Disclaimer: I own nothing but the storyline. Square Enix owns the rest.

If Only Love Was Simple

RufusxTifa

Chapter 1:

Rufus Shinra sat in the passenger's seat of a Shinra helicopter and stared blankly out the window, watching the icy April rain pour down over the world outside. He hated the copter ride from Junon to Midgar; it was long and never failed to bore him out of his mind.

It had been a long time since he had been called to Midgar on company business. His plan to overthrow his father using the terrorist group Avalanche had nearly been successful. In fact, if Veld and the Turks hadn't interfered he would probably be sitting comfortably in the 70th floor Presidential Office of Midgar's Shinra HQ right now.

As a result of this, Rufus had completely lost the company's trust and after his release from solitary confinement; had been sent to live at the Shinra military city of Junon to do busywork for the company under strict supervision, for the past 3 years.

Rufus didn't mind living in Junon. He had actually lived there for a good portion of his life and over the years had come to enjoy the benefits of being a Junon resident: he had access to Shinra's most powerful weapons if he ever needed them and was one of the first employees to receive Shinra's newest weaponry, he was only an hour's flight away from the sunny, tropical beaches of Costa del Sol, he didn't have to deal with the unpleasant, rebellious people of the slums, and his office had a great view of the ocean. What displeased him was that his position as Vice President had been demoted to doing paperwork that his father and the other executives didn't want to do and attending the business meetings that they didn't want to go to.

Just recently the company had finally removed their guard on him and allowed him to return to his normal life. Rufus knew that his father and the other executives still did not trust him and that any more plans to take the presidency for his own would have to wait quite a while before they could be safely put into action. But Rufus could be patient when he so desired, and in this case it would be worth the wait to pretend to be a good boy for a while.

"Old Man'll be 70 in a few years. Hell, if you combine that with smoking those cigars, his weight and his poor eating habits; he could drop dead any day." Rufus thought to himself, a crooked smile coming to his lips. "I shouldn't have to wait too unbearably long."

Rufus yawned and broke his gaze on the dreary morning outside to take a sip from the cup of coffee sitting next to him. This trip to Midgar was hardly what Rufus called "company business". The son of one of the Shinra Electric Power Company's business partners was getting married and in order to maintain good company relations, all Shinra executives were to attend such events. Although the actual ceremony was still 6 days away, Rufus had decided to leave Junon early in hopes of attending a few executive meetings.

It had been so long since he had been a significantly active part of the company and he was eager to be able to voice his opinion again. He was not however, looking forward to seeing the other executives. The other executives regarded Rufus as little more than the spoiled, bratty son of the president, first in line to the Presidency of Shinra only by family lineage. To them, he was nothing more than a nuisance.

It also seemed to Rufus that each of the executives had at least one personality quirk that annoyed him.

Palmer was a fat, bouncy ass-kisser who never failed to request more money for the Space Department every chance he got.

Heidegger was loud and obnoxious, and had a booming, horse laugh which Rufus detested.

Scarlet's wardrobe suggested that she had a past (or a promising future) with the Honeybee Inn and her cackling laugh of "Kya ha ha" always made Rufus' hair stand on end.

Hojo looked ready for the "nice young men in their clean white coats" to come and take him away to the nearest insane asylum any day; and Reeve was a geeky, goody-two-shoed pushover who was obsessed with programming robots that looked like stuffed animals.

Out of all the executives though, Reeve was the most tolerable in Rufus' opinion. He was polite and was the easiest to control.

Rufus sighed and turned toward the pilot.

"How much longer 'till we reach Midgar?" He asked.

"Ah, not too much longer sir." The pilot responded. "I'd say about 15 mo-"

His response was cut short by the loud beeping noise of the copter's threat alert system. Rufus jerked his head toward the pilot who had begun to swear and frantically push buttons on his control panel.

Moments later, the unidentified threat collided with its target, sending the chopper and its two passengers hurling down towards the earth.

Rufus slowly opened his eyes and looked around him. The copter had landed on its side with his door facing the ground. The windshield had been shattered and pieces of it littered the inside of the chopper. As consciousness continued to return to him, Rufus surveyed the the cockpit. He looked up to where the pilot had been sitting and immediately wished he hadn't. Whatever had struck them had done some serious damage to the pilot's side of the chopper. The pilot, who was obviously dead, had been impaled with several big pieces of metal and glass, and was covered in his own blood. His left arm hung limply over his body, hanging on to his shoulder by only a thread. Blood was splattered all over copter's interior and was dripping down to the bottom of it, along with bits of flesh and other fluids that Rufus didn't care to identify.

