Whoops, didn't realize I forgot to source the lyrics from the beginning. It's from Matthew 25:21 by The Mountain Goats. If you want a real tone setter for this fic, I definitely recommend checking it out. Thank you for reminding me, ClaireisinLightning!

The next night I am woken by a fit of horrific screaming.

"Lara! Goddammit-" I mount you at the waist, grabbing your threatening arms and pinning them above your head before you can claw at yourself further. "Wake up!" My voice is saturated with hissing frustration and panic.

You show no signs of understanding, or even hearing, and continue your frenzy of angered thrashing. You're strong, so strong after Yamatai, so much stronger than me, and it's a great struggle keeping you tethered to the mattress.

The deep trenches you've torn into your upper arms and chest are beginning to bleed from exertion, and I'm regrettably aware that my right knee is pressing up against your deteriorating side.

"Get out," you scream, jaw clenching tight around the words. This isn't right. This can't be happening. No one dreams like this, this violently. Your words are too coherent, your actions are too overwhelming. This is something else. Something rooted in your infected wounds. I become sickeningly aware that this is a fever dream, and it means the infection has gotten into your blood.

"Lara," I nearly sob. "Snap out of it!" Please. Wake up. Please. Please. Your eyes flutter open for only a second, hazed sclera turned inwards. Every blood curdling cry you let loose sounds like agony, as if you're caught in a mad cycle of reliving every injury, every stab and shot and trap.

I hear the audible sound of flesh tearing under me. My hands tighten around your wrists futilely; you're going to be in incredible pain when you wake up.

You escape my grip suddenly, and in your crazed state your elbow collides with the side of my head, hard. I reel back with a startled shout.

"Shit!" I bark, and with a new resolve I lunge back onto you, fighting to keep you immobile. "Stop it, Lara." I shock myself with a hard edge of my tone. "Stop it."

Without warning you begin to laugh, wildly, baring your teeth between maliciously curled lips. "Bastards," you shout with a heinous grin. "Run, you bastards!" Your arms struggle against mine and begin to lift the entire weight of my upper body off the bed.

Shit. This is fucking dangerous. "Lara-Fuck! Wake. UP!"

It takes me a moment to realize what I'd done, and I freeze as a sharp sting echoes from my palm to the tips of my fingers. Your head is bent to the right, cheek red, and your body tightens completely before falling lax.

"L…Lara?" I clap a hand over my mouth as the mark on your cheek slowly irritates into the shape of a near perfect handprint.

You groan as you surface, recentering the position of your head to gaze absently up at me. "Sam…?"

"Oh, god, I am so sorry, sweetie," I plea, tracing the new mark with nervous fingertips. "I couldn't get you awake…"

You mumble something incoherent through trembling lips and throw your attention all around you like a trapped animal. I shuffle off of you quickly, afraid I'm crowding you in this moment of anxiety.

"Sam," you call out, grabbing onto my shoulders and sitting up too quickly. You fold into yourself at this motion.

"Don't!" I lean over you and move with your weight, pain forcing you back into the bed. "Don't move like that, Lara. You'll hurt yourself more." After taking so much time and energy bandaging you the afternoon before, the fact that you could easily tear yourself into pieces, asleep, just made my chest twist into a tight knot.

"Sam," you murmur again, eyes brewing with hot tears. "Oh god, I…" Anguish carves itself deeply into your features, your body language, and your hands move from my shoulders to your face. You cover yourself, as if in shame, and you bark a single sob into them.

"It's okay, sweetheart," I try to soothe you, cradling your head against my chest and pulling you into my lap the same way I had in the bathroom.

"Sam…" you cling to me, searching for validation to a statement you hadn't made yet. "I…I was there…I was…killing them…" Your voice is choppy and hazed in thick, palpable emotion. "He was trying to get away, oh god…" You look up at me then, biting your lips together for a moment before spilling yourself onto my chest again. "I…I ran at him…he was only trying to get away…Sam, I was…I was laughing."

