you've ripped your stitches Chapter 9: The Museum, a tomb raider fanfic

In your haste to disentangle yourself from Sam and stand up, you get caught on one of her arms and end up slowly rolling to the floor instead. Normally, you'd probably find this pretty entertaining, and you'd still be on the floor laughing at yourself, Sam probably flopping off the couch to join you. But this isn't normal, and you're panicking. You immediately spring back up to your feet to back away from the sofa, and consequently, Sam.

"Lara! Woah! What?" Sam is still on the sofa and she's staring at you with wide eyes. "What are you- come back over here with me?"

While your brain is racing, she's weirdly calm, which is even more alarming. You're about to respond when you have to stop for a moment and close your eyes. Maybe it's because you crashed to the ground (it isn't), but you're feeling a little dizzy. You open your eyes, blink a few times, and stay where you are. Sam looks super confused for some reason. "Lara? Are you okay? Can you just come back over here and sit with me, please?" You step back further, until you hit the wall.

Did you imagine the last few minutes or something? She's- she seems more concerned about you than she does about what you did. You're wary. Of what, you're not sure, but this doesn't feel right at all. "Why are you so calm?"

"Why are you so, uh, whatever you are right now?" She gestures at you. "Just… can you try to calm down a bit? I'm not even sure what… I did something wrong, what did I do?" She looks so worried, and you feel so confused. "Fuck." Her leg has started to bounce. "Fuck, I said… I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have told you that, let alone even thought it in the first place."

She's rambling like she's the one in the wrong and you're doing nothing but standing and staring dumbly at her. "Sam!" Her name comes out louder than you intended and almost startles you as much as it does her. It does the job though, and she's quiet now. "Alright, I'm not really sure what's going on right now. Did I- are we talking about two different things? Because, Sam, I'm sorry. I'm the one that should be sorry, and I am. I'm so, so, sorry." She's not arguing that with you, but she is giving you a somewhat skeptical look. "Sam, please, I really am sorry. You have to believe me, please."

"I do believe you. You're, well, you're pretty convincing right now. But sweetie, what are you sorry about? I mean, yeah, when I'm half asleep is probably not the best time to have a heart to heart, and yeah, you probably shouldn't have dumped all the responsibility on me, and yeah, we should talk about that, but I never asked for your help. So don't apologize for not helping, because that's all on me." You're staring straight at her "hey Lara you're kinda messed up" look now. "You need to stop apologizing for things that aren't your fault. We should probably get to that at one point too…"

Is she being serious? Would she lie about this? You don't know. You don't know, because what if she's afraid of 'fucking this up' and is lying to you in an attempt to keep from fucking up. Maybe you should have told her that you'd always rather hear the truth than a lie, even if the truth sucks. "You said you were worried about messing up. You told me that you were scared you might say the wrong thing. But Sam, I'd rather you tell me the truth than lie to me. Lying to me is most likely always going to be the wrong thing." You probably could have sent the message a little more delicately.

She takes a deep breath, and you notice that she's shaking slightly. "I'm not lying! Why would I lie about this?" Her legs are up on the sofa now, and she's hugging them to her. Regardless, the leg that had started bobbing is still tapping rapidly. "Oh god, Lara, please, you have to believe me now. I don't understand why you think," Watching her, it's obvious that she's starting to freak out now too. Maybe she isn't lying? "Why do you think I'm lying to you?"

"Because I fucking took advantage of you!" It comes out loud and you really don't want this to turn into a yelling match, so you will yourself to quiet down as much as possible. "And you're apologizing to me? You were- you were half asleep, you were in no position to have that sort of conversation, yet I didn't stop you, did I? I encouraged you! I didn't know, I still don't know, how aware you were of what you were saying!" Suddenly, you've run out of steam, like that admission took all your energy. You slide down the wall until you hit the floor. You barely get the final bit out. "It's not like I didn't even think about it either. I did, and I said screw it. Because I had already messed up enough that day and I didn't think I could do any worse. But I did."

From where you're sitting on the ground, you can't see past most of the furniture to Sam. She's quiet, and you can't see her. You have no way to judge what she's thinking, but you don't have the energy to move from where you are, at the moment. However, she once again appears in front of you without you even noticing that she's moved. She's reaching down to help you stand. You don't want to and you don't take her hand, opting to stare at her shins instead.

