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Edited 1/2/23. Edit notes at the end of the chapter.
"Oh come on, Winston!" Lara pouted, "Just a bit longer, I've just gotten to a good part in my book."
"Now, now, you know the rules, my young Lady," Winston admonished, "it's time for your history lesson. Every head of the Croft household before has been well-versed in the history of their ancestry, and so will you."
Crack! Both Lara and Winston's heads shot up in surprise. Just what was going on? It sounded as though a firecracker went off within the mansion.
"What was that? It sounded like it came from the direction of dad's study!" Lara exclaimed, tearing off in that direction.
"W-wait!" Winston shouted after her, pushing his old frame as hard as he could to keep up with her, "Lady Lara let me investigate it for y- I said stop!"
"Dad?" Lara asked as she pushed the towering wooden doors to her father's office open, "Dad, is everything alright?" She stopped dead in her tracks, finally taking in the sight before her. Her father was slumped lifelessly over the front of his desk, a still-smoking gun in his left hand and blood dripping from his head down onto a newspaper article headlined Disgraced! Renowned Historian's Wild Claims Debunked. "Dad?" She asked again even though she knew he wouldn't reply. Her breath and heart rate began to quicken, and she heard blood roaring in her ears.
"Good God!" Came a scream from Winston that sounded like a distant echo, "Somebody call for the authorities and an ambulance, quick!"
"...Dad?"
"Then we shouldn't have anything to worry about, right? ...Lara?"
Lara stared at the article taped to the back of her locker in a daze, not even taking in Lexie's words. She felt twelve years old again as she stared at her father's face. She felt like she could see blood dripping down over the headline again the more she stared. Her ears rang. She felt numb, like she was a spectator looking out from within her body. Then came that feeling, something she hadn't experienced in a long time: it commanded her to do something, anything. Her heart started to race inside its bone cage, and she whipped around with her teeth barred as Catherine came walking smugly through the door to the locker room.
"You cunt!" Lara spat, balling her hands into fists and tensing her muscles in preparation for what was about to come, "This was you, wasn't it?! You did this! I should-"
"You should what?" Came the coach's voice from behind Catherine, "What exactly is going on here?"
"I have no clue, coach," Catherine said innocently.
"Don't you lie!" Lara fired at her, ripping the yellowed newspaper off the back of her locker and holding it up for Catherine and the coach to see, "You put this there, didn't you?!"
"What is that?"Catherine asked in an innocent tone. Lara was so blinded by rage at that point she balled the paper up in her hands and threw it aside. She lunged at Catherine but some of the other gymnasts, having sensed her shift in demeanor, promptly stepped in to hold her back from Catherine. Both Catherine and the coach look stunned as the other half of the team ushered Catherine out of the locker room. Lara didn't manage to rip herself free of the other gymnasts until Catherine was already gone. She glared at the door for a few more moments before grabbing her bag out of her locker and, after slamming it shut, storming out of the room as well.
"Wait-!" One of the gymnasts called after her.
"Sod off!" Lara snarled. Catherine wasn't anywhere to be seen when she exited the locker room. That was probably for the best. Lara could have caved her face in right then. Instead, she left. When she was about halfway to her dorm, she slumped against a nearby tree and held her face in one hand.
"...Shit!" She hissed into her palm. How was she supposed to face anyone on the squad or the coach after the way she had just behaved? It seemed like she was the one with the behavioral problem, which was probably what Catherine had been going for from the beginning. She definitely looked like a Crazy Croft now. You damned idiot… she thought to herself. She was as good as off the team, she knew it. So what did she do from there? "...Damn it…" She didn't know.
But Roth would know.
With a sigh, she slid down along the trunk of the tree and came to a cross-legged sit in front of it as she pulled her phone out of her pocket. Then, she pressed the 1 on her speed dial and waited for it to ring.
"Lara?" Came Roth's voice after a couple of rings, "Calling again so soon? I thought you'd be too busy with school."
"What, I'm not allowed to call to chat every once in a while?" Lara asked with a weak laugh.
"Not that, just that it's not like you to do this so frequently. Something happen?" Lara exhaled heavily. Of course Roth would know; after she lost her mother and her father withdrew from everyone leading up to his suicide, both he and Winston were the only ones constantly looking after her growing up. He was typically the first person she called whenever she had problems with the other girls at Marymount.
"Kind of," she admitted. There was a pause on the other end of the line.
"Well, out with it, girl. What's the matter?" Lara brushed her hair out of her face and scratched the back of her neck while she thought of where to begin.
"Old Deranged Dick," is what she went with.
"...I don't quite understand," Lara could almost picture Roth's brows knitting together in perplexion with the way he spoke through the phone.
"I can't escape him no matter how hard I try to, Roth," she finally admitted. "I just want to be Lara, but...all people ever see is Richard Croft's daughter, and they wonder how nuts I am-I can tell just by the way they look when I say my last name. I don't know what to do."
"But Richard Croft's daughter is part of who you are, lass. You can't escape it even if you try, I've told you this."
"Stop saying that," Lara blurted out in frustration. Roth let out a deep breath.
"I'm sorry, but it's the truth… What happened that brought this back up again, Lara? You seemed to be doing fine before."
"Remember that article on dad? The one from 2003?"
"Yes…?"
"There's this absolute cow on the gymnastics team–Catherine. She's one of the captains. She figured out who I am and taped a copy of that article to my locker. I freaked out."
