The helicopter carried the survivors back to Raccoon City after the mansion incident. A damp chill clung to the night air, and no one spoke. They scattered across the streets in stunned silence, as though the killing, the running, the monsters, had all been some nightmare they couldn't wake from.
The city hummed on as if nothing had happened. Streetlights blazed, traffic flowed, and the news said nothing about the mountains. Calm on the surface. But something heavy pressed down on the air, something no one could name.
As they parted ways, Jill called out to Ryan. She pulled out her phone, the screen casting a faint glow in the dark.
"Let me get your number," she said. Quiet, but serious. "In case something comes up. So we can reach each other."
Ryan nodded. They swapped contacts. No small talk, no drawn-out goodbye. Just a thin, reliable thread strung between them in the darkness.
That same day, Jill went straight to the precinct. She hadn't wasted a single hour. The samples she'd risked her life to carry out of the mansion, the report she'd stayed up all night writing, all of it went on the desk. Every detail, no matter how insane it sounded, made it into the pages. She still held on to a sliver of hope that someone would listen. That someone would investigate.
The other survivors drifted apart. Some pretended it never happened, desperate to slide back into ordinary life. Others buried it under fear and silence.
Chris stayed in the city for two days. He had no faith in the department's brush-off, and even less faith that the incident was truly over. Umbrella's real secrets, he was convinced, lay in their European headquarters. He left to chase them down. Before he went, he met Jill one last time, brief and hurried, and told her again and again to be careful.
Teammates scattered. People who'd fought side by side vanished in different directions overnight. And just like that, Jill was alone in a city riddled with undercurrents she couldn't see.
Days crawled by.
One. Two. Three.
A full week passed. Nothing.
No follow-up. No investigation. No questions. As though the evidence she'd submitted, evidence that could determine the fate of the entire city, was nothing more than a scrap of junk mail.
Sunk without a trace.
Slowly, Jill understood. Her report had been buried. The samples, quietly confiscated. The order that held this city together had long been puppeteered by forces she couldn't see. The longer she waited, the colder the certainty grew.
Those days, she kept up appearances. Went out, ran errands, tidied up the apartment. But everywhere she went, invisible eyes seemed to follow. She couldn't act out of the ordinary. Couldn't ask questions. Couldn't trust anyone.
Ryan hadn't left either.
He had no family here, no real ties to Raccoon City. Just a guy on his own with nowhere particular to be. But after everything in the mansion, after surviving that hell together, Jill had become the one person in this place he actually cared about.
Chris was an ocean away now. Jill had no one watching her back. Walking away wasn't an option.
He'd already made the decision. Stay. Keep watch. Make sure she didn't face what was coming alone.
On the seventh night, Jill finally broke.
She sat in her dim living room for a long time, phone in hand, turning it over and over. Then she dialed.
It picked up fast.
"It's me." Her voice barely held steady. "Are you... free? I need to see you."
"On my way." Calm. Steady. No hesitation.
They met at a small park near her apartment. Wind rustled through the trees, and the streetlamps stretched their shadows long across the pavement. Few people were out. Jill sat on a bench, fingers white-knuckled around the hem of her jacket, exhaustion and helplessness written across every line of her body.
Ryan sat down beside her. Didn't push. Didn't ask. Just stayed.
A long silence passed before she spoke, her voice raw.
"I turned everything in the day I got back."
A pause. The light in her eyes dimmed. "It's been a week. Nothing."
He listened without interrupting. None of it surprised him. Umbrella had this city in a chokehold. A response would have been the strange thing.
"Nobody believes me. Nobody's looking into it. Like none of it ever happened." A bitter smile flickered across her face. "Chris is gone. Europe. And now it's just... me."
She turned to look at him, and something crept into her expression that she probably didn't even realize was there. Vulnerability.
"Being alone in this... it scares me."
The night settled around them. Wind brushed past.
After another long silence, she spoke again, barely above a whisper.
"Could you... move somewhere closer to me?"
The words left her mouth and she dipped her head, uncomfortable with how much she was leaning on someone else.
Something in Ryan's chest softened.
He didn't hesitate. "Yeah."
Jill blinked, clearly not expecting it to be that simple.
"I was already looking to move anyway," he said, easy and offhand. "My place is too small."
She lifted her head. A faint light returned to her eyes.
"There's a vacant unit across from my apartment," she said, her voice gentler now.
The night deepened. Neither of them said much after that.
Some things didn't need to be spelled out. Some company didn't need words.
When they left, Jill's step was noticeably lighter than when she'd arrived.
Ryan walked behind her, watching her silhouette move through the lamplight, and felt the certainty settle deeper.
From here on out, she wouldn't carry everything alone.
A few days later, he moved into the apartment across from hers.
In a city on the edge of being swallowed by darkness, they became each other's only light.