Sam managed to find you one of those scholarly old farts rather quickly. So now she's leading your through a building, with the intention of sticking you in a room with the aforementioned old fart. It's not a busy place, not crawling with people, which is nice. You do notice, though, that every time somebody passes by and politely greets you, Sam jumps a little at their voice. The further into the building you get, the stiffer her return greetings get. You've just been silently smiling back at them, so you don't feel that you're in a position to fault her. It does however, in a strange way, make you feel slightly better seeing actual evidence that she struggles too. It feels horrible but… it also makes you feel less alone. More validated?

She ushers you into a cramped room, where you sit down on a wobbly chair. When she leaves to find Old Fart, you occupy yourself with nervously tapping your foot, something you've clearly learned from Sam. You can't stop the tapping, even after she returns with an older gentleman. You try to smile, but it feels like you might be grimacing instead.

Turns out that Old Fart is actually only interested in the archeology bits of things. You're not even sure if he knows all the stories surrounding your trip. After an extremely quick internal debate, you decide that it would be best to describe everything to him in the state that it was before you, well, destroyed it. So, you tell him what the island was like, the details of some of the areas. He doesn't pry for anything, and doesn't ask provoking questions like Twenty Qs did. It's a huge relief. In fact, he's a rather kind old fart, and you're actually quite enjoying talking to him.

Until he asks you if there's any way that you could possibly take him to see everything you recovered from Yamatai.

"Uh, well." You have no idea what to tell Old Fart, and you'd rather save your stuttering and stammering for Sam. "I- I'll have a public exhibit set up, eventually." It's a weak excuse, but it's the best you can think of, on the spot.

He brings up the fact that earlier, you had mentioned that you were taking your time with that. It's true, but it's also another excuse. You're starting to panic, ever so slightly, because if you keep making terrible excuses, they're just going to pile up on each other. And if you continue to panic, Old Fart is probably going to think there's something wrong with you. Which isn't wrong, you suppose, but you'd rather avoid it. You need a consultant. "I should, er, I'll have to go talk to my… Sam? About that." You'll also need to sound a hell of a lot more professional than that, and you cringe at your wording before fleeing the room.

Instead of finding Sam, you find the nearest washroom, and hide away in a stall. You pull out your phone, and call Sam, because you don't think you can handle waiting and watching the little dots when as she texts back.

"Lara, hey! How's it going so far?"

"Listen, Sam, I'm in the bathroom." You tell her that, as if it'll explain everything.

There's a slight pause before she replies. "Oh-kay. That's, uh, great that you're working on your multitasking, I guess? But how about you phone me back in a minute or two?"

You hiss at her, "Sam! I don't know what to do." Another pause, and you sigh. "Jesus, Sam, I'm in the bathroom, hiding. Because I'm freaking out. Because I don't know what to do."

"Oh. Okay. Okay, uh, what's the issue? Can I help?"

Hopefully. "Right, so, Old Fart wants… I don't know, a little tour of what I've got in the museum. And I may have accidentally given some unfortunate excuses that aren't really going to work."

You can hear her suck in a breath between her teeth. "Yikes. Okay, so just to check; we don't want to do this, right?"

Your reply is a drawn out groan.

"Good, good, we're on the same page. Wait, what did you tell him? You just tell him you had to pee, or?"

It would be nice if eye rolls could be translated over the phone. "I told him I had to talk to you about it. Literally. Which also leads to: what am I calling you? I word-for-word told him that I had to go 'talk to my Sam about it'. That's what I told him."

"Oh my god." She's smothered her snickering well, but you still pick up on it. You can't really blame her. "Yeah, that doesn't work, does it? I don't know. Just call me your manager or something, if you're fine with that."

"Manager." She pretty much does actually manage you, at this point. You're fine with it. "Got it. So I'm talking to you about it now, and I really need you to tell me what to do."

"Lara, now that you're my client, I would like to advise you that I am a terrible manager."

"Oh, for the love of god, Sam, I need to go tell him something. Preferably sometime soon." The line is silent, other than the sound of Sam clicking her tongue as she thinks. "Wait," You've possibly come up with a compromise. "You said that we don't want to do this. If I say yes to him, will you come with me?"

"I can do that, yeah. I don't know what I would do to help, but, sure."

"Just being there will do enough to help, trust me. Thank you."

"Alright. If you're sure. Let me figure out when to set this up. I'll attempt 'soon'. Tell Old Fart I'll call him again, okay?"

"Sure."

It's great that you've convinced her to trust you. You're just going to have to convince yourself now. You give yourself a couple more minutes to work on that, while you take a few deep breaths. Your hands have almost stopped tremoring by the time you go back to finish up your talk with Old Fart.

At least you didn't puke, this time.

"So, how'd it go? Like, overall." Sam is weaving alarmingly through traffic again. It's as if she has some strange compulsion to constantly change lanes.

