Hi all. *blows kisses to my amazing audience of five* Thanks guys. I really appreciate the reviews.
OK, somehow in the midst of my big nasty exams I churned this out. Once again this is not meant to be read in chapter form!!!! : ) Also I've just realized what I've written on paper of this isn't as long as I thought it was. Of course, I haven't finished it, but there you are. I need to rewrite the next bit though so it might be a while more. Alex will show up again after this. I apologize for any insults indirectly dealt out BUT ONCE AGAIN I DO NOT MEAN TO INSULT. OK? : )
Good. Now start reading and reviewing. : )
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This time the scene was of a fuzzy, pearly white backdrop, with misty, cloudlike wisps floating languidly around. It was comforting; perhaps I was swimming in chicken soup, for all I knew. I actually grinned when I realized how very much like water it all was – the same lightness and mobility. Strangely I was wearing something of a white bodysuit.
I began to swim towards the pinprick of light I saw at the farthest end of the haze.
As I turned somersaults, giggling, I wondered faintly why there was so little light. Why was there this confusing mess of fog? What was blocking the light?
A shadow, only a shadow.
I suddenly realized that I was no longer steering. The clouds, turning gray now, were propelling me along to the light, the one, true light…
And the shadow obstructing my path. The clouds were angry gray now. Faster and faster they swirled, suddenly unleashing the strength of a storm. The shadow seemed to be calling the very blackest of the clouds to it now – they stretched and then merged with the shadow, causing it to swell. The light was hardly visible now.
Behind the shadow I still saw a glow.
Still I zoomed to meet my shadows. All the clouds were filthy black, and I realized with fresh shock that my suit was slowly darkening to a sketchy gray. The shadow was right in front of me now. I had to face it.
And then… the shadow turned around. And ever so slowly, as it did so, it shrank, into the silhouette of a man; a very familiar face-
I gasped and immediately ran to greet him. It was him, after these months of praying, hoping - But one faithful little diamond-shaped cloud suddenly flew into his hands, twisting itself. And now I knew, knew why I was staring down the long corridor, for I stared down it once more-
Only this time, it was the barrel of a gun.
~*~
I shrieked and immediately jerked awake. "Daddy!" I screamed, desperately tearing my vision from one corner of my enormous, dark bedroom to another. "Daddy?" I started to cry, hot tears causing the dark to gyrate as before… Terrified, I threw the bedclothes over my head, screaming and crying at the same time. The sheets were crimson, like blood.
The door burst open. I shrieked again. It was back. It was back, and this time it would claim me-
"Who's there?" A low, gravelly voice suddenly rasped. "Show yourself, I'm armed!" The lights flicked on. I peeked out from under my sheets and inexorably began to laugh, for there stood Winston, barefoot and in his nightcap with the little puff ball on it. Best of all, he was holding an ancient, rickety shotgun the wrong way around, and in the position that suggested he was ready to club my attacker rather than shoot them. He didn't glance my way but threw open my wardrobe and jabbed his shotgun in. "Are you the culprit?" he snarled to that lacy white dress I hated the most, with all the ferocity of a pussycat. Apparently satisfied with its innocence, he trotted over to the fireplace. He tossed the artificial flowers out of my vase and poked his shotgun into that instead. "Are you the culprit?" he asked. After a few second he didn't seem to have enough proof; thus, he stuck the flowers back in and continued his little prowl. "Aha!" Winston marched over to my cupboard. He yanked it open, and my great fuzzy teddy bear fell out. He jabbed the shotgun somewhere around its ribs. "Are you the culprit?" he panted, sounding thoroughly out of breath.
It was too much for me. I was laughing so hard that tears were running down my
cheeks. Finally Winston put aside the bear and came to me.
"Now, are you the culprit, young lady?" I only laughed. "Back to bed for you, I think." He tucked the covers up to my chin (I pushed them down again when he turned away). Then he turned on the small table lamp, and this time, when the lights were out, the darkness seemed friendly again. The last thing I remembered was the stooped figure with the jiggling puff ball hat closing the door behind him.
~*~
I found myself blinking back tears as I recalled the fond and fatal memory. Only the incessant banging of the Illuminati brought me back down.
Father seemed genuinely taken aback this time. "Winston… I'm so sorry," he murmured.
We just looked at each other as the doors pounded, beating a staccato rhythm to the angry shouts. My fingers began to itch for my guns again.
Finally Henshingly broke the silence. "What about Mr. West?"
I choked. Oh joy. "How do you know-" I stopped myself. That was the obvious. And that was a part of me I was more than willing to forget about.
