Goodnight Kiss

Goodnight Kiss

By C. Mage

The crowd looked on in horror at the monstrosity that dominated the stage, her wings spreading as if shielding the platform. Her face, only barely recognizable as human, gazed out over the stunned throng. As if to spite her face and wings, she still wore the well-tailored suit dress like an executive...from Hades.

"WELL, LARA...WHAT IS IT GOING TO BE? ARE YOU GOING TO DO THE NOBLE THING AND COME ON OUT...OR DOES THIS MAN DIE TONIGHT??" Natla waited, scanning the crowd, looking for the face that had kept her going, kept her alive even after she'd crawled and squirmed her way out from under the rubble of the pyramid, long enough to devour what was left of her guardian demons and let herself heal. "WHAT DO YOU SAY??" she shrieked.

In the last echoes of Natla's words, an answer came.

Lara steeled herself and said the hardest words she'd ever said in her life. "GO AHEAD, NATLA. HE MEANS NOTHING TO ME...HE WAS JUST SOME MUG WHO VOLUNTEERED TO SHOW ME AROUND TOWN. SHOOT HIM!" She bolted back into the restroom, then heard the familiar BOOM of Natla's gun. The sound chilled her to the bones, but she realized that Natla would have killed them both anyway. She clambered up into the ventilation duct. Please, David, forgive me... she thought as she moved through the shaft, wiping the fresh tears from her cheeks.

Jacqueline blinked, surprised by Lara's words and, for just a moment, lowered the gun an inch...and David took the opportunity. He backed up and kicked high, knocking the gun from her hand. As it hit the floor and discharged, hitting two of the fake newsmen, David dove for cover while Natla recovered.

"GET HIM!!" she bellowed, her face twisting from ugly to hideous with rage. "GET THEM BOTH!!!"

The newsmen obeyed, ignoring the patrons as they bolted as one for the main doors. Natla saw them making a break for freedom and snarled, "YOU AND YOU," she said, pointing to two of the newsmen, "STOP THEM!!" That's the problem with speed-grown clones...they're dumber than bricks! Natla thought as they hastened to obey, firing into the crowd, but they were far too panicked to stop.

Natla had an idea. She picked up the fireball gun and blew away three of the main windows of the display area. As she surmised, the museum's anti-theft protection system came on-line, sealing off all exits and entrances to the museum.

The crowd was hysterical now. Herded like stampeding cattle through the foyer, they kept running even as they saw the thick theft-proof doors coming down over the exits. Many of them made it, but the last few were crushed by the thick door.

Natla didn't care. Her Enemy was trapped inside. Right now, Natla cared about NOTHING save the utter destruction of Lara Croft. "Find her! Rip this whole place apart if you have to, but I want her found!! If you find her, bring her to me alive! No exceptions!" She looked around, but David had made good his escape. "And find HIM...I want that annoying little bug FOUND and STEPPED ON. Kill him on SIGHT!!!" she screamed; her madness was likewise screaming and she didn't care who heard her.

All that mattered to her was holding Lara's dying heart in her bloody hands...and the main reason why she'd come to the museum in the first place.

Lara stopped next to one of the main shafts. She was starting to shake at the thought of David burned alive by Natla, hot feelings of sorrow and revenge going through her. Even as she felt her rage, the powerful passions scared her. "I SWEAR, Natla...you're going to pay for David's death! I promise you...!"

"Then Death must be like being trapped in a museum..." came a faint voice to her left.

"DAVID...???" she asked, daring to hope.

"Yep..." he said, crawling around a corner and moving over to her position. "So, what's a nice girl like you doing in a shaft like this?" He would've said more, but Lara stopped him in a most delightful way, leaning over and grabbing him in a powerful embrace, kissing him, unbelievably glad that David was alive.

After a moment, Lara pulled away, suddenly realizing what she'd done and blushing furiously. "I'm sorry..." she said meekly.

David had never seen Lara meek before; it was shocking, to say the least. "Never apologize for your feelings, Lara," he said awkwardly, then his face grew hard again. "In any case, we'll have to discuss this later. We're trapped inside a museum with someone who wants you deader than Elvis. Our relationship will have to wait."

The reminder of Natla galvanized Lara and she nodded, all trace of vulnerability gone in her face. "You're right, of course. Any ideas?"

