A/N: After living and breathing Lara & Jacob plot bunnies, this hit me one morning with one hell of a hammer. The first time I've ever written over 5k a day. Basically, this story is a ROTR-AU where Trinity, Jonah, or Ana never find out in advance where Lara travels to attain the Divine Source. This brings a different storyline because Lara and Jacob's interactions were characterized by the prison scene and the common enemy.

This was supposed to be a longer One-Shot, but it's now chopped to provide little breathers (and to give myself time to write and edit). Weekly updates.

Hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!


She was so close. She knew that she had seen the symbol from Syria before. It had to be in her father's notes.

The floor is covered in books, leads, and papers but she wades her way through them to the desk. She hasn't been home for long, not despite the fact that she chose her father's study instead of the doctor's office Jonah had pleaded her to go to. Her head and shoulders hadn't hurt too bad, and it hadn't been anything she couldn't fix herself and downplay to Jonah. Her destiny is in these damn books somewhere and she just needs to…

"Lara?"

Her heartbeat picks up at the noise and she slams the laptop lid down to shut the light as her other hand looks for her knife. Her mind catches her actions a few steps after, and she is forced to push down the panic that she doesn't want to face, with the mix of shame that she doesn't know how to fight against.

How she always manages to be so unprepared, she doesn't know.

It's only Jonah though. Trinity nor Oni are here.

The sight of him, worried for her, makes her heart swell as she pushes the papers and files into a messy pile. For a second, she thinks of breaking Jonah out of his worry that she is going crazy like the press claims and sharing her hunch to him by including him in her obsession to turn every page on her father's quest – but, something holds her back.

She has had enough people to worry about her and get killed because of it. Her close encounter with Trinity has fortified her fears and she doesn't want Jonah near the soldiers or their weapons.

Panic starts to swell somewhere near her stomach again, but she overpowers it with determination. This is her fight and hers only. She was the one who let her father down, thus she will carry the cross of clearing his name – alone, like she was meant from the start.

They throw heated words, and she feels the guilt of pushing Jonah away, but her heart is set.

Her trepidation proves out to be justified when Trinity attacks the Manor only a few minutes after Jonah's exit.

But they don't know what they are looking for.

A brief but violent fight later she is seeing stars and her throat is on fire from the strangulation, but the man only manages to grasp a handful of papers from the scattered pile before he escapes her and Jonah's blockade.

There is nothing on those, that much she is certain. It's Kitezh and Siberia she is after. And as she watches Jonah shake his head and exclaim loudly with concern on what she has gotten herself into, she makes the decision to safeguard everything irreplaceable, destroy everything else, and head to Siberia in the dead of the night.

Lara's gasp creates a cloud of steam that floats lazily in the freezing air. It means that she is still alive which is a good starting point. And, at least the wind has died down during the night; she can only hope that it stays that way.

She crawls from the hastily built shelter and adds more wood to the fire. The area seems isolated, and she curses herself for falling from the mountain at the worst possible timing. She had been staring at snow for two weeks, but she trusts that her eyes didn't lie and the old structures she had seen had, in fact, been her destination and not a mirage.

She had been freezing yesterday, and her fingers, toes, and face still ache from the cold. Maybe she hadn't arrived prepared enough, skillful enough, or maybe she just doubted herself too much. The whispers are unforgiving, but she sets to drown them out with action, plan: a clear goal that would fix everything.

She would start by building a bow and hunting for food. It is just survival; she was meant for that.


"There's a woman near the old Mongolian ruins."

It isn't what Jacob had expected. Outsiders have been far and between after the Soviets and the demolished railway line. Even Sofia turns sharply at Alekos who stands at their doorway.

"Tell me."

The thirty-five-year-old warrior answers to his request painting a picture of a young, dark-haired woman who had come down with an avalanche the day before yesterday and set rudimentary camp near the North-Western mountains. Jacob brushes the rest of his supper aside and sets outside to give orders. Alekos had already assigned the two other Remnants patrolling in the area to watch after her. It is imperative that whoever has been climbing on the mountains with her must be found.

It's routine by now but it still makes the scenarios run in Jacob's mind. It always starts with just one.

He looks at the village with different eyes when he walks back to the cabin. The towers are still damaged and few of the houses have worn-out tiles and doors they haven't had time to replace. They are still struggling with rebuilding after the floods. Moreover, their numbers aren't what they used to be.

