Godavari - You are forgiven. ;-) I hope your summer has been nice.
Lara-is-my-rolemodel - Thanks for the review. :-) I love Bryce. Hee Hee.
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I stayed up until gone midnight that night, sitting on my window seat in the dark, trying to find some direction. A shaft of moonlight cut across the room, falling on my upper arm and highlighting a scar. A lot of memories came with that scar, and regret. Too much regret.
The two elements that had been haunting me since I had learned of Eckhardt's death floated around in the forefront of my mind, keeping me awake. The top and bottom of the problem was that I had let both myself and my father down by not killing Eckhardt myself, and that the utter lack of purpose left in my life in Eckhardt's place scared the hell out of me. I sighed, letting my arm fall across my knee from where my hand had been rubbing my forehead, and dropping my head back against the wall. If I could just get some idea, some suggestion, of what to do next, maybe I wouldn't be dwelling on Eckhardt so much. He was dead and gone, and that was it. I would never get another chance to kill him, I needed to get over it and move on with my life. Eckhardt was dead, my father was dead, I had screwed up with both and it was far too late to fix either.
I sighed again, standing wearily and moving to the bed, where I fell onto the covers and buried my head in my pillow, seeking sleep.
I dreamt that night, strange hybrid dreams of memory and imagination, with the core true to memory but the surroundings and settings wrong, mixed up, and I wasn't seeing it through my eyes, I was watching it from afar.
"You're leaving?"
"Yeah, dad, I'm leaving." My arm stinging, bleeding, injured in a brutal training session that had been the last straw.
"Eckhardt is rising, he'll be coming soon."
"And the Lux Veritatis will deal with him a whole lot better without me around."
"We need you."
"Really? Do you?" My voice ringing in my ears angry and sarcastic. "Well that's not the impression I've been getting all these years." My father's eyes, hard and unreadable, his voice silent. "Not good enough. Try again. Focus. Concentrate. Try harder. You will not give up. JUST DO IT!!!! No matter what I did, I was never good enough for you. Not once did you tell me that I was doing ok, that I'd get there in the end."
"But you did."
"No thanks to you!" Shouting now, my face in his, my finger jabbing. "Did I ever reach your standards, Dad? Does this reach your standards?" My arm thrusting toward the door 20 feet away, my mind focusing in what has become second nature under years of trying to satisfy my father, the oak entry doors to the Order house being thrown open so hard that they fall partially off their hinges and lie akimbo at awkward angles, cowed under my mental strength. Me, leaving. And never looking back. Until that phone call.
"Kurtis?"
"Dad. What do you want?"
"I need your help."
"Really?" Incredulous.
"Come back to America."
"You want me to desert the Legion? That, that's funny. Didn't you always stress loyalty and commitment?" Sarcasm, a cutting remark meant to go some way for paying him back for all the times he'd cut me.
"The Order is dying, Kurtis. Eckhardt is coming. You have to protect the shards."
"Why can't you?"
"I've already come too close to him, rescuing one of the shards when he killed Counsellor Creagh for it. He knows I have two now, and he has one already. He's coming, Kurtis. You have to protect the shards."
Silence. I'm torn.
"And you have to protect your mother."
A clunk as I put the receiver back in the cradle. A minute passes as I do nothing, just standing. The receiver is picked back up again. Rustling as I search for a number in the phone book. A number being dialled and then an answer at the other end.
"Bonjour. Quand le premier vol disponible pour les Etats Unis, s'il vous plait?"
That was all I could remember when I awoke the next morning, but from my weary state, I guessed that a lot more had played out than just that. I sat up, bending my legs to my chest and rubbing my hands over my face in an effort to wake myself up.
Damn my father.
'And you have to protect your mother'. That comment had caused me more grief since it had been said than anything else in my life. The clinching comment, the one thing that had made up my mind and persuaded me to abandon my friends and comrades in arms to go back to the Order that had never done me any favours. The sentence that had hinted that my father was resigned to being murdered, and the words that had hinted he cared and trusted me enough to make sure that mom got out alive. The trouble was, I could never work out which of those it had been. A carefully crafted comment to draw me in and get me to do what he wanted, or a plea for help for the family that just happened to coincide with getting the Lux Veritatis' work done.
