365 Hours with Rufus Shinra (FFVII: Rufus x OC)

ch18. what do you mean, when you say you can f*cking fix me?

RENO TOOK HER TO HEALEN LODGE. Everyone knew that Shinra established there the biggest Medical Centre for treating people with Geostigma and researching for a cure. It had become the President's very residence and the company's Headquarters. It was still night when they got there. It was around 11:00PM and Hannah was sure he was probably asleep.

She waited outside the room that Reno had vanished in. Her hands were tugging nervously on the leather handle of her bag as she waited outside. The building looked empty as she waited, and waited. She wasn't expecting to get a positive answer. She just wanted to see him and she'd be on her way. She didn't want to add to his troubles. She just wanted to be there for him.

When Reno returned, Hannah stood back on her feet and she waited for whatever her brother had to say. "He's asleep. I dismissed the nurses so you better take care of his bandages yourself. You've treated Geostigma patients before, haven't you?"

Hannah nodded. "Of course," Every single day in the University. "I need to wash my hands first,"

"No worries, we'll give you everything you need. You are a doctor, after all," Reno smirked "you're more than qualified to be here," he stopped walking as if he had just recalled something that he had to tell her "The bandages around his waist had been recently changed. You only need to just take care of the arms and legs

And indeed. Hannah was given a blue nurse outfit and a lab-coat. After thoroughly washing her hands, she put on blue plastic gloves and settled her glasses in the pocket of her lab-coat. She picked her hair back tightly. They couldn't risk infesting the body with anything else. Geostigma weakened the immune system by 60%. Most people who died of Geostigma, were dying from other diseases that the immune system couldn't fight because it was weakened by Geostigma.

Hannah entered the room where Reno said that Rufus was. He was sleeping. He was on a hospital bed. The machinery around him beeped steadily. Everything seemed fine, but he had fresh bandages tied around his waist that covered his stomach and half his body. He had a white sheet covering his body and keeping him warm. His hair was a short mess against his pillow. He was breathing. Cables were attached to his chest keeping track of his heartbeat and blood pressure.

His hands were covered in bandages. Bandages that had turned black as the dark, damaged, infested tissue had started dissolving beneath. It was bad. Hannah had seen worse, but it was bad. He had another bandage tied around his head covering his left eye. He must've lost sight from that one.

Hannah gritted her teeth and her hands fisted. She felt that familiar sting in her nose reminding her that her eyes were preparing tears. He was bad. She never thought she'd ever see him this way. It had been so long since the last time she had seen him. She had tried to stay away from him but she was only wasting time. She was wasting the time that she could be spending with him. But now he was dying. He was dying and his condition was bad no matter how well he was treated there.

Hannah approached him hesitantly. She didn't want to think of what would happen if he woke up. She didn't want to think of what he would tell her. She had left him again, but after giving her that gun and getting off that helicopter, she had no choice. And she had stayed away and she had hurt him letting him know she was dead. She knelt beside him on the bed and she started untying the bandages around his hand, slowly and carefully not to wake him.

Her tears blurred her vision, though. She put on her glasses and she replaced his bandages trying her best to silence down herself. She wanted to cry. Curl up in some corner and cry because he was dying. Because her effort back then to help him escape was for nothing. But then she found, it wasn't her efforts that she cared about. It was him. She was losing him. She was losing him and she had wasted two entire years that she could be spending with him.