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Tokyo, Japan.
"Stupid tie”, he says, fighting with his tie while he and his brother wait for the elevator. “Remind me again why do I have to use this shit”, he sighs, giving up completely with his tie. His companion, who is also his older brother, laughs beside him before putting his hands on the pockets of his fancy pants.
“It’s a party, Nate, you can’t go everywhere, every time with just jeans and t-shirts”, the younger brother chuckles sarcastically at the same time the elevator opens in front of them.
They get in, Samuel pushes the button to their floor and after the doors close, they start moving up.
“You sure that this Croft can help us? Don’t get me wrong, but Crofts don’t have a good reputation, at least that’s what I heard”, asks Samuel once they are alone, and far from other ears.
“Sully said she is good”, is Nathan's answer, and by his tone, his older brother knows that it isn’t debatable. “He worked with her father once and I think is okay because Sully doesn’t trust everyone”. Samuel looks at his brother and decides to simply nod.
“Hope Sully is right about this one, and it’s not just you trying to flirt with her”, Nathan rolls his eyes while Sam chuckles.
When the elevator stops and the doors open, they find a hallway. They walk through it until they find a few Japanese big fellas who search them for guns before letting them go. The brothers stop near the entrance to look at the party at the same time Sam takes a champagne cup from a waiter near.
The party is big. A whole room full of people dresses elegantly like them (if we exclude Nathan’s messy tie), talking and laughing. There is a bar at his left, big windows all over the room that let anyone see the Japanese night outside and the music being instrumental.
“Do you see our friend?”, Sam asks, while he drinks from his champagne.
“I don’t think she will like you, calling her friend”, is Nate’s reply, while looking through the crowd. “But answering your question, no, I don’t see her”.
“Oh, look, mister Nishimura is there. I’m gonna greet him, while I do that, you should look for our ‘friend’”, says Sam, and before Nate could say complain, his older brother is gone.
He sighs and returns his eyes to the party in front of him. After looking for the woman he came to meet and not finding her, he decides to move across the crowd and stay at the bar for a while, to have another perspective of the room.\
“Goodnight, sir. What can I serve you?”, asks the bartender in English with a heavy accent. Nate answers with the name of a drink and takes a seat.
He is drinking from his beer while looking at some of the guests that are dancing when he sees her. For someone who has seen her just in photos and newspapers, he is kind of surprised. He excepted something and what he has in front, is very different.
“Sullivan didn’t mention that you were bad with ties”, she says, with a soft voice and a British accent, when she stops in front of him. Nathan smiles while getting up to greet her properly.
“Sully forgot to mention some things to me too”, he answers, while he thinks that maybe the old bastard forgot to tell him that Lara Croft is a very attractive woman, especially wearing a black dress.
She looks at him for a few seconds, like she is looking through his soul until she stretches her hands for him to shake it. Nathan tries and fails miserably, to look at her without feeling intimidated. He isn’t sure how a woman so gorgeous and intimidating could be so young at the same time.
“Lara Croft”, she says, and Nathan shakes her hand.
“Nathan Drake”, he responds, and they stand there for a few seconds until she breaks the contact and takes a seat beside him in the bar.
Nathan takes his seat too and asks if she wants something to drink. She answers with something very British and while they wait, she goes straight to the point. He doesn’t expect less of her.
“Sullivan mention you needed my help with something, mister Drake”, she says, and Nathan looks at his simple beer with an internal smile.
“Just Nathan or Nate, please. Don’t like formalities too much”, he responds in a kindly tone, and she nods.
“If you say so”, and when her drink arrives, she thanks the bartender in Japanese, and Nathan takes a moment to observe her as she did a while ago with him.
To the media and the Archeological World, Lara Croft is a crazy woman like her father. The rumors started when she came back from a mythical island in Japan talking about a dead queen and a group who wanted to rule the world with crazy and ancient stuff. Then they intensified when the media discovered that she went to psychiatric sessions and then started to look for an ancient source of immortality somewhere in Siberia. Finally, everyone was sure that she was completely mad when her name got involved in a few accidents in the Americas. After that, the media didn’t target her anymore because they had better things to do, but still, her name is like a curse to some people and for others a synonymous with madness.
Except for Sully, of course, because if he believed such things, Nathan and Sam wouldn’t be at the party nor Nathan would be here talking to her. According to the old man, she is just taking a break from what happened in South America, but she still attends public events that have to do with old friends, charities, and museums.
Nathan has seen her photos in the newspapers and his opinion, they don’t do her justice. At least not when she is currently wearing a long black dress, with heels and an aura of an aristocratic British lady. He is surprised by the differences, but he told himself that he needs to stop thinking stupid stuff and focus on the thing he came for because, it must be a big thing, for him to ask for a stranger’s help.
So, he decides to start the issue again and get out of his pocket the very thing that made him ask for help. It is a sandwich plastic bag with something that looks very old and delicate inside. He leaves it between them in the bar after she takes a sip of her drink.