"Who, me?" David looked down the way he'd come. "We can't leave, which means we have to fight."

"Are you sure about this? I've handled Natla before," she held up the machine pistol, "and I've got this."

"You keep it," David said, countering the unspoken question Lara was asking with her eyes. "I don't need it."

"Those are armed men and women with guns out there, David. Pardon me if I say so, but you'd be helpless against them unarmed."

David turned to her in the dark. "One thing you're going to have to learn about me right now, Lara. I don't do 'helpless'." He looked around. "I think this is the way to the Medieval Room. Come on."

"What do you have in mind?"

"Simple. Problem: I don't have a weapon. Solution: I get one." He turned down the metal vent and began crawling, Lara following close behind.

Two of the clones entered the Medieval Room and looked around, saying nothing. They only had enough brainpower to do what Natla programmed them to do, and beyond acting like reporters, they weren't conversationalists. Even as they searched, they followed pre-programmed routines, flesh-and-blood golems with nothing on their minds but what they were told.

"Hey, boys....!"

They turned to their right to see Lara looking suggestively at them, her hips cocked. "What does a girl have to do to get any attention around here?" They ran towards her and she smiled, stepping quickly around a corner and running down a corridor lined by thick columns. When she got to the end, she turned and said, defeated, "Alright...you win."

They advanced towards her, guns raised...

"Pardon me."

They turned and died. As their heads dropped to the floor, David lowered the claymore he'd used to bisect the two and looked to Lara. "You okay?"

"Right as rain. They don't look so good, by comparison." She studied David. "Was it necessary to alert them first?"

"Wanted to make sure they'd stop. Besides," he smiled, pointing down to the heads with their shocked looks etched forever on their faces, "you get a better expression that way."

"Charming. How many are left?"

"When I counted the ones in the hall, I came up with twenty. Down to eighteen." He picked up one of the Uzis the clones had carried. "The odds, however, are significantly changed," he added with a grin.

Lara picked up the other Uzi. "Now what?"

"Simple." He picked up the claymore and hauled it back one-handed. "Duck!"

Lara dropped instinctively and David swung the sword, hurling it in a wide arc across the room, where it impaled a third clone coming to investigate. She turned, eyes widening, then looked up at David with a new respect. "I never knew you could do that," she said, awed by the skill it would take to throw a blade that huge with such accuracy.

David looked at his hand. "Neither did I. But I guess there's a first time for everything."

Lara's awe took wings and flapped away. "Luck?"

"What else? I don't throw swords as a hobby."

"Amusing. But now we have to get through the next few hours alive." Lara considered. "Holing up in one place won't work..."

"Wait a minute..." David looked around the room. "What exhibits were presented tonight?"

"Weren't you listening? They were Mayan artifacts brought back from the Tomb of Tihocan."

"Yes, but WHAT items?"

"Why?"

"Lara, who did you tell about coming to this exhibit?"

"No one except some of my staff."

"Would any of them have ratted you out to Natla?"

"Not in a billion years. Why?"

"That means that before three nights ago, no one but you knew that you were coming here. Lara, we've got to get to those exhibits."

"Why?"

"Natla wasn't here to nail you. She couldn't have gone to the trouble of growing those clones so quickly, not in two days. She came here for another reason; you were just lagniappe."

"'Lagniappe'?"

"Cajun French for 'extra'. Tell me about those exhibits, the special ones." He moved to the vent again and they began crawling back towards the Main Hall.

Lara whispered detailed knowledge of each of the more ceremonial artifacts as they crawled towards a vent fan, going up to the next floor. "Let's see, there was the war knife, the headdress, the paints, the ointments..."

"Wait. The ointments. What are they supposed to do?"

"I don't know. The containers were the real find, especially the artwork on the sides. Anything that was in those jars went bad a long time ago."

"Are you sure?"

Lara thought about it. "No. We hadn't time to test their contents."

"What if the contents of one of those jars holds what Natla's looking for?"

Lara stopped and leaned against the side of the vent. "Hold on...whew, it's hot in here. I've gotta rest."

"Hot...aw, NO." He felt the sides of the vent. "Lara, we've got to get out of here, now! Natla's turned up the thermostat. It's going to get way too hot for comfort!"

