A/N: I think this idea came about in a talk with Ceara Einin about the "Shared Respite"(?) - I'm super grateful! This was not a planned out addition to the fic, but it seemed to work out and was really fun to write. And it's nice to get Lara's voice heard a bit after Jacob hogged all her parts in the "Prophet of the Old Realm". :D And a big shout-out to fanfiction. addicted01 for comments!

Why is blood always so damn messy?

She tries to hold back the frustrated sigh - not to mention the cries of pain - when she cleans the wound with an antiseptic salve in the small toilet cubicle.

Bloody hell.

The bruise hasn't had too much time to form - yet -, but it's already the same size as her hand, fingers extended, making her glare at it with irritation, trying to see the spot properly in the first place without knocking her first aid kit from the closed toilet seat.

She could have had Jonah treat the injury, but now, she feels like she'd rather ask Trinity for help. They wouldn't, but at least the response would be easier to handle.

A few friends enter the ladies' restroom by the sound of it, making her minimize her breathing out of reflex and glance at the red dot on the stall's doorknob. It's not the tiniest of restrooms, but small enough to make people note every locked stall when waiting for their turn.

She braces herself again when applying the antiseptic to the wound that opened on their hurry to the airport, closing her eyes and letting her head drop minimally when the sting hits her.

She wants to kick the stall, Trinity, the shitty poorly built mezzanine.

And when she lets the salve work its magic, she kind of wants to cry too. Crofts don't cry, obviously; they seal parts of the building and turn the earth around, but they don't waver in despair. However, amidst the gray, industrial cubicle walls, looking at yet another mistake, she feels really alone.

She tries to tell herself that Jonah didn't mean to upset her with his frustration of her getting herself injured again. Plus, who counted near deaths anyway - one would never move forward like that.

But when she digs the bandage roll from the kit, searching for the starting point from the plastic cover with her nails rather than just ripping it with her teeth like usual, she knows very well that it is not just one time.

Everything with Jonah was rocky, had been since her return from Siberia. She is trying very hard to make things back the way they were, but she is starting to feel that she just doesn't have the right means.

And how is she even supposed to bandage something that's partially on her bum?

She has to repeatedly push her hair behind her ear as the overgrown fringe stubbornly falls to block her view every time she cranes her neck to see the injury. In addition to the frustration, she feels anxious, nervous even what she allows herself to acknowledge the feeling. Over two and a half years ago, she had returned empowered from the Valley. Her father had been right, her memories of Yamatai were probably correct in many parts, and her father maybe hadn't taken his own life. Not to mention, that she had achieved something, she had stepped against Trinity and survived. She had found the Divine Source, well, with the courtesy of Jacob, but...

All in all, she had walked out with more confidence and a clear purpose, and now...

The bandage doesn't stay on no matter what she tries, so, she'll have to resort to the medical tape and some patches which always wrinkle a bit more, making them also more noticeable to Jonah. She doesn't want his mind to dwell on her injuries any longer than necessary - most favorably not at all.

Back then, she had been surprised by Jacob's offer to help her, but on her way back, it had started to seem like a promising plan. He was so knowledgeable, a good fighter, a strong ally; it could help a lot. And she had liked his company, even though the man was enigmatic in the true meaning of the word, always leaving her wondering. Normally, the unknown left her on her toes a little, but he had come to save her life, so she supposed that she could trust him at least to an extent. Getting the man a pass to England hadn't been easy at all, but she had taken a sense of accomplishment - if it played through the way she had pictured it fifty times over.

The only problem was, that now she wasn't sure if she wanted to go and pick up Jacob at all.

She had said to him then that she preferred working alone, and the message feels more well-founded than ever. Because it seems that no one wants to work with her anyway. Sam had left in desperate tears, Jonah had temporarily left with heated words, and everyone else was pretty much dead.

What if she misremembered her time in the Valley? What if she had been so upset after her fight with Jonah, that overtime, she had just twisted Jacob's attitude towards her into something that it hadn't been? If he knew what she had done in the meantime, would he still approve of her - or would he be repulsed by her?

She doesn't know, and right now she feels that on top of her argument with Jonah last night, the stupid, painful wound on her outer thigh, and just her life basically, she doesn't want to face the possibility. Things rarely work out like that for her anyway on the social front.

She tries to twist her upper body again to see if she covered most of the injury, but that only makes her battered muscles scream in pain, making her grasp the toilet paper dispenser with white knuckles and creating a horrible rattle.

It falls dead quiet in the restroom, thus making her silence her breathing again, until the lack of any further noise makes the chatter and the sound of flushed toilets start again.

Fuck.

She packs the first aid, and hides it in her backpack, trying to nod the determination back.

She'll have to push forward, she had promised Jacob to be there, so she is going to be there. And she'll need to suck up her personal problems to keep them from weighing her and Jonah.

She unlocks the stall and tries to act nonchalant when she moves to wash her hands from the blood stains. There is still some coloring on her pants, but she doesn't have the energy to cause the wound to re-open - again - by changing, and she can downplay it to Jonah as old blood.

At least on the flight to Novosibirsk she should be able to catch some sleep, and look at everything with new eyes tomorrow. She is tired enough that she might actually even manage that.