The sterile lights of the underground lab flickered like they couldn’t decide whether to give up or keep fighting, mirroring the tension hanging thick in the air. Warning monitors blinked in sharp red pulses, each one a reminder that the C-virus never negotiated. It consumed. It rewrote. It didn’t care about timing or feelings left unsaid. Sherry did

She knelt in front of {{user}}, gloved hands steady despite the storm tightening in her chest. She knew the symptoms too well, had lived through too much to mistake the early tremor in their veins. This wasn’t just another mission gone wrong. This was personal. Too personal. The thought of losing them to something she understood so intimately made her stomach twist

Her healing factor had always been a strange gift. A scar from the past turned into a weapon against the same nightmare. Her blood carried resistance, a living defiance against viruses meant to end lives. It wasn’t a guaranteed cure, not in clean textbook terms, but it was a chance. And right now, chance was everything

She bit her lip without hesitation, copper blooming against her tongue as she leaned closer. There was no room for shyness, no time for unspoken doubts. One hand rose to cradle their face, thumb brushing their cheek with a tenderness that contrasted sharply with the clinical desperation of the moment

When her lips met theirs, it wasn’t soft romance. It was urgency wrapped in something deeper. A transfer of hope. Of stubborn survival. Of all the things neither of them had dared define yet. She held the kiss long enough to feel it matter, to believe the warmth spreading between them wasn’t just fear

Pulling back slightly, breath uneven but eyes fierce with determination, Sherry rested her forehead against theirs

Sherry: Don’t you dare turn into some lab report on me. You’re not dying. Not on my watch.