AN - So this is an idea that has been brewing for a while. And inspiration/motivation for Host has pretty much died, so what better opportunity to work on oneshots? I just want to make it clear that I have not played RE6 (I want to, but...I am without a console for the time being), I have only watched walkthroughs on Youtube. So...if I have completely messed up Jake, I apologise! I didn't want to make him quite as sarky as he was at times, because...well it's kind of serious stuff! But never mind. I hope you enjoy it!

Legacy

"Heroes are made by the paths they choose, not the powers they are graced with."
~Brodi Ashton~

He was not a hostage. They were sure to inform him of this. But what guest wore chains, as invisible as they were? There was a lack of trust amongst the others, and all of it was directed at him.

Truthfully, he did not care. He was here long enough to rip the truth from Redfield, with his bare hands if need be, and not a second longer. They wanted his blood? They could have it, so long as they left enough of it for him to carry on. What did any of it matter, really? Was this war really about to end? A cure for the original viruses already existed. Nullifying the next level was only inviting one to be built just above that.

Jake sighed. He sighed a lot these days. These walls were sure to do that to anyone in their right senses. The pressure from within was bad enough, let alone the pressure from outside. The Chinese government did not want them there. The Americans around him did not seem too keen on his company either.

All because of Albert Wesker. He never knew the guy, yet he had seen to it that his life spiralled out of control. And what did that make him, anyway? An experiment? The unintended progeny of the greatest success and failure of the Umbrella Corporation?

Somehow, he felt sorry for the poor agent the BSAA had put on his case. He never caught their name. Some bioweapons advisor. A desk jockey. Had probably never seen a BOW in person let alone fought for their life against one.

And to add insult to injury, she was late.

When she did arrive, it was with an air of inconvenience around her. Like she would rather be somewhere else and did not see fit to conceal this fact. She also appeared to be comfortably pregnant.

"You sure you should be flying in that state?"

Eyebrows raised. If he was not mistaken, she seemed rather impressed at his lack of easing in to conversation.

"Barely into my third trimester," she said. "Doctor said it couldn't possibly be worse than the stress of staying at home."

A wry smile accompanied her words; a sign that something hid behind the phrasing. She was younger than he had expected, though her features showed shallow signs of aging. Perhaps it was stress more than anything else. This line of work had a way of doing that to you. Her hair was a light shade of blonde, the likes of which he had only seen out of a bottle on a woman over the age of twelve, and her eyes were blue to match.

"Good morning, Mr. Muller," she greeted cheerfully after a moment's silence from both of them. "I'm afraid that your name is the only information the BSAA saw fit to share with me. Accordingly, it seems, I was told to be careful of how much I reveal to you. I am Agent Valentine, at least that is the name I was instructed to give you, and I will be deciding whether or not you are safe enough to set free upon the world."

He liked her candour, enough to bring a smile to his lips; the first since he had landed back on safe ground. Somehow, he felt that this would be a walk in the park. Or at least a skip through a deactivated minefield.

But they could not have been entirely open with her about his lineage; he had been given express instruction, by Kennedy no less, not to mention Wesker's name or any blood tie they had. When questioned why, the only reason he was offered was "It won't be pretty, let's leave it at that". Strangely, he could not determine if this was a warning or a threat. It sounded like both, heavily loaded.

"I suppose the fact that I haven't tried to kill anyone yet isn't enough to convince them?"

"Sadly not," Agent Valentine said with that slightly frustrated smile. "So how about you and I get to know each other a little, and hopefully we can wrap up our first session before lunch?"

Though the urge to question the mention of 'first' arose, he chose not to pursue it. While Valentine seemed friendly enough, there was something subtle beneath her kindness; a whispered challenge that anyone would be crazy to accept.

"My name is Jake Muller, and...I'm a mercenary," he joked, only half-heartedly. "My blood is important, I'm willing to part with as much of it as I can...I don't know how much more there is to it."

The sofa cushions were soft at his back, the emptiness of the small room stark in the silence. It felt more like an interview with a psychologist than an assessment. Perhaps that was what it was, as thin as the veil was?