Sam's shins turn into her face as she drops down to join you on the floor. Her legs are crossed in front of her, and when she leans forward to get a little closer, she braces herself with a hand on your leg. You shake it away. Her face is a cocktail of emotions that you're too tired to separate.

"Oh, sweetie. I- it's not like you… Lara, no. Listen." With her legs crossed, she can't really bounce them nervously, but the way she's chewing on her lip gives her away instead. "Let's… how about we try talking to each other, instead of at each other. Y'know, like the adults that we are." She taps her fingers against the ground and looks deep in thought. "We are adults, right? I'm not sure sometimes." That succeeds in tricking you into smiling for a second.

"It sure is hard to tell with us sometimes, isn't it?"

For a second, she looks as tired as you feel. "Yeah. I'm sorry. I was just… scared again. So let's take a minute or two to cool down, and then have a proper, rational conversation. Does that work for you?"

You nod, and the two of you stay on the floor, silent, neither of you seeming to know what to look at. You don't wait very long (probably not long enough) before you decide to finally look at her. "Yeah?"

"If you are, I am." You give her the thumbs up. "Alright, I'll shut up right away, because instead of listening to you, I've just been going on about something that isn't the current problem. I don't think. But clearly this isn't about me. Well, it kinda is. Uh, I should probably let you talk, shouldn't I?" When she pauses, her eyes drop to the floor. She silently stares at is for so long that you''re about to start when she follows up, "Actually, wait, it is sorta my fault I guess, just not how I thought?" You glare at her. If looks could kill… "Ugh, sorry, I'll get over myself and actually shut up, you go ahead and tell me what's wrong while I listen to you."

"You don't know?" You're so confused, and you rub at your temples. "Right, are you missing the part where I completely invaded your privacy?" She scoffs, though you're not sure why. "You want to know what's upsetting me, yeah? The fact that you aren't upset. Why the hell are you not upset with me, Sam?"

"Okay, well, number one, I kinda just wished memory loss upon you, so…" When you don't respond to that (because it's not the damn point), she continues mumbling to the floor. "And actually I am a little upset now, I mean, not with you specifically, but this," She waves her arms, indicating the general vicinity, "is a little upsetting." Your head hits the wall with a light thud when you drop it back to watch the ceiling. She looks up when she hears the thud. "Okay! Okay."

You smile feebly at her. "The problem here is that you respected the fact that I wouldn't talk for far longer than you probably should've. Then I decide I'm ready to go, and before I even start, I'm spending the night completely disregarding your privacy. I know you're scared you're going to do something wrong, but you can relax, okay? I've already done something wrong and whatever you end up saying to me, I probably have it coming."

She scoots across the floor so she's sitting beside you and, mimicking you, her head thumps against the wall shortly after. "Yes, Lara. You should not have done that. You should have stopped me and forced me back to sleep. You should have then waited until the morning, probably foregoing your own sleep as a result. You are a horrible sub-human creature." Her head pivots against the wall until she's facing you enough that she can give you a bored look. "Is that what you wanted to hear?"

Your eyes roll on their own volition. "You're very funny. I realize I just told you to relax, but could you try and be serious while being relaxed please?"

"Well, I'm being serious when I'm telling you that it's okay." A refute is on your tongue, but before you can even open your mouth, she's carrying on, copying your accent. "No, Sam, it really isn't." A quick switch back to her normal voice. "Right?" Your response is to turn your eyes back up to the ceiling. "Sweetie, I'm sorry, but please just hear me out. I think we both have to accept that our… problems are probably warping our realities a bit. Especially when we're trying to see from each other's perspective." She tugs against your arm so you slide a bit and slump into her. "I know I've just spent a bunch of time not really trying to see your side of this, but I'm going to hypocritical here anyway and ask you to try not to interrupt and to just listen to me." Her arm snakes between you and the wall and she's pulling you closer to her again.

You give yourself your permission to relax and shift around a bit until you're more comfortably nestled against her. Despite her fears that she's going to scare you off, she's about the only person on the planet who can calm you down like this. "I'll give it a try."

