threat, she had no desire to find out if he was serious about cutting her up or not. “Can we break here? I could use a dip. I feel disgusting.” It was the first time they’d stumbled across a place that would be safe to get in. A couple days ago, they had taken turns precariously perched on a rocky edge to do a quick clothing wash with some soap Jack had taken from the castle’s kitchen. For Ashley, though, putting clean clothes on a dirty body didn’t mean much.

“Fine.” The soldier slipped out of his own harness and started to unbutton his shirt. “Actually sounds like a good idea.”

She gave him a wide-eyed look. “Not at the same time…”

“No?” Krauser teased.

“You’re not going to watch me,” she stated firmly.

“I’ll let you watch me.”

He looked like he was still joking, but her cheeks flushed pink. There was an image in her head of him standing in the water slicking his hair back with both hands. Sunlight shone along the contours of his muscles and sparkling drops traced long trails to the V between his hips.

Her mind was wandering. He saw it in her eyes. “You’re not actually thinking about it, are you?”

“No,” she protested, but her voice cracked. When his grin widened, her glare hardened. “I’m not falling for that foot-in-the-door trick again.” If she’d learned anything in the shack, it was that an innocent thing like crawling up to him and asking nicely for food could quickly turn into her moaning on her back while he pounded her into the floor.

“Then how about I go first and set up while you take your turn, hm?” Even if they were only stopping for a couple hours, he still tried to pick places with good cover. They hadn’t seen or heard from the Ganados since leaving the village, but his plaga was still restless. He wasn’t going to ignore those instincts again.

“You’d better not spy on me…” To the best of her knowledge, he hadn’t while they were washing their clothes before, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

“Scout’s honor,” he smirked.

Ashley rolled her eyes and found a rock to sit on, facing upstream and away from him. She took it for granted, now, that she could hear the splashing as he walked into the river, even over the sound of the nearby current. Instead, she resisted the urge to peek over her shoulder and instead slid up one pants leg to look at her calf. Even if they were in a consensual sex relationship, she didn’t know if she would have wanted him to see her naked right now. She didn’t feel very sexy, and she was dying to shave. Jack had somehow been managing to keep his beard mostly at bay with his knife. He probably didn’t like the way it highlighted the scars around his mouth. This only made her thoughts turn to how proficient he seemed to be with that weapon. She hadn’t seen him fight with it yet, but he’d used it for other things, and the ease with which he wielded it was… Stop that thinking, Ashley. Stop it right now. Anyway, her knife probably wasn’t sharp enough to use as a razor, and his was just too big and intimidating.

The water was really cold, and only went waist deep. As soon as he was in about halfway up his thighs, he turned and let himself fall backwards. The shock made his heart lurch once, but as he adjusted to it, it became a welcome escape from the glaring sun. He stayed submerged, slipping his fingers under the edge of a rock to anchor himself. Under here, all he could hear was the distant rush of water and the pounding of his pulse in his ears. Tiny silver bubbles rose from his nose and chased each other to the surface. When his lungs started to burn, he sat up quickly and got his knees under him. He shook his head and then ran his fingers through his hair to push it back. After a few deep breaths, he dove under again and swam closer to where the current was a bit stronger. He wanted the resistance.

His knife was also an awful lot like Leon’s, Ashley was musing. She’d watched him scrape together pretty decent shelters in thirty minutes. Heck, watching him pick through the village and castle for things that might be used for survival… Well, he was resourceful. That was one of the qualities she’d admired in Leon. There were quite a few things about Jack that reminded her of a darker version of her previous—she refused to use the word ‘late’—rescuer. Of course Leon was no puppy, but he was like a police dog. He could be lethal, but with the right people he was friendly and loyal. The first thing that came to mind for Jack was a feral pit-bull…

He finally waded out of the water and pulled his clothes back on. “Your turn, princess,” he called as he moved toward the tree line.

Ashley stood up but made sure he was clear before she started to undress. The breast band was always tedious. She couldn’t wait to get to civilization and find something proper to wear. The temperature of the water when she dipped a toe in made her squawk and jerk back. Gritting her teeth, she slid her foot in and followed with the other. When the water reached her knees, she eased down into a sitting position. Would Jack mind her using the soap? Even he hadn’t expected to traipse through the woods for weeks in the same clothes without washing them. That was what he was saving the soap for. But they couldn’t be in here that long, could they?

