A/N: First of all, a big thankx for the reviews! Always appreciate some feedback, so uhm yeah…keep them coming. ^_^ 

Promised you some suspense, didn't I? Let's see what I can do for you…I cut this part in half cause…I'm a bitch. Na. Second part of the story is already finished, but there's some minor editing that needs to be done, so it should be up in one or two days…

The Friend's story

More speeches. I wonder if his mother will even be able to sit through them. She has been crying all afternoon, looking like she was going to have a nervous break down at any minute and I can't blame her. Why are they doing this to her, hasn't she been through enough already? After all she has to bury her youngest son today, who was brutally murdered only a few days ago. I hate funerals. Always have, always will. It's like they want you to break down when they read out the deceased person's entire life in all it's glory, never missing a single good deed they have done. What annoys me the most is the way the priest always talks about the one he buries like he had actually known them. How can he do that? He never met Leon when he was still alive and everybody who's here today knows what a great guy he was. No need to throw it in our faces, making it even harder to accept his death than it already is. I'm glad I declined when the priest asked me to say a 'few words' today. What should I say anyway? That I wish I could turn back time and undo what happened to him? That, if I should ever find those bastards, who murdered my best friend in cold blood, I will make them wish they had never been born? I'm sure nobody wants to hear that.

Jill is curling her small hand around mine, squeezing it, letting me know that she is there for me, but in reality I think she needs me to comfort her just as much. She was pretty upset about the whole thing and as I glance over at her, the glistening at the corner of her eyes reveals to me that she's about to cry. I focus back on the ceremony. So, now it's Danny's turn. First time I ever saw him serious. I should talk to him again about the open coffin thing. I still can't believe the mortician has suckered his mother into choosing a closed coffin for the funeral home where everybody was paying their respect. Not that I was keen on looking at a corpse who had once been a close friend of mine, but I'm surprised that this guy almost insisted on a closed coffin. They usually only advice this to the family when the corpse is utterly mutilated and Leon wasn't shot in the face or anything. It's just weird, like so many things about Leon's death.

I cautiously crane my neck to look at Claire for the ten thousandth time today. She is holding onto Sherry who looks like she's weeping barrels. That poor girl. She's only 14 and considering that she already lost both her parents two years ago, I'm surprised she didn't break down a lot earlier. I can't watch this anymore. This is nothing but torture to them. I gotta do something.

Carefully as not to startle her, I release my hand from Jill's grip, leaning close to her ear and whisper.

"I'll go check on Claire, 'kay? See if she wants to leave or anything."

Jill slowly nods okay, biting her lip. I carefully wipe a single tear from the corner of her eye with my thumb. I haven't seen her this upset since, well for a long time.

"Be right back."

Claire doesn't even notice me as I step up to her, trying to read her tense face.

"How are you holding up, Claire? You wanna leave?"

I ask her as I put my hand on her shoulder, hoping she will at least look at me. She does, shaking her head. I was hoping she would say yes, so I could take her home, have a reason to leave.

"Are you sure? Nobody's gonna blame you if you can't put up with this anymore."

She nods again, but this time I'm not so sure she really means it as her puffy eyes stare blankly at me, tears streaming down her redden cheeks. If she'd only talk to me, if she'd only let me help her. Suddenly, the wall she's build around her breaks down.

"I miss him so much, Chris. How am I supposed to live without him?"

Her face is quivering, her voice breaking and then she throws herself at me, locking her arms around me so tight I can barely breath. I tuck her into a hug, feeling the wetness of her hot tears slowly penetrate through my shirt. Her voice muffled by her sobs, I can barely hear what she says when she speaks again, but I know what she says. It's the same question she asked me over and over again for the past six days.

"It's so unfair! How could this happen? How could he just get shot? Right there, in front of everybody?"

I run a hand through her soft hair, petting her back as I can only tell her the same thing I have told her so many times before.

"I wish I knew, Claire. I wish I knew."

And I mean it. I would give anything to be able to answer this question for it has been haunting me ever since that day I had to see how Leon Kennedy, my best friend, was murdered right before my eyes.

