I'm delirious. Here's a chapter.
I love y'all for all the love you've been showing this fic! Feel free to keep the comments and likes coming! Positive reinforcement is that good soup that serves as the impetus for my productivity.
Sam had a plan.
After Lara had freaked out on her the night before, she'd gone out to town with Molly to forget about everything. Once they had finished pre-gaming at Molly's place, they'd gone out to the bars in Newham, stumbling across a karaoke bar along the journey. Thus, the lightbulbs started to go off for Sam, who went in with Molly. After three tequila sunrises, Sam was the perfect social butterfly. She sang, she talked, she mentioned that she and Molly did music, she met a promoter…
And she may have landed herself a musical network in London.
The promoter Sam'd met was willing to book her based on her voice alone, but he mentioned that it would probably be in Sam's favor to have a digital portfolio of songs that he could show to different venues when trying to book her. Lucky for Sam, the sound equipment she had her uncle ship over had just arrived in the mail. She was fully equipped and prepared to do live shows, at least. The only thing she needed to get was production equipment: monitors, DI boxes, a mic…
Sure, those things weren't cheap, but didn't people like her father and uncle get rich off of investing? The way Sam saw it, if she bought the equipment she needed and consistently got booked, she'd have an income. She was certain that she'd get paid based on ticket sales at whatever venue she was booked at. Sam knew she was good with people. She was confident in her ability to market herself.
She was just looking up music stores in the area that she could check out when she heard the sounds of the apartment door opening. Lara was home, not that Sam was particularly thrilled by that fact. The two of them hadn't talked since the previous day, and Sam didn't intend to change that trend for as long as Lara remained in the sour mood she was in. So, Sam tried to pay Lara no mind and continued her web search. Or at least she tried to until she heard a loud thud in the common area, followed by a choice assortment of profanity.
Sam took a deep breath. She still had amps sitting in the common area. What if that thud was one of them? Figuring she couldn't ignore Lara in that case, Sam clambered to her feet and yanked her door open. Her amps were fine, nothing was damaged. The thudding, evidently, was Lara falling flat on her ass. Lara, who was engaged in battle with one of her shoes–and losing–didn't seem to notice Sam emerging from her room.
"You sodding-!" Lara slurred in frustration before successfully yanking the shoe off her right foot, "fffuckwad!" She spat, throwing the shoe down onto the floor in spite. Sam spotted a brown paper bag on the coffee table beside Lara that looked big enough to hold a fifth of liquor. Lara was underage, how had she managed to get liquor? Sam sighed and leaned against the doorframe she stood in.
"Sooo…" Sam began, "what's up?" Lara blinked dimly and looked up at Sam like a toddler drunk off the teat, her eyes half lidded and her mouth slightly agape.
"Wot?"
"Are you drunk?" Sam asked, "How long have you been drinking for?"
"Beeeats," Lara hiccuped, "me." She picked up the brown paper bag off the table and took a swig from the bottle within. Sam resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
"Then can I at least ask why you're drunk?" Sam pressed, crossing her arms across her chest.
"Let me tell you- hic! a story, Sam."
"Oh boy."
"There once was a French maid betrothed to the Earl of Farringdon-"
"Does this have anything to do with you being drunk?" Sam raised a brow at Lara, who drunkenly swayed back and forth where she sat.
"Saaam, I'm getting theeere!"
"Okay, continue," Sam urged her, trying to stave off the exasperation welling up in the depths of her consciousness.
"Now this French maid," Lara stopped to burp, "braaap! She was a beauty inside and out, with a beautiful mind to match, and she wound up marrying a wanker with neither beauty nor mind to match and…and…" For reasons that eluded Sam's understanding, Lara started to cry. Aggressively. Her wails of anguish cut Sam to her core.
Sam, having never seen Lara cry before, immediately switched to crisis management mode. Clearly Lara was upset about something, really upset. It didn't take a genius to understand that. Figuring out why Lara was upset was a whole other animal. Sam figured it would be easiest to start with talking Lara down.
"Okay," Sam cooed, "let's maybe take a break from the booze…" She approached Lara with caution and took the brown bag out of her hands. Lara didn't even resist her as she did so. The bottle felt pretty light for a fifth when Sam set it aside. Lara was ordinarily a temperate individual, so for her to drink so heavily? That was a red flag. Sam couldn't help but wonder if Lara's present state had anything to do with her crush. Then, Sam wondered if letting Lara sort herself out was the right decision, after all? Perhaps she should have intervened sooner?