He is worried. Because like the sun rises each morning, so do their enemies always find their way back here. Nowhere is safe. And what the younger ones have told about their travels outside their home, the life out there seems to be moving at a faster pace. He has listened to the accounts of planes, guns, computers, and tactical units quietly. The few books the Remnants have brought with them speak even more worrying tale, and he has spent night after night learning every new word in the updated dictionary. He can only trust in God and his people – to himself, his faith is dwindling.


Petros finds him near the Observatory two days later. His mind aches for more information about their progress but he has had time to develop his patience for nearly eleven hundred years and keep his agitation from the man.

The outsider is still alive and the only one they've found. The avalanche may have buried the others but not even pieces of rope or torn clothes have been spotted. The woman, however, has managed to survive the first night and upgrade her shelter, and even roamed around the caves in the area.

"And then she shot a deer with a bow she crafted herself, skinned it with a climbing axe, and buried the spare meat."

Jacob stares at the lake down the cliff and clenches his jaw. They have had a few explorers over the decades, but they usually surrender to the cold or the hunger in a matter of days or weeks at top. And based on Petros' story, the new woman doesn't have rations with her. He has gotten used to the ones they guide back to civilization and the ones they let slowly drift out of this world. It needs a hardened heart, but he is more tired to bury their own.

Sofia has already proposed to take the next shift at watching over the woman. He knows, it's her way to grow up to be a leader in his footsteps, to take off some of his burden. But, in truth, he doesn't mind the trips outside the Geothermal Valley; the Remnants are safe with Sofia, and he is much happier to risk himself to the eyes and greed of strangers.

Before he knows it, he has claimed the next shift and is on his way to collect his weapons and an extra bundle of clothes for the colder climate.


The woman is easy to find, and he thanks Irene for the update she gives him before heading back to the Valley. He is impressed by the shelter the woman has built for herself, and she is younger – smaller – than he had anticipated. She is different from the usual explorers and thieves that enter this austere wilderness, and most notably, she seems to have done so alone.

She has his interest, and he spends a few days living at the outskirts of her camp, using every bit of information he has acquired over the years to remain unseen.

He learns a lot about her while keeping watch. But none of what he sees helps to squash the mounting foreboding feeling inside him. She always sleeps prepared with her climbing axe, enforces her shelter despite the non-existent materials, and hunts food with unfaltering aim. She is able to sustain the bare necessities of life which means that she probably can't be worn down – at least not in a short period of time.

Moreover, he can only observe silently from afar as the outsider extends her trips and goes through every crevice and cave with such scrutiny that even if the Remnants have tried to remove any evidence of themselves, she finds more clues than thought possible.

It's clear that she is looking for something more than just a shelter or a way out. Furthermore, with the deadly obsession she displays, he is starting to fear, it's not as much a question if she finds the Geothermal Valley, but when. And he cannot let an unknown threat endanger his people.

The hardest blow comes on the fourth day he is keeping watch when the woman goes to venture the caves. He knows about the old bear that lives there, and thus, he follows the situation from a cliff nearby pushing down the worry over the woman. He also pushes down the sickening feeling of budding relief that the decision about her fate might be made without his command.

Yet, because he is who he is, he lines up his own bow, knowing that leaving her to die undefended would also be a decision that would haunt him. And he hates to spill more blood than necessary.

His calmness breaks when he sees her run out of the cave with the bear in tow and how she has nothing else for her protection than the simple climbing axe. These bears are nurtured by the harsh conditions, and he knows that any warrior's chances of achieving a killing blow from so close and not end up dead themselves is improbable. He doesn't even notice how he stands up to see better but the bow in his hands remains unfired as he watches the situation unfold and the woman fall from a small cliff and out of the bear's reach.

He knows that it's not a long drop, but together with the fight, enough to leave one injured. He lowers his bow and waits his jaw tense until the woman limps back to her base camp with blood seeping through the sleeve of her jacket. She is alive but shaken based on how she surveys her surroundings with extra scrutiny for the rest of the evening.

He doesn't sleep that night.


The next morning, the weather is back to normal with heavy winds and snowfall. The woman stays in her shelter until noon, and Jacob almost manages to solemnly think that their work here is done. However, once the weather dies down, she moves to track down a deer and to search yet another cave as if she hadn't nearly died yesterday.