I was tired, hungry and most of all frustrated as I went over the file on my desk for the fourth time today. Resting my elbow on the scratched up wooden surface, I flipped through the pages, every once in a while looking at the photographs lined up in front of me, showing a mutilated corpse in all it's colourful details. There had to be a damn clue hidden in those pages somewhere, I just needed to find it. As STARS, we don't get a lot of murder cases, unless they are somehow connected to our missions. We're a rescue team for crying out loud, we're trying to get people out before they die! This case however was different to say the least. Tyron Banks, a sixteen-year-old juvenile ran away from his foster home in Colorado, for the third time, only to miraculously disappear without a trace. Six weeks ago, his horribly mutilated corpse got washed ashore the riverbank in the woods outside our city. His body showed several half healed operation scars as well as a bunch of post mortal wounds, like somebody had carried out experiments on him not only before, but also after he died. There were no clues what so ever to who could have done this to the poor boy. No fingerprints, no DNA samples, not even a fibre or thread of clothing. The body was sterile like a freshly shrink-wrapped syringe. Who ever murdered Tyron, knew exactly what the police would be looking for to track them down. They had to be highly intelligent, not to mention that they had to have the equipment to 'clean up' the corpse. Nobody could make any sense of this, so sure enough chief dumped the file on my desk, saying it could have something to do with illegal organ transplants. But I doubted this. The worst part about this case was, that the more I studied it, the deeper I dug into it, the more it reminded me of the bizarre murder cases in Raccoon City more than two years ago and all those cruel experiments Umbrella had cooked up in their secret labs. I knew Umbrella was no more, for I had played a big part in the downfall of their empire. The people in charge of the company were all either in prison or dead, the labs had been shut down and destroyed and stricter regulations for pharmaceutical companies and their research had been established throughout the country. Yet I couldn't get rid of the feeling that underneath the slick surface of it all, something was boiling, just waiting to burst out.

Sighing, I leaned back in my chair, locked my arms behind my neck and let my eyes wander aimlessly across the room. The warm sunlight of a delightful spring day flooded the office, giving it an almost cosy touch, compared to the threatening atmosphere it had on a dark rainy day, with the six heavy semi-antique desks and the well-used hard wood floor. The only thing that didn't match with the rest of the interior was the radio and surveillance station at the far wall, crammed with the latest technical equipment, monitors for infrared and regular cameras, computers, radios, a relay station and the biggest switchboard I've ever seen in my life. You were looking for any special device to track down an earthworm from a 'copter flying 1000 feet above the ground, we had it.

The constant ticking of the wall clock, echoing through the room made me realised how quiet it was in the chilly STARS office without the others. The bravo team was out on a search and rescue and the rest of the alphas, well, Becca had called in sick this morning, Barry was still on his well deserved vacation, Ethan had been sent out with the bravos, apparently cause they needed another tech and I couldn't possibly ask Jill to come in and help me out again. She had been working double shifts all week and I wanted her to get some rest on her day off.

I was still pondering over my misery, when the door popped open without a warning and suddenly I was looking straight at Leon, grinning like the tooth fairy herself, while hiding something behind his back.

"Betcha didn't eat anything yet, did ya?"

Before I had a chance to answer his question, he shoved the door shut with his boot, strolled over to my desk and produced a brown paper bag and a cup from behind his back. What can I say, he reads me like a book and with a triumphant smile, he set the bag on the table, lazily dropping his keys next to my lunch.

"You're my saviour." I told him with a lopsided grin as I reached across the desk for the bag. "How can I ever repay you?"

Leon leaned over the table and gave me the puppy eye look.

"By sucking up to the chief for me when he finds out I'm leaving half an hour early today?"

I shifted my gaze from the contents of the rustling bag, straight into his innocent blue eyes.

"Are you bribing me?"

He threw his arms up in defence.

"Never!"

I rummaged through the bag and was once again surprised how well he knew me as I produced a cheeseburger, extra sauce, no onions. Unwrapping the burger, I watched Leon casually rounding the obstacle between us, lowering him onto the corner of my desk. Quietly and with an absent look on his face he began to poke around the file spread out in front of me, his expression becoming even more thoughtful as he shuffled through the photos. He had asked me about the case several times before, but I never thought that it would occupy his mind that much. Probably cause he was one of the officers securing the crime scene when they had fished Tyron's body out of the river. I had the slightest suspicion that he'd start questioning me about it again and I really didn't wanna talk about the case, now that I finally had a little distraction so I tried to come up with another topic.

