Favor

Verb: work to the advantage of

Author's note: Okay, so I'm technically on vacation right now, but made sure to load the doc before I left so I could post it on schedule.

Not much to add here. I've enjoyed the speculation that's arisen in the reviews about how the changes here will affect cannon. I can safely say that those changes are entirely up to the reader. I meant what I wrote in the description in that these postings will only be conversations over beverage. I won't be writing any fight scenes, or fix-fic adaptions to scenes I might not have liked from the original series. This fic is entirely meant as shameless Harry/Lara shipping!

Now, read on as we discover... Lara has a really weird definition of make-up sex?

Time: Post Grave Peril

"My, my," Lara greeted Harry as he stormed in to the café. "Hard day at the office?"

For all that Harry seemed to enjoy poking fun at her various disguises, she felt she was due a chance to do the same. Usually when they met, Harry was dressed casually. It was rare to find him any more formal than a t-shirt and jeans, or some variance of the theme altered for the weather.

Today, however, good Ser Knight was in full armor, it appeared. The duster that she knew was enchanted for protection, his staff, and even from what she could see was either a shot gun or a blasting rod adorned her wizard.

All things considered it was probably to be expected. It had been less than a week since the debacle with Bianca, and reports were STILL coming in. Exact number of bodies, forensic reports, diplomatic reports, calls to arms, requests for neutrality, and demands of alliances had been streaming in to the White Court at a blur so fast even she was having trouble keeping up with them. The pretty but empty headed staff her father so loved to utilize were all but useless at this point.

She had been surprised when Harry had called her to schedule their usual meeting, but was happy for an excuse to be away from the madness. Her wizard must be going through his own organizational nightmare over all this.

It wasn't often you declared war on a species.

"Yeah," Harry grit out, his jaw clenched. "You could say that."

Lara began to reply, when he glared at her, and she blinked, taken aback by the sheer hostility in his stare. She had a second to wonder where it was coming from when he went on.

"It was quite the party. Got to meet all sorts of fun people. One in particular was interesting. You see, there was this vampire of the White Court there. Went by Thomas Raith. Know him?"

Lara went still, as much by habit as intention. She had a brief moment where she wished she could be expressive enough to swear vehemently at her foolish younger brother. Why had he been there? He hated the Red Court, especially since Bianca had tried to stake a claim on his favorite lover, that Justine. More importantly, why hadn't he filed a report if he had been there? Unless he had, and it just got lost in the chaos…

She put the thoughts from her head, and focused instead.

The day had come. She always knew it would. She had tried to prepare for it, but there was no way to anticipate just how or when it would come.

Good Ser Knight had found out what she was.

There was a tightness in her chest that she just barely recognized. It was similar to the one she would get whenever her father ordered her to attend him so he could assert dominance over her and ensure his control of the family. It hadn't happened for a number of years, but she still remembered it

It was dread. Lara had always known this conversation would come, had prepared for it, but now that it was here she was a little surprised to discover she was nervous about it.

"My brother," she acknowledged simply. Harry swore, and the hand that wasn't clenching his staff as though he might use it at any moment slammed onto the table. The noise drew some attention from the rest of the café, but Lara simply glanced at them and indicated they were fine.

"You're a vampire," he accused her. "A vampire of the White Court. A goddamn apex sexual predator."

"I've never heard it put quite that way before," she responded, bemused at his ability to turn a phrase even in the height of what looked like a towering rage.

"Don't you-!" he began, and she could actually see the exact moment his jaw clenched down, when his breath became slow and long. She could see him mastering his anger enough to keep it under control. When he spoke again, his voice was cold and measured. "So?"

"So, what?" Lara prompted him. She kept her posture casual, as though their conversation was just like any other.

"So what is this?" Harry demanded. She could see his mind racing, as he tried to piece together a mystery that he didn't have all the clues to. He was trying to find what he was missing, to see the greater shape of the plot he had supposedly found himself in. He was imagining the worst, creating apocalyptic scenarios in his head so he could prepare for the worst. "Is this the point where you tell me if I don't do what you want you'll out me as compromised? Blackmail me or get me tossed to the Red Court?"

