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The Jungle, Central America.
Nathan doesn’t like where this shit is going. Mosquitos were everywhere, hotness is making him sweat ounces and the Jeep bounces so continually that he has hit the roof minimum five times already.
He is tired of all this shit mostly because is not what Sully promised. Well, is not like he always does what he promises but anyway, this time is very far from it and Nathan is one bump from losing it.
Speaking of it…
“Crap!”, Nathan curses when his head hits once again the roof because the driver just did another turn since the rode was dirt and mud and it was so irregular that going straight wasn’t possible.
Sully’s laugh was heard next, just like the driver’s, who was an old friend of his too. They were close in age, but the guy spoke with a British accent, and he didn’t smoke like Sully. He presented himself as Roth when they introduced each other before this hellish journey started.
“Sorry, about that lad. I’m better in the sea than in land”, is all the Roth man says and it doesn’t make Nathan feel better.
“Chill out kid, we are close to camp, right?”
“We are here already”, Roth answers and when Nathan looks through the gap between the two front seats, he sees tents, and far behind that what he is hell sure is an old Mayan pyramid.
While the Jeep approaches and enters the camp, Nathan is too mesmerized with it to even notice the conversation Roth and Sully are having or how the entire camp has stopped to watch them arriving.
Roth parks the Jeep under some trees beside other vehicles. Nathan is fast to open his door and watch how the pyramid is even bigger this close.
“We will have to walk from here since the path is not wide enough for a vehicle”, Roth explains, while Sully looks around and Nathan is still looking at the pyramid.
Teen Nathan decides that he doesn’t like the jungle, but somehow, he thinks that this magnificent construction is worth it.
Lara is doing her history homework with great heaviness when she hears the vehicle, returning. Her eyes look up, to the tent’s entrance, where she can see a little of the outside. The Jeep, however, passes too fast and she only sees a blur that makes the dust rise.
She knows is Roth, though. She knows because he came to see if she wanted to come with him and she would have said yes if it wasn’t because Winston stopped her saying that she had homework to do.
But now that she knew that he had returned, she is curious to know who he went to pick up in the nearest town. Lara has an idea since she heard her father and Roth talk about an old friend arriving today, but she wasn’t sure who since they didn’t mention any name and his father these days has very few friends. Most of them, disappeared with time, especially after an interview was published.
Lara is a preteen right now, so she is not that big of a girl to understand some things, but she knows that the interview said something bad about her father, since a lot of people she usually saw weren’t around anymore. Roth, Winston, and Anna are practically the only ones that are still around, even if Anna is in London taking care of “family businesses” while her father is away working.
She sighs again, frustrated since she prefers to be outside, with her father in his excavation than here, in a hot tent, doing stupid homework she already knows about.
“Miss Croft”, Winston's voice surprises her a little, and it shows when she turns to look at him with a guilty face. He looks back at her like he knows that she was thinking about ditching homework and running away from the tent at the first opportunity she had.
It wasn’t her fault. That excavation that her father is doing underneath the Mayan pyramid is far more interesting than her homework. If he only would let her see it.
“You know that the only condition to coming to this journey was to do all your homework, right?”, he asks, and Lara sighs frustrated again.
“I know Winston, but I’m curious now”.
“About the people that just arrived with Roth?”
“Yes, and about what my father is looking for. He says that is important and that could change a lot of things, but he hasn’t let me inside the excavation”.
“Miss Croft, your father has his reasons, but I must remind you that you made a promise and if you don’t want to return to England, you should keep it”, Lara groans and looks at her homework again.
Preteen Lara thinks that she has never hated homework as much as she does at this very moment.
Roth takes Sully and Nathan to the excavation site under the pyramid. Nathan feels in paradise and he bombards everyone in there with questions. He is too engrossed in looking at everything and everywhere, that he doesn’t listen nor pays attention when Sully and Roth enter another tent in which they encounter another man.
A few minutes later, Nathan is talking to a digger about something that got his attention, when Sully calls him. Nathan leaves the conversation sadly but runs to the older man, who palms his back and laughs about his enthusiasm.
Sully guides Nathan to the tent, saying that he wants him to meet an old friend, and Nathan obeys getting his baseball cap out of his head when he enters.