Seeing the gruesome mess inside, Rufus instinctively looked to his clothing where his fears were confirmed. His clothing was ruined. His once flawlessly clean white suit was now just as colorful as the rest of the copter's interior and only adding to the young vice president's misery and disgust was the fact that on top of all that, his coffee had spilt all over his pants. Looking at his clothing suddenly made Rufus aware that he had not survived the crash unscathed. His consciousness now fully regained, his attention immediately turned to an excruciating pain in his left side where he saw that a large piece of glass from the windshield had pierced him. Feeling trickles of blood drip down his face; he put his hand to his head and identified a good sized slice on his forehead extending from above his right eyebrow to his right ear, along with countless other scrapes, cuts, gashes and bruises, all over his body.

Rufus painfully attempted to lift himself up but realizing that he wasn't going anywhere with that piece of glass in his side, he sank back down into his seat. Then, remembering that a first aid box was kept under the seat he was sitting in, he reached under it and brought out the box. Inside it he found a few potions and an assortment of different bandages.

Biting his lip and closing his eyes tightly he pulled the glass out of his side and quickly drank down the potions. They proved to be enough to stop major bleeding but were not enough to stop much of the pain. The attack on the chopper had been totally unexpected, so its first aid kit hadn't been stocked with the proper healing supplies to treat major injuries properly. Removing his coat he put the bandages around his largest wounds as best he could and decided he was ready to try to move again. After putting his jacket back on, using all the strength he could muster he picked himself up and slowly got himself out of the chopper.

Rain was still pouring outside and came down relentlessly through the newly budding trees, causing Rufus to grimace and look up at the sky in disgust. He raked his hand through his blond hair and sighed. He realized that whoever had shot down the helicopter would probably be coming soon to look for any survivors.

Rufus guessed that Avalanche was responsible for the crash. Although most of the rebel group had disbanded years ago there were a few small factions of the former terrorist group that were still active. He knew he had to get away from the sight of the crash as soon as possible. Rufus reached in his pocket for his PHS, only to find that it had severely damaged during the crash. The front of the PHS now sported a cracked screen and a deep diagonal gash across its front. Still holding on to a faint hope that by some miracle his PHS would still work, he pushed the power button, but found himself looking at nothing more than a blank screen.

"Dammit!" Rufus cursed, hurling his PHS at a nearby tree causing it to break in two.

With a scowl creeping over his handsome face, he unwillingly accepted defeat at contacting the company for help. If he was going to escape possible capture and arrive in Midgar, he was going to have to do it himself. He couldn't rely on the company to come save him. Rufus looked around him. He could faintly make out the edge of the woods. So after he made sure that his shotgun was still equipped, he trudged off towards the woods' edge.

Plains… plains stretched out for what seemed like 100s of miles, until they ran into mountains, which blocked his way to Midgar. There was no way he was going to try to pass through the Mythril Mines and risk an encounter with the Midgar Zolom alone, and it was too far of a walk to go back to Junon. Not to mention his pride was not going allow him to walk through that little anti-Shinra fishing town below it, in the wretched state he was currently in. Trekking over the mountains on foot wasn't going to be an easy task by any means, but seeing no better option, Rufus set off towards the mountains.

After what felt like an eternity of painful walking, Rufus finally reached the mountains' base. Exhausted and aching, he sat down on a large rock to take a quick break. Propping up one knee, he rested his head against it and let his eyes shut. Suddenly he was startled by a "wark wark" coming from a little farther up the mountainside. Rufus gripped his shotgun in his hand and started in the direction of the noise. After walking up the mountain a little ways, he discovered a seemingly empty campsite on a small plateau. And in the campsite were two green mountain chocobos. The chocobos were getting uncomfortable in the pouring rain and were ruffling their feathers and warking unhappily.

It was the first bit of good luck Rufus had come across all day and he welcomed it gladly.

"All I have to do now is snag one of these mountain chocobos and take off with it before the sorry saps who are camping here notice, and I'll be in Midgar before dinner."

