CHAPTER 1 - Goodbye my Brother

As we look back over time We find ourselves wondering ..... Did we remember to thank you enough For all you have done for us? For all the times you were by our sides To help and support us ..... To celebrate our successes To understand our problems And accept our defeats? Or for teaching us by your example, The value of hard work, good judgement, Courage and integrity? We wonder if we ever thanked you For the sacrifices you made. To let us have the very best? And for the simple things Like laughter, smiles and times we shared? If we have forgotten to show our Gratitude enough for all the things you did, We're thanking you now. And we are hoping you knew all along, How much you meant to us.

He watched his sister standing there speaking the words so perfectly and with such love and affection that for a moment it almost made him forget why everyone was there…almost. Still even the strongest person can break under the right conditions and as he watched the usual iron stance of Claire Redfield begin to buckle he made his way past the sea of friends and colleagues and straight to his sisters side. Claire was unlike her brothers, she had chosen a path away from combat and violence and was working for an organisation called TERRASAVE that was responsible for co-ordinating search and rescue operations in the wake of bio-terrorist attacks; she wore her emotions on her sleeve. Truthfully it was because of Claire's loving nature that Ryan had always believed he and Chris were able to walk into situations that, at times, seemed to be utterly hopeless and devoid of hope and come out of the other end with their humanity intact. As she crumbled into his shoulder sobbing with every ounce of her being he wanted to be the man that he needed to be, he wanted to step up to the plate and ease her pain but the words wouldn't come. Ryan lifted her chin gently from his shoulder and as he looked at her usually cheerful face drowned in sorrow he found he could stand it no longer.

"That a girl Claire, just get it all out of your system okay?"

He knew he should say more to her, he wanted to but the words wouldn't come not that he believed for a moment that they would do any good anyway. He gently lifted her chin from his shoulder and took a moment to look at her before wiping the tears from her eyes. Ever so slightly moving Claire towards Jill Valentine for support, Ryan took a deep breath and prepared himself to take the same stage that moments ago seemed to break his sister so completely.

"Ladies and Gentleman, I'd like to thank you all for taking the time to come. The truth is that I've thought long and hard about what to say to you all here today. Every time I tried to think about the kind of thing that my brother would want me to say I couldn't help but come back to a conversation I had with Barry Burton a few years back regarding my brother. He told me that Chris could have been anything he wanted to be but that he had always been a free spirit. He wasn't the type of guy to work traditional nine to five hours in an office somewhere he had what Barry called a 'Messiah Complex' he had to be right in the thick of it fighting for those that couldn't fight for themselves".

Ryan stopped himself in mid-sentence leaving those watching wondering what he would say next, he wanted more than anything to look his friends and family in the eye; to connect with them but he couldn't and so he cleared his throat and continued.

"I've always liked to believe that amongst other things it was that sense of honour and heroism that drove him out of the armed forces. You see in the armed forces you're charged with protecting people but there's a certain amount of red-tape that comes along with it, you're a slave to the higher ups and your expected to follow the chain of command whether you agree with the ethics of that order or not. Chris didn't have time for the politics and anyone who ever met him knew that he damn sure didn't want to deal with the politicians all he wanted to was help. Many of us here were involved or were affected in some way by the tragedy that took place in Racoon City. For many of us life was never the same after that and I think I can say with certainty that Chris would agree. Can any of you remember what you were doing after it was over? Well I can and I can tell you all that I folded, I looked into the face of complete tragedy and I lost things that I didn't think could be replaced, but Chris didn't. Even after being shaken to his very core he stood strong, refusing to be beaten back by the darkness and never compromising".

At that point Ryan couldn't help but cast his eyes out once again directing his attention towards Jill Valentine.

"Not even when it looked as though they couldn't possibly take any more from him". Ryan could tell from the look that instantly appeared on Jill's face that she knew he was referring to her.

"Chris was strong, he was smart and he was ridiculously skilled at the operation of almost every firearm known to man but none of that was what made him who he was. It was that refusal to quit and the love that he had for those around him, even if he didn't necessarily always know how to say it but make no mistake everything Chris Redfield did was for each and every one of us. We are his legacy and although he may not be with us anymore, we may not touch or see him as long as we live he will never truly be gone".

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He wasn't sure how long it had been since everyone left, truth be known he didn't particularly care. The rain was still falling heavy on him but he lost the ability to feel the cold hours ago, his skin was hard and numb and the clothes that just a few hours ago had been so clean and carefully groomed were now drab and completely soaked through. He had no doubt that what he had said about Chris just hours before were true, Ryan believed that his brother was and always had been a hero. What he couldn't bring himself to talk about was the fact that he found it so fitting that the rain was falling so hard it looked as though the heavens themselves were weeping for their loss. For as long as he could remember Chris had been there, even years ago when the two had gone their separate ways he never truly felt like Chris was terribly far away. He felt like the crappy weather was truly appropriate because a man that for so long had been a champion to so many was no longer there. What truly scared him though was the fact that he knew the world still needed that champion. Umbrella may be gone but their legacy was still being felt the world over, someone had to continue the fight. That was the main reason that the BSAA was formed, to protect people from corporations like Umbrella that would take advantage of the misfortunes of the very people that his brother had fought so hard to protect.

