REVIVAL by Chirugal
Rating: PG-13 for gore…
Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, sadly!
Summary: Formerly a songfic. Making her way from the Strahov after her battle with Karel, Lara stumbles across Kurtis' body…
No! Lara froze ten feet from the body, a sharp shock rendering her motionless as recognition leaked into her bones. No… not now, not here…
Kurtis Trent, Lara's almost paramour, lay collapsed at her feet, striking blue eyes sightless, fresh blood seeping from the grievous wound in his abdomen and pooling beneath his lifeless form. With a hard mental slap, Lara broke her paralysis and rushed to his side, the weapon she had been following the tugs of forgotten and inert beside her.
His flesh was warm despite his absent pulse, as if the life had only just departed his body. Hope stirred in Lara's heart, even as she desperately attempted to harden it against the pain of loss.
"Kurtis," she whispered, as if he could hear her. I failed Werner. I won't fail again. Quickly, she rolled him onto his back, exposing the jagged edges of his mortal injury. With no time for empathy, Lara stored it up for later, and placed both hands over his heart, calling on her barely remembered first-aider's qualification for guidance.
One, two, three, four… She counted along with each heart massage, pressing down firmly on his chest, eyes narrowed in determination. Wake up, damn it, wake up… Eleven, twelve… She was far more adept at taking life than giving it, and his body's response worried her. With each jolt to his heart, more of his precious blood welled from the wound, and she feared that even if he woke, his blood loss would be too acute to sustain him. I'll jump off that bridge when I come to it. Fourteen, fifteen. Still no response.
Lara prided herself on her ability to stay calm in a crisis, but she was aware that her control was hanging by a fine thread. She couldn't lose Kurtis. She could not. He had played a significant part in her resurfacing from the black depression she had spiralled into, and she realised as she lowered her mouth to his, to give him breath, that she wanted to know what would happen next between them. She had never thought, for one second, that the first time their lips met she would be attempting to resuscitate him.
She may have been trying to bring him to life physically, but he had revived her mentally, and she had to bring him back to thank him. Failure was not an option. "Please, Kurtis, wake up," Lara entreated, checking his vital signs once more. "I need you here."
Tugged back by pain from the oblivion he had thankfully dropped into, Kurtis took his first breath for two minutes and choked, weakly coughing up blood. In the distance, he heard a voice breathe, "Thank god." Warm fingers slid to his neck, checking his pulse, and he recognised Lara as much from her touch as from her voice. He knew in that moment that he loved her.
Screwing up his eyes against the light as if seeing it for the first time, Kurtis nevertheless forced himself into greater awareness, grunting as the pain intensified. Lara's face swam into focus above him, anxious and vulnerable, as he had never seen her before. She was beautiful, like a Biblical angel, and he squeezed her hand as she entwined her fingers with his. "Come on," she instructed, taking charge. "If we don't get you help, you're going to die." Grimly, she pulled him to his feet. He blacked out for a second – when he regained consciousness he was supported against her, and she was encouraging him to take the first steps towards medical attention. "Don't you dare fucking die on me."
Die? There was no way he was going to die before he got to show Lara how he felt. And he was in no fit state to do that just now. Pain swelled and ebbed as they traversed the corridor slowly, both acutely conscious of the fact that the other had revived them – in more ways than one.
Just a one-shot, no continuation for this one!