Your words are like bullets. I tighten my grasp around your broken, shaking, beautiful body and pull myself into this new world that follows you around like a rabid animal, cursing it to its core. I expected nightmares, I expected your reliving that fear. I expected PTSD, and paranoia, and a horrid mixture of a hundred other crippling things.

But I never thought it'd make you question your very nature. Your strength. Your sanity.

Sanity.

"Oh Christ, I'm…I'm a fucking psychopath!" You snap the words and tighten every muscle into your body until you're a ball of nervous energy in my arms. "I chased them to the ends of that place, I murdered them without a thought…"

I reply softly, masking the ripping pain in the back of my throat. "They were trying to kill you, kill all of us. You did what you had to do to stay alive-"

"No." You're deathly serious. "Sam, I was hunting them." You look me dead in the eyes for measurable counts before shooting a sharp glare to the locked door, as if expecting something to break it down at any second. "Like deer…"

This is not okay. I shake my head and shove my nose into your hair, inhaling the grim scent with stomach turning frustration. I wanted to go back to Yamatai and light every tomb, every shrine, every tree, every dead body and every fucking mountain on fire until the entire island was nothing but a smothered patch of ash, a black ink smudge on an old map. I wanted to find Mathias' body and smash it into the rocks with my bare fists.

And despite these debilitating emotions boiling inside me, I couldn't find a single sentence to say that could comfort you. You were force to kill. Some people…some people never recover from trauma like that when it stands in singularity. But combined with the abuse you'd taken, the fear I knew was absolutely haunting…

My head throbs where you'd hit it accidentally, compressing under the pressure of my protective anger.

"Everything hurts," you choke, clutching my chest, balling the fabric of my shirt between your fingers.

"I know, sweetie," I coo, holding you close.

"I think I'm going to be ill…"

I help you to the toilet, and your body purges itself of all of the fluids I'd forced on you hours beforehand for a straight twenty minutes. It take an hour to fix the damage you'd caused on your wounds, and twelve more butterfly stitches to close the new claw marks on your arms.

Your side is festering further. I'm shocked to find purple varicose veins stretching out from it, reaching over your abdomen and your back.

"It burns," you moan, tears wiped away. "Like I'm holding a lighter to it."

I remember your amateur cauterization, or at least what you'd told me of it, on the entrance side of the injury. The memory makes me shiver.

"We need to get you to a doctor," I quip nervously, tracing the dark, root-like vines under your skin. "I'll take care of you the best I can in the meantime." I hold your hands in mine and massage your palms with my thumbs. "Just don't go dying on me, okay?"

I roll the words over my tongue as if the statement was a joke, but they sting as they leave my lips.

"I'll try," you smile forcibly.

I examine your cheek with a furrowed brow, the handprint faded but still visible.

"I can't believe you slapped me," you say, running fingers over the area.

"Me neither," I sigh. "But you elbowed me in the head."

"You hate getting hit in the head." It was true; moreso than most people, I got physically angry when anyone touched my head or face unexpectedly. "I'm surprised I'm still alive." A joke. I can't help but grin at you.

"Well, you're just too cute to kill, I guess," I tease lightheartedly, slapping your knee in a playful way.

"Cute? You're mad." You brush your fringe out of your face. "Like this, I look like the leftovers of a rogue mulcher."

You've never been very self-conscious before, and seeing you question your beauty is an endearing change of tone. It's not that you thought highly of yourself; it was more like you never considered it a consequence of anything, unimportant. You always dressed modestly, hair pulled back, minimal make-up if any.

"Are you kidding?" I chide. "Imagine how cool you're going to look when you heal up! With all those scars!"

"You don't think they're…ugly?"

It shocks me a bit to hear you say such a thing. Ugly? "Sweetie, nothing about you is ugly." My voice is barely a whisper as I step closer. "Trust me." I raise my open palm in front of you and hold it there; it was a gesture anyone may have been confused by, but you understand immediately and rest your own against it, threading our fingers together and smiling weakly.

"Thank you, Sam. You know, for everything."

"Yeah…" I murmur. "Don't thank me yet."