Alrighty then... This is my first Tomb Raider fic, so ya know, be gentle, but, it's far from my first fic (check the profile), so I wouldn't say it's totally horrible... I beg of you all to please, please review and let me know what you think... Let me know if I go OOC with the characters -I think Zip and Alister may be a bit off in the first couple of chapters, since I hadn't seen much of Legend when I started writing this so I wasn't too sure on how to write them. Especially Lara. It's really hard to write for her...

This takes place between AOD and Legend (and if the story goes the way I think it will, it will tie into Legend at the end.) so I tried to use aspects of both sides of Lara, from the two games... but I think she came off more like the Legend Lara than anything else.

Anyway... Reviews are greatly appreciated, enjoy.

Threads Of Fate

Chapter One

Recovery

Lara Croft lay sprawled on the mat that covered the floor of her gym, trying to regain some air in her lungs, before she tried to get up. She coughed, and spit a bit of blood onto the blue mat. That had been a particularly nasty fall, from the bars above, resulting in a rather sore stomach, and several tooth-shaped holes in her tongue, and bottom lip. Just a few more injuries to go with the ones that were still healing. Wonderful. She wiped the blood from her lip, and chin, before shoving herself to her feet, with a pained groan.

Her body was a patchwork of bruises, in various shades of blue, black and purple, some of which had faded, and many cuts, gashes, burns, and, according to x-rays, a few cracked bones, and a formerly dislocated shoulder. Such was the life of a Tomb Raider, but, she wasn't usually this bad off. Paris and Prague hadn't been kind to her. She stretched, causing more than one joint to pop in protest, and her body to ache. Later, a long, and very hot shower was in order, along with a heavy dose of painkillers, followed by sleep. She'd made a mistake by trying to start training again already and this she knew. It had been only a week since she'd returned from France, battered, and looking like she'd come out on the worse end of a fight with a rhino... but it'd been two, since she'd made it out of the Strahov.

Winston had not stopped fussing over her, yet, and Zip and Alister insisted that she take a break from her tomb raiding until she was fully healed. Although Lara had put up a fight to this, she'd agreed, knowing that her friends were right. Still, it didn't feel right, to just sit around, and do nothing, when she was so used to always doing something, be it research, preparation, or on an adventure its self. oh, just one more jump can't hurt... She thought innocently, looking at the ramp before her... She ran for it, and just as she reached the edge, lept off it, and grabbed for the bar hanging a little ways away.

Smiling in satisfaction that she had caught the bar, Lara pulled herself up on it, and swung down, building up her momentum, until she was able to release her grip, and somersault safely to the next platform. Her still-sore legs weren't happy with her landing however, and her knees gave out, causing her to fall backwards, drop off the platform, and land hard on her back with a soft thud.

There went her breath again.

Okay... Maybe Alister and Zip were right and I do need to take a break... It had been a long time since she'd taken that many falls in a row. Her fight with Eckhardt and Karel had taken more out of her, physically and mentally, than she would ever care to admit.

"Brilliant move Lara," someone said from the door, "New one you learned in France?"

Zip. His comment earned him a rather rude gesture from the lady of the house, though his only reaction was to laugh. "We told you, you need a break Lara... Prague took alot out of you."

Lara nodded. Indeed it had. Alot.

"So, you ever gonna fill us in on what happened there?"

"Von Croy was murdered, I was accused, the chase began, I met up with some American with super powers, fought and killed an Alchemist and an Angel, and the American is gone. There, that's what happened," Lara replied, trying to make the events sound like nothing. Zip knew she was faking. Something else had happened, and from her tone, it had to do with the guy she'd met. So he decided to see if he couldn't get a bit of info out of her.

"Do you mean gone as in dead, or gone as in is okay, and took off?"

"Gone as in I don't know..." Lara replied, sounding more than a little bitter. With that she strode off, out the other door, and down to the kitchen, to grab a snack before she went to bed... Hopefully she'd be in bed before Zip was able to reach Winston, and tell him what she had been up too.

