A/N: I don't intend on naming anyone.

It wasn't normal.. nothing was normal. Nothing was right.

All wrong, all wrong.

"Honey..."
Wrong.
"It's going to be okay."

"It's not okay now." the young man mumbled. Sitting by his fiancèe's bedside, his face in his hands. Damned green flu.

"I'll be fine. You know I will be. It's just a-" her weak voice was cut off by a harsh, raw cough.

"Just a sickness," he kissed her forehead, "that you're getting worse and worse from." he sighed. Her fever was worse than it was five minutes ago. "You need a doctor."
"You know they're all busy with everyone else who's probably much sicker than I am. They need it more than I do."
The man stood up. Angry. Never at her. At himself and the damned doctors. "I'll get you one. They'll fix you."
"Darling-"
"No," he stood up "just no. You will be better." He walked away from the jack-knife sofa that his lover had collapsed on four days ago in their small apartment. Putting on a black hoodie, he walked into the kitchen, taking some duct tape out of a drawer and wrapping it around his wrists, with only one word in his mind; fast.

"You're going..?" her weak hand brushed the sweaty, lighter-than-it-should-be hair from her eyes to look at him.

"You try to get some sleep, sweety. My friend's in the other room, you call her if you need anything. Anything at all, that's what she's here for." he tried to tell her in the sweetest voice possible as he walked back to her and hugged her. "I love you. More than anything."

She coughed first before smiling brightly at him. "I love you so much."

He held on to her for a second longer before laying her back down gently and going for the door.

Which opened to a surprise.

Had he gone deaf and blind by caring for his lover? How did he not notice all of the mayhem just flights below. The cars were abandoned in the middle of the street, some crashed, some tipped onto their sides. He shook his head, trying to clear it. There would be a doctor. That doctor would fix his angel.

He immediately ran up the emergency flights to his apartment building, climbing his way up to the roof, moving his feet, shifting his weight perfectly to jump to the next roof-top. After a few minutes of pure running and jumping, he saw what he wanted. A large, tall, lit-up building. It read MERCY in large green neon print.

The closer he got, the weirder it got. There were less cars, things seemed to be quieter. You couldn't hear what sounded like fighting and banging on walls. He jumped down some stair flights of the building he was on, walked across the street to the hospital and went straight in, pausing only for a moment to acknowlege the chaos of the doctors and nurses, running back and forth. Only one, leaning against the wall and sitting on the floor, wasn't in panic.
That's who he went to. "Excuse me."
"You'll have to sit in the waiting room." the doctor sighed, pulling her black pigtail off of her shoulder, straightening her yellow blouse under her white lab coat.
"I'm not sick. My girlfriend is. She's at home... I can't get her anywhere the way she is."
The doctor looked at him, measuring his face that was trying not to be worried, or manic. "What are her symptoms?" she asked, cracking her neck and popping her jaw.
"Sh..." he cleared his throat, "She has the worst fever I've seen. She can't keep anything down. Losing too much weight too quickly."
This caught something in the doctor's eye. She stared at the man for a minute before speaking, "What about her fingers...? Skinnier? Sharper?"
He shrugged, "I dunno, maybe a little." What was she getting at?
"Has she been sensitive to light and sounds?"
"Sometimes. Why?"
The doctor stood up and started walking down the halls quickly, motioning him forward. She spit into a trashcan on their way to wherever... he looked away when he saw something green.

They entered a room. When she turned on the light, he saw that they were in a medical supply room. She ran around, getting IVs and sealed shots of sorts.

"Because," she put the contents she had carefully into a plastic tray, "the only other girl they brought in like that, they killed."
And this is where he almost panicked. "W...what? What?"
"Calm down, she was alr-" she sighed. "She had already been sick for two weeks. This... Green Flu had already gone throughout her body and there was no stopping it or slowing it down. She turned violent." She handed him the trey, putting as many things as she could that may help in it. "We can take my car."

He had goosebumps he was so relieved. "Thank you... thank you..." he repeated himself a few times while she led him out of the room and out of the back of the hospital to the parking lot, where they got in her car and sped off to his small apartment building.

