"Your old man has a permanent limp, doesn't he?" Cameron doesn't need to look at her files to tell her that. She's memorized every little bit of it. "Some kind of twitch on his hip. Your mom's shoulder can't bend backwards."

She's right. Lara doesn't want to admit it, but she's right. Her parents had told when when she was young that they got into a car accident while abroad.

Was any of it ever true?

"He dislocated his hip so bad it took him months to even use a crutch. Your ma's shoulder was so close to being torn off that the medics had to fly her on a helicopter to find a decent hospital."

"Why?" She inches herself closer to the laptop screen. "How?"

Cameron doesn't answer directly. "Should you try to find a place that doesn't want to be found? Can you really call it a dig site if it's not dead?"


"Sam?"

She stirs, but doesn't open her eyes. Sam buries her face further in Lara's chest and groans with annoyance.

The Englishwoman herself chuckles. An alarm clock has a snooze button, but she doesn't. "Wake up, Sam. It's time for breakfast."

The mention of food doesn't wake her. "Hmm..." She doesn't even make a move.

That's strange. Usually, the mention of sunny side ups and hashbrowns is all she needs to wake her up. "You didn't have a good night's sleep?"

"No." Her answer is almost too gentle to be heard.

"I'll ask if anyone has some coffee, then." Lara waits for Sam to get off of her, but she doesn't.

The sounds of talking don't help her get back to sleep. Finally, she rolls over onto her stomach, letting her best friend move. She breathes slowly and tries to calm herself and fall into sleep again, her limbs still heavy with sleep.

She feels exhausted like she had just finished a five hour study session in the library. Back then, it had taken a while for her to get used to a sleeping bag when she started traveling with Lara, but she's definitely used to it now.

Why does she feel so tired, then? Sam brushes it off and figures that it's probably how mentally challenging the events of yesterday were.

Sleep washes over her for just a brief moment, uninterrupted and restful. She basks in the warmth left by Lara's body like a cat on a lazy summer noon, but she's woken up far too soon by said woman's voice and the smell of some very good coffee.

"Sam." Lara repeats for the third time. When she sees the Japanese's eyes slowly flit open, the archaeologist seats herself down, careful not to spill the steaming thermos of joe all over herself. "Fields is gone and scouting ahead with the other guy Cameron left with yesterday. She's back with lots of food and she says this belongs to Fields' girlfriend who's at the pyramid. She's some coffee aficionado and addict, or something."

She doesn't register most of it. "Yep, that makes sense. This smells like the kind mom makes for dad, and he's picky about everything."

"Sounds like you got lucky." Lara inches the mug closer to her.

"Hell yeah." Sam closes her hands over the mug and inhales the rich, thick scent. "We're here with weirdos, but they're nice and well funded weirdos."

The laughter that comes from the archaeologist sounds off, and it tips Sam more than a bit when she hurriedly asks a question. "Did you have a bad dream?"

"Huh? No." The urgent inquiry makes suspicion rise up inside her. "Why?"

Lara leans in real close to her, but her mouth doesn't make a sound even when it's right by Sam's ear. Finally, after a moment of tense silence, she speaks. "I heard that-"

"Wakey wakey!" Cameron's voice interrupts them before she can say anything more and pokes her head into the tent. "Oh. You're awake. Good, 'cause I brought a professional chef here to make some food for us and it's pretty damn good. Hurry up before I finish everything."

"Very funny." Sam laughs after only half of her coffee is left. She remembers yesterday's food and it's definitely not gourmet.

"Not really. I'm not joking."

Now that Lara thinks of it, she does smell something wonderful, and so does Sam. With a final gulp, she stands up and offers her hand to her bookish roommate. "Come on, I'm starving."

The brunette gladly takes it, but she lags behind as Sam excitedly makes her way outside. Cameron gives her a knowing look as she leans in close, just like Lara did with her best friend moments ago. "Don't tell her yet, Croft. If she knows, that witch in her skull knows too. It'll make getting rid of her that much harder."

"I know." They talked about it, after all, but she can't help but let the guilt weigh her down. "I just... I don't like lying to her."

"It's that or let that worm stay in her noggin forever." She pats Lara's shoulder. "C'mon, breakfast's waiting."

Lara nods wordlessly and lets the woman guide her out, where Sam is absolutely wolfing down her morsel. She had been doubtful before, but judging by the way Himiko's descendant is scarfing everything in, Cameron might have been telling the truth.

"Who made this?" Lara takes a good look at her food. "It smells great."

"That guy with me yesterday." Cameron must be talking about the tan skinned man with the undercut. "We got here early this morning, but he and Nicky went to go first and send our supplies to the camp. I got him to make some food first, of course. He's the only one whose stuff don't taste like ass."

"Thank you for your faith in the rest of we peasants' culinary skills." Fields says between his chewing. Unlike Sam, he's actually savoring the food instead of vacuuming it in. "It's ironic, considering that you are the worst cook here."

