A/N: Guest: Thanks! Glad to hear!^^


The rest of the afternoon passes in silence. Both of them head back to his cabin and he takes the woodwork to pass the time in a useful manner while staying available. He knows that Lara will have hundreds of questions when she comes to terms with the situation, and he hopes to be there to avoid any misunderstandings that could hinder them later on.

They already have one, sort of.

On top of his revelation that he has kept his identity from her, Lara hadn't missed his hand signal to the guards and Sofia when they had stepped back into the Valley. The rest of the Remnant warriors had stayed hiding but Sofia had been waiting for them at the front steps of the Observatory. Lara hadn't commented on the event but he could see it in her eyes that she had realized what they had prepared for.

Lara, however, doesn't ask anything and stares at the basket of feathers she is supposed to use for fletching. He isn't sure if she is taking his secrecy as an offense but her past understanding of their ways doesn't support it. Maybe she is just having trouble coming to terms with the fact that she cannot finish her father's work and seek her peace that way. There is no quest to fill her emptiness.

However, in the end, the world seems to be on her side from some perspective because as the evening is turning into a night, there is rapt knocking from the door. Lara nearly drops the feather from her hand by the surprise and follows sharply how he gets up to open the door.

Ion.

"There is movement on the other side of the mountains. Helicopters, armed soldiers," Ion says without bothering with greetings. "We left Argus and Costas to scout the area."

He can hear the chair scrape against the floor where Lara moves to hear the news better, no doubt coming to the same horrible conclusion – Trinity.

"What did you see?"

"About twenty men, and the helicopters left to bring more. Cargo, guns. There was a man and a woman in charge. Caucasian, in their forties or fifties. The men talked about Konstantin and Ana."

"Ana?"

Both of the men turn to look at Lara when she jumps to stand up.

"Ana?" Jacob asks to confirm.

"My father's acquaintance who tried to keep me from coming here."

"It could be anyone."

"With Trinity? – They must have taken her as a hostage because of me."

The earlier conversation comes back to Jacob's mind and it makes everything all the more complicated. There is someone close to Lara with Trinity: as a prisoner or a complicit, they don't yet know. He weighs Lara with hard eyes but the horror on her face and conversation past then, seem genuine. He wants to trust his instincts that he isn't wrong and hasn't taken a Trinity member into his home and showed them a straight path to the Divine Source.

Lara, however, doesn't stay around to wait for him to sort out his thoughts and is already pulling on another pair of pants, throwing stuff into her bag, and grabbing a handful of the new, finished arrows Sofia had brought him this morning.

"You need to stay here, Lara."

"Too bad."

She pulls the coat on herself and steps to face Ion in the doorway. Jacob can see from her stance and eyes that she won't back down on this, that she will go to whatever lengths needed. They have no men to spare on a suicide mission like this, not with her, or with the Gulag. And he doesn't want to let her out of their sight, complicit or not.

His mind is made in the blink of an eye to choose the least bad option because they'll also need all the intel they can get, "Lara – I'll come with you." She turns to look at him, "But I need one hour," a protest is already on her lips forcing him to continue, "I need to inform the villagers and Sofia. We need to form a plan. But we are still faster if we use our paths through the mountain."

She ponders his words for a second but relents in the end. He can't help but think that the press in her country has to have gotten something right to deem her as a crazy one like she had told, because there is no other word for a young woman in her twenties going after well-armed military corps with a bow and some arrows and questioning if an ally is worth an hour wait.


The hour that he asked for proves out to be an optimistic estimate. He'll make it though, but most of it goes to reassuring Sofia than drawing an outline to prepare themselves for the inevitable confrontation. Nevertheless, he has learned to prioritize, and finding the common ground with his daughter is what they'll need the most right now.

All in all, Sofia takes the news like the leader's daughter should. She sets her jaw once he requests her from Alena's cabin and recaps the scout's words to her late at night in the empty village road.

It's only when he says that he'll go with Lara to inspect the Gulag that something changes in Sofia's face.

"Why?"

Her words aren't disrespectful and he can read the worry behind her hard face. He shrugs gently and looks towards the direction of the lake. The answer is in his heart and faith, and putting something so intrinsic to words would never catch the same certainty.

"Kitezh?" Sofia inquiries. He suspects that his daughter finds it difficult to place that Lara hadn't betrayed them and taken the Source based on what their people have learned about the outsiders over the centuries. However, what Sofia is asking for is not something he has for her to give with solid assurances. He hopes that he made some progress with Lara, but the outsider woman follows her heart and head so strongly that her actions are unpredictable and difficult to guide. So, he ends up with a non-answer Sofia can read based on the wry huff she makes. He knows that Sofia harbors distrust because Lara is an outsider, a treasure hunter, and he can't blame her for that; it's the prejudice he has instilled in her and harbored himself for a long time.