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Two Weeks Earlier

Lara was wishing for a light right about then. Boaz's lair was pitch black. The only thing guiding her was Kurtis' Chirugai, that she'd found in the previous chamber, lying in a pool of blood. The bladed disk pulled her in different directions now and then, if she strayed off course. Suddenly, the blades sprang out again, and the weapon began to glow, and it shot forward, and Lara heard a rather sickening pop, followed by an even more sickening flare of pain, signaling that her shoulder had just been yanked out of socket.

She ignored the pain, and followed the glowing disk, until it led her to a dark form, sitting against the wall, head hung low.

"Kur- Ah!" she was cut off when the chirugai yanked out of her hand, "Kurtis?"

She knelt in front of him, and lifted his face with her good hand to get a better look at him. He was deathly pale, and while his eyes were open, they weren't full of the determined, arrogant spark she'd seen earlier. Instead, his beautiful sapphire orbs were dull, and darkened with pain. For a moment Lara wondered if he could see her, or was even conscious, for he didn't react to her right away. Kurtis finally blinked, and there was a hint of recognition in his eyes.

"L-...Lara?"

"What happened to 'I can take care of her'?" Lara asked, looking at the gaping hole in the demon hunter's midsection.

"I... Wasn't betting on there... being a fucking fairy on steroids..." was the annoyed reply. He suddenly laughed, which turned into a cough, that sprayed droplets of blood onto Lara's face, "Killed by a fairy... Father will be... turning over in his grave... laughing his ass off..."

"You're not dead yet," Lara reminded him, pulling bandages out of her first-aid kit. The bandages wouldn't do much in the way of healing, but they'd stop the bleeding... "And you're not going to die, either." She bandaged his wound as best as she could, with practically one hand, with protests from Kurtis the whole time. "Shut up," she said after one particular nasty remark, "Or I'll leave you here to rot. Come on."

Of course, she wouldn't leave him... There was something about him that she liked, and that was enough for her to want to help. She took his hand in her good one, and pulled him up to his feet. He had to use the wall for support but at least he could stand. He grabbed his chirugai, and hooked it onto his belt. "I guess I owe you two now... Why... Why are you helping me?"

"I said we should work together," Lara replied smoothly, "That agreement is in effect until we're out of danger, which means once we get you to a hospital..."

-----

"Ms. Croft?" Lara stood when the doctor called her name. Thankfully no one had recognized her yet, thanks to a quick change of clothes, and her hair being let down... She'd chosen clothes to hide her own injuries: bruises, cuts, burns, a few bullet-grazes, ect. It'd been two hours since she'd brought Trent into the emergency room... They'd want an explanation on his injuries soon enough, but for now it could wait...

"Is Kurtis okay?" she asked, trying to sound worried... Though she didn't have to try hard. Actually, she didn't have to try at all... But for now it was a good thing... It would make her cover-story work a bit better.

"He's alive, and conscious, and while I can't say for sure, I think he'll be fine, with a bit of rest, and a few weeks of no heavy activity... "

Again Lara didn't have to fake her feelings. She was genuinely relieved, "Can I see him?"

"Family only... You are?"

Lara knew this had been coming, so she lied, easily, "His fiance..." Hopefully the doctor would consider that close enough to family...

"Very well..." the doctor said after a moment, "But I need to ask, what happened to him? Mr. Trent has what appears to be acid burns, several broken ribs, and more than one fracture, and I don't need to mention the hole in his gut... Quite frankly he looks like he came out on the losing end of a fight with a dragon..."

Close but no cigar, Doc... it was, in Kurtis' own words, a 'fucking fairy on steroids' Lara thought. But she could tell him that... Instead she said the first thing that came to mind, "We were attacked... A group of men, didn't see their faces, but they jumped us, as we were walking past the old Strahov building... " Hopefully with the rumors surrounding the Strahov, the doctor would buy that tale...

He did. Muttering something about the building needing to be torn down, he led her to Kurtis' room, and left, not even bothering to tell her that visiting hours were technically over.

Lara found it hard to believe that the man lying in the hospital bed before her was the same one who'd disarmed her in Louvre, the same man who'd taunted her with his cocky smirk, as she struggled to keep up with him in their little game of tag... The Kurtis in front of her was pale, and looked indescribably small in that bed, not bit of his arrogance left.