"Saying the White and Red Courts get along because they're both vampires is a little like saying Palestine and Israel are friends because they're neighbors," Lara advised him. The Red Court would claim it's all nice, but they often enjoyed hunting attractive prey, and wouldn't mind making that prey the White Court if they had the chance. "Surely you can come up with better?"

Her tone was light, even playful. She kept it deliberately so, challenging him. He had come here for a confrontation, suspicious of everything she did. If she didn't give that suspicion a route, if she didn't confront him, he would just find everything she did even more suspicious.

Harry was an emotional creature. His first impulses were always to act, to challenge. She needed to goad him, get him to act and challenge. He had to vent everything before she would be able to use logic with him, to disprove his fears and affirm what her actual intent was all these years.

Sort of like hate sex. And hopefully, with makeup sex afterwards.

Which is why what happened next made Lara pause.

Harry went still. He placed one arm on the table in front of him, the other on his staff, straightened his posture, and stopped moving entirely.

It was a common instinct for many supernatural creatures. Lara herself knew this was one of her own tells. She had never trained it out of herself, simply because it was useful. When a supernatural creature went still, it could indicate that they were about to flee, or that they were about to fight, or that they were about to deescalate, or any of a dozen other different reactions. When Lara was dealing with something that went still, it instantly set her on high alert for potential action, just like it did to others when she herself froze.

And now good Ser Knight, a human wizard noted for his passion and tendency to action, was studying her in absolute stillness, and she realized she had no idea what he was about to do next.

It unnerved her. It set her on edge. It made her cautious.

It excited her too.

She pushed down her instinct to start calling on her Hunger. The prey she was stalking was alerted to her, and rather than fleeing, it was instead turning to prepare to fight her. Rather than prepare to fight back, she had to instead seek to change her position, to convince the prey that it wasn't in danger, to let it relax again.

"Why." When Harry finally spoke, it wasn't a question. It was a demand.

"Why what?" Lara asked, cocking her head slightly.

"Why," he simply repeated. Lara had to admit, it was an effective strategy. If he had demanded specific answers, she would have been able to find ways around the questions, would have been able to read him and determine what he was looking for and make sure he could find it.

Now though, he was simply demanding an explanation without providing what explanation he wanted. She had to decide what she would say, and he would be able to judge if that was enough.

"And if I don't?" she asked. He had defined the contest, now it was time to define the stakes. If her explanation wasn't sufficient, would he attack her? If so, she could defend herself, provoke him until he had worked through his anger, and seek conciliation afterwards. If he threatened her family, she could initiate the fight first, leading to the same results.

"Then I walk," he said bluntly, and Lara's eyes narrowed. "I leave. I never contact you again. If I see you on the street, I don't know you. I'm gone."

It was Lara's turn to go still. She did so to prevent herself from revealing what his threats had caused.

A spike of raw panic had jolted her. She hadn't expected it, and was unprepared for it. Her Hunger peaked, refusing to allow him to carry through with his threat.

Perhaps, she mused, she had taught him too well. He didn't know what she wanted, only that she wanted something from him. So, the only way he knew to make sure she didn't get what she wanted was to make sure she never had access to him again.

Lara removed her sunglasses, and braced herself to what promised to be one of the most important negotiations she had participated in in centuries. Internally, her mind raced. What could she say, what could she do, that would calm him down? What would be necessary to keep her prey, to keep Harry from following through with his threats?

She had considered this confrontation so many times, had planned how to steer the conversation, how to overcome any arguments or accusations.

Instead of manipulating a confrontation, she now found herself presenting a case to an un-lenient judge.

Well. She knew Harry, so in that case…

"When we first met," she began simply, "you were unimportant. Completely unremarkable. Barely useful for anything more than a less stressful fast food experience."

Despite himself, she saw Harry draw back in mild offense at her statement. She counted it good, as it was a reaction. Any reaction at all meant she had managed to surprise him.

The best thing right now was simply the truth.

"I did find your manners endearing, but hardly to the point where I would think twice of it," she continued. "You weren't conventionally attractive, though you certainly weren't hard on the eyes either. You're conversational skills were interesting enough for me to put down my book, but I had also already read that book before so it might have just been the novelty that caused me to do so."

His eye twitched slightly.

