Author's Notes:

Story: [AU] Instead of following her sister into the Turks, Elena never got over her dislike of them, and rebelled to become a doctor instead. Treating the wounded, while surviving the post-apocalyptic chaos that is Midgar after the summoning of Meteor, Elena faces a vexing new enemy; Geostigma, a fatal disease that threatens the very future of humanity, as well as the foundations of what little hope remains left. Yet all is not lost, there is of course a chance meeting; the outcomes of which could change everything!

Pairing: Elena/Rufus but yeah, I figured I'd throw some mild Tseng into the equation as well. Got to admit confusing Elena with choices is fun. Haha- is evil =D

Rating: T for language, bloody imaginative imagery (ha ha ha) and gore (she is a doctor). Will probably up it to M later on when there's some you-know-hur-hrm action (^__^) Heck yeah!

Timeline: From Meteorfall in FFVII onwards.

Disclaimers: If I owned it, it would have been x-rated.

Also, a quick shout out to Milvus who inspired the pairing for this fic. (If you like ElenaxRufus, go read her fic!) This is also my first fic so let me know what you think yo!

Enjoy! ^__^

-Blooming D.
°‥.゜ 。゜・。*゜:゜

Ϛ

Prologue

Oblivion

It was pitch black, and he couldn't move. He had woken in agony to the most painful headache he could remember. The irony of course was that he couldn't remember much, if anything at all. He couldn't remember what he had been doing the moment it all went black, just that it was extremely urgent. He couldn't remember why it been so critical, just that it was something he was adamant on succeeding in. More importantly, he could not remember who he was. What was his name? The only thing he knew was that he was not someone to be left alone, trapped in the dark, and in pain. It was outrageous; it was incredulous; it was disconcerting. And although he would never admit to it, in the farthest reaches of his mind, the doubt that lingered grew; it was frightening.

He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Dust whipped into the into the air, blurring his already limited vision. He could feel the smog filled sky as it enclosed in on him. Damn it was cold! The roof of his dwellings was long gone, virtually non-existent, unless you counted the countless, thin steel rods that jutted out of the wall. They hinged at unnatural angles with debris dripping from their ends, eerily swaying in the fog. A breath he exhaled mingled with the outside air, and he could see the angry wind currents that billowed and moaned thousands of feet up above the plate of the city. His city.

His eyes wandered as he took in his surroundings. He was encased somewhere between rubble, and what looked like the faint silhouette of a bookcase. Ah. So that was why his legs hurt so damn much. It appeared that the bookcase had shielded the upper half of his body from most of the slabs of concrete when things came crashing inward. His lower half was less fortunate. Yet the mind numbing pain that emanated from bellow his waist was alarmingly reassuring. He could feel his legs. The awkward way his right ankle twisted to the side, the broken way his left leg was crushed forward. He could feel them; the sharp pain that shot from the lower base of his spine through to the temples of his skull, and back down through his calves again. The feeling was met with a grateful sigh of relief. In his situation, if he could feel his legs, that was a good thing.

There was no way he was getting out of this somewhat picky predicament alone. How long had he been waiting like this? How long had he been in the dark? Why did he wake up here in the first place?! This was ridiculous, "they" should have been here hours ago! Whoever "they" were.

Thinking again of his situation, it was then that it occurred to him that which ever way he may attempt to move, he risked an avalanche of impending debris residing on the bookshelf's upturned base. This needed to be thought through meticulously, and as the mountain of rubble looked less than unstable in the unruly wind, quite quickly too. With his left hand, he inched his fingers up slowly, testing their freedom of movement. He twisted his wrist, and the pressure gave. It worked! Well, of course it worked. If it was his doing there should be no reason to suspect otherwise, there should be no reason to doubt.

The space around his hand grew as he compacted the surrounding debris, stabilizing the rubble near his wrist so as not to let anything trigger a small cave in, letting loose a larger one later on. Working his way up his arm, he freed his shoulder, neck and forehead. There were two inches of space to squeeze his bruised and gashed arm across his blooded and mutilated body. Looking across, one could find no trace of such wounds on his now dirtied white suit, but he could feel it otherwise. His body was broken, bones were stick out at odd places, poking holes where they shouldn't be. His thick black undercoat simply hid it all. Built to stop anything from coming in, instead, it was preventing all from leaking out. The warm red mess, that smelled of rotting flesh, stuck his undershirt to his body like an eighth layer of skin.

Blackness took hold of him, the dizziness that lingered in the shadows of his mind had found him at last. He couldn't see anymore, it was now or never. He slowly inched his free hand across his side to release his other imprisoned limb. Yet something atop the bookcase that shouldn't have moved shifted. A sharp pain pinned his now broken arm to his ribcage, and reverberated through to the frontal lobe of his brain. A mass of weight that had been lying on top of the pile now resided on his chest. It had rolled down to comfort him with it's presence, taking the wind out of him; choking his breathing in the process. The bitter taste of defeat in his mouth reached it's climax as he coughed up blood.

This was it. No sudden rescue, no chance of freedom. He knew the moment was inevitable, oblivion always was. He was going die, here and now. The fleeting gasps of his breath, with subtle irony, mirrored his constant desire to grasp what he most wanted, no matter the cost, yet always fail to quite fully achieve. Was it always like this? Always grasping but never catching hold? Always so close to his goals, his targeted destination, but never quite there?

As he took his final breaths the blackness that consumed him faded. He saw faint outlines of the smog filled sky in colors unknown to livingkind. Things were clearer now, clearer than they'd ever been. How he wished he'd seen more of this before. Like a child, he looked at the previously mundane world with a renewed sense of fascination; the colors of life danced on the event horizon of dreams.

Everything went white.

End Note:

The author here is a natural born slacker, and needs author food to motivate her along. Please be nice and feed the author. Review! *Zack's puppy eyes*