“Croft, this is my associate”, Sully says, smoking now a new cigarette.
Richard Croft looks at teen Nathan with a surprising look. Maybe because he thought that Sully’s associate will be a grown-up, it will not be the first time, really and Nathan is used to that. Still, the brown-haired teen extends his hand while he holds the baseball cap with the other one.
“Nathan Drake”, he says and the archeologist in front of him, looks at him with a knowing smirk, before he shakes his hand.
“Richard Croft. A pleasure to meet you”, the adult shakes his hand and Nathan realizes that he is also British. “How old are you, if I may ask?”
“Fifteen”, he answers, and the archeologist nods.
“Sully here told me you like history and you help him with “the business”, Nathan knows what he is talking about. The business is the thing Sully and he does. Some people call it treasure hunting, robbery even, but to Nathan is “antiquities acquisition”.
“That’s right sir”, the British nod again.
“Welcome to the business, son”, this time is Nathan who nods, before Sully messes with his hair, making it worse than it already was.
“I would like to return to the excavation, there is a lot of nice things you had found”, the archeologist chuckles.
“You remind me of my daughter. She is close to your age. You can see whatever you like, but please, don’t mess it up too much”, Nathan nods and is fast to exit after thanking the man. Once the three men are alone, they walk to stand around a table in the middle of the tent.
“Where the hell you got that kid from?”, Croft asks Sully, who is still smoking that new cigarette.
“Tried to steal from me in a trip I did to Colombia a few years ago. He looks young, but believe me, he has guts and is smart”, Sully explains, like is one of his favorite tales of all times. “But let’s talk about the present. How are you and Lara? You look old and rusty like always”.
“I’m not that old”, Croft says, letting himself fall in a near chair. “Lara is alright. She is here”.
“Here?”, Sully sounds surprised and he even looks at Roth for confirmation. The other man simply nods, with his arms crossed over his chest. “Thought you didn’t like to bring her to these things”.
“She usually stays in England, but since Amelia…”, Croft makes a pause while he grabs a bottle of alcohol he had near the table. “She has been feeling lonely. She convinced me to come. She should be doing her homework somewhere”.
“Last time I saw her she was like seven or eight”.
“She is a big girl now”, Roth says while Croft gulps the bottle. “Twelve already and too smart and curious for her good”.
“Well, she is a Croft, what do you expect?”, Sully laughs, and the three men keep talking until he decides to bring the real question to the table. “Why you called this time, Croft?”
“I need your help”, the archeologist answers, without too much enthusiasm.
Now that Sully has look and talk to him, he looks older and more tired than usual, and Sully knows it has to do with all the recent events. He is very aware of them since practically the whole world knows.
“With what exactly?”
“I believe there is something under this pyramid that has magical properties to return people from death”, Croft answers and suddenly starts to explain everything with a different, urgent, and strange voice that makes Sully worry more. He even exchanged a look with Roth.
They have talk about this on the phone after Croft called him to come. Roth told him that Richard wasn’t alright, that he was succumbing and transforming into something different, something that wasn’t human and had to do with not getting over the sorrow.
Croft explains all his research and what he is looking for and Sully can only make normal questions. Croft says that he needs his help because he is not feeling good these days and that’s partially why he keeps Lara away from the excavation site.
And Sully, being the good old friend he is, says yes.
But then, when he is out of the tent and he doesn’t feel like smoking anymore, he turns to Roth and Roth to him and they exchange a look that says everything.
“He is not fine”.
“That’s why I wanted you to come. We need to help him; to stop him before is too late”.
“Is going to be difficult”.
“But is our friend, mate”.
Sully sighs and scratches his forehead.
“Okay. Have you told anyone else about this?”
“Outside of us, only Ana knows that we are here”.
“Alright then. I’ll do what I can”.
“Thanks, mate”.
And Roth stretches his hand and Sully doesn’t know how truly thankful he is.
“Here, I’m done”, preteen Lara says, pushing her homework in Winston’s direction. The old butler stops the knitting he was doing and takes the notebook to revise such information.
Wouldn’t be the first time Lara says she is done and is a total lie.