"Thank you. So first, and somewhat unrelated; do you think you could try to freak out on the couch or bed or anywhere that's slightly more comfy next time?" Your arm limply flies up in her face as you salute her with two fingers. She chuckles and swats it away. "Good, I'm glad we've calmed down enough now that we're able to made rude gestures.

"Anyway, what you aren't getting- and this is my fault for babbling at you instead of explaining- the thing that you don't see is that it was never some high level national secret that I wasn't really… that I don't really enjoy having to deal with all this publicity shit. And before you like, ungracefully ninja yourself away from me again, let me restate that it is all on me for accepting the… well, the burden without asking for any help." The way you're tucked against her, you can't really see much of her from her biceps up, but you feel her looking down at you. "Not. Your. Fault. Okay? So, I know I said no talking, but can you just confirm that back to me?"

You're not completely sold on that yet, but you try to sound sure about it. "It's. Um, it isn't my fault?" Not the most solid statement you've ever made.

Sam rolls with it though. "Great! Good to clear that up right away." She bends down a little and whispers, "We'll work on sounding convincing later." Somehow she's turned this nightmare into something that, while still doesn't resemble fun, is now at least tolerable. You couldn't love her more than you do right now. "Eh, we'll measure that later, now isn't really the best time to compare. I love you too, though." As she leans to plant a quick kiss on your forehead, your brain catches up and you make a note to seriously work on keeping your thoughts inside your head.

"Moving on, because it wasn't this super duper secret, in my opinion at least, I never really meant to keep it hidden from you. It just… happened, I guess. I mean, yeah, I was hiding some of it away in an attempt to not upset you. And yeah, we know we weren't really communicating then, and, uh," As she stammers, her foot starts to sway back and forth. "You, uh, well you did maybe tell me that you sorta weren't really all that… hm, you weren't really…"

"Sam."

"Sorry, sorry. So, you told me that you weren't really spending much time thinking about how I was feeling." After a pause, her words start to pick up speed. "Which is a-okay! It's all good! Don't you worry about that, I am totally okay with it! Perfectly okay, not at all anything to feel bad about!"

"Sam."

Her swaying foot is stilled when she drops her other foot on top of it. "'Kay, got it, you're fine, it's fine. But yes, never really meant to hide it. In fact, when I'm out of the house, some people have actually commented on it, which is super fun to defuse. But I digress. Basically, I didn't mean to hide it away at all. Uh, well maybe the part about how my job is to protect you probably could have been left out, that's probably a little exaggerated."

You break your promise of silence and momentarily pull away from her to tell her, "But that is what you were doing. You realize that, right?"

"Whatever you say, Lois. Just be sure to call me Clark from now on." If you hadn't promised to not interrupt, you'd elaborate. Instead, you grumble at her and return to your comfortable snuggle. "Do you see where I'm going with this though? You didn't 'take advantage' of me by, I don't know what you think you did, but you didn't like, coerce me into telling you nuclear launch codes. I'm not upset because it wasn't a secret to me, and because it wasn't a secret to me, I guess I didn't notice that it was a secret to you. And," She shrugs. "And yeah, it probably should have been a daytime talk, but it's not like we can go back and change it, so it was what it was. It wasn't a big deal to me, so I didn't react how you thought I would. You never brought it up, and I guess I just thought we were all good?"

One thing still doesn't add up. "Then why did you want me to forget?"

"Oh, god. I'm so sorry about that. When I say that I thought we were all good, I'm reverting back to conceal don't feel mode. Nothing said? No problem! I think what actually happened was that I kinda subconsciously knew you were upset about the whole thing when you didn't bring it up, and when I was ignoring that, it was just easier to assume you didn't remember it. Plus the whole going overboard about the protecting you bit like I'm some sort of superhero was a little embarrassing."

"I don't think you get the significance of what you've been doing for me though, Clark." It doesn't look like she knows how sincere you're being. "I'm serious, Sam. Thank you. You could have, at any time, pissed off and left me to deal with everything, but you didn't. You stepped up for me, while I've been sitting here moping."

"You make it sound like I was enabling this," Her hand points back and forth between the two of you and then at the TV and sofa before she drops it limply into her lap. "This."