"Overall? I'd say it was pretty decent. All Old Fart was interested in was actual archeology. Which was a relief, I suppose. I basically just told him about how things were on the island, like the structures and whatnot. Before we made a mess of everything."

"Ah. So we're hoping he doesn't go for a visit any time soon? Wouldn't want him to think you were telling lies." She turns and points at you, giving you a disapproving stare. You point, more urgently, towards the windshield. "I can't have my clients giving me a bad reputation."

"Would you shut up about that? You know, you keep making fun of me, and I can claim harassment. Then what would you do?"

"Harass you more, until you dropped the case?"

"Seriously? Wow, you really are a terrible manager." Her hands fly up in a 'so what?" gesture and yours flail at the steering wheel. "Anyway, I did pretty good otherwise. I think. I was sort of distracted when I went back after I called you, but I don't know if he noticed."

"Honestly? Fuck whatever he thinks. I'm proud of you for taking another little step."

"You do remember that we're meeting him at the museum tomorrow?"

She shrugs. "So? Still doesn't matter what he thinks."

"Wow. Okay." You try to deadpan, but her bluntness is a little too blunt, and you can't keep from laughing. "Should I be worried about how you've been dealing with my publicity stuff?"

She grins at you "I told you. I'm terrible." After she stops at an intersection, she starts tapping the steering wheel. "Alright, decision time now. I know I told you I'd bring food products home, but that was before I knew you were coming along for the ride. Are you up to try a grocery trip?"

The idea doesn't appeal to you at all, and you deflate a little. "I- I don't…"

Sam must notice your tone, because she interjects. "C'mon, Lara, don't get like that. It's okay if you don't want to. Don't gotta do it all at once, remember? Wanna just get a pizza?"

"Yeah." You sigh.

Very deliberately, she looks around, like she's making sure that nobody else is near, and starts talking in an exaggerated whisper. "Hey? You wanna know a secret? I was hoping you'd say no. I didn't want to go either. I don't have the energy to deal with coupon clippers right now. Might end up accidentally clipping them." When you don't respond, she looks at you again, a serious expression on her face. "I am not disappointed. Please don't get that going in your head again, okay?"

"Yeah." A smile creeps onto your face. "No disappointment. Got it."

"Good. No green peppers, either?"

You snort. "If you insist."

Sam not only gets her way with the green peppers, she also convinces you to buy an all meat pizza with extra cheese. She's says it's delicious, but you look at it and see a heart attack. It's the first time in awhile that you eat supper without any sort of incident and/or early enough to maybe actually have a completely pleasant evening.

But why would you want that? When Sam asks if you have any suggestions on how to waste some time, why you say what you say is beyond you. "Should we get the next bit of the camera over with?"

She blinks. "You're joking."

"Uh." You stand up to start putting leftover pizza away, to stall. "Maybe? I actually didn't really think that through, before I said it, to be honest." She stays put when you head to the kitchen with the pizza remains.

When you return, Sam's got the camera in her hand, and she evidently went into some ninja mode while you were busy, because you didn't hear her move. She holds it out to you. "Take that moment to actually think about it. Do you really want to do this?"

You look at the camera. No, you really do not want to do this. "If you're okay with it." You're going to have to eventually, though, and there's no better time than the present. Especially when you're trying to get yourself out of the past and back into the present.

She eyes you warily. "You have to promise me that you won't freak out. I don't mind if you get upset, that's probably inevitable. But I don't want you to ruin the day you've had. This can wait, I don't want you to have even a mild breakdown again just because you're trying to push yourself too far, too fast.

"I'm pretty sure I know what's going to be on there. You know too, and I think that'll help."

"Are. You. Sure?" Each word is enunciated distinctly.

You take another look at the camera. "Go set up your rat's nest of cables."

She still looks cautious. "Alright…"

After she leaves to go find all the necessary cables, you stop resisting the urge to pick at your stitches.

When everything is set up and you're on The Sofa, she hesitates with the remote. "Ready?"

No. "Yes."

The screen flicks on, and there's a half second of static before the image of the ground, moving rather fast, appears. You hear camera-you grunt, and when the camera swings up to film a wall, you know why it has the momentum to do so. "Yeah. This is it."

"Okay."

The camera stays relatively steady for a moment as you hear legible Russian, which quickly turns into a yelp of pain. Immediately, the camera swings back again. You can't even tell what direction it's going when you hear two simultaneous grunts, one from camera-you, the other in a much lower octave. You watch the ground jerk around, hear the sound of a gun cocking, and then the camera flips. It must have landed flat, because it's pointing straight forward. Feet come into view. "Oh no. No." The angle the camera is at…

The picture pauses, and Sam turns to you. "What?"

"No, it's nothing." You would like for this to finish, so you gesture at the screen. Sam doesn't touch the remote, and you sigh. "I don't like how the camera is pointing."

