Notes: So I'm dissatisfied with Sam's absence in RotTR. I'm not thrilled with the way the comics ended because I feel like Lara has already demonstrated how far she's willing to go for Sam, a little bit further won't hurt.
"I thought I told you to go," Samantha Nishimura said sullenly as she picked up the phone. It was the only way to make herself heard as she sat on the far side of reinforced prison glass.
Opposite her sat her oldest friend, her closest friend, Lara Croft. The woman who had saved her body on Yamatai, but hadn't quite succeeded in saving her soul. Every time Sam looked at a mirror, a reflection on glass, or closed her eyes, she could see the ancient Sun Queen gazing back at her.
Lara knew this, and there was something faintly predatory about the look in her eyes. "You did." She responded mildly, and something inside Sam began to worry. Lara was never the bubbly party girl she'd been, but for the first time since Lara had picked her up off her bar stool and carried her home while in college, Sam had no idea what the other girl was thinking.
"I'll be leaving soon in fact. My expose on Yamatai didn't exactly work the way I'd hoped."
Sam was definitely confused at this. Of course she didn't exactly get periodicals in jail, but she had been paying attention where possible to see if anyone would pick up on the more outlandish stories from the island. Surely between the various survivors, not to mention the many bodies of cultists Lara had left behind something would have got out.
Lara continued talking as if they hadn't just been silent for the best part of a minute. "While I was doing it, I had a thought, and that's why I'm here."
"Here to share your wisdom Croft?" came the snapped reply. Sam was horrified even as she said it, but it was becoming harder and harder to keep that evil little voice in her head quiet. She knew, somewhere deep inside her soul that sooner or later, she would fail and Himiko would have her next victim.
Lara just shook her head. "No Sam, I'm here to apologise." The archaeologist shifted in her chair, coming forward to put herself almost nose to nose with the glass separating them. "I was broken after Yamatai, and I spent my time trying to deal with my own problems, my own nightmares and I lost sight of the fact that almost all of my injuries were easy to spot."
Almost unwillingly Sam's eyes were drawn to Lara's body. Most of it was covered by a dirty grey hoodie and her leather coat, a look which she might have described as crack-addict chic on anyone else, but even the small amount of skin it showed had examples of the damage wrought on her by their four-day ordeal on Yamatai.
"I didn't want to deal with your problems because if I did, I might have to admit that I didn't get to you in time. That I failed to save my best friend on Yamatai. That if I'd been faster, better, I might have gotten to you sooner and stopped all of it."
There was an intensity in Lara's eyes now. "So I'm here to make you a promise, and to deliver a message to the wretched part of Himiko's soul that's stuck inside you."
Something ugly twisted Sam's face, even as she fought down the wave of negative emotions. "Words are cheap Lara Croft," she heard her own voice say.
If her eyes had been intense before, they pretty well blazed now. "True, but you'll see the actions soon enough, because I finally pieced it together. I finally understand what happened, why you fought with the police and assaulted a man on the street. It's because Sam is stronger than you Himiko, you sociopathic cunt."
The bellow of rage was loud enough to acutely worry the nearby guard into action, but Lara held up an imperious hand and he stopped. The watch officer had been painfully, almost brutally clear. Croft was to have fifteen minutes, and unless the inmate was physically violent to herself, he was to do nothing.
"How dare you….you…. common born wretch," came the hissed response as one of Sam's hands landed on the glass. "I am nobility, ruler of the lands and the weather besides."
If Himiko had known Lara better, she might have noticed the glint of triumph in the other girl's eyes. Sam saw it, and it made her silently cheer on her friend. She had never heard Lara swear like that, with a calculated viciousness designed purely to goad Himiko into responding. Or to put it the way Roth had, once after a card game aboard the Endurance, 'You got played son.'
"You don't have your powers here Himiko," Lara responded her voice almost friendly. "You might have got a part of your soul time-sharing in Sam's body, but not your powers. Some part of Sam understood how dangerous you are anyway, and deliberately arranged to be put in a place where you can't hurt anyone. They are never going to let you out of there Himiko."
The rage was subsiding within Sam, leaving only the hot feeling of hatred flowing through her. "That's a lie," Himiko snarled, but it lacked conviction.
"Sam is smarter than most people gave her credit for, and Sam. My Sam," she said in a voice that was oddly possessive and proud. "She would never leave you roaming free in her body if she could do anything about it."
"Lara," Sam said, her throat dry, managing to regain control from the evil within. Even now she couldn't wrench away that control easily, but Himiko lacked the endurance to control her for very long. "How?"
Something softened in the other girls' gaze. "Once I wrote about Yamatai, I was able to actually start thinking again, and I thought about you and your behaviour. It didn't add up. Himiko wouldn't want to be caught out because she knows that without either her storm powers or her followers, she's got nothing. But you Sam, you know the one place that you can go where Himiko won't be let out again."
Sam choked back a sob as she listened. She had expected to have to push Lara away, to have actually succeeded in doing so, only to find out that her friend did know her better than she had any right to hope. After everything Lara had done to save her on Yamatai, how could she have done any less once she realised that some part of Himiko was still in her.
She had been very careful to not even really think about her plan, lest Himiko realise what she was going to do the next time there was an 'incident', and the evil Sun Queen had been taken completely by surprise when Sam was arrested and deliberately made the choice to make it worse so that she'd remain incarcerated.
"Thank you Lara," she finally managed. She only got a headshake in return.
"Don't thank me yet. I am leaving, but that's because I've spent a lot of time with my dad's journals. He wrote about all sorts of stuff I dismissed as nonsense, before Yamatai. Now however, I'm inclined to believe a lot more of it, and that means I have options."
She put a hand on the glass, and Sam mimicked it, there hands coming the closest to touching that they had, or would for some time. "And here's my promise. Somewhere in this world is a means to rip that decayed remnant out of you, and I'm going to find it. I don't care if I have to spend my trust fund, sell Croft manor, or bankrupt myself to do it. Your time has passed Himiko, and I will find a way to revoke your squatters' rights and send you straight to hell."
The guard coughed and glanced at his watch, and Lara nodded.
"Stay strong Sam. I can't tell you where I'm going on the off chance that Himiko might figure out a way to use it against me, but don't lose faith. I'm not going to give up on you, and you shouldn't either."
As she got up out of her chair, her eyes locked on Sam's, Lara swallowed once. "I don't say this as often as I should, but ever since my parents died, you're the closest thing I've had to family. You mean the world to me, and I love you Sam, and whatever ancient secrets I have to discover, graves I have to desecrate and Tomb's I have to raid, I'm going to fix this."
With that she turned and left, and Sam gently placed the phone back in its cradle. Himiko's rage boiled through her like lava, and Sam didn't care at all. Despite everything, Lara was still in her corner. She was still coming to save her, just like she always did, and the joy of that eclipsed any feelings Himiko might try to force through.
Oh she had no doubt that Himiko would fight her on this, might even succeed from time to time, but now Sam had a wall to place her back squarely against in order to fight back. A comforting British wall armed with twin pistols named Lara Croft.
This fight had only just begun.