"I see you visited Bernice today." I said in between bites.

He quickly raised his head, confusion written all over his face.

"Huh?"

I pointed at his chest, using the straw sticking out of my coke as a pointing device.

"Oh yeah." He said as he realised that the front of his dark blue uniform was still studded with white fluffy cats hair. Drawing quotation marks into the air with his fingers, he continued.

"We had a severe case of catnapping today.  Thought about calling in STARS, too, but as you can see," He paused to pick off some of the evidence, holding it out to me and I could already feel my eyes itching. Damn allergy.

"I was able to solve the problem all by myself. Thank you very much." Beaming with fake pride, he tossed the bundle of cat's hair into the trashcan under my desk.

"Never doubted that. – So, how is the old lady? Still giving you good advice on how to live your life?"

He shrugged.

"What can I say, she loves me. Didn't talk to her much today, but the cat thing gave me another idea for a name. How about Joseph?"

Leon raised his eyebrows in anticipation to my answer. I was sincerely hoping he wasn't going to name his kid after a cat.

"Sure and if you decide on Franklin as a middle name, his initials could be JFK."

He frowned.

"Yeah, you're right, …Joseph Franklin is definitely off the list."

I couldn't help but laugh, nearly choking on a French fry, as he actually fished a piece of paper and a pen from his breast pocket, scribbling something down.

"Leon," I said, still trying to swallow the damn fry, "you're so full of yourself, it's unbelievable." I turned to toss the burger wrapper into the trash, and then looked back up at him. "What are you gonna do if it turns out to be a girl, huh?" I asked, secretly hoping it would be a girl, just to prove him wrong and I was also hoping she would be just as quick-witted as Claire was when she was a kid, giving him a really hard time, so he would stop teasing me about being over protective of my sister. Hell yeah, I could already see him training his Desert Eagle at a totally frightened teenager, cross examining the poor boy about his sexual preferences, while Claire and his daughter would be bitching in the background about how he was ruining his daughters prom night. A tempting thought indeed.

"It won't be a girl."

Tucking 'the list' back into his pocket, he slowly rose to a standing position.

"What makes you so sure?"

"It's simple." He explained. "A Kennedy's first born child is always a boy. Always."

"What ever." I grinned

"No really. Look at my family. First one was always male. My grandfather, my father, then Matt and his first baby was a boy, Danny doesn't have any yet…at least none that I know of…and now it's my turn." He trailed off, lowering his head, staring at the floor for while. When he looked back at me his expression was serious.

"Chris…Can I ask you a question?"

I shrugged.

"Shoot."

"If…if anything should ever happen to me, hypothetically speaking of course…"

"Of course."

"Would you…would you take care of him?…I don't mean financially. I mean…teaching him how to play ball…stuff like that?"

I was surprised, if not a little shocked and I had no idea why he would ask me such a question out of the blue, but I guess being a cop, facing crazy people almost every day, does make you think about those kind of things.

"Um…sure."

And I meant it. After all it was gonna be my first nephew, or niece and I was looking forward to being an uncle in a few months.

"Thanks…Anyway." Leon looked at his watch. "I better get going. Claire's waiting for me at the hospital and I don't wanna be late."

He waved a quick good bye and turned to leave.

"See you later, right? … Five-ish at the court?"

I asked, as he reached the door, twisting the doorknob.

"Yup."

"And be prepared. This time, I will show no mercy. This time I will kick your ass so bad you'll be crying for weeks"

Leon looked over his shoulder, laughing.

"Sure you will."

And before I could say anything else, he was gone. Yeah, so far, it was a pretty normal day.

A few minutes later, I was twiddling the phone cord around my index finger, feet propped up on my desk, talking to Jill. I wasn't surprised at all that she'd called me. She was a workaholic just like myself and it seemed when ever she had a day off, she got bored.

"No really, you don't have to come in today." I said. "I'm fine. I'll hang my head over the Banks file for another couple of hours and then I'll head on home."

"Still no lead, huh?" She asked.

"Nope. What confuses me…" I flipped through the file again, to find what I was going to read out to her, when suddenly I spotted something on my desk that didn't belong there.

"Oh damn." I said out loud unintentionally.

"What is it?" Jill asked, somewhat concerned.

"Leon left his car keys on my desk… That moron."