"Am I really so handsome that you're just going to stand there and stare like a lovestruck schoolgirl all night?" Okay, so maybe his arrogance was still intact.

"Don't make me regret saving you, Trent," Lara replied, moving to sit in the chair next to him. She winced, as her dislocated arm came in hard contact with the arm of the chair. Kurtis didn't miss this.

"You didn't even get yourself checked out? Damn, Croft, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were worried about me."

Lara glared at him, but didn't bother to debate his claim. She was too exhausted to argue... And tomorrow she had to turn herself over to the police, and clear her name... And she had to let Winston, Alister, and Zip know that she was alive, and relatively okay... Then it would be back to the hospital to keep an eye on Kurtis for a while...

------

Lara was pissed... Actually, that was a bit of an understatement. She was beyond pissed. Kurtis was gone. She'd come back from the police department for what she was sure was the last time, only to find that Kurtis had left sometime while she'd been away. According to the nurse at the front desk, he hadn't said a word, other than that she should check in her backpack...

As she stalked down the hall to his former room to grab the aforementioned object, she wondered why he'd taken off. It'd been a week since they'd escaped the Strahov, and what time she hadn't spent trying to convince the cops that she wasn't the monstrum, she'd spent with him. She now dared to call the man a friend... "I'm not hurt," she told herself, "Just angry."

She grabbed her backpack, and opened it, wondering just what it was that Kurtis felt she needed to see. She found his chirugai sitting on top of her things, vibrating a bit, showing that it's connection with its owner was still there... sitting atop the disk, though slowly being shaken off was a small slip of paper containing four simple words. "Get out of Prague"

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Present

Lara watched as the chirugai zoomed back forth around her room, her chocolate eyes never straying from the glowing disk. Somehow it managed not to destroy anything in the room, though it did make a go for the window once or twice, but stopped, as if something were holding it back. What was up with the thing? And why the hell had Kurtis left it behind... Another question: Why had he warned her to get out of Prague? Not that she hadn't been glad too, but something seemed wrong... Trent had just vanished, warning her to leave, and now his little toy seemed incapable of leaving her presence... Hell yes, something was up. Not that she could find out, whilst Winston was watching her like a hawk, making sure she didn't over-exert herself, until every last cut on her was fully healed. And while she had to admit, it would be a bit longer before she was ready to be back to her tomb raiding, she couldn't stand just sitting around and wondering what was going on.

Still watching the chirugai, her thoughts drifted to its owner... Or rather, his astonishingly blue eyes... The kind of eyes she could, and had, in the Louvre, get lost in. No... No. Bad Lara. No getting attached. Never get close. He was a partner, maybe a friend. That was it... And if he ever showed up again, he'd likely be a dead friend, considering the fury she wanted to unleash on him.

The door to her room opened, and the bladed disk swerved in the air, and headed right for the door, and the one who'd opened it...

"What the bloody hell is that!" Alister squeaked, as the disk buried two of its four blades into the wood of the door, only inches from his head, "And why was it moving on its own... Or were you trying to kill me?"

Lara chuckled, "I wasn't trying to kill you, Alister, sorry... It occasionally starts flying about of its own accord."

"And you've kept it?" Alister looked at her as though she were crazy.

Lady Croft nodded, and shrugged, though she gave no answer as to why she'd kept it. She got up from her bed, and yanked the weapon out of the door, and placed it back on her desk, which had become its residence when it wasn't, to all appearances, trying to escape. If it moving about meant that Kurtis was calling it, then it wasn't going anywhere... Let the bastard come get it himself. "So sorry, Al... I think I'll keep it locked up from now own."

"Perhaps you should... " Alister said, adjusting his glasses. "Anyway, Winston sent me up, he wants to know if you would like breakfast in here, or in the dining room, and he also says that if anyone catches you in the gym again, he will personally see to it that the room is torched."

Lara couldn't help but laugh, "Fine, you guys win..." she sighed, "Seems jobs are slow, anyway, right?"

Alister shrugged, as he turned, and left. Despite telling him that she would, Lara didn't bother to lock the chirugai in her desk, before getting dressed.

