Chapter 16

The sun was setting as Lara's Subaru retuned to her home. After the auto was safely tucked away, Lara and Max made their way back to the house. Max was still limping from his adventure through the assault course three days earlier, but tried to hide the fact. Lara held the front door open for Max and he ambled inside and up the stairs to his temporary room.

Lara remained on the lower level of the foyer, watching Max leave.

It had not been a good day.

Lara had never been a fan of tending to her professional life outside of the field, but she had honestly thought that her time with Max was going to be different. While she dreaded going her publisher to pick up her rewrites (did he not know of the postal service?) the thought of taking care of these necessary evils was much more palatable with her friend coming along with her - but Max was no longer her friend once that camera of his was turned on.

He had barely spoken with her over the past few days, just kept that damn lens of his thrust into her face. When he did speak, it was to ask her some damn fool question while she was in the middle of something terribly important. He explained that it was an old tactic to get someone to answer a question honestly, but Lara really didn't appreciate being ambushed by him. Then, when the days were done, Max would return to him room and log the day's footage - which Lara was not allowed to view, lest she become 'self-conscious.' Lara and Max were strangers living in the same house.

After the publisher, they stopped by her office at Oxford (a ceremonial title - she gave the odd lecture there from time to time) and a stop at a studio to rerecord some lines for her third game that was due out in the fall. All the time, there was no Max with her, only a lens staring her in the eye. She had honestly expected something different to happen while Max was visiting.

Perhaps he should simply go home.

Max entered his temporary room and placed his camera on its charger, removing the tape that was inside. He placed the small cassette with the five others he had gotten that day and stared at them.

Nothing. Another wasted day.

Not one decent frame for the whole week. True, the stuff with her jumping all over the assault course was pure gold - Max could envision a slow-motion close-up of Lara's breasts being a special on Thursday night Fox. However, he did not come over the Atlantic for "gold."

He made the trip to gain credibility.

Sure, he could sell the material - the tabloids would have climbed over each other to get the footage of Lara Croft being berated by her publisher. He was big - at least three hundred pounds - and was possibly the most effeminate man Max had ever met. His large frame had jiggled as his high-pitched voice screamed over lapses in grammar and word choices that he felt were poor.

Max expected Lara to haul off and hit this obese monstrosity at any moment, but she never did. She jotted notes in the margins of her manuscript and actually thanked him at the end.

If Max were her, he would have gotten a new publisher...a decade ago - but if Max were her, he would rarely leave the house...

After Lara's publisher had completed his reaming of her posterior, they were off the recording booth. Of course, Max was not allowed in the room with her, so he hid in a dark corner of the control room before the technicians arrived and was treated to quite a surprise.

First off, the sound engineers had lied to Lara about something having "happened to the footage." In reality, some of her lines were just not good. They had the material that they needed fifteen minutes after they began, but kept Lara there another hour making her grunt and moan for their own satisfaction.

They kept telling her that it was part of the game, that this noise was when she pulled herself up to a ledge, and this noise was when she got shot. Whenever they were not speaking to Lara through the headphones she wore, they were snickering and ogling her. One of them commented that, if not for her heaving breasts, she would not be able to get a job as a lab assistant.

When it was all over, they rose to find Max taping them. The look on their faces was priceless - they both knew that they would not have jobs after Lara found out.

But she never did.

Max said nothing, and Lara knew nothing of what the engineers were saying. Max was there to report, not to get involved in and change the course of Lara's life - he had done that too many times. For this project, Max was going to keep his distance.

And, right or wrong, he thought that she was better off not knowing how those infantile men had stripped her dignity.

Not that Lara was helping him keep that distance. She had tried, on more occasions than Max could count, to get him to start chatting with her about this and that. Not that Max really minded - who in their right mind would pass up the chance to chew the fat with Lara Croft? It was just the simple fact that he was trying to work. Did he bug her about stuff when she was going over ancient ruins? No.

For the remainder of the day, Lara dodged his questions and seemed genuinely irritated about something. Max hoped that Lara understood that his livelihood depended on her cooperation in this video.

In short, there was no way that Max was going to ever show anyone the footage that he had shot. He was a personal friend of Lara, and by the end of the day he honestly felt pity for her - he was going to be sure that she never say anything that he had shot.

Max quickly erased the tapes that he had shot that day - just as Lara entered the room.

She did not appear to notice what he was doing, the look on her face said that there was something big on her mind.

"Hey," Max greeted, "what's up?"

"We need to have a little talk..."

"I thought so...have a seat."

Max offered Lara a second chair near his editing suite, he straddled his own seat as she took hers. Lara was actually having a little trouble looking Max in the eye, something he looked upon more with amusement than anything else.

"I don't think our...arrangement...is working out."

"Yeah, it's been a tough start."

"No, I mean that it's not working at all."

"Ah, I take it you want me out of your house and out of your life, is that it?"

"No, not at all. I just feel that I may not be the best subject for your film..."

"Video."

"...Video...you might be better served to just find someone else to immortalize."

"What did I do?"

"Pardon?"

"I mean, you've been acting goofy all day here - did I do something?"

"Of course not."

"Then what's the problem?"

"I want you to go home."

Max had not expected that level of directness from Lara. There was a awkward moment between the two of them, then Max broke their silence.

"May I ask why?"

"I am having...trouble...making my way with you following me all about."

"Is that all? Hell, you'll get used to that. First few days anyone follows them around, taping everything, it's bound to be rough. Remember what I said about scratching your butt?"

"Max, you haven't even been taping, your little red RECORD light hasn't been on all week."

"Aw hell, I pulled the plug on that thing the second I got the camera - that light'll get me killed. As for the rest, I promise that you'll get used to it."

"I don't want to get used to it."

"Please, Lara, I know this must be driving you nuts, but we're sorta committed to this thing here. I have to complete this project or..."

"Or what?"

"Suffice to say that my butt won't be worth a hill o' beans if I crap out on this thing."

"But why - there have to be other ways for you to make a living. Why not try writing? You seem to have stories every bit as exciting as mine, you might even gain more credibility if you pass your truth off as fiction."

"Oh, I've been published all right..."

"I never knew."

"Yeah, I think only the ten people who bought my book knew - should'a been a professor do that I could have assigned it as a text. I hear what you are saying, and the thought had crossed my mind, but I have to get this project done first - or I start donating plasma."

Lara fought against a smile, and lost.

"Do you have to follow me about all of the time?"

"No, I don't - but the second I'm not taping you, something cool will happen and I won't get it."

"It was almost better when there were people shooting at us..."

"Tell me about it. How long 'till you're back in the field?"

"I need at least another week."

"Okay, tell you what, how about I leave you alone tomorrow. There are a couple of places I need to check up on while I'm over here and you can go and take care of all that crap you don't want me along for - deal?"

"Agreed."

"And maybe I can still tag along to Russia with you next week?"

"Maybe."