AN: This is the first chapter after the end of the game, and it's semi-inspired by the trailer for the next game. This is my idea of where Lara goes after escaping the Isle of Yamatai.
They made it back to land, and Reyes reported the deaths. That caused a stir, and suddenly their boat was covered in people. Yamatai was in international waters, and the studio had made them all sign waivers. There were no legal problems, but lives had been lost, and an ancient place uncovered. If the press wasn't interested in the death of a semi-celebrity, then every Treasure Hunter and Relic Finder in the world was hoping to get the co-ordinates.
The Crew of the Endurance were taken to a police station. No charges, but it was secure, and the lawyers wanted to take their testimony in turns, to sort out who got first dibs on everything the expedition had discovered.
They had a chance to speak to each other before the rest of the world invaded. Lara had promised them in no uncertain terms that the Island was at peace now, but there may have been some survivors of Mathais' army left in the Shantytowns.
"You mean there was one you missed?" Reyes said under her breath.
Sam's fingers tightened convulsively on Lara's arm for a moment. The almost-sacrificial Lamb hadn't willingly left Lara's side since the top of the mountain.
Lara ignored Reyes' sarcasm. "My point is, if anyone returns to Yamatai, they should be able to come and go safely." She shrugged. "If we could make it out, so could they."
Reyes nodded. "Right, which means that any of our stories about the Spirit of the Sun Queen will be... well, laughed out of the room."
"It happened!" Sam barked.
"We believe you." Jonah promised soothingly. "But here in a place with lights on and running water, nobody else will."
"He's right." Lara nodded.
And then the lawyers arrived, and they didn't get a chance to speak again for a long time.
The Endurance Crew were put up in a hotel by the Press, until they could sort out how to do the interviews. Everyone wanted to hear their story, but the Crew wasn't sure they wanted to tell it. Until they decided, none of the Press wanted their competitors to get access to the Crew first.
It was a fairly cheap place, with peeling wallpaper in a few places. It was paradise to them. Hot water, actual beds, cutlery of any kind...
Lara slept on the floor. It hadn't been that long, but she couldn't get comfortable on a mattress any more. The last three times sleep came to Lara was when something had beaten her unconscious. Sam was crying out from the nightmares in the next room, and Lara went to sit with her. The Raider couldn't sleep. Sam clung to her arm like a baby.
Her clothes were new. Sam had dragged her to a dozen different stores. Lara had gone with her, because the girl wasn't willing to be parted from her Guardian just yet, but she wanted to pamper herself and feel like a young woman again. Lara had gone along because she had nowhere else to go. School felt like a joke now. Her apartment seemed like a waste of everything. The Mansion even more so.
She felt herself split in two. Everything she looked at, everything she experienced; all of it brought two very different reactions. One viewpoint was Lady Lara Croft. The other viewpoint was the Tomb Raider.
The Raider didn't sleep. The Raider pressed her back to the wall and fingered the knives from the kitchen, wondering which one would have the best balance, good for throwing at the door, or concealing up a sleeve.
Lara Croft was luxuriating in the feeling of being clean after a long hot soak. The Raider demanded she barricade the door before lowering her guard enough to wash. Lara had suggested more stylish clothes while shopping with Sam. The Raider demanded she keep her boots, instead of sandals. More hardy and practical.
Lara was trying to figure out what to do about her exams, and what classes to take next year. The Raider was making lists. Supplies to collect, training to take, lessons to learn. Lara didn't know how to throw knives properly. She needed to learn. She had found a bow on Yamatai, and been skilled with it, but she didn't know how to make one. She was at the mercy of her luck.
The Raider didn't like to be at anything's Mercy. The Raider didn't believe in Mercy.
The Crew had met to discuss the matter of a Press Announcement. Sam was the last to arrive, with bags of food. "I got you guys some lunch. Hope you don't mind, they were all out of the chicken burgers."
A large plastic bag. Lara hadn't felt anything plastic in a lifetime. Only stone, and wood, and metal. Plastic was too... malleable. Too easily shattered. The fragments would last forever, but not in any usable shape. A plastic bag was purely the creation of modern civilization... And Lara had almost forgotten what that was like.
The survivors were all staring at the bag with hungry eyes. The smell of food hit them all at once. Lara didn't reach for it.
Sam portioned out the food. Burgers, dripping with sauce, thick fries, salted and crispy. They were kept in containers. Cardboard boxes full of hot food.
Sam placed a burger and fries in front of Lara. It was more food than she had eaten the entire time she'd been on the Island put together. Food she hadn't scavenged herself. Food she hadn't had to fight for, even kill for.
Lara didn't reach for it. She was looking at fast food. Convenient food. Heavy food that would put fat on her bones and protect her from the cold, and fill her mouth with different flavors from different sources... She had no idea where this food came from. The meat could have been in a freezer for months, shipped across whole countries. The sauce would have been mixed together from a hundred different chemical ingredients...
In fact, now that she thought of it, the first meal she'd eaten and known the source of, was the meat she'd carved from Bambi's mother, who'd she'd shot herself.
"Eat something." Sam whispered in her ear, almost begging her.
Lara wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. All the things she'd done, and she was almost traumatized by the offer of a damn burger and fries. She looked up and realized everyone was having a similar reaction.
"We didn't have a clue, did we?" Reyes said finally.
"No." Lara said honestly. "Now we do."