Thinking of dinner made Rufus wonder what time it was. He had no idea how long he had been unconscious in the chopper, his PHS had been destroyed in the crash, and the sun obviously wasn't going to make an appearance anytime soon, so there was no way of finding out what time it was. But, judging by the hunger pains in his stomach, he concluded that it was probably mid to late afternoon.

Rufus carefully crept into the camp, his hand still on his shotgun, watching and listening for signs that he wasn't alone. Peering into the large tent he found no one, much to his relief.

After entering the tent he found several cots, cheap weapons, some gross looking food (which he decided he wasn't hungry enough to attempt to eat) and a few articles of clothing scattered about. There was nothing of value other than 200 Gil, which he pocketed with a grin before exiting the tent.

Now Rufus turned his attention to the chocobos. He had never ridden a chocobos in his life. He had never even touched one before. The closest he had ever been to one was the first-class seating at the Chocobo Races in the Gold Saucer.

"Well it can't be too terribly hard. He thought. "If those unintelligent lowlifes from Corel Prison can ride them, how hard can it be?"

As Rufus slowly approached the chocobos, they stopped what they were doing and eyed him suspiciously. Finally standing within an arms length of them, he reached out his hand to touch one. The chocobo responded by biting his hand and warking angrily. Rufus cursed and retreated back a few steps. He shot a scornful glare at the chocobo as he held his left hand, which was now bleeding from the chocobo's bite.

"Useless animal" he muttered to himself. "The only thing chocobos are ever going to be any good for is stuffing for my pillows."

But useless as he deemed chocobos to be, he was still determined to use one as his means to transportation to Midgar. Rufus stepped back a little further to re-evaluate his strategy. Trying to be friendly was obviously not working. He was just going to have to jump on one and take off.

So, with a rather vague plan of action in his mind Rufus approached the chocobos again. One chocobo had bent its head down to itch it's leg. Seeing this as his chance to make a move, Rufus rushed to the chocobo's side and grabbed handfuls of feathers as he attempted to climb up on the chocobo's back. He had barely lifted himself off of the ground as he felt the frightened chocobo's foot come in contact with his body and send him flying through the air.

Rufus groaned in pain as he got himself up to a sitting position. The hard surface of the mountain had failed to provide much of a cushion for his landing. Slowly getting to his feet, his gaze fell on a small, half opened bag of green plant looking things just outside the tent's opening. Curious as to what kind of plants were in the bag; he walked over to it, picked it up and grabbed a handful of its contents. He moved the plants around in his hand with his fingers and brought his hand up near his face to smell them.

"I wonder what they're for. Some kind of seasoning maybe? Or some kind of a drug?"

Suddenly, the chocobos started to wark again and jump around excitedly. Rufus looked back and forth from the chocobos to the little green plants.

"These are for them?"

Now he remembered; these little green plants werefor the chocobos. He had seen a TV commercial once for "Choco Billy's Chocobo Greens". It had consisted of some country hick at a farm feeding the greens to his prize winning chocobo and rambling about how his greens would make your chocobo win races and how the viewer "ain't never gonna find no Chocobo greens better'n these no matter how hard yeh try".

Rufus walked over to the chocobos with his hands full of greens and them out in front of the chocobos. The chocobos warked happily and hungrily began to eat the greens out of his hands. It tickled a little when their beaks nipped at his hands as they eagerly munched on the greens. It felt awkward to Rufus, who hoped they would just hurry up and finish eating.

When they had finally finished, Rufus noticed a change in their moods. They didn't seem hostile towards him any more. They even allowed him to touch them. Confident that this time he would be able to finally be successful at getting on one, Rufus prepared to give it another shot.

He returned to the tent and grabbed the little bag of greens in case the chocobo he was riding needed a little more persuasion along the way. Then Rufus returned to where the chocobos were standing and soon, after a little trouble and some effort, Rufus found himself sitting proudly on the back of a chocobo.

Rufus smirked. It had only taken a few little green plants for them to give him their complete trust.

"I wish people could be that easily persuaded." He thought to himself.

"Now how do I get this thing to move...?"

After several unsuccessful attempts at calling out starting commands: "Go!... Get going!...Charge!... C'mon, dammit just move!" Rufus found the chocobo's accelerator by kicking it in its side. As the chocobo sped forward, Rufus grabbed onto its neck for dear life, startled by its sudden take off. Gradually, Rufus gained his balance and was able to sit up regularly on its back. After getting the hang of steering, riding the chocobo became almost second-nature and once again, Rufus was on his way to Midgar.