"Why are you three even talking?" Sam wipes the edge of her mouth and puts her completely cleaned up plate down. "You're gonna let all this get cold!"

"Alright, alright." Lara holds her hands up in surrender. "I'd better eat mine before you leave me to starve."

Sam feigns being offended. "Lara Croft, you would be content eating instant noodles and frozen food for breakfast, lunch and dinner if I wasn't around to get mad at you for it."

Cameron begins to eat her share while she rolls her eyes. "You smart ones are all the same."


They arrived at camp during the evening the day before, and it was quite cool, although understandably humid. Now, it's swelteringly hot and Sam's backpack is heavier than she thought it would be. Maybe it's the heat getting to her, because it certainly didn't feel this heavy before.

It feels like a miracle when they stop by a river to catch a short break. She wipes the sweat from her forehead and stretches, finally free from the oppressive weight of her bag, if only for a moment.

Her jacket falls to the ground.

"Don't even think about it." Cameron warns, fanning herself with her hand. Now that her arms are bared for her to cool off, her sculpted, muscular arms leave nothing to the imagination.

"I didn't even say anything." Sam pouts, but her eyes don't leave the rushing water of the river. The torrents seem clear, unlike the murky brown they passed through yesterday, and it looks so very tempting.

"That's because you seem like you're thinking of doing something incredibly unwise." Sam and Lara can't decipher his expression, but Cameron can see that he looks as if he's watching a puppy running into the path of a speeding car.

"I know there's eels and piranhas and whatever in there." She points her thumb to Lara's direction. "This one did nothing but read and watch these documentary TV shows when she was recovering."

"And you were stuck watching them with me." Lara teases, although she knows that Sam really does enjoy her wildlife and archaeological show marathons. They had spent days and days in bed, brushing off crumbs from their breakfasts and drifting in and out of sleep.

"Well..." Sam wonders, prying her eyes off the river. "A really big fish would make a really good dinner."

"Sam..." Lara knows that look in her eyes. It's the kind that got her kicked out from that hotel in Paris for covering the floors with snail slime.

"I like the way you think." Cameron's expression is an exact copy of Sam's, except twice as scary. "We're going fishing tonight."

Fields seems amused. "Your definition of 'fishing' is having me hold the line while you shoot into the water and waste precious ammo."

"It's not wasting it if I get it on the first shot."

"Um, I know how to fish." Lara interrupts them before they can go into a full out argument. It's too hot for her to handle that right now.

Her interjection seems to work. Fields' retort dies on his tongue. "Very well, then. We won't have to deal with unsafely flying fish hooks."

"Hey!" Cameron pouts.

"Yeah, but I'm not sure I can handle the bigger fish." She hurriedly adds. Whatever they're thinking, they're clearly imagining that she'll fish out something heavier than Sam in body weight. "I've only fished the less monstrous ones."

"Meh," Cameron dismissively shrugs. "You just need to do a lot of push ups and buy a bigger fishing rod."

"Lara's got one of those covered." Sam remarks, squeezing the brunette's tight biceps. The grooves and lines of her muscles gleam with sweat under the light of the sun.

"Your oversimplification of things will get you murdered one day." Fields shakes his head with a morbid chuckle. "Most likely by your own antics, too."

"Okay," Lara thinks she'd better change the topic of the conversation. "When are we going to walk again?"

"Yeah, it's really hot and stuff but I really want to see what the fuss about this old pyramid is." Sam agrees, although she could use a few more minutes of rest. Sore things are better than trudging through the forest at night, though.

"Talking about the pyramid," Lara can't believe she didn't ask this before. "How much has it been tampered with?"

"Well, Professor Fuckface groped it pretty much everywhere." Cameron annoyedly huffs at the mention of his name, even though she's not actually saying it.

"I was afraid you'd say that." Lara grimly sighs.

"If it's of any comfort to you, nothing is damaged." Fields tries to console her, but it doesn't do any good. "And he used gloves."

"And he bitched real good when I got near the thing with my machete." Cameron grumbles.

"She means that we're sure he was very careful with it." Fields elaborates.

"Okay, I think that means he cleaned it up quite well." Lara thinks out loud.

"It looked as good as a movie prop in the picture." Sam remembers.

"I hope he didn't take off with anything important." The archaeologist mumbles.

"I got a feeling he did leave something." Cameron seems too sure for someone who just has a feeling. "I mean, he probably sent those guys to kill us, that shit."

This is new. "Are you sure?"

"Nah, but we've got some guy with a really nice computer at camp." The blonde probably means a tech expert. "I bet he's gonna tell us that Professor Assbreath is behind them somehow."

Sam doesn't notice the edge of her jacket droop as she listens to Cameron's increasingly pointless yet humorously vulgar tirade, but Lara, unlike everyone else, prefers thinking about the newly presented information.

It also means that she isn't distracted, which is how she noticed the disturbance in the water right next to where Sam is standing. Adrenaline begins to pump in her veins, a result of old habits that don't die, but it will probably come in useful this time.

"Sam, get away from the water!"