"You know, she won't stay," Sofia ultimately remarks and looks him in the eyes to see if he doesn't, in fact, truly understand. She knows his empathy but also lacks the remorse he has walked with for centuries. He never speaks of those things with her, but she is his daughter and sees – sees much more than he would like. He has raised her to be a leader in her own right and she is taking the role when she thinks he is beginning to waver.

And Sofia is right, Lara will never stay. There's too much passion and drive in her to climb the highest mountains and walk to the furthest corners of the world. She has taken the belief that she needs to be constantly on the move, and it would take something substantially historic to make her find her purpose. "I don't expect her to," he answers seeking for neutrality.

"Then why tell her? Why show her our secrets? She isn't part of this war, father."

"I'm not calling her to it."

"But you are letting her in it anyway," Sofia replies quietly, probably to appease her way through his defenses.

His mind battles for an answer. He doesn't want to admit it out loud, especially when Trinity might be on their doorstep again, but they can't continue like this. They will need all the help they can get to have a future and he is so, so lost on how to seek that help from the outside world and that Lara is his only guidance. He is neither ready to admit the pull he feels towards the woman, that she could understand more than just the Remnants' wariness towards her, how easily she accepts his role as the leader and what it requires of him. The memory of Lara expecting him to torture her and how she must have guessed that he had left her to survive on her own in the early days and still she offers him only understanding is too much and all too little for his tired, guilt-ridden soul.

"Yes," he gives Sofia in the end. Despite the unaccounted feelings behind it, the answer is clear in his gut. He has his qualms about his faith – especially when it leads people into his life – but something in Lara links her fate to this Valley and the Remnants, and that, he can accept.

Sofia looks away from him at his words and it's the strongest expression of disagreement he can get from her. She doesn't trust Lara and doesn't want to trust his judgment. He appreciates Sofia's worry for him, and he has a feeling that it's warranted: not because Lara might betray them, but because he is letting her in, and as Sofia says, she won't stay.

"I'll go ask Alekos and Petros to follow you. I'll begin the mobilization in the morning," Sofia tells him in the end and fetches him more arrows that she doesn't let go of until his hand has stayed on them for an extra second.


They travel under the new moon throughout the night. He knows every step around and through the mountains and Lara follows his example faithfully. Eventually, they stop about half a mile from the Gulag in an old cave. Lara's body language makes it clear that she would like to attack before the sun rises and not waste time, however, he insists that they rest and observe the area in daylight first. He makes a small fire to the stove and tries to tell himself that he is just overreacting when he lets Lara go and collect more firewood.

To his relief, she does come back, and with a rabbit.

She has been buried under her thoughts since Kitezh and he thinks that the situation with Trinity isn't making things easier. What he is surprised at, however, is that her line of thought and worry is dedicated to the Remnants – or that someone else could steal the Divine Source from under her nose, he reminds himself wryly. The guardedness from earlier has stayed with her which fills him with the gentle remorse that he has managed to damage her trust in them – in him. "You don't have any firearms in the village?"

Jacob looks at her from where he is sitting by the stove and weighs the question, "No. We had a few weapons from the Soviets by those are from the 70s. Only a handful of them work and the ammunition is very scarce."

She looks at him with a reticent face that tries not to say more than her mouth. "You do know, they are a lot more prepared than that?"

He is aware, very aware, but instead of admitting that he just presses his head down. They have faced unfavorable odds before and survived – that's what they have to believe in.

Lara isn't a believer.

"We need to steal as much as we can. Break their most advanced gear. When we get the first one, it'll be easier after that," she lists her knees drawn loosely to her chest.

"Are you ready for the fight that lies ahead?"

"I've learned," she says shrugging her shoulders. There is no humor in her face and the hardness in her eyes is disquieting. Their past conversation of the Japanese island plays in the back of his head.

Jacob keeps a polite silence before bowing his head in some crude gesture of sympathy that he isn't sure she can read. Attacking an enemy territory and escaping from one are two completely different things. Even out of the Remnants who were born for war, not everyone had been meant to carry such a burden. They exiled themselves, took unnecessary risks, or left their village one night and their bodies were never found. The last time he had seen them walk down the main road or greet him, remained in his mind before he had actively begun to push the thoughts away. Life follows its path and he is just one man. Yet, guilt is a difficult thing to get rid of no matter how fervently one prays and his instincts tell him that Lara is the same – not least for doing this crusade for that woman.