Lara burst out into convulsive sobs at that point, and Sam, forgetting all previous trains of thought, got down onto her knees and pulled Lara into a tight hug out of reflex. It was the only thing she knew to do. Lara responded by grabbing fist-fulls of the back of Sam's shirt and crying with renewed vigor. Sam sighed softly and gave Lara a small squeeze.
"Oh, sweetie…" She ran her nails up and down Lara's back in what she hoped was a soothing fashion. She'd never seen Lara look so small before, it was humbling. Even the most powerful figures had their moments of weakness. Not that Sam wanted to glamorize the suffering of others, but she thought it was nice to know that Lara was a human being who could suffer like everyone else. That fact alone made Lara feel more human and real to Sam than she ever had before. Just as Sam was nurturing a feeling of tender protectiveness towards her roommate in spite of her pre-existing irritation, Lara pushed Sam away from her at that moment. Before Sam could open her mouth and demand what Lara's problem was, she saw the latter rushing towards the bathroom.
Oh.
So that was the kind of night that Sam would be having, then.
Sam got to her feet and followed Lara to the bathroom, not wanting her roommate to choke on her own vomit or something terrible like that. When she emerged into the doorway, she could only watch as Lara waged pathetic warfare against the contents of her own stomach. Judging by the graphic noises emerging from Lara's mouth, coupled with the bright yellow of whatever her stomach managed to bring up, Sam figured that Lara probably hadn't eaten much that day, let alone hydrated adequately. It was going to be a long night, alright. Sam kneeled down next to Lara to make sure her hair stayed out of the way. Lara slung an arm across the toilet seat to support herself and groaned into the toilet bowl.
"I don't feel well…" Lara murmured.
"That's probably because you nearly drank a fifth of liquor," Sam replied.
"I'm sorry…" Lara whined, her voice echoing within the toilet.
"Don't worry about it, just work on getting the booze out of your-"
"Noooo Sam!" Lara cried, lifting her head from the toilet to look at Sam with watery eyes, "I mean I'm sorry for being such a…a…" Lara's face went pale and she burrowed it back in the toilet to violently retch a few times before finally getting something up into the toilet. "...a cunt," she finished her sentence into the toilet bowl before burping, "urgh."
"Let's talk about it when you're more sober-"
"I'm not going to talk about it sober," Lara moaned. Sam regarded her with curiosity.
"Is that why you decided to get drunk? So you could talk about it?"
"I don't know why I fucking decided to drink this much."
"Clearly something triggered this behavior," Sam pressed.
"Okay," Lara groaned, "maybe that is why I decided to drink. Or for escape. I don't remember anymore. I had to go back, Sam. To the Manor." Lara began to dry heave again. Sam blinked in surprise. She wasn't expecting that. She knew Lara had a history of loss and trauma when it came to family.
"Oh." Sam lowered herself down to a sit against the bathroom wall behind Lara. "How was that?" She prodded gently. Lara sniffed into the toilet. Sam wasn't sure if she was crying again or not.
"You know my father killed himself in that place?"
"I did not," Sam replied quietly. Lara had another violent vomit attack and didn't speak for a few minutes. As silence hung between them, Sam let her mind wander. Had Lara's father killed himself when she was home? If Sam remembered correctly, that happened when Lara was fairly young. If that was the case-
"So being back there triggered you?" Sam asked as Lara drew herself up to sit against the wall beside her.
"Yes and no," Lara replied, wiping her eyes off with a sleeve.
"What do you mean?" Sam didn't want to push Lara and upset her again. By the same token, she simply wanted to understand what had been plaguing her roommate's mind so she could help.
"I went into the study he killed himself in. I felt nothing. Nothing at all. Weird, isn't it? I thought it would bother me, but it didn't."
"So what is bothering you?" Sam asked. Lara began to tear up again.
"I just really miss my mum," Lara squeaked, falling apart into tears again. Lara looked so meek, like a child who'd just gotten lost in a shopping mall. Sam couldn't help but wrap a protective arm around Lara. Lara automatically leaned her head against Sam's shoulder as she continued to cry.
"I miss my mom too," Sam replied as Lara sobbed softly beside her and dripped warm tears onto the sleeve of her t-shirt. Her mother might not have been dead, but she could at least relate in her own way to the feeling of loss that Lara was experiencing anew.
"I can't even remember my mum's voice," Lara said in a morose tone, "I think that's what upsets me the most." The corners of Sam's lips drooped downward and her brows creased at the center. She couldn't directly relate to Lara, but she felt upset for her regardless.
"Well, focus on what you can remember. What was she like?"
"She was very kind," Lara began, "Talented artist. Warm. Compassionate. I remember that she loved me unconditionally."
"She sounds like an awesome woman."
