Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the following writing except the characters and events I create.

Author's Note: This is going to a be a supporting story to my main Tomb Raider fanfic: The Ashes of Time. It will follow the life of Ashlee Graves up to the point where he begins working with Lara Croft. Later on, characters from the rebooted Tomb Raider game will be included, because Ashlee has met them, but I cannot tag them because they are the ones not available on the tag list..which is baffling to me, but oh well! Also, I want to try something new here, so if have any suggestions on what you'd like to know about this character's life, feel free to PM me, I'll try my best to write it into the story at some point! Here you guys go, hope you enjoy! -Foxinstrazt

Chapter 1

-The Son of Man-

The Ravendale Residence, Outskirts of Towcester

September, 2004

Sitting against the low stone wall, the young man ran a hand through the mess of short hair that sat atop his head, the brown locks parting easily as he adjusted his position another time. His eyes, hazel in color, surveyed the area carefully before risking another glance at the watch on his wrist. Ashlee Graves had never been one for caution, but having a partner on any job in this line of business was inviting trouble. The mysterious employer had insisted that it was a two person job, and as such had hired another solo act to accompany him, despite his protests.

It was things like this, the sitting around and waiting for them to show up, that had turned him from working with others in the past. Trusting someone to come through for you when it truly mattered, to risk their neck on the chance they may end up in a cell with you when they could get away clean, it was too much to roll the dice on. Even as he breathed another annoyed sigh, the sound of quiet footsteps drew his gaze to the side of the hill that led down to the road.

A shadowy figure emerged only a few feet from him, clearly feminine even before she opened her mouth. "Sheesh kid, jumpy much?" The darkness concealed many of the features until the woman was sitting right next to him. With a small and angled jawline, she was pretty, if not the figure of beauty. Her hair was darker than his, pulled back into a tight ponytail, and her eyes were a striking green that seemed to glow in the low light afforded by the moon, only enhanced by the pale skin that surrounded them. "Got held up getting out of the city, some guy wanted to make sure a lady like myself wasn't going to be out on the streets long at this hour."

"Can't blame him, there's shady types about." With a begrudging nod, he forgave the tardiness of his partner, knowing enough about resentment to not enter a job with it. She sat back against the stone wall, watching the area the same way he had been earlier, on the lookout for anyone who might come stumbling by and see them. "Name's Ashlee Graves, you?"

Her eyes settled on him. "Graves, huh? I'm Alison.. Alison Terra." Leaning forward, she swung a backpack over on shoulder and opened it, pulling out a map, a flashlight, two radios, and a knife. The knife she slid into her boot before unfolding the map and laying it across her lap. Clicking on the flashlight, Ashlee could see that it was a copy of the floor plan for the manor they were currently outside of. "Alright, here's where I enter. I'm going to cut the security system completely off, which will buy us about five minutes until the guard on patrol will circle back around and notice that the system is down. You take a radio and tell me when he leaves his office to begin the rounds."

Grabbing one of the radios from the ground, Ashlee gave a nod to show he understood. "You already staked the place out for us, then? Makes sense."

"Yeah. Now you'll enter from the security office, and head down the hallway here until you reach the main level of the manor. You'll want to find the stairs down, across from where you enter from, and head down to the basement." Her finger slid over the paper to mark each point. "I enter from the window here, and take these stairs into the wine cellar, where I'll have to find the door that leads into the vault room, which is in the basement. We'll both have to open the doors to the room at the same time, because the vault room itself is on a separate system from the building security."

"And then we crack the safe, got it. Here's what we're looking for once we are in." He brought his own pack around, pulling out the picture he had been given. It featured man in a suit and bowler hat, an apple floating to obscure his face from the viewer. "It's called The Son of Man. We take it, wrap it, stick in my pack, and we're out before the cops are called."

"Whoa, we're sticking it in my pack. Think I'm going to trust you?" Her features took on a wary look as she shook her head, already stuffing the map and flashlight back into her pack and fitting it on her shoulders. "No offense, pretty boy, but I didn't ask to be paired with someone for this."

"You think I asked for this?" His voice rose for a moment before dropping to a growl, remembering where they were. "And I'm not trusting you with it, either. It goes in my pack, we deliver it to the drop point together, both of us get paid."

From the moment he suggested it, he could see that she was not going to agree, and that she knew that neither of them would submit to the other holding the painting. Instead of anger, her eyes lit up with a playfulness that unsettled him. "First to the finish, then?" Without another word, she jumped up and swung herself over the wall, sprinting off towards her side of the manor.

Quickly stashing the picture into his pack and clipping the radio to his belt, Ashlee followed her over and took off towards his side, grumbling about the fact this was turning out to exactly the reason he worked alone. The field was empty of anything but grass between him and the security office, and he slowed to a quiet walk as he neared the building. Pulling the radio up, he rotated the knob to turn it on, keeping the volume low as the static filled the air for a moment.

