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1. Coffee
“So let me see if I get it”, he starts, leaning back on his chair.
Lara looks at him from behind her sunglasses, putting the coffee she just sipped in front of her.
“You want my help finding this “Dragon Key” mostly because SHORELINE is behind you?”
Lara doesn’t sigh, but hell she wants.
To be clear, she didn’t plan to ask Nathan this. After Jonah said that he didn’t want more adventures with her (for which she didn’t blame him) she said to herself that she didn’t need a partner and she could do things alone. She always ends up alone and the other people hurt, so yes, she decided that she will bear that cross, but then the current task turned out to be a…little bit complicated.
Mostly because a woman called Nadine Ross and her lapdogs came from nowhere and complicated everything.
She had heard of Ross and SHORELINE, but it was mostly because of rumors and all that. She ignored it that time, but after getting a beat and some of her investigation stolen (for who she doesn’t know yet, but she can guess) she decided that she needed help understanding her enemy.
Nathan could help on that (he knows the bitch and didn’t tell her until she commented it passing by), yes, but to attract him she needed a bait. She suggested a partnership, splinting the gold and glory (mostly because he was divorced…again and he needed to pay manutention for Cassandra) and it was going to be a win-win situation.
At least in her head.
“No, mostly because two heads work better than one”, she clarifies and that, for some reason, it's funny to Nathan because he chuckles.
She frowns.
“Hey, princess”, he puts his forearms on the table, looking at her over his sunglasses. She will forever hate that nickname and he will forever use it because he knows she hates it. “We know each other for years now, there is no need to lie to me. If you just don’t want to do this alone for whatever reason, you just have to say it”.
“It’s not that I’m scared of doing this alone”, she excuses, maybe too fast. “It's just that you know SHORELINE and I can find this relic faster with your help. They stole most of my investigation, which took me months to gather. I need an extra pair of hands to pair up with them again”.
He chuckles again.
“What it’s so funny?”
“You’re adorable when you lie”, Lara prays for patience on her insides, while she sighs.
Nathan chuckles once again before he suddenly puts a hand over her hand that it’s holding her coffee. That makes her heart skip a beat like a total schoolgirl, but it also makes her look at him.
“I’ll do it. I’ll help you. Mostly because the money will be nice to have, but also because you’re an old friend”, he makes a pause, where he slightly rubs his thumb against her fingers.
Lara feels like her heart is about to explode.
“And I will gladly kick Nadine’s ass”.
For some reason that makes her do a weird sound and get her hand away from his and her coffee.
“We can start whenever you want”.
Lara leans back on her chair, trying to get rid of the sudden wave of heat that got over her body.
She is lost in her thoughts until she suddenly notices that her cup of coffee is not in front of her anymore.
Instead, it’s on Nathan’s hand and he is drinking from it like it was his.
“That was my coffee”, she says, quite offended.
He simply smirks at her.
“Was, princess, was”.
He then stands up and it's not until he is a few feet from her, that he stops and turns to her.
“Don’t forget to pay”.
Lara stays there, frozen, without believing his nerve, until the waitress approaches to ask her if she is okay.
She has just been robbed; can’t she see that?
She can't.
2. College Hoody
When Nathan comes over to the manor to help her, she makes sure that Winston serves him a coffee for himself and another for her when they have been hours in the library going over everything again.
He notices and finds it hilarious (because of course he will).
After hours of searching and reading and taking notes and reviewing everything and trying to fill the blanks that are missing, they take a break and start to talk about things.
They haven’t seen each other for a while, so Nathan tells her what he has been up to, shows her a few photos he took the last time he went to visit Cassandra and narrates to her how Sully has been doing in the last few months.
In exchange, she talks about her last adventures, without putting too much effort or too much detail (if he notices that she is avoiding the topic he doesn’t say it) until somehow, they end up remembering the old days.
Like when they were teens and they hated each other, when they got in trouble for exploring the manor, when they made a disaster in the kitchen and Winston banned them from it.
But they also remembered the bad times. That first time they reunited after a lot of time separated and she started with the wrong foot with Elena, or that time she told him about Yamatai after hiding it for years from him.
Yeah, they talked about a lot of things, but thank God neither mentioned the feelings that were there once and that were reciprocated once upon a time. Because they were in the past and Lara was sure that Nathan didn’t want anything romantic or of that nature to ever happen again.
Hell no.
It was the last thing they need right now.
He was here just because she asked him to. And because he didn’t mind the extra money.
They were there to be the partners, not the exes.
To forget about that, Lara decides to put an end to the break, but Nathan, of course, has other ideas.
