A/N: *Crosses fingers* Okay, so this is my first fanfiction on here. I hope you guys like it! This whole thing, while not entirely written yet, is a novelization of Jake's Campaign from Resident Evil 6. I have several unique twists and turns and a few of my own, original events to help make the whole thing more cohesive, interesting and fun to read. Quite a bit more romance too! If Sherry seems a little bit darker in her internal dialogue throughout the story than in the game's narrative, that is intentional. Everything will make sense later, I promise. Also! If you haven't played Resident Evil 6 yet, there will be Spoilers!

I don't own Resident Evil 6, the franchise or any of its characters. It all belongs to Capcom, and no financial gain is being made from this work.

Edit (October 20th): The prologue has now been edited and beta-read by Riot Siren.

Nervous didn't even begin to cover it.

Her hands shook. She chewed on her bottom lip. Her toes wiggled in erratic rhythms inside her shoes. She wanted to make herself a cup of coffee, something to hold onto, to sip and stir, to give herself something to do. But she didn't trust her legs not to buckle if she stood to make herself one.

Why does he need me? Sherry thought to herself, her mind racing at a thousand miles an hour. This was bad. It had to be bad.

Derek C. Simmons would never ask her to come to his office this early on a Saturday if it wasn't earth-shatteringly important.

He didn't even like dealing with her when they'd both had their rest, much less when they were both exhausted.

As if to reinforce her point, Sherry stared pointedly at the clock and 4 AM gleamed back at her, the red light glowing sinisterly, almost as if it were happy she'd been awake for a solid 30 hours, working at the last refugee camp, then the plane ride when she'd been called in. Sleep seemed like some sort of distant memory, but Sherry's mind refused to be bogged down.

Either she was in deep shit, or she was actually needed for something. Neither thought was particularly comforting. She heard the click of the door knob being rotated but kept her eyes forward when Director Simmons walked in.

"Agent Birkin."

Sherry deflated at the flatness of his tone. She had been hoping he'd at least be a little glad to see her.

Some things never change, even after 10 years.

"Director Simmons." She nodded her head in polite courtesy. It felt wrong in some way to be so rigidly formal with the man who had been her legal guardian for so long. While Sherry held no illusions that he was some great caretaker, or that he had ever taken the place of her father, she could remember a time long ago when they'd been fond of each other. And yet, even as his ward, she had still been a prisoner.

Sherry shook her head to dispel the memories of her sterile, hospitalized imprisonment.

When Simmons had placed himself in his chair, a smile came to his face. "Sherry, excuse my language, but you look like hell."

Sherry's heart fluttered softly.

Maybe there's a chance to salvage this yet?

"I haven't slept in what feels like days, sir. And I've been living off of coffee, candy bars, and second-hand cigarette smoke."

"'Sir'…" He shook his head. "Don't be so formal, Sherry. We're off the clock."

Sherry tried to relax, she really did, but something didn't sit right. The way Simmons twisted the signet ring around his finger; it was easy to recall from her youth that he only did that when trying to decide on something of great import.

"Am I being reassigned? Because that is very much what this feels like, Derek."

"Yes, yes you are. You're being deployed, actually."

Sherry's eyes widened and her head shot up to stare hard at Simmons—her new, direct supervisor, apparently.

"I'm not a field agent," she said. As if it was going to make a difference.

"You have the training, and the...abilities to carry out the assignment. The only reason you weren't already a field agent is because we needed you elsewhere. But the time has come, Sherry. Your first, real assignment." Simmons' eyes were hard when they poured into Sherry's and she knew there was no way out of this.

And once again, my instincts are right on the dot.

"But the relief effort…" She started to say, but he held up his hand, interrupting.

"Will go on just fine without you. They aren't even using your gift."

"Please don't call it that."

Simmons raised an eyebrow. "Then what would you have me call it?"

"'Ability' works fine," Sherry told him. "It's not a gift to me, but I'm also not ashamed of who I am. I…understand why I may be preferred to others for a mission."

Suddenly, it was like she was a teenager again. Sherry involuntarily shuddered at the memory. But she wasn't a victim now, and if this was what was needed, she'd do it. And if her ability helped her in that, then all the better.

