1- The Notebook

CROFT MANOR, SURREY, 10 MONTHS LATER

"... The police investigation into the Paris murders thus ends with the trial of the man found guilty of the murders of nearly seventeen people, many months after the end of the carnage…"

"... Additional overwhelming evidence has been found in the city of Prague, which should also warrant a conclusion for the trial of the man accused of the Monstrum murders…"

"... Lady Lara Croft's trial, which took place only a few days ago, therefore saw her acquitted of any involvement in the events that occurred in the French capital…"

She grabbed the zapper and turned the TV off.

"I also heard enough for today", Winston told her gently.

She turned to the old man and gave him a weak smile.

"I guess this is what is called the price of success."

The young woman stared vaguely at the black screen in front of her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the daily newspaper on the coffee table, a big portrait of herself covering its front page. A large caption in thick black print read 'THE TRIAL OF THE YEAR'. As if he had come to realise he had made a mistake, Winston approached to take it away from the woman's gaze, when he realised it was already too late. He gave her a sorrowful smile.

"Thankfully, this whole story is behind you now."

Lara sighed.

"I don't know…"

She suddenly got up from the large sofa and went to the window to look outside, worried.

"This man…"

Winston took away the newspaper from the small table and wedged it below his arm.

"He was a murderer."

"He was a simple criminal who was in the wrong place at the wrong time", Lara answered sharply.

"But a culprit had to be found. People needed a culprit. He will pay for all his other crimes. And the real murderer has been defeated for good, and as long as you know this, this is the most important thing."

The butler paused. Lara observed his white hair which was combed backwards, his tie knot perfectly adjusted. She crossed his piercing, yet reassuring and peaceful, gaze.

"Things are never quite right in life, Miss."

She turned back to the window, a weary look in her eyes. She stayed quiet, crossing her arms on her chest and leaning slightly against the wall.

"Werner would have liked knowing you're safe and sound now."

Lara just sighed, again.

"I guess…"

The images of the last minutes she saw him alive came back to her mind, replaying again and again as they had done for the last months now. She remembered the blood on her hands, and the fear she felt, all over again. The coldness in her own tone and the anger.

She wished so badly that those images would have disappeared with the explosion in the Strahov, and all those nightmares that kept coming at night too. She wished all those memories would have disappeared with the Sleeper, Eckhardt and Karel, thus erasing the weariness. She knew she would never be the same again from now, just as when she had come back from Egypt.

Her gaze got lost in the waters of the fountain in the manor's courtyard. She observed the lapping of the waters, which undulated within the fountain. The weather was beautiful that day and the reflection of the sky gave a bright blue colour to the pool, almost crystal like, just like...

"Still no news from him, Miss?"

Lara stayed quiet for a while, as if she was studying the question in her strong inner self. The valet kindly observed the young woman and her tired features.

"No", she simply answered in a whisper, looking impassively through the window.

Lara cleared her throat and suddenly got away from the window, as if waking up from a dream. She crossed the large living room, walked past the butler, and disappeared into the corridor. The old man followed her to the doorstep. He watched her disappear behind the entrance's main staircase.

"I'm going down for some training!", she shouted without turning back.

She had gotten up at dawn. She preferred the cold of the early morning to train these days, although they were a rare occurrence as England was recording a record-breaking heatwave. After a good workout, she sat quietly in the kitchen to enjoy her breakfast, long before Winston himself had even gotten up.

She was staring at her plate of beans and scrambled eggs, with a cup of tea in one hand and a piece of toast in the other, as the butler entered the room, dressed in his elegant satin pyjamas. He was holding some various papers in his hands.

"You have received a letter, Miss."

"If it's from a newspaper desperately looking for some kind of gossip again, there's no need to open it Winston, thank you. They can address their companions for that therefore."

"I don't think so, Miss, there is the University of Oxford's emblem on the envelope."

She took the letter Winston was handing to her. The paper was thick and rough under her fingertips. Her name and address had been calligraphed with elegant lettering. She hastened to open the mail and discovered a letter from the dean of the archaeology department and a whole bunch of documents in it.

"Oh... Obviously, some of my compatriots have not forgotten me yet."

She read the contents quickly and diagonally. After a few long minutes of silence, she put the mail back on the wooden counter. She grabbed her fork and played with the beans on her plate.

Once again, she didn't know what to think. Following the Monstrum's case, many had dragged her name through the mud and suddenly turned away from her. The missions she was offered were rare, sometimes without interest. Many museums had lost confidence in her over the last few months. The world seemed lost, reassured by her return and the fact that she had survived Egypt, but equally fearful of the recent events in Paris. She had become a kind of fairground phenomenon, between curiosity and mistrust. Some people still paid attention to her anyway, but she didn't really know now if it was because of her fame alone or just the repercussions of the whole thing.

But she had to work for a living one way or another.

