a dear heart, a small part, i could have tried more

a sweet smell, a thin shell, a farewell, i should've cried more

i don't eat, i don't sleep, i just fight but what i long for

is a safe place, a kind face, the sweet taste i nearly died for

-another soldier, the feeling


[in which the guilt is suffocating]

When you stop and reflect upon it, the first time that you can remember feeling rage, true rage, was when Grim plummeted from that tower. Your blood went cold and the world went red and god knows how many arrows flew from your bow after that moment.

That was also the first time that you felt no regret or remorse about letting those arrows fly. You haven't remembered that yet. It's much harder to pin down the start point of a lack of feeling.

It was much later when reality hit you. That Grim was gone. It was during a brief respite, when you had a moment to collapse to the ground and rest the best you could without closing your eyes for longer than half a minute. It hit you, and your gut dropped so far, so fast, that you had to swallow back the bile that had crept up your throat. You also swallowed the tears, because you had no time for them. You had to get up and keep going, or worse things could happen (you chuckle at that thought, because they happened anyway). Grim was dead and you couldn't even take the proper time to mourn him.

You assume that that was also around the time that you started running down the path towards your current level of fucked.

Because you are fucked, and you're well aware of it. You're fucked up, on the severe end of the scale, you assume. If you weren't, you probably wouldn't be sitting outside, leaning back against your front door at three in the morning. If you weren't, Sam probably wouldn't currently be sleeping next to a cold, empty void beneath the blankets. If you weren't, you could probably spend at least one night without despising yourself for not doing better. If you weren't, you could probably spend a night actually sleeping.

But you're fucked, and so you're sitting here, staring blankly up at the night sky. There's not much else to look at, at this hour. That's okay though. You have a hard time looking at anything that isn't pitch dark. You love Sam, Jesus do you love her. But… when you look at her, you see every failure. So, so many failures (and the failures didn't stop even after you left the island). All you wanted, all you needed, was to bring her home safe. And you did. You did, but the fact that you "succeeded" is slowly killing you. A loud bark of laughter accidentally slips out when you realize how ludicrous this is.

You nearly died in the process of "succeeding". Now your "success" is killing you instead.

The bottle of vodka beside you probably isn't helping that matter either, but it sure as hell is helping your head stay fuzzy enough to give you occasional bouts of relief from everything that your brain is constantly screaming at you.

Part of the brain screaming issue is that you agree, one hundred percent, with everything that it tells you. You could have done more? Yeah. You should have been faster, more efficient? Without a doubt. You could have prevented so much by choosing to not close your eyes around a man who, in painfully clear hindsight, was completely mad? That isn't even a question. You could have spared a lot of blood and pain? For sure, if you had allowed your red haze to drop. You shouldn't bother worrying about that last point, because they all deserved it? Yes…

But did they really?

The actual issue is that you're lying to yourself about the percentage of your agreement. It's more like ninety-nine percent. And that one percent that's left over is the glaring problem.

When that one percent takes over—which happens far more than you'd like—you end up agonizing over every little detail of every little thing that's happened since the moment you set foot onto The Endurance.

So many little things seem to have rapidly turned into a tangled mess of crushing, giant things.

Your knees have started to buckle, from the weight.

"Aye, Lara, those bones have gone through a lot already." You look to your left and Grim nods down at said knees. "They can handle a lot more than you're letting them."

You clamp your eyes shut. "No. Stop it." Blindly, you pat the ground around you until you find your bottle, and you swing it in Grim's direction. "You aren't here anymore." You peek, for less than a second. He's starting to fade. "Go away!"

You take a drink, and then hazard another look. He did what you told him to. "Thank you," You mutter.

You've lost track of whether the alcohol is causing these ghosts or if it's what's allowing you to send them away. You've only noticed that your refuge of darkness is slowly becoming less effective. Ghosts don't seem to mind the dark.

Thing is, that doesn't really upset you as much as you thought it would.

You wish it upset you. You'd like to feel something, anything, that doesn't tie into the self-loathing that's overtaken any other emotions. Even the anger would be better. You could at least try and use it for something.

That's what you did when everything went dark crimson, after Roth stupidly saved you.

"It wasn't stupid at all, but I didn't save you just to watch you do this to yourself, Lara."

Without looking in the direction of the voice, you slam your eyes shut again. "You're gone. You aren't watching anything." You pause. Shake your head slightly. "Why don't any of you know that you're gone?"

Another drink before you continue yelling at the emptiness that surrounds you. "Didn't I tell you? I'm not that type of Croft." Your shouting devolves into whispering. "Isn't that obvious by now?"

Afraid to chance seeing Roth, you take one more drink before you open your eyes. It works (does it?), and he's nowhere to be seen.

You take it back. You don't want the crimson anger. You wish it had dissipated the minute it showed up. Then you could have stayed one the ground with Roth, could have kept crying. Could have stayed and stopped.

But you know there's no way that would have happened. It wasn't only the anger that was fuelling you. It helped, but it wasn't the main thing that pushed you to keep fighting.

That main thing was Sam. Keeping her safe. You fought to keep her safe. And so you had to hold on to that dark, dark, crimson. Had to move on. Stop the tears. Push the loss to the side, and try not to take your mistake (no, 'mistake' isn't even close to a strong enough word) to heart.

It worked somehow. You kept her safe.

"Yeah, you brought her home safe." God, why won't they shut up? "Brought her home to this. Damn, Croft, if I had know you'd flake on her like this, I wouldn't have bowed out so quickly. Might have saved her from having to deal wi-"

"Just fuck off, okay? Fuck off!" Lectures are the last thing you need right now.

"Can do. Did it the first time you told me to."