"When all was said and done, I didn't regret making your acquaintance, but probably wouldn't have thought twice about you and forgotten about you in a few days," she concluded. "Until the attack happened. Despite being a young man and inexperienced in combat, you responded well, aiding me as I defended myself and contributing to the fight. The final gunman, the one you attacked, might not have killed me if he opened fire: I am stronger and tougher, and heal faster than a human. But then again, he might have.

"You may very well have saved my life, back then," she told him. "And I was grateful for it. There are some in our world, even in my Court, who don't consider debts to have meaning. I am not one of them.

"While you weren't the most outstanding man, you were not a lacking one. And you were still young, developing. You weren't part of the Court, or had any affiliation with anything supernatural, that I knew of then," she shrugged. "I became interested in you. I even entertained the thought of taking you as a lover."

"As food," Harry broke in darkly, but she shook her head.

"My Court does not need to feed on every encounter," she corrected him. "And most encounters where we do, we do not feed dangerously. You had no value to the Court and were no danger, so there was simply no need to feed on you. I decided I would take you on as a lover for a time. If you disappointed, I would simply end the relationship, considering the debt repaid. If you did not disappoint, I would have had a companion for a while, one where I did not need to worry about betrayal or agendas. It would have ended eventually, and it would have left you and myself both satisfied."

"But you never did," Harry pointed out.

"Rather, I was stopped," she corrected. She hesitated, but decided if she were to convince Harry of this, she would need to give him more. "At the beginning, I attempted to use my powers on you to entice you. However, I discovered you were protected." She sighed, allowing some of her annoyance to bleed into her voice. "Frustratingly so."

"Protected?" he prompted, narrowing his eyes. His jaw had clenched when she admitted to having attempted to feed on him, but she doubted he would have believed her if she claimed she had never attempted even once. She suspected that he would be verifying whatever she said next, so she continued her honesty.

"Sex is a powerful metaphysical force, Harry. It's the act that creates life, a new soul. During it, if the partners truly love each other, they leave a mark upon each other. When my Court feeds, that mark protects the bearer," she explained. "It harms us."

"And you're just casually explaining your species weakness to me?" he scoffed.

"It is hardly a weakness easily exploited, or too secret," she shrugged. "It must be love, actual love. Love is far rarer than you realize. Your own protection was old, as well. Even back then it was years old. You must have been with them in your teens. You were truly lucky to have had someone like that so young."

His eyes opened slightly as he realized something, before they narrowed again, his face setting back into his mask. Lara attributed that to him having recognized who whomever it was who had first granted him protection.

It wouldn't have been hard. After all, it would have been the only person he had been with for over a decade.

"And so I found myself at odds," Lara continued. "You were someone I wanted, but couldn't have. It has been a very long time since I had found myself in that position. So I decided to simply wait and see."

"You didn't just wait," he accused. "You tested, you nudged. Taking me to Zero, pushing me to Susan. You were waiting for me to slip, so you could swoop in like a vulture."

"True, but I never forced," she countered, leaning forward. "I never impelled. When I lured you to Zero, I did nothing to pressure you, and when you declined further invitations, I never insisted. And the advice I gave you with Miss Rodriguez was not incorrect as well."

"Fine," he growled. "Aren't you just the nicest soul sucking succubus there is?" Lara took it as encouraging that he was starting to throw barbs at her. It meant he was coming out of his cool readiness, slipping back into his more natural anger. It meant he was relaxing. "Until you found out about me being a wizard."

"Yes," she nodded. "When I discovered you were a wizard, it was to realize… that you still really weren't important enough to matter."

"I think the White Council is important enough to matter," he countered her, and she shrugged.

"It's true, the White Council is as a whole. It's true that there are many wizards who my Court finds dangerous, and would take great pains to remove or secure: the senior council, many of the wardens. However, Harry, you, personally, just weren't important enough to matter.

"Most wizards hardly ever involve themselves in the world. They spend their time pursuing their own goals, and are hardly threats if left alone. You yourself were young, only a few years out of your apprenticeship. You had no accomplishments, no prestige. A bit more powerful than most, but still too young to truly be a threat. I thought it unlikely that you would ever be allowed to join the wardens and had centuries before you would be considered for the senior council.

