The Lara and Hillary Tomb Raider Fanfiction Archive

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Healing

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Summary and author's notes: This is a follow on from the end of TR:TCOL and plays with the idea that Hillary and Lara were lovers during the film, although they have not been that way for long. I shamelessly stole Arrow from Evelyn's "His Lady" fic. My motivation is the delicious thought of Hillary in jodhpurs… G

Thanks again to Evelyn for being such an exacting and demanding beta-your help has made this fic a whole lot better :)

Lara Croft returned from Africa a changed woman. Outwardly, she was the same, bantering with Bryce and attending to the paperwork that had built up in her absence, but to the man who knew her best, there was a tumult of emotion simmering below the surface that she couldn't quite hide. Hillary sensed it from the moment they embarked on their return journey, and his heart ached with a combination of empathy and uncertainty.

He couldn't bring himself to ask about what had happened prior to the destruction of Pandora's Box, although he knew the basic details. Lara had been faced with a choice that had tested her sanity to the limit, and, to Hillary's mind, she had taken the only available path open to her. He knew, however, that Lara felt differently. She wasn't about to turn around and admit as much, but he knew, from the haunted expression in her eyes that she was far from over the ordeal.

It was after the fifth bad night in a row that Hillary finally decided to broach the subject with Lara. Although to all intents and purposes, he kept up the façade of being her butler in public, Hillary had recently been spending his nights in Lara's antique four-poster bed. Night after night, since she had returned, he had held her when she had woken up screaming, and calmed her sobbing when she realised the full extent of what she had done. This particular night, the dream had been worse than usual. Hillary had been in a deep sleep, and so he had not immediately registered when Lara had sat bolt upright in bed. When she began to scream, with a jump, he sprang up and wrapped his arms around her.

"Sssh, darling…it's alright…I'm here," he soothed as she began to cry. He pulled her closer to him, stroking her dishevelled raven hair away from her face. Rocking her back and forth, uttering soothing nonsense in an attempt to calm her, he knew that both of them couldn't take much more of this. Hillary vowed that he would, somehow, get Lara to talk in the morning. Eventually, she calmed. Settling back against the pillows once more, still wrapped in one another's embrace, they slept.

The next morning, Hillary rose early and brought Lara breakfast in bed. She sat up groggily, rubbing her eyes in a curiously vulnerable gesture that touched Hillary.

"Good morning," he said cheerfully, placing the tray over her knees. "I thought you might want a little something for breakfast seeing as you haven't been eating much lately."

"Thanks, Hilly," Lara yawned. "But I still don't honestly feel that hungry." She took a sip from the mug of tea on the tray and nibbled at the toast next to it.

"You must eat something Lara," Hillary said, aware that his tone had a somewhat fussy edge to it. "You've hardly eaten anything since we got back."

Lara sighed, and for a moment she looked so desolate that Hillary's heart ached. He placed a warm hand over hers. "I promise you, it'll make you feel better."

"I know, but, oh Hilly, I don't think I'll ever get back to feeling 'normal' again." She turned pain filled eyes towards her friend and lover. "How can I ever be normal when I did what I did?" She began to pleat the sheet in front of her, her hands shaking.

Hillary drew her into his arms once more. "You did what you needed to do, Lara. That's all there is to it."

"Is it? Is it really?" Lara looked back up into Hillary's eyes and he could see the tumult of emotions reflected there.

"There must have been some other way," Lara continued quietly. "I didn't have to…do what I did." She began to tremble. "I could have…I don't know, tried harder to talk him out of taking the box…" The pleating became almost frantic, as she fought to regain her self-control.

"After all we'd been through together to find the Cradle of Life, everything we'd seen and felt, surely he could see that opening the box was the worst thing he could do." Lara clenched her fists in a supreme effort to stop her hands from shaking. The horrors of her dreams were encroaching once more, even in the light of day, and Lara shuddered.

"All I keep seeing are images of his face; the way he was so certain that he was right about the box, and the sadness in his eyes when he realised that I would kill him if I needed to." For a moment, Lara stared into space, as if she was seeing some ghastly film reel in front of her eyes that was only for her.

"And there was that moment, before we found the box, where he looked at me and I could so easily have been taken in by him again. He wanted me." She laughed quietly, bitterly. "I knew that if I'd wanted to, I could have slept with him again, I could have made him very aware of exactly what he'd been missing all these years. He offered himself to me on a gilded platter, but I couldn't do it. Now, every time I close my eyes, I keep seeing the lust on his face slowly turning cold, and it scares the hell out of me."

Hillary felt himself stiffen as Lara recalled her last moments with Terry Sheridan. He couldn't help it; it was an instinctive reaction where that man was concerned. For years, he had silently hated Sheridan for what he did to Lara the first time around, and although he'd never admit as much to Lara, he was very glad the man was gone. What he couldn't feel glad about, however, was the pain that Sheridan's death was putting Lara through.

Lara looked back at Hillary, her eyes clearing once more. "I could no more have slept with Terry then, than I could not have slept with him all those years back. There was one thing that stopped me, made me realise that he didn't have that kind of hold on me any more; you. The awful thing is, where he had such power over my heart before, his death is the worst thing I've ever had to come to terms with."

"I've killed people before," Lara whispered. "I've had no choice, but this time…it was so cold, Hilly. I'll never forget that look on his face just before he died." She shivered. "He looked so surprised…as though he didn't believe I'd just shot him."

"You did the only thing you could do," Hillary responded. If he felt at all bruised by her frankness, he tried desperately not to show it. "If you hadn't…we, and the world, wouldn't be here to tell the tale." He stroked a stray lock of hair from her beautiful face. It pained him to see her torturing herself over something that she couldn't change.

"I know you're right," Lara sighed. But every time I think about it, I either feel anger, or this sense of…grief. I can't get it out of my head." Having finished with the sheet, she picked up the slice of toast once more, and mindlessly began to break it apart with her fingers. "Will it ever go away, Hilly?"

"Give yourself time, Lara," Hillary said gently. "There is so much you've got to live for. Everyone who loves you wants to see you healed, but you must allow yourself some time to do it." Hillary pulled her close once more. He didn't have proper answers; he hadn't been there; but one thing he did have was absolute and unshakeable faith in Lara. The faith that came from the deep and enduring love he had for her. But he was worried. He knew that Lara was grieving, and although he was fairly certain how deeply she felt for him, Hillary couldn't shake the sudden, totally irrational jealousy that talking of Lara's former lover had evoked. Trying his best to quash those feelings, he eventually left Lara to her breakfast.

Chapter 2