“It’s okay if I use your…what is it that you British call it? The loom?”, she doesn’t roll her eyes, but like many times before, she is about to.
“Just call it bathroom”.
“Princess, chill out, please. You’re tense”.
“You can use the one in my bedroom. Next door on the right”.
“Of course, you’ll have your room besides the library”, he mumbles, and Lara decides to ignore him while he exits the library.
Once she is alone, she let go of a breath.
Maybe bringing your ex to help you find a relic wasn’t a good idea after all.
Lara decides to distract herself with the book she was reading (again) until she started to get a new light on the thing itself. She was soon getting pieces together, remembering what was stolen, but then at that moment, Nathan returned after being a few minutes away.
Lara was about to ask him if he got lost when he has walked the manor a lot of times, but she was out of words like the idiot she is when she turned to look at him.
“Sorry for being late. I got chilly. Hope you don’t mind that I stole this. It was the only one that actually fit me”, he says, like it’s the most normal thing ever, while he approaches her.
She is staring at him, but also at the university hoody, he is wearing. That is clearly Lara's.
It fits him, but only because it was super big on her.
“Did you break into my closet?”
“I didn’t break in your closet, princess. It’s actually cold and I don’t have a jacket”.
“That doesn’t mean you can steal my clothes”.
“Oh, please stop whining. It’s not like this is the only hoody you have”.
She scoffs indignantly.
“Besides it looks better on me anyway”, he smirks.
She wants to answer him back, say something clever and sarcastic to hurt his ego, but she is out of words, and she is afraid. Afraid she’ll say something really stupid.
Mostly because the hoody is actually better on him than on her, but only because it’s like two sizes bigger. Mostly because she feels “funny” seeing him wearing something of hers.
What’s wrong with her? She is behaving like a possessive man in those stupid crappy novels she read as a teen.
She shakes her head, turns to what she has found.
“So, did you find something?”
She answers him and for a few moments, she is calm and nice until he approaches and only centimeters are separating them.
Her heart wants to get out of her chest, and she wants to shoot at something.
She doesn’t of course because she can smell him, and she forgets about everything.
3. Relic
It was pure luck, or maybe the fact that reviewing things helped them, but somehow, someway, they catch up with SHORELINE and whoever they are working for.
They don’t get to find the relic on time, but they do find the temple where is supposed to be delivered.
And that puts them right on track.
“How is that thing again?”, Nathan asks, once they are on their way to the Temple where they are supposed to find the relic.
Lara is driving, he is on the passenger seat giving her directions, even when they are surrounded by nothing else than sand and sand and more sand.
“First of all, it’s called the Dragon Key”, she responds, trying to not sound annoyed. Nathan has a unique way of pushing her buttons, that was mainly why they hated each other when they first met. “And it’s supposed to look like a dagger, with the head of a dragon”.
She has explained this to him like five times already.
“Why is a key if it looks like a dagger?”
“It’s a key because it opens a door”.
“You don’t say”, he says sarcastically. Lara rolls her eyes.
“The key opens a door in the temple we are heading now. And the door leads to a suppose magical place where sickness doesn’t exist, and everyone is immortal”.
“Like Shangri La?”
“Yes, something like that. But according to what we could recuperate, inside that door, it’s also the key to immortality itself”.
“And we can’t let SHORELINE get it?”
“Exactly. If they do, only God knows what mess will follow”.
Nathan stays in silence for a few seconds. Lara actually thinks that he will finally shut up when he talks again.
“Why SHORELINE wants that? It’s not…their style”.
“I don’t know, but in my opinion, they are working for someone else. But I hope that someone is not who I think it is”.
“Who do you think it is?”
Lara sighs and Nathan kind of understands that a tiring answer is about to follow.
“Trinity”.
“The crazy dudes you talked about a few times? You said they were finished for good”.
“Yes, I said that, but they can be like the Hydra. You cut one head…”
“Two comes out”, he finishes for her.
Lara tenses, Nathan notices. In an attempt to make her feel better, he lets his hand fall on her shoulder.
“Princess, everything is gonna be okay”.
Lara almost hits him for doing that, but she controlled herself in time.
“I’m not worried”.
“As I said, you’re adorable when you lie”.
She groans, he chuckles.
They arrive at the temple a few minutes later. Outside, everything is in ruins and SHORELINE is already there, setting a camp. What buys them time to sneak in is the fact that they must pass obstacles before they can get to the door.
It’s when they are winning terrain over that fact that Lara confirms her fears. SHORELINE was working for a weakened Trinity and that made Lara angry enough with determination to get ahead from them…and blow their cover.
Everything happened too fast.