While she waits for the man to read behind his glasses, Lara grows desperate with every second. She wants to know who his father’s friend is and also wants to see if she can sneak in the excavation and see what her father is hiding from her with such passion.
She starts fidgeting while the old man passes the pages and she thinks she is about to yell for him to hurry up when he finally closes the notebook and looks at her from over his glasses.
“It looks like you truly answered your homework, miss Croft”.
“Can I go now then?”, she is up in a second and ready to go, even if her boots aren’t tied.
“Yes, you can go, but”, Lara stops just when she plans to run to the door. “Don’t get too close to the excavation. Nor get out of the path”.
“Alright”, she answers, trying not to roll her eyes, before she takes her little backpack and gets out of the tent running.
Preteen Lara is finally free, and it shows on her face.
“You aren’t one of the diggers, certainly”, a young female voice says behind him and when he turns to look, is to find a girl.
Definitely younger than him and with a British accent that reminds him of Mr. Croft and the Roth guy. Maybe she was the daughter of Mr. Croft.
“And you aren’t one of the town's girls”, he answers back. She crosses her arms over her chest and judges him with her eyes.
“Did you come with Roth? You look too young to be his old friend".
“Yes and no. Sully is his old friend. I’m just Sully’s associate”.
At the mention of Sully’s name, though, the girl’s attitude changed a little; something sparked out in her eyes.
“Sully, like Victor Sullivan?”, she asks, failing miserably at hiding her excitement.
“The one and only, kid”, a voice answers before Nathan can even nod.
They both look to the trio that is approaching. Sully is a few paces ahead and extending his arm, inviting the preteen to a hug. Lara doesn’t disappoint him and runs to him to be caught by his arms.
She laughs when he starts spinning her and Nathan supposes that Sully has a soft spot for this girl somehow.
While Sully and Lara are catching up with Mr. Croft, Roth approaches Nathan and talks him into some of the Mayan things around them.
Until they all hear Mr. Croft sending the girl away.
“But I want to see the excavation”, she answers back.
“We have discussed this before, Lara. You are not getting inside”.
Mr. Croft thinks that the matter is settled, but when he approaches Roth and Nathan and invites Nathan inside for a little tour, Lara turns and explodes like an actual volcano.
“That’s total rubbish!”, and everyone stops to look at her. Everyone except Mr. Croft, that the only thing he does is give her his back and sigh frustrated. “He is a total stranger and I’ve been begging you for weeks to see what it’s inside! Why him and not me?!”
Mr. Croft’s answer is to stay in silence like his daughter hasn’t said anything at all.
Sully opens his mouth to say something, but apparently, Lara is used to having silence as an answer, since the next thing she does is put more wood to the fire.
“You’re the worse father of all!”
It sounded childish for a preteen and Nathan wanted to ignore her, but he also understood her logic and saw something in her eyes that he knows very well.
It was fire, but also himself.
Mr. Croft turns around with an indignant face, but before he could say something (probably send her away again), she turns around, almost stumbles with Sully, and walks away furiously.
Mr. Croft sighs again, Sully tries to concentrate on his cigaratte and Roth puts a hand on Mr. Croft’s shoulder. Nathan, on the other hand, stared at her until she was gone.
Maybe there was something else on her that showed at first glance.
At dinner time, they all sat around a bonfire and ate and talked like they haven’t just met today. Lara was present, but she was still angry, and it showed in the way she ate her food and then sat down with a notebook on her lap and started to furiously draw.
Well, Nathan wasn’t very certain if it was drawing what she was doing, but he knew for sure that she was still angry, since she was ignoring Sully’s attempts of lighting her mood and she wasn’t talking to her father, even if he asked her if she wanted more food.
Sully soon gave up and her father went back to his conversation with the man in charge of the digging. Lara then had a space beside her and since Nathan was eating in silence too, he decided to satisfy his curiosity and approach the girl, to see if they could at least have a civil conversation.
She ignored him when he took the seat beside her, but when he looked at her notebook, he knew that he was right. She was drawing. One of the Mayan artifacts the diggers got out of the pyramid and that was still on the Investigation tent, which she did have permission to be.