You timidly glance up at the figure that isn't in front of you. "Please do." You hesitate, feeling strangely guilty about losing your temper on a ghost. "I'm sorry, Alex. I am. I wasn't good enough. But you shouldn't be here. You aren't here. So fuck off."

"Alright. Off, I shall fuck. I just don't think I'm the one you should be saying sorry to."

You bang your head back against the door, as if it'll help you get your point across. "Just go!" He shrugs, and you drink as you watch him fade.

You keep staring in his former direction, though. It's long after he leaves when you quietly sigh. It turns into a short burst of hollow laughter as you concede, "Do you honestly think I don't know that, Alex?"

As if the timing was cued, you hear another voice. A real one.

"Lara?"

You slump further, and your head thumps against the door when you tilt it back. You hate when Sam wakes up and finds that you're gone. It's so much easier when you can slip back into bed before she notices. You assume that she probably knows either way, but without a witness you can choose to let those nights go unacknowledged.

Footsteps are shuffling towards you, so you lean forward to prevent yourself from tumbling backwards when she inevitably opens the door. You end up curling into yourself more than you intended to, and you take the opportunity to rest your head in your hand. Everybody's really wearing you down, tonight.

The door creaks, and you can feel her looking down at you. "Hey."

Her simple greetings of late tell you that she's started to run out of comforting words. That, or she's started to run out of patience.

"Hey," You parrot, without bothering to move.

She doesn't move either, just stands behind you, holding the door. "Come back to bed, please."

A strange croaking noise fills the silence that grows after you don't respond. It takes you a moment to realize that the sound came from you. You shift around to look up at her, and when you do, Roth is standing behind her (isn't once enough?), smiling for a change. It's weird, but he's smiling so you smile back for a fraction of a second, before he starts to fade back to wherever he came from. Your smile turns into a grimace when you see the axe lodged in his back.

Sam, of course, has no idea what you're staring at and making faces about, and she frowns. You hope that she can see the apology in your eyes before you look back out into the darkness. "Can't sleep." Your voice sounds foreign to you. Doesn't sound quite right.

"That doesn't mean you have to sit out here, like this." You know what 'like this' means. Anticipating Sam's fix for the 'like this' part of the situation, you take a (final) drink. A dejected noise comes from behind you. You plunk the bottle back down beside you; it just goes smoother that way. "Could you at least come back inside?"

There's suddenly a lump in your throat that's keeping you from responding. You don't know where it came from, and you can't swallow it away for some reason.

Silence stretches again, and eventually you see movement in your peripheral vision, hear the sound of a light clink of glass. Yeah, your self prescribed medication is going down the drain again. You briefly consider trying to snag it back from Sam, but last time you did that, you were far too… you missed, spectacularly. She was not happy about any of it, and you don't really feel like stepping on any glass shards tonight.

"Okay." The sigh that follows is heavy, and she sounds tired. "Stay there, then. You know there's always an empty spot waiting in here for you, if you change your mind."

You try to reply, again, but you make that strange croaking noise, again. Footsteps shuffle away from you, and the door hangs open. Lacking any interest to fix that, you choose to just lean forward again. Your hands feel wet after a few seconds, and confused about that, you pull your head back to wipe at whatever is on your face. You sniffle, and only then do you realize that you're crying.

You're crying.

You haven't, since you've been home. You haven't been able to.

Something's snapped. Why, how, and when, you have no idea. Maybe they finally wore you down enough. Maybe that's really why they've been hanging around.

You can only hope that Sam is still within range when you call out for her. Or when you try to, at least. You release a giant sob instead of her name. It still succeeds in getting her attention, though, and you hear the door creak further open again.

"Lara?" Her tone is completely different from what it was minutes ago.

You're sure that your shoulders are visibly shaking, and you can't seem to make any noises that aren't strangled. Behind you, Sam stays quiet. Probably watching and probably waiting for whatever new bullshit you've probably started, you assume. You only know that she's still there because of a lack of footsteps leading away from you. She stands there for you-don't-know-how-long while you continue to make inarticulate sounds. You do manage to get one legible word out, though.

"help"

You choke it out so quietly that you can barely hear it through all the other ugly noises that you're making. Sam must have caught it, because the footsteps that you're so accustomed to hear leaving are pattering around you, and suddenly she's crouched in front of you.

"What did you say?"

When you look up, she's watching you with hope in her eyes. You don't… maybe it's simply your foggy memory, but you can't remember the last time you've seen that.

"Help." It comes out far more solid than the first time, but you dissolve back into whimpers within a second.

"I… Yeah." Any hint of defeat that was in her voice before is gone, and the slightest of a smile is twitching on her lips. "Of course. I- I've been waiting. I was worried… I was starting to think you weren't going to give me the chance." You hear slight confusion, probably at the suddenness of this, but you hear none of the defeat. As she stands up, she asks again, "Will you come back inside with me now?"

You nod and stumble a bit as you push yourself up from the ground. Before she can react, you lurch forward, and you're hanging onto her like your life depends on it (maybe it does). She doesn't try to pull or push away, doesn't try to usher you back through the door. Doesn't repeat any of her actions of late. She just silently holds you while you crumble apart against her. No, she's holding you to keep you from crumbling apart.

You have no idea what cracked inside you, but you think that you're glad that it did. How much longer until you would've hit the end of the road you were on, you don't know. It's probably not worth thinking about right now. So you stop thinking for the first time in far too long, and let yourself continue to cry as you cough out your plea one more time.

"Please help me."


oops my hand slipped?

Through my experiences, I've found that you can't help somebody until they're ready to take that help. You can try and convince them that they might need some help, but you can't actually give them that help until they're willing to accept it. It's fucked up, but you can't force help on somebody who's convinced they don't need it. Or deserve it.