It has been said that one's life can be likened to train tracks: Once they've been laid down, they can only go in one direction, toward a single destination that was decided from the get-go, and the only way to diverge from the path in front of you is to wait for a switch in the tracks. Then you're faced with a choice--right or left? And regardless of which way you choose, there's always that little nagging voice of wonder in the back of your mind, asking what might have happened if you'd gone the other way. It could be said that for every decision that is made in life, two roads are created...one that takes you left, and one that takes you right, possibly creating an infinite number of paths that could be walked in the life of a single human being. Add to that the potential infinite number of paths in each life a person interacts with, and you're left with an unfathomable web of roads, leading to a future you yourself have every power to direct, with every choice you make.

Every story has an unlimited number of potential paths. There are two roads for every decision a person makes, whether it be right or left, good or bad. This is the other path. This is the story of the road not taken.


Welcome to Crossing the Rubicon, a divergent timeline fic by turkish_delight and aenigmadarai. This fic was sort of the result of the marriage of two ideas... One was spawned from a particular line in a different Tifa/Reno fic we've been working on, Beyond Good and Evil, where Reno offhandedly mentions to Tifa that he rather wishes he'd taken her away when he'd had the chance atop the pillar of Sector 7, and the other was simply the draw of a divergent timeline. Weary of Alternate Universe fic, but already in the thick of one that maintained the canon timeline, we decided to try something a little less commonly seen in fic. This story illustrates one of many 'what ifs'.


This fic is written in the same canon universe as Beyond Good and Evil--that is, the canon universe of FFVII and its compilations--and so those of you who share in our OCD may want to check out some of the liberties we have taken with FFVII's Gaia that are detailed in our fic reference wiki.


Chapter Archive

I. alia iacta est
the die is cast - in which Reno is reminded why he never kept a pet [posted 30April08]