“So, you like to draw old things in your free time or just drawing?”
“Just drawing”, she answers, without looking at him. “And practice archery and read about ancient things and piss off boys that have privileges with my father”, he chuckles.
Mostly because he can’t stop himself. This girl is a spoiled brat, and he should be the one pissed off with her when he is just trying to be kind to her, but he isn’t. He is amused and that is fun. He hasn’t met a funny person in a long time.
She stops drawing and looks at him with an indignant face.
“That wasn’t supposed to make you chuckle”.
“But it did”, she stares at him for a few seconds while he smiles triumphally until she scoffs and returns to her notebook.
They stay in silence for a few seconds, chatter filling the space until she stops drawing again and talks to him.
“What do you want? Mock me because I was childish back there or to rub how amazing the place was?”
“I was here to share this with you, as a peace sign”, he answers and when Lara looks at his hands, he is holding granola bars that usually were given as desserts. More like having a good taste in your mouth after eating shitty food another day.
“Did you steal those or…?”
“No. I asked Roth and he gave me one. When I said that I wanted to talk to you, he gave me this one. Supposed that it was your favorite”, he extends her one that has chocolate and after looking at him with distrust for a few seconds, she took it.
He starts opening his bar while she closes her notebook and puts it beside her empty plate and feet and simply opens the bar and takes a bite.
“I’m sorry that your father didn’t let you go inside the excavation”.
“Don’t apologize on his behalf. He is being a jerk since a long time ago”, well, apparently this was going to be harder than he thought because she was still mad. “I just had enough”.
He steals a glance while she takes another bite.
“Good news is that you didn’t miss a big deal, honestly. It has a lot of mud and the artifacts that they have found has been just pure luck”.
She didn’t answer at that, so Nathan kept talking until she interrupted him.
“Why are you here? You aren’t that much older than me”, he smirks, because he knew that the girl was smart. Sully talked a lot of her while they were inside the site, and he knows now that he definitely has a soft spot for her.
“I told you already. I’m Sully’s associate”.
She snorts and he doesn’t blame her, but that attitude was the one that a lot of people gave him, so it kind of annoy him.
“Why would Sully have a teen as an associate?”
“What I am then, according to your majesty?”, she gives him a look that satisfies him to some extend since apparently as he didn’t like to be underestimated, she didn’t like to be treated like a fragile royal highness.
“Maybe his son?”, at that, Nathan couldn’t stop himself and started laughing.
Sully’s son? What a fucking joke.
Lara appeared embarrassed so she returned to her granola bar, but Nathan kept laughing and attracting attention until his stomach hurtled enough and he was tearing up.
“It wasn’t even a joke for you to laugh that much”.
“Excuse me, your highness. I just had to laugh”, she sighs, like she wants patience. “Anyway, no. I can’t be Sully’s son. I’m too damn handsome for that”, she rolls her eyes. “I’m his associate. I help him “retrieve antiquities” around the globe”.
“If Sully is not your father, how your parents let you go with him doing illegal stuff?”
The face he gave her said everything and for a second or two she felt sympathy.
“I don’t have parents anymore”, he answers, looking at his half-eaten granola bar, which didn’t look so appetizing suddenly. “One of them died and the other gave me away”, his voice was low, and he sounded a little bit ashamed.
Lara looked at her granola bar too, feeling embarrassed again.
“I’m sorry for assuming wrong and terrible things about- “.
“No. You didn’t know. Just…forget about it”, he reassures, even if his voice says everything except that.
They stay in silence for a few seconds, until Lara blurts out something she hasn’t say to anyone out loud before.
“My mother died a few years ago”, slowly, Nathan’s eyes land on her. “And my father doesn’t act like a father anymore, even if he says the contrary”.
And when she turns and gives him a sheepish smile, that’s all the confirmation he needs to know that they are from the same kind, the same world.
And for some reason, his heart knows it too.
“I didn’t present myself”, she says, trying to change the path the conversation was taking. She stretches her hand and gives him a little smile. “I’m Lara Croft”.
He smiles back, mirroring her.
“Name’s Nathan Drake”, and they shake hands, sealing the hope they both had.