"Where to, Miss?"

Lara raised her head up to Winston, who had sat in front of her with his cup of tea.

"West."

"Americas?", asked Winston.

"Eldorado."

"South America, then."

"Pacific Coast," Lara said.

"Andean Cordillera?", Winston asked, both eyebrows raised.

"Um... that's too easy... Lamas?"

"Peru? Again?"

She took another bite of her toast.

"Seems like some Incan artefacts are still waiting for me, Winston."

The old man took another sip of tea, the cup stuck in between the two palms of his hands.

"That's good news, actually", he said, as he blew on the very hot liquid.

"I guess", responded Lara as she looked away.

She then looked down at the letter once again. She put her fork down and finished the very last bite of what was left of her toast. She gulped down the rest of her tea and stood up.

"I should be back in two weeks."

SOMEWHERE IN NORTHERN EUROPE, TODAY

The man operated the handle and pushed the heavy metal door open, not without apprehension. He entered the small room and stood back, on guard. He did not dare to come forward immediately and was waiting for his master's approval.

A muffled noise, like a rumble, rose from the depths of the earth, like a permanent vibration. The room was small, hostile, plunged into the semi-darkness. Old neon lights with pale light hung from the high ceiling. The metal walls bore the traces of the wear and tear of time, which could not be masked by the few unfortunate tapestries hanging here and there.

The master, weakened, seated at a large round table in the centre of the room, slumped on his chair with a severe expression on his face. His hands were dragging on documents spread out in front of him, his gaze lost in the haze. For long minutes, the mercenary did not dare to utter a word, almost afraid of his master's reaction.

"Did Rouzic find something about the scrolls?", he asked suddenly.

His hoarse and sharp voice echoed against the walls. The mercenary took a deep breath and then took his turn to speak.

"Yes, Master. He's been working on it for several days and I understand he's making good progress. We will soon have more information on the location of the remaining bases."

"And what about possible obstacles?"

"The Sentinel is on a reconnaissance mission and she-"

"That doesn't answer my question."

The mercenary swallowed with difficulty.

"I trust her. She will be able to neutralise the potential obstacles... in time. She knows what she has to do."

The man, as cold as ever, slowly got up from his chair and turned towards the mercenary. As soon as his hard and icy gaze was directed at him, the henchman felt completely unsettled and terribly uncomfortable. He tried to hide it as best he could.

"Tell me Gunderson, is the Agency still active?"

"Of course, Master. But the members have scattered all across the continent, it will take me some time to-"

"Well, get to it then."

The mercenary lowered his head, cut off in his momentum. He kept his hands folded behind his back, like a child being scolded. Without another word, he took a military salute as a sign of approval and disappeared out through the door.

The master then turned in the other direction and approached the back of the room in slow steps, he was limping slightly. A huge window opened onto a neighbouring room, which was much smaller and sanitized, as a cell would have been. For a few seconds he contemplated his own reflection: this human shell with its previously ash blond hair, its piercing blue eyes, empty of all human life and yet, more than ever, burning with evil energy. Parts of his face as well as one of his ears seemed to have been partially torn off, almost skinned raw. The wound went down deep into his neck, disappearing under the thick, long coat that lay behind him. His hands, also raw, were protected by thick leather gloves.

His attention was drawn back to the room on the other side of the wall, where a stretcher stood in the centre. On it was lying a horribly mutilated animal, its skin scratched and its teeth looking like prominent swords, and restrained by various straps. Its wide-set eyes were moving back and forth with the rhythm of the various liquids that were injected into its body.

It is high time that we finally regain our greatness. We are close.

A small laugh escaped him, an evil smile frozen on his lips.

CROFT MANOR, SURREY, 1 MONTH LATER

She walked up the long corridor in a hurry, her footsteps resonating on the thickly carpeted parquet floor. Without thinking about it, she rubbed her bandaged hand, still sore- a remnant of her disastrous Latin American escapade. One of the doors to her left suddenly caught her attention and she stopped dead in her tracks. Her heart pinched in her chest as nostalgia suddenly rose inside her. She moved forward, and just as she was about to pull the handle, she stopped.

Her gaze got lost for a few moments in the void, her hand resting on the golden handle and its elegant arch.

She stood stupidly in front of the big wooden door, not quite sure what she should do. She had tried to bury the problem and avoided it for several days already, and even for several months, although she refused to admit it.

To tell the truth, she didn't want to do it, but after turning the question over and over again in her mind, she had come to the conclusion that she could never fully grieve without taking the time to take a last look at it. She looked at the situation as if it were the end of a journey, and deep down inside she was perhaps waiting for a revelation, a clue that would allow her to finally bring this tortuous episode of her life to a close and that would calm her down for good.

With a squeak, the door opened to reveal a large study. Everything was bathed in a golden hue, while the light of the end of the day filtered through the tiles. For a moment she thought she was in a dream, as if the atmosphere in the room was only superficial.

