A/N

Only took me like six years to actually write a story for this series I love so much. Hope you all enjoy, what few of you there still are reading S.S. Endurance stories! I, for one, will not forget.

For the record, looking for cover art for the FF version of this brought me to tears.

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Compartmentalization (n) - a subconscious psychological defense mechanism used to avoid cognitive dissonance, or the mental discomfort and anxiety caused by a person having conflicting values, cognitions, emotions, beliefs, etc. within themselves.

Lara poured some of the washing-up liquid onto the abrasive side of the sponge, the hiss of water in the tap as annoying a sound as it ever was. She always hated chores, hated doing the washing up more than any other one. Sadly, it was a trait she shared with Sam, which meant their agreement to take turns meal-to-meal was one met with mutual grumbling.

Still, she supposed, it needed to get done. It wasn't like it was the most unpleasant thing she'd done.

At the thought, her mind ground down to a crawl, her thoughts turning thick as crude oil. They always did when she tried to think about what had happened a month ago. Fog like pea soup clustering in her brain, making thinking hard.

She shook her head, feeling her hair swat against her shoulders. The memories were strange things, vague and foggy and loose and disconnected. She could never focus on them, but that was a blessing more than anything. It made pushing them away - distracting herself - thankfully easy. For now, she kept that island out of her mind, a muscle in her neck twitching as the name 'Yamatai' flitted through her brain like a poltergeist, dancing over doorways in her mind that had been locked from the inside.

Instead of following it, she focused on her hands. The warm water was pleasant on them, though she knew it wouldn't stay that way for long. Her hands would prune up and the water heater in their flat was frustratingly small, so soon her hands would be clammy and cold and raw from the detergent.

But for now, the water was nice and warm.

She grimaced, looking into the sink. Her biggest foe tonight was a stainless steel pot currently full of water. It'd been soaking for a half-hour at this point, but something in Lara's gut told her that the water hadn't done much to loosen the nasty, burned mess clinging to the metal.

Tipping the end of it up to let the murky liquid spill out, Lara looked into the pot and deepened her grimace. She'd seen less-burned furnaces. Shouting over her shoulder into the near-silent flat, she asked, "How did you even manage to do this to my poor pot?"

After a second, a so-familiar voice resonated from Sam's room, across the living room that separated the two bedrooms from the small kitchen, "Honey, if you didn't want burned food, we should have ordered takeout again!" It sounded like it had come from Sam's room, anyway. Knowing Sam, she could be in Lara's, a door over. It wouldn't be the first time Lara had walked into her bedroom to find Sam lounging on her bed watching YouTube.

The thought made her smile. Before Ya- Well, Before, Lara had hated whenever Sam invaded her little den uninvited. Lately though, she couldn't find it in herself to feel anything but vague happiness about it. Sam had taken the worst of that island, and her recovery from it was going much less smoothly than Lara's. Lara had basically landed on her feet once they got back to London. Her only recovery was physical, and a long buffet of antibiotics every morning was the only hurdle she really had to deal with, aside from the new scars that decorated her body, the ones that made her head hurt when she tried to think about them or remember in any detail how she'd gotten them. Sam had all these memories riding her, all these anxieties. The doctor had called it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Lara counted herself lucky to not be afflicted with a similar issue.

She attributed that to the vagueness of her own memories of the island. They were foggy and unclear, like the memory of being afraid compared to actually feeling fear. A lot of her emotions felt that way, actually, even now. Like she was only imagining them, or looking at them through a pane of glass. Thinking about it made her head hurt. Just have to keep moving forward, let everything else other than survival drift away.

All the better, really, it meant she could focus on helping Sam recover.

Sam was the most important thing.

She had to protect Sam.

She shook her head again, Sam was safe, she needed a shoulder to lean on, support, not 'protection'.

Still, what Sam had shouted was true, and Lara chose to focus on that rather than lingering on the static that had begun to buzz somewhere behind her eyes. It brought a chuckle to Lara's lips; it was such a 'Sam' thing to say, 'should have gotten takeout again'.

She got to work, setting aside the sponge for now to grab their scrubby-brush with its stiff bristles, digging down and scrubbing at the char, putting in some elbow grease. If there was one positive thing to come out of Yam-

If there was one positive thing to come out of the Expedition, it was what it had done to Lara's arms. It'd been about a month since they'd gotten back to the UK, and her arms certainly felt sturdier now. They'd looked through some of Sam's camera rolls from before their trip, and those confirmed it: she'd definitely toned up some.

The char was stubborn, but slowly it began to grind away. Progress, progress, progress.

It was...a very strange feeling, doing the washing up again. Ever since they'd gotten back to London, their lives had been this maelstrom of medicine and therapy and police reports. So much noise and chaos, it was only recently that things had begun to settle down.

Today had been so wonderfully calm. Sam hadn't had an episode, neither of them had any appointments. It was just…this sort of pure domesticity that Lara struggled to define. It was peaceful. It was safe.

Safe.

That's the word.

For the first time…

For the first time she could remember, she felt…

…Safe…

Something inside of her relaxed, uncoiled. For the first time in as long as she could remember, her guard fully dropped.

Safe.

For a second, everything focused, crystallized until the image in front of her, the sounds in her ears, the feeling of her heart pounding violently in her chest- all of it was as sharp as broken glass or a razor's edge. An eruption of turbulent emotions exploded into Lara's chest like they'd been there the whole time.

Then, with the sudden violence of a gunshot, the kitchen went black.

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The jungle is silent. Whisper-quiet, with only the rush of wind and the smell of an imminent rainfall to fill the night.

'Silent night'... that's what it is. Once upon a time, a million years ago and in a long-distant land, that had been a phrase that meant peace and safety to you.

It was a song, wasn't it? You thought it was. Think it is.

Silent night… you sing, within your own mind. The chord digs into your fingers, raw and red from far-too-many draws.

Holy night….

Your left hand tightens on the bow's riser, knuckles bruised and fingers bloodied, but stronger than they've ever been. The heel of your right palm presses against your cheek, and a puff of air slips past your lips, warming them and taking with it a faint cloud of white mist thanks to the cold.

All is calm…

All is bright...

It's almost with an afterthought that you loose the arrow, your fingers numb, alien to your hands. They released not because you commanded it, but because it was what they did. Like hands not your own. A man died.

The next few lines slip your memory, but you dutifully hum along with them in your head anyway as your right hand pulls another arrow from your quiver, sore fingers that feel gnarled as tree roots but which to your eyes simply look bruised nock the arrow effortlessly. It was a motion you'd repeated...God knows how many times now. You always need another arrow. You peer out from the shelter of the leaves. No one had seen him fall, which was good, right? You thought so. They probably wouldn't agree, but the opinions of the Solarii are none of your concern.

There was a second one, he moved slowly, languidly. Night watch was boring, after all, why stand around looking at shadows when he could be asleep?

...so tender and mild…?

Were those the lyrics? You remembered that the song became more religious around there for a line or two, but those bits didn't stick in your head quite right. Maybe the first line played in a commercial around Christmas time? You can't really remember anymore, but that sounds at least kind of right.

You pull back the string again, brown eyes catching the scant moonlight playing off of a little piece of metal he twirls in his hands. A knife maybe, or a gun? Or maybe just some nick-nack.

Sleep in heavenly peace…

Your eyes narrow, sharpen like a hawk's, and you hold for a moment, waiting. You look where you know the arrow will land. Feel it in your bones.

Number three turns around, breaking line of sight with number two.

He jerks unnaturally, and his piece of metal hits the dirt. When had…?

Numbly, you realized you'd loosed the arrow. You had killed him. You don't remember doing it.

You had to stop doing that, you...it wasn't good.

Think, Lara, think.

Still, your fingers were strangers to your hands, and your hands foreign to your wrists, and your wrists alien to your arms. You pull another arrow and nock it. At least, you think you do, it was...hard to keep track.

Your tongue worries over your lips; you're thirsty. When was the last time you drank anything?

Probably back at camp, where Sam is. Out on the beach.

Right, that's why you were out here. Sam needs food.

They need food, you correct yourself. Jonah and Reyes and Whitman and Alex-

Alex was dead.

Jonah and Reyes and Whitman.

And yourself, you add. You're hungry, too.

Right?

A quick check, and the answer is 'yes'.

They- have food. The Solarii. Cans, from an old shipping vessel. Tonnes of it.

This is one of their storehouses, right, right. A small one, a few guards. They supplied…

Who again?

Sleep in heavenly peace…

The patrols, that's right. The, uhm, the ones who watch the beaches for new wrecks. Some other Solarii had been talking about it earlier, before they died.

Oh, you'd killed the third. He had an arrow in his throat, and was making an unpleasant choking sound as he lay on his back. Not dead, but not alive for much longer either.

You wonder when you'd killed him.