They have been weeks in the camp, digging in the excavation, fighting the mud and the mosquitos, closer to the thing that Richard Croft is so sure is under that pyramid.
And one day an entrance to a room is found and opened and inside was enough to call the expedition a success and return to old England at once.
Lara knew because she heard his father making a call to Anna back home.
She was a little disappointed because she never got to see the excavation (even if Nathan made descriptions of it and she draw them how best she could) but she was also tired of the same odors and the mosquitos and the mud, so she was glad that they were going home.
But things weren’t going to be that easy. Because the night before their leaving, unexpected guests appeared.
Not so good ones, neither.
Lara was sleeping in her tent when vehicles and tires in the mud were heard. At first, she ignored it, until she started to hear people getting out of tents and talking and shouting and then when she heard a gun being fired, she opened her eyes and sat down with her heart beating too hard.
Her first reaction was fear while she heard more shouting and someone calling for attention. She got out of her sleeping bag as fast as she could, put her shoes on, and grabbed a jacket before she tried to pop her head out to see what was happening.
“Richard Croft!”, a man yelled from the place where they usually eat by the fire.
He had a gun in his hand, a uniform, and was surrounded by other men with the same uniform and the name SHORELINE. They were pointing around to the people that dared to come out (people like Sully and Roth and, to her utter fear, her father).
Richard Croft did approach the man with Sully and Roth close behind. She couldn’t see Nathan nor Winston and that alleviate her heart a little but also made her worry.
“Oh, what a coincidence, Sullivan, to see you here”, the man said, once he saw Sully in the group.
“Ross”, what the only thing he said in a very tense tone. “What are you doing here?”
“Working. What about you? I thought you were in Greece with that boy of yours. Stealing and selling old garbage”.
“We don’t steal, and you know that very well”, Ross scoffs and moves his attention to Lara’s father.
“You must be, Lord Richard Croft. Pleasure to meet you”.
“How can I help you?”
“It's pretty simple. I came here for that object you found. If you give it to me willingly, no one is gonna get hurt. If you don’t, well, you know what is going to happen”.
On cue, the mercenaries around him pointed their guns to the people around.
Her heart was beating even faster now if it was possible, especially when a hand got over her mouth and another turned her over. She was going to struggle until she saw that it was Nathan. She sighed in relief, and he made her a sign to stay quiet before getting his hand off.
“The old men sent me”, he whispers, clearly in a rush and without his baseball cap. “We have to get out of here”.
“My father…Roth…”
“They can handle themselves. We have to go”.
She wanted to protest, but Nathan rushed her to take her things and for once she listened to what she was told. She took her backpack and Nathan’s hand, and they sneak out of the tent.
They have been running from the camp for a few minutes when they heard another gunshot. They stopped in the middle of the dark to listen to the orchestra of gunshots that followed.
Lara’s tears got out on their own, yet Nathan squeezed her hand.
He starts pulling at her and she starts walking and then running behind him.
Her heart sinks with each step; her heart sinks like her boots on the mud.
They finally stop when Nathan is hell sure that they are too far from camp to even be found by the mercenaries if they even get to search for them.
They are both tired and broken and they both simply fall, not caring if they get dirty with mud or if they are safe around the Mayan ruins around them.
Lara is quiet and sits down as soon as her legs stop moving and Nathan falls on the floor with his chest heavy and his limbs all spread out like a starfish.
They don’t say anything, they just try to catch their breaths while the sun starts rising over the Central American jungle.
Minutes pass and Nathan is simply looking at a mosquito over him when he suddenly hears sniffing. He turns his head and finds that is Lara, trying to hold her tears as best as she can.
For a moment, Nathan doesn’t know what to do. He simply stays there, looking at her. He has never been good at reassuring people, that was Sam’s job actually and he is away, doing God knows what while he is running for his life again.
Just another day at the office.
But for Lara isn't. He believes that she is used to the calm days. In the weeks that have passed, he has seen her routine and it was very dull in comparison to his or to the thing that just happened.
And he doesn’t think that she is weak for having that reaction. She has all the right to. She is just a preteen and she had to run for her life already because some assholes with guns wanted what his father was looking at. She was too young for all of this. But he supposes that like him, she will get used to it, especially if she does want to be an archeologist when she graduates high school like she said she would.