She walked carefully into the room, measuring her steps. Her father's giant globe stood in one corner, covered in dust. The back wall, behind the desk, was filled with books and encyclopaedias, some of which were quite worn out.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the little notebook she had left lying there on a corner of the desk, and which she hadn't dared to touch for months.

Slowly she walked towards the solid wood desk at the back of the room, which had once been her father's, and took her place behind it. She caressed the brown wood with her fingertips and remembered all those nights that her own father, too caught up in his whimsical ramblings, had spent locked up in that office, before she spent some of those long nights in there herself. With a sigh she let herself sink down into the thick leather armchair and put her feet on the table, her legs crossed. For long minutes she simply sat there, staring at the small journal with its rough cover and yellowed pages. She massaged her temples, pensively. At no time did she think that such a small thing could frighten her so much.

You never change what's been and gone

Indeed, it suddenly became clear to her that she would never have the power to change what had happened. Despite all the resentment, all the doubts, she now knew that there was no point in torturing herself like that. She probably wouldn't find much more comfort in the little notebook, but it connected her to him, in a way, and to all the memories of their relationship, both good and bad. He never had to tell her, but Lara knew that Werner considered her as his own daughter, and that thought made her smile sadly.

Slowly, almost fearfully, she reached out her arm and grabbed the notebook. She opened it delicately, as if it were a relic like the ones she was so used to handling. Her gaze lingered on the damaged corners of the footnotes, her fingers slipped over the aged and ink-stained paper. As the pages lined up, the notes followed one after the other, traced in pencil, in a light and elegant, almost monastic calligraphy.

Concentrated, Lara finally let herself be carried away by Werner's notes, obsessed by their forgotten treasures.

She closed the small collection, before putting it back on its place on the corner of the desk.

She massaged her face for a long time, resting on her tired eyes, before bending forward to massage her neck, as if overcome by the weight of her reading. The images, the ideas, were flowing in her head, intermingled with each other.

Two knocks rang softly on the door. When she looked up, Lara saw Winston stick his head through the half-opening.

"Is everything all right, Miss?"

She gave him a soft smile.

"I think so."

"I couldn't hear you anymore, I was wondering where you'd been all these hours... I even thought you had locked me up on purpose to get rid of me."

Lara couldn't help but laugh. The old man walked towards the young woman with his trembling gait, sweeping the room with his gaze, without pointing at any particular object. She sensed he was full of nostalgia too.

"Were you worried about me, Winston?"

"Always, Miss."

The adventuress got up from her seat and walked past the wall of books behind her. After some minutes of silence, she finally chose a book and took it from off its shelf, mumbling some words to herself. She started reading it and turned the pages quickly, as if scanning every element in it.

"It has been a while since I've seen you in here, Miss."

The old man then approached the large window which overlooked the giant labyrinth outside. A smile appeared on his face that has been marked by many years.

"I know you too well not to ask you what you have discovered."

Lara closed the book in her hands.

"Before leaving for France Werner had done research about old manuscripts relating to the Prussian imperial family. An extremely powerful family in Europe, some of whose priceless relics had been hidden all over the continent. Von Croy discovered clues that could help locate these manuscripts, and thus the relics. He was already in France before he was contacted by the Cabal for the Obscura Paintings. He was obviously on the verge of finding a room, a cave, an underground cavern somewhere in the South of France... This could relate to many things, as the Languedoc is the cradle of many legends", she concluded, more for herself.

She stopped. She let the silence hover for a moment.

"I think I'm going to leave for France for a few days. The history of these manuscripts intrigues me greatly. And I've never had the opportunity to visit a Cathar castle, which is a good thing."

"Why are you rushing off?"

She looked at him without understanding.

"Wouldn't it be time to put all this aside and leave your mind at peace, Miss?" the butler continued.

"If only…", she answered in a whisper.

She turned her eyes to the old man who now had his back to her, absorbed by the view that laid before him. She sighed loudly.

"But you know me."

She moved away from the library and approached the large window. Winston was turning towards her, his eyes filled with compassion.

"Believe me, you deserve a rest Miss."

"I have to go."

She knew him by heart. She didn't need to ask him to know that Winston was clearly disappointed, and pained. He was so kind to her. She almost felt a twinge of sadness at seeing him so sad.

"I need to", she added as she grabbed his arm.

The old man came towards her. In response, he simply stepped forward to take her in his arms and held her close to his heart.

"If I don't do it for me, I'll do it for him at least."

They parted, and the butler contemplated her with all that could be likened to a father's love for his daughter. He no longer counted all the times he had tried to stop her from leaving. For a brief moment he felt anguish when he remembered the day Von Croy had told him about Lara's death.

"And it will be a change from Latin America or Egypt."

This time, Winston's eyes shone with bright amusement and joy.