They ate. Lara could hear the moans and giggles of people tasting salt and grease for the first time in eternity. Lara ate mechanically. After so long without a full stomach, this was more than she could comfortably take. She ate it all anyway, because she couldn't bring herself to leave food uneaten. In her head, the Lady Croft knew that if she ever wanted more, she only had to ask for it, or buy it herself. But she couldn't convince The Raider.
The Raider knew the value of meat. Knew the price of it. Row after row of uncooked supermarket beef and poultry and lamb, wrapped in plastic and sold cheap to the masses... The price of meat was forgotten here.
The Raider felt like a thief and ate it all anyway. The Raider knew that if you saw fuel for your body, you use it, before you lose it.
The Lady Croft wondered why it bothered her. She didn't need to worry about food any more. She didn't need to sleep with her back to the wall and a knife under her pillow.
Sam didn't need to be scared any more either, but she was. Scared enough to still need the others.
The Raider was already preparing.
The Lady Croft didn't know what she was preparing for.
Yamatai had taught her everything, except for the most important lesson: How to leave the Island, and come back to her life.
The Crucible had touched them all in some way. Trials by Battle. Trials by Ordeal. The Support Group was full of war veterans who couldn't settle at home, and battered wives who had to flee their families for their own safety. The Endurance Crew was all in one such group or another. Lara had been sent alone to this one.
The Raider understood these people, even if she didn't feel the same.
The Crucible had spat them all out again, and the Raider knew immediately which ones had survived.
Two of the women had restarted their lives. The Raider was fear, but also the hungry energy that came with beating something bigger and stronger than them. They would be fine.
One of the battered wives was saying all the right words in group, but The Raider could see that her spirit was broken so deeply that an army of trained experts couldn't put her back together again. She'd find someone else who offered her any kind of affection and cling to them at any price. Victims seeking another abuser, rather than handle life alone.
The soldier kept going on and on about the friend who hadn't survived his second tour. He said all the right things, and did all the activities. A soldier was used to doing as he was told. But The Raider could see the contempt in his eyes. His Crucible had spat him out and left him as a ball of pure, concentrated hate. He was not unlike one of Mathias' people now. Lara expected to see him on a Wanted Poster soon, if not the Nightly News.
The teenager who'd had a breakdown after a lifetime of being bullied seemed eager. His Crucible was small compared to hers, but insurmountable to him. He was speaking eagerly of his studies in Home-school. Everyone made the right noises, pleased that he was doing better now, but Lara knew he hadn't won his war. He'd run from it. The day would come when he'd have to face a bully again, and he wouldn't be able to run. His Crucible had broken him, and he'd taken no effort to rebuild himself stronger.
That teenager unsettled the Lady Croft. She wondered if she'd be the same way: Stable and strong, as long as everything in her life was cosy and protective and safe. Would another test or trial send her to pieces? Would passing through The Crucible again break her?
The Raider said no.
"Lara, I want you to try something." The Doctor said gently. His voice was always gentle. His voice was soft and welcoming and disarming. Lara didn't fall for it. He was trying to put her at ease and get her to drop her guard.
The Raider didn't drop her guard for anything. "If I can."
"I want you to try and describe the first thing you noticed when you woke up that first day."
"On the island?"
"After the island." He clarified. "The day after you got back, your first morning back in civilization. What was the first thing you noticed?"
Lara gave the question some thought. "It'll sound... unhinged."
"Try me."
"I know that you're all watching my state of mind, and I worry how you'll react to what I say."
"I understand." Her nodded. "Tell me anyway."
Lara sighed. "I was thinking how fragile it is. We just take for granted that the water comes out of the tap. We just take for granted that there will be food in the supermarkets, and that the trucks will roll in on time to stock the shelves, and the container ships will dock just in time to fill the trucks. We take for granted that the ATM will spit out money and that money will be be worth more than just... paper. We have a world so elegant and modern that none of us know how it works."
"You aren't the only one to think that way, you know." He pointed out kindly. "After what you've been through, it's only to be expected that you hold on to some of the habits and viewpoints that saved your life."
Lara said nothing to that. She wanted to escape this room. Words could reach people. The Raider didn't want to be reached. The Raider knew the value of silence. This man wasn't hunting her, but if his words could lower her guard, then he was as dangerous as the freaks of Yamatai.
"Those habits and viewpoints won't give me back." Lara admitted. "The part of me that I needed on the Island... That part of me can't talk about it, because if words make you lower your guard, then they have to be avoided."
"And the part of you that's still Lady Lara Croft?"
Lara said nothing. But the part of her that was still around from before the Endurance sank wanted to speak about nothing else until she ran out of words.
"You don't like to talk." The Doctor observed. "Samantha says you've been saying less and less."
Lara knew he was right and hoped it was something that could be fixed. The Raider howled at the betrayal. Sam, of all people, had given him a clue to her weakness.
"Let's try word association." The Doctor suggested brightly. "Ready?"
"Always." Lara responded, then shook her head. "Sorry. I thought that was my first word."
"Afraid not, though you've definitely got the idea. These words are based on your experience, but more to test how you're re-acclimating to civilization." The Doctor grinned. "Let's begin: Water."
"Days." Lara responded.
"Food."
"Weeks."
"Island."
"Test."
"Samantha."
"Loyal."
"Money."
"Paper."
"Himiko."
"Dead."
"Home."
Silence.
"Lara?" He pressed her gently.
The Lady Croft had a dozen answers. She had a Manor waiting for her to inherit it. She had an apartment that she had paid for herself without any handouts from her Trust Funds. She had lived in London, America, even Yamatai held a special place for her now.
The Raider had no answer at all.
She was Adrift.
AN: Read and review!