Pick-Up

"Hello!"

Lara's eyelids shot open, her fingers returned to full clutch on the vine, while her feet pinched together on the lower half. Her eyes bolted upward, and there she stared into the artificial ceiling light twenty feet above her.

"Hello!" The masculine voice repeated, then added after a pause: "Lara! Lara!"

"Hello!" Lara's jaws gaped and she bellowed. "I'm…down here!"

The man's footsteps tuned in to Lara's ears and she sensed him coming forward. Closer…closer—

"Lara!" His feet halted abruptly at the edge of the pit high above, accidentally kicking down pebbles and bits of dust. Lara bowed her head, shielding her face, then glanced back up after it had passed. Her eyes caught the shadowy figure's outline, yet his face was hidden by the slight darkness. But she didn't need to see his facial features to recognize the man; she knew him from the moment his voice echoed in her ears.

Thank God, Lara thought. She shook her head, then, No…thank him

"Right here!" Lara shouted back up, the hint of a smile spreading across her tired face. "I'm—"

"I see you, Lara!" The man practically laughed. He was totally relived. "It's Hemingway! I've come to get you…just a moment, I'll get you up!"

Robert J. Hemingway, a very familiar man to Lara Croft. He served as her father's latest bodyguard and limousine driver, but after his death Hemingway felt troubled; he figured it was his fault, and thus meant to leave the Crofts forever. And he had, despite his close relationship with Lara, nearly but not quite as a boyfriend, always there to help, very friendly and respectful…but then he'd gone. Now, he was drawn back.

"Head's up!" He called down, dropping a line of thick rope. It fell right past Lara, then hung there. "Just a moment…"

Meanwhile, up-top, Hemingway hastily tried to find somewhere to anchor the rope. I probably could pull her up myself, he thought, but didn't want to take any chances. Then-again, he also didn't want to wait any further; he was aware of how she had been hanging there, and therefore knew that at any moment she may just drop. Quickly, though, he found something; it was a cylindrical stone pillar, currently propping up a large stone platform overhead. He speedily tied it around the pillar, then returned to the edge, looking down upon Lara. "Alright, it's anchored! Pull up!"

Lara, in the meantime, had had enough of all this. She wanted to get out, out of under these damned Aztec ruins, get home, clean-up—and prepare. Prepare for what, Lara? She asked herself as she reached over and clutched the hanging rope. Her brain throbbed against her cranium as she leapt over to the rope. She grasped it with both her semi-gloved hands and her boots, with crossed legs, and hastily began climbing upwards. Prepare…for getting that Macana, Lara confirmed her thoughts as she ascended. Despite having been through all she has been lately, Lara's muscles were now worked up; she was glad that her long-lost friend had come to rescue her, and glad that she now could throw the proper reaction to Amanda.

Finally she reached the top, the edge of the endless pit in which she had originally descended. Her fingers clutched the edge, and when she glanced up a muscular arm reached downward. The hand was open, palm's fingers outstretched. Then her eyes met with his, and for a moment they were frozen in time.

Then Lara slapped one of her hands into his, and Hemingway helped her up to her feet. But there she stumbled, nearly losing her footing—and fell…right into a hammock of flesh. Hemingway's worried face gawked at Lara, whom was terribly fatigued. He then sized her up, and for once eyed more her weapons than her protrusions and exposed skin.

"So," he said, helping her back to her feet. "You going to tell me all that has happened?"

"What has Zip told you?"

"Oh, that you came down here to the Aztec ruins…deep underground, first level through stream into a barred gutter with a hole seared into it—and then that you needed a rescue."

"Mmhm…a rescue…?" Then Lara thought back and in her head remembered what she had said. She sighed to herself. "So you hadn't any trouble getting down here?"

"No, actually…"

Lara remembered, then glanced at her watched. Indeed, E.T.A. approximately thirty minutes. But thanks to Hemingway's near location and relationship with the Crofts—he got here in twenty-two.

"…the traps, for what I supposed them to be, were all, like, stopped—shutdown or something. The one with the spinning razors…I guessed you had to traverse them to get here."

"I did."

Of course, he thought, nodding. "Well, anyways, that was stopped and then just past that was open floor." He paused. "Having learnt something from the Crofts, I figured that it was a lil' suspicious…but, it turned out to be just solid floor."

"With a bunch of rolling spikes below that would bring you to a slowly-crushing death." Lara's words came out with speed, and then she smiled at the end. "But nevermind it…"

Hemingway looked troubled for a moment. "So…is it safe to—"

She smiled, patted his cheek with her right palm, and replied, heading towards the entrance/exit, "Sure thing…now, how did you manage to get here so fast?"

"In the area," he said slowly, glancing at Lara's buttocks as she ambled away. He couldn't help it. "I…"

The moment Lara glanced back to briefly face Hemingway, his eyes bolted up to hers and he continued with a slight tremble in his voice. "I was flying in the area, taking airborne shots—"

"In your jet?" Lara shot back, vaguely smiling. She had, for the most part, recovered. But she still longed for a cool shower and a tub of soothing water—then get ready for work.

"No, actually…my chopper." He snapped, toothlessly smiling. Lara didn't see him; she continued out the opened gate.

As the two, now side-by-side, reached the seared gutter hole, Lara finally asked Hemingway a question she has been meaning to. And it wasn't what Hemingway had in mind, either.

"Hemingway," Lara said, looking him intently in the eyes.

"Yes, Lara?"

"Did you bring a weapon?"

He sighed.

"Like a gun, I mean?"

Hemingway pulled up his plaid shirt on his right side and revealed the sidearm pocketed into the edge of his cargo shorts. "It's a—"

"Glock nineteen…" Lara interjected; she was correct. "Couldn't you have brought something a lil' bigger?"

There was a pause of silence, nothing except their breathing and the streaming water at their feet.

"You know, Lara…I do have bigger things, and I can show you them once we get back to—"

"Your place?" Lara laughed. "Take me home, because I need to get cleaned up and ready for what's next…"

"Wait, wait, wait, wait…one, home? You mean—"

"Croft Manor."

He nodded. "Okay, whatever…and, secondly, what do you mean what's next?"

"Don't worry about it; we'll talk once I have gotten cleaned up."

"By the way," Hemingway added, as they snaked through the underground passages—a separate way Lara had gone earlier. "Did y'all ever finish that helipad?"

Lara nodded with a smile. "Now, she said, take me to your chopper."

Lara was asleep, now. She had somehow managed to fall into a state of deep sleep within the thin-walled cabin of an airborne helicopter. Meanwhile, Hemingway flew his personal Bell-206 helicopter through the skies of New Mexico, knowing that the flight would indeed be a long one.

Hemingway could not help but scan Lara Croft, her perfect body and beautiful face, lying there—resting—in the passenger seat of her own chopper. He did not have any perverted intentions and was, afterall, in great respect to the Crofts. Especially the daughter of whom he served; nonetheless, it seems like no one can avoid the temptation of Lara Croft…whether it be her eyes, her body, or her voice—she is always an enticing one, very difficult for men to pass by unnoticeably.

His eyes started at her feet, where there they slowly ran the length of her bare, dirt-blotted, athletic legs and thighs…subsequently her smooth, petite belly and afterwards her obviously-large chest, something every man is drawn to. But, mostly, his eyes connected with her own, despite them being closed. He also eyed her lips, those wonderful, plump, no-doubt luscious lips that he could only imagine kissing.

That is, of course, since the last time he had kissed them; it has been years, though, since he has had the Croft beauty in his hands…

Hemingway only wished that day would sometime return.