You hadn't nocked an arrow yet, so it had to have been only a few short seconds ago-

-Oh, you had nocked an arrow. That's right.

You shake your head, focus. Sam needs food. She's safe but she needs food.

You don't remember leaving your hiding place in the treeline, but you must have at some point because you aren't there anymore.

You pay the dying man no mind as you step over him. He could keep the arrow.

"Damn...сука. HEY! The last patrol! They took a double ration!" Came a voice, in thickly accented english - mostly english, anyway - from inside the shack that functioned as a warehouse.

Your head snaps up, ears straining until you can hear every rustle of leaves in the wind, every creak of the old shack. For a second, you imagine Roth's old cat he'd had. Whenever it heard the food bag opening, it'd done this thing where it sat upright and it's ears shot directly up, straight at the sky like little antennas. It was cute.

A small smile stretches your face. You aren't used to the feeling.

You missed that cat, you and Roth had buried it when you were fifteen.

You'd buried Roth now, too.

Something boils inside of you, and you sling your bow around your shoulders, arrow tucked neatly back into it's quiver. You tug your gun from the holster on your leg.

You weren't really a cat. They're quiet like you, but cats ran and hid, sought safety and imprinted on territory and land and food sources. Not like Lara.

Sam thrashed, lashed to the pyre. Lara's vision was blurry with tears and fear and pain and panic, like nothing else. Like fire, it was like fire, hellfire. The fire of Mathias's torch as it fell to the kindling. It must have been doused in kerosine, for how fast it'd gone up. Sam screamed into the rag tied over her mouth, thrashing, trying so hard to live, but she couldn't move. Couldn't escape. And Lara couldn't help her. So she helped in the only way she could, "Just look at me!" her voice had still been hers, then. Desperate, broken, but hers all the same, "Look at me, Sam!"

Because if nothing else, she could hold Sam's gaze, make her ignore the flames even as they took her life. She could help, she could help. Not much, but she could help. Sam's eyes, so wide with fear and anguish, met Lara's across the distance between them, and for a moment the Solarii pinning her down didn't exist, nor did the fire or the taste of blood in her mouth. All that was there was her, and Sam.

No, people are what you imprint on. More like a dog then, or a wolf. You'd killed a wolf. Was that how it worked? You became what it was that you killed?

You didn't feel much like a human anymore, so probably not.

Either way.

Food. Food for Sam.

And Jonah, and Reyes, and Whitman, and Alex-

No, not for Alex.

A gravelly voice, older than most of the Solarii, calls back to his russian friend. His accent… you recognize it…

"Agh, those bastards. Mark it down, we'll tell the higher-ups when we get back." Then, a chuckle broke the night, barely audible even to your focused ears, "Poor fuckers, probably get fed to the Oni for that."

It was...you didn't know for sure. American, maybe? But not like Sam's. Her accent wrapped around every word like the hands of, well, of Sam. Soft and kind and clean.

His voice, no, no.

Not American. Familiar, but not American.

His voice sounded like Lara's hands. Gnarled and twisted like an elk's antlers.

Roth's pistol fires. The concussion causes a few wisps of hair to flutter on your forehead, your bangs just long enough to flit into your field of view. You need to trim them.

No, his voice sounded...Rough and English and Yamatai.

English. That was right, he has an English accent. A lower one. Cockney, maybe it'd once been. Made misshapen by Yamatai, like everything else that touched this godforsaken island-

Oh, you'd killed the russian. Shot him with Roth's pistol.

Pistol? Pistols, Lara, he had two.

But you only have one. You'd given the other one to Sam, yes?

They were basically all you had left of the man who'd raised you now. You need to find a place for them, when you and Sam get home. You can't keep them in the flat in London, but Roth had a house up in Northern Ireland. You could apply for a pistol permit there if you joined a shooting club.

That would be fun.

It was a little inconvenient to keep them so far away, but it was the best you could do.

Sam would keep the other one safe for you until then, you trusted her. They were-

Another gunshot rustles your hair. Three more fire into the ceiling, though those weren't from Roth's gun. From a rifle held by a man who'd just been shot, an automatic.

-all you had left of Roth. The only remaining member of your family.

Now you were all that was left.

Something boils again.

Two more gunshots. The concussion makes your ears ring, but you were used to it by now. You knew that prolonged exposure to gunfire could hurt your hearing. You'd need to see an Otolaryngologist when you get back to London.

Home.

Home?

London. Your flat. Your bedroom, right next to Sam's. The dishwasher that leaked half the time it ran. Our dishwasher.

That...was still there, right? You still have a Home?

Yes, of course!

But it feels as far away as your hands, right now.

So, so far.

"Alright, alright, shit!" A voice rings out, shaking you from your thoughts.

Sleep in heavenly peace…

A rifle, a russian one, you think, flies out from behind a box. It thumps into the side of a dead man who was on the floor. Dimly, you realized you'd killed him.

If you focused, you could remember him peeling around a blind corner right after you'd shot the russian man. You couldn't quite remember anything past that point, but between then and now two more people had been killed.

A pair of gloved hands peek shakily out from over a crate.

"I'm coming out, I'm...I'm unarmed, please…" a voice calls, voice shaking. Dimly, you recognized an English accent. Recalling your earlier thoughts, you manage to tie it back to Home. London. With Sam.

That wasn't right, the Manor is in Surrey, not London!

Sleep in heavenly peace…

The Manor isn't home though. Then again, neither is London.

Sam is Home. Wherever she is, that is home.

So...was Yamatai home?

The thought revolted you, made you want to tear your skin and vomit. But, it did sound correct.

"Just don't- Oh my God, it's you," he says, a scruffy, unkempt mat of hair on his head and face. You wonder how long after arriving on Yamatai he'd stopped shaving.

He is old. Not really, though. Old for the island. Has an age to him, you can tell. He'd been here for a while. Decades maybe. Just like you. Though, you'd only been there a week, maybe two, but it'd been decades regardless.

"I know you," he says breathily, a shakiness to his voice and a fearful awe, "I've heard the stories. Look, I just...let me leave? You won't get any trouble from- from me, I promise."

This was strange, no one had ever surrendered before. The Solarii all think they're on top of the food chain, since all they'd had on Yamatai before now was easy prey.

They aren't used to being the ones being hunted.

Your nearly-empty magazine slips from Roth's - your - pistol.

A fresh one slides in. You reflexively rack the slide, watching the bullet that had already been chambered sail out of the gun. Had you already chambered that, and pulled the slide twice, or was that from the previous magazine?

Doesn't matter.

Wait, why had you used the gun? Guns are loud. Good in a pinch, better than your bow when they know where you are, but your bow is silent. Safer. Why did you use the gun-

You remember that you wanted them to know you were there. Wanted them to be Afraid.

Why did you want…

Ignore it, it doesn't matter. Tuck it away.

You walk up to the man curiously, observing him. He looks like any other Solarii you'd ever seen. Older, smarter, but the same. Though, being on his knees was a strange change of pace. You'd never seen a Solarii surrender before.

They were odd creatures.

You wonder how he'd survived all these years. What was the Thing that drove him to keep fighting? You'd found a Thing. Hit a wall where you thought 'I am going to die', then found something that had kept you alive. Something you needed to live for. Something you'd survive Yamatai for.

You wonder what that is for him. Your head tilts to the side as you regard the man on his knees, hands in the air.

Maybe he was just smart. He surrendered, which means he knows he isn't on top of the food chain anymore. Most of the other Solarii don't understand that.

"Please-" there's a fear in his voice, visceral, like a rabbit's.

Dimly, you realize your gun is pointed at him.

You poke him with it, in the cheek, without really thinking. Slide the muzzle across his face, watching it quiver and twitch.

Yours is Sam. Home. You have to save Sam. Have to get her back home. Walk through the front door of your flat carrying Sam in your arms like a bride, fall on the musty old couch you had bought second-hand and not the super expensive one Sam had insisted on buying as well. You'd assumed she'd bought it just to make you squirm- she knew how much you hated expensive things. That was fine, though. You'd go through anything for Sam.

Sam needs food, though.

Right, the warehouse.

"...Are...you going to let me leave?"

Oh, him too. You'd nearly forgotten he was there.

You meet his eyes. They're weary, scared. He is terrified, unarmed and helpless. You know the feeling.

It was your memories that kept you going, that keep you going. Occasionally reminding you of where your skin is, your hands and your feet. It was so...hard to remember that sometimes. You remembered London, and Roth, and Sam and you two's Flat.

You wonder if he has that. Your head tilts again, thinking. He was English, so maybe a sailor then, like the crew of The Endurance? Maybe on a merchant ship, or maybe on a treasure-hunting vessel looking for Yamatai as well?