He wants to lighten the mood by joking that she doesn't need to worry for him because he cannot die, but he isn't sure if joking about his identity would be poking a wound that is still fresh and bleeding. "What do you know about them?" he steers instead.

"Trinity?" Lara asks and contemplates her answer at his nod to continue, "Not much. They murdered a Bishop in the London subway some months back. Of course, no one solved the case, no leads. My father mentioned them in his notes, opted to steer carefully and hide to keep his work safe," Lara recites and draws a long breath. "Konstantin is in the lead. Ready to leave his men behind, likes to call the shots. Histrionic to keep his men in line, right-handed, wears a tactical gear that operates as a bullet-proof vest. Can be reasoned with to a certain extent if the goal serves his interests. Easy to rile-up if needed but tries to appear fully in control of himself."

He bobs his head at how familiar the description sounds to the Trinity men he has dealt with in his life – and whom he has outlived. "That's quite a precise account."

Lara assesses him from the corner of her eyes, "I had nearly a minute of conversation with him in Syria. You can learn a lot about a person in that time."


The deployment has been fast. By the time it has taken for the scout to reach the Valley and them to make the journey into the opposite direction, the Gulag is swarming with people. Cargo is brought in at an alarming rate and the soldiers are advancing into the wilderness outside the Soviet installation.

The Remnants that had stayed here are nowhere to be seen, so they have no choice but to infiltrate the Gulag by the information they manage to gather with their own eyes and ears.

"Stay here," Lara whispers inaudibly before crouching her way forward and tensing her bow.

He watches the first group of soldiers suffocate in the poison cloud, and then Lara is already firing headshots. They advance like that building by building and it's their benefit that Lara, too, had memorized the area in her search. He has seen her hunt animals and not quiver in front of the Deathless but these are humans and an entirely different enemy. She is stealthy and he is impressed even if apprehensive of her skills. There has always been fear in the Remnants' eyes when a new generation has been forced to take arms for the first time – fear in front of the adversary is natural – but Lara transforms it into action – if she manages to feel it at all.

Lara's name is mentioned once when two guards ponder if she's already here. They don't live long enough to continue the thought but Jacob's brows furrow at how Trinity is familiar with Lara. She is not someone you could just forget, but the idea that she is connected to this by name makes him anxious. Trinity is rarely interested in the name of its opponents.

Whether Lara sees his guardedness she doesn't mention it. In addition, he takes some assurance in the arrows she wields. Of course, he cannot put it past Trinity to sacrifice their own to gain his trust but from what he can see of Trinity's advancement, they wouldn't need to bother with the infiltration.

When they finally reach the train station, their steps become quieter, postures hunched down, and they both keep tight grips from their weapons. They circle the yard from opposite directions and that's when Jacob sees the woman. It's only a glimpse through the wrecked fence towards the cargo drop area from afar but he immediately turns back to get a better look.

She fits Lara's description: middle-aged, Caucasian woman, with light complex and hair, short, and slightly stout. His hand stills on the knife as he watches the woman double over to cough and how the Trinity soldier puts a worried hand on her shoulder. The woman nods at the man and he can almost read the reassurance from her lips.

It doesn't fit into the actions of a kidnapped woman; someone who plays their part to gain trust, perhaps, but he gets a sinking feeling that it's Lara whose trust has been exploited. He glances at the other side of the yard to see Lara disappear behind a shack and subsequently shoot two more Trinity soldiers. With a foreboding suspicion, he sets to make his own way towards their next meeting point.

He has to call her name twice to get Lara's attention and make her stop and creep to him on the snow. There is no nice way of saying what he saw but they are in enemy territory, fighting for their lives, and with the fate of the Remnants and the whole world on their back, so, he has very little choice.

As expected, Lara doesn't accept his sighting and stays steadfastly against it, "Ana is not one of them."

"Who is she to you?" He asks neutrally as he needs all the information he can get to unfold this.

Lara shakes her head minimally in thought and clips a new magazine to her gun, "She is… After my mom died, she dated my father. And after dad died… She was there. I wasn't happy about their relationship when I was a child, and we haven't always been on the best of terms when I was growing up, but she was… always a person I could go to if I'd need help with anything. Even with this, she didn't want me to go to Syria because she was worried that I was becoming as obsessed with this as dad and she didn't want me to suffer because of it," Lara explains briefly and is almost up on her feet before Jacob grasps her arm.

"How did Trinity follow you into Syria?"

"What?"

"You said that Trinity followed you there. How did they know where you were?"