It didn't take long for the door to swing open, the guard stepping out with a groan. It was a much older man than him, more gray hair evident on his head than black, with a gut that told of how many drinks a night he downed. Smacking a flashlight against his open palm until it's beam cut through the darkness, the guard stepped out and heading in the opposite direction from where he was pressed up against the wall.

"Alison, he just left." Clipping the radio back on, Ashlee moved into the office. The displays which usually would have shown the manor and the grounds that surrounded it were black, the system having already been cut off at it's source by the other thief. The door leading into the main building was already ajar, and without any difficulty he was in, moving as quickly as he could without having his footfalls become slams against the stone floors.

The whole place was a graveyard as he moved through, the paintings lining the wall with the inscribed plaques of 'Lord Ravendale', or 'Duke Ravendale', titles that told him nothing of who the person had actually been. He reached the main hall in no time, stopping for a moment to glance around at what money bought in terms of living. It was grand, in an old way, the two staircases kept to the curved wall and led to an upper level, while a huge crystal chandelier hung above the ensemble.

Nodding in appreciation of the whole thing, Ashlee turned to run towards the opposite end of the house as he had entered in, coming to a stop as he spotted the stairs leading downward. They were nearly hidden on the side of the hall, cut into the wall about halfway down, and only identifiable in the dark by the absence of paintings of the Ravendale ancestry.

The basement was deep, and it felt like he was jogging down stairs for a long while before turning into the next room. He was in a hall, with a door to his right and one along the wall, down to his left. "Uh.. shit." Looking between the two with a frown set upon his lips, he chose the one on the left. It opened without resistance, and the hallway led to another door. Thinking back to the map that the woman had shown him, he remembered the layout enough to know that was the door to vault room.

"Alison, I'm at the door, you ready?" Speaking into the radio, he held the talk button for a moment before letting it go. He waited a few seconds against the static, no response coming as he pushed in the button again. "Where are you? I'm at the vault door." Again, nothing came from the device in his hand, leading him to groan and clip it back to his belt, beginning to move to the other door. Taking a single step through the portal to check the hallway, he saw that he was still alone.

"Someone tripped the alarm for the vault room!" The shout echoed down the stairs he came down, and the sound of heavy footsteps thundered from the floor above, heading in his direction. It didn't take him more than a second to decide on his course of action, turning to charge through the door into the vault room, glancing around. Alison was cracking the safe, the remote in her hand running through the code combinations as quickly as it could.

"Graves? I thought you would run." The other thief was looking at him, surprise etched into her features as the device in her hand chimed that it was successful. Just as he began to ask her what went wrong, one of the security guards came through the door that led to the wine cellar, gun in hand. Ashlee moved to take cover as the man opened fire at him. From behind the wooden column, he heard two more shots and a grunt, followed by a ripping noise.

Leaning out from behind the wood, he could see the blood pooling beneath the guard, who was laying face down near the safe, with Alison crawling back from the body, the knife in her hand wet with blood. Her jeans were stained a sanguine as well, just above the right knee, where she gripped her leg in pain. Moving to the safe first, Ashlee took the painting from it's resting place and slipped it into his pack. "Hey, you can't-!"

"We'll argue about it later, c'mon!" He took an arm and pulled her up to her feet, supporting her weight as he moved them out the door the guard had come through. Their pace was slow, but enough that they were well out of the vault room when they heard security enter it and find the body. Moving to the entrance Alison had used to get into the wine cellar, it became clear that the guards were surrounding them, and that they could not exit the same way.

Ashlee looked around, scanning the entirety of the room before settling on a window that was several feet above his highest jumping height. "There!" Leaning the thief he was carrying against a nearby wall, he took his pack and threw it through the glass, shattering it as the bag landed outside the manor. Turning, he cupped his hands and bent his knees, gesturing for Alison to come over. The look of confusion on her face made him want to laugh as the adrenaline messed with his perception. Instead, he kept his posture as she moved over, taking the foot of her good leg in his hands and boosting her up to the height of the window, where she crawled out.

He looked back around the cellar, trying to find another way out for himself, but finding nothing that would work as the sounds of the security were becoming louder. "Graves, give me your hand!" Looking back up, he saw Alison dangling through the frame with her hand stretched towards him, waiting for him to take it. With her help, he was able to reach the lip of the window and pull himself out, struggling past the shards of glass that bit into his hands and arms.

Both thieves took a moment to catch their breath, before Ashlee grabbed his pack and bent to take up his companion as well, both of them limping toward the stone wall where they had met. "Any idea on how we get out of here?" He looked to the other for an answer, and it came in the form of a hand pointing off towards the trees she had emerged from.

"My car, is through there." She gave a weak laugh as he began to move in that direction. "Any chance you know how to dig out a bullet?"

"Alison, wake up, we're at the drop point." Ashlee reached over and gently shook the woman's shoulder, causing her to stir before slowly opening her eyes and glancing around. After a moment of disorientation, she nodded at him and straightened in her seat. It had taken an hour or so to reach their destination, and she had been understandably tired, drifting off only a few minutes after he had dug the bullet out and wrapped the wound in a bandage.