"This is a casual conversation, Jake," Valentine said. "We have three days of this; I'm not going to dig too deeply in our first session."

She placed her notebook aside, pen with it, as though to prove a point.

"Off the record," she pointed out. "I like to think that I am a pretty good judge of character these days. So let's just chat, see where that gets us."

Jake suddenly got the distinct impression that he was her first interviewee, that she perhaps did not know how to go about this. Either that or she was pretty damn good at her job.

She had been in Beijing all of twenty-four hours before they allowed her to see him. It was strange, that she still held so much power within the BSAA yet they still thought they had the authority to prevent her from seeing her husband.

Jill found him in the briefing room, alone, gazing at an empty projector screen. According to Leon, he had been pretty despondent ever since his return. Part of her wanted to believe that it served him right, but that was a petty part of her, one that had no right to comment on what he had been through. For Chris Redfield to be affected so, the blow would have been pretty severe.

Amnesia was what had taken him from that hospital, mere hours before she arrived herself. That assignment was a clusterfuck if she had ever seen one. Things had escalated so quickly, and nobody really know what the hell was going on. Chris had been removed from the battlefield for almost six hours before she had been informed of his situation. It had been another two before she could wring out of anyone what hospital he had been taken to. She was part of that assignment, as she had been many others since her return to her duties, yet had never before felt that out of the field meant out of the loop.

It was Nivans who had finally found her and explained what had happened. And when the BSAA dragged their feet, it was Nivans who helped her begin the search for their lost comrade. She had stayed in Europe for close to three months before...

She frowned to herself. Barely eight months had passed since her return from Africa before they were wed, before she became Jill Redfield. They had been more than partners for many years, but somehow everything seemed to change after her liberation. They became closer than they had every been, and when Chris popped the question he had intended to pop the night she had disappeared, there was not a negative word upon her tongue nor in her heart. And for almost four years they were happy. The assignment in Edonia was to be his final one.

But fate always dealt them a duff hand.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Piers asked. He did not do things by halves, especially when it came to taking over Chris's responsibilities.

Jill waved her hand, shrugging off his concern as well as a woman who had only just finished puking up her guts could.

"Still no word from Farrelly?"

Piers met her gaze with challenging eyes.

"For God's sake, Piers, I'm fine."

"Would he have settled for that?"

No, and that meant that he would not either. Stupid, stubborn men.

He had kept her out of the loop after that, calling her only to notify her that he had found Chris, that he was amnesic and on his way to a routine op in China that the younger man hoped would jog his memory. Of course, he had known that she was pregnant. Why else would he have pushed her aside when they had worked so well together up until that point?

They had ran through scenarios in their downtime, of how they would face the situation if he was less than okay when found. Mostly for her benefit. Amnesia was one they had brought up only jokingly. But the answers to all had been the same, when Piers questioned her after skipping town; bring him home only when he is ready. Something had obviously hit him hard enough to warrant severing all ties and skipping out on hospital treatment. She was always the one he sought at times like these; the fact that he hadn't set off many alarm bells.

Chris flinched when she touched his shoulder. And he turned quickly, evidently expecting someone else.

She was not even sure that he recognised her. She barely recognised him. A wound that would likely scar across his cheek, hair as short as the day he had left, eyes as troubled as they were that night in '98.

She waited for words, but he rose almost immediately, embraced her so tightly that she struggled to breathe. But it was okay. Because she knew then that he remembered, and he still trusted her enough to allow a glimpse of the weakness he felt. It was a testament to how much he had grown since the day they met. Back then, he would bottle everything up, would pretend that he was fine when such a claim could not be further from the truth.

Then, as suddenly as he had risen, he pulled away, holding her at arm's length.

"Jill..."

Suddenly shy, she dropped a hand to her bump, smoothing the fabric of her shirt over the curve. How many times had she pictured this moment, fingering the ring she wore around her neck, the one he had left at the hospital? How many hours of the flight over here had she rehearsed words that suddenly seemed inadequate?

"I didn't know until you were already gone," she whispered. "It can't have happened more than a week or two before you left."

"Is it-"

"It's a girl," she said. "And yes, she's okay."