Lara stares at him frozen in place as if not understanding his question. However, after a second that he uses to check that no one is closing in on them, Lara snaps back into action, "It wasn't Ana. They must have just found a way." The conversation is clearly over at that, and Jacob lets Lara yank her arm free as he gets the impression that there's nothing he can do to make her stay and rethink without using force.

He wishes he could believe her, but his gut tells him that he'll already have to prepare for the moment this situation blows up on their faces. And for the first time, he truly questions how smart it was to take Lara to Kitezh. Even if she doesn't know the exact location of the Divine Source, Kitezh will be enough of a target for Trinity. And he trusts that Lara wouldn't reveal the Source to Trinity, but she could tell about it to a person she trusts or a person that is used as a bait against her. If he had waited one more day… However, the thought does no good to them now, so, he pushes it out of his mind and follows Lara inside the train station.

They are on the stairs to the cellar when they hear a man screaming. They both freeze for the compulsory missed heartbeat when their instincts try to make sense of the sound and whether they are in imminent danger. They don't even take a look at each other before they are already hurrying down the stairs and through the first door that they see, only to come across a security room that overlooks the interrogation room.

His first intuition is confirmed as they see one of the Remnant guards tied to a chair and tortured by the soldiers. Lara signals him to watch out before she begins shooting, shattering the glass, and killing the three soldiers. Two more come from the adjoined hall and meet the same fate. The firefight doesn't last long but by the time they make it to the Remnant, he is nearly dead. Another man's body is still tied to the chair next to his and pouring blood into the already large puddle on the floor. Jacob hesitates the decision briefly but ultimately chooses to act as the interrogators are dead and won't be able to confirm how bad the injuries they inflicted had been. "Make sure that no one sees us," he orders Lara and sets to heal the dying Remnant.

Lara stands guard at the door with an assault rifle in her hands. He can notice from the corner of his eye that Lara watches and listens to his healing and how she gives a double-take when the man opens his eyes and praises him in Greek. He cuts the man's hands free and tells him to escape to the mountains and contact their General. The man is weakened by the blood loss but hopefully able to make it out of here alive. For Costas, there is nothing he can do. He has seen this a thousand times before but still one of his men's bodies, tortured to death like an animal – less than an animal – eats him every time.

He takes the extra minute to release Costas from his bonds and lay him down on the ground with a cross drawn in the air above his body. They'll have to retrieve it for proper burial when and if they get the chance. He had ordered these men here. They all accepted that death was inevitable but still he couldn't fight the feeling that it should have been him under the torture to obtain bits of information. It doesn't come fully naturally but Lara places a comforting hand on his arm and nods at him sympathetically before lifting the rifle for firing and opening the next door.

There are no more soldiers between them and the prison which is a bad sign. Accordingly, when they reach the prison ward, the cells are empty. He can notice the moment of uncertainty in Lara, but she recovers quickly and sets to search for Ana elsewhere.

They manage to clear the main entrance hall to the train station and stop by the man whose eyes have been destroyed. Jacob watches Lara release the man from his pain with a clear shot in the head. "Konstantin," she huffs as an explanation while collecting more ammunition from the fallen soldiers and setting the fuel storage on fire. Whatever fragment they had left of their luck is lost into the smoke because once the door to the courtyard gets blasted with the explosion, they are spotted and alarms ring all over the Gulag.

Lara swears at the sound.

They move faster now, not bothering with stealth anymore.

He almost wants to suggest that they'd escape and come back for another attempt but the steadfastness on Lara's face tells him that she won't leave here without Ana or her own body being thrown to the wild for the wolves.

The courtyard and pathway out of it are manageable but the soldiers that fall to their bullets and arrows had been ready and managed to transmit their location before their deaths.

Soon, they are surrounded and unable to retreat to any direction from the gunpoint as Konstantin calls Lara out.

He can see the grimace on her face before she stands up from behind the crates and he swallows his own sigh as he does the same.

"Stay where you are, and keep your hands where we can see them. We don't want to repeat Syria, do we?"

"Where's Ana?" Lara demands in return from the Trinity leader.

"I can take you to her," Konstantin offers without humility and earns a relieved agreement from Lara who still has her hands up in surrender. "Take the native to the prison and take a team to question him."

Jacob hates to part ways with Lara and let her be escorted out with a group of soldiers but with his cover and her mortality, he doesn't have another option but to obey the order. He doesn't, however, miss the tension in Lara's face at the order but she is desperate to find her friend and establishing a connection to him would only work in their hindrance. Still, he can see from the corner of his eyes that she looks at him briefly.

If he had any doubts of the virtue of her heart, he is free from those reservations now.