The villain exchanged words with Lara and Nathan, they made them solve the puzzles and stop the traps, and then they were deep in the temple facing a gigantic door in form of a snake-like dragon.
The villain produced the Dragon Key from a box, and he intended to open the door, but then Lara open fire and created chaos.
And well, Nathan did what he did best.
He launched himself to the key and that cost him a fight with the villain where he got a few punches and kicks while Lara busied herself with Nadine.
They both fought, they both thrived to survive, winners at the end.
But then, someone or something got tired of their antics and decides to bury them with the door to oblivion.
The villain dead created his own coffin, but Nadine got out before everything fell.
Nathan took the key then, Lara’s hand, and ran for their lives.
He knew she wasn’t herself, and still, it amused him, for some reason when she said:
“You stole the relic from me too”.
4. Kiss
The first thing Nathan and Lara do when they get out of the temple, is fall on the hot sand.
They are trying to catch their breath, trying to cope with the fact that they are alive by just pure luck, trying to understand that their hearts are heavier than before.
Nathan moves his head to look at Lara.
She has a hand on her forehead, her nose is bleeding, and she looks like she is shaking.
Lara looks fucked up, filthy, and everything except beautiful but for some rushed heated moments all Nathan can see it’s a person he loved once alive.
His own body moves, he doesn’t have control of it. He only knows that one second, he was breathing heavily in the sand and the next he is getting Lara’s hand out of her face, cupping her face and crashing his against hers.
She tastes of blood and sweat and surprise. She is still as a statute until she responds back until they must separate to breathe again.
Then they look at each other, a lot of things passing through their heads and eyes until she simply says:
“What’s up with you stealing shit from me recently?”
Nathan chuckles.
“That’s what we thieves do, princess”.
5. Bed
Nadine points at them with a gun to get them out of their little bubble.
The pressure of reality falls over them suddenly and they must make the best of it.
Nadine wants the key, saying that the dragon on it has an eye that it’s a jewel that costs a fortune, that it will pay for all the fiasco that just happened, Nathan refuses.
Their muscles are tired, and their lungs aren’t ready for it, but they still do it. They are just the two of them against Nadine and her entire army.
And once again, they prevail.
The jeep takes them back to civilization, back to that motel where everyone eyes them, but no one dares to open their mouth.
Lara is overwhelmed, not emotionally, but because of all the things, she is carrying in her skin. She goes straight to the bathroom and Nathan is left alone to realize (once again) that there is only one bed and that their flight back home doesn’t go until tomorrow.
He doesn’t give it too much thought anyway.
He puts the Dragon Key on the nightstand, gets his shoes off, gets everything that feels like it makes him ache and choke.
He falls into bed; he sighs contently because the mattress suddenly appears like the best mattress in the world.
He closes his eyes, promising himself that he will only stay there for a few minutes, five tops. But then, Morpheus disagrees and takes him by his ankles and drags him to his realm of sleep.
It’s not until Lara gets out of the bathroom, clean from more than blood, and finds him all dirty on the bed that he wakes up.
Not just because of the kick she gives him that makes him almost grab his gun in reflex, but also because of her comment.
“Get a bath, you stink and you’re dirtying my bed”.
“Your bed?”, he asks, voice hoarse because of sleep.
“Yes. My bed, which you also just stole”.
He chuckles.
“Sorry princess, but you have to share”.
She rolls her eyes.
Nathan baths at the end, throws himself in the bed anyway and, with a bold move that steals Lara’s breath, he also cuddles her in his arms.
She tries to not think about it too much, to not give her little heart hope, but when he nuzzles his nose against her neck, she loses it.
Maybe she lied to herself all this time.
Maybe she liked that kiss more than she thought.
Maybe she always loved him.
And it wasn’t until now that she lets herself sink in that feeling.
+ 1. Heart
He always liked her, loved her.
At the start, she was annoying and difficult but that was amusing.
In the middle, she was broken and beautiful. Still a little bit annoying and difficult, but he had learned to live with that already.
And at the end, she was still all that, but much more.
In the end, he loved her more than she will ever know.
In the end (he thinks) he always returned to her.
Yes, he loved Elena, because he actually did, but he also loves Cassandra and loves Lara. He has always loved Lara in a different, eternal way.
When he wakes up, too lazy and exhausted to get up, and finds that she is right next to him, with her brown hair everywhere in the pillow, with her face free of that worry and angst she appears to wear every single minute of her life, he can’t stop himself.
From rubbing his thumb on her cheek, of smiling like a fool, from loving her a little bit more than before.
She always accused him of being a thief, without seeing that she had stolen his heart in the first place, from the very first moment.
Since always.
Forever.