Lara put her bare hand on the metal. "We've got about five minutes before the walls get too hot to touch." She was already sweating. "Where to?"

"I think the nearest vent to the surface is this way." He took off as fast as he could crawl. Lara followed.

One of the clones, one made to look like the host of "Good Morning, New York", walked into the Native American Room, scanning the area and moving the gun from side to side. She turned a corner into the Anasazi exhibit and saw something on the floor...a small black purse. She picked it up.

"YOO hoo!"

She looked up and saw David waving from around a corner forty feet away. "Are those BLONDE roots I can see from here?"

The clone aimed, but David had disappeared around the corner. She ran towards the place where she last saw David...but never got there. She suddenly began jerking around like a marionette with her strings tangled, then dropped to the floor, smoke coming from the hand clutching the purse.

Lara ran out from behind a statue and ran up to the corpse, picking up her purse. "That'll teach you to steal a woman's accessory," she said dryly as David came back around to stop at the clone's corpse. It was already starting to deteriorate.

"How nice...they're not only capable of carrying a submachinegun, but they're biodegradable, too. Remind me to compliment Natla on her eco-consciousness."

"Remind ME to do the same about her little anti-theft device. Of course, I had to modify it a bit."

"A BIT?" David looked up at Lara. "Now I know why the sun never set on the British Empire."

"Thanks. The hall should be this way." She picked up the other Uzi and held one in each hand. "Now I feel much better."

"You would. Come on."

They crept around the corner and looked down into the hall from the second-story balcony. Natla had already picked out the ointments from the display and held one high.

"THIS...." She opened the bottle. "...shall make me as powerful and as beautiful as I once was, before Lara Croft came along and ruined my plans."

Don't forget, Natla, YOU hired ME, Lara thought, but decided now wasn't the time to debate.

She opened the jar and a wisp of blue smoke came forth, wafting around her and giving her an unearthly glow. Natla chuckled, then laughed as she raised the elixir to her lips.

Lara raised both Uzis. David looked down and his eyes widened, but before he could stop her, Lara fired a shot from each weapon. The bullets shattered the jar in her hands, spilling the potion everywhere.

Natla HOWLED in defeat as she saw the liquid spread all over the floor, then evaporate away. She went to her hands and knees in an attempt to lick the potion up from the floor, but it dissolved too quickly. Natla looked up at the source of the shots and saw Lara and David looking down at her.

David dragged Lara back as Natla bellowed, "KILL THEM!!!" the clones hastening to obey. They riddled the balcony with machine-gun fire, chopping the stone away from the superstructure, but the two adventurers had already gone.

"Dammit, Lara Croft, could you have possibly been a little LESS inconspicuous??" David said angrily.

"If she had drank from that jar, we'd be in a great deal more trouble than we are now," she replied, unruffled. They passed a doorway and lead swarmed through the opening; if they hadn't been running at full speed, the conversation would've ended right there. So would've their vital functions.

"Explain that to me!"

"She was difficult enough to kill before...if she'd imbibed, she would've been at FULL strength again, and unless you have a bazooka handy, we wouldn't have been able to kill her."

I HATE it when she makes sense. "Alright, then, now what?"

"Now we run VERY fast!"

"Good plan!" David dove under another hail of death. Damn, that was too close... "THEN what?"

"I'm open to suggestions!" Lara yelled back. They stopped in the Ancient Egypt Room, going into a mockup of one of the Great Pyramids and weaving through the stone halls, losing themselves in the maze. Lara and David stopped. "Any ideas?"

David tried to catch his breath. "We're outnumbered."

"Too right."

"So we have to find a way to take them out all at once...or as many as possible." He leaned back against one of the walls. "Wait...I have an idea. That last clone really went to pieces when you shocked it like that. If I know my bio-chemistry, that means that they must be unstable to some degree, on a molecular level."

"That makes sense. How does that help us?"

"First...we've got to get them all in one place. I need to see a map of this museum..." He stopped as the soft sounds of footsteps came from behind them. "…not to mention get out of here. Let's go."

"Right behind you."

They traversed the maze in record time and exited out the back, taking the stairs down to the first floor and then down to the basement. David led the way as he weaved through the offices. "Where is it, where is it...here we go!"

Lara looked up at the door David had stopped at...it read, "MAINTENANCE ROOM #2."