Nathan sighs tiredly, but sits down and, with his backpack still on, he approaches her the softest he can. She is a girl and if he has learned something of girls like Lara (is not like there are girls like her anyway) is that she hates very much when people think that she is just another whiny little rich girl.
“Hey”, he starts but Lara is sobbing and hiding her face and the last thing she would want will be an asshole like him trying to say to her what to do or what to feel.
He hates when Sully starts telling him what to do when he is stressed out, so he doesn’t think that someone else would like him to talk shit when they are in this mood.
Shyly, Nathan extends his hand and when he is about to touch her, Lara suddenly shifts and collapses against him in a hug that he can’t stop.
They fall to the stone floor of the Mayan ruins and if the circumstances were different, Nathan would think of it as inappropriate since they were kids, but Lara was crying and the last thing he could do was offer support, so the trauma wasn’t that heavy.
And so, he did.
He wrapped her in his arms and prayed to however overseed the world that those old bastards were alive.
“I’m here with you. Everything is gonna be a-okay”.
He also wanted to be believed his own words.
“What’s the plan?”, she blurted out once her face was dried and she looked finer than fine. Nathan was quite impressed with how fast she recuperated from the whole thing once she stopped crying. She was of that kind of people that get everything out crying, and then they were better than good. It was a relief but also kind of scary.
Nathan got his backpack and searched for something. He got out something that appeared as a very ancient scroll that was inside a plastic bag. The kind she has seen in the Investigation tent and that was to protect the objects.
“Roth gave me this when the SHORELINE bastards arrived. He said that it was the most important thing in the excavation and that I had to kept it safe”, Lara takes the bag and examinates it without opening it. “Said that after running away the farthest I could with you, I should find my way to the town and meet Winston there. Apparently, he will be the one calling for backup”.
“How much time will Winston wait for us?”
“He didn’t say, but I suppose that SHORELINE will be there too, and it will be difficult to find refuge”.
“Not really. There is an old lady that helped us. I think she would do it again if we asked her”, she gives him back the scroll and he puts it safe and sound in his bag. “We should get there as fast as possible. If Winston doesn’t call for aid, I know who to call”.
“You mean Anna?”, Lara was standing up when she froze and looked at Nathan, who was still sitting on the stone floor. “I don’t think is a good idea. Roth said that we shouldn’t call her”.
“Why?”
“She was the only person outside of the camp and the village that knew exactly where we were settled”.
That information made Lara have an internal debate, he knows because of her face.
Nathan decides to stand up and take his backpack slowly and to give her time enough for her to digest the whole thing.
“I still know who to call”.
He couldn’t make any more questions because she was suddenly walking.
He followed her, confused because this girl was starting to be a whole mystery to him.
Nathan fell asleep once his butt touched the stone floor. And Lara simply let him sleep because he looked tired.
She sat down and looked at the rain while she thought about if Roth and her father and Winston and Sully were alright. If they even were fighting back or how much could they fight back.
The town wasn’t that far if they walked for a few hours. The problem was that the rain was too heavy, and the mud proved to be a challenge. That’s why they found shelter in these other Mayan ruins, and they were going to stay here until the rain stopped. Which she had the feeling wasn’t going to be soon.
She searched in her backpack for a notebook, and a pencil, anything that helped her pass the time. Because she didn’t want to stare at Nathan, nor she wanted to think of her family.
She was drawing one of the Mayan statutes close to her when she heard Nathan mumble in his sleep.
In the beginning, she ignore it because everyone calls their mother in their sleep, but then when he started to frown and he started to moan like he was having a nightmare, she understood. She did have her fair share of those from time to time. Maybe that was the reason why she isn’t sleeping.
But before Lara could touch Nathan's shoulder to wake him up, he opened his eyes and sat up with his heart beating fast and wide eyes full of something very familiar to her.
“Hey”, she says, trying to catch his attention. He looks at her scared since he forgot for a moment that he wasn’t alone.
He stares at her, with his chest still heavy and she simply looks at him, in silence. She squeezes his shoulder, and he sighs.