I could hear Jill chuckled on the other end of the line while I raised my coke, shaking it slightly to measure how much I had left. Clicking ice cubes, told me I had finished it all and a little disappointed, I dropped the empty cup into the trashcan.

"I'm serious Jill. He's been acting all weird lately and it's getting worse every day. He'd forget his head if it wasn't attached to his shoulders."

"He's just excited about the baby. Can you blame him?" Jill suggested.

She was probably right. Never the less, I was a little concerned with my friends strange behaviour that he'd displayed for the past few weeks. It wasn't the first time he'd forgotten something, or didn't pay attention when you talked to him. I picked up the keys, looking at them for a moment, trying to figure out what I should do.

"Well he better snap out of it soon, or he'll get himself killed one of these days. I've never seen him this confused. It's like…I don't know." I told her, shrugging to myself.

"Well…" Jill said, "…aren't you gonna give them to him?"

"I guess I should, huh. Hold on a minute, would you?"

I rose from my chair, slightly annoyed about having to interrupt my conversation and headed for the office window. If I was lucky, Leon had parked the Jeep at the front parking lot that was easy to overlook from up here, and I could catch him on his way to the car. Sure enough I caught sight of the Jeep right away and there was Leon, crossing the driveway in a hurry. With some effort, I was able to yank open the window and was immediately greeted by the noise of early afternoon traffic, from the streets surrounding the Police station and the adjacent parking lot, that made up almost an entire city block. Secretly I thanked god again for soundproof windows.

Keys in hand, I leaned onto the windowsill and but couldn't resist to wait until I saw Leon's dumbfounded face as he checked all his pockets.

"Missing something?" I yelled at him, a grin on my face.

He seemed pretty surprised when he looked up.

"I can't find my damn keys!" he shouted across the parking lot.

I stuck out my arm, triumphantly dangling the set of keys in the air, hoping he would be able to see them in his state of confusion. Leon stepped back into the driveway, took a few eager strides towards the main entrance suddenly stopping in the middle of the driveway. Shielding his eyes against the sun, he shifted his gaze from the ground back up at me.

"You know what" He shouted over the street noise "just toss 'em."

I signalled him that I understood, but hesitated for a second when I spotted the approaching squad car. As not to accidentally hit it, I decided to throw the keys short, instead of aiming for Leon's outstretched arms. All he had to do was take another step forward, but distracted by something or someone, he suddenly jerked around and the keys bounced of the ground, skidded across the asphalt and came to a stop a few inches short of Leon's feet. "Damn it boy, when are you gonna get your focus back." I mumbled to myself, before I realised he was talking to someone. From where I was standing I couldn't see who it was and over the noise of the police cruiser's engine, backing up into a parking space next to Leon, I couldn't hear anything either. Which reminded me that Jill was still waiting for me on the phone and I trotted back to my desk.

I don't know what made me return to the window after I had picked up the conversation with my teammate again. Maybe I intended to close it, to shut out the street noise, maybe I wanted to get some more fresh air to clean out my head or maybe I subconsciously felt that something was about to happen. Either way, I steadied my hand against the window frame, listening to Jill's story of her day, all the while watching the traffic outside for no particular reason, when suddenly an extremely shiny, white limousine with a huge heck spoiler and polished chrome railings caught my eye. It deliberately bumped onto the sidewalk, slowly rolling towards the driveway where Leon was still chatting it up with somebody. Seeing how the car's body was lowered to only a few inches of the ground, I had a pretty good idea what kind of driver was hiding behind the tanned windows. 'Damn kids.' I thought to myself 'What were they doing in this part of town any way?'

"Wanna go to the movies tonight?" Jill interrupted my thoughts.

"Sure, why not." I said absently into the receiver, my eyes still fixed on the white limo. There was something strange about that car, but I couldn't quiet put my finger on it.

Finally it came to a halt, only two or three meters behind Leon, blocking the entire driveway. The funny thing was, that I could have sworn I had seen this car occupying the corner parking space, in the row closest to the police station only a few minutes ago, when I was searching the parking lot for Leon's Jeep. So why had they rounded half a block, just to pull back into the driveway? I couldn't help it but I had a gut feeling that something was very wrong here and it grew even stronger when I saw the front and back window being rolled down simultaneously.