-----------------

Despite trying to hold it in, Lara had dissolved into a fit of painfully girlish giggles, at the antics of her house mates. Zip was being rather mean to Alister, much to Lara, and Winston's amusement, though Alister's eventual retaliation had been the icing on the cake, and was the reason for Lara's laughter. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that Zip had started it on purpose in order to cheer her up. Alister was unaware of this, for all that he was a genius, he was a complete moron when it came to reading people, so he thought that Zip was just being Zip. Which he was, but this morning it was for Lara's benefit, not his own... Okay, so maybe it was a little for his own benefit.

She hadn't had a good, true laugh, since Egypt, and she was tempted to thank her little family, but she knew if she did, Zip would only deny that he'd been trying to make her laugh in the first place, Alister would look clueless as always, and Winston would only smile the way he did when he reckoned he'd been right about something. So, she held her tongue, and continued eating the breakfast that Zip had prepared.

-----------------

The room was dark, yet strangely, Lara could see everything perfectly... There was a light ahead, that kept flickering, as though someone were walking in front of it. She moved forward, quickly... Everything had an oddly unreal look too it... Not that anything looked fake, it was just... Well, unreal. She stopped when she came to the room that was the source of the light... In front of her was a chair, with a doubled over figure tied too it. Circling the chair was another figure. She couldn't make out the features of either, since the harsh light made their faces hard to see, but both appeared to be male... Neither seemed to know that she was there, even though she was standing in plain sight.

"I'm telling you, I don't know where it is!" the one tied to the chair said, his voice strained from pain. Lara recognized the voice, and his name escaped her lips before she could stop herself.

"Kurtis!" It came out as a loud whisper, and for a split second, she thought he looked right at her, and knew she was there... But then he was back to bowing his head, as his captor continued to circle him, as though he and Kurtis were the only two people in the room.

She expected a male voice to answer, instead, she heard her own, "Well, then Mr. Trent, perhaps Miss Croft will be a little more willing to answer my questions..."

"Karel?" Lara whispered to herself... If she hadn't known this was a dream before, she would have then... Karel was dead. Deader than dead. The Sleeper had not only killed him but turned him into a million tiny chunks as well.

She could now make out both Kurtis' face, and his captor's, which was currently her own. At the mention of her, she saw Kurtis' eyes go from determined, and stubborn, to fearful, but it was only for a moment, "I doubt it. The woman is a pain in the ass." He was back to being sarcastic...

Karel-Lara laughed, "Perhaps... But I think I know how to get you to answer a few questions... Unless you want to see this-" the nephilim rearranged his "Lara features" until a bruised, bloodied, and too all appearances, near-dead Lara was looking Kurtis straight in the eyes... "You don't want to see this next time you see miss Croft, now do you?"

Kurtis hesitated a moment, not meeting the nephilim's gaze, before finally taking in a sharp breath, and replying with, "I honestly don't give a shit... She helped me get what I wanted, then got me out of the Strahov, that was all I wanted from her."

Even knowing that this was a dream and hence, her own mind creating it, his words hurt Lara, and she hated it... But they didn't seem to phase the "not-her"

Karel-Lara smirked, "I don't like being lied to, Mr. Trent..." the creature raised a hand to strike. What happened next, Lara never saw.

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Her dream had troubled her, but Lara was determined not to think about it. After all. She knew Karel was dead, and hence incapable of holding Kurtis hostage. Besides, even if had been possible, how would she have seen it? It made no sense what-so-ever. She didn't even bother to mention it to her house mates, at dinner, since they would either fret about it, or start up a long debate about possible reasons about why she was dreaming of the American demon hunter in the first place, and that was something that she didn't need, to make her evening any worse...

No more naps, she thought, halfway through a simply delicious slice of cake, sleeping in the middle of the afternoon always seems to equal weird, and troubling dreams that I don't need to waste my time on.

"Are you alright Lara?" Winston asked, as he passed her on her way up to her room, "You seemed distracted all afternoon..."

"I'm fine, Winston," Lara replied, in no mood to explain her troubles. "Really," she added when he raised an eyebrow at her in a way that reminded her of herself...

While he seemed to be far from convinced, Winston asked no more questions... He knew when Lara was determined not to let people in.

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I know this is short... But the chapters will get progressively longer as the story continues... This was more a prologue than anything else