You watch as she opens her mouth, and then closes it, stopping her immediate response. Instead of whatever she was intending to say, she asks you again. "You're sure?"

You glance at the screen and then back to Sam. "Yeah. Yeah. Just- if the camera stays how it is…"

"I'll be fine." She hits play.

There's barely a moment before a gunshot sounds, and you close your eyes briefly when some blood sprays past the camera. Sam looks over at you and you nod towards the TV. "Not done."

A leg is taking up most of the screen, and blood is dripping down it. The camera rocks slightly, but still doesn't move. The leg does move, and between that and the grunting you can hear, it's evident that a struggle is occurring. Time was nothing to you at that moment, so you have no idea how long it'll be before it happens. The struggle continues for a few more seconds before you hear the second gunshot, and blood splats in front of the camera again, along with a few other bits that you hope Sam doesn't identify. Then, the image jerks violently, before swaying to a stop. You've been holding your breath since the gunshot, you realize, and you release it in relief when you see that the camera only has a view of the lower half of his body. It stays steady for a moment, and then starts swinging again, around the same time you hear camera-you gasp and sob a few times. That throws you for a moment. It's a huge difference from actively yelling death threats. The thought of how you've changed makes your stomach wobble, and you fend off nausea as camera-you retches a few times. The camera is pointing down at the ground and switches off mid-retch. You swallow air in an attempt to stop yourself from retching right now.

"You shot him in the dick?"

That completely pulls you back from your thoughts. "That's what you have to say? After what we just watched, that's what you have to say?"

"I'm just saying. That would probably really hurt"

You catch on to what she's trying to do, and give her a knowing look. "We're back to bad jokes now?"

She shrugs. "It made you stop dwelling on it, for a moment."

"I guess."

She watches you for a moment, and sighs as she drops sideways, ending up laying with her head in your lap. "You had to do it. I know it's not black and white like that for you, but… you had to. You wouldn't be here right now if you hadn't. That's the only way I see it. Maybe it shouldn't be that simple. It obviously isn't for you, and I understand that. But it's pretty fucking simple for me, Lara. Because I need you here with me. Everything you did, that's what led to you being able to sit on this couch with me, right now. You being here justifies everything for me, and that might be fucking awful on my part, but I don't really care."

You're simultaneously relieved and uncomfortable. "I'll change."

"Huh?"

"I'll change." You look down at her. "If we keep watching, I'm going to change."

"Okay, uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but if you change in these recordings, does that not mean you've already changed?

"Yeah, but… it's not something you can see right now. At home." The ceiling feels a lot easier to look at while saying this, so you break eye contact and tilt your head back. "You heard what happened after I shot him. A couple of sobs, some heaving. It won't be like that at the end. I'll probably seem a lot more… enthusiastic. About murdering these people."

"Okay, sweetie? I think that may have been circumstantial. Because now that we're here? Safe? You've been having a hard fucking time coping with that. No?" What she's saying kind of makes sense. You tilt your head back down to look at her. "One thing I've noticed, is that you keep referring to what you did as murder. I mean, yeah, that's a word for killing people, but it's generally a word for killing people intentionally. For wanting to kill them."

"But-"

"No, you didn't want to. You had to, and maybe it felt like you wanted to at the time, but I think that was probably about more wanting to survive. Lara, you're wrecked about this. You didn't want to kill those people."

You've never thought about it that way before. You've always just remembered how you felt then, when it was happening. You've had minor crises related to the men you murd- killed, but you never saw the disconnect between you feelings then and your feelings now.

"If you still insist on feeling guilty, can we at least drop the charges to involuntary manslaughter, please?" That shouldn't make you laugh, but it does, and Sam grins up at you as you giggle. "And Lara? Next time a story involves shooting somebody in the dick? Please don't leave that out."

You're still chuckling a little when you tell her, "You're terrible."

"Yeah, I think I told you that already."

Somehow, you didn't ruin the evening. Perhaps telling Sam ahead of time helped, or maybe you actually are improving. Either way, the two of you go the rest of the night without having any sort of major or minor issue. It's nice, it's relaxing, and you want it back, permanently.

You just want your life back.

In the morning, when you wake up, Sam rolls over and asks you who Vladimir is. "You mumbled his name once or twice."

You had expected to have dreams, after watching the tape, and you didn't let yourself down. You'd think Sam would figure it out, but then again, she hasn't had any caffeine yet. "Sam. Vladimir. What nationality does that name make you think of?"

"Russian? Why… oh." She brushes your messy fringe out of your face, and gives you a quick kiss. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah. I expected it."

"Doesn't mean you're alright."

You shoot her a tired glare, and she drops it. You watch her for a second, then take a moment to consider something. "Uh, Sam?" You're not sure you should add this, but maybe she deserves to know. "Do you want to know one more thing? About him?"