"So?"
I shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. "We broke up," I intoned listlessly.
~*~
July 15th
Alex West stood by the window, gazing into the murky, dark gray late afternoon. His right arm tightened protectively around Lara, offering physical support and inner strength.
Lara couldn't feel a thing.
"Lara, can't we forget about the past?" he spoke up. "It was my fault, I should have said so long ago." Lara opened her mouth to say something, but he cut her off. "Why can't we just put this pride, these guessing games aside? It's not worth losing this… for that…" he trailed off, unsure of what else to say. "Lara, I-"
"Oh sure," she shot back angrily. "If you would only stop stealing things from me this might actually work out." Her tone softened noticeably. "Look, Alex, it didn't work in the beginning, it didn't work after that. There's no way it's going to work out now.
"I don't want to get hurt again," she finished, her voice almost a whisper.
"I'm sorry," murmured Alex. He pulled her closer and she began to struggle, so he released his grip slightly. "But I-"
"There you go again. Weren't we supposed to forget about the past?" Lara swallowed, trying to control her temper. "Alex, if you wanted money you should have asked," she said, softly. "I wouldn't have minded any amount. There was a time I'd give anything, everything… just for you. But I guess that's all over now." Lara pulled away, crossed the room and sat down on the bed.
Alex didn't speak. Instead, he carefully sat down next to her, brushing his fingers gently through her hair, which was limp and down for once. A closer look at her revealed traces of teardrops still glinting, dried, on her face.
For a long time they sat like that, neither able to make a sound. So many thoughts spun before Alex's eyes: Lara's smile the first time they'd met, their first kiss, the way her eyes seemed to light up whenever she spoke to him. Then, her face in the newspaper when he'd first stolen her prayer wheels; the single tear falling, the only evidence of real hurt and betrayal; and the sound of her voice that last, fateful telephone call.
It was so hard. It was so, so hard.
*
Crying didn't solve anyone's problems. Crying couldn't do a thing. Crying wouldn't change the future. Yet crying was irresistible.
Right now, all she wanted to do was throw herself into a dark, neutral corner, just cry it all out and forget everything. All her life Lara had fought against such situations – avoided love. And yet, here she stood; falling hard into the pits of overwhelming emotion.
She'd give anything to erase the past, anything to just forgive those feelings of pride; to swallow what her life had pointed her to and just embrace the future. To hold Alex again and feel his arms caressing her, holding her with that sense of protection her weapons just couldn't provide her with.
Oh, she hated Fate. The one man she hated, could never forgive, just had to be the one she somehow couldn't do without, and this she could not explain with words alone. Alex, in all his shortcomings, was Alex.
Sometimes it's wrong to say goodbye, she thought.
Still there was always just one step or other between them. Perhaps it was the force that made flying leave touch the ground, the force that made clouds form and rain in a clear blue sky, the force that destroyed rainbows and the force that stole dreams.
Lara let herself give in to her tears. Sometimes you just couldn't win.
There had always been an unspoken intimacy between them. The way they felt each other's pain, emotions. It was not that way now. Neither could understand anything. It seemed a lost, losing battle.
There was a slow creaking of springs next to her. Lara looked up, but Alex was already closing the door.
*
Alex climbed down the majestic stairs in Croft Manor, hardly seeing them. All he saw was a single scene playing itself silently through his mind – Lara throwing herself on her bed, sobbing wildly into her pillow as if her heart was breaking into a million pieces. The door sliding shut. Someone would then turn the volume up – through the solid oak, he would hear crying through the door, and her voice, calling his name over and over. He got into his car but did not drive. He did not cry. But in this world, there is a limbo of grief, regret, pain and helplessness that is far beyond tears.
The fifteenth is never a good day.
~*~
A resounding crunch brought me back to my senses, but my mind was still far away.
With Alex. Somewhere far, far away… I missed him so much. It was one thing to part with someone you love in death. It is another to be a simple telephone call away. Not that I hadn't tried. His mother had picked up the phone and told me that Alex was somewhere in Egypt. I hadn't heard from him since the day he left.
"Love. It's all about love. We fight and kill for love – of friends, family, money, power."
"Then how do you explain hate?"
"There is simple no such thing. It is like temperature, Lara. Cold only means
something does not possess heat. Hate means something does not possess love." I
was silent again. I could hardly believe what I had just heard. Yet somehow,
some of it made sense. Almost. He was a raving lunatic as far as I was concerned.
Then why wasn't he dead? My right holster seemed awfully weighty all of a sudden.