Title: It's a Long and Arduous Road to Recovery
Author: vendettadays
Fandom: Tomb Raider (2013)
Characters: Lara Croft, Sam Nishimura
Rating: T
Summary: It was a car crash that catalysed their recovery.
It was the call at 10 PM that chilled Sam's lungs and made her forget how to breathe. All she managed was a strangled 'I'm on my way' before she ended the call and ran out of her bedroom. She shoved her feet into the first pair of shoes she saw and left her flat. Her feet pounded down the stairs to the ground floor, waking everyone else in her building, but she was out of the building faster than all the time she had lived there.
The cold air bit at Sam's uncovered arms, as she left the warmth of the inside. It was the middle of October and London was sliding into the chill of winter, bypassing autumn altogether with strong gusts and breezes. She waved at a black taxi driving down the road towards her. She pulled open the door, rocking the taxi as she sat down heavily into the back seat and closing the door with a slam, all before the driver could pull up his handbrake.
'A&E at the University College Hospital,' said Sam, interrupting the driver as he opened his mouth.
'Euston Road's blocked 'cause of an accident –'
'Just get me there fast and I'll give you an extra £20, please.'
Sam stared at the rear-view mirror that reflected the driver's eyes. The desperation must have been clear on her face, because he shrugged his shoulders and started to drive. Time seemed to elongate with every red light that the driver had to stop at. She bit her lip and clenched her phone tightly in her left hand, forcing down the swear words that rose up like panic every time the taxi slowed. It was not the driver's fault. He was already driving ten miles over the speed limit for her.
The taxi careened to a stop outside the automatic doors of the Accident & Emergency Department of the hospital. Sam threw a handful of notes that she found in the back pocket of her jeans through the tiny hole in the partition. It was probably a lot more than the amount she had promised the driver, taxi fare and the extra £20 included, but it was only money. She exited the taxi and ran through the doors, past the rows of chairs in the waiting room and to the lady with her ginger hair tied in a bun, sitting behind the reception desk. Her mouth opened and words left her mouth before her mind could process them.
'I'm here for Lara Croft.'
The receptionist jumped in her seat and looked up from her computer monitor, startled by the bang that Sam made when her hands landed on the edge of the desk to stop her from colliding into it. The stern look on the nurse disappeared when she saw the worried frown that had taken permanent residence on Sam's eyebrows since she got the call.
'Can I have your name?'
'Sam Nishimura.' The edge of the desk cut into the palm of her hand and it hurt, but she needed to ground herself. 'I got a call that my… that Lara Croft was in an accident.'
'Have a seat and I'll call the doctor.'
Sam nodded, but did not sit down. The receptionist picked up the phone and dialled a number. There was urgency in her voice, as she relayed to the person on the other line that 'Lara Croft's next of kin has arrived, yes, tell Doctor Lam ASAP', which only made Sam grip the desk tighter and clench her jaw harder until her teeth ached. Six months had passed since the night she had stitched Lara's arm. In six months Lara could have changed and she must have changed, because there was something terribly wrong for Lara to list Sam as her next of kin.
'Please take a seat, Ms Nishimura. I'll call you when the doctor arrives.'
Sam let go of the desk reluctantly and walked to the row of chairs that faced reception. It was a Monday night, but the waiting room was full of people waiting to be seen by someone. She sat in an empty seat in a row closest to reception, in between a teenaged girl cradling her swollen hand and a man whose face was as pale as the walls of the room they were sitting in. There was an uncanny quietness about the waiting room of hospitals that prickled the back of Sam's neck and made her leg jitter on the spot.
She had not been sitting for more than five minutes when a woman in blue scrubs came through the double doors next to the reception desk. The receptionist turned to the woman in the scrubs, and said something that was inaudible to Sam, whilst gesturing at where she was sat. Sam got up and walked to them and her heart pounded with every step, as she repeated in her head: please, do not let it be bad news.
The woman in the blue scrubs turned to face her, as Sam approached, and introduced herself as Doctor Lam. The tension in Sam's shouldered lessened, because Doctor Lam's expression was calm and not the controlled, neutral look that spoke of the worse.
'Ms Nishimura, if you could follow me, we can find somewhere a little more private to talk about Ms Croft.'
Sam followed the squelching of Doctor Lam's crocs against the linoleum floor. They went through the double doors and down the corridor, into another ward and waiting room with only two other people. Doctor Lam sat down and gestured for her to do the same. She tried to cover the splatter of light blue on her right forearm self-consciously, but the Doctor's eyes lingered on the marks that peaked out from under her fingers.