"I guess? If you want to tell me."

"He had two brothers. Or, he called them his brothers, at least. Nikolai and Dmitri. You kind of know them." There's no recognition on her face. "The fire ritual. They're who attacked me. I think I upset them."

"Oh, those pieces of shit. Well, they upset me. Thank you for the names. I can hate them in more detail now." The way she says it keeps you unsure about if telling her was the right thing to do. You don't have much time to ponder it, as she starts pushing you out of bed. "Time to rise and shine. We gotta go meet up with Old Fart."

Once you arrive at the museum you start to dread your private tour with Old Fart, and as you pace around, you alternate between cracking your knuckles (or attempting to, as there isn't much left to crack after the fourth try) and punching your palms. Sam is leaning in the corner of the room, watching you, which is why you're keeping your hands busy. You don't want them scratching at your side.

"It's gonna be fine. You'll be fine. Just try and remember to breathe. Maybe stop destroying your knuckles too?"

Your hands drop as you turn to Sam's corner. "How do you know? You don't. Something's going to happen. I don't know what, but this has been too easy so far."

"Something is going to happen if you keep that up. Relax, Lara. Just let him look at all this shit and then send him on his way."

You raise an eyebrow.

"Sorry, let him look at all these fine archaeological discoveries. I'll be here the whole time. Do you want me to do anything?"

You look around. "Find me a stick to poke at everything with?"

"How professional."

"I have mentioned, multiple times, that I've no idea what I'm doing, haven't I? You're my manager. Manage me."

She waves her arm around the room. "This isn't my forté, I'm pretty sure I have less of an idea than you. But if you insist, a laser pointer would be far more professional."

"Just-" Footsteps interrupt you, and you turn to see Old Fart being led towards you. "Just be ready to snap me back to reality, okay?"

"Lara, it's going to be-"

"Just keep an eye on me. Please."

Old Fart enters the room and you walk over to greet him. As you lead him over to the first table of items, you glance back at Sam, and she nods subtly at you. You muster up a smile for her before turning back to start rambling about everything you found.

Other than ending up with a dry mouth due to your continuous monologue, everything goes well. You quickly found out that Old Fart was touchy-feely enough that you weren't going to have to do anything other than point at things. Sam stayed out of the way, but you saw her glancing around the room a few times, and you know what she was looking for. When Old Fart leaves, after thanking you profusely, you walk over to where the coin is. "Over here."

"What?"

You beckon her over. "I know you want to see it. The coin."

She looks down at her feet. "…Maybe."

"It's not a big deal. I get it. C'mere."

"Okay." She joins you and looks down to where you're pointing. "I don't really know what I'm meant to be looking for, that's your job. But it's nice. I think he'll like it."

"You think?" She nods, and you smile. "We'll have to figure out something special for it." The two of you stay put for a minute, but you eventually look past her, a few tables over. "This way." She looks down at the coin one more time, and then follows you over to the jade horse. "Notice how small and portable this is."

"Ah, yes." She picks it up and you can tell she's weighing it. "Oh so very pocket sized." You grumble. "It's neat, though. I see why you brought it." She turns it over in her hands a few times before putting it back. "Since we're here, can I see that badge too? I just… I dunno. You've shown me the others."

"Sure. I don't see why not. That way." You lead her by pointing. She gets there before you, and picks it out easily enough. You stand opposite her, and watch her examine it. She's squinting at the etchings you mentioned, which is kind of cute.

But as she looks over the badge, you're reminded of your omissions, and something hiding in the back of your mind says, tell her. You try to convince it that doing so would be a bad idea, while Sam's talking to you in the background. When you attempt to actually listen to her, you only hear portions of what she says, because tell her is repeating in your brain.

"The plane crashed in the same place." You cut her off before you even realize that you've decided to tell her. She narrows her eyes at you, not recognizing what you're talking about. "When I told you about that flashback I had. I… didn't really lie. I guess. But I didn't tell you the whole truth, either. The plane, it fell in pretty much the same place. What was different was the way it crashed." You pause to take a deep breath, and automatically glance up. It's not the right ceiling, which almost makes you feel worse. "It was falling, right? It was flying right at me, like when it actually happened. Specifically, the difference was how it landed. What it landed on." You can feel your fingers picking at your side. You don't care. "Because I didn't turn and run. I told you I watched it. I just… didn't tell you that I kept watching it. I stood there watching and waiting. For it to hit me, I suppose. I think it did? I don't know."

Sam is dead silent. She's standing across the table from you, looking at you in absolute silence. The badge clatters back onto the table after she tosses it, but the quiet returns when it settles. She looks sad, which you expected. But you think that you see more fear in her eyes than anything else. Lacking anything else to add, you force your hands into your pockets and stiffly rock back and forth on the balls of your feet.

"Why did you lie?"

