Annette Birkin

Annette Birkin is the wife of William Birkin, and mother of Sherry Birkin.

Early History
The only known exact circumstances under which she met and married William are that they met as fellow scientists in the Arklay Umbrella Laboratory, in the middle '80s. In 1986, she gave birth to her daughter, Sherry. While William did not like to be distracted from his research, it is clear he had a loving relationship with his wife and daughter, and gladly sacrificed research time to spend more with them.

Middle 1998
While they spent considerable time as a family and were fairly happy, their happiness was shattered when the reborn James Marcus arose from the dead and tried to kill William. This caused him to become increasingly paranoid, and forced him into his research to the extent he remained almost all time in the labs, dragging his wife with him. Not understanding the reason of her husband's behaviour, Annette nonetheless followed him, spending more and more time in the underground laboratories and continually caring less and less for her daughter. Despite this, she was still unwaveringly loyal and loving to Sherry and William.

The Raccoon City Outbreak
It all came to an end when the Umbrella Special Forces Unit broke into the subterranean laboratories of her husband, and grievously wounded him. Finding him in agony, Annette tried to save him, but left him alone to find help. During this time, William injected himself with the G-Virus and mutated horribly.

Resident Evil 2
She has two attitudes towards the player, one in each scenario. She openly trusts Claire, for she has protected Sherry and has vowed to keep her safe in the Claire A/Leon B scenario, giving her the documents needed to create the DEVIL antigen to shield Sherry form G-Virus infestation. In this scenario, she is killed by her mutated husband. In her agony, she gave Claire the instructions to create the DEVIL, and asked her to plead with Sherry to forgive her about not being a better mother. In Leon A/Claire B scenario, her demeanour is wholly different: as Leon has had no contact with Sherry, she mistrusts him and Ada, and even though she gave out much information, she had little qualms about opening fire against Leon and Ada to protect her husband's legacy. In that scenario, she is hit by a piece of falling debris after shooting Ada, and later on, dies in front of Sherry after Claire kills the T-103 that had been pursuing them to acquire the G-Virus from Sherry's locket. In her final moments, she apologized about not being a better mother, and pleaded with Sherry to forgive her. In the beta version of resident evil 2 she was infected with the G-Virus.