"In the end, I decided that it simply didn't matter, marked you down as mine to prevent any poaching from my Court, and continued on as we were."

"How generous," he rolled his eyes. "And why's that?"

For the first time, Lara hesitated in answering. Finally, she let out a slow breath.

"Because I was enjoying myself."

He looked at her like she was a snake. "What?"

"Because I was enjoying myself," she repeated, before continuing at a slightly faster pace. "I am the daughter of the White King, and a member of his court. Those of the Court are either enemies, or allies of convenience to be betrayed at convenience as well. To trust any of them would be to put the dagger to my throat myself. Even at work before I retired," she scoffed, "I was either a rival or sex object. But with you, I was simply Lara. No expectations, no agenda.

"I was simply your friend, and you were mine. And I enjoyed that. And I wanted to continue like that."

Lara ended her tirade, and realized her breath was a bit short. Her heart was fast as well, as though she had just completed a strenuous exercise. Her stomach felt heavy, as though the coffee she had drunk had turned to lead.

Harry was scowling, but it didn't look angry. It looked pained. He looked away from her and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened him, he still didn't look angry:

He looked resigned.

"And how can I believe any of that?"

Lara's breath hitched. In the end, that's what it came down to. How could she convince him, how could she make him believe her?

Lara had spent centuries as a creature of seduction and manipulation. And she realized at that moment, that none of it had prepared her for how to answer the question she had just asked herself.

She realized in sudden surprise that she had taken this inevitable confrontation too lightly. She had always been certain she would be able to handle the fallout if Harry every discovered what she was.

She realized there was a very real chance that Harry might walk out that door, just like he had threatened, and out of her life.

Her Hunger rose, urging her to take him, to keep him from doing so, by force or beguilement, it didn't matter just to seize him and…

"You said you owe me a favor, right?"

Lara glanced up, realizing that she had been staring at the table, her fists clenched beneath it and lost in thought.

"I do," Lara admitted. She braced herself. This would be the point where he asked her for secrets of her court, or weaknesses of his enemies. Where he demanded things of her that she might not be able to give, and he would become just like all the others…

"Look me in the eyes and tell me that everything you just said was true."

Her eyes widened in shock, and she glanced up reflectively, meeting his gaze as he looked at her with determination...

Looking into her eyes.

The soulgaze began.

She'd heard of them before, but she'd never had one. She'd seldom interacted with wizards. There was that one two centuries ago, in Nepal, but the now Captain of the Wardens Luccio had been aware of her and avoided her, even at the after party. She'd been in negotiations with a ward specialist some fifty years ago when they had built the chateau to see if they could purchase his service for wards, but they had only met through intermediaries and the deal had fell through before they had met in person.

She Saw good Ser Knight.

So young. So young to be so damaged.

Battered, scarred, wounded; that was how he appeared in her gaze. There were shadows about him, something menacing, but it wasn't him, rather something in his past. An enemy. Something that scarred him. And what a scar. There was a mark on Harry's heart, something deep and vicious.

Something that drove him. Something that forced him forward, that compelled him. The scar was what forced him forward, even when it should have been his destruction.

Resolution was what she Saw in Ser Knight. Like a fallen paladin, shamed and cast out yet still committed, she saw his resolution. He would protect. He would defend. No matter how foolish it was, no matter how hopeless, he would never give up, because to do so would allow what had scarred him once to do so again, and he would not abide it.

He would strike down his enemies without mercy, and defend his beliefs and allies without fail or hesitation. Simply because that was what he had decided he would do, and he would not let himself be anything less.

It resonated within her, in a way she didn't understand. But in a way that she NEEDED.

Lara wanted him. She wanted him to protect her. She wanted to be the one who protected him. She wanted to be his strength. She wanted him to be hers.

Lara WANTED him.

When the gaze ended, she felt her breath come in short pants. His eyes were wide, shocked. Brown eyes that she was meeting directly for the first time, and would be able to do so from now on as well.

In the next moment, she brushed the table out of her way. One hand found the back of his head, the other grabbed the lapels of his jacket. She mounted him, the impact knocking back the chair enough that she had to put her legs behind it to steady it temporarily to keep them from falling over for a moment. Once they were settled, she brought them back up.