You wonder what gave him the will to survive Yamatai for so many years. Maybe he has family, back in the UK. A spouse or a son or a daughter to remember. Maybe they were waiting at home, watching the seas, wondering if maybe, someday, he'd wash ashore just like he'd left.

Maybe that was why he'd survived. He wanted to see them again. One last time. Maybe he clung to those memories just like you cling to yours. The human within the...what were you now?

Still a human, right? Certainly so, you have no idea what else you could be.

You are thirsty.

But that was neither here nor there. Sam needs food.

Reyes, Jonah, Whitman. Not Alex.

Oh, you too. You are hungry. Quite hungry, actually.

You wonder if the surrendering man had joined the Solarii because he'd had no other choice. Because it was join or die, and he wanted to see his family again, or maybe he just wanted to go Home. You can't blame him, not really. You'd do anything to keep Sam safe, you'd be nothing but a hypocrite if you blamed this man for doing anything to achieve his dream. His Thing.

You press the muzzle of your gun against his lips, and he looks up past it at your face. Your eyes.

Distantly, you remember that eye contact is polite.

You look back.

"Just look at me...look at me, okay?!" she cried, as the fire licked at the skin of the one person she loved. A million repressed and ignored feelings rushing up to the surface, suddenly so stupidly clear in the one moment Lara knew she'd never be able to act on them.

The miracle and the curse of that wind that had swept through the cavern, extinguishing the flames and saving Sam's life - no act of mercy, only the cruel decision of Himiko, her claim on the body she wanted to steal away, the soul she wanted to suffocate.

Lara had been beaten and drug away, had squirmed free of her captors and made a blind jump. A yawning, black pit was a more enticing prospect than the Solarii.

It was a mass grave.

Who-knows-how-many lives, extinguished, their bodies callously thrown to the waters below to bloat and rot without honor, without burial, without remembrance. Lara submerged herself in them, bathed in them, baptized herself in the murder of those who'd come before her.

A part of her must have died in that grave too, must have.

Because when she arose out of the gut of Yamatai, sodden and steeped in the deaths of so many, pushed beyond the point her body and mind could bear…

"Save Sam," Had been the first thought she'd had, head breaching the surface with slow deliberateness, blood caking her face, in her nose and ears and mouth.

"Kill Mathias," a close second, a thought cold and dispassionate - and yet, impassioned regardless. A Fact.

And as her fingers dug into the redwet mud on the bank of that cesspit, infused with the deaths of every man, woman, and child the Solarii had killed, the final thought was horrifyingly clear, maddening how easy it was to believe.

Hell raised, bones broken, floods come. None of it would slow her. None of it would stop her.

She would save Sam.

And she would kill every last one of them.

Something bubbled, growled, and boiled over.

Maybe you are a hypocrite. You'd do anything to keep Sam safe, and he'd do anything to achieve whatever dream lingered in his memories, anything to hold his family again. He could cling, he could fight. He could press on and hold his memories just as tightly, just as precious as you hold yours.

-But he could hurt Sam.

Whatever memories he'd held onto for all these decades spattered wetly onto the wall behind him, and he fell dead to the ground, his empty palms facing up towards the sky in a mocking imitation of his surrender.

Somewhere a mile away, like you were looking through a telescope, you realize you'd shot him.

Had you done that? No, surely not. He had surrendered, he was harmless. You wouldn't harm someone who'd willingly surrendered.

Your hands, maybe. They might have done it, but not you.

Why did you…

No, not you. You didn't do it. Your hands did. Why did they.

Why did they, indeed?

...

Silent night…

Holy night…

All is calm…

All is bright…

...~~~...

.tender and mild…

Sleep in heavenly peace…

Sleep...in heavenly peace…

Sam needs food.

You are thirsty.

Food. You have to find the food.

You lick your lips, only to turn and spit, hard. You'd tasted copper on them. Not yours, you hadn't bled. One of them must have splashed. You weren't sure which one.

You stalked off, stepping over the bodies and looking at the meager shelves, collecting whatever you find that is probably edible. Enough for a few meals.

A sudden, sharp pain spikes in your hands, a wrenching agony in each finger that arcs all the way down to your wrists and elbows, like brambles in your bones, like antlers sprouting from your skull. You look down quickly, feeling your lips draw back to bare your teeth. The pain racks you, runs through every nerve like agony and damnation and pure, gut-wrenching dread-

No, they were normal. Bruised, bloodied, with an angry red stripe of raw skin in the middle of two of your right fingers, the ones that draw your bowstring.

Normal.

They didn't hurt anymore than usual, you realize. You go back to looking for food.

For Sam.

And Jonah. Reyes. Whitman. And not Roth, or Alex, or Grim.

Oh, and for yourself, as well.

God, you're hungry.

...right? You aren't sure. You lick your lips. Spit again, because there was still blood there.

Food.

For Sam.

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The brush clattered to the bottom of the sink, the stainless-steel pot following it, bouncing off, and hitting the linoleum floor with a gunshot-loud clang, sending suds and water splattering along the kitchen floor. Lara's hands, covered in the same suds and smelling like lemon-scented dish soap, shook like leaves in a hurricane.

Everything tightened, sharpened, clenching around her hands and arms and chest and throat and she couldn't even breathe. Was her heart even beating? She wasn't sure, she couldn't tell.

Everything was so much, too much. She couldn't think she couldn't breathe she couldn't-

"Oh my God…"

Somehow she spoke, her eyes affixed on her hands.

Scarred, clean, covered in dish soap and water but steeped in blood and rot and vile things.

They curled, her fingers. The tendons stood out, grotesque and taut like her bowstring, her fingers seemed like the claws of some great evil. A monster from a fairytale, a gargoyle or oni or something equally hideous.

"What did I do-" She heard her voice pitch up at the end and she wasn't completely sure that it was her voice that had said it, but she'd felt the words on her lips so it must have been.

The doors broke, the walls came down and the compartments were breached and everything flooded. Like emulsion in water, everything that should never have come together mixed and suddenly every single second she'd spent on that fucking island was crystal clear. Every truth, every memory, every action scrawled across her skin in scarlet ink.

A hundred faces were between herself and her hands, two hundred eyes, a thousand fingers, uncountable memories and experiences and lives. Lives that hadn't belonged to her, lives that hadn't been her right to touch, all ground out. All finding their end in her-

"W-what-," the words came out like numbed nerves and lidocaine: there, but not really believed, "-what did I do?!"

She couldn't see, there were clouds in her eyes, and she couldn't tell if they were black or red, but they clustered around, thinning her vision until all she could see was those hands and what they'd done-

What she had done.

"Lara? Are you alright, it sounded like something fell- Lara?"

There was something else there, something present and familiar and comforting but so, so far away. But her hands, they were so close, they were a part of her, sunk in with hooks and teeth and claws into her flesh, spreading their taint through her blood.

"Honey, are you alright? What's the matter?"

Those hands, they were her, they were Lara. They weren't other things, they weren't their own entities, how had she ever even thought that? The things they had done-

Bile churned in the back of her throat, her eyes stung and her shoulders shook and she couldn't even fucking breathe.

-She had done.

Her legs gave out, and her knees bruised against the fake tile floor. She scarcely noticed.

"Lara!"

The name sounded familiar. Of course it did, it was her name!

But, was it though? Was she really still Lara? The things she'd done, she couldn't- she couldn't still be-

Those hands. Her hands.

A touch.

On Yamatai, touch was Death. If a Solarii got their hands on her they could throttle her, throw her, stab her, shoot her. She couldn't she couldn't she couldn't she

But this touch was different. It wasn't death. The words and their meaning hammered their way through the ten-inch layer of concrete around her mind to pierce through. No, this touch wasn't harsh, wasn't cruel or violent or...No, no this touch wasn't Death, it was Life.

It was Sam.

Her voice, Lara could hear her voice, but she couldn't...it was so far away, she couldn't focus on it, couldn't make anything out other than the air being sucked into her lungs and the pounding of blood in her ears and down her face and over her skin and soaking into her hands.

She tried to force it, tried to make her senses sharpen like they had on Yamatai, but it made her head pound like someone was stomping on it and blurred her vision. Though, that last one may have been because she was crying. Was she crying?

She didn't know.

A pair of hands found hers, and she watched. They were soft, delicate, gentle. Cupping her hands, fingers weaving between her own to squeeze as Sam's voice continued speaking, urging Lara back, begging that she listen.

Safe…

Sam was...safe.

She'd done it.

Her eyes snapped up, met Sam's. They were wide, dark brown, and so, so worried.

Her mouth was moving, and if Lara focused, she could just-

"-ara, holy...shit, please just fucking say something! Are you okay, do you need the doctor?"

"S-Sam," her voice was raw, talking hurt, but she whispered the name like a prayer, like it was the last lifeline keeping her from being swept away, "I- I-"

Her face was wide, open, but terrified, for her sake- and it made Lara feel even more wretched.

