After purchasing, as Sam predicted, far too many items on the internet, you're snuggled up together in bed. As par for the course you find yourself scratching at your side. Sam's hand blindly gropes around until it catches yours, stilling it. "Does it really still hurt that much?"

You're not sure what you should say, because it doesn't hurt, it doesn't itch, you honestly have no idea why you can't keep your hands off of it. You can't tell how Sam interprets your silence, but she once again gets out of bed to retrieve your painkillers. You've swung your legs over the side of the bed and you're sitting up at the edge when she returns with a glass of water and that little bottle of pills. As she puts the water down on the table beside you, she places the bottle in your hand. She must notice the way you're staring at the pills, because she stops herself before she rounds the bed. "Lara?"

There's no way that this can turn out good for anybody. You gently toss the bottle back at her, and not expecting it, she fumbles. "You take them."

She's halfway to picking the bottle up when your words catch up with her. "Uh, I'm not the one in pain?" She's got the bottle in her hand now, and she shakes it, scrutinizing the contents, as if they'll explain.

"No, I mean, you take them away." She looks confused. "After the stitches, the second set of stitches, that is. After you got me stitched up, they were bothering me a bit, plus I couldn't sleep, so I took a few."

She's poured a few pills out into her palm, looking at them even closer. Not that it helps anything. "Sure."

You're not sure whether to tell the whole story or get straight to the point. It's not a long story, so you carry on where you left off. "You found me on the couch in the morning? Do you remember what I said?"

The pills plink back into the bottle and she joins you on the edge of the bed. "You're gonna have to be more specific." She's shaking the bottle again, and it almost seems like she's unable to sit still. As she rattles the bottle, she watches the pills tumble around.

You hope she knows that the frustrated noise you make is directed at yourself, not her. "Well, I had gotten up because of my nightmares, yeah? But then you woke me up, and I was telling you why I was on the couch, and I realized that after I fell asleep out there, my dreams stopped."

"Okay…" She's not made the connection, though it's not that you've really given her all that much to connect.

You'll just get straight to the point then. "If I take them, I don't have dreams. At all. No good dreams, no bad dreams, no nightmares. Just sleep."

The shaking of the bottle slowly comes to a stop stop and her eyes aren't on the pills anymore. "Lara…"

"So I kept taking them." Straight to the point, you need to get straight to the point.

Now that you've gotten to the point, you fear that it may not have been the best tactic, as Sam's staring at you, silently. You wait for her to get angry. "Alright. So you did." To you, her voice sounds disturbingly mild. "But now you've told me. And given them away to me."

You don't understand why she's not yelling at you. "Why aren't you angry?"

"You're not looking at this from my side. It's- Lara, you were trying to cope. I assume." She tosses the bottle in the air, then catches it. "Obviously you shouldn't have kept taking them, unless you were actually in pain?" You shake your head. "Right, okay. But you were taking them in an attempt to cope, which is how a lot of people get addicted to things, I guess." You're sitting there, just blinking at her. "They made you feel better, so you took them again, and they made you feel better again, and you took them again, and they made you feel better again, and so on?"

"Uh, yeah. That- that sounds about right."

"Uh-huh. I somehow get the feeling that you didn't sit down one day and say," She slips into a gross imitation of your accent before continuing, "Well, I think that I'm going to try out a prescription pill addiction. Sounds like a spot of fun." You raise your eyebrows at her. "Okay, whatever, "spot of fun" is a stretch. Sweetie, taking them is the unconscious reaction, realizing that you shouldn't is the conscious one." She's making a fair amount of sense. "Then the next decision is whether or not you want to keep on taking them or to find something healthier that helps, right? You told me about them, and I'm hoping that means you want to find something better. Either way, you very easily could have lied to me."

You suppose that's true. "If I had, I would've taken them again tonight. They were literally in my hands. And you said… you were right that I'd probably take them tomorrow. And the next day. I did notice, and I didn't, well, I didn't see that path ending anywhere good. So you need to take them away."

She's smiling at you again. "I'm proud of you. For the second time today. That couldn't have been the easiest thing to tell me, and it's probably not easy to let these go."

She has no idea, you think. She said all the right things, though. In a weirdly articulate way, for her, at least. It didn't sound planned either, though. "Sam? How did you know what to say?"

"Huh?"

"I basically put you on the spot, and you were- don't take this the wrong way, but you were pretty sensible about that. And calm. Especially compared to… earlier." You'd like to be able to read her expression right now. "You just seemed like you knew exactly what to say."