The months after her return had been rough on her health, but true to the doctors' promises, nothing had proven to be long-lasting.

"Are you-"

"I don't blame you for what happened," she told him. It was best that he knew as soon as possible, because she knew where his mind liked to take him. He had been better since her return, but she saw regression in his eyes. "And yes, I'm okay."

Chris pulled her into him, more gently this time. She could feel his warmth through every inch of him that touched her. It was warmth she had feared, in some dark part of her mind, that she would never feel again.

"I heard about Piers."

His grip tightened.

Calling an agent by their first name was a huge step, but one neither of them had found difficult to take with Nivans. Admitting anything more than a professional relationship was just asking for heartache, they knew that well. She had seen so much of Chris in him, though more of the fiery nature of the younger Redfield sibling.

"So many men died because of me."

Hands moved to his shoulders, pushed him away purposefully.

"No," she ordered. "Don't go there. Not with me."

What right did he have to cling to guilt so readily, when it was he who had worked loose the grip she had on hers?

"You know where that path leads. You really want to walk it?"

"I'm sorry," he whispered, easing her hands away. "That you had to go through this. The guilt, the wondering. And I'm sorry that I left without a word. If I'd have known what I was leaving behind, I never would have ran."

Tenderly, she placed a hand against his cheek, the one with the scar. She traced it with her thumb, smiling comfortingly.

"Thank you. And I'm here for you. I just want you to remember what you told me. Just because you're on the other end of it, doesn't make it any less true."

A hand covered hers, a smile radiating through his sadness. Even now, he was still as beautiful to her as the day she had fallen in love with him, in every way. And his other hand moved, pressing against the curve of her abdomen, bringing a matching smile to her lips. She had waited so long to feel that touch, to share in this.

It was enough to bring her lips to his, to capture them, tongue teasing forth a multitude of things that she had missed. But a smile broke contact, and it was not hers. Laughter escaped his throat; a sound so pure and so elated that she dared not question it lest she scare it away.

"Six months," he whispered, reacting now, she knew, to a well-timed kick from their unborn child. "Tell me everything."

Day two of interrogations. But as the hours passed, Jake began to think of them less and less as such. He rather enjoyed his chats with Agent Valentine. She had spirit, much like the Birkin girl, though in quite a different way. Admittedly, he had turned the conversation towards Sherry a time or two, though was dismayed to find that Valentine had only just met her the day before. She had known of her, however, even admitted that she had lived in Raccoon City before the outbreak. It was then that she had clammed up, had changed the topic back to his past and his wrongdoings. Whether it was something she had been forbidden to talk about or a touchy subject, he did not know.

The scars, however, seemed to be the latter.

When he questioned them, she glanced down to the open neck of her shirt, buttoned it up casually with one hand.

"How did you get yours?" she countered, smile not quite reaching her eyes. And for a brief second that flash of recognition appeared in her eyes, like she recognised him though could not be sure from where. He had seen it several times since they had met.

"Fighting," he said. Truth be told, he could not recall a reason for every single one. "You?"

The gaze that met his chilled him to the bone, but he held it, as cold as it made him feel.

"They are surgical scars."

"Doesn't look like any surgery I've ever seen."

"It wasn't like any surgery you've ever seen."

And he left it at that. Never one to admit fear, something told him that he did not wish to learn the answer.

"So how is it going?" It was Kennedy that asked, not Sherry. She simply smiled whenever she saw him, apparently trusted this Agent Valentine enough to not worry.

"I like her."

Leon laughed as he filled his cup from the machine, watched the water fill the plastic to the brim.

"You're not supposed to like her."

"Not supposed to like any of you really, am I?"

"Jake." Sherry's voice came as an amicable warning, though she barely looked up from her paperwork. It seemed that a lot had been left in the wake of the events that had passed. Cities were destroyed easily enough, but did anyone ever pay any thought to how much paperwork such a disaster entailed? And they wondered why he chose to fight, no questions asked. Dealing with the details only brought stress.

"I should know by tomorrow whether I'm free to leave or not," he said. "They said they'd take me back to the States, but you sure that's gonna be the end of it?"