"I didn-" Do not try to convince her you weren't lying. "I didn't say anything about it because I didn't want to upset you. I thought it might be upsetting?" You have a feeling you were right about that.

"Oh." It takes a few tries, but eventually Sam actually gets out some of the words you've been waiting for. "You don't actually want to…"

As if what you say isn't a bad enough choice, you take a moment too long to to say it. "I don't think so."

Her eyes flick away from you. "'Kay."

You shouldn't have told her.

And now you definitely can't tell her about your dreams.

You also should have been more reassuring, but you've started to legitimately feel like you do know almost nothing. One of the few things you do know at the moment is that you don't want to die, and you wish you could go back to give that real, proper answer. Problem was, you didn't know that you needed to know that until it was too late. Consequently, you blanked on possibly the easiest question you've ever been asked.

Sam doesn't look like she's going to move, so you walk around the table and tug her hand. "Let's get home, yeah?" Mutely, she nods at you. Phantom hand has been absent for some time, but it's back, and it punches you in the gut.

When you leave, Sam doesn't let go of your hand. You try to tell yourself that you look like just any random couple, as opposed to a couple whose one half has likely just put the other on suicide watch. You want to feel normality. It helps calm you down, somewhat. That is, until your heart sinks and your stomach drops when she leans against you, whispering, "Please don't leave me."

Since she's started the car, Sam, in consecutive order, has not passed a car that had stopped to make a right turn, has not sped up ten kilometres to run a stale yellow, has not driven through a parking lot in order to skip a light, and has not yelled at a pedestrian who stopped at a crosswalk to wave her through, even though she had already slowed to let them pass.

You're more frightened by these events than you are by how she drives on a daily basis.

"Sam, I-" You stop because you don't know what you were going to say. You just wanted to end the silence that's been lingering between awkwardly forced banter. "I'm sorry."

"It's whatever."

That was an automated response if ever you've heard one. "I get the feeling that it isn't."

Her eyes stay on the road. "We haven't been sharing everything, that isn't news."

You'd happily deal with your regular car terror, if she'd just take her eyes off to road for even a second. "I told you about this after we agreed to stop that."

"Lara. You're not going to magically become an open book."

"But…"

"It's fine, alright?"

You spend the rest of the ride thinking of every single way you've screwed things up. You average about two ways every six blocks. When Sam pulls up to your flat, you find yourself stuck, sitting in the car. Consumed by your thoughts about this mess you've made.

It takes her a minute, but when she notices that you aren't following her, Sam appears at the window of your seat of the car. She just so happens to catch you leaning forward, cradling your head in your hands. Having a bit of a pity party as well as a slight crisis. You look up at her when she opens your door.

"I wouldn't do that. You know that, right? I wouldn't do- I won't do that to you. I promise. I'm not lying about this. I don't want that. I know what I said wasn't exactly comforting, but I promise you. I don't want that."

She holds out her hands to help pull you out of the car. "Okay." She still wavers when she says it, but it's a lot firmer than the last time. "I trust you. I told you that, already. That I trust you."

"You did." She was talking about something completely different, though. "But this isn't quite the same, is it?"

"Trust is trust, Lara. Just give me a little more time to process this. I never… it's not an issue I ever considered before." A second passes, and you find yourself squeezed in a tight hug. "I trust the hell out of you, Lara." She's talking into your shoulder. "Don't make me feel like a fucking idiot for doing so."

You're at a loss for what to tell her, at this point. Instead of using any words, you decide to just hold her, until she's ready to let go of you. It would be nice if the hug was comforting, but it's not really helping. Not you, at least. Hopefully it is helping Sam. That possibility is what keeps you there, staring blankly past her while she crushes your torso. The hug doubles as some time to reflect on the giant mistake you've made. You really don't know what you're doing, do you?

It's taken you two-slices-of-leftover-pizza's worth of time to decide to say something. You could just mess this up more, you know that. But you can't handle the way Sam keeps looking at you. Surely you can come up with something better than 'I don't think so' or 'I promise I'm not lying'. You pause the movie that the two of you are watching (it doesn't escape you that Sam's chosen one of her comfort films, one that she's seen dozens of times, when she's stressed or upset about something) to get her attention. "Listen, Sam, clearly we need to talk about this."

"About what?" She receives your best disapproving glare. "No, I know what. We did already. You said you're fine. I said I trust you. We talked." How great. You've switched on her denial mode.

"Sam, really? You know that isn't enough. Don't ignore this, don't start that again. Please."

She shrugs. "I'm not ignoring anything."

"Fine. If you say so." You need to drag this conversation out of her, somehow. "I've got a question, though. You trust me, I'm understanding that." You drop the remains of your third slice of pizza back into the box, and make sure that you catch her eyes. "But do you believe me?" She finishes eating the crust of her pizza. "They aren't mutually exclusive, Sam. So, do you believe me?"

