Disclaimer: I don't own Kenshin, just borrowing the characters.

This story is pretty OOC, so sorry about that. I'm actually writing this as a novel, but I just love the Kenshin fandom, so would love some feedback. There is some pretty explicit fluff scenes in later chapters just a warning. I hope you all enjoy, please look past the OOCness, thanks! I would love reviews! I have the first 100 pages of this written already, so it shouldn't be too long before the next update.

CHAPTER 1:

Beep, beep, beep... Sweat forms atop my brow, and tears well in my eyes looking at the young woman in the bed below me. A mask covers her mouth and nose giving her that much needed oxygen, her breathing in sync with my own. Tangled brown hair rests like a halo surrounding her, cascading down to her breasts. The hard, plastic, brace around her neck keeps her spine aligned, caging her in place.

She can't be much older than 35, my age... She must have been a beautiful woman, even through the bruising and swelling on her cheeks and forehead, there is something remarkedly feminine about her that seems to draw you in.

Looking down at an imobiliser on her left shin, an ominous feeling takes over, remembering a similar patient from long ago. I can't place her name, but that cry... One your memory will never erase.

Noises from the various machines reverberate through my ears, and there's a man sitting beside the bed, his hand laying gently atop her own, does he work here? His white lab coat is worn, disheveled, has he been here long?

Glancing at his striking red hair, and porcelain skin, there's a familiar aura surrounding him. "How are you and the patient related?" The words are soft coming from my lips, and he looks towards me with concern etched onto his hardened features. With amber eyes blurring slightly, his stare is intense, boring a hole through me, piercing my already aching heart.

Will he stop staring at me already? My breath catches, awakening from my stupor with the heart monitor beeping quietly behind me. Turning his back to me, my eye twitches as he looks again to the young woman resting in the hospital bed. I can't help that prickly annoyance settling in my core, arrogant doctors...

With respirations becoming shallow as I glance at the tele box, the woman's saturations are dropping rapidly, barely hovering above 80 percent. I reach for the oxygen gauge, but hesitate, a spark of electricity rushing through me as his hand brushes over mine, turning the knob from eight to fifteen liters.

"Kaoru..." His voice is surprisingly gentle, and my knees seem to buckle at the way he says her name. "Kaoru-dono..." There's uncertainty in his voice, a longing, as he gives her arm a nervous shake.

Her eyes flutter open, and you can feel the tension in the air dissapate as a slight smile forms on her lips, recognition dawning, creating a mosaic of blue and white beneath her lids. Her face lights up, color returning to her faded cheeks looking at him, searching. This man, a yearning buried deep, waiting so patiently, just for a glimpse of those silky cerulean eyes, for that slight upturned curve of her mouth. Relief escapes him, shattering his stony resolve.

She glances over at me, and the smile fades, eyes rolling back into darkness as high pitched beeping makes my hands tremble. Her rhythm is a jumbled mess as numbers dance around the screen, blinking, and taunting me. A black cloud fills the room, as if the reaper himself has come.

175... 176...

177... 178...

179... 180...

"V-fib..." Whispering, my heart clenches as I hear a choked, "Kaoru... Kaoru..." Roughly shaking her slender arm, blood dribbles from her mouth as she coughs. I glance at the monitor once more as death seems to be calling, BEEEEEEEEP, "Asystole..." The word a muffled sob, stealing my breath away.

Desperation takes over as the man frantically rubs his knuckles on her chest with no response, and it feels as if the world around me is crumbling. My heart aches for this man, maybe moreso than the woman dying in that bed.

Rushing, he checks for a pulse. Hours it seems go by, but in reality only seconds... "HELP! CODE BLUE!" His voice is strangely sexy as he pulls the emergency cord from the wall, and hits the CPR button on the bed, creating a hard surface underneath the body. Is that what she is? Just a body... I can't help the thought as I try to catch a ragged breath.

You can see the urgency in the man's movements as he places the heels of his palms on the woman's chest. Like a vice, my heart aches as I hear "one, two, three..." in sequence with each compression.

Unsure as to why, the scene has me caught in a haze, mesmerized at the desperate, yet steady rising and falling of his broad shoulders. Glancing at his face, moisture forms in his eyes, and I seem to melt into the background as a team of doctors and nurses rush into the room.

"Eight... Nine... Ten..." His voice soothing to my soul, a sound I will never forget. My eyes close, clouded by something as an unbearable sadness takes over, "15... 16... 17..." A heavy weight presses on my chest. This isn't my first code, but my body doesn't want to move, stuck in this spot, "26... 27... 28..."

After two more compressions, he pauses as someone else uses the ambu bag. "Come on," his voice an edgy baritone. Somehow, I know this man doesn't believe in a higher power, but the simple word "please," escapes his tired lips. Another whisper, almost inaudible, "please..." Followed by more compressions, "one... Two... Three... Four... Five..." His voice a beautiful echo in the back of my mind.