Tomb Raider: The Legacy

Chapter 23: Fragile

Lara crossed the hospital corridor at full speed. Some patients and their relatives censored her with their eyes or some derogatory comment when she passed by their side as a soul taken by the devil. She didn't care, in fact, she didn't even notice. She pounced on Father Dunstan, who was quietly sitting by the door of Kurtis's room. He was the one who had warned her. Lara cursed herself for being absent, but she'd been taken Anna have her detached tooth fixed again.

"He just woke up." The priest tried to reassure her. "They are still removing the machines and the respirator. Anyway, he's very fragile. You shouldn't..."

Lara pushed the door and entered the room without further ado. The young doctor was leaning over the man who lay on the bed and moved a flashlight over his face. Two nurses were picking up the respirator tube on the machine they were starting to remove. One of them faced her: "Please, you must wait outs..."

Lara dodged him in the blink of an eye and went to the bedside. She didn't even bother to look at the young doctor who suddenly stood up and gave her an annoyed look. She only had eyes for Kurtis. Kneeling by his side, she gripped his hand tightly. "Kurtis." She said, trying to sound calm. "It's me. I'm here."

Nothing had changed in the man who lay motionless in front of her, except that this time the chest rose and fell naturally, not mechanically, although the sound of his breathing was still wheezing and strangled. Without the respirator, his appearance was more reassuring, although his lips were dry and cracked. Kurtis opened his eyes and looked up. One of them was still bloodshot, but the blood was progressively diluting. And then he lowered them and looked at her.

A spark of recognition. And a faint, very slight smile, all he could handle with his chapped lips.

The sob stuck in Lara's throat weeks before suddenly came out, without warning, like a choppy breath. She covered her mouth with her hand. Kurtis' livid face diluted behind an aqueous veil covering her eyes.

"Gentlemen," She heard Father Dunstan's calm voice behind her, "if you don't mind, I think our brethren here need a moment alone."

Lara barely noticed the priest entering to encourage the medical team to leave. There were a couple of protests: the patient was weak, had no strength to receive visitors, it wasn't convenient for him to have her there, and less with that attitude... but they ended up in the hallway anyway and the door closed behind them, leaving them alone in the room. There was nothing like a priest's sacrosanct authority on certain occasions.

The British explorer sobbed quietly, her forehead resting on his right arm, the one that wasn't broken. She cried in rage, and she cried in relief. Even still dozed with drugs that only partially soothed the pain, Kurtis remembered perfectly the last, and in fact only once, he'd seen her cry like this - when she rescued him from his torturers.

He tried to speak, but all that came out of his throat was a hoarse grunt. He was dying of thirst. He felt lips, mouth and throat hard and burning like fire. He slightly moved the hand that Lara held on to. "Hey." He finally squawked. "M'lady."

The woman he had loved for years raised her head. He couldn't help smiling again when he saw her with swollen eyes, run-up makeup and a disastrous hair bun after crying against his arm. Although in his condition, that smile was more a crooked grimace. He noticed new cracks opening on his lips as he did so.

Lara wiped her damp face with a couple of sharp swipes and, taking his head in her hands, kissed him on the mouth, sweetly, heartily, dedicatedly.

No, Kurtis thought, a stupid, oblivious thought. Don't do that. He felt unclean. It was what he hated most about hospitals, being naked under a thin sheet, chirping with cold, filled with tubes in annoying places, unable to wash. Surely, he smelled funny, reeking of sickness, of fresh wounds. Lara, instead, smelled like heaven. And her lips, my God, her taste. The moisture of her saliva was the first liquid he tasted in weeks.