David jimmied the door and entered quickly, closing it behind Lara and relocking the door. Lara turned on a light while David went to the large filing closet in the back. As he opened the closet, he grinned. "Blueprints. That's the ticket. Alright," he said as he spread out sheets of paper on the large desk in the corner, "where...there. That's perfect. Lara, can you lure the clones into the Main Hall?"

"That shouldn't be too hard."

"Without getting shot?"

Lara considered. "THAT might be hard," she admitted.

David looked pained. "We're only going to get one shot at this...and I don't...." He stopped.

Lara read the rest of the sentence on his face. ...don't want to see me get hurt? "That's very sweet of you, David, but I'm a big girl...and if we don't get rid of those clones, being hurt will be the least of our worries."

"Maybe there's another way..." David turned back to the blueprints.

"There's no time, David," Lara said softly. David looked up at her. "Do what you have to do, David. I promise I'll try not to get shot." She turned and went to the door, peeking outside, and opening it quickly.

"Lara?"

She turned back. "What?"

"Call me Dave, ok?"

Lara smiled. "Took you long enough." Then she was gone.

David watched her go, then grabbed some tools and went to the main climate-control board. "First...let's chill out a bit." He turned down the temperature from 100 degrees to 60 degrees, then climbed up through the main vent.

He had some vital plumbing to do.

Lara moved silently out to the doors of the Main Hall, peering through a crack. Natla was there, alright, and she was in full temper. "HOW COULD YOU HAVE LOST HER!?! FIND HER AND DESTROY HER!!" The clones listened, only knowing fear when it came to their creator. "THERE'S TWENTY OF YOU AND ONE OF HER!!"

You'd better be ready, Dave....!! "Sounds like about even odds to me."

Natla's eyes went as wide as dinner platters as she saw Lara standing by the doors to the Main Hall. Natla's voice went up three octaves as she fanatically shrieked, "KILL HER!!!!!!!!!"

Lara bolted out and closed the doors, feeling them begin to disintegrate under the onslaught of flying lead. She jumped clear as the doors began to splinter and skirted around the giant fountain. There was no sign of David anywhere.

The clones burst down the doors and fired, emptying their clips at Lara Croft. She felt one zip past her ear, then felt one graze her right shoulder. The main stairs going up were just ahead...only fifty more feet to go. Then she felt a spattering of water and hazarded a look behind her.

The flow of the fountain had turned into a gusher, raining water all over the Hall.

A bullet impacted into her side and she slowed, feeling the bullet hot in her side. Another struck her left arm, nearly dislocating it, and a third rammed itself deep in her right thigh. She stumbled, but she'd taken far worse hits before in her career and she ran on.

She made it to the stairs as the clones paused, bettering their aim by standing still. She could feel the blood running down her body, but Lara didn't stop; to stop meant being a sitting duck. "David Connors, where the bloody hell are you?" she called desperately.

"Right here."

She looked to her far right to see David dropping something to the floor...a long cable. The clones turned and looked high to see David at a circuit junction, his hands on a switch. "How about a light?" he asked dryly, throwing the switch.

The lights went out in a ten-block radius around the Museum.

The electricity hungrily reached out and consumed the clones, ripping them apart with about ten to fifteen gigavolts. They nearly blew apart as their bodies were flash-fried by the voltage. Lara jumped clear of the watered area, as the electricity threatened to follow her up the stairs. She rolled painfully to the top level of the stairs as David swung down using the inert part of the cable he'd cut. He landed next to Lara as the circuit breakers blew and the Museum was plunged into darkness. When the emergency lighting came on, he saw the blood running from Lara's wounds. Her eyes were closed.

"LARA!" He began ripping his tuxedo and binding the wounds. "Come on, Lara, wake up."

Her eyes opened and she looked up at David. "Your sense...of timing leaves something to be desired."

"I'm glad to see you, too." David felt himself tearing up.

"Well, well, isn't THIS a touching scene?"

David heard the flapping of wings and looked up, seeing Natla fly through the open doors. "Lara Croft, why can't you just be a good little girl and die?" she asked in a tone a concerned mother might use.

"You...first," Lara gritted.