My face still in my hands, I let out a long shuddering breath and dragged myself out of bed, looking to forget everything in morning small talk with Lara, Bryce and Hillary over breakfast.
Ten days passed. I had physiotherapy every other day and improved rapidly. I lost the need for crutches, and Lara thoughtfully spent the time and money to send them back to the hospital in Prague that had given them to me. Bryce and I developed our friendship based on a mutual admiration of Lara, Hillary kept the proper distance but did see fit to confide in me about all the household wrongdoings Bryce had been up to, and Lara and I let our relationship stand still. I had taken a big step by talking so openly in the woods with her, and that was plenty of opening up for a while. Nothing more of note was said until the afternoon of the eleventh day.
I was in the hallway working on a puzzle box that had been taunting me since my arrival. It had sat there on the table challenging me every day but until now I hadn't been able to wipe the smile that I'm sure it would have had on it's face had it had a face, because I hadn't been able to stand for long and I hadn't wanted to take it away into a room to sit with it, out of respect for Lara. Today, however, was the day I would shut it up.
I was close to doing so, the box resting on the table and reluctantly yielding to my searching fingers, when Lara came and stood next to me.
"Kurtis."
"Hey, Lara," I greeted absent mindedly as I continued to show the box who was boss, picking it up fully to examine the bottom of it.
Lara spoke, but I didn't hear her, too engrossed in my personal battle.
"Huh?" I said, glancing up for a second.
"You could stay here. Move in. Until you get yourself sorted out. We could work together - we made quite a team before."
That time I heard her, and it certainly got my attention. I put the box back down on the table, where it sneered at me, and looked at Lara, not quite knowing what to say.
"Lara, I don't know…"
"Well, you're welcome," Lara jumped in, gabbling quickly in a manner that suggested that she wasn't entirely comfortable with the turn the conversation had taken, "and you said that you didn't know what else to do."
Oh, Lara. Had I really given her the impression that I wanted to stay with her? I sighed and turned away from her, not wanting to face her as I let her down.
"I'm not sure that's a good idea."
"Why not?" Lara moved towards me and I spun back to face her, suddenly angry with her, angry that she couldn't see why and that she was asking something of me that I just couldn't give.
"You want me to stay because you're scared to be alone." My voice was raised and I was sure that my body language was threatening.
"I'm sorry?" Lara looked taken aback, confused.
"You're afraid to go back into danger alone, and you want me around to look after you."
"Kurtis, we made a good team! I just thought that since - "
"You just thought that you could solve everyone's problems by partnering up with me." I was suddenly calmer, tired almost, and I realised that had just lied to her, and in the process probably hurt her. I turned away again, speaking in a quiet, apologetic tone. "I'm sorry, Lara, I can't stay. And you need to start trusting yourself again."
I left then, walking outside and moving off down the garden, leaving Lara behind. I walked fast, feeling the nagging ache in my stomach that came when I moved too harshly but ignoring it in my anger. It wasn't Lara's fault that she'd hit a nerve with me, and all the same I'd taken it out on her and given her some half-truth about only wanting me around to make herself feel better.
I honestly believed that she was feeling some reliance on me, it would be only natural after her experience in Egypt being so closely followed by another life endangering mission in which she'd had back up. She didn't, however, need me. She'd probably asked because she thought that I wouldn't be opposed to the idea, and she liked the idea of having a partner for a while. It had been an innocent proposition, and I had gone and blown up over it. It was just that it made me feel so lonely.
I had always felt lonely - from my father keeping his distance, to my time in the Legion, to going out to track down Eckhardt, fighting supernatural occurrences wherever they happened to crop up along the way. I was just one of those natural loners who yearned for something more that they knew deep down would just leave them feeling trapped. Sitting on the same log that Lara had counselled me on only days before, I sighed as I stared out over the deserted wilderness falling away beneath me. A light breeze ruffled my hair and a few leaves picked up by the wind fell on skewed paths through the air around me.
"Damn you, Dad," I whispered.
The air was strained between Lara and I for the rest of the day, but we didn't avoid each other. In an effort to make reconciliation, I actually made an effort to be around her, but I barely spoke. Apologies weren't my thing. Lara either didn't notice the subtle olive branch, or didn't want to take it, because the air was still tense when she left the TV room that evening to attend to Bryce and didn't return, going straight to bed afterwards.