Her mouth found his. She found it as eager for hers as hers was for his.

It had been centuries since her Hunger had compelled her this hard. It wanted him as much as she did. It wanted to own him, and feed on him, and mark him, and possess him, to take all of him so that no one else would ever be able to…

She hissed, pulling away as a sharp sting of agony permeated her lips. The hand holding his coat came away to brush her lips, wincing at the vivid burns she had there. She felt him embrace her and try to pull her forward for more, but she stopped his head with the hand still laced in his hair.

What… What just happened?

She heard dim applause and cat calls, and realized that the few other patrons in the café were cheering or jeering them. She had mounted Harry, fretting herself against him as her legs wrapped around the chair, pinning him to it, and at some point her skirt had been pushed up past the point of decency. She was aroused, painfully aroused, and she was pretty sure her nipples could cut glass right now. A glance into Harry's equally confused eyes let her see her reflection, and her eyes were like silver discs at the moment.

What… How? How did they get like this?

It had been centuries since Lara had felt this confused, this out of her depth. She was so genuinely disoriented that she didn't even feel the wariness and need to defend herself through violence that usually accompanied confusion.

"Everything I just said was true?" she got out finally before an angry barista accosted them.

*Scene Break*

"I," Lara began, "I must apologize."

"Lara, are you blushing?" Harry asked, staring at her. The anger had gone out of him, just leaving traces of confusion and wariness now.

"I do not lose control of myself like that," she told him, neither denying or confirming his accusation. The proof was damning enough as it was, and she refused to acknowledge it, as that would just add insult to the injury. "I'm not certain what drove me to that. I have no experience with soulgazes, so I don't know if that sort of reaction is normal…"

"It's not normal," he confirmed for her, "but it's also not unheard of. Pretty rare, but known to have happened on occasions…"

He trailed off, staring at her.

"What?" she demanded. She found herself growing slightly angry at him. It was mostly just her blaming him for the complete loss of composure she had just undergone, but she felt it fair as he did have a hand in it happening.

"That was your first soulgaze?" he asked for confirmation. "So I get to say I took one of Lara Raith's firsts?"

She blinked rapidly, and got his innuendo. To her horror, she blushed even further.

"Harry Dresden, if you ever bring this up again, I swear I will make your suffering legendary," she hissed at him. He immediately backpedaled, literally pushing his chair back and raising his hand in surrender.

"Got it. Never happened."

"I swear, I have never been so thoroughly shamed like this," she muttered, angrily sipping at a new cup of coffee that she had ordered and thoroughly tipped for in order to appease the barista. Then she winced as the hot coffee hit her already burned lips.

"Is that… that what protection does?" Harry asked, partially in concern and partially in curiosity.

"Yes," she confirmed, gently dabbing them with a napkin. She should probably avoid any of her family until she had a chance to let them heal. It was considered bad form to make an issue of wounds caused by love, but it might inspire some curiosity that she would rather avoid. Then she realized something. "But it wasn't the old one… it was…"

She trailed off, her eyes widening as she realized. Then she let her breath out, reaching out a hand to hold Harry's. He seemed surprised by the gesture, and didn't stop it.

"Oh Harry," she said softly. "I'm sorry."

"For what? And should you be touching me? Won't you hurt yourself?" he asked, confused.

"It is only a danger if I attempt to feed," she assured him. "And it was protection, but it wasn't your original protection. It was a new one."

"Oh?" Harry didn't seem to get it at first, but then he understood. He took a shuddering breath. "Oh."

Would Bianca have done what she had if she knew that Harry and Miss Rodriguez had truly been in love? The Red Court vampire had thought she would do nothing more than smear some dirt on the wizard. Force him to watch as one of his allies was killed while he could do nothing, or maybe just force him into violating the accords and allowing her to punish him for it.

She hadn't accounted for love. Love was powerful, and dangerous. Love drove people to violence and passion, gave them strength. It made them into fools, and sometimes fools could do what the wise couldn't.

"I suppose now we know the answer to those questions," Lara spoke softly to herself as she mused.

"Thank you," Harry interrupted her thoughts. He looked pained. "For confirming. I had believed, but it's good. Knowing."