'Ms Croft has a broken tib and fib, which needs to be operated on as soon as she has been prepped for surgery,' said Doctor Lam. 'It's a simple procedure. We just need to fix some metal pins and plates to realign the broken bones.'
Surgery. Broken bones. All Sam did was nod, unable to force her throat to work, because Lara needed surgery and that any surgery no matter how simple the doctor made it sound, was still surgery.
'The accident was serious, but your partner has a very resilient body and with physiotherapy she will be able to make a full recovery.'
Sam nodded again and clenched her jaw at the assumption, but she did not bother to correct the Doctor. They were something, but they were nothing at the same time. She did not know what they were, not since that damn island and now, she was back in a hospital, repeating history by waiting in silence. The doctor left her alone with a promise that a nurse would come and get her when Lara was prepped for surgery.
She took her phone out from her back pocket, so that her fidgeting hands had something to do. She tapped at the screen with shaking fingers and opened her browser. The air in her lungs escaped with a shudder from her mouth when she searched what exactly a 'tib and fib' was.
Sam bit the knuckle of her index finger, as she paced the corridor outside the operating theatre. Ten steps away from the door and ten steps back. Any more and something bad might happen. There might be a complication. Or the surgeon might accidentally nick a nerve. She exhaled quickly and pushed the thought away, but her mind whirled like it did an hour ago when she searched how surgeries could go wrong. Lara would never be the same again.
Then there were the news articles online on the BBC and the Guardian. It was a stolen van driving at 50 miles per hour that collided into the taxi. It was Lara being in the wrong place at the wrong time. There were photos of the crushed taxi and pools of blood that Sam scrolled past quickly. Lara had to be cut out of the back of the taxi and she had been conscious throughout it all. Sam had switched her phone off when the urge to run grew too strong. So she paced her ten steps and did not think about what she would do if she lost Lara altogether.
Sam buried her face in her hands. The darkness behind her eyelids soothed her eyes, dry and bloodshot from tiredness. The back of her eyes throbbed and she wanted to see Lara. The earlier panic that had fuelled her had ebbed into a quiet anxiety, lingering like fingertips against the back of her neck and draining her strength. She had stopped pacing half an hour ago and was sitting in a chair next to the doors of the theatre.
A soft tap on her shoulder jolted her and she looked up to see a nurse staring down at her worriedly. He was holding a dirty, canvas holdall in one hand and a clipboard in the other.
'When the paramedics brought Lara in, she had a bag with her.' He paused and held out the clipboard at Sam. 'Can I get you to sign this form, so you can take her bag?'
Sam signed the form without reading it and handed the clipboard back. He smiled at her, a tight-lipped smile of comfort that did not reach her, and placed the bag on an empty chair. She pulled the ratty bag with its dirt and dust stains onto her lap. It was breaking apart, kept together by some clumsy string stitches at the seams. The zip was rusty and got stuck halfway when she tugged it open. There was a light, grey hoody on top of everything and she put it on, the length of the sleeves bunching at her wrists. The fabric was rough against her cold skin and she finally realised that it was October, past midnight, and she was only in a t-shirt and jeans with mismatched Converses on her feet.
The hoody smelt of dirt and old sweat and the wilderness, but it was a poor substitute for what Sam wanted. Whatever it was that she wanted. But it was the best she would get for now. She tucked her chin under the collar and took Lara's journal out. It was the same one from back then, almost two years ago, but its spine was cracked now and the corners blunted from repeated knocks. She untied the string that kept the journal together and opened it where the spine yielded easily to a deep crease, like it had been opened and closed on that page constantly.
A sob rose in Sam's chest and lodged itself in her throat. Stuck to the right-hand page with yellowing tape was a photo of her and Lara, surrounded by Lara's indecipherable writing and bloodstained fingerprints. They looked so young, dressed in their black graduation gowns with smiles that were genuine and free of tension. Lara's arm was thrown over Sam's shoulder, careless and carefree. Sam had forgotten that Lara used to do that. It was an action that belonged a world away from the Lara she knew now.
The operation was successful and Sam was able to breathe easier after hearing the news. She sat in a chair next to Lara's bed, her head resting on top of her left arm on the bed, as she waited for Lara to wake up. She counted the rise and fall of Lara's chest beneath the thin sheets and held onto Lara's cold fingers. Twenty minutes had passed with only the occasional slow flicker of Lara's eyes before she dozed off again. The nurse said that it was normal and that every patient was different when coming around after being under. It took time and Sam felt that everything to do with Lara only ever took time.