He isn't sure where the decision comes from, but he accepts it out of whim when he follows how the deer elude her today. He knows she has meat reserved for a rainy day, but it provides him with a branch he can use. So, he picks a rabbit from one of the traps he set on his second day, grasps some leaves from a bush, and sets his direction to the outsider's camp.

He makes it look like an accident, like he was passing through this region and followed the smoke from her fire. Her hand immediately extends towards her climbing axe as she spots him, and it stays there when he greets her and introduces himself as a hunter-gatherer from around here.

After awkward, measuring stares, she offers him a place to rest by the fire and he offers the rabbit to her in return. She stays alert and follows closely how he boils the herbal tea from the leaves, and, as expected, he is rewarded by her sharp questions about edible and non-edible plants.

It's only once the rabbit is cooked and he has drunk his fill, that she touches her own cup of tea.

The woman, Lara Croft, asks him about the area and his life here. None of her questions is without an ulterior motive, and the way she watches his reactions keenly only reinforces his assumption on why she is here. To his anticipated disappointment, she confirms the suspicion when he asks her reasoning to be here.

"I'm looking for a thing called the Divine Source that's said to be able to provide immortality. I believe a Prophet and his followers hid it here over hundreds of years ago."

He gives her nothing in return but a story of how only a few people live here in addition to himself and how unlikely it would be that some old artifact with mysterious powers could be found here.

"But it could be hidden," the woman says simply and cradles her cup in one hand, "When I was up the mountains, I saw ruins of a city and lush green colors. – I believe that it's here somewhere."

Jacob forces himself to swallow the tea in his mouth despite the fact that it suddenly lost its taste. "You were up on the mountains?" he asks to diverge her.

"Yeah. Come down quicker than intended, unfortunately. – – The winds are quite volatile near the summit. I made a mistake, the ice broke, and I came down with a small avalanche."

The matter of factness that she tells her story with makes Jacob fight back the smile that threatens to break his character. "Sounds perilous," he offers her austerely instead to gauge her reaction.

She simply shrugs and drinks the herbal tea.

"Is that how you got injured?" he asks and nods towards the bloodstains on her sleeve.

She seems to consider the stains for a minute as if only now realizing that she is, in fact, injured and searches for words on what to tell him. "No, it's… I had a run-in with a bear yesterday," she eventually confesses with some self-deprecation. "Just a scratch," she tells him easily, but he doubts the truthfulness of her claim based on the sad seriousness in her eyes when she averts her gaze.

They talk about the predators living in this region, the weather, and the isolation. All the while, Jacob keeps weighing her. He has met a number of people who have come here after the Source, and he has learned to recognize the different types. She seems too accustomed to her loneliness – independent – to be an army scout. Her openness to the world around her, how she takes in every structure and cache around here whispers to him that she is not part of Trinity either whose members prefer less polished methods. Her lack of heed towards risking herself could speak of recklessness and a guest for glory, but her earlier performance and the bow she has constructed for herself indicate that she is well aware of the risks. In addition, Petros had told him how she had skinned a deer without hesitation or the need for a practice piece. She is here to survive – but what, is still in the dark. Nevertheless, he has seen that before too, it's rarer in people with her skills, but the desperate come here too. And that is what makes him determined to piece this together, because whatever makes her think that she needs the Divine Source to survive, can pose a threat to them too.

At the same time, he wants to make her forget about the Source, scare her enough to make her leave, but understanding her intent is more important, because his intuition gives him only a fifty-fifty chance to be able to break her resolve swiftly – and even those odds are purely wishful thinking.

"Why are you after the fairy tales?" he eventually asks her from the other side of the fire.

She reckons his brusque question without taking offense and tilts her head to the side while staring at the fire, "Because sometimes they are real. – The Divine Source is supposed to heal illnesses, provide a longer life. The effect that could have for the people in need is invaluable."

Jacob watches how animated she becomes with each word but breaks his stare to weigh the wooden cup in his hands. He is a tiny bit disappointed by her fall into the idealist category. It makes him a bit annoyed as well; didn't she think that they – he – hadn't thought those questions too, only to see their emptiness and the imperfection of men. He wants to ask her that hasn't she considered that the Divine Source would have people to look after it and that they would have given it to the world if they could, but she is sharp, and would grasp onto the mentioning of people. And she is just a human; he has too much blood on his hands to judge anyone, let alone based on something as minor as idealism to help the world.

More than that, he wants to test her more, ask her why she is risking herself to do something so selfless, but that would tell too much about his own sharp mind, so he keeps quiet, and sets to get more information, "Do you travel alone?"

