This is just my opinion, as is all my writing, on how the real lives and events of these people would have effected their thoughts. Please don't blame me CAPCOM, I make no money from your beautiful product. Thank you for your understanding. Just the enjoyment of people around me, and my psychotic brain cells. Everyone else, please enjoy my ramblings of the great main character of Captain Chris Redfield, and all his glory.


Christopher Redfield. Chris... Captain Chris Redfield. How on God's green Earth had he become a captain? In charge of men. Women. In what reality had he earned such a privileged rank? When had the losses of lives fighting alongside him become expendable assets? Who, among his teammates celebrating victory had ever heard of the name Richard Aiken? A captain leads, a captain is influential. Respectable. A captain protects his men, down to the last. A captain brings people home alive. A captain... As far as he'd known, that title never received a real man of honor. Gathering the leather jacket from deep within the wells of his designated locker, fingers bunching in the fabric and squeezing until it creaked under pressure; the man they dubbed this... cursed title to, garbed himself. He could still remember his first meeting with someone who bared the title, from behind a bench awaiting the judgment for his dishonorable discharge from the Air Force. Even back then, he was all piss and vinegar. Even so, he hadn't done much to deserve it..., but thinking back on it, he couldn't help but question if fate had overplayed its hand. Under the circumstances of his release, if he hadn't had such an overabundant issue with authority; perhaps he may have found himself leading a normal life. Stand in line, take in the world as it was. Become a pilot, have a family. Marry a pretty girl, maybe one in a similar field, or hell, even something as quaint as organizing someone's files from behind a desk. Grow soft. Suzie homemaker, all Martha Stewart like. Eventually retire and make an attempt to raise a few kids in a world that wanted to shred them like paper. John and Jane Doe, why the hell not? Perhaps move to Florida once they were old and gone, spend the rest of his days in God's waiting room, with a Rolling Rock in one hand and a Marlboro 24 in the other. He could have gone an entire lifetime without once ever encountering the horror that was the bioterrorism field. The underbelly that exposed the world for the corrupt convergence it became. Without that first moment, without that first Captain, who called him out on his inability to follow orders, maybe it all would have been different. They call that the Butterfly Effect.

It wasn't that Chris Redfield couldn't follow orders. It was that he didn't like following the orders of someone who knew it all and nothing, ready to send men he knew well into hell's maw, it was something he saw too much to follow like a mindless lemming. He wouldn't end up a Chris sandwich. Too bad there was no credibility for when you talked back to an officer without anyone there to back you when you stood your ground. So rather than that All-American piece of apple pie..., damn, that sounded good from here, he got stuck with the second captain in his life to tarnish the commanding rank. The jacket was too tight on his frame, the knots that had knots upon his wide frame, and large shoulder width, unable to rotate properly whilst he shifted his rotator cuff. Bothering him more recently then it had been. An old injury from a time long before this, nagging him proper ever since he'd reached passed the age of thirty-five and became too old for this business. The tight supple leather stretched out at the broad heft of large shoulders, too taut to zip the front, leaving his grey T on display over the rest of his Herculean musculature. Two calloused pads, plunged within the depth of the front pocket, feeling the crumpled edges of the cellophane packet of cancer sticks that lay crushed against his broad pectorals. Pulled free, one cigarette was brought upward, seated betwixt thin lips, before the glowing fire of a cheap one dollar BIC lit his five o' clock shadow. The smoke felt good in his lungs, but the nicotine did nothing for him; scoffing at its inability to dull the roar of his mental processes.