"Oh. Well, good. Y'wanna have a short ceremony?"

You have no idea what she means by that, and she didn't come close to answering your question. But she starts heading towards the bathroom anyway, and after she realizes you aren't following, she beckons. When you catch up, she's standing over the toilet, uncapping the pills. "Any last words?"

You shrug, and dig a pill out of the bottle to address it. There's not really much to say you decide, so you don't waste your breath. There's a plop as the single pill hits the water.

Sam dumps the rest into the toilet, and flushes. The pair of you watch all the pills swirl away. You're still staring into the toilet when she lightly punches your arm, which catches your attention. "You did good, kid." She ruffles your hair. "You did real good."

Shortly after The Flushing, you're both back in bed, and you're once again cuddled up. Sam's been quiet for a few minutes, and though you're hesitant to sleep, hesitant to dream again, your eyelids are getting heavy. You're half dozed when Sam unexpectedly speaks. "Wait. Lara, if it wasn't hurting, why have you been picking at it so much?" You gamble on the chance that you've been taking deep sleepy breaths for long enough now that if you continue to do so, Sam will probably think that you're already asleep. You do so, and she doesn't say anything else.

You don't have nightmares, but you don't have a completely dreamless and restful sleep either. But for the first time, you decide that that's okay. You don't know if you're ready to talk about your dreams, but you accept that you're going to be having them. You watch Sam for a few minutes, and it seems she's sleeping peacefully enough. You're not even close to being in any sort of rush to get out of bed, and Sam has another empty day. That's something you might have to talk to her about today, the whole "hey Sam can you deal with all my stuff while I sit around on my butt" thing. You'll see how the day goes. For now though, staying here in bed with Sam seems like a pretty good idea. You're hazily trying to figure out what the two of you should do with the day when you drift back to sleep.

The next time you wake up is rather abrupt, and you're bumped slightly by Sam as she sits up, inhaling sharply. She's taking quick, shallow breaths and you aren't sure that she knows you're beside her. "Sam?" You half sit up, and reach forward to cover her hand, which is grasping the sheets, with your own.

When she feels your hand, hers relaxes and the sheets fall flat. "Lara." She still hasn't turned back to look at you, but at least she knows you're there. "Lara. Yeah." She blinks a few times to orient herself, and takes a few deep breathes, then flops back down on the bed. She looks like she's forcing herself to act normal. "Hey, sweetie. G'morning." You've never seen such a forced grin.

You don't respond with words, but with a knowing stare.

"Fine. Fine, fine, fine." She rubs at her face. "It was a dream. It wasn't very nice. And it was a new one."

You don't want to pry, she never has, but you will ask. "Do you w-"

"No."

Seems she's not ready to talk about her dreams either, as moments later, Sam gets out of bed and into the shower. You stay where you are, more out of a lack of anywhere to move to rather than to get more sleep. When Sam returns from the bathroom, she pulls the covers from you. "C'mon sleepyhead, since when does Lara Croft sleep in?" She isn't really exaggerating, as even through everything that's occurred (barring the hospital days), you've kept your regular sleep schedule. For no real reason other than to be stubborn, you grab the sheets back and pull them all the way over your head, then make a low growling noise as a warning.

As you're finally emerging from under the covers, you hear some clanging about in the kitchen. A cupboard door, some shuffling noises, and eventually something sloshing about, followed by a running tap and more clattering. You dread to think what concoction Sam is whipping up for breakfast.

When you enter the kitchen after emerging from the sheets and then showering, Sam is sitting on the counter, seemingly waiting for you. "So do I get some bacon today or what?"

You stare at her suspiciously; not only did you not have to convince her that you should cook breakfast, she's actually asking you to. "What are you trying to do?"

"Actually, I'm trying to get you to do something. But I guess the end goal is having some sort of meal in front of me," She pauses for a second. "It doesn't have to include bacon though, if you don't wanna fry it."

"Seriously, what are you playing at? I've had to plead my case to you every time I've wanted to even open the fridge." You open the fridge and sway the door back and forth, as if to make some sort of point.

She sucks in a breath through her teeth. "Yeah, okay, I thought maybe you didn't notice that. Or would just ignore it or something. I don't know. I don't fucking feel like I know very much anymore." You wonder what that's supposed to mean and she slides off the counter and pushes the fridge door closed. She starts to gently pry your hand away from the handle. You allow her to. "Okay, so I guess I have something to tell you, then. It's pretty small, I don't think we need to have a big serious sit down." What could she possibly have to tell you about bacon? You'll listen, regardless. "I'm pretty hungry though, so let's just have some toast at least, while I tell you?"