"No," Leon said. He leaned back against the wall, held the cup but did not drink from it. "They'll probably keep tabs on you the rest of your life to be honest. It's nothing personal."

"Just family."

Sherry set down her pen and leaned back in her chair. If there was anyone who understood his predicament, it was her.

"You going to hang around or will this be goodbye?"

"You almost sound like you're sad to see me go," he teased.

"What about your issues with Captain Redfield?" she asked, ignoring him as she seemed to have learned to do. It was frustrating, but at the same time strangely amusing.

"Can't seem to get alone time with him," he said. The truth was that he had been far too busy proving himself to Agent Valentine to chase Refield down for answers. The time was coming though.

"Just go easy on him, okay?" Leon asked. "He hasn't had the easiest time lately, and matters are delicate when they concern Albert Wesker."

What 'personal' business could he possibly have had with him? Revenge for the deaths of the S.T.A.R.S. team? That, he had found from chatting to others around the base; Agent Redfield had once worked under Albert Wesker, until he had betrayed their team, leading to the deaths of most.

"Just be careful, Jake," Sherry urged. "You have every right to feel the way you do, but so does Chris. Just understand that."

Day three. They walked through the gardens, no notebook this time. Jake found it difficult to slow to Valentine's pace at first, but soon found that it was rather soothing to not be in such a hurry for once.

"So how did you get into this line of work?"

Valentine smiled, evidently expecting the question sooner or later.

"I lived in Raccoon City," she said. "My friends were killed, I wanted to do something about that."

He waited, hoping that silence would draw more from her. And she laughed, seeing through his method.

"Okay, okay. I was part of the S.T.A.R.S. unit in Raccoon City. Our captain turned against us, my teammates - who were also my friends - died, and those of us that survived swore that we would see to it that Umbrella were brought to justice. When they were...we could see that the fight was far from over. So long as bioterrorism was a threat, the world needed people to fight against it. So we helped form the BSAA. The rest is pretty obvious."

But it was not the rest that he was interested in, not now. S.T.A.R.S. was Albert Wesker's old unit...and Captain Redfield's.

"So you knew Albert Wesker?"

There was not a hint of a smile on her features, not anymore. Her eyes turned cold, body seemed to tense.

"Yeah, I knew him."

"What was he like?" He realised the stupidity of his question immediately. "I mean, you guys worked with him for years before the incident at Spencer Mansion. Why did he...What made him turn like that?"

Jill chuckled, though there was no humour in it.

"You've done your homework," she noted, almost sadly. "At first, he was okay. He was a good captain, a good leader. We respected him. Work always came first, he was dedicated to it. Never seemed to care about much else. Then, that night... I have never met anyone so full of anger and hatred as the real Albert Wesker. He craved power and despised all that stood in the way of him attaining it. That just happened to be my friends and I...the ones that survived."

Something twinged within him. The world had been right, he could feel it in her words. It did not stop him from feeling what he did, for longing for the father he never had. While part of him hated the man, part of him wondered how different their lives would have been if he had been a part of it.

He knew that he did not want to push any further. He did not want to hear any more, not from her lips. The emotion upon them frightened him.

"So how did you end up behind a desk?" he asked. "Sounds like you've faced your fair share of battles."

"I faced too many battles," she sighed. "Sooner or later, one will get to you."

He had passed. That was all that they would tell him. He was a free man. The other agents were being shipped home over the next few days. He had been offered a job, though had declined it as politely as he could in his rushed desire to be free of that place.

Redfield was flying out the next morning. Valentine too. He was sad to see her go, but his priorities that day were with his father's old enemy.

Alas, the briefing room they had all been piled into was filled, from Kennedy and Birkin, to Redfield, Harper and numerous other nameless agents.

"You're staring daggers through him," Leon said. Jake glared, wanting none of his attempts at diplomacy. He needed to do this, needed to get it all out in the open. He needed to know what it was that had brought Redfield's finger to the trigger, what other than duty that had brought him to fire.

"Wesker kidnapped Redfield's wife."

Well that caught his attention.

Kennedy actually drank from his cup this time, not looking half as smug as he had expected him to. As far as it had thrown him, it did not seem to be a topic the agent was keen to delve into.