"Huh?" I knew Jill had asked me a question, but concentrating on the car, I hadn't caught it.

"Do you want me to pick you up?" Jill asked impatiently.

"Na…I …I'll come over when I'm ready, 'kay?"

I instinctively shaded my eyes when a bright ray of light blinded me for a moment and it took me a couple of seconds before I realised it wasn't the cars mirror that threw back the sun, but the barrel of a shotgun poking out behind the drivers seat.

"Oh shit!" I cried out, dropping the phone as awareness hit me over the head like a brick.

"It's time to pay, sucker!" Somebody shouted across the driveway.

From that point on everything seemed to be going in slow motion. A woman, standing by her car in the parking lot let out an ear-piercing shriek, drowning out my own voice as I shouted in panic, at the top of my lungs.

"Leon! GET DOWN!"

But he was already in motion, spinning around, reaching for his gun. For the blink of an eye, the shotgun's muzzle flash was visible as the shot roared through the air and Leon was thrown backwards onto the hood of the squad car, glass shattering as his back hit the cars front screen. Somehow he still managed to slide off the hood, clasping his chest as a massive amount of blood spurted out from beneath his fingers. People were screaming and ducking for cover all around. In the midst of all this chaos, I saw the guy in the drivers seat whip out a 9mm and then, there was another shot. I didn't know whether it hit Leon or not, but two seconds later he collapsed to the ground and this time he didn't get back up. I froze. Like a tree rooted into the ground I just stood there staring at the driveway. From somewhere below I heard Jill's distorted voice calling my name before one of the officers opened fire at the white car and the cracking of overlapping gunfire drowned everything else out. And then, I ran. I sprinted across the office, down the hallway, boots kicking against the hardwood floor, people's faces rushing by in a blur as I practically flew down the two flights of stairs, taking two, three steps at a time, recklessly pushing everybody out of my way. I didn't slow down, not even when I reached the crowded entrance hall. Instead, I forced my way through the mass of people alternately shouting, "Move!" and "Get the fuck out of my way!" at everybody who tried to stop me. Somewhere to my right, Mike was yelling at me over the confused voices of people and the blaring sirens, as he leaped over the counter.

"They shot Leon!" I shouted back without looking. Half way through the hall I realised that the sliding doors wouldn't open fast enough and I hit the breaks, skidding over the slippery marvel floor, coming to a stop a few feet away from the main entrance where Mike caught up with me. The seconds it took for the doors to part felt like an eternity to me. When we finally stepped outside, the gunfire had ceased and the sirens of pursuing cop cars subsided in the distance. I was about to jog down the driveway, when suddenly a desperate cry distracted me.

"Leoooon!"

Claire? What the hell was she doing here? She wasn't supposed to be here. I spun around and sure enough my sister was standing next to a metal container, looking like a ghost and I could see she was getting ready to head down the driveway. I couldn't let this happen. I couldn't let her near him. God only knew what she was gonna do when she saw Leon' dead body up close and personal and at this point I was almost certain he was dead. I leaped forward, locking my arms around her waste, trying to hold her back, but I had underestimated her strength and after she kicked me repeatedly in the shins, I couldn't hold her anymore and she yanked free, breaking into a run.

"Claire don't!" I screamed after her.

But it was too late. All I could do was try to catch up with her before she reached the end of the driveway, at the same time knowing that it was gonna be impossible for me to stop her.

The approaching ambulance had trouble getting into the driveway without running over some of the spectators that crowded the sidewalk, trying to get a good look at the crime scene. How I hated those sensation hungry bastards. To them every accident, every murder was a spectacle, something exciting in their pathetic little lives, they could tell their friends about when they got home and the more blood was involved, the better the story would be. But this wasn't a scene from a horror movie, this was real life. There was a real person bleeding, a good cop fighting for his life, most likely dying right before their staring eyes and above all, that dying cop was my best friend.

"What the hell are you staring at? Move on, damn it!" I screamed at one of the bystanders who didn't seem to get enough of the cruel scene, blocking the paramedic's path. I was barely able to contain myself when that guy just gave me a pouting look.