The brunette puts her elegant bag in the bar, so people around don’t see it. Because after all curious, ambitious, scholars and antiques collectors were the guests of the current party. She gets close and looks at the interior without opening the bag.
“Is Spaniard. Everything is written in Old Spanish and it looks like…”, she moves it a little while Nathan is paying full attention to her. “It looks like it’s a riddle to find something”.
“Yes, we know that. What we don’t know is how to solve the riddle”, he says, trying to not tell her too much of what that old shit is really about.
Lara looks at him with a raised eyebrow.
“Aren’t you the same Nathan Drake that found the Dorado and the Shambala Stone?”, her tone is sarcastic, and Nate doesn’t like it, at first.
“It’s not the same thing, princess”.
“Of course not. We are talking about a Spanish galleon that is somewhere in the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean or the Caribbean Sea, not that you supposedly found a golden city and a stone that give eternal life”, Nate rolls his eyes.
“First of all, the Dorado was a statute with a horrible disease inside and se – wait, you said galleon? How do you know we are looking for a galleon?”, he is truly surprised, and nervous because she discovered everything.
It is then that he sees her smile for the first time. It’s more a smirk than a smile but is enough to make her look different, younger, and one hundred times more beautiful than she already is.
“You are talking with a graduated archeologist, mister Drake”, she answers, while she still smiles to herself. “You don’t have to go far to know the rest”.
“Did Sully tell you something?”
“No”, and her answer is honest. “But I’m good at my job”, and then she takes another sip of her drink.
The brown-haired man sighs and decides that she is telling the truth. Either way, he needs her to solve the riddle and find the galleon. They stay quiet for a few seconds where Nate ends his drink and Lara reads the parchment inside the sandwich bag.
“Hmm”, he looks at her immediately.
“Got something?”
“No, but I get why you ask for my help. It’s a tricky one”.
“Told you so”.
“Mister Drake – “
“It’s Nathan”, he interrupts again, softly.
“Nathan”, she repeats with her British accent and the Brown-haired man says to himself that it sounds different from her accent. “I think that if you want my help with this, you will have to tell me the details”.
They look at each other for a few seconds. The brown-haired man thinks of the idea of telling her everything. They just met and her reputation isn’t good, but neither is his. Both are crazy people to the scholars. Maybe he can trust her, and she isn’t going to be like the other women in his life that give him the impression that their only goal is destroying his life.
He stares down at his beer and complains internally. He doesn’t like to remember Elena nor other women that only had the solemn purpose of toying with him or try to kill him. After Sam returned to his life, after Avery, after he swears that he wasn’t going on more adventures, Elena hurts him again saying that she is tired of his lies and his bullshit and wants the divorce (again). He complies, stays alone, and suffers in his way because is his fault for breaking a promise.
But Lara isn’t Elena. At least, they don’t look anything alike. And he hopes she isn’t like her because then trusting her is going to be the death of him (metaphorically and speaking).
“Okay. I’ll give you the details, but not here”, he finally says, and she nods.
“For how much are you going to stay here?”
“A few days. Can we see each other somewhere again?”
“I know a place”, she says, while returning him the plastic bag.
She gets up after taking something out of her bag. When Nathan looks in front of himself, she is offering him a card. He takes it after getting up himself and putting the plastic bag in one of his jacket pockets. He reads the name of a Tokyo restaurant on the business card.
“Is from a friend. The food is good, and we can have a nice talk without curious ears”.
“Okay”, he responds, looking at her. “Tuesday at twelve?”
“Sounds good”, she says, and he nods. “A pleasure meeting you, mister Drake”, she offers him her hand for him to shake it.
“The pleasure was all mine, miss Croft”, he shakes it while smiling.
Nathan sees her disappear through the guests, and after looking at the restaurant’s card for a few seconds, Samuel appears like a child wanting to know what just happened.
“That was Lara Croft?”, he asks, clearly as surprised as Nathan was the first time, he saw her. “Wow, I didn’t expect something so…”
“Stop, you sound like a pervert”.
“Says the one who is a few years older than her”, Sam chuckles and Nathan decides to ignore him. “Now tell me, little brother, is she going to help us?”
“Yes, and we are meeting her in a few days to explain everything”.
“Are we taking that risk?
“Yeah, Sam. I think she can help us. Also, she guessed most of it, so there is no turning back”, when he looks at the crowd again, she is nowhere to be seen.
“Hope you’re right because finding that galleon can clear your reputation”. Nathan just rolls his eyes.
The Drake boys stay at the party for a few more hours until Nate decides that Sam had enough alcohol in his system. While they were waiting for the elevator again, he sees the card one more time. This time, when he turns it around, he finds something that makes him smile.
“You should learn how to properly do your tie”.
He doesn’t know when she writes that, but for the first time in years, Nathan Drake smiles genuinely.