You lunge for the bread. "I'll make it."

When the plates clatter down on the table a few minutes later, Sam jumps slightly. You choose to ignore it, and proceed to introduce the meal instead. "Toast, as requested. Notice the slight brown colour, a more natural look compared a variation which adopts a blackened colour."

"Holy shit, Lara, I know my toast is always shit displayed on, okay, well our dishes aren't really all that fancy but shit looks like… it looks like shit no matter what it's on." She instantly goes quiet after that and you stare at each other. You have no idea what to make of her outburst and exceptionally odd analogy. "Fuck, I didn't mean to get… I, um. Yeah."

"Er…"

"No, no, I know that was weird, and that's the thing. It's that this whole talking thing makes me a little nervous. Obviously. I guess I get a little on edge sometimes. Apparently I don't always make sense either. I probably shouldn't have started off that way. Yeah, definitely shouldn't have. But Lara, that's the point. My food is shit, and, uh, maybe I've even been making it a bit more shit on purpose lately."

You've finally sat down, though you still have no idea what's going on. You're two for two for confusion during Sam's explanations, which doesn't bode well. You don't think anybody could follow whatever this is, though. "I'd love to contribute, but I have literally no idea what is going on right now. Though I do agree your food is shit." You smirk slightly, hoping she knows you aren't upset. You understand that talking is rough, even if she's the one that's been doing most of it, so far.

"I don't know how to," She not at all delicately runs her hands through her hair and follows by scratching at the back of her neck. At this rate, she's going to rub the skin back there raw.

"Sam, we can do this later. Whatever this is is very obviously stressing you out." You reach across the table to smooth her hair as much as you can.

"No. Fuck. No, we'll do this now. That's the thing. I guess I have two things to tell you, then." She pushes her toast to the side and plops an elbow down, resting her chin in her hand. Her other hand is running rings around the edge of her coffee mug. "It's just, and this isn't completely your fault, but it's just that even though we've agreed we need to work on… life, even though we've agreed, every time I start talking I- I get really worried that I'll say something wrong and you'll be done. I stutter and I ramble and it's because I'm scared I'll fuck this up. Then when I get nervous about fucking up I start losing control of what I'm saying and start saying things that are kind of fucked up and then that freaks me out and it's this horrible circle thing."

You're doing your best to keep up with her rapid words, and you're caught up just enough to try to encourage her, so you cut her off. "You were pretty great last night, Sam."

Her hand stops circling her mug, and she responds flatly, "Fabulous." Within seconds she's back to fidgeting with her mug, and she speeds back up. "But, Lara, I fuck up just once, just enough to accidentally push you away instead of helping, I fuck up just once and you could be gone. Physically. Mentally. Both. You could, I don't know, you could straight up leave, or you could… what's the opposite? Retreat into yourself? Maybe so much so that I won't be able to pull you back out again, because- again, not all your fault, but because it's already taken… it's taken too long for us to work on this. But if I fuck up and lose you in any way, Lara, I," When her voice cracks, she stops momentarily and sniffles, blinking rapidly. "I don't know what the hell I'd do. When I did the couch thing, when I cancelled it, I was so fucking angry. At you, and at me. I was so upset that I didn't think about what I was doing. And then you came in, and you yelled at me, and I realized how shitty I had just acted. I was so scared, Lara. I was scared to come out to find you, because what if you weren't there to find?" Oh. "Because you were gone somehow?" Oh, God. You get it now. You're here. You try to block it out, but somewhere in the back of your mind you're still on that couch, and you can hear her repeating it at you. You're here. You're here. You're here.

You want to say something, but you don't know what. As horrible as it makes you feel, you actually don't know if you can promise anything right now.

"Not to mention the fact that if I fuck up in a way that, fuck, in any way that damages you… it would all be my fault. I don't know if I could handle knowing that I was the one who," Her hand is running through her hair again, which is now a mess again. "How could I deal with being the one that broke you? Especially after everyfuckingthing you went through to save my sorry ass. And all of this shit is because of what you went through, and Lara… Lara, what if I fuck up?"