You nudge her with your head. "Come on, you know that's not true. You saw what happened when I tried to do that interview, you saw- you can still see the sofa. I wasn't, I'm probably still not even close to okay about everything we've been through." You hear her sigh slightly before you feel her rest her head on yours. "Sam, I needed you even more than I thought I did, and you stuck around to save me. No, you stuck around, dealt with my crap while waiting to save me. I didn't even let you try most of the time."

"You act like you're the only one with baggage, which is almost adorable, really. You've been putting up with me too, I just don't think you've realized it yet. There's also that thing where you saved my soul and then carried me down a mountain. With a hole in your side, among other things." You scratch at the wound as you listen. "I gotta repay you for that somehow."

"Sam, that's not…"

You don't get a chance to finish. A hand flies up to cover your mouth. "Shush. I know. And I wish you knew that I'm never serious when I say that. Not that I should be joking about that, which I apologize for. Everybody needs help sometimes, and I'm not doing this out of some fucked up sense of obligation." Her hand pulls away from your mouth. "I'm doing this because I love you, you giant dork."

You can't help the smile that creeps onto your face. You'll never tire of hearing that. "Fine. I love you too, my noble hero."

"Stop it with that."

"You started it."

"Be great if you stopped it."

Not too concerned about moving, you stay on the floor until it starts to take a toll on you. Eventually you roll your way out from under Sam's arm and end up laying on your back a few feet away. "Sorry I messed up the evening."

"Don't be. It sucks but we do need to get this stuff out. Would be great to pencil it in on our day planners, but this shit probably isn't always going to hit the fan at the most opportune times." She's ended up sitting behind you and her upside down face comes into your view. "And like I said, it's not all your fault. I probably should have taken my glasses off at one point. I think they might have accidentally ended up being too good of a disguise."

You motion at her to come closer, like you want to maybe whisper something in her ear. Which really makes no sense at this point, but she leans forward anyway. When she's close enough, you reach up and yank her shirt to pull her closer, and she barely catches herself from face planting into you herself before you awkwardly kiss her.

"Peter Parker wears glasses normally though, doesn't he? Maybe you needed to unmask instead."

"Stop."

Your opportunity for any continued remarks is taken away when she kisses you again. As she sits back she goes out of your sight. You're smiling at the ceiling just like the dork that she says you are. "Jesus, that's weird. Does not work as well as advertised. I mean, would you get all swoony if a dude in a probably gross and sweaty mask randomly appeared in front of you and kissed you all upside down like that?"

"Come on, Sam, you know I only swoon for you."

"Rhetorical, Mary Jane."

You make a face. "Right. We do need to stop."

The next time she's in your line of sight, she's in front of you. "Sometimes I regret introducing you to mass media." She extends her hand down and waggles her fingers at you. You waggle your yours back before taking the hand up. When you're up, she's the one yanking you forward. "Can we retcon those kisses?"

In the morning, when you wake up, you walk into the kitchen to find Sam eating a toaster strudel that you assume was snuck into your purchases the day before.

"You weren't awake to cook anything." She's not looked up from the newspaper she's examining. "And I just can't handle the idea of eating any toast for the next while." When you don't respond, she finally drops the paper to look at you. You've also been examining the paper, from a distance, and you don't look away from it fast enough for her to not notice. She seems to know what you're thinking. "Lara, I already told you. It's starting to blow over already. We all kept enough of the fucked up stuff hidden, and most people are starting to lose interest in the plain old boring story of the discovery of an island." You're opening your mouth to respond when crumbs fly in your direction as Sam waves her strudel at you. You take it as a signal to stay quiet. "I swear, the main people that are still interested are scholarly farts…" She points at you again, strudel still in hand. "No offence." You barely have a chance to roll your eyes at her before she carries on. "The only people that are still super gung-ho about this are the scholars and the tabloids, and all the tabloids give a shit about is spinning a crazy cult story. Which, I mean, wouldn't be inaccurate. But we don't really want all that much about Mathias out there, right? Even if it's just all contained to trashy magazines that still print Elvis theories."

Her foot is tapping ever so slightly under the table. "Or Himiko?" You see the foot tapping increase in speed.