"You can be such a frigid little girl, you know that?"

"Not really. Only you manage to bring that out in me, sir." He smiled at this, and Sherry remembered when she was young that the only thing she'd been more afraid of than his frown was his smile.

A flash of her father's massive, amorphous body attacking the train whirled through her mind, but Sherry pushed it away, like she had been doing with a lot of things recently. She already had enough problems to fuel her nightmares; she didn't need to start reliving the old ones.

Without another word, Simmons tossed a folder onto the polished mahogany of his desk. "There's your mission. You're headed for Edonia. The plane leaves tonight at 11. The agency will pay for the ticket."

"Sir, will I be headed into combat?" Any hint of acknowledgement between child and guardian was washed away, but so was Sherry's nervousness. At least she now knew what was coming her way, and she was far too tired to keeping sitting here, beating around the bush.

"It's possible."

Which means 'probable'.

Picking up the file with a nod, she quickly began to leaf through it, just to get a gist of what she was in for. She'd never done field work; the relief efforts for bio-terrorism attacks had needed her more than anything else.

A picture slid out from between two pages when she flipped by them and the first thing Sherry noticed was the scar. A long, slightly diagonal cut that reached from just under his left eye down to his chin. It had been a deep wound, and caused by something with a wide blade, maybe even a machete. Her finger gently brushed over the grainy photograph.

"His name is Jake Muller," Simmons said. "He's a mercenary, but he isn't a private operator. He's currently in the employ of the Edonian Liberation Army. The E.L.A. is currently in the middle of a bloody civil war. It's a post-Soviet state and destabilizing elements within—"

Sherry's voice sliced in. "I know what's happening in Eastern Europe; I do watch the news, sir. Why do you want him?"

"He possesses antibodies."

"To…?"

"To the C-virus, Sherry. If we can get a hold of this man, we'll finally have a viable solution to Neo-Umbrella's activities."

Sherry's exhale was long and slow and her eyes dropped back down to the photo. "You mean…a vaccine? That would be—that would be amazing. But what aren't you telling me? There's no way antibodies to the C-virus just pop up thanks to natural selection."

A bitter smile came to Simmons mouth. Sherry had always been more perceptive than what was good for her…

"He's Albert Wesker's son," he said.

"That's one hell of a catch!" Sherry exclaimed, horrified by the ramifications. Albert Wesker had been her father's research partner and a complete psychopath—an incredibly dangerous and powerful one at that—and now she was supposed to find his heir.

"He doesn't know who his father is—was, I mean," Simmons began. "Our intel on that is secure. Young Mr. Muller also doesn't seem to have his father's mental instability, or his means. He's clean by what we can tell, or at least as clean as a mercenary can be. We know where he'll be. It's all been planned by our intelligence boys, so don't worry about the coordinates. You just need to go in, extract him, and get him to agree to giving us a few vials of blood. Once you have him, radio in for the rendezvous."

Simmons watched with narrowed eyes as Sherry looked over the dossier in the file, matching his words to what the papers told her.

"I'll be there." She knew she had no choice. The mere hope for a C virus vaccine took away any excuse she might've come up with. Besides, Sherry was a perfectionist in everything, and she'd be perfect in this.

I can pull this off. I can actually do this.

Without so much as a goodbye, she stood and made for the door.

"Sherry…"

If she felt she could let herself cry, she might've at the unexpected tenderness in Simmons voice. The memories of when she was a grieving child struck with survivor's guilt came crashing back. He had that same voice when he had been kind, when he had let Claire come to visit her, when he had helped talk her through her traumas.

And then everything changed.

"Yes, sir?" She turned ever so slightly.

She could've sworn that he wanted to say something else, something meaningful, to say something that might patch up the gaping abyss that had separated them for so many years.

"Get some sleep," Simmons said.

"With all due respect, sir, I'd rather be awake just now." She closed the door behind her.

A/N: Okay, so the prologue's off the ground! I hope I managed to hook you guys. Also, as a side-note, I'm always looking for more music to write too and if you have any song recommendations for JakeXSherry, I'd love to hear them.