I decided as I made for my own room that I should really talk to her, and knocked lightly on her door, half hoping that she was asleep and wouldn't hear me. Perhaps fortunately she did hear me, and called for me to enter.
"Kurtis?" she asked as I stuck my head around the door. I moved into the room in answer and closed the door behind me. It became darker, and I was grateful for the cover of shadows in what was sure to be an uncharacteristically open conversation for me. I seemed to be having a lot of those lately. Croft's fault, I thought to myself grouchily.
"I shouldn't have yelled at you earlier. Sorry," I said, staring at my feet.
Lara smoothed out the quilt, inviting me to sit down, and I accepted, balancing on the end of the bed. "No," I said as Lara reached for the bedside light, "leave it." I wanted the dark.
I stared at the wall, my eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness. Beside me, Lara shifted closer to me.
"I'm not sure it's a good idea for me to stay," I began carefully. "I can't just settle into a partnership with a normal life for a backdrop. Friends, domestic harmony - it isn't me."
"It doesn't have to be like that," Lara said, her tone suggesting that she understood. It gave me the courage to fall a little deeper in the conversation and get a little more honest.
I turned to her, drawing my inside leg up onto the bed and resting my hands either side of me. "Lara, have you seen yourself here? You, Bryce and Hillary are this close," I said, gesturing. "Hillary's like some adoptive father to you, you and Bryce are like something out of - of - Moonlighting! I can't live like that, I can't." I paused and took a breath, holding her eye contact as I searched for what I wanted to say next. "I'm a loner, I don't have friends, I can't, I just - " I didn't know what else to say, and my body sagged.
"You seemed to settle in quite well these past three weeks. You call joining in a tickling match being a loner? You've watched me train, joined in dinner conversations, teased Bryce with more skill than I have, passed evenings in front of the television with us. You might like being alone, but you don't hate company, Kurtis." Lara's voice was soft, unjudging.
I sighed and leaned forward, leaning my elbows on my knees and running my hands through my hair tiredly. It was hard enough sorting out my feelings myself let alone trying to explain them to somebody else.
"I just don't think I'll ever be able to set down in one place. I want to, but I don't think I can. I look at people with wives and girlfriends and friends, talking and laughing in clubs, whilst I'm sitting in the shadows and smoke in a corner, watching someone I'm following, or waiting for a contact to show, and I want what they have, but I don't think it's me."
"Kurtis, you don't have to be a social butterfly who's the life and soul of the party and who can't step outside without seeing a friend," Lara said sympathetically, taking my hand. "Some people aren't like that. I'm not. What you can do is stay here, with us. You can still go out on your own and sit in clubs stalking people, you can still stand around on docks smoking cigarettes completely indifferent to the life threatening situations happening to the people around you," she said, making me laugh, "but you can always return here to an evening meal with friends and a night in front of the TV making fun of bad films." After a pause, came, "You said you'd be there for me. Are you going to go back on that promise?"
She was really keen for me to stay, that much was obvious, and my manner became curious as I stared up at her through my fringe. "Why are you so desperate for me to stay?"
Straight away, she answered. "I've never met anyone so similar to myself."
"Not even Alex West?" I teased, suddenly feeling more like my old flirtatious self again. Lara had made me feel truly wanted, and it had taken away all the worry.
"How do you know about him?" was her answer, genuinely thrown.
"I asked Bryce who the guy in the picture was. The one in his trailer with the darts in it."
Lara sniggered, and for a moment I didn't quite understand why, but then I realised that she must not have known about Bryce's sport, and I found myself laughing with her. Giving her hand a squeeze, I stood to go, still grinning in amusement.
Closing the door behind me, I stood for a second wondering just what was going on with me. That was definitely the first time I had come out of a woman's room in the middle of the night with the situation behind me entirely innocent. She had a weird effect on me, that was for sure. If I could just find out what made her tick…
Kurtis' question in French translates as, 'Hello. When is the first available flight to the United States, please?' In case you're unfamiliar with his history, the buzz on the internet is that he spent time with the French Foreign Legion.