Captain. A small token hung from the set of keys, engulfed in his massive palm. A reminder from his long standing partner, Jill Valentine, that he was looked upon as a founder, and captain of this so called 'great organization'. The small globe of blue dangled so, surrounded by miniature yellow stars. The signal of their organization, lovingly dubbed, the B.S.A.A. How could it be considered so great, only to fail so unforgivably? Jill. Perhaps she could recognize the position he was in, considering that here and now they were of the same office. Yet, somehow her outlook did not reflect his own negativity. Of all the failures in his lifetime, his ejection from the Air Force had given him the right to meet a woman, words just couldn't do justice to. He could absolve fate for dispatching him from his chosen profession, if it meant that he could call her a friend. But was the world better for having followed that path? Glancing out from under his heavy eyes, brow furrowed in displeasure; he gave a curt nod to the woman who had been in this game as long as he. This downward spiral. No words transpired between them, they had crawled within the confines of each other's minds long ago. They could read one another's thoughts like one reads the drive thru menu at the nearest Burger King. Starting the long trudge toward the old Ford Pick-up that would take him toward his desired destination. He couldn't help but reflect on the day, he'd had the pleasure to meet his soul twin.

That long time friend of his, fate, encouraged him to join a new task force. At least someone recognized his talents for the art of killing; as a lead marksman for S.T.A.R.S. It was pride, he knew, what drove him to want to prove himself after the incident with the Air Force, but still..., that was no excuse for being so easily misled. He should have gone into security for officials, or kept his head above water in some other fashion. But he wouldn't have met Jill. Wouldn't have had those blessed few months where everything seemed to make more sense. The first time he met Jill, there was stars in his eyes. The high top pony, and her can do attitude. She was the female version of himself, ready to prove herself. As far as partners were concerned, he couldn't have dreamed for someone more competent. As far as lovers were concerned...? Jill's soft fingertips, clutching at the cheap fabric of his full sized bed. Burying his clean shaven visage into the crevasse of her neck and shoulders. So slim and easily engulfed by his form; even with his slimmer, less matured body. Their unscarred flesh, so young then. Chris could feel the heat in his loins at the memories, the lust of what had happened between them in the dark of her apartment, the second time. Pulling her face to his own for a kiss that made her thighs shiver under his touch. How wet she was for him, even as she repeated that this was a mistake. It was always a mistake. A perfect mistake. The only way he could think of to quiet her justifications; was when he grasped the back of that taut pony, strands of brunette chocolate laced within his mitt, and lowered suggestively downward. Mischievous blue orbs, took his breath away..., or it was her mouth, working his straining erection like her favorite flavored Blow Pop. There was nothing like having Jill Valentine sitting on his hips, with that baby doll face of her's, their lips crushed together while she filled all her wants until a scream bellowed from her throat.

Head lulled down on his chest from the memory, heavy breathing filling the musky cab of his pick up, until the driver's side window fogged with his bated breath. Cranking the engine with a full turn of the key, he bunched his toes in his socks, coiling them whilst trying to forget those better times. They weren't better times; simply more hopeful. Such times when he could fall asleep at the wee hours of the morning, and hopping ready to go by five. Before the wars. Before the world went to shit. Before the betrayal. Before Wesker. The drive was a long one, the road a boring one. Just the kind that a washed up old captain needed to be overcome by such thoughts as these. To look back on a life he spent cursing. The pavement flew by beneath the watchful gaze of mahogany oculars, tight fists clenching on the steering wheel until fingers, white knuckled with rage. He never claimed to be a patient man, though before the incident at the manor, there was still hope for him. Fate was unlucky that way. It led him from the Air Force, to S.T.A.R.S., to Jill Valentine. To her beautiful smile, and her rueful, pleasant stare. But it had also led him to Albert. Captain of S.T.A.R.S. Alpha team. Even with everything that happened, the bastard was talented enough that people believed him to be exactly what he wanted them to see. How he wished to never share a title with that megalomaniac. If that was what it meant to be a captain, he wanted none of it.

