Resident Evil: Resurrection

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Sweat rolled down her back and neck, and her muscles ached with a soreness that was not entirely physical, but she refused to stop. This place was the best one she'd found so far and it was going to have to do, she didn't think she could handle keeping a corpse in her truck for much longer. The sign she'd passed on her way into this place had declared it Death Valley, but it was beautiful in its own way, surrounded by mountains. Alice was digging an oblong hole near the water, so that at least Carlos' final resting place would be beautiful even if his death had not been. As she tossed the last few mounds of rocky soil out of the hole, a dread of finality started to claw at her. This was it, this was going to be the end. She swallowed the lump in her throat and leapt out of the hole, pushing the tip of her spade into the ground and leaving it near the waiting little hill of dirt that would cover his body and seal him in the earth forever. As she went to the back of the truck, and opened up the hitch, she frowned at the sight inside. Every time she came back here for supplies Carlos was in a different position, mimicking the movements of a man sleeping rather than dead, but she held no such fancies; she knew it was merely the truck's contents shifting about and he was as alive as the spade she'd dug his grave with.

Reaching out, she grabbed hold of his ankles and pulled him out of the truck, then carried him over to the hole. As she laid him out next to it, she looked around again, then down at the man. Alice set her jaw and pursed her lips. It felt as though she should say something, or do something... it seemed so heartless to just toss him in a hole and walk away. "You were a good friend," she said quietly. "No matter how far away from humanity I got, you never looked at me like a freak. You made me feel comfortable in my own skin with just a smile or a glance. I... I wrecked your life. Twice. I'm... I'm sorry, Carlos." There was a pause as her voice hitched and she felt the sting of tears in her eyes but refused to let them fall. "I was glad to call you a friend," she managed, before she knew she couldn't get any more out while keeping some kind of dignity and mental restraint. Alice pulled one of her guns out from its holster, and got down on one knee beside him, leaning in close, looking into his face and glad his eyes were closed. "I'm sorry," she whispered, while lifting the gun and touching the muzzle to his forehead. She turned her face away and closed her eyes as she braced a hand on his shoulder, swallowed the lump in her throat, and felt her finger squeezing the trigger. "I'm sorry," Alice rasped, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...!" Stalling was pointless. She took a sharp breath, steeled her nerves, and pulled the trigger while screwing her eyes shut tight.

"If you're sorry, don't do it."

Her eyes flew open wide as Alice gasped and turned, looking down at the body in the sand. The hand holding her gun was pointed two inches past Carlos' ear, held there by the man's firm grip around her wrist. He was looking up at her with a playful smile as her lips trembled and she stared with horror, all colour washing out of her face.

"A man goes to take a nap and wakes up with a gun between his eyes," he continued, "It really hurts the trust in our relationship, you know?"

"Carlos..." Alice pinched out, her jaw trembling.

"Aw," he mumbled, lifting his other arm and slipping it about her waist, his fingers pressing into her back between the shoulder blades and pulling her down for a hug. "I know you didn't mean it."

"CARLOS!" Alice wailed, dropping her gun and wrenching her arm around him, returning the embrace fiercely.

"Nngh," he grunted, "Ease up, it still hurts."

She pushed herself up off him and looked down into his face, trying to make sure this was real. "How? Why? What?" she demanded, unable to form complete sentences.

He sat up slowly, with the help of one propped elbow, and winced slightly but managed to get up. "I should be asking you that," he said gently, before gripping his left arm and squeezing it where it was painful, then rolling his shoulders. "I know damn well that I died outside the new Hive though I can't remember it, and I remember little bits and pieces of you... taking care of me... while I wasn't entirely... human. I can recall that second shot of your blood, though after that things get very hazy, and then I remember waking up with you on top of me, though not in the way I would have preferred." He opened and closed his hands a few times while staring at them, then cracked his neck. "I got you in the truck as those monsters came charging in by the dozens, but my mind was still slow and thick with confusion; I couldn't start the truck and they broke the window open, trying to pull you out. Then I felt this... this..." He looked at his hands again and clenched them tight, before looking at Alice with a piercing gaze. "Burning," he said quietly, the best he could describe it. "I could feel it in every cell of my body, like they were humming and charging up, and it hurt, but I felt it grow stronger as I called out for you. When one of them got your arm and was in the middle of yanking you out through the window, I couldn't handle it all any longer, and I... let it go."

A chill ran down Alice's body as she listened to him speak; she knew that sensation all too well.

"They dropped like flies," he continued, "All of them. It felt as though somebody had lodged a pickaxe into my skull afterwards but I had to go get you; they'd managed to pull you halfway out of the truck and the wave of whatever I'd unleashed had finished the job, tossing you into the sand. I staggered out of the truck, and went to get you as a storm was coming in. Shoving you into the passenger side was as far as I got before the last of my strength left me and the world went black. After that, I drifted in and out of stages of consciousness, and I knew that time was passing but I had no idea where I was or what was going on, though all that time spent with just myself in my head gave me a lot of time to go over thoughts and memories and hammer out what was my mind. And finally... I woke up with you on top of me again - still not the way I would prefer - with a gun to my head. I thought I'd killed you, Alice."

"I thought I'd killed you!" she countered desperately while looking into his eyes. He looked like garbage, with his face scruffy and unshaven, dirt, blood and sand smeared all over him and scar tissue across his skin, but Alice couldn't think of a time when she'd thought of a person looking better in her life. "Carlos..."

"Come on, lets not ruin the moment, no tears," he bade her, before reaching out and cupping her cheek. "We're both alive, and healthy in some shape or another," he did not mention that he could feel the infection in her now, and she could probably feel the same of him, nor did he mention that he suspected all those transfusions of blood had left him with some residual similarity to what she'd been turned into, "And I've never been so glad to have a gun in my face in my life."

Carlos laughed quietly, then coughed, as Alice embraced him yet again, and he returned it, before having to push her away so he could go through the same rituals of vomiting sand and bile that she had when she'd woken up, entirely ruining the moment.


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