She hesitates and breaks your eye contact. "I want to? You've been opening up to me, you've been amazing, but you said it already… this is different. If I believe you, let it drop, I might miss something. I want to believe you, but I'm afraid to." After a heavy sigh, she looks back to you. "I don't think you're lying, either. I'm in some sort of weird fucking limbo. Does that make any sense?"

To you, it sounds like she's saying that she doesn't know, which you can sympathize with. "It does. And I swear, I'm telling you the truth. Though I realize that isn't the most reliable thing I can say, with how I've been acting."

"We've."

She cut in pretty quick. "What?"

"How we've been acting. It's not just you."

"Alright. We've. But, my point is that I don't know what I can tell you to help you understand. Because I don't know either. I don't get why events change like that when I relive them, or whatever. That I don't understand it myself. Because I honestly haven't had any…" Her expression changes. Confusion spreads over her face, but you don't know what you've said to cause that. "suicidal…" Oh, wait, you do know what you've just said. What you've done, to be more accurate. "…thoughts." You wince when you finish speaking.

You've made a huge mistake.

You pluralized.

Sam doesn't say anything right away, although her hand does start scratching at the back of her neck. She spends a minute looking around the room. At what, you don't know. Her unoccupied hand goes up and links with the other behind her neck. "Events?" Her linked hands nervously run up and down her neck. "As in, more than one?"

You close your eyes and listen to the slight hum coming from the speakers of your paused TV. You keep listening, hoping that Sam will say something else. Anything else. Because literally anything you say right now will make this worse. 'I don't know' would just be another terrible excuse, 'no' would be a lie that she'd be fully aware of, and 'yes' would lead to… you don't know what.

But all you hear is that hum of the speakers.

You listen to them for a long time before you open your eyes and sigh. "Yes."

While you had your eyes closed, Sam must have pulled her legs up onto The Sofa, and her hands are now resting in her lap. She's sitting unnervingly still, especially given her track record. You're having a hard time breathing properly. "Tell me." Her voice doesn't sound quite right. "Please."

There isn't much else you can do, at this point. "We haven't talked about any of my dreams yet. We're going to have to, now. The one I need to tell you about is a good dream, actually. Sort of. It changes."

"But it is a good dream?"

"Sometimes?" The way she's watching you, you think it would be best to cut to the chase and tell her exactly how the dream goes. "Um, what happens is- So, Roth is there. Alex. Grim. They're there. But nothing's changed with them. They're still dead."

Her head tilts and you can see her trying to work out how that's a good thing. "Uh-huh."

"They're, I don't know, they aren't zombies or anything. But they're alive-dead? If that… that doesn't make any sense, I know." You inhale deeply to try and get your breathing back on track. "But they can talk to me. Or, I don't know if they actually talk, but somehow they communicate with me. They, uh, they forgive me. For… you know."

"Alright…" Her foot finally starts to tap. "So that's good."

"Uh-huh. So, they forgive me, and it's really nice. It feels good to have that forgiveness. After that bit, it sometimes goes wrong, though. They kind of, they're like 'hey, Lara, you should come join us, hang out with us, we miss you'. That sort of thing."

Sam's only response is to tap her foot faster.

"It's- the problematic part of it is when I, uh, agree?"

"You don't. Lara, you don't."

"I do. Sometimes. Sometimes." You emphasize it, as if it makes everything better.

Sam's foot tap tap taps and you focus on it, because it's familiar by now. Familiar is calming. "Please tell me these 'sometimes' are the times it turns into a bad dream."

You pause while you try to figure out how to explain this. The pause must go on too long, because the look Sam is giving you isn't good. You'll have to figure it out as you stumble over your words, you decide. "Yes. Well, kind of? It, uh, it seems okay at the time, is what I mean to say. I get to be with them."

"So when exactly does it become a bad dream, then?"

"When I wake up, generally." You might be messing this up.

"Because you wake up?"

"Well, yes, because that's when I have to think about it." Sam's face tells you that you definitely are messing this up. "No! No, not like that. I want to wake up. I meant that it's bad at that point because I wake up and remember what I dreamed about and it's, uh, fucked up?"

You miss the comfortable part of the silence that you've been sharing lately. Because right now, you are not at all comfortable, but the two of you certainly are silent. You don't know what you should be saying, and it seems like Sam doesn't either. You'll just have to keep bumbling your way through this.

"Sam, I don't know what to say right now. I feel like anything I say is just going to make things worse. Make you worry more. I don't want to do that. They're just dreams, I can't control them. I've never consciously thought about it."

"This is kinda a lot all at once? 'Specially since I never thought about it before." She's rubbing at her temples as she talks. "I trust you, Lara. That, I know. But I can't figure out where the fuck I'm supposed to go from there."

"What can I do to help you believe me?"

Her hands drop back down to her lap. "Huh?"