The stripes of white, running along dotted lines of yellow, blurred together in a streamline frenzy, disappearing beneath the grill of his dark blue pick-up. Goddamn fate. As if he'd ever believed in allowing anyone but himself to dictate the path of his life. People made their own way in life, not some convoluted belief system that everything was going to be okay; or that some higher power was going to make things easier for them. He was his own man. Who made his own mistakes, and no painful memory would convince him otherwise. No matter what scenario. That laid the blame at his feet for the travesty of Albert Wesker. For allowing himself to be bamboozled by the likes of him, in the face of that unholy mansion. Watching as his world crumbled around him, the road disappeared and the trees along the sides became tubes filled with a clear blue tinted liquid, and the most feared monsters from every childhood dream. Everything could have been the same. Life could have continued on, could have repaired itself. Hell, he could have married Jill, got out, and spent the rest of their days fishing on some lake with Barry Burton, up at his lake house in Montana. But that vision that played before him, watching his friend..., his so called captain, rant on about the depravity of human nature.

Wesker had always been a brave man. Haughty in the face of danger, and a sure shot. It would have taken no other kind to wear their sunglasses at night. He betrayed himself as such when he saved their lives in the forest upon the first Cerberus attack, or rather, was he merely saving himself? Corralling them into a more manageable position, there within the mansion. In the moment, he would have liked to believe it was the latter, but he was older now. Wiser. He knew the truth for what it was; lost too many good men to not see it when it kicked him in the face. That pompous ass, had them all fooled. His charisma, that sharky grin, and that bureaucratic non-nonsense bullshit; those were the trisecting staples that held his captain together. They expected perfection from him, and he gave it to them. If only they had known that Albert's version of perfection, was a delusional psychopathic's wet dream, bent on destroying mankind. For that brief moment, he could remember what it was like having a friend like Albert. His charm and smarmy mannerisms that led Chris to believe they could have been something akin to friends. Something closer than captain and soldier. The long nights, worked, and the long days that followed. Even going so far as to buy a round after hours, just to better get to know the man.

The kicker was that it was all bullshit. Every worthless second of it. Hell of an actor that one, and Chris was just another puppet on his string. As if he knew all the answers. They all felt like a family in that little S.T.A.R.S. office. It was so small that he couldn't push back in his chair without nudging into Jill's; or peering over the top of his incredibly disorganized mess, spotting Barry Burton, disassembling his weapon for analysis. They were back to back like sardines, tucked away in a labyrinth of halls back at the R.P.D. and that was how he liked it. While thinking about the betrayal of their commander in chief, he uttered a little growl as he slammed his foot on the breaks to stop at the red light in front of him. It was an angering memory that the whole team had. He knew he wasn't the only one. Or the only one who still had the trouble of seeing Albert Wesker like a friend. Before the red turned to green, he made himself close his eyes and takes a deep breath. The most infuriating shit? The blond slicked back hair, never a strand out of place. Even after going three rounds of bare-fisted brawling, bullet holes in his jacket; not a single strand was out of place. All part of the elite, messiah complex that went unchecked. He faulted him for everything that was wrong with the world, in association with Wesker... For having not killed him before when he had the chance. For allowing himself to become the patsy. Wesker was a brilliant strategist, getting Jill and himself to vouch for him for so long. To be the perfect captain for S.T.A.R.S. Watching over them. Building an elite team for Alpha, as if he had a real invested interest. He felt almost justified when his captain was impaled upon the massive claw of his own creation as it came to life and destroyed without discrimination.

Along with the zombies, were the hideous creations called, lickers. The beasts were worse than the human looking bioweapons. Their grotesque muscled bodies made them the prime hunters in the bioweapon game when he was first introduced to them. And the one that had been the cause of Wesker's rebirth? A tyrant. Bigger better killers. And that before it was in every man's head. Those creatures were only the beginning. Now? The terrorists were just making bigger and better; beasts for him to destroy. Things he wished he hadn't come to know as well as he did. As he sped down the street, he looked at the men and women who led normal lives, knowing that they had no idea of the fight that waged its ugly head in other parts of the world. In some ways, he envied them. When he again stopped at a light, a mother with her husband walked across the street, taking their children home from some tiny park, obscured from view. Both held the little boy's hand, swinging him like a pendulum. Earlier he may have envied them; his narrow drawn lips drooped into a deep set frown. Who could afford such happiness in a world such as this?