The phantom hand from the other night decides to spare your heart, but punches you in the gut instead. You have to reassure her, somehow. "Sam, you aren't going to scare me away by telling the truth." When you tell her that, you realize that if she's going to tell the truth, you need to as well. "Actually, no, I take that back." The expression that instantly takes over her face has the potential to destroy you. "No, no! God, Sam, what I mean is that I can't promise that one hundred percent. I'd love to, but I can't. I promise I'll do my absolute best to keep myself in check, alright? I will do the best I can to hear you out, and I understand that not everything you say is going to come out perfectly." She nods, and is back to just looking worried. You don't ever want to see that other look again. "But you have to promise me that you'll do the same, when we get to you. I don't think I need to tell you how I'd feel if I hurt you, in a way that we can't mend?" She nods. "Besides, I've fucked up enough for the both of us, no?"

Her eyes are on her toast as she murmurs just loud enough for you to be able to catch what she says. "Yeah, well, it's not just you." Phantom hand gut-punches you again, a little softer this time.

"Sam, tell me, please." Your voice is little more than a whisper as well.

"Yeah, okay." Her eyes leave the toast and return to meet yours. "Yeah. Y'know how we were talking about how you don't really seem to, uh, you don't, you aren't-"

"You can say it Sam, you've already said it." She never officially said it but you don't think that's what she's struggling with at the moment.

Her foot is tapping, you can hear it. "I have. Yeah. Okay, so you don't really seem interested in much of anything?" It comes out as a question again, and she pauses as if waiting for you to cut in. You don't. "So you haven't been showing interest in a lot of stuff, but you, uh, you told me you wanted to make breakfast one day. And it kinda surprised me a little, and I was a little hesitant for… reasons. I ended up arguing with you, just a little bit." You remember that, and flash a quick, not quite genuine, but hopefully encouraging smile. "You just, you really wanted to cook and it was kinda weird, y'know? Like, you won't look at a book but you're yelling at me about toast? I don't know if you had a bad night or something, but for whatever reason, you told me you were getting sick of, wait, what did you call it? Oh, yeah, you were sick of eating "the remains of a recently deceased piece of bread." She snorts a little as she remembers it, and her attempt to mimic your accent makes you chuckle slightly. "Right? It's actually pretty funny. Like, five minutes later, I wasn't even mad because you said it to me dead serious, which was kinda ridiculous. But yeah, anyway, that was maybe one of the first times that you really tried to convince me to let you do something, other than that first jog. And as small as it was, it was something."

She's paused again, and you aren't sure if it's out of hesitation or not but you want her to continue either way. "I think I get that, I can see how that would be out of the ordinary for me right now. So I understand how that might stand out to you." You do, but again you can't figure out the bigger picture she's trying to paint.

"Oh. Good." Her hand pulls away from her mug just long enough to rub at the back of her neck again. When she's back to running rings around her mug, she starts talking again. "The next day, you didn't ask. I waited, we had a fairly late breakfast because I was waiting. I wanted you to want to do something again, even if it was just flipping some fucking bacon. So I might have, possibly, started burning shit intentionally? And I mean, we've been eating take out for lunch and supper pretty much constantly, so I only had one chance a day to, uh," Whatever she's about to say causes her to look away from you. "I really only had one chance a day to piss you off?" The next four words repeat rapidly, barely legible, to form one long mess. "IknowIknowIknowI'msorryIknowandI'msorryIknowI'msorry."

Oddly, you don't feel upset about what she's just told you. "Sam, stop, get some air. I think I'm getting it, and it's okay, but you need to finish telling me."

She looks at you, and it looks as if somebody has just removed multiple dumbbells from her shoulders. "Oh God, okay. I just thought that you'd be more intent on removing me from the kitchen if I kept fucking up toast. Toast, for fuck's sake. Do you know how many time I toasted the same piece of bread some mornings?" The mental image of Sam toasting, inspecting, and then retoasting, is absolutely hysterical to you and you accidentally laugh. She laughs too, weakly. "Yeah, I mean, food hasn't ever been my strong suit, but I could at least make toast. You didn't ask why I kept giving you completely burnt toast, but you started asking me to let you cook. But then I thought that if I said "yup, go right ahead" without hesitation, you might lose interest? I don't know, until I googled, and I've still barely googled, I haven't known how to deal with any of our shit, so I kinda went with what seemed like good ideas when I had to." You take note of the fact that she said "our shit", as opposed to "your shit". "It's just, I thought if I kept making it somewhat of a challenge for you, you would maybe keep trying. You've always liked a challenge, y'know? I mean, this isn't on the same level as some huge hike but… somehow, it ended up working, so I would argue with you every morning ev-"

"Even though you wanted me to cook." You finish for her. "Which is why you gave in so easily so often."