There is a look on her face that keeps him occupied for the days to come, thinking if it was a cover-up or just an unhappy memory.

"I had a crew with me," she says nonchalantly, "However, they decided to turn back. I understand," she continues, but he has his reservations if she truly does, "it was cold, we were low on food, and the altitude was unforgiving."

She speaks more to herself than him, and Jacob, once again, opts to stay silent. Sometimes it's the best tactic to just let the opposer speak uninterrupted. And she is a curious mixture of a reserved person and someone looking for social interaction. But that's not uncommon here either; the wilderness and the isolation have an effect like that for the human mind, especially when she has gone through at least two near-death experiences in the course of a week.

Thinking that this is enough for now, Jacob drinks his cup empty, eats one more piece of the rabbit not to invoke suspicions when leaving it all to her, and gets up to leave. However, he doesn't know how to part their ways, "I hope that you find what you are looking for," feels too foreboding even if he is beginning to feel that the Divine Source is not ultimately what her soul desires. "I wish you luck," is out of line with his faked disbelief towards her mission earlier. Warnings would only be met with deaf ears. He could offer her a pointer, false or helpful, and that is the thought he has to fight against the most.

"I wish you a safe journey," he eventually says and picks up his bag.

There is a look of surprised disappointment on her features, but its true meaning becomes evident in how her eyes start to move as if she is going through the conversation in her head and trying to figure out if she has forgotten to ask something of help from him. He sees the acceptance come into her face, and he nods at the thanks and goodbyes that she gives to him.

When he walks away from her, he can't fight the realization of how accustomed she was to people leaving her alone to survive. She can deduce that he has a house but hasn't offered her the protection, not even for a night or two. He doesn't notice how his head droops slightly, but he does feel the sadness and the sympathy the thought provokes from somewhere near his heart. Sofia's look and words before his leaving echo in his head, "We don't have an intact house to spare in the Valley, not after the floods." She has seen and heard the tales of his compassion towards the strangers and guessed that his heart would soften. The conflict twists his guts because he feels very unholy at leaving the woman to fend off on her own. Her injuries didn't seem fatal on closer look, but she had to be in pain nonetheless.


Diomedes takes the next swift when Jacob lays down for rest. They continue to keep someone on her day and night. A few men scout the rest of the wilderness to see if anyone ends up repeating her journey.

The woman continues her expedition unfazed and ventures closer to the Gulag. The only sign that Jacob had spoken to her at all, is how she is a little bit more mindful of anyone following her, how she looks around at the sounds of animals as if expecting to see him again.

It's on the third day since their encounter when Jacob is close to passing the shift to Lydia before the outsider leaves towards the bear inhabited cave. His brows furrow when he tries to piece together what could have spurred the change. Since the fight, the woman has purposefully avoided the area for which he is thankful. But this time, the woman marches forward with her bow and self-crafted quiver on her back.

Lydia looks at him in question when he absent-mindedly nods at her before leaving after the outsider woman. He tried to scare her with the stories of the wildlife here, and he had trusted – hoped – that the near-death experience would instill some healthy fear of God on her but when he has to scramble on the snow not to lose sight of her, he realizes that he might have underestimated her – big time.

Lydia catches him at his cover, and together they watch in silence when the woman whistles on where she has planted her feet on the ground about thirty yards from the cave's opening. She repeats the animal call and when nothing happens, shoots an arrow to the cave. The sound reaches Jacob and Lydia's location only faintly, but he recognizes it anyway as no other arrow makes quite the same sound as the Mongolian whistling arrow.

The woman tenses her bow and when the bear finally appears from the cave, she is ready. Their young adults take months, sometimes years to learn how to track down and kill a bear, and even then, only by working as a group. Here, this outsider is trying the same after nearly being killed by one a few days earlier. And still, Jacob can only watch in silence as the woman's arrows give small puffs of pollen once they hit the bear and he is reminded of her questions over the plants and mushrooms that can be found here. The woman rolls on the ground, ducks, and eventually pierces the voracious and dying bear's upper body with her climbing axe.

Jacob can see Lydia's amazement from the corner of his eyes, but he cannot tear his gaze away from the panting woman on the ground and how she moves to sit with her legs splayed in front of her, visibly satisfied with her accomplishment.

He lets the spruce branch slip silently from his fingers and leaves Lydia to take the next shift without a single word.