The grip upon his '05 Ford tightened, brows furrowing at the pang that thundered through his heart and mirrored by his temple. The ventricles ached, reminiscent of the very moment he witnessed that blond maniac hang suspended within the air, that tyrant's claws speared through his chest, crimson bubbling from his mouth. Teeth clenched tight, the scruff covered jaw line tightening in a dead-set grim hatred, slamming the breaks without so much as lurching against the cold of leather seats, the vehicle bobbing on its suspension. The turn signal swiped as the turn took him a quarter mile up the road, the low beams lighting the gravestones which appeared in his peripheral. Wesker... If only he hadn't been so foolish. Cramming his fist down the throat of emotions that dared to resurface at the thought of that aristocratic youth; grinning at him with a secret only he could ever know. That smile had filled him with purpose once. Now his memory was only that which brought the steely grip from upon the wheel and to the dash. The resistance of the dash compartment giving under pressure dropped open with a thunk. The whiskey bottle stared Captain Chris Redfield in the eye, peering through the heavy paper bag that hugged its narrow contours before it was snatched with a resolve. Throwing the door back with a creak upon the hinges; the bottle followed in hand, trudging the darkening edged rows of headstones.

Perhaps it was because he forced himself to go back to this. Remind himself what the station was all about. Captain. He was suppose to protect people. He was in charge of lives. He was going to be in charge of everything. He was too old for this. Too old to be the first one in, and the last one out, but the Hell if he'd have it any other way. Not with the rookies that they had consigned, looking up to him on every level, even when they had no clue of the first hand hell hole they were willingly about to throw themselves into. He couldn't justify taking leading men into this battle, even younger than Claire was now. How could he hope to protect them, when he failed to protect her? When they had all just wound up here at the end of the world beside him. He couldn't protect his parents from their accident, or Claire from her own headstrong ways. He had too much to prove to the world that he allowed her to grow up a casualty of this war. What did it mean to protect someone anyway? His men in S.T.A.R.S., Jill... Clive and the boys from the F.B.C. He had always been blind to betrayal. It wasn't in him to see the double cross, even right in front of him. No wonder it had become harder and harder to let people in. He had failed even to protect Wesker from himself. He was as responsible for them as he was for the fate of the world. It was all on his shoulders. Every last one of them. But that's what the title meant, that's what the station required. And walking through the headstones, and cold marble, the seamlessly perfect rows of white markers; a deep frown burrowing more clearly on his stern visage. Ceasing his massive gait upon the open grave. There was always an open grave, and it was going to be filled with the lives of all those he was failing to protect. He wouldn't die heroically. Leave the world in the kind of way that he would choose. It would be his partners, all the people he cared about. Loved. Barry, Jill. Claire. These rookies in Alpha team who would never be ready for anything. His scars ached as if they'd been made yesterday, the flesh of a constant burn of knotted muscles. Each one remembering the rhythm of bullets and the nearing teeth of gnashing broken molars of the undead. He didn't have it in him..., not anymore. Not to watch another person die before him, to fill these empty graves. To lose everyone.

His body didn't have what it took anymore. The lines around his eyes as he squinted in the dark, into the empty pit before him; deepened. The crows feet weren't knew to his strong visage, and it was harder to see in the dark than when he'd been twenty-five. How could he ever hope to help these people? It took him years to wake up in the morning and wipe the sleep from his eyes. Nor did he have the ambition to maintain the outward appearance of a man who still had all the cards in his hand. A close cut shave, and long teased tresses were the look of a younger man. He wore everything on his sleeve now, like he had no drop of energy to spare on himself, and only on those around him, just to keep them going before he disappeared. He should be the one in that empty grave. Should be the one resting in peace. He'd fought hard enough hadn't he? Over the last several years... he'd been shot eight times. Each a knotted bunch of scar tissue that bunched upon his back, chest, his exposed leg or upper arm. But those hurt less than the nagging bones that never healed properly. The crush injuries and broken bones from the Spencer mansion..., from Kijuju. Wesker had stopped pretending and truly laid into him for the first time in his life, and those injuries? Those were what brought the most pain to his person. Twenty-one broken bones and dislocated joints, over the years from Wesker alone, and each one yawned and screamed as he stretched the cartilage of his rotator cuff winding his arm in a circle, whilst staring at the grave. Did he have what it took to gain another ten? Twenty? How long before his body broke down and his will with it?