"Basically. You aren't mad?" Phantom hand flicks you in chest, hard, to remind you that she asked you that a few nights ago, although she sounds about ten times less vulnerable while she's fully awake.

You wonder if repeated snippets of the conversation are enough to check it off the "issues to cover" list. "No, Sam. I'm not mad at you. It's alright." You instantly decide that it isn't enough. "That was actually a little clever, if slightly odd." She musters up a smug grin. It's probably time to move on, you decide, if only for her sake. "So, I'm going to assume that our food here is somewhat cold by now." You both look down at your plates. She stabs at an egg with her fork. "But it isn't cremated, so do you think we can deal?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I can handle this." You know that the amount of relief that she's showing is causing your stomach to knot. What you don't know is if it's knotting in a good way or a bad way. After all, the stress that's she's been dealing with only exists because of you.

You've finished eating and once again, Sam's sitting on the counter beside you, kicking her feet and watching you do the dishes. "You do realize that you're a giant child, right?" She makes a point to kick her feet out in a way that causes them to "accidentally" collide with your arm. "Ah yes, what an adult response that was." When you raise your head to grin at her, she's sticking her tongue out at you. It's impossible to keep a straight face, and while your face is busy smiling, your brain has suddenly come up with an idea for how to spend the day. This is the kind of exchange that would normally be documented, and most likely rewatched. Although you'd miss some of Sam's antics as she'd be the one holding the camera, it would still be entertaining. And maybe being able to watch back certain interactions or conversations might somehow be beneficial to this self-help journey the two of you have started. God forbid either of you even consider getting outside, professional help. Google is a good enough doctor right now.

Sam continues acting like a child, you continue doing the dishes. As you place the final plate on the drying rack, you side-step so you're facing her completely. Whatever look is on your face right now makes Sam sober almost instantly. You didn't mean for that, but even if you had plastered some sort of playful expression on your face, you'd just be delaying the inevitable. "So hey, we have another whole day to ourselves. You have any ideas what we should do?"

"I have a feeling that you might have one." She's not bothering to avoid, which is one small step, you figure.

Leaning forward so that your hands are on the counter beside Sam, inadvertently trapping her between your arms, you do your best to hold a smile. "Thought maybe we could dust off the camera. Document our day." She looks at you slightly vacantly, and around the time that you notice how close your faces are, she leans forward to rest her forehead against yours.

"At least I've already got a new one." You know the one that followed you around Yamatai still works. She takes a shaky breath, and when you feel it, you decide not to remind her of that fact. "C'mon, let's go unbox it and toss the instructions. When have instructions ever been fun?"

You're still impressed by her ability to say things that probably completely contradict what she's thinking. It also still concerns you, but you push that to the side for the moment. "Unbox it?" She straightens, so she can see your face as you talk. "Isn't that some sort of YouTube thing? Should we record that too?" A lazy smile, much more genuine than it was a few moments ago, is on your lips.

Unimpressed, she scoffs at you. Then her forehead is back against yours, and her voice is quiet as she whispers in a slightly sing-song way, "Don't push your luck, Croft." Despite her upbeat tone, a heavy sigh follows. You stay where you are, only moving once to bring your hand up to lightly brush her cheek. You're content with waiting for her until she feels ready.

i don't wanna know who i am without you

this chapter's secondary title is "well this feels like filler but it ties up two things that i wanted to tie up so oh well".

this chapter's tertiary title is "i have a migraine i don't feel like waiting to do a second proofread tomorrow we'll survive and i can fix any critical errors in the morning".

I've read something that talked about how suicide occurs when one's pain exceeds their resources for coping with pain. I figure the same sort of logic applies to addiction, in a way. Luckily, Lara has Sam as a resource. (Also, don't discard medication by flushing it down the toilet. Unless it's some sort of emergency need to get rid of this now situation. It's much better to take them to a pharmacy and ask them to get rid of them for you.)

Sam would totally be fidgety and restless while talking about this kind of shit, even if she wasn't worried about Lara, right?

I had another scene in here that I ended up getting rid of because I realized that I cut almost all allusions that I made to it in earlier chapters. Oops. You might be able to figure out what it was, or a general idea at least.

Tune in later for: The Potato Whisperer