''Interstellar Destiny''

I Will Always Find You

The door opens and Evan stands there, looking just as nervous as Lara feels. He steps aside, signaling at her to come in.

-"Do you want me to leave the door open?" - He wants her to be comfortable, not wanting her to feel trapped in any way.

-"You can close it, it's fine."

Evan nods and closes the door, turning to look at her and just stares, taking the woman he has spent the last three years wishing he could see one more time in, as she looks around the almost bare room he is staying in.

-"May I?" - She points at a chair.

-"Of course." - He takes a seat on the bed across from her.

Lara takes a moment to really look at him, noticing a few new small scars on his face and hands. "No doubt courtesy of the Genii.", she thinks, before looking back up at him.

-"I'm sorry for pointing a gun at you yesterday, but I'm sure you can understand why I did it."

-"You don't have to apologize, Lara. I know how it must've looked like and it was my own fault. I should've waited for Jack to talk to you first before I went to see you."

-"Why didn't you?"

-"I wanted to try and see you. I never planned to actually knock on your door."

-"What was your plan then?"

-"I was just going to wait and try to see if I could see you for afar. But when I got there, I just walked up to your door. I didn't even realized what I had done until the door opened."

Lara nods, looking down at her hands, not knowing what to say next. This shouldn't be this hard, they were a couple at one point, deeply in love, and now it feels like she barely knows him.

-"Do you want to know what happened?" - He asks her, hesitant.

-"If you're comfortable telling me, then yes, I would like to know."

Evan takes a deep breath. It's still hard for him to talk about what happened to him but Lara deserves to know.

-"It was a routine mission. Just checking in w/ some allies and return to the city. Easy right? Well, what we didn't know was that the Genii were already there, shackling people left and right. We were spotted when we tried to get out of there and were soon surrounded. We knew we were going to get captured, so we stashed the IDC's and the C-4 in a tree hole so they couldn't get their hands on them."

"They knew that if they were to just take us, Atlantis would send people after us, much like they had done in the past, so instead they grabbed a couple of locals, had them change clothes w/ us and stuck them inside of one of the houses. I can still hear their screams as the house caught fire, as well as the laughter of the Genii soldiers. I wanted nothing more than to kill them right there, but I was shackled to a few of the villagers, as was the rest of my team, and knew they weren't going to be much help considering how terrified they were."

"Eventually, the fire died down and they started taking us to the gate. As soon as we were through, we were led to the mines and presented to the taskmasters. They were smart, separating my whole team, each man w/ a different taskmaster in a different section of the mine."

"The next time I saw any of them was three weeks later, when Stevens was executed for challenging his taskmaster in defense of an old man. I remember feeling helpless and wanting to do something to make the Genii pay for killing him, and I could see the same feeling all over the rest of my team's faces. But we were all too weak and hurt to be able to do anything."

"I saw Walker and Reed again eventually. Walker just a couple of weeks later, when he was executed for disobeying a direct order from the taskmaster. I heard someone whisper that that was a lie, that the only thing Walker did was look at his taskmaster. The same thing happened with Reed, two months after that. I knew then that if I was ever going to make out of there alive and see you again, I was going to have to play along and bide my time."

"The next three years I spent surviving in those mines. I learned to always keep my head down and not anger the taskmaster, knowing that if I did I would either end up being whipped or killed, depending on his mood. I lost count at how many times he would whip me just for the hell of it, laughing while he did it and taunting me, saying that the Atlanteans would never come for me. But I held on. I held on to the hope that one day I would see you again."

"Then, one day, the taskmasters began running and shouting at each other. I could hear gunfire and explosions going off, and I knew help was coming. I looked down the tunnel and saw this bright light, the people that had been standing there just disappearing."

"Before I could make heads or tails of what had happened, I heard someone running down the tunnel in the direction I was in. I didn't know who it was, but figured if it was a taskmaster, I could overpower him and take the keys to free myself and the others, and give us all a fighting chance. Only, the person that stopped right in front of me wasn't one of the taskmasters. It was Sheppard and he looked just as surprised to see me as I was to see him. Before I could ask him anything I was back in the Daedalus. From there, and after dropping everyone off on a nearby planet, I was brought back to a secondary planet where I met with Sheppard, Weir and Beckett."

"Everyone thought I was a clone, but after a shit ton of exams, Beckett was able to confirm that I was really me. After that, I was brought back here and have been here for a week now, going through another shit ton of exams."

Lara stayed silent the entire time, listening to all that happened to him while he was in the mines, and wondering how the hell did he survive all that.

-"You okay?"

-"I am. Just trying to wrap my head around all that happened to you." - Lara looks down at her hands.

-"The only thing that kept me alive was knowing that, one day, I would see you again, one way or the other, no matter what I would have to do. I would come home to you. I would always find you."

Lara looks up at him, tears in her eyes, and quickly excuses herself, leaving the room and standing in the corridor, taking deep breaths. She can still hear the words he said in his vows, "I will always find you.", the same words he just told her.

The thought that some things never change enters her mind, before she walks back inside and takes her seat, wiping the tears from her face.

-"I'm sorry."

-"It's fine. I understand that it's a lot to take in. Can you tell me what happened with you in the last three years?"

Lara nods and takes a deep breath, not sure how he is going to take all she has to tell him.