"Why?" He did not understand. What did Redfield's wife (he was married?) have to do with any of this?

"She worked for the BSAA too," Kennedy explained. "Everyone thought that was why he took her. And yes, part of it was vendetta against her. But an equal part was vendetta against him. Chris loved her more than words can express. She was everything to him. So Wesker took her, and for almost three years he tortured her and experimented on her. When Chris found her again, she was barely a silhouette of the woman he knew."

A sickness settled in his stomach, lungs tightening around the revelation. Just to be sure, he looked to Kennedy, and saw not an ounce of humour in his expression.

"You wanted to know what his personal stake in Wesker's death was? There it is."

He remained silent, continued to stare ahead at the soldier at the table. He was slumped in his chair, weary from a war none of them should have been fighting. And weary, he knew now, from something else entirely.

"It was never about what he did to him, or what he did to the world," Leon said, slowly, wanting to be sure that he heard every word. "It was about what he did to her."

There was a space at his side when Kennedy moved away, one that filled with an uncomfortable chill. The desire to confront Redfield, to demand answers...where was it now?

The door opened, and Valentine walked through, smiling weakly at him. She appeared tired, as though woken prematurely form a nap. Perhaps she had been. She had succeeded in drawing his attention for but a brief moment. And as soon as it had returned to his thoughts, to his conflict over the soldier in his sights, he saw a hand against Redfield's shoulder, saw him react with a smile and a hand to cover it. Valentine leaned down, pressed her lips to his in an act that threw the younger man into a state of confusion.

But it was a confusion that left understanding in its wake. And suddenly everthing slotted into place. Her scars, the disconnect he often saw in her eyes, the sudden retirement from active duty in an organisation she had helped found, from a fight she had once seemed to be so passionate about.

And suddenly, he could not breathe.

She found him, curious but wary.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "You seemed pretty spooked."

Jake gripped the railing tightly, steadied himself. Who was he angry at? At Kennedy? At his father? At Redfield?

Perhaps the realisation would not have hit him so hard had he not, in some strange way, come to like Agent Valentine. He could see the muted strength in her, could sense that something terrible had shaken her world. But she had persevered, she was someone of authority, someone who commanded respect and who was as put together as anyone else in this business.

"It's not Valentine, is it?"

She sighed behind him.

"It's Jill Redfield," she said. "They told me not to use that name around you. I guess they expected Wesker's son to carry his anger towards that name."

"You knew?"

He turned to face her now. She kept a safe distance, as though trusting him but listening a little too intently to a voice that whispered not to.

"Chris told me after I filed the report. I made the mistake of mentioning your name in front of him. Figured it didn't matter now that I wasn't bound to secrecy."

"He wasn't happy, am I right?"

A smile found its way to her features.

"Of course not," she admitted. "Though I think it was more worry over me regressing. I'm guessing from your sudden exit that Leon explained what happened between your father and I?"

It was not so much between two people as an act committed by one upon another.

"Jake, you are not your father." Somehow, those words meant something to him, coming from her. "I'd like to think I've gotten to know you well enough over the last few days to see that. Truthfully, if I'd known from the start who you were I would not have given yo uthe benefit of the doubt. I'd be the first to order the chains they'd put on you."

The nature of Albert Wesker was no secret to him. It was no secret to anyone these days. But they were just acts, just terrorism upon a population. There had been no face to place upon the victims, no human side of the tragedy. Until now.

"I'm sorry." It was all he felt able to say. It would mean nothing, but he had to offer something.

"Thank you. But let's just leave him in the past. You are not Albert, just as Sherry is not William."

He nodded emotionlessly, waiting in the silence that fell for one to make a move. It was him, walking away with a simple wave of the hand. She did not seem to mind, nodded politely before he turned. Resolute, he left them behind, knowing more than he had ever intended to know. And perhaps that was it. Perhaps this was meant to be, perhaps fate dealt him this hand as a lesson, as a resolution that was both everything he had wished for and everything he had feared.

Because she was right. He was not Albert Wesker.

And he would spend the rest of his days proving that to the world.

AN - Please review :).