The various Umbrella manufactured viruses had all been thoroughly analysed at BSAA headquarters and anti-bodies were even beginning to be formed so that hope could be provided should another outbreak ever occur but Ryan knew that those viruses, devastating as they may be were only the tip of the iceberg.

"Project W"

Those words had been running through his head since Siberia. When Chris was dispatched to Kijuju, Ryan decided to follow up a lead on a corporation which had apparent connections to Albert Wesker. As far as Ryan and Chris knew Wesker had died, along with Jill, at the Spencer Estate. There had been no sightings of him since and the BSAA had frozen and seized the assets of over a dozen of Wesker's dummy corporations without incident. That being said no one knew more than Chris the dangers of underestimating Albert Wesker and because of that one of them always had to be present if any such corporation was unearthed even if these companies happened to be outside of their jurisdiction.

Ryan hated to admit it but Albert Wesker had proven himself often to be one of the smartest men walking the planet he didn't make mistakes, and if he did more often than not it just meant trouble for someone else. The Chronos Corporation in Russia had been around for years and it was unclear as to just how long Albert Wesker had been running the show but it had been long enough to transfer all of his personal research data on the various Umbrella Bio-Weapons onto the building's servers. The most interesting find of all came in the form of an encrypted drive - which contained information regarding something called 'Project W'. In the retrieved file it mentioned that over the years the project had achieved a high mortality rate, very few of the subjects that had been subjected to the experiment had survived but according to the file all the 'Wesker' children contained enormous potential. One of the individuals mentioned on the file was A. Wesker, which he had assumed meant Albert but the dossier itself had been signed by an Alex W and Ryan couldn't shake the feeling, was he another one of the Wesker Children? And if he was how many others were still out there?

Suddenly his train of thought was interrupted.

"Ryan?"

Ryan turned around sharply hoping to find something hostile, something that he could take out his confusion and his anger on, something he could hit but he was instead greeted by the faint smile of Jill Valentine.

"Jill what are you doing out here?"

"Oddly looking for you"

Jill made her way towards the headstone that Ryan had been staring at so intently just moments before. She turned around again and without warning wrapped her arms around him gently resting her head on his shoulder. This was the first time that the two of them had been alone together since Jill had been 'brought back''. Everything had been so hectic since then, Jill was being poked and prodded by BSAA personnel 24/7 and Ryan had been preoccupied with the funeral. Ryan had looked in on Jill from time to time but the truth is what would he say? He wasn't Chris and ultimately that was who she needed, it was a feeling he had learned to live with since his brother's death.

"Don't worry about me, I'm not the one still baring tube-wounds on his chest"

"I was feeling a bit claustrophobic in the house. Claire's lying asleep on the couch and I wanted to find you and make sure you were okay"

Ryan turned his attention back to the headstone and began to nervously fiddle with his brother's BSAA bade that he had kept with him ever since he cleared out his locker.

"Are you going to go back?"

"Yeah. I spoke with high command an hour ago, I'm flying back out to Washington first thing in the morning!

"You're going back? Now? Ryan you've just suffered a major loss in your life you can't necessarily expect for everything to go back to normal right away, your sister needs you here"

"We both know that I'm not the one she needs"

"What are you talking about?"

"C'mon Jill we both know what the things that Chris did. The sacrifices that he made with every inch of his being to make sure that Umbrella didn't win and it wasn't enough".

Jill looked at Ryan, his face was expressionless it was a trait that he shared with his brother. She could see right through it, he wanted her to yell, wanted her to blame him for everything but she wouldn't do that.

"Nothing it doesn't matter just forget about it…."

"Look Ryan if there's something…"

Ryan knew that Jill was only trying to help but the fact of the matter was that he didn't want to talk about it. Not with Jill and not with Claire. Chris Redfield was gone and nothing was going to change that if he was going to be the man that he needed to be then what Ryan felt was irrelevant he had people to protect and nothing would stand in his way. He looked at Jill, the concern on her face evident for him to see but she was still so pale. The wounds on her chest looked so raw and she was his responsibility now, and so was Claire.

"C'mon Jill, let's go home"

As Jill looked at Ryan she couldn't help but think of Chris. She knew he was lying. He wanted to get back in the fight as soon as possible. It was who he was and there was nothing that would change that. She knew that he was in pain, perhaps more than he would admit but he would want to talk about it one day and when that day came she would be there for him, just like she was there for Chris.

Maybe it was because of the fact that he had allowed himself to slow down for just a moment, or the warmth of Jill's body erasing the chill that had consumed his own but as the pair made their way through the cemetery it was as if things were finally real for him. His brother was gone and it was up to Ryan to stand in his place. He wasn't sure if it was a duty he wanted or a duty that he could even handle but for now he would have to do. He didn't have time to rest or to allow himself to grow comfortable, the BSAA may have to fight the battles but it would be Ryan that would fight the WAR!