"Uh, yeah. Her too." The toaster strudel suddenly becomes very interesting to Sam. As you watch her go silent to take very calculated bites, you decide to let this Himiko thing drop, if only because she has to go back to dealing with your publicity rubbish today.

"Alright." By the time you respond, she's finished the strudel and has no choice to focus back on you. "Well, I know you have some meeting or something today." You can see her relax when she figures out that you aren't going to push anything. You, on the other hand, feel slightly dizzy as you muster up the courage to ask, "Did you maybe want me to come with you?" You're pretty sure that you aren't going to topple over at the thought of doing so, but you shuffle over to plop yourself down in a chair at the table with Sam.

She quietly watches you for an unnerving length of time before responding, "Okay, sweetie, I know you feel bad that I'm the one that's been taking the brunt of the work." Her hand reaches out for the strudel that's no longer on her plate, and ends up knocking against the table instead. "But when I said it's my job, I wasn't really exaggerating all that much. Like, yeah, people do still want to get some interviews out of you, but I'm actually juggling everything else about as well as I can." You feel that she's trying to tell you that she can keep doing what she's doing without having a nervous breakdown. You don't know if she's implying the opposite about you. "There is, uh…" You can hear her foot bouncing against the floor.

"Sam, please just-"

"Okay, yeah, I'll- yeah. If you do want to work on something, you could maybe head over to the museum to start working with all that stuff you somehow managed to haul back with us." There's silence looming over the two of you as you try to run the concept through your head. "I'm not saying you have to, but it sounds like you want to help. Having a catalog of what you found would help me. But if you'd rather wait so I can come with you…"

The concerned way she's looking at you reminds you why you love her, but it also hurts. The fact that the concept of you leaving the house alone is so worrying is almost embarrassing. "No, no. That actually sounds like a pretty good idea." You're lying through your teeth as, unfortunately, the concept of you leaving the house by yourself is actually making you feel lightheaded again. "Yeah, I'll give them a call and let them know I'll be showing up."

That earns you a nervous smile from Sam, and you do your best to smile back. Shortly after, as you're getting out of your chair to make yourself a quick breakfast before you call (you do need to eat, you aren't delaying), you hear the now familiar noise of nervous finger tapping. You look over your shoulder at Sam, who looks like she's trying to decide whether to say something or not. When she sees that you've seen her, her decision is made for her. "So, Lara. We're throwing the word 'job' around a lot, here." She's alternating between tapping the table and knocking it now. "But, the thing is, this is going to blow over. And we're going to need to get actual jobs. Have enough money to get by somehow. I guess there's always- or you… It doesn't matter if we, as long as we have enough to- I don't know. I'm just not sure if…"

Instead of finishing her thoughts, she glances away from you and down at the floor instead. You know what she's trying to say, though. You ignore it, and abort breakfast. "I should go take a shower. Get ready for the day."

She's still staring at the floor when she quietly replies, "Yeah. Yeah, I guess you should." You hesitate for a second, but only a second, and you give her a quick kiss on the top of her head as you pass her.

Moments later, you're halfway to the washroom but her tired sigh is loud enough that you can still hear it.

Before Yamatai, it would be quite rare for you to take a cab. But neither you nor Sam ever bothered to fix the fact that the two of you share one car, one car which she's taken today. Which is fair enough because she actually has somewhere that she needs to be while you're just floundering about in an attempt to become a useful member of society again. Still, that left you with the dilemma of figuring out your own transportation. Remembering the way you zoned out in front of the furniture store, and knowing that Sam won't be around to be your anchor led you to your current motto of "the fewer, the better" when it comes to people. Which probably isn't healthy, but neither is attacking a stranger. You're honestly not sure how close you were to actually losing control, but the idea of it happening scares the hell out of you, for multiple reasons.

You make it to the museum without any incidents. However, you don't make it inside without your signature parking lot vacant stare. The hood that you reach for isn't there, as you figured you should wear something nicer. Not that the long sleeved tee that you've got on is much fancier. But it isn't stained, and it also covers up your arms. You couldn't bring yourself to step out the door without concealing as many scars and wounds as possible.