"That's terrible! Are you alright?"
"I don't know. Honestly I'm more concerned about the fact that I might be off the gymnastics team after that whole ordeal."
"Why's that?"
"I was ready to beat the piss out of her, Roth."
"As you should."
"I mean I lunged at her in front of the coach. I would have brutalized her if the other gymnasts didn't hold me back."
"I'll admit, it's not the most ideal situation. Best advice I can give is to find the coach and try to give her your side of the story as soon as possible. The way you reacted may not have been the most desirable behavior, but that doesn't mean it isn't understandable. I mean–for fuck's sake, Lara! The cunt crossed a serious line." Hearing Roth revert to expletives like the sailor he was, especially expletives directed at Catherine, was enough to put a small smile on Lara's face.
"You really think it'll be alright though?" Lara asked.
"I mean, the coach might punish you because the school has rules but I doubt she'd kick you off the team if she knew all of the facts."
"Fair point…"
"Now, I wanna talk to you about something I find a little concerning."
"Like?"
"Why do you care if people know you're Dick's daughter?"
"He embarrassed me, Roth," Lara responded dryly, "he embarrassed me with his rants about that stupid research of his, ignored me so he could focus on said research, and then abandoned me. Why would I ever want to be associated with that man?"
"Because he's your father, and nothing you do can change that," Roth stated bluntly, "if you don't want people to think you're like Dick, prove you're nothing like him and stop hiding."
"You don't think I've been trying to do that?" Lara demanded.
"You haven't been trying to do that, though. You don't realize that in not trying to be like him, you're acting exactly like him by avoiding your baggage and hiding it away." That stung just enough to silence Lara for the moment. "You really think people aren't going to draw comparisons once you have your degree and start working in the field? It's naive to think you can just avoid who you are for the rest of your life. You want people to think you're nothing like Dick? Fine. Prove you're nothing like him. But don't hide and try to blend in. That's not your strong suit."
"How do you know what my strong suit is?" Lara countered.
"For God's sake, girl, I practically raised you, didn't I? If you wanted to blend in you wouldn't have been so chaotic and rebellious growing up. Need I remind you of the time you tore your best Sunday dress trying to climb the Manor? Your mother was livid." Lara smiled softly at this. Yes, she was quite angry. "If you wanted to blend in, you'd be a proper lady by now, having afternoon tea with the other Lords and Ladies at the Estate. Don't feed me this codswallop about 'how would you know?'!" Lara couldn't help but laugh at this.
"Okay, you have a point."
"So why do you care if people know you're a Croft? You already stand out as your own individual. Embrace your past and who you are, don't run from it. If you really resent the man that much, don't base your actions off of him. Base your actions off of yourself. You see what I'm saying, lass?"
"Yeah…I do." Lara thought, with a sinking stomach feeling, of Sam. She'd been a royal ass and ghosted Sam lately because of nothing more than her father's identity. Lara figured she ought to make amends as soon as possible.
"Good. Well, I have to go now, the crew needs me. Try to stay out of any further trouble, yeah?"
"I will…thank you, Roth."
Lara tried to follow Roth's advice about talking to the coach as soon as possible following the end of their phone call, but the gymnastics team was already gone by the time she got back to the athletic complex. Since she had to work a shift at the Nine Bells later that night, she decided that she would have to resolve her newest Catherine situation later and go back to the dorm to do her school work first. Her mind made up, she made her way back to her dorm hall with newfound resolve and walked up the steps to her floor. She inserted her keys into the lock, let herself into the room, and took a good look around.
No sign of Sam. Well, that worked out just fine since she needed a shower anyways. She set her keys down on her desk, and her gymnastics bag right beside it, and made her way over to the bureau next to her bed to pull out her work clothes and a towel. With those in tow, she walked into the bathroom and locked the door behind her, setting the shower water to a hot temperature setting and stripping off her sweaty layers.
When she had cleansed herself of all evidence of the day's physical exertion, she turned the water off, stepped out, and toweled herself off before getting dressed again in her fresh clothes. She reemerged into the room, disposed of her dirty clothes in the hamper, and immediately set about working on her coursework. Halfway through her history reading assignment, she heard a familiar voice outside followed by the sound of the door being unlocked. She immediately closed her textbook and turned to face Sam, who swaggered in before stopping in her tracks when she saw Lara waiting for her. A moment or two passed in silence as they stared at each other, each person not knowing what to say to the other.
"...Hi," Lara began awkwardly to break the silence. She figured it was only appropriate for her to be the one to initiate a discourse between them.
"...Hi…" Sam began rather slowly, "I haven't seen you in a grip." Lara winced internally.
"Yeah," she began, "that's...kind of my fault." Sam blinked in surprise.
"No, I mean I get it. I guess I was being a little nosey."
"Hang on-" Lara began before a third voice cut her off.
"Is that your roommate? Oh, I wanna meet her!" Came a voice from the hallway which evidently belonged to a blonde female, who peeked her head inside before frowning pensively. "Hang on, I didn't know this was your roommate! Is that why you were asking about Richard Croft earlier?"
When Lara and Sam's eyes locked in that instant, the mixed expression of pure mortification and guilt on Sam's face told Lara all she needed to know.
Edit notes: Okay, I pretty much rewrote the entire middle of the chapter. Made Lara's psychology more realistic. Revised conversation with Roth. Honestly, I performed surgery.
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