One hand cupping the tight cap, Chris Redfield twisted the cap of Wild Turkey; bringing the mouth of the bottle seated up on his course lips for a first taste; yet all he tasted was the toughness of another man's palm, eyes narrowing in hatred as he brought the bottle down before it sloshed fluid and wasted a perfectly good swig. "Don't." The way that single word fell from almost Cupid's bow lips made the scowl deepen upon his own. Anger swelling together with nostalgia and pent up rage. Don't. The weight of the glass bottle within his grasp became almost like a club with which to strike his assailant, until hazel eyes grabbed his own dark abyss orbits in their sockets, pinning him in place like some kind of mystical power over him. He resented those striking copper eyes. As if a rattlesnake had struck him, and he were unable to move; injected with a venom called integrity. "Captain, don't." As if he had a right, as if he knew. As if anyone could understand the pain he went through just to get to this point. But those goddamn eyes, those can't miss, piercing golden flecked eyes. The bottle lowered as the hand across its top did; leaving Chris uncertain as to if he'd done it of his own accord, or the youth before him had led him along the path. God damn him. He was the reason... this was the reason, he could never leave. Those strong and dedicated hands, a mirror image of his younger years; making the same mistakes he had... only on an even more grand scale. Piers Nivans. He was the reason. Courage, authority, and the rush of a fearlessness he hadn't felt for a decade; all came back to him tenfold when that single hand gripped his mountainous shoulder. Those poisonous fingertips that squeezed him as their eyes met, injecting him with fire. "You don't need it." The bottle continued to lower until it drooped languidly within his grasp by only the neck, that hand on his shoulder loosening with every breath they held. Chris couldn't help the sickness that fed his iron man ability to keep trucking on through the shit. It was his partners. It was Jill, and Barry. Sheva and Parker. It was Piers.

The inability to watch them die. He wouldn't lose another partner. Not like Jill. He'd spent what was left of his youth finding Jill Valentine, and by the time he had, it was too late. She would never be the same woman, nor he the same man. But time had a way of repeating itself. The past would dance in front of him as he looked into those accusing, half-lidded eyes and nodded. As if the very will had left him to drink himself to oblivion, and instead that one touch had reminded him of all the reasons..., every reason, to be a captain. Made his grown ten inches taller and beat down the very gates of bioterrorism. He hadn't thought he could do it. But Piers, Goddamn him, he gave him every reason to get off his ass and get back in a pair of combat boots. Wesker couldn't have this one. Piers Nivans was Chris Redfield; before all the lies, and betrayal. He was the vision of what it meant to be brave, to have conviction and certainty. The things that Chris craved with all his life, the only things that powered him now. The things he use to feel, and just that single look drove the addict in him to believe he had that too. He was a captain. He could be a captain, just this once. Just long enough to keep this one from the clusterfuck that was bioterrorism. Just long enough to save one life. "Say it again." It sounded almost desperate from his own lips; gravelly words rasping in his dry throat that craved for that drink, slowly plucked from his hands. It brought a sad curl to those lips, those incredibly soft lips that he'd grown too fond of over the last few months; and the way they curled only at the corners. Only ever for him. Sadness, but that tenor voice, was striking all the same, forceful as if he were slapped in the face with it in the way a command should be given. In the way he needed to hear it.

"Captain."

Yeah... Just this once. He could be the good soldier, just this once. "Thank you."