When you finish up with your vacant staring, you push away the urge to survey the people surrounding you and half walk, half jog your way into the building. You find the reception area, identify yourself, and suddenly you're being led to a room where the museum has been graciously storing everything you brought back. A few instructions are relayed to you, and then you're all alone in a room full of haunting memories. You do your best to assure yourself that you can do this, and pick somewhere to start.

A few items made of jade are grouped together, and a horse statue is staring up at you. You pick it up to examine it closer and try to focus on determining it's age when you hear a loud noise almost like an explosion and you look up to see exactly what the noise was and from where you're standing on a shabby roof you can see a fire raging not all that far from you and when you see it you suddenly become aware of the screaming coming from that direction and when you instinctively take a step back you stumble over a body at your feet and the horse that was in your hand isn't a horse it's a bow and you're aiming the bow and when you let go of the flaming arrow another explosion sounds along with more screaming and you don't even remember how or why you got back to the shanty town and your breathing is shaky as you crouch down to drop your bow for a moment to think and… you're in a bright, clean room surrounded by nothing but old relics.

Since you're already crouching, you kick your legs out from under you. You land on the floor only slightly more delicately than the horse did. You glance over at it quickly to make sure it's still as intact as it was when you picked it up, and when you decide that it is, you slump forward and stare at the ground. What the hell was that? Unpleasant, for one. You stay where you are on the floor and attempt to regain some composure. Nobody comes barging into the room, which helps you convince yourself that there aren't any security cameras recording you. That's the last thing you need.

After heaving yourself back up to your feet, you pick up the horse and deposit it back where you had taken it from, as quickly as you can. Your hand hovers over a jade drinking vessel of some sort before you decide to try a different group of items. To your left, there's another grouping, one of them being a rabbit stuffie. Seeing it causes you to inhale sharply and you move on immediately. You have no idea what possessed you to bring that back with you, but you know you don't want to think about the implications of why it was abandoned when you found it. The next group of items is a simple layout of numerous coins. After a quick look to evaluate what's all there, you decide to take a look at a Japanese 2 sen coin.

You didn't make any other plans for the day, did you? No, surely not, that wouldn't make any sense. Still, you have this strange feeling that you're keeping somebody waiting. Absently, you flip the coin over in your hand as you pause to think about it. You come up with nothing, and go back to examining the fine details of the coin even with the nagging thought still in the back of your mind. It looks like it's from the late 1800's and hold on, you're supposed to meet Alex somewhere, aren't you? You're tapping the coin against your palm as you try to remember. Where were you meant to be meeting, again? You can't- you're just going to have to find him somehow. You're going to go find him. You can't leave him behind. Behind? Where is it that you're going that you'd be leaving him behind? He's… gunshots? You hear gunshots again. What the hell is going on? You go to check the first door you see, and find out that you don't need to go far to find Alex. But there's also a layer of water covering the floor, you see some sparks up near the ceiling, Alex is on the ground with a bunch of rubble and you slam the door shut again. You look around the room that you're in, and there's no water leaks or electrical issues that you can see. The coin you're clutching onto is digging into the flesh of your palm, but you don't notice it when you open the door again to see Alex still on the floor of the room that suddenly seems exceptionally decrepit. Sparks are indeed flying from the ceiling and Alex is indeed on the floor and this time you notice a giant piece of metal pinning his leg down he's stuck there you've got to help him but when you step into the room he starts yelling at you to get out to get out to get out out out and you're feeling panicked suddenly but he's so adamant that you do get out you leave and you shut the door again and a loud explosion follows and startles you into dropping the coin that you forgot was in your hand.

It clinks as it hits the ground and you look down at it. You don't know what you expect from it, it's just a coin and all it's doing is laying on the floor. Alex is dead, though. He has been this entire time. You don't want to open the door again, but you do it anyway. This time, when you peek in, it's just a janitor's closet. It never was anything else, and Alex was never there, because he's fucking dead. Dead because of you. You choke back tears, because you're a grown woman and grown women don't cry about Japanese currency. Which wouldn't be what you'd be crying about, although it would certainly look like it was if somebody walked in. Why is this happening? You gently push the coin along the floor with your foot, until it's close enough to the table it had been on that you only need to hold it for longer than two or three seconds to replace it. You don't understand this. You don't deserve… you don't think you deserve this.

