WHERE ARE YOU NOW? by Chirugal
Disclaimer: Characters created by Core but now owned by Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Interactive…
Rating: PG… there's a gun in there, you know!
Author's Note: Set three months after AOD, just a stand-alone.
Lara Croft sighed and rubbed a hand over eyes that felt as though buckets of sand and grit had been poured into them. It was four in the morning, and for yet another night in a row sleep evaded her.
And the cause of her insomnia? Man trouble.
It was laughable, really. She was a grown woman, not a love-struck teenager. Unfortunately, her heart didn't seem to realise that. As much as she hated to admit it, since Kurtis Trent had flitted briefly through her life and vanished without trace, Lara had been battling loneliness.
But what could she do? He was gone – long gone. Despite the connection she'd sensed between them, all they'd done was rub each other up the wrong way. Men and Lara didn't mix. I'm better off alone, she told herself. Nothing and nobody to restrict me, that way.
Since that fateful week, almost three months ago, she'd been to Greece, India and Italy, reluctant to retire to her home in Surrey. Now she was back at Croft Manor, her thoughts had finally caught up with her. On her travels, she'd catch a glimpse of a sweep of dark hair, a masculine mouth twisted in a sardonic half-smile, a pair of broad shoulders beneath a shoulder holster. But at second glance, the holster would be a pair of braces, the smile would be fake, the hair too long or short. Nowhere had she seen the intense blue eyes she sought, as desperately as she had wanted to.
Where was Kurtis? What was he doing? Was he even alive? The occasional hum of his weapon on her bedside table answered in the affirmative to that. She even held out hopes that he was telepathically tracking it, and one day it would lead him to her.
The thought that she would never see him again bothered her more than she'd care to admit. She needed closure… just to say goodbye, if anything. She functioned as normal, quietly staying out of the limelight and the scrutiny of the still suspicious authorities, but in the corner of her mind, the unsolved mystery of Kurtis' whereabouts bit with tiny teeth at her brain.
She was jolted from her musings by a soft thump, and she sat up, hand groping for the .45 she kept under her pillow as she snapped on the light. Kurtis' weapon had fallen to the carpet, triggered by a vigorous bout of shaking, and now lay there, suffused with a golden glow. Laying the gun to rest in her lap, Lara reached down for it, her heart somersaulting. Is he nearby? Her fingers grazed the warm metal, and jerked back as the blades that had stayed sheathed for all these months shot out, almost taking off her hand. The weapon rose into the air and shot across the room… straight to the hand of the figure sitting on the windowsill.
Kurtis Trent inspected it for a second before clipping it to its place on his belt and turning azure eyes on Lara. "Wondered what had happened to that," he said casually.