He had finally made it. There it was; the great mako metropolis of Midgar was now only several feet in from on him. Now his plan of action was to find his way through the slums of Midgar to Don Coreno's Mansion, without being recognized as the son of the President of Shinra. A good number of the people of the slums were anti-Shinra activists and if his identity was discovered, there was a very good chance he would be shot, or worse.

Rufus hated the idea of going to Don Coreno for help almost as much as he hated Don Coreno himself. The Don was a loud, fat, perverted man with an atrocious haircut, who always smelled like cigars and booze and who, because of his frequent "activities" with numerous women at his prostitute palace: the Honeybee Inn, probably had diseases that hadn't even been discovered yet.

But, considering he couldn't ride the trains (as his identity would be revealed at the ID checkpoints), and wanted to avoid as much interaction with the citizens of the slums as possible, (therefore he had also ruled out the rather risky idea of calling Shinra from someone's home phone) going straight to the nearest Shinra friendly building in the slums was the best plan of action.

Although Coreno was more of an acquaintance than a friend, he found himself to be on good terms with Mr. Shinra, as the President was a regular at the Honeybee. This meant, unfortunately, that the Don's mansion was the only place in the slums where he could get assistance and be assured of his safety.

Rufus dismounted the chocobo and found that his legs were so stiff and sore that he could barely walk. After stretching, rubbing his aching legs and getting re-accustomed to walking on his own two feet again, he made sure that nothing had fallen out of his pockets during the ride, and ran his plan of action through his head a final time.

Then finally; tired, beaten and ready for the comforts of home Rufus shoved his hands into his pockets and strode into the city.

Only about 10 minutes had passed since he had entered Midgar and already Rufus found himself missing the clean fresh air, the wide open space and even the chocobo. At the moment, anywhere seemed more appealing that the slums of Midgar and anyone seemed more appealing than its residents. In fact, the only thing Rufus didn't miss was the rain.

Trash and scrap metal was piled everywhere, the buildings were in shambles, and groups of shady looking people gathered here and there next to burner barrels or by heaps of trash on the side of the street. Most of the more civilized looking people hurried along their way, looking eager to get to wherever they were going.

Lucky for Rufus, his appearance seemed to go unnoticed; no doubt thanks to the beaten, tired state of his body and the tattered, filthy apparel he had to go with it. He fit right in, and nobody seemed to bat an eye at his existence.

His trek through the city was going much smoother than he had expected it to. The only trouble he had encountered so far was adjusting to the lack of light and the musty smell, and reading signs at intersections. Many of the signs had been covered in graffiti and were no longer readable.

After a while longer of navigating his way through the slums, Rufus found himself looking at salvation in one of the last forms he had ever expected to find it in: a sign that said "Wall Market" and the vaguely familiar outline of Don Coreno's mansion in the distance.

He had been to the mansion once when he was much younger and he didn't remember much about it. The few memories he had of that visit to the Don's consisted of seeing a large red rug with a golden dragon on it, a creepy looking, candle illuminated, stone staircase on the top floor, leading down to what Rufus assumed was the basement, and the memory he was most fond of; dumping a used ash tray into one of the Don's men's glasses of beer when no one was looking and grinning secretly with evil satisfaction from the corner of the room as the man took a drink and spit it out all over his coworker (who got to take the blame for the prank) across the table.

Suddenly, the sound of an obnoxious horn and crude voices yelling brought Rufus back to the real world from his memories. He quickly turned around and saw a rusty truck barreling down the road towards him with another rusty vehicle in hot pursuit close behind it. Rufus barely had time to flinch as the first truck swerved past him at last minute, just barely missing him. Almost instantaneously after Rufus felt the first truck speed past him, he felt the hard, cold, unforgiving metal of the tail end of the second truck slam into him, sending him airborne. His body hit the ground hard and slid across the pavement for a few paces. Then, for the second time in one day, the world around him went black.

Well, I hope you liked it! I hope this chapter wasn't too boring since it didn't have much dialogue in it. The first few chapters are going to be introduction-like chapters.

This is my first attempt at any kind of creative writing for fun so be gentle on reviews and such but feel free to give me a bit constructive criticism or tell me if a character is acting OOC.

Oh, and please don't flame the story because you don't like the pairing of Rufus and Tifa.

Thanks for reading!