The second she opened her mouth, Sam sat forward on her knees, attentive and searching. Her hands shifted and Lara's eyes snapped down, watched as they wrapped around her own, rubbing soft, soothing circles into her scars and calluses.

Touching her…

Touching those hands.

Hands that Lara had soiled, that she'd corrupted. That she'd used to kill and maim and burn and do unspeakable things with and-

She recoiled, wrenching her hands back as her heart began to pound again, as her vision blurred and her chest tightened, because Sam wasn't ruined like her. She wasn't a monster, an animal, if Lara touched her who knows what she'd do-

Because, what had Lara done to the last five people those hands had touched? How had they died? The last ten?

The last hundred?

She didn't even know. She'd stopped counting after twenty-five.

Her heart pounded, adrenaline and fear as she scrambled away from her best friend, feet and hands kicking and clawing at the linoleum to make distance.

"Lara, sweetheart, what-" Sam began, baffled. She reached out again, but her hand looked like an angel, like fresh, clean water Lara would ruin like she'd ruined everything else-

She didn't even tell herself to do it. Her body acted on its own and she jerked away, harshly, and felt herself shriek, "Don't touch me!"

And Sam's hand recoiled back, as if she'd been burned. Her shoulders dropped and her mouth hung open, agape and shocked and hurt, and it shattered Lara's already broken heart.

She'd done that. She hadn't even needed to touch her and she'd still hurt Sam.

'Monster', she hissed at herself, 'Killer, Murderer.'

Lara was many things, but she was not a liar. Even to herself.

It should have been enough. When you hurt someone, they went away. She knew that, knew it well. If you hurt them enough they went away forever.

But Sam didn't leave, no. Her face hardened like Lara hadn't seen before, her dropped shoulders coming up and squaring and her mouth slamming closed with a click of teeth-on-teeth, "Lara, what is the matter? If you don't talk to me I can't help!"

A sob wrenched it's way from Lara's throat, and like a clog giving way in a pipe, the words rushed out after it, "Y-you can't help this, S-Sam!"

Her lips pressed into a thin line, "Bullshit, I wanna try anyway."

Then, she reached out again, slowly.

"No!" Lara found herself crying, though she hadn't meant to, writhing away from the soft, kind touch that threatened her like a gun to her head. The floor was cold and she could feel the wetness from the pot of water soaking into her pants but she didn't care - couldn't care.

"Why?!" Sam pressed stubbornly, freezing in place but also not retreating. She kept pushing with her voice though, urgent, "You're safe, Lara, I swear it. You aren't- I'm not- you are safe, no one is going to hurt you, I promise! Especially not me!"

It should have helped, Lara knew that. Sam was trying to get it through her head that Lara wasn't in any danger, that she wasn't being threatened, but Lara wasn't worried about being in danger, she was worried that she was the-

She bit her tongue, a whine keening deep in her throat.

Why couldn't she just leave her alone!? Go away and save herself and let Lara just curl up and die like she should have done on that Island.

The words came to her in a Storm. Upon a throne and wreathed in Whirlwind.

"No one leaves, Sam!" she wept, "I made sure of it!"

Sam flinched visibly at the too-familiar phrase, a phrase she probably still heard in her nightmares.

"Lara…" she said, so softly, so wonderfully, and it scared Lara, horrified her, because it wasn't what she deserved. She reached out, palm up, begging Lara to just let her help, "What are you talking about?"

"I k-killed them!" She cried out, back slamming into the oven. She couldn't retreat any further, "I d-didn't-"

"Lara, honey," Sam said softly but firmly, "You- You did what you had to-"

"No!" she shouted, she'd heard it too many times, from too many people. That it was self defense, that she'd 'had no choice'. They didn't know.

Sam didn't know.

"S-Sam," she stuttered, softly, as her voice broke, "It wasn't."

Sam blinked, flinching, her lip curling and her brows bunching together. Lara knew it was just because she was confused, knew Lara wasn't making any sense, but a part of her wanted to believe it was disgust. That Sam knew what Lara was and hated her as she should. Instead, Sam pressed gently, "What are you talking about?"

Her voice was like an angelsong, and it brought Lara's voice forward, bringing the words tumbling out, as a confession. Her throat was thick and sore, and she couldn't bear to look at Sam anymore. Her back pressed against the front of their oven, her knees coming up to press against her chest and her arms wrapping around them as she looked away. Out of the window, the sky was clear and orange with the sunset, not a cloud in the sky, "A-at first, I just...I was just protecting myself-"

"I know that," Sam begged, and she sounded...scared and uncertain, "What you did was-"

She was so kind, so sweet, but she was wrong. This was Wrong. Lara didn't deserve it, she deserved-

"I-I hunted them, Sam," she whispered.

"Lara-"

Tears rolled down her face. She'd read once in some old tome or manuscript that a warrior could see the faces of every person they'd killed. That every life they'd taken, in a way, lived on through them, in their memory, in their dreams. That the warrior would always remember the slain.

She couldn't.

There was just a blurry miasma of humanity, none even given the courtesy of having been remembered distinct from any other. No faces, no names. No dates-on-headstones. "I don't even know how many…" she trailed off, her lips pressing tightly together and her voice going high, unable to complete the thought. Her eyes unfocused, gazing somewhere kilometers away.

Sam scooted just an inch closer, the floor was probably filthy but she didn't seem to care, "Lara, you had to, they were going to kill us."

She wasn't understanding, she wouldn't-

Lara had hoped-

She'd hoped she wouldn't have to say this.

But, it couldn't live in her anymore. She couldn't hide it. It burned, it scalded, it rotted her, every minute she held it within her heart. It scrabbled at the inside of her ribs, at her skull and her throat, like a rat in a cooking pot.

A confession.

The confession.

Lara pressed her cheek into her knees, trying for all the world to curl up into a single point in space and cease to exist altogether.

Then, in that silence where the only noise in their flat was the gentle patter of rainfall on the windowpane, Lara told the truth she'd been hiding.

She hissed the words in a whisper, like the poison they were, "I enjoyed it."

Sam flinched, in the corner of Lara's eye, and this time she knew it was shock.

And ten times the disgust Sam must have felt, Lara drowned in.

There was a moment, hours after her fall into that mass grave. She'd clawed her way out, seen the depravity of the Solarii, what they did to the people they captured, how they starved and broke them in the tunnels. She'd seen Mathias put his hands on Sam, throw her to the ground and hurt her, threaten her. She'd seen the atrocities the cult had committed and would commit for the sake of their own power and freedom.

She'd found a rifle. One of the many russian ones that had ended up on Yamatai. A soviet-era grenade launcher that mounted to it.

She'd seen Sam, touched her, held her, and been forced away from her. Seperated.

And the rage she'd felt, at having been so close only for the Solarii to separate them again-

They always acted like they were the Masters of Yamatai. Like they were invincible, like no one else on the island could stand before them. They'd insulted her, they'd hurt her, they'd tried to kill her. They'd done so much to her on that island-

And there was a moment. One, single, gleaming moment, when she'd had that rifle.

The compound was burning down around her, like she'd brought the fires of Hell itself up with her from the bowels of Yamatai. She was fighting as she'd become accustomed to, but with a brutal edge that was new. Vindictive, cruel, swift.

She hadn't noticed at first, that resistance was softening. It wasn't anger or bloodthirst in the eyes of her opponents anymore, like it had been in the past, and it wasn't shock or surprise on their faces as she killed them like it had once been.

No, it was fear, it was terror.

And then she noticed, some of them weren't shooting back. Some of them weren't fighting.

One of them had screamed a retreat.

They had run from her.

And in that moment, for the first time since she'd laid foot on that island, she'd felt joy.

She'd felt power.

She'd had so much taken from her in her life. Her parents, her childhood, her friends, her pride in her family name. She'd had so much pain forced upon her, both physical and otherwise. So much fear, so much worry.

But in that moment when the Solarii turned and fled from her?

She'd been in control. She was on top. She'd had power- felt powerful. And for the first time since she'd killed, she opened her mouth and spoke to the Solarii.

Her voice screamed, part hers, part not. She'd shouted so loud and so hard her voice had torn and her throat had bled-

"That's right! Run, you bastards, I'm coming for you all!"

And as they dropped their weapons, as they turned and broke ranks and fled-

She'd shot them in their backs.

And the next morning, after Roth's funeral and after the others had left Lara to her mourning, she'd walked back through the Solarii's city, the shantytown.

The previous day, it'd been bustling with life. She'd had to hide, scamper through it like a rat between the walls. When she'd been found, she'd had to fight like a wildcat to escape with her life.

That morning after, fog and smoke mixing, the town had been silent.

Dead.

Because she had killed it.

And she'd felt that joy again.

It was a drug. She'd breathed it in at the time, loved it, basked in it.

Now? She hated herself for it.