Taking a moment to make sure she was okay, he finally leaned toward the back seat and took his pack from where it had been laying, bringing it back to the front. Looking at the bag, he tapped the frame of the painting through the fabric as they waited for their contact to show. "So.. 'Ashlee', can I ask about the name? Were your parents sadists or something?"

He chuckled at the thought, shaking his head as he looked out the window on his side. "No, no, good parents. Wanted a girl though, so they compromised when I popped out. How about your parents?" His eyes found the other thief's, whose grin remained as he posed his question.

"No idea, actually. Never knew them, and never really cared to look for them. Abandoned girl turns into a thief, who would've guessed it?" They both shared a laugh at that, with Ashlee returning to looking out over the area. "Speaking of that, how does a guy who apparently had good parents, and I'm guessing a pretty good childhood because of that, end up in this line of work?"

"It seemed like the right choice when they offered careers at school." Smirking as he glanced over at Alison, he shook his head as he caught sight of headlights rounding the corner on the other side of the warehouse they were parked by. "Well, there they are."

"Lets do this, then." They both opened their doors, stepping out into the cold night air. The other vehicle stopped a dozen or so feet away from them, it's silvery black color and spotless shine telling a tale of wealth for the man who owned it. The driver's door opened and man in a suit stepped out, taller than both of them, and clearly carrying a weapon under his jacket. He approached the rear door on his side, opening it for another man who stepped out.

Dressed in a suit that was somehow darker than the car he emerged from, the man stood only a few inches shorter than his driver. His hair was as black as the night that surrounded them, but the man was clearly a decade or two older than both of the thieves in front of him. Walking towards them through the muddy parking lot, he took a moment to look over them. "Ashlee Graves, Alison Terra. Two relatively new thieves that already have outstanding resumes behind them, working for me. Ah, it really is a dream come true."

Glancing over at the woman he had worked with, Ashlee caught her look as well, clearly thinking the same of the man's mental situation. "You seem to have us at a disadvantage, since you hired us through a third party." His eyes settled back on the businessman in front of them, keeping his tone neutral and even to not upset the man.

"Ah, of course, where are my manners? My name is Quinn Galeforth, and I've been looking for talent like you two for a long while now. But first, what went wrong with the job?" The man gestured towards Alison's injured leg, looking to either of them to answer his question.

Ashlee's eyes fell upon the other thief as well, unsure of what had go awry inside the manor, only that the alarm had been tripped. "We were trying to outmatch each other, to get to the painting first. And my recklessness got me into a position where I could either raise the alarm or get arrested on the spot.." Her hand rubbed near the wound on her leg as she spoke. "As for getting shot, a guard got into the room and began firing at my partner here, and he managed to get me before I put him down. Graves and I barely got out."

"Unfortunate, but still impressive." Galeforth's eyes settled on him as he pulled the painting from his pack and offered it to his employer, who took it from him carefully, tossing back the cloth that was wrapped over the artwork. "Ah, the Son of Man. Beautiful work..and I mean you two, not just the painting." Handing the painting off to his driver, he turned back to them and clapped his hands together excitedly. "Like I said, I've been looking for talent like you two for a long while. There's a private jet standing by at an airfield near here, just down the road a ways. If you want to enter a long term partnership, I can offer you protection from the law, and riches you will not find elsewhere. If not, then I will wire your payment for this job and we part ways here. Thank you both for your service."

Quinn turned away from them and strode back to his car, stepping into through the door held open by the same man who had taken the painting from him, leaving them sitting there against the hood of the car Alison had drove to the Ravendale manor. "Well, he's a strange one. You going to take him up on the offer?" Ashlee looked over at the other thief as he asked the question, expecting to hear another lecture on how she worked alone.

"I might be staying on if you do." The same playfulness that had unsettled him when they were at the start of the job was flashed in his direction again in the form of a grin as the other car pulled away from the lot.

Folding his arms, he gave a shrug as he mulled over what Galeforth had offered. "Why the sudden turn around?" It was hard to know if he was asking her, or himself, for considering it, especially given how the job had gone from bad to train wreck in a few seconds.

"You know what you're doing on a job, Graves. And you're loyal. You made sure I got out of there with the painting before you even gave a thought to getting out, and loyalty like that is hard thing to come by even out of our business." She chuckled, shaking her head like she still couldn't believe events had transpired the way they did. "I think it'll be nice to have someone watching my back."

Ashlee's thoughts were pulled to the hopeless feeling that had grown in his chest while he was looking for another escape from the wine cellar, only to be saved by Alison, who he had thought would be long gone at that time. "Hm, there are worse things than having someone looking out for you, I guess." Letting out a laugh as he turned to move to the door of their car, opening it and leaning on the frame. "To the airfield, then."