"Is there anything I can do to help you believe me when I say that I do not have any desire, at all, to kill myself? Anything?" You really don't want her overthinking this. She doesn't deserve to worry about this. Especially because there's actually nothing to worry about.

"Hm." It looks like she's actually thinking quite hard. "Maybe this is stupid, but-"

"It isn't."

"Maybe this is stupid, but we keep saying we need a consult with Dr. Google…"

You stand up and sweep your arm towards the bedroom. "Lead the way."

She gives you a watered down version of The Look, but then stands up as well. "Yeah. Okay. Let's go." She hesitates, again, before she starts moving.

"Now that we're actually sitting here, I feel a little weird about this."

You ignore Sam, and open a new browser window. "I was serious, Sam. I will literally do whatever you ask, if it makes you feel even the slightest bit better."

"M'kay."

However, when you start typing into the search bar, you feel a little weird too. You push the feeling to the side, and hit search after you finish typing 'suicide warning signs'. The page loads and you spin the laptop to face Sam. "You can pick."

"I feel weird about this."

"Yeah." She's scrolling up and down the page, fast. Too fast to actually read anything. "We don't have to do this. It's up to you."

"It's dumb. Like, I should be able to tell on my own. None of these," She gestures at the screen. "Know anything about you."

"Well, yeah, obviously you know me better than anything on the internet is going to. You know me better than anything or anybody does. You're the Lara-expert. But you said that you were scared you'd miss something, if you chose to believe me. Maybe there's something here that you wouldn't have thought about." You push your chair closer to hers, and lean slightly against her. "I want you to believe me. I want you to feel comfortable believing me. I don't want you to worry about this. But if you've changed your mind, we don't have to do this. You can type Netflix in instead, if you want."

She clicks a link, at random, it looks like. "Let's just get this started." She sounds like she's dreading reading through this more that you are.

"Should I read? Or you?"

"Uh." She looks at the bullet point list that's appeared on the screen. "Can you?"

"Of course." You settle a little more comfortably against her, which doesn't strike you as odd until you read out the first point. "Okay, so. Verbal statements about, uh, dying and death. Direct or indirect." Cozying up to read a suicide warning list is actually quite odd, but what about your life isn't, right now? "Have I said anything?" You want her to be the judge.

She thinks for a moment. "This feels skewed. I mean, you talked about killing that dude, but that doesn't count, does it?"

"Thank you, for reminding me of that." You smile at her, so she knows that you aren't actually upset about what she said. The smile is what pushes you to the tipping point of accepting just how messed up this is. You're joking about murdering a man in order to convince your girlfriend that you aren't going to kill yourself.

If anybody had told you, ever, that you'd be doing this exact thing at some point in your life, you would have called them insane. Maybe laughed a bit. But here you are.

"Go back, choose a different page."

You do, and you read out the first point on your new list. "Commonly talking or thinking about death."

She groans. "That's going to be on all of them, isn't it? Can you go back to the first one?" You click back until you find it. "You haven't said anything about dying without proper context, I guess. What's next?"

"Hm… dramatic changes in mood. I'd like to say that I feel like that's part of the reason we're doing this right now."

Her fingers drum against the desk. "Yup. What else?"

"Loss of interest in previously enjoyed interests and activities?"

She groans again, and sounds more annoyed than earlier. "Okay, yes we know this already." Glaring at the screen, she pointedly states, "We are aware of this already."

Maybe you shouldn't be doing this. "I don't think it's the computer's fault, Sam."

"No, but how is this helpful? This is like, a list of things we know and are trying to work on."

You would really like to single out something she just said, but it doesn't feel like a good time, so you bite your tongue. "I don't know, Sam. Nobody is ever in the same situation."

"You're right, you're right." She sighs. "Next?"

"It's a little vague. It just says agitation."

"Fuck's sake." You've noticed that she's getting louder the further you get down the list. "You lose your shit every time you get angry or 'agitated' or whatever." She blinks and looks at you. "Uh, in a good way. Is there a good way to lose your shit? Just. You get upset about it. In a good way. Because you know you did something wrong. Or you think you did. Fuck. You know what I mean. What's the next one?"

Hesitantly, you read it out. "Increase in drug and alcohol use."

"Oh my god. Y'know what? Fuck this." She closes the laptop, not at all delicately. "This is agitating me."

"Uh, well I actually did-"

"Hand over a nearly full bottle of prescription painkillers? When you were concerned that you'd start taking too many? This is bullshit. This is just a list of everything that we're trying to fix." When she pauses, she leans back in her chair, and her brow creases. "It's a list of things we're trying to fix."

"It is."

"You wouldn't want to be trying to fix these things if you were more focused on killing yourself," Seems that she's noticed what you wanted to point out earlier. "Would you?"

