Survive
Note - Spoilers for the ending. There is a plan for a longer fic with this as the beginning of it but I'm not sure yet, if planning it works out then this might turn into something a few chapters longer. But somehow I've never managed to write a fic longer than a few thousand words so we'll see.
This is set just after Lara rescues Sam but before they leave the island (also, I couldn't figure out how they got from their boat on the island to the ship we see taking them home so I took a few liberties with that bit and made up my own explanation).
Oh God it was finally over. Well, almost. They still needed to get off of this island but for now, they were out of that hellish place. What was left of the group had made their way back to the beach again and huddled around the fire to wait for the ship Reyes had hailed on the radio an hour ago.
The group was sadly greatly diminished since their arrival on the island, only Jonah, Reyes and Sam remained in their makeshift camp now. Lara thought of all the people they had lost because of this evil place, and not just Roth but Grim, Alex, Whitman and the rest of the crew from the S.S. Endurance. In time Lara thought she might come to blame herself for their deaths but for now, she was simply grateful for the food placed in front of her by Jonah and the peacefully sleeping form of Sam curled tightly into her side.
She'd been all but attached to Lara at the hip since she'd lifted her into her arms back at the monastery, letting go only briefly to go and change from the tattered white dress Mathias had forced her into. Not that Lara minded much though, after losing Sam more times than she cared to think about in the last few days she was just as reluctant to let her far out of her sight. The danger had passed now of course, but while they were still on this godforsaken island she was taking no chances. There was likely to still be Solarii stragglers around here somewhere, and more than likely they would jump at the chance to avenge their 'father'.
Sam mumbled softly in her sleep rousing Lara from her thoughts. The fire had burned down to a dim glow at some point and Reyes and Jonah were nowhere in sight. Night had settled over the beach since Lara had last looked up and it was beginning to rain lightly, harmless in comparison to the wrathful storms of the day before. Sam muttered again and shifted beside her to sit upright and stretched with a yawn.
"Hey there sleepyhead" said Lara, softly smiling at Sam's sleepy expression and her sleep-tousled hair. She looked really rather adorable, or she did to Lara at least.
"Hey Lara" Sam mumbled and returned to her place wound around Lara's side with her head resting lightly on her shoulder.
There was a silence for a few moments punctuated only by the calmed waves and the dying crackle of the embers before it was broken by the loud rumble of hungry protest from Sam's stomach.
"Hungry?" chuckled Lara as she shifted away from Sam to offer her the rest of the skewered fish Jonah had assured them was 'perfectly edible and almost certainly not poisonous' as he cooked it over the fire. If Reyes and Lara had been slightly less tired and hungry or had they had less faith in Jonah then they might have protested at his hesitant claims. But as it was they were exhausted, starving and Jonah was a brilliant cook after all, he knew his food better than any of them, never yet had he given them reason to doubt.
Sam took the food gratefully and settled herself closer to the dying fire. It was getting towards pitch black night now and the campfire was casting less light by the second. With a smile and a reassurance she wouldn't be far Lara clambered wearily to her feet and set about collecting wood to build up the fire again.
Careful never to let Sam out of her sight Lara allowed her thoughts to turn once more to the slight form huddled over her food and wrapped tightly in Lara's rather worse for wear bomber jacket. She'd protested at first when Lara handed her the coat on her way to change her clothes "Lara you'll be freezing in just a ripped shirt!" But Lara had insisted and without the strength left to argue Sam donned it without further protest. It was only now she was away from the fire's warmth that she was beginning to feel the cold of the night. Just another reason she couldn't wait to be away from this place.
Lara dared not even begin to fully contemplate the things that they had been through and the things they had seen yet. She was instead merely endlessly grateful that both she and Sam were alive to tell the tale afterwards. Even though she knew that not everyone that had arrived to this island on the S.S. Endurance would be leaving it again.
They were both going to bear a lot of bad memories and scars yet, admittedly Lara's would be more physical than Sam's, but they would at least survive. Despite it all she knew that she'd be a much stronger person when she left this island than when she arrived, albeit much dirtier, in need of a shower and more exhausted than she had ever been too. The horrors they had encountered here would remain in memory but ultimately, she hoped, they'd make her better. She was no longer as young and naïve as she had been on the journey here. She had gotten through it all, they both had.
Lara was sure nothing she had ever yet experienced in her life would match up to the all-encompassing terror she felt when she realised Sam had once again gone missing from camp the second time, when she realised what Mathias intended for her and when she heard Sam's screams at the monastery. Yet still, they had come out of it mostly unharmed.
Lara had once before promised to look out for Sam, promised her that she wouldn't let her come to harm on the journey ahead of them. That had been the day they left port on the S.S. Endurance, the first day of their first adventure together. A first adventure that had nearly also been their last. She had broken that promise, over and over again in this cursed place. Privately and with complete conviction as she gazed at the softly smiling profile of her girlfriend Lara made another promise to herself. Never again. Never again would she be so scared she was tied up at the top of that monastery. And this time, Lara swore, she'd make sure of it herself. Either she wouldn't be so foolish as to bring Sam with her to places like this, or she'd teach her everything that she had learned to help her survive Yamatai.
Either way, this time she wouldn't break her promise, not for anything. Throughout any and all adventures that they may undertake in the future, Lara knew she would look after Sam. And she knew that Sam would do the same for her. They would both survive anything and everything.