"Ha ha." Natla raised the fireball gun and pointed it at them. "I had big plans, Lara Croft...now, the only satisfaction I shall have is that though I will have to wait a long time for my wounds to heal, the wait will be worth it knowing that you'll be long since dead. NO, don't try it, hero!" she barked as David shifted on one leg. "You even BREATHE wrong and I'll kill you right now. I may yet kill you, but I may not."

"Bull. You'll kill me, all right. People like you always enjoy their work far too much."

"Maybe you're right. But why risk it?" Natla turned back to Lara. "Tell your boyfriend to step away, Lara...unless you want him to die, too, when I pull this trigger. No last words, no last requests, Lara."

Lara looked up at David. "Dave..."

"Don't worry, Lara...I've got her right where I want her." David looked up at Natla as he stepped backwards. "Just close your eyes, Lara...don't watch it coming."

"Nice words, Mr. Connors." Natla watched as he stepped back. "Put your hands over your head. Now."

David looked at Lara and she closed her eyes, tears of mixed pain and loss going down her cheeks. "Now?"

"NOW!"

"Whatever you say." David raised his arms slowly upwards. When they reached full height, a blinding flash burned from his chest and Natla howled, stepping back as her retinas shut down, overloaded. Even with her eyes closed, Lara could see the light.

Natla rubbed her eyes, trying to clear them. They responded quickly, clearing and recovering thanks to her enhanced genetic structure, but when Natla was able to see, she suddenly wished she couldn't.

Lara was standing in front of her...holding HER weapon.

"Now...let's see..." Lara said nonchalantly, then added in a dark, fury-filled voice, "IS THIS HOW IT WORKS??" She pulled the trigger and held it down.

The barrel spat fireballs in rapid succession, hitting Natla at point-blank range. She screamed in pain as the fireballs set her alight and blasted her through the railing of the balcony! Lara still held onto the weapon with both hands, continuing the stream of hot, fiery death as Natla fell to the floor below. After she'd fired thirty shots, Lara staggered downstairs to the burning corpse and commenced firing once again, blasting the burning body to bits until the weapon overheated, cracking in her hands. She dropped the gun on the remains of Jacqueline Natla and backed away quickly, watching it melt and sputter into slag.

David raced downstairs, looking at the embers. "Remind me to never get you that mad at ME."

"Dave?"

"Yes?" he asked, concerned.

"Are they all dead?"

"Dead or extremely sleepy."

"Good. David...what was that light I didn't see?"

"You mean the flashbomb? Something I had made up for situations like this."

"Do you always carry something like that on you?"

"Do you have any idea how often a mugging takes place in New York?"

"Oh." Only then did Lara allow herself to faint from blood loss.

She woke up in a white room, lying down in a hospital bed. Lara looked around to see David asleep in a chair next to her bed. The sun was shining through the window and the sky was clear and blue.

A nurse came in and smiled. "Ah, good. You're awake. How do you feel?"

"Like bloody hell."

She smiled. "You looked it when you came in. Your friend there had carried you in two days ago and he hasn't left your side since. He must care about you a great deal."

"Oh?"

"Yes...he threatened to shoot anyone who came in to tell him that visiting hours were over." The nurse smiled widely. "Wish I knew a man who cared that much about me. You two married?"

"No."

The nurse looked at David. "Is he your brother?"

"Not by a long shot...and no, he's not available." Did I just say what I think I just said??

The nurse sighed. "Story of my life. I'll leave you two alone." She left the room. The sound of the closing latch roused David and his eyes opened wearily. His eyes were raw and bloodshot. The first thing he did was look to Lara, whose eyes were closed. He sat up, then leaned over to look at Lara.

"Lara? Lara, can you hear me?"

No answer.

David sighed. "I wish you could hear me, Lara. I really do...I've got so much to tell you and I don't know if I have the time. You looked pretty bad...the docs said that your heart had stopped when you came in and that you had very little blood left in your body." He took a ragged breath. "I wanted that night to be real special for us, you know? The first date...and everything went so wrong, so damned WRONG. The only reason I wish Natla had survived what you'd done to her was so I could kill her again for what she did to you. I wanted to tell you...needed to tell you how I felt, but I was just too damned proud to admit it to anyone, least of all myself. I never knew how much I really felt about you until you left me...and I had no one to tell." David blinked, somehow finding the tears to cry again. "I love you, Lara Croft. I really do and I wish I hadn't waited until you were in a coma to tell you. Can you hear me, Lara?"