Completely alone now. Naked and vulnerable. He grinned evilly and tiptoed up to the rock where she’d left her clothing. The knife was still in the pocket of her slacks. The man’s hand drew it out slowly, silently…

Her hands splashed some water up on her chest and shoulders. Once she felt more adjusted, she stretched out and lounged back, closing her eyes. When they got out, she’d find a phone and call her father. He’d come get her, or send someone for her, and everything would be all right again. She’d just go about her life and forget all about Jack… Here she frowned. Jack was a criminal, wasn’t he? He’d kidnapped her. What was going to happen to him? So absorbed was she in these thoughts, that she didn’t notice the splashing sound right away, or at least didn’t separate it from the other natural water sounds. Dammit, that man was relentless. “You said you-” Her eyes flew open as she jerked upright, and then her heart froze. There were three Ganados, two men and a woman, only about a yard away. They were moving in a triangle formation, clearly intended to surround her. She screamed as she tried to scramble to her feet. “Ja-!”

She couldn’t alert the other one. That wouldn’t do at all. The woman pounced, grabbing the Outsider’s throat and shoving her under water. Fingernails lashed out and dragged down her cheek, but the woman held strong. This one hadn’t originally been an Outsider, but there was no mercy for the ones that let themselves get drawn over.

No! No! Ashley thrashed, contorting in ways she never realized she could, and managed to get a foot up against the woman’s chest. Without stopping to think, she shoved her off and fought to her knees. The man between her and the shoreline reached for her next. Rather than try to dodge around him, she sprung up and head butted him in the solar plexus. There was enough force behind it for her to knock him over. “JACK!” She shrieked again, panicked. It didn’t matter that she was naked. Slipping and sliding on rocks, still dizzy from attacking the second Ganado, she darted for the place she’d seen him disappear. “HELP!”

The third Ganado left his fellow colony members to pick themselves up. They’d be fine. Instead, he took off after the Outsider. She slipped on the rocks at the bank and went down, giving him just enough time to catch up. He grabbed her from behind and jerked her up by her hair. The knife flashed in his other hand as he raised it in the air.

The girl saw a blur come charging out of the woods just before a considerably closer blur flashed down past her face. And then there was pain. Awful, tearing pain ripping through her abdomen. Then Jack’s feet and legs were right in front of her and she felt a breeze as something swung across over her head. As soon as her assailant released her hair, her eyes traveled to the knife sticking out of her gut. It was the knife she’d been carrying. Jack had been… Jack had been right… The pain alone felt like it was going to kill her, but she couldn't bring herself to touch it, much less pull it out. Was this what ultimately did in stabbing victims? Not the blood loss, but the agony?

The Ganado died with an expression of opened mouthed shock frozen on his face. In one blurred movement, he’d been turned into two halves. Two halves with no arms below the elbows. His plaga was still twitching in the middle of the mess, and Jack stomped it before turning on the other two. They fell to the arm as quickly as the first. Krauser sliced them under the ribs, deep and across at an angle to make sure he got their plagas. Muscle and tendon snapped and both of their upper bodies fell back, bent at the spine, first. Shortly after, they collapsed into the water. He was back with the girl in a matter of seconds, his arm shrinking. She was lying on her side and shaking, her eyes glazed. He rolled her onto her back carefully and patted her cheek. “Come on, Ashley, don’t go out on me…”

Her eyes focused as best they could on the figure above her. “Hurts…”

It was only about the size of a steak knife, and it wasn’t in too deep. If his plaga could heal that many gunshot wounds, she could get through this. As long as it hadn’t gotten her plaga. The targeting was surprisingly accurate. “It’s going to be fine. Don’t move.” He tore through his backpack until he came up with the quilt. After covering her legs and feet, he went on another frantic hunt for the herb he’d found. It couldn’t hurt to help the process along. He folded her shirt messily and then knelt over her again. “This might hurt.”

“Don’t wanna die…”

“You’re not gonna die.” His voice was flat, but something was clawing at that blockade again. So easy to keep them at bay now that he had the assistance of the plaga. The plaga understood what these… things could do to its host. Honestly, Krauser had been refusing to acknowledge them for so long, that he genuinely didn’t remember specifics anymore, but… well, if he got curious, the severity of the scar helped remind him that he didn’t want to remember after all… He readied the plant and the shirt, took the knife handle in one hand, and jerked it out. Ashley screamed and the blood flow increased, but he quickly pressed the herb and the cloth to the wound.

As the plant numbed the pain, the girl gradually relaxed. She found herself fumbling dazedly for the warm, solid presence beside her, and shifted around until she could use his lap as a pillow. He didn’t say a word or push her off. Lord, was she tired. Her head slipped to one side and she let herself descend into sleep.