"W-what?" Sam asked, softly.

"I wanted to hurt them," Lara said, simply, arms tightening around her knees, hugging them to her chest for what measly bit of comfort they offered. Where just a few minutes ago she'd been panicked, fearful and wild, now she just felt...cold, "I wanted them to be scared like I was, I wanted them to be scared of me, Sam-" she choked on her words like they were cyanide, "I wanted to kill all of them."

There was a beat of silence that stretched for an eternity, before Sam whispered gently, "Oh, Lara…"

She tugged her head out from her hiding place, distantly aware of the back of her skull thudding against the metal cover of the oven, still unable to look at Sam, unable to focus on anything but how wretched she felt. "And I did," she said, softly, "I made sure none of them ever left that Island."

Sam was silent for several seconds, digesting the information most likely. Lara waited for it like the fuse on a grenade, like the falling of a guillotine. It continued to rain, the drops heavy like bullets on the window.

Then, she broke the silence with a sigh, "Lara, why didn't...why are you only just saying this now?"

A soft sound forced its way past Lara's throat, a whimper of some kind, "I-I'd forgotten, somehow, I don't…" She shuddered, eyes screwing closed, "I don't know, I just, it all just hit me and I hate it."

There was a shuffle, a quiet sound, and a touch, warm and graceful on one of the arms that wrapped around her legs.

Panic lanced through her and she recoiled from the touch like it'd burned her, breath tight again. Her eyes snapped to her friend wildly, "Don't-"

Sam didn't seem as shocked, this time, her eyes soft, understanding. So so impossibly accepting, even as something behind her eyes cracked with pain.

"Lara, sweetie, why don't you want me to touch you?" she asked, as if that was what mattered, not-

"How is that what you're focused on?!" Lara snapped. She ached at the fact that she'd yelled at Sam, but- but it was absurd, she'd just- what she'd said-

"Because that's what matters, Lara," Sam insisted, and she looked so...sincere. "Just, please, tell me why you don't want me to touch you."

She couldn't bear the eye contact anymore, not with Sam. It hurt too much to see those soft eyes on her, hurt too much to see how Lara was hurting her. She turned away, craning her neck until her cheek pressed against her knee, and she stared at the cabinets.

"Did you even hear what I said?" Lara found herself whispering.

There was a sound, like Sam moving again, but much to Lara's relief no touch came. Instead, Sam softened her voice to match Lara's, "Of course I did."

Lara's nose crumpled and her lips thinned, an absolute wretchedness pouring into her stomach, "Then why? Why would you ever want to-"

"Because you're still you, Lara," Sam insisted, urgent, like she was suddenly worried Lara didn't understand that.

Did she? Did she understand that she was still Lara? She wasn't so sure anymore.

She hugged her knees tighter.

Sam sighed, "Look, just… tell me why? Please?"

Lara screwed her eyes shut, and just breathed. Her words were cold and lonely in the silent apartment, "I'm a monster."

"Lara, honey," she said softly, "Look at it this way, if you were a bad person you wouldn't -"

The sigh was heavy on her tongue, "Please, don't give me the 'if I was bad I wouldn't care' speech, Sam."

She couldn't see her, but Sam's silence said enough.

Lara's eyes slipped open. The linoleum was cold under her, and her eyes scanned listlessly over the cabinets.

Sam made a quiet sound in her throat, and asked with a strange, quiet urgency, "Wait, do you…not want to be touched, or do you not want me to touch you?"

Lara cringed, of course she'd-

She was too damn perceptive for her own good sometimes. Lara curled tighter around herself. "Sam-"

"Please," she asked and- and against everything, Sam sounded vulnerable. Not Lara, who was curled up on the floor of the kitchen trying to remember how to breathe, but Sam.

Lara's shoulders tightened, the muscles under her skin knotting like brambles. Her eyes stung with unshed tears that she refused to acknowledge, "What does it matter?"

Thunder rumbled somewhere, off in the distance. Neither woman gave it any heed.

"It matters to me," Sam said softly, and a part of Lara lurched.

Because Sam sounded vulnerable, precarious. Like she was on the edge of a cliff and teetering and it was Lara's job to make sure Sam was-

That Sam was what? Safe? With Lara?

Her fingers curled into claws.

On the opposite side of the planet, there was an Island in the Pacific ocean. On that island was a shed, where a man lay on his back, palms facing the midday sun, as if he was surrendering to the clouds. That man was dead, and there he still was. Unburied, unmourned, hardly remembered.

Her throat closed even as her lungs began to heave. Every muscle in her body began to quiver as her eyes unfocused and all she could see was Him, the man she had killed.

One of the very few whose face she could remember.

And how many others? How many more people were there, that Lara couldn't remember?

She'd done all of it, she'd done that, with the very hands, the very arms and the very legs that Sam had touched.

Every heartbeat seemed a palpitation, every breath wrong-

All of it, all the evil she'd wrought-

And she'd done it…

Why?

Why had she done it?

"You don't…" Sam began, voice soft and unfocused, she mumbled something, too-quiet for Lara to hear. But she didn't care, all Lara could do was curl around herself and dig her teeth into her tongue and drown-

And she didn't know why-

Why did she feel like this, why was she so wretched, why-

A part of her knew why.

But she couldn't hear it over the roaring in her ears.

She had to save Sam-

Save Sam from what?! Sam was safe-

Was she though? Was she? In this flat with a killer-

It tumbled, like a boulder rolling down a mountain, tearing up more stones and trees and bushes and everything to tumble with it.

Lara screwed her eyes shut, grit her teeth, but the tears rolled anyway.

"Lara," she said, firmly, cutting through the miasma of fear and loathing in Lara's ears, "I'm gonna touch you, alright?"

"Sam-" her voice choked and her head snapped up out of her hiding place, the sudden, jerky movement making her neck ache, but everything in her lurched to a stop as she Saw.

Sam looked at her, a fresh resolve in her eyes behind the puffy redness of withheld tears. She spoke, and her voice had that same firm, unyielding faith she'd had on that damned island, faith in Lara, "I'm just...gonna try something, okay?"

Then, slowly, her hand crossed the distance between them.

Lara found herself pressing her back into the oven, body still trying to retreat even as she had run out of room to. She watched her hand, slowly, slowly cross the distance, throat tightening with every inch like she'd swallowed nightshade, "Sam, please-"

"Trust me?" Sam asked, stilling just scant centimeters away from Lara's wrist where it wrapped around her legs. Her voice had that same soft, vulnerable note to it as earlier and-

Something frightfully close to panic danced in Lara's heart at the thought, at the idea of Sam not being-

But-

But her eyes were wide open, red with sorrow, hurting because of Lara, but so- oh, so trusting. Unwavering.

Lara-

Even as her body, even as those instincts she was supposed to trust screamed at her to run, to get Sam far, far away from her-

She gave a single, tight nod.

No words could come through her swollen throat or grit teeth, but the words rang out regardless.

'I trust you.'

(More than I trust myself.)

Sam's fingers touched her wrist, slowly, gently.

Sam had always, since long before Yamatai, been very touchy-feely. She'd hugged Lara randomly, slumped her weight onto her shoulders as Lara tried to study. Thrown herself over Lara's stomach or lap, tugged on her arms- She'd touched her suddenly uncountable times since they became friends, even moreso since they moved in together.

But this time? It was slow, gentle. A muscle in Lara's arms spasmed at the touch, but she forced herself not to pull away-

Because Sam had trusted her, on Yamatai. She hadn't hesitated, hadn't wavered. And for all the evil Lara had done, for all the killing, for all the Hell Lara had pushed through, all the Hell she'd beaten-

Surviving Yamatai - killing Yamatai - was impossible. Insurmountable, armies had tried and failed in centuries past. Lara was told by Fate that, if she were to save Sam, 'do it Alone.' A single person, against an Army? One person, against Yamatai? The notion that Lara could even survive was absurd- let alone for Lara to win.

And yet…

...Sam's first words to her at the end had been, "I knew you would."

Even against such an impossible task, Sam had never doubted her.

She'd had faith in Lara. Trusted her.

So even though Lara hated it, she wanted to trust Sam too.

Even though she knew Sam couldn't help her.

Only, then, something strange happened.

Sam didn't press, didn't try and make Lara feel 'safe', didn't try and assert that she wasn't in any danger, that she had nothing to be afraid of.

No, she tugged gently on Lara's wrist, tugging her arm out towards Sam.

Lara's heart lurched, fear making her muscles tense but Sam's touch keeping her moving.

Her eyes stayed firmly on Lara's, even as Lara's eyes darted between Sam's hand and the cabinets and Sam's eyes and her own hand still curled into a tight, gnarled fist.

She touched Lara slowly, her left hand meeting her right to slowly, gently-but-urgently uncoil Lara's fingers until they were open. Shaking, trembling, but open.