"Of course." It was cold comfort, to know that what the two had really had been love. Lara already knew that Miss Rodriguez had left the city, and judging from the resignation from her job and the posting of her house for sale Lara had assumed it was a permanent relocation.

But not before she had bestowed upon Harry yet ANOTHER protection.

It was official. Harry Dresden was the worst enemy of the White Court: a serial monogamist.

"Have you ever lost someone like that?" Harry asked.

Lara hesitated. She had never spoken of it. Never. There were a few who knew. But they never brought it up.

"Yes," she found herself responding even as she hesitated. She opened her mouth to continue, and Harry cut her off.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Forget I asked."

She looked at him, surprised at his tone. He didn't meet her gaze, staring at his cup quietly.

"I was younger than you when we first met," she found herself saying, and for the second time that day she had no idea why she was doing what she was doing. Despite that, this time she pressed on. "My father was a landed noble at the time. He… the one I lost was a Romani, a gypsy, simply traveling through our lands. We met in the market when he tried to pick my attendant's pocket."

"Sounds like a rocky start," Harry prompted her, but she barely heard him. Now that she was speaking of it, it was as though a damn had broken, and the words just kept coming out of her.

"I pardoned him, and offered him alms, which he took, then he stole a piece of my jewelry without me noticing until later. I was furious, and snuck out of our houses to get it back. Instead, I ended up coming across their caravan in the midst of a celebration, and was drawn into the festival. Before I knew it, I was rushing home, trying to beat the dawn after dancing with him the whole night. It was when I got home that I realized he had stolen another piece of jewelry."

She laughed softly to herself, wondering just how long it had been since she had really thought about him. About her foolishness, as a child.

"I snuck out again, just as determined to retrieve my jewelry. And then again. He was a disreputable rogue, and before I knew it I was quite thoroughly in love with him. He asked me to marry him, to abandon my family and run away with him. And I agreed."

"What happened?" Harry's voice brought her out of her thoughts, and she glanced up at him, seeing him leaning over the table and studying her intently.

"My father found out and had the whole caravan killed." Her story's conclusion had been a sudden one. She only learned later that her father had been aware of her trips, and had ignored them. He had hoped that she would be seduced, and that her Hunger would be awoken. It wasn't until it appeared that she might actually be in love that he had moved, and killed her future husband. He had chastised her for endangering her purity, and in a rage she had promptly lost it to one of the house servants in a fit of spite.

And just like her father had planned, it had awakened her Hunger. He began training her shortly after.

She jumped as something pulled her from her thoughts, and she looked to see that Harry had cupped her hand, which she was surprised to realize had still been holding his, with his other.

"You're dad sounds like an asshole," he told her. She laughed helplessly.

Her father was the King of the White Court, close to a millennium in age, ruthless and vicious, a power that stood on the stage with the other great powers in the world. And he frightened her.

And yes. He was an asshole. Just one she could do nothing about.

"You know what we need?" Harry asked her, and she shook her head. "We need to get drunk."

"It's two in the afternoon," Lara pointed out, and he nodded seriously.

"Gives us plenty of time to work with," he pointed out. "I mean, if we're going to do it seriously, we'll need to practice enough to get it right."

"Harry," she began, trying to be reasonable, when she stopped and considered it.

What did she have waiting for her back at the chateau? An endless litany of paperwork? Ever growing piles of diplomatic correspondences, some of which directly contradicted the previous ones received as alliances shifted and changed? A pretty but worthless workforce which could, maybe on a good day, be trusted to tie their shoes with someone reading the written instructions to them?

"Zero isn't open yet," she pointed out, and Harry gave her a dry look.

"Lara, with what I know now, I can safely say that I will probably never go to that club with you recreationally ever again."

She really wanted to be offended by that, but she had to acknowledge his concerns as valid.

"No, I know a place. You ever been to Mac's?" Harry stood up, pulling her up with him by her hand as he did so.

"The place who where you claim their beer is better than even our club?" she raised an eyebrow. "I suppose it's time to see if you're claim of their quality is challengeable."

*Scene Break*

It was many hours later when she made it home. She was, to her somewhat enjoyable surprise, quite thoroughly plastered.

Mac's ale really was as good as Ser Knight had claimed. If anything, he had understated its sublime taste.