A few seconds later, he is sobbing in her shoulder, and she is holding him the best she can.
He is crying because he, once again, saw her mother bleeding out in front of him. Nathan always dreams of her and the precise moment he found her. And it keeps hunting his head most of the time he sleeps.
“I’m here with you. Everything is gonna be a-okay”, she repeats.
And he wants to believe that he will get over her mother’s suicide someday.
“Do you feel better now?”, Lara asks, offering him a granola bar.
She packed a few with a water bottle in case she needed them for their journey back to town before all happened. She is actually glad she was an organizing freak from time to time.
“Yeah”, he answers, taking the bar.
They stay in silence, simply hearing what they wish will be the last of the rain.
“Alright”, and she starts eating her granola bar and he looks at her until she looks back and gives him a little smile.
She starts talking about something random and he simply answers, until his mother is not in his head anymore.
In the afternoon, the rain is not as much as before, so they decide that is better to start their journey again. They pack and they say farewell to the Mayan ruins, and they start walking to where Lara’s little toy says is the town.
It's night already when they are close enough to the village. They know because they find SHORELINE mercenaries guarding it.
“Crap, they are too many”, Nathan informs, even if Lara can see it herself.
They are just kids, for fuck’s sake. They can’t fight them all, they will not survive.
“We can sneak on them?”
Nathan looks at her like she just said the craziest thing ever.
“We need to get to that village”.
Nathan simply looks at her and she swears that wheels are turning inside his head.
“I have a better idea”, he says, taking his backpack off. He starts looking for something and gets out the scroll Roth gave him to protect. “Take this and run the fastest you can to the village. I’ll distract these bastards”.
Lara takes the scroll but must object to the whole plan.
“You can’t stay here. What if they get you?”
“Don’t worry about me, majesty. I came prepared”, he says, getting a gun out of his backpack. She isn’t even surprised. Anyone related to Sully and his line of work will have a damn gun, doesn’t matter their age.
She sighs.
“Have faith in us”, he says, squeezing her shoulder before checking how many bullets he had.
She sure wanted to believe she had faith in this crazy thing and herself.
Lara ran as fast as she could. Like a jaguar was following her. She ran so fast that she thought it took her five minutes to arrive.
It was a lie, but adrenaline helped, and she almost crashed into a wall.
She didn’t even look behind her. Not even when she heard an explosion and a lot of gunfire. She simply kept running until she arrived at Mrs. Ramos house.
She knocked on the door, and she almost forgot how to speak Spanish, but it was not necessary since the old lady pulled her inside, and there, to her relief, she found Winston.
With the scroll still in her hand, she hugged the man and cried of happiness. He hold her too like he was way relieved of seeing her in one piece.
Winston confirms Anna’s betrayal and narrates to her, in the easiest way possible, how he survived while she eats Mrs. Ramos' food like she hasn't eat in months.
Winston makes the call, and Lara falls asleep.
That night she has a nightmare and Nathan is not there to tell her that she will be a-okay.
The wait is agony, even for a preteen like Lara.
She waits with Mrs. Ramos in her home when Winston goes with the backup to take the camp back. They return a few days later and Lara is one of the first ones to get out to see them arrive.
Her heart was on her throat and anxiety was on the highest level she ever experienced in such a short life.
But then, she saw Winston approach with her father, and she could breathe again.
She ran to them and almost made his father fall. He had a broken leg and Lara apologized for almost stepping on him. She then jumped over Roth, who looked a little bit fucked up, and then, she hugged Sully and she asked one of the many things she had been waiting to ask.
“Where is Nathan?”, Sully, who was smoking and had a few bruises, smirked, but before he could answer, a Yankees baseball cap appeared beside him.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t have faith in me, princess?”
And she wanted to kick him for calling her that, but she preferred to hug him. So tight that he started to complain because he had a few bruises and broken ribs.
“Don’t you ever do that reckless thing again”, she orders, once he is at arm's length from her.
“Even if it works as it did?”
“Where is your self-preservation, idiot?”
“You’ll get it when you get to be on the business”.
He chuckles, she does the same and he raises his fist to bump it with hers.
“Glad to know that you made it”.
“Glad you are here too”.
He winks; she smiles.