Then, still so stubbornly maintaining eye contact, Sam raised Lara's hand up to her face.

Lara's breath tightened, her heart pounding with fresh dread. A part of her tried to pull away, but it was half-hearted at best.

Who knows how many people she'd hurt-

But against Sam, she was powerless.

Bile churned in her throat as Sam brought her hand up, until her cheek was pressed into Lara's palm.

She didn't try to assert that Lara was safe.

Her cheek was soft under Lara's fingers. Smooth, pristine, perfect-

Lara hated that she was touching it, hated that the hands that had-

Her hands-

She hated that she was touching-

But Sam didn't waver, her eyes that bore so much of the pain Lara had already inflicted on her never left.

And when she spoke, it wasn't empty comforts. It wasn't platitudes, it wasn't promises that Lara was safe from harm…

No, when she spoke, she was uncertain, flawed, human, but she too followed her instincts. She hadn't understood, before, why Lara was so scared of Sam's touch-

But maybe, Sam had some instincts of her own.

So then, softly, she promised something Lara never expected to hear. Sam pressed her cheek into Lara's touch and swore, "I'm safe, Lara. I'm safe."

Lara choked, "Sam…"

She ignored her, "You've never hurt me, and I'm not afraid of you."

Lara's eyebrows pressed up, her vision blurring, "B-but I-"

"You hurt people," she said directly, doubling-down on her assumption and pushing with that stubbornness Lara once found so infuriating, "And maybe you think you did some bad stuff - maybe you did do some bad stuff - but…" She shook her head, and Lara could look nowhere else but that familiar face, "But you're still you, honey, you're still who you were before Yamatai."

"I- I-" she tried to start, but she could hardly think.

Sam shook her head, and Lara fell silent. "If you want to, I'll listen to whatever you have to say, but," her lips pressed into a thin line, and she looked just a breath from crying, "But I was never afraid of you, and no matter what you say, I won't be, okay?"

Lara found her voice. It was weak, broken, but she found it, "You don't know, Sam…"

Still, her thumb began to move, rubbing up and down across the apple of Sam's cheek, and she pressed into the touch.

"I don't need to," she said, as if it could possibly be that simple.

"You didn't see-" her voice broke.

But Sam picked up the pieces, "I saw more than you give me credit for, sweetheart."

A moment passed, two, three. The silence stretched out as Lara pressed her lips into a thin line and she tried not to cry.

Slowly, Sam reached out again, grabbing Lara's other hand. Just like before, she unwound her arm from around her legs, unballed the tight fist her fingers were curled into, and pressed it to her cheek.

Lara's arms trembled, quaked as those hands she hated cupped Sam's face-

She'd killed with those hands. Used them as weapons, used them to do great and terrible things-

But Sam didn't hesitate. She didn't-

She didn't think she was-

Something in Lara trembled. Deep, deep inside of her.

"I don't know how you had the strength to do what you did," she said, quietly.

(I did it for you.)

"I don't know," Lara said instead.

Sam shook her head gently, her hands briefly fitting over Lara's at her cheeks before reaching out again, touching her knees slowly and pushing down. Urging her, so softly, to extend her legs, to lay out, to uncoil her body so that, maybe, her heart and her mind would uncoil too.

"Do you know…" she asked, tenderly, entirely aware of just how sensitive this question could be, "...why you did what you did?"

(I couldn't lose you.)

"I needed to keep you all safe," is what she found herself saying instead.

"...Do you think it was worth it?"

It should have been a hard question. It should have been one she brooded over, one she contemplated for days and weeks and months after.

But it wasn't, it was painfully, unsettlingly easy to answer. She could touch Sam, she could hold her - even if a part of her hated that she was - and Sam was alive.

Twenty lives? Fifty? A hundred? Was Sam's life worth all of those?

There were others to consider, of course. Reyes and Jonah, Reyes' daughter too, in a way. Lara would have tried hard, so, so hard to save them too, had the roles been different. Maybe then, it would have been more difficult. Maybe then the question of if one life could be worth so many others might have seemed insurmountable.

But...

For Sam…?

(It isn't even in question.)

"...I don't know…" she said instead, because a part of her couldn't face that answer.

With her legs out, Sam shifted. She moved slowly, deliberately, watching Lara's reaction the whole way through.

Gently, she scooted forward, into Lara's space. She climbed up onto Lara's lap and settled there. The whole time, Lara quaked and trembled, unsure and scared and filled with dread-

But also, something else. Something that scared her, something she didn't understand. But at the same time…felt like she'd understood for a while.

Her hands never left Sam's cheeks.

Her weight was warm, so warm. Reassuring, grounding, but still Lara shook, trembled, because she didn't deserve it, didn't deserve-

-Didn't deserve her.

And Sam deserved someone better, someone who wasn't Broken.

Her heart turned, twisted, because Sam was Here. She was in Lara's arms, she was held in Lara's hands-

And how well had They fared? The other people who had been in Lara's hands? When their fingers scrabbled at her arms and face as she bore down with all her weight, those very hands around their throat, teeth grit and vision red and-

And those hands were on Sam-

Her breathing began to accelerate, and everything started to lose focus again-

Worry flashing in her eyes, as Sam looked down at her. This close, she could probably feel just about everything, see every tremble, feel every shake, feel the feverish heat of Lara's skin as blood and adrenaline raced through her and demanded she run, that she get away from this wonderful, perfect person that she didn't want to hurt, that she couldn't live with hurting-

A shudder raced through Sam's body - Lara felt it - and she pursed her lips, screwing her eyes closed. When she spoke, it was tight, uncomfortable, but Sam - beautiful, stubborn Sam - pressed on anyway, "Do you remember...at the top of that temple?"

The howling of the wind, wild and unnatural around her. Frigid, stinging air that whipped at her hair and face and neck and arms. Adrenaline pulsing in her blood, every heartbeat the ticking of a clock and the sound of Sam's voice crying in pain and fear out filling her ears. She needed to get to the shrine, she needed to stop Mathias-

And they were in her way-

"Of course," Lara managed to say, hoarsely. She remembered the recoil of her rifle, raw fury in her, costing her time, costing her precious seconds.

She remembered a man rushing her, sword in hand. She remembered putting a bullet in his knee as he crashed into her. She remembered pressing the muzzle of her rifle against his hip and squeezing the trigger as the recoil ran a stripe up his body, half a magazine poured into him- from nave to chops, as Macbeth.

She remembered Mathias, a shocked look on his face. She remembered Roth's pistols, the one Lara had kept and the one she'd given Sam that Mathias had stolen. She remembered squeezing both triggers until the twin recoil ached her wrists and the force of the shots pushed Mathias' bullet-riddled corpse off of the edge of the temple.

A hand touched her cheek, "Hey, hey, stay with me Lara."

Her throat swelled and she fell back into the kitchen, "I- I did-"

Sam cut her off with a finger to her lips. Lara didn't even have it in her to complain, "Do you know what I remember?"

Her hands were rubbing up and down on Lara's forearms, and with a start she realized her fingers had begun to clench into Sam's cheeks. She loosened her grip in an instant, a shockwave of guilt making her want to throw up.

"I remember being scared," she started, simply, softly, "I remember the feeling of Himiko pushing into me, pushing me out-" She choked too, the traumatic memory locking up her voice.

-And sending Lara into action, finding her voice stronger than before, "Sam, you don't have to-"

A hand pressed into her shoulder, firmly, and Sam opened her eyes. They were sharp beyond the pain in them, "Honey, I'm gonna tell you this whether you want me to or not."

Lara's lips pressed into a thin line, and she nodded.

Thunder rolled outside.

Sam looked down at her, her eyes softening with a sigh, "I remember...this sound, I can't really describe. Like...tearing cloth. I was so terrified, Lara," her voice cracked, and her eyes shut again, but she kept talking, strong like Lara always knew she was, "I felt...helpless, powerless. I tried to fight, tried to hold on, but...God, Lara, there was nothing I could do against that."

"S-sam, I-" Lara croaked.

She should have gotten there sooner, should have fought harder, should have been quick and efficient, not given into her anger, not reveled in it, not lost herself-

But Sam interrupted her thoughts, brought her mind to a screeching halt. The rain outside lessened, receded until it was a gentle patter, "Then...it just stopped."

Lara swallowed thickly.

Her head shook as she drew the memory forward, the stress written on Sam's face slipping away slowly, easily. Her eyes opened and cast down, one of her hands moving to touch Lara's necklace, playing with the little piece of jade at her collar, "I remember feeling strange, tired...My head hurt and everything felt heavy…" she gave a small laugh, without much humor, "It felt a bit like a hangover, actually."

Lara opened her mouth to say...something, anything, she wasn't sure. But then, Sam's eyes came up and met Lara's. They were soft, vulnerable, everything they shouldn't have been in front of a killer, "And then, I felt this...warmth. This soft feeling...I can't really describe it, but I just knew, I knew it was over, I knew...I knew I was safe."