She recalled, blearily, trying to convince the taciturn brewer to agree to a contract for Zero. Maybe? And then there was a tirade at some point that she had unloaded on Harry about working conditions in a patriarchal family run business environment as a female?

At one point, she was fairly sure Harry had an equally spirited diatribe about how useless Madeline was, though Lara knew for a fact that the two had never actually met. It didn't stop her from agreeing with him enthusiastically.

She was sixty percent sure she hadn't molested him in the cab when she was dropping him off at his home. No burns on her hands supported this surety. In fact, she was fifty five percent certain that at no point at all she had even came on to him.

Well, forty five percent certain anyway. Her Hunger was acting up quite often lately.

She recalled making sure he had gotten through the door, though even drunk she had enough common sense not to get too close to his wards.

She may or may not have seduced the cabby on the way back though.

Now, stumbling through the front door of the chateau, carrying her heels in hand and walking in her stockinged feet, she hummed a song she hadn't heard since the 1890s.

"Wow," a voice interrupted her as she entered the main hall, wondering if she was ready for bed or if a nightcap just might be necessary. "Damn, sis. If you were planning a night out, you could have invited Justine and I."

"Thomas!" she exclaimed, uncertain if she was slurring and finding herself not caring. "My favorite brother!"

"Aren't I your only brother?" he asked, before freezing as she gave him a generous hug. He didn't notice when she stole his cup. She wasn't certain what was in it, but it was Thomas she was talking about, so it was probably strong.

"Er, okay," he said slowly. "This is… unusual. Er, anything happen today? Weren't you meeting with that long term target of yours? Did… something happen?"

"Oh, there was quite a breakthrough," she declared. "I shall have to file a report. Later. Tomorrow. Don't we have people to file those for us?"

"A… good breakthrough?" he asked warily.

"Yes," she nodded, missing her mouth when she tried to take a sip, but finding it on the second try. "Quite good."

She dismissed the look of horror on Thomas face. It was only a drink, the big baby. If he was that upset he could just go get a new one.

Lore Note: Alright, where to even start on this? I took a LOT of liberty with Lara's past here. To be fair, Lara's past is almost completely unexplored in the original series. I spent like an hour hunting and researching, and not even the series timeline on the official website talks much about Lara (I mean, even Sue gets a post on it, but Lara? Nothing). Lara having a husband is cannon, yes, and she mentions her stage name is based around that husband. From there, I decided to role with it. The interaction between Lara and her fictional husband is spun out of cloth, but I think the cloth fits. I based her childish innocence around how Inari, using the youngest sister as an example of how Lord Raith raised his daughters until the hunger hits them.

The part about Lara never having a soulgaze before is also a liberty. In the series, she does soulgaze Carlos, and seems okay with it, but since there's no specifics, I decided to have Harry being her first solely for the narrative addition of Harry's 'Stealing Lara's First' joke.

Lara getting embarrassed by her actions IS cannon. The one time in the series that Lara blushes (that I can remember offhand) is in White Night after the explosion in the Deeps when she accidentally tries to eat Harry and gets embarrassed by it afterwards.

The soulgaze itself... well, Butcher treats soulgazes kind of loosely in the series. When he soulgazed Marcone, he saw him as a tiger, but when he soulgazed Molly he saw her as a collection of possibilities. When he soulgazed the squid, he saw lovecraftian horror. When Carlos soulgazed Luccio, he just saw that she was Luccio.

My take on that is that the soulgaze is kind of a 'see what you need to see' type thing. What you're looking for when you soulgaze is what you find (albeit only the truth of what you're looking for). In this case, Lara and Harry were BOTH trying to see whether they could truly trust the other, and thus they saw what they needed to see in order to know that answer.

The scar that Lara saw on Harry is meant to be poor Stan. In Ghost Story, Stan's death was revealed as probably the most impactful developmental moment of young Harry's life. His defilement haunts Harry's subconscious, even if Harry can't properly remember it until he's dead. Lara's reaction to the soulgaze is also a cannon reaction. When Molly and Thomas soulgazed in Changes, well, they just about did something stupid too.

What Harry saw? Well, that will come up.

And as for the final scene, like I said. #LaraClosetPartyGirl