"She was. I used to always 'help' her paint in the Atelier. Really all I did was mess up her art, but she always said that 'mistakes add character to the piece.'" Lara had stopped crying, at least, and let out a small snort of amusement.
Good, Sam thought. Better to fixate on the good memories than sad reality. "You know, she has a point," Sam said.
"She must have been on to something," Lara agreed, "otherwise her work wouldn't be displayed at Tate Modern."
"You ever go to view her work?"
"No."
"We should go sometime," Sam said.
"I'd like that," Lara agreed before inexplicably frowning.
"What's up?" Sam asked, looking down at Lara.
"I just remembered…I found some old VHS tapes at the Manor earlier. I wonder if my mother's on any of them…"
"Wanna find out?" Sam asked. Lara shook her head absently.
"I don't have a VCR."
"I do," Sam offered. Lara's head snapped upright and she looked Sam dead in the eye with a sobriety of seriousness about her.
"You do?"
"Yeah, I gotta give it back to the film society soon, but I have one."
"Could you possibly get it and set it up?" Lara pleaded, though she didn't need to. Sam had already decided to aid Lara in her spiritual quest for reunion with memories lost.
"Yeah," Sam said, nodding, "just get yourself together and brush your teeth meanwhile, barfy." She removed her arm from Lara and got to her feet. While she walked to her room, she heard the sounds of the bathroom sink running and, thus, Lara's compliance. Sam nodded in approval to herself as she retrieved the VCR from her room and went about hooking it up to their TV. Lara emerged from the bathroom and retrieved her backpack from her room just as Sam was finishing up. When Sam was done, Lara wordlessly handed one of the tapes to her to play.
Sam put the VHS tape, dated January, 1992, into the player and took a seat on the couch beside Lara. After a moment or two, the face of a woman who looked a lot like Lara appeared on screen. When Sam said the woman looked like Lara, she meant that she really looked like Lara, between her prominent cheekbones, her defined jawline, her intense gaze, her perfectly sculpted nose…the only difference between the two of them was that the woman seemed to prefer wearing her hair down and had a slightly more olive complexion than Lara. Sam figured that the woman had to be Lara's mom, there was no other explanation.
"Is it recording?" Lara's mom asked. Her accent was different from Lara's. If Sam had to guess, she'd have said that her accent was French.
"Yes dear," said a man from behind the camera. Sam concluded that the man was probably Richard Croft. The camera zoomed out from the woman's face to reveal that she was incredibly pregnant.
"Wow, this is strange," Lara's mom said before clearing her throat to speak in a bright tone, "hi, Lara! I'm your mum! You aren't quite ready to come out yet," she laughed and patted herself on her engorged belly, "but you will be soon and I'm so excited to meet you. I have so many things that I already want to talk to you about. I suppose that's why your father and I decided to start making these videos. We figured it would be cute to show you when you're all grown up."
Lara's mom smiled down at her baby bump.
"I wonder what kind of woman you'll end up becoming, Lara?" she continued, "Doubtlessly, you'll inherit your father's and my sense of adventure. My only question is where that adventure will lead you? Maybe you'll become a diplomat, promoting relations with foreign regimes in distant lands? Maybe you'll own a company like your uncle? Or maybe you'll become an archaeologist like your father?" Richard laughed from behind the camera.
"I'd like that," Richard interjected.
"But knowing that you are our child, it is also likely that you will inherit our sense of rebellion on top of our sense of adventure. Normally parents would cringe from this because of adolescent angst, but I think your rebellious disposition will wind up being one of your strongest traits. Besides, your mum is a rebel herself. I can't wait to tell you the story about the Earl of Farringdon." Sam remembered the 'story' Lara had tried to tell her earlier.
"I only hope she doesn't inherit her mother's scrappy disposition as well," Richard added from the background.
"She'd do well to stand up for herself!" Lara's mom fired back at her husband.
"Like you did with Lord Farringdon?" Richard posed with a laugh. Lara's mom laughed as well.
"Listen, Lara. If a man insults your honor, you have every right to set them straight. Just remember that." Lara's mom paused to think. "This assumes you'll even be the type for marriage, which you probably won't be given the rebellious adventurer you're meant to become." She smiled at her baby bump once more. "Regardless of who you become and what you might do in this life, my dear, I'm sure it will be great. After all, you're my daughter. Greatness is in your blood. Just know that wherever life takes you, I love you to the moon and back, mon coeur. I'll see you in a month."
"That was good!" Richard remarked from the background.
"Was it?" Lara's mom asked with a bright laugh before the screen cut to black.
When Sam looked over at Lara, Lara had a hand over her mouth and was wordlessly letting tears stream down her face.
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