"Johnson, get those people out of the way before I break some jaws!" I yelled at the officer closest to me. Stepping up behind Claire, I lightly put my hand on her shoulder and she responded by slipping her own cold hand on top of mine. I felt so sorry for her and I wished I could have told her everything was gonna be okay, but I knew that it would be a lie when I looked over her shoulder. McKinley was still pressing his hands on Leon's chest, desperately trying to stop the bleeding, but it seemed the harder he pressed, the more blood came spurting out between his fingers and as the paramedics finally arrived pushing him aside, I already knew they wouldn't be able to save Leon either. From that point on, my biggest worry was Claire and how she was going to take it. I gently turned her around and tucked her into a tight hug, helplessly listened to her cry, all the while a single thought repeating itself in my head over and over like a broken record. 'Why did he have to die?'

I didn't even notice McKinley standing next to me, until he started talking, abruptly bringing me back to reality.

"Man, can you believe it? The shot must have gone right through the bulletproof vest. And that's how they protect us." He paused, slowly shaking his head. "I'm so sorry, Chris." His voice dropped to a whisper. "For a moment I truly thought he could make it. With there still being a pulse and all…"

There was a pulse? I jerked my head towards McKinley, then at the paramedics, loading the stretcher into the ambulance. Was Leon still alive? Suddenly my brain was going a hundred miles an hour and all I could think off was getting to the hospital as fast as possible. As I let go of Claire to crouch down and pick up the keys to the Jeep, I spotted a small piece of paper on the ground next to the damaged police cruiser. Why I picked it up, I don't know. Maybe because I knew it was Leon's list of names and as it was the last thing he ever wrote down, I wanted to hold onto it. The paper was a little torn and sprayed with blood, kinda hard to read, but from what I could still make out, it was clearly a list. Not a list of names though.

'Decide on a name for the baby'

'See Danny about the car'

'Call mom'

'Take Claire to the beach'

'Let Chris win in BB'

As surprised as I was, I didn't have the time to wonder about it now, we had to get into the car before the ambulance took off. Claire was in a state of shock. She cried and quivered and as she didn't react to my carefully shaking her and calling her name over and over, I grabbed her by the arm, pulling her after me towards the Jeep.

I floored the accelerator, racing down the streets, chasing the blaring sirens of the ambulance and I prayed that against all odds, Leon would make it. For Claire's sake, for the baby's sake. After what appeared to be an eternity, we reached the driveway to the emergency room and I slammed on the breaks, tires screeching the Jeep swerved to a stop at the curb and I jumped out, dragging Claire along with me. I saw the paramedics rushing the stretcher towards the entrance, but they weren't doing anything. Why weren't they doing anything? Weren't they supposed to like…give CPR, reanimate, I don't know…At least do something!

The security guard at the entrance blocked our way, saying the emergency entrance was for personal only and after losing a precious five minutes over arguing with him, I threw my badge in his face, shouting at him that I would have him arrested if he didn't move his stupid ass to let us in. Once he had backed up, it was a mere instinct that let me run down the corridor to my right until I hit the automatic doors of an emergency room, but when I stopped to look through the small window, I only saw what I had dreaded all the time. A nurse covered Leon's face, while the doctor in his blood soaked coat checked his watch. Leon was officially declared dead at exactly 2.37 p.m.

                An hour later I was sitting on the wooden bench in the stuffy PD's locker room, fiddling with the set of keys in my hands. I wanted to be with Claire, but the nurses wouldn't let me, telling me it was crucial that she rested and that nobody, including me, disturbed her. I didn't want to disturb her; I just wanted to be with her. At least the baby was alright. When Claire had had that nervous break down, after the doctor told her that Leon died in the ambulance, I truly thought she would lose the baby too. The nurse had told me to go home, maybe come back later, but what was I supposed to do at home now? I figured it would be best to return to the police station, maybe get some work done, before I went insane, from staring at my bedroom ceiling.

I shifted my gaze from the keys back to the nametag on the locker in front of me. 'Leon S. Kennedy' Eventually, somebody would have to clean out his locker and I had the keys right here, so why was it so hard to just do it? It wouldn't get any better if I waited another couple of hours, or days for that matter. I might as well do it right now, get it over with. Swallowing hard, I pushed of the bench and dragged myself to the locker. The door snapped open easily and sucking in another deep breath, I dared to look inside.

"What the hell?"

A/N:

Next Chapter: The Friend's Story (Part 2)

Chris's day is bad enough already, but it's far from being over. As a matter of fact it's just about to begin....