I peered around the stone column cautiously, alert for any kind of movement, the weight of my twin pistols comfortable in my h

Disclaimer:

I do not own Tomb Raider or any of it's characters, they belong to Eidos, Crystal Dynamics and others who have bought the rights to make money by playing around with them. I'm not making money through this, if I would, I wouldn't have to work a daytime job. No copyright figment intended, so please don't sue.

Author's note's:

This is my first Tomb Raider and first Lara/Kurtis story, so I'm really curious to hear what you think. About the story, but also about the characters and the environments. Are they lifelike, do they fit the Tomb Raider universe etc.? I focused on the description of the environments especially.

The story set after Legend and is based on a mixture between game- and movieverse.

This story isn't finished and hasn't been beta'd, but it has been completely planned out, so will likely be finished. Please let me know what you think.

Summary:

Lara's pulled out of one of her relaxing exercises by Zip calling out from his lab. As she races towards it, she can just catch the last seconds of an emergency broadcast. It's nothing more than broken sentences and jumbled images, but Lara recognises the sender anyway: it's Kurtis and he's in trouble. Lara goes to find him, leaving a baffled Zip and Allistar behind.

Chapter Summary:

She thought him dead, but an emergency call proves otherwise. Lara rushes to Prague, back to the Strahov, to rescue her one time partner.

The Eternity You Desire

PROLOGUE

I peer around the stone column cautiously, alert for any kind of movement, the weight of my twin pistols comfortable in my hands, the low light sparking off the polished metal, refracting into a million tiny beams. No one in sight. Slowly I round the pillar, the rest of the room coming into view.

More stone columns of differentiating height stand spread across the room. One of them has toppled under its own weight, an obstacle in my path or a hiding place for my enemy. I creep closer to the fallen giant, pistols trained on the area behind it, in case something shows up. A trickle of sweat runs down the side of my face and is absorbed by a few loose strands of hair. When I' m near enough to the column I jump, flipping over in the air and landing on it with a slight grunt, caused by the air suddenly pressured out of my lungs, my pistols trained on the ground beneath the column. Empty.

I return my eyes to the rest of the room, ears alert for any sound and spot a glimmer coming from somewhere on a high ledge. So there's my prize, but where's my enemy? I hop off the pillar and crouch down behind it, momentarily disappearing from view to let the adrenaline rush from finding my prize dissipate into a useful and comfortable alertness.

The room remains deadly quiet as I rise from behind the fallen column and start to make my way over to the side of the room where the high ledge is. The sound of stones crumbling and falling makes me spin around, both pistols trained on the place the noise came from.

Zip chooses that exact moment to run into the training area and nearly gets his head blown off for his trouble. He flinches, but doesn't comment.

"Lara, you have to see this! Emergency broadcast and he's mentioning you!"

I frown, holstering my pistols and sprinting towards the room Zip lovingly refers to as 'HQ'. A loud clanking of metal and whirring of wires sounds behind me as SIMON rises to his feet, ready to tear after me.

"Bryce!" I bark: "End the exercise!" I don't turn to see if SIMON is actually standing down, skidding around the corner and setting off towards Zip's computer room instead.

He returned to me right after the entire mess with Werner, having heard I didn't die in Egypt after all. I welcomed my old techie back into my home, unable to leave the man that had helped me find my way through so many high security buildings standing on my doorstep. It turned out to be a very good decision indeed; the PDA of his design and his talents for handling the Internet came in very handy during my chase for Excalibur. Once he revealed to have an unearthly talent for cooking, I hired him on the spot.

Bryce visited shortly after my return from Bolivia, looking dishevelled and tattered. I couldn't let him hang around on the lawn either. He repaired SIMON right after having a good night's sleep in his trailer and asked if he could stay for a while. He hasn't left yet and somehow I don't think he's going to. I don't mind though, him and Zip are getting along quite well and they complement each other: Bryce being more the computer nerd, while Zip tends to lean towards high tech weaponry. Together, they come up with the most amazing things and have turned SIMON into quite the formidable opponent.

I skid into 'HQ' just as Zip is plopping back down into his office chair. He starts fiddling with buttons and slides even before his ass touches the chair. The room is filled with computers, screens, keyboards and panels full of sliders and buttons. I don't know the function of half of them, but I did get Zip to explain why he needs all this equipment, since I'm the one paying for it. Apparently, he uses it to break into all kinds of high security mainframes, keep my headpiece online at all times, develop new toys like the PDA and scan any and all satellite broadcasts across the globe. Guess that's how he picked up on this one.

I turn my attention to the screen above his head. It's all jumbled images, crossed over by bending lines and snow every few seconds. The audio isn't any better, crackling static alternating with complete silence, but a few words make it through the speakers hanging around the room and the jumbled images are more than enough for me to recognize the man on screen. Piercing blue eyes, veiled by dark strands of hair.

"Kurtis," his name escapes my lips unbidden in a whisper that is a mixture of surprise, relief and disbelief. The stalker who stole my painting and later so chivalricly stayed behind to fight a monster while sending me on my quest, was alive. And in trouble. I can't make out more than a few words, but I'm quite sure 'Lara' and 'help me' are among them and that suffices to propel me into action.

"Record it, make a copy and then trace it", I tell Zip. He looks at me out of the corners of his eyes, trying to figure out why I display any interest in the message at all, but does what he is told nonetheless. Which is, after all, what he's paid for.

"I'm already recording it and I will make a copy as soon as it's finished. I presume you want me to get as much out of it as possible?" Zip asks. He continues before I can answer. "I've already traced it", he reveals to both me and Bryce, who comes bursting into the room and looks at the screen bewildered. I nod my affirmation to Zip's earlier question.

"You've traced it? Where's it coming from?" I want to know and I can immediately tell Zip's reluctant to answer. Not good.

"Well?" I press on.

"Prague," Zip answers, while pointing out the origin of the broadcast on a digital map he's pulled up on one of the many computer screens in the room.

"The Strahov. Bugger, I really didn't want to go there again", I mutter, glancing up at Kurtis, still talking on screen. He looks as if he's in a hurry and glances around frequently, like he's afraid someone will discover him any minute. I can only see his face and part of his chest. He wears the same T-shirts he did when I met him and I smile at that unconsciously. It fades when I notice something else: the leather straps that usually hug his shoulders are missing. No gun?

"So you really are in trouble, aren't you?" I ask him softly, but of course he doesn't answer. Instead, he wheels around to face whatever he's heard at his back and after another violent flicker, the screen goes black.

"You're going?" Bryce asks surprised as he turns his office chair around to face me.

"Of course. He's asking me to come and help him, isn't he?" I answer matter-of-factly, before turning around and exiting the room, leaving my techies quite baffled. I stop by the library on my way to my bedroom and pop my head around the door.

"Allistar, see what you can find out about the Strahov Complex in Prague." I've left the room before he can answer, trusting that he will do as asked, and march up the stairs towards my bedroom. I meet Winston on the first floor landing, where he hands me a towel and a questioning look. I direct him towards Zip and Bryce for details on why my training session was cut short and step into the shower, my mind filled with unwanted memories of a cocky American with a custom made gun and piercing blue eyes.