They raced up the stairs inside of the building as fast as they could without spilling or breaking any supplies. Finally when they got inside he had calmed down a little more.
"Sweety?"

The doctor noticed she was a sleep and lowered her voice, "How long as she been sick?" she asked as she took the heavy plastic trey from his hands and set it on the floor next to the pulled-out bed. "And get me some water."
He nodded and walked to the kitchen, grabbing the large electric water dispenser. "She felt sick about five days ago, and pretty much collapsed there the day after." putting the water dispenser next to the trey of supplies which the doctor was rummaging through, he went back to the kitchen to grab a large glass. Staying calm was hard.

The doctor nodded, placing an IV on top of the large jug of the water dispenser next to the bed and gently pushing the needle into the sick girl's arm she'd just cleaned. "I'm going to see how this goes. And if she gets worse or better." She took the glass from him and pushed down the room-tempurature button on the water dispenser, then took a small glass spice jar from her pocket, filled with an orange-red powder.
"What is that?"
She smiled at him and poured some of the powder into the glass. "An old home remedy. Get me something to stir with."
He did quickly. "Will it help?"
"Helps with a lot of things. Infections, stops blood, helps your heart. Cayenne pepper."
"Whoa, won't that be hot?"
She took the long tea spoon he brought her and started stirring the cayenne pepper in the glass. "Very. But it's worth it."
He sat on the edge of the bed and pet his lover's legs. The doctor set the glass on the table and took her seat on the floor. "She'll probably wake up soon."
He nodded. "Why are you doing so much for us? Won't you get in trouble for not being at work?"
She sighed. "They fired me. For helping someone else like this."

"Thank you." he whispered. He had so many questions. Did she help them? Are they okay now?
"If CEDA realized what I'd done for them I'm pretty sure..." she shook her head. "Nah. Didn't do enough. A few lives saved won't stop the apocalypse."

He continued to pet the legs of his girlfriend as he sat and thought in silence. This really was the apocalypse, wasn't it? At least the end of the USA. The sickness that almost everyone has is starting to kill.
"Do you have any symptoms? Any at all?" She stood up an leaned close to him, putting the plugs of the stethoscope in her ears and holding the metal to his chest.

"I'm fine, really."
"Take a deep breath and hold it for three seconds, then blow out."
He sighed first, rolling his eyes as he followed the doctor's orders.
"Seems alright there. Any aches or pains? Have a cough?" she asked professionally, checking his pulse in his wrist.
He thought about it, "Hmm. Only pain I've had is in my eyes, and that's probably for having stayed awake for four days straight."
She took a small flashlight from the pocket of her white coat and toyed with the button, seeing if it worked properly. "Open your eye for me, try not to blink too much."

And he did. Her bringing the flashlight to his eyes and away. Her eyes growing more curious.
"Oh great, what?"
"Your pupils aren't dialating at all. Have you been doing drugs at all?"
"Bottles and bottles of day-time allergy pills."
She relaxed a little. "Oh good. I thought-" she was interrupted by her own cough. She quickly pulled out a hankerchief and spit out into it, sighing when she looked.
"Not blood, is it?"
"No. Sinus infection." she scoffed and they both sat back down.
Time passed. She let herself fall asleep while he stayed up, sitting next to his future wife, watching the quiet T.V. . It was strange, though, with the volume being on one and he could still hear it perfectly. His eyes seemed to hurt no matter what, though. Probably from the lack of sleep. That's what he was thinking at least. What he was hoping. He decided to step out for some fresh air, the way he went to get to the hospital.
Things changed, then. Forever. He pulled up his black hood over his head. His eyes hurt. He assumed from staring at the bright moon too long, but... no. They still hurt. More and more. He leaned forward and his back seemed to crack. He brought his hands to his eyes, pushing on them so hard and digging his sharp fingernails into them, nearly clawing them out. Something stopped him though.

What was he thinking...? How long...
How long had she been crying?

A/N: Oh dear. I'll continue with this I think. I hope. It'll only probably be one or two more chapters long, but... I think I have it in me.

Enjoy, first L4D fanfic. Don't read any of my others. Seriously.