"Oh, Sam…"

She shook her head, silencing anything Lara was going to say, "I know you think you're...I don't know, but I know you're hurting, Lara, and I'm so sorry I didn't think about it sooner…" She bit her lip, and Lara could see the confliction written on her face, "I think I know why you're hurting, too."

Lara looked up at her, at the woman in her hands, and her heart shuddered.

"You were pretty beat up," Sam said, one of her hands gracing Lara's cheek with the back of her knuckles, brushing away tears, "I remember opening my eyes, looking up at you...You were covered in dirt, there were cuts and bruises and-" Her stopped herself, sensing the minefield she was standing in, "And...there was Blood, too, Lara. Blood I knew wasn't yours."

Lara's gut dropped.

"And when we left, don't think I didn't see them," she continued softly, her voice calm despite how it felt like it was ripping Lara asunder, "I saw the people around the temple, sweetheart. I was...in and out, but I saw enough to know there were a lot of people, and some of them weren't...weren't easy to look at…"

Every fiber and tendon in Lara tightened, her eyebrows coming up and her teeth gritting. Of course Sam had seen, of course-

God, she wanted to puke.

Sam had seen what she'd done, she'd known, she-

She'd known…?

All this time?

Her other hand found Lara's other cheek, and she cradled Lara's face just like Lara's numb arms were still cupping hers, "But...Lara, when I looked up…" she shook her head, her eyes imploring Lara to just- to just listen, "I saw you there, covered in dirt and blood and sweat and...and you smiled at me, and I felt these...strong arms wrap around me..."

She breathed, a puff of air. This close, Lara felt it on her face, "And I remember thinking, 'she did all this for me? She went through all of that, just to rescue me?'" She choked up, "And I hated that you had to- that I needed to be-" she cut herself off with a pain-racked sigh, "I just…I'm sorry you had to go through that Lara, I was then and I am now…"

She didn't deserve pity, didn't deserve to have anyone who felt sorry for her, didn't-

Didn't deserve Sam.

"But..." Sam started, and immediately held Lara's full attention. Because there was no 'but', there was nothing else, she'd- "...But, I looked up at you, all covered in...everything you were covered in, after almost having my soul pulled out of me, and you had- you had like two guns and a bow on your back and you looking like the fucking terminator, and I just…" She shook her head, voice soft and eyes so painfully earnest even as a part of her tried to blunt the hard memory with humor, "I opened my eyes, and my head was in your lap, and you smiled and I just thought…'She did it. She saved me.'"

A whine bubbled somewhere in the back of her throat, and Lara opened her mouth- Trying to say something but-

Sam shifted, tugging Lara forward. She followed the motion numbly, all the fight gone out of her.

Sam shouldn't feel safe around her. She was a killer, she was unstable, she was- If history was just, she'd have been remembered alongside all the other monsters.

But Sam...didn't seem to care. She pulled Lara' forward, until her nose was pressed into Sam's collar and Sam's chin was atop her head. Without thought, Lara's hands fell to wrap around her waist. Sam reciprocated, one arm hugging Lara's neck and the other running gently through the hair at the back of her head.

And Lara didn't fret over whether it was right or wrong, over whether Sam was safe with her or not. She was too tired, too exhausted, too…

So, instead, Lara just let herself be held.

"Don't forget," Sam said gently, breath warm in Lara's hair, "why you did the things you did. The Why is as important as the What."

Lara shuddered, squeezing. She didn't want to think about that. Knew it was Doomed.

She knew why she'd pushed so hard, really. Why she'd fought so wildly, why she'd killed and she'd killed and for as agonizing as the memories were why she didn't regret her actions in the slightest. Even if she hated the lack of regret, even if it made her feel wretched and evil and a monster-

She knew.

"So, why did you do all that?" Sam asked softly, something in her voice saying it was okay if Lara couldn't say the words.

(Because…)

(Because I love you.)

(Because I love you more than I thought I ever could.)

Lara's throat closed, and she whispered her lie, "Because I made you a promise."

This couldn't be, this couldn't happen. Sam didn't feel the same way, Lara was sure of it.

But, Sam's arms tightened around her, and she made a sound in her throat. Noncommittal...disappointed…?

Or, maybe not…?

Lara didn't know, she didn't know anymore.

What even were they at this point? Were they anything? Was there even a 'they'?

She didn't know, she was scared. As scared as she'd ever been on that island.

So she didn't ask, didn't say anything. Because if she did, Sam might stop doing this, might stop touching her.

And so, Lara just stayed still, ignored the instincts that screamed at her, and let herself be held.

"I was never afraid of you, Lara," she whispered again, like a promise, "Not even for a second."

"I h-hurt people, Sam," Lara said, the only argument she had left.

She could feel Sam nod against her head, "But you hurt them so I could be safe."

"But what about-" what about the hate? The anger? The way she reveled in the violence and the adrenaline and-

"We can work through the rest later, sweetie," Sam asserted, hand soothing through Lara's hair, "Everything else can wait. Right now, you just need to know that you make me feel safe." A moment passed where the words rang in Lara's ears, before Sam hugged her just a little closer and whispered, "...You always have."

A rough sob forced its way through her lips, "How are you so…"

"Because," She said, pretending like she hadn't heard Lara choke, like she couldn't feel the tears on her collar, "You're my best friend, Lara. Simple as that."

The rain continued to patter gently, softly on the windowpane, and no more thunder came.

And Lara cried with the sky, relief and agony in one.

There was so much left to work through, both within Lara and between the two of them.

And deep, deep down inside of her, Lara knew a lot of it would never be addressed. Maybe even the worst of it - maybe even the best of it - would be left half-fulfilled and without resolution. She knew she needed to address it, needed to tell Sam everything. Needed to make the way she felt known - both how Lara felt about herself, and how she felt about Sam. Even if nothing came of it, she needed to say it.

Her lips parted, and the words burned her throat.

But before any sound came out, before any words or confessions or anything else, Lara closed her mouth.

Because she didn't want to scare Sam off. She didn't want this to stop, didn't want to push the already-blurry boundaries and chase away the only person she had left.

She didn't know. She just...didn't know.

"I'm not sure who I am anymore," Lara crowed.

Sam turned her head, her eyes lingering for a long moment on the rain hitting the windowpane - hadn't the sky been clear just an hour ago? A long moment passed, and Sam's lips pressed onto the crown of Lara's head, "Neither am I, Lara...neither am I."

She couldn't find any more words, and so she just hugged Sam and relished this one moment of soothing contact. One moment where she could pretend that everything would turn out alright.

(I love you…)

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-Epilogue-

Five Years Later

The jungle is silent. Whisper-quiet, with only the rush of wind and the smell of an imminent rainfall to fill the night.

She can see them, down below her. The flashlights on their rifles swing left and right slowly as they scan the underbrush for her.

They are smarter than the Solarii ever were. They know they're being hunted, know how to fight from the bottom, know how prey can kill a predator.

But she has evolved too.

She isn't hiding in the bushes, as she knew their dossiers have told them she tends to do. She's up in the trees.

A mosquito bites her neck. She wants to kill it, but the slap would give away her position. She let it sup from her veins, for now.

She winds a cable around an arrow. It's lightweight, high-tensile. Designed for fishing Sharks, and very, very expensive. As the years crept on, she'd honed her craft, perfected it. The shirt she wears is lightweight and comfortable, an athletic material that wicks the sweat from her skin. Her boots are laced up tightly, and she wears fingerless gloves to protect her hands but maintain the dexterity of her fingers. The holster at her hip and the bag and quiver on her back are all padded and lashed tight to her body so they don't rattle at all. Gone was her hobbled together gear, her cheap tank and her hiking boots and her frayed, braided rope. She doesn't dress for hikes anymore. Doesn't even try to keep up the charade of being a simple backpacking scholar.

A laugh almost bubbles in her chest, which she suppresses to not give away her hiding place in the canopy. Many women her age claim they 'dress to kill'. She thinks she's probably one of the only ones who actually do. The irony isn't lost on her.

She eyes the squad down in the brush below as they continue their search. The bark is rough against her back, but she's learned to ignore minor discomforts like those. Instead, her eyes scan over the arrow she's made. The tip is broad and barbed, and the cable is strong and well-anchored. Perfect.

Her eyes track them as they pass under her tree, formation wide and loose. They're close enough that she could see the patches on their arms, the triplicate symbol of Trinity.

They were well-trained, they were smart, and they outnumbered her.

But none of that would matter when they were Afraid.

One split off, straying just a little too-far from his friends. Just a few extra feet, putting a particularly large shrub between himself and his squad.

She nocks the arrow, draws it back.