Lara could, but it took all her resolve not to go to pieces herself. All she could think of was her own pride...and how she'd felt about David.

"I wish...I wish I could have done it all over again. I've lost two women in my life...one to my job and now, you. But I'm not giving up." He got up and pulled his jacket closed. "I promise I'll come to visit you every day," he said as he shuffled towards the door.

"Twice on Sundays," Lara said clearly, her eyes still closed.

"Alright, twice on Sundays..." David left the room. Lara counted off the seconds in her mind. One chimpanzee, two chimpanzee, three chimpanzee, four chimpanzee...

The door BANGED open and Lara sat up to see David standing in the doorway, murder on his face. "WHY YOU...!!!!" he roared, stomping towards the bed.

"Now remember, Dave, I'm a sick woman!" Lara said quickly.

"NO KIDDING!!!!" He reached out for her.

"You wouldn't hit a woman in a hospital bed, would you?" A tinge of fear colored her voice.

"No...I'd STRANGLE her!!!"

The nurse came back into the room. "What's going on...?"

"GET OUT!!" David said, his voice unnaturally deep. The nurse took the hint and left the room, closing the door behind her. "YOU ROTTEN LITTLE...!!"

"Now hold on, Dave..."

"DAVID to you, MISS CROFT."

Uh oh... "Before you kill me, Dave...David, would you hear me out?"

David paused, inches away from her throat, then dropped his hands. "You've got ten seconds...!"

"Alright, David, let me ask you something...if I was up and about, how much of that conversation would I have heard?"

David opened his mouth to retort, but nothing came out.

"Precisely...I wouldn't have heard Word One of what you'd said...and I wouldn't have known how you felt about me."

"So now you can sit there and laugh at me??"

"Not likely, David." Lara's voice grew quiet. "You see, David, if you had never told me how you felt about me...I wouldn't have had the courage to say what I'm going to say right now." She took a deep breath, then went for it. "I've always relied upon myself, ever since that day up in the Himalayas. I've had to be strong to succeed in a male-dominated world, and I guess that I've always had a chip on my shoulder about that. I was always slow to respecting men because they'd always looked at me and saw the body...not the brains or the heart, the real me. I never tried to change my appearance because that wasn't my fault. I wasn't about to change just to suit someone else, so I got into a habit of being a loner, because I thought that that was enough for me."

The ten seconds had passed, but no one in the room noticed.

"But it wasn't. I may have become a strong woman, David, but I was still a woman. I wanted to feel like one, for just a little while. You made me feel that way, David...and I became scared. Scared to death, in fact. You made me feel vulnerable in a way I'd never known, and I hated that feeling. At least, I told myself that I did." She lay back in bed. "Amazing what you'll believe if you tell yourself something long enough...even if it isn't true."

"Lara..."

"Please, David...I need to finish this." She took another breath. "David, I can't help but feel the way I do about you...I can't fight it anymore. But I wasn't sure if you felt the same way. I couldn't handle being rejected...not by you. So I faked being asleep. I'm sorry, David. I never meant to hurt you and you have every right to hate me for treating you so shabbily. If you left right now...I'll understand."

David looked at Lara, then turned around and walked to the door. "Been nice knowing you," he said blandly, and walked out the door.

Lara stared at the door. I can't believe....he just... she thought dazedly, her heart on the verge of breaking.

David walked back in again, his face no longer stone. "Did you really think it was going to be that easy, Lara Croft?"

"David!!" she exclaimed, her heart soaring once again.

"You don't get rid of ME that easily, Lara. Like it or not, we're stuck with each other, because I can't fight it any longer either." He walked to the edge of the bed. "Now, are you going to kiss me, or are you going to keep giving me a hard time?"

The nurse escorted the doctor to the door rapidly. "He was insane, doctor! He looked unbearably angry...I think she might be in serious harm!"

The doctor nodded, opening the door and looking in. After twelve seconds, he closed the door again.

"Doctor...is she alright?"

"The only thing we might fear right now is her dying of asphyxiation, thought it appears she's receiving mouth-to-mouth at the moment." He smiled. "I diagnose that she not be disturbed right now."

The nurse looked perplexed, then understanding dawned. "If you say so, doctor."