If somebody is watching footage from a security camera that is actually somewhere in the room, they probably think you're crazy by this point. You aren't sure you'd disagree with them. You rest your hands on the table and lean forward, trying to catch your breath. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

But you need to do this. So you move on to some another group, one as far away as possible from the pile of coins, as if that'll help somehow. Your hand hesitates and hovers over a badge that's laid out among various other items. There's so much stuff here. How did you manage to bring all of this along with you? There's a few things you don't even recognize. But thinking about that is not what you're here for, and you pick up the badge. Some kanji that's lightly scratched into the back of it catches your attention, and you run your thumb over it to see if you can feel the etching at all. You don't feel the etching, but you see a few sparks jump from the top of the badge… no, the lighter, as it flickers on. In your peripheral vision you can see a large fire, and you smell gasoline. You look around, and other than the tanker that's burning next to you, you seem to be alone. You choose to simply stand where you are, and flick the lighter on and off a few more times. The fourth time it lights, a small plane comes into your vision. You feel like that's something you should be excited about, but something else tells you that you need to move. Despite the warning, you wave your arms above your head, trying to get the attention of the plane. There's a flash of lightening and you watch in horror as it hits the plane which is now flying right towards you it's not slowing down you're frozen with your arms still in the air and time is slowing down as the plane is flying directly towards you down towards you even it's heading towards you and down and maybe it's even speeding up and you need to move you need to get out of there but. You don't. The plane is speeding towards you and you just watch. And wait. It gets closer and closer and just when you think it can't get any closer, everything goes black. Everything stays black until you feel a sharp poke in your thumb. The world comes back into vision, and then into colour, and you see a small amount of red colour your thumb from where the pin of the badge stabbed you.

You are, of course, still in the museum. You aren't even all that surprised about that this time. What's bothering you is what just happened. What just didn't happen. It wasn't- not that you're eager to remember- but it was most definitely not what you remember actually occurring. Why did it go that way? Your chest feels tight. You can't do this. The badge is gently tossed back to where it came from. You need to get out of here or something. Just get away from these things. Breathing is more difficult than you remember it being, and you don't want to look at any of this any longer. Your hand is turning the doorknob when you realize that you're going to have to talk to people and maybe explain to them why you're leaving and that idea is exceptionally unappealing. Maybe you could make it to the washroom without anybody seeing you? It worked for Sam…

You really, really don't want to take the chance of running into anybody though. You don't know if you could even hold a conversation right now. Turning around, you see the closet that Alex isn't in. You'd rather not be in it either, especially after what you saw in there, but it seems to be the only option left. Everything goes dark again, for an entirely different reason, when you pull the door closed behind you. There's not much else to do other than sit in the darkness. So you do just that.

Later, still in the darkness, you hear a door open, and somebody speaking. "Ms. Croft is just in… here?" You don't recognize the voice. "How strange. I don't recall her leaving."

Another voice. "Oh." That voice you recognize. You'd recognize it anywhere. "Okay, so this is maybe a weird question right now, but are there any windows in this area?"

The unknown voice sounds confused. "Uh, not that I can think of. I'll go check with reception to see if they know if she's gone anywhere."

"Thanks." One set of footsteps get quieter as they move further and further away from where you are. Another set step closer to you, and then the room goes silent again. A minute later, you hear a quiet "oh", and then the footsteps that stayed in the room get louder until they stop right in front of you. The light that spills in when the closet door opens is far too bright, and you have to squint while you adjust to it.

Sam's outline drops down to mirror you on the floor, and around the time your eyes fully adjust, she's reaching towards you to pry the exacto knife you found on a shelf out of your hand. You let her take it, she's the only person you know would never try to hurt you. "Lara." You don't respond. Other than letting go of the knife, you don't even move. She slowly inches towards you, and when you continue to not move, she squishes herself beside you as well as she can in the cramped space of the closet. You feel an arm wrap around you, and it tries to pull you closer to her. You still don't move. You'd like to, maybe. She sighs as she forces your hand open just enough to fit hers in, and settles for leaning against you. "Oh, Lara." Her hand squeezes yours. "We're gonna be okay again, one day. We'll be okay."

i've been fucking around while you've been saving the world, from nothing