IMPORTANT: This is a continuation to the story I released in The Men in Her Life. It's entitled "And Then There Was Light" and is the 4th oneshot in the series.

This picks up where immediately after the METEOR incident. Updates sporadically. Prompts are from the 30 nights community in LJ.

1/30 - Black Wings; Wings.

She was breathing. She was breathing.

It was strange how the afterlife mimicked life-as-you-knew-it. She was dead, surely. There was no logical way she could have survived METEOR; not with the plates of Midgar above her head. She'd been so ready to die too. Surely the world would not disappoint her considering that it had made a point to make her life as miserable as possible at every given turn. It would not cut her some slack, she was sure of it.

Still, she felt warm. Dead people don't produce warmth. Or was she just imagining it?

She opened her eyes and waited for her senses to work again. She could see nothing around her, even after blinking several times. Had she gone blind? She could remember a flash of light, a blur of colors then movements; a black wing that wrapped around her with such gentleness it reminded her of the hands of her almost lover.

Oh, how she remembered him; blue eyes like icicles but had the effect of melting her insides, sensual lips that was as good with words as with nipping at her skin. It was almost enough to make her wish she wouldn't die just yet. She could never be satisfied with just a kiss from him... No, one kiss could never be enough.

But things were over now. She sobbed and was surprised when she felt the sound break through the silence that enveloped her like a cloak. "H-hello?" she croaked out, thankful that her voice was still intact. Surely she was not going to be blind and mute at the same time. And because she heard her voice, she could safely say that she had not gone deaf as well. She could handle being blind as long as she was not deprived of her other senses.

So was she alive after all?

Little by little, she began to feel the small aches and bruises in different sides of her body. She turned her head to one side and was surprised at the texture that brushed against her cheek. It felt like a thousand prickly upright strands of hair that tickled her skin and sent shivers down her spine. She tried to think back to the last time she felt those and what they could be.

Then it clicked in her head. Chocobo... feathers. Feathers on a wing.

She tried to lift her hands and realized that there was a heavy weight around her midsection, preventing her from moving freely. She raised her other arm and traced the object with her hand and was surprised when her hands recognized the telltale curve of muscles and the outline of gloved hands that rested against her abdomen.

There was movement on her left as she heard and felt the rustle of feathers once again. She turned her head to the left and saw eerie blue green eyes that shone with a light of their own much, like a cat's in the darkness.

"Boo." He said half-heartedly and tightened his grip on her stomach, pulling her closer to him.

"I should have known..." she muttered as she allowed herself to be pulled into his embrace, resting her nose against his neck and breathing in deeply the smell of musk, steel, leather and sweat of the man beside her.

She felt him sigh with approval as she buried herself into his arms and allowed the darkness to envelop them once again.