She isn't lost, anymore. Danger has become a comfortable place for her. It's the place where she doesn't hurt, the place where she doesn't worry about what she'd done or what she's doing or how she's pushing everyone away.

Where Jonah's worried eyes don't wound her, where the sight of Sam in that hospital bed doesn't haunt her, where the thought of her waking up alone with naught but the parents she hates there to tell her that-

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what was or what could have been.

It doesn't matter that she had been right. That whatever they might have had together never came to fruition. She'd never asked if Sam felt the same- never asked her any of the important questions, actually.

She is cold.

And she lets the thoughts slip away, because she needs to Survive.

And she needs to make sure Trinity can never hurt anyone again.

Can never kill another child's parents. Can never manipulate another narrative. Can never ruin another life.

For a moment, she reflects on what she's about to do. She remembers, distantly, that this action was very specifically damned by one of her professors as 'inhumane'.

She hesitates, and for a second something breaks through the ice.

But then she remembers.

She looses the arrow. Their helmets are bulletproof, but their throats? Vulnerable. The arrow pierces his neck at precisely where she had aimed, the broad head tearing his trachea and quieting the scream he might have let out.

The cable wraps around her hand, and she falls backwards out of the tree.

Her body serves as a counterweight, the branch she'd been perched on, a pulley.

His dying body is yanked up by the cable, the arrow (carefully selected for strength and balance, very, very expensive as well) bore all of his weight. The barbs dug into his flesh like a hook into a fish's maw, and he was snapped up off of the floor of the jungle.

She swings with the motion of the cable, slamming into his body with a grunt as he squirms and kicks futility, unable to make any sound but a pathetic gurgle from his opened throat. She weaves the cable quickly around his neck like Arachne with her prey - it's a sloppy knot, she knew Roth would frown at it, but it'll hold.

Roth would probably frown at a few other things here, come to think of it. She pushes the thought from her mind and drops into the underbrush. She can't hesitate here. Can't let the thoughts slow her, because hesitation is Death, and if she dies no one will stop Trinity and then she'd never get to see Her again-

She forced that thought from her mind too.

The other men hadn't noticed their friend's disappearance, good. She creeps along the ground behind them in the path they'd already checked, where they wouldn't think to look again.

Once she's in position, she plucks a rock from the ground and whips it as hard as she can into the leaves of the tree she'd been hiding in.

The leaves rustle loudly, and the stone clacks off of the tree's trunk.

In a flash, several flashlight beams snap that way, scanning the canopy for a second before one catches on a familiar uniform.

A sick sort of satisfaction sinks into her gut as their beams all illuminate the man.

His arms and legs were limp, and he had died. There he hung, by his throat, from the branch of the tree. Just a few seconds before, he'd been walking at his squads' sides, shoulder-to-shoulder. He'd been killed and strung up in silence, and none of them had noticed. Once an experienced mercenary in the employ of Trinity, he is nothing but a dark, macabre ornament of the Jungle now.

One of Trinity's operatives scream, she hears a rifle hit the ground and sees one of the flashlight beams disappear as it falls under the waist-high brush. He cries out a very heartfelt expletive, and their squad leader shouts at him to get ahold of himself. She hears the leader's voice shake, though, and so does the other mercenaries. The terrified man shouts back, fumbling through the underbrush for his rifle.

She doesn't lose any details anymore, doesn't miss things or lose track of herself like she did so many years before. She's learned to thrive in this space. Learned to breathe it in like a poison and be Present and forget Nothing.

Even if she hates-

Stop, don't think about that.

There was a buzzing in her ears.

But Sam-

She said you weren't-

You're supposed to be better-

No, no, you draw your knife. You are better, but this is...a necessary evil.

You have to do this.

You have to.

Because if you don't no one will stop Trinity. You have to.

She forces herself back into her skin, forces herself to be present again.

Afraid, disorganized, uncoordinated. All their training was gone. The flashlight beams scanned the canopy wildly. She could almost imagine that she could smell their fear, like a jaguar.

They would die in that fear.

Maybe one day, she'd go back. She'd talk to Her again, try and find a way to piece back some semblance of who she once was. Maybe she'd accept Lara, help her. Maybe, even, Lara could help her too, somehow.

Maybe maybe maybe.

All maybes.

She has no idea.

But she misses her.

God- Fuck- she misses her so much.

But she couldn't go back yet. Not while Trinity could find Lara, find Her.

They could hurt Sam.

She breathes, heart slow and breath calm. With her knife, she goes to work.

-You are going to kill every last one of them-

- and if there was anything left of her by the end of it? If she hadn't chased Jonah away too, or gotten him killed? If there was anything left of Lara Croft by the time Trinity was another forgotten part of history?

Maybe...she'd see Her again.

Her heart ached and her ears rang.

And if she doesn't want you?

You'd leave, find some life without her and without purpose again.

You didn't want to think of that. It would kill you more assuredly than any of these men's guns.

Your broken heart cracks a little more, and you miss what once was.

You miss the words you never said, you miss the things you never did, you miss-

You miss Samantha Nishimura.

You feel like you'd destroyed that. Destroyed anything you might have had, any happiness the two of you might have shared-

It would take a miracle to fix it, even only a little.

But maybe, when all of this was over…

-Something in her stilled and calmed, a momentary respite. Temporary, she knew - always, always temporary-

Maybe she'd earned a few miracles.

She breathes in deeply through her nose.

And maybe...she could fix what was broken. The decision would be Sam's, and she couldn't imagine she'd ever- ever want to be anywhere near the kind of person who could string someone up from a tree, who could do that things Lara had done-

But...she'd accepted her once before, said those things didn't matter because she was still Lara…because she felt safe around her despite what she'd done to other people...

Was that still true? Even after all of this…?

She didn't know, but she has to stop Trinity.

And once they were gone, she would go back to Her, some day. And Sam would decide what happened next.

Fuck, she misses her. She misses her with every fiber of her being.

But she would make sure Sam was safe from these people.

She wets her knife.

It was impossible that Sam would feel anything but resentment towards her, Lara knew that. She couldn't lie to Sam, she'd have to tell her what she had done in the years they've been separated.

It was a pipe dream, a way of coping with just how hopeless she felt in her heart whenever she remembered those bright eyes. No person would want to be anywhere near her after that, after she'd been stained by so much killing.

Jonah still did.

In her mind, she pauses, even as her body continues to move, snaking behind every terrified mercenary and opening their throats. More rifles fall into the underbrush to illuminate naught but the bugs on the earth.

Against it all, Jonah was still here, still treated her like a person even as interacting with other people became more and more stilted and difficult.

So maybe...maybe Sam was the same way? She knew Jonah and Sam still talked, from time to time.

Hm…

Still, it was impossible. Sure, impossible.

...Well…

If there was one think she's learned since falling into the cold, killing waters of Yamatai-

It's that there was no such thing as 'impossible'.

And so she does her work. She tries to make the world more safe.

And the whole way, she remembers her smile.

She misses Her.

Samantha Nishimura.

Sam.

Sam...

The last man dies, and she takes a moment to breathe in the cool air.

Once upon a time, she rarely went anywhere without Her. Hell, she rarely went an hour without seeing her if both of them weren't sleeping- and even then, Sam usually graced her dreams.

She hadn't seen her in over three years.

And a tear rolls down her cheek. She pretends she hadn't noticed.

And against everything, she says what you should have said so long ago.

To the jungle, to the sky, to the moon, and to the dead, the confession rolls from her lips, "I love you, Sam."

There is no response. And she knows that is her own fault.

"I'm sorry."

Maybe one day…

The Hope is enough to push her forward. She takes a step, and begins to walk. Focusing on that Hope, that impossibility that something can be fixed. One day.

When Trinity is gone.

She has to stop them.

Her tongue is thick in her throat, and she tries not to cry at how hollow her heart feels.

She is cold.

But she has Hope.

For now, that would have to be enough.

She pictures Sam's face, imagines her smile and her laugh, and she carries on.

0000000000

A/N

If you took the time to read this, I hope you liked it! Tried to end it on the same sort of Melancholy-Hopeful note I got from the ending of Shadow (as far as Lara and Sam are concerned, I mean). Their relationship has always been kinda a White Whale for me, and I Miss Them. Okheshivar's art for them basically Was my teenage years, and there's always been a little hole in my heart where the feeling those years gave me used to be. Finally penning something for them was...cathartic, I guess?

If you enjoyed this (or, 'if you appreciated this' if it made you sad), have a speck of fuckin' mercy and leave a comment T-T. I'd be surprised if more than like twenty people even read this, so every comment counts. If you've got anything to say, I'd love to hear it, you'd make my day.

Anyway! Have a good life, and maybe I'll write a couple more stories for them. I gots ideas, kids, but we'll see if any bear fruit. Hope this added something to your day!

My ode to an orphaned ship.