The question sounded hypothetical, but after you finish cringing at it, you answer anyway. "Er, theoretically, no. I don't think so. I don't think I'd much care." You also don't think that you'd be trying so hard to convince her otherwise, unless you thought she'd get in your way. But you don't want to push your luck, and you stay quiet.

She doesn't respond to what you say, and keeps talking, to herself perhaps. "And… wait. You? It was you who forced us to talk about this. Like, forced. If you… why would you do that?"

After that, she goes quiet and it looks like she's concentrating on something. You use the time to think as well, and something else occurs to you. "Sam? I've got another question for you."

"Uh, yeah. Sure." She sounds confused again.

"Earlier you asked me to give you some time to process… this. Because you hadn't considered it before." Again, you're not sure if you're about to make things worse. "I don't want to be presumptuous, but why hadn't you?"

Her confusion goes up a notch. "I- you… because you seemed fine. Not fine fine, obviously. Sure, you've been blaming yourself for a lot of things. And you did ignore some of what was going on, but… you didn't exactly do that on purpose, did you? If you're covering that you did, you deserve a fucking Oscar. You weren't alright at all, and, uh… you- I'm sorry, but you still aren't, completely," You make an affirmative noise, to let her know it was okay to say that. "But you never seemed that bad. Didn't seem desperate? Is that the right phrase? I don't know. You've just seemed lost."

You've never been so glad to be deemed 'not alright'. "That's just it, Sam. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I do feel lost. Of course I'm upset about everything that's happened, and yeah, I'm fucked up. I know that now." She squints at you. "Sam, I see the way you look at me sometimes, although it took me awhile to figure that out."

She looks away for a moment. "Sorry."

"No, don't be. Nothing about that is wrong. You were- you are concerned. You're allowed to be. Anyway, I didn't notice it before, like you said. But Sam, it's never gotten that to me that badly. Bad enough that I'd consider… giving up? Stop trying. The only time that that's gotten in my head is when I had that flashback or when I have that dream. And that's only because those things caught me off guard. Disoriented me."

Sam doesn't look confused anymore. She doesn't look anything. She's watching you, blankly, while you speak.

"I'd love to say that I'd tell you the moment life got that hard for me, but again, that's something I can't promise. Because I've already hid the truth from you. I was scared to tell you, and so I didn't. I wish I had. If I had, we wouldn't be doing this right now. I hid from you, because I was scared of what you'd think. Because I didn't want to worry you. And I ended up hurting you as a result. I didn't mean to… I didn't intend to muck about with what you've told me is essentially your biggest fear. I tried to protect you, I suppose. But I didn't, I only made it worse. I'm so sorry, Sam."

She still has that blank expression. "I…" You might have accidentally overloaded her and you're pretty sure she's trying to catch up. "Hrm." She runs a hand through her hair and looks away. "A lot of stuff just… happened today. Uh, you know? There's- I've got too much going on in my brain right now. Um. Not your fault. But it's hitting me hard, all of a sudden." When she turns back to you, she sniffles once, quickly, before she says, "It's all jumbled up now, and I just need to, I have to sort it out. I'm a little… I need to figure it out."

"We can do that. It is my fault, and I am sorry, Sam." She nods ever so slightly, and you stand up. Immediately, she gets up to follow you. "Hey. Hey, it's okay. I was just going to get into bed. It's getting late and I thought you might want to cuddle while you figure this out. If that works for you."

It works for her, and she's understandably in super clingy mode. She has you completely pinned, the way she's clutched to you, with her head tucked under your chin. You don't mind. The room is quiet, and that's fine too. You'll let her think as much as she needs.

Sometime later, her grip on you hasn't slackened, so you assume she's still awake when you tell her, "I'm never leaving you, yeah?" You feel her take a deep breath. "I love you far too much to ever go anywhere." She hums quietly, and you smile. "Okay. Good."

You wait until Sam's breathing goes even and steady before you let yourself fall asleep.

But, you also borrow Sam's nightmare, and spend the night getting beaten to a pulp. The first time you wake up, you're confused, until you work out that it was a dream. The second time it wakes you, you're annoyed. You just want to get some sleep, just enough to feel like a human in the morning. The third time you wake, you consider getting up, but there's no way you're leaving Sam alone. The fourth time, you think that maybe this is your punishment for what you put Sam through, so you accept it, close your eyes, and wait.

Oddly, you sleep well for the rest of the night.

died in an amusement park accident, i came back for you, so you wouldn't be alone

convincing people that you aren't going to kill yourself is not an easy feat

I'm going to throw it out there that this isn't a fake out. When I reread it, parts of it felt like I might be hinting that it's a fake out. It isn't. Lara isn't lying. I don't want that to be some accidental unresolved plot point. So. Yeah.

I'm also very sorry and I will try and let them do a happy thing soon. That's part of the reason last chapter was so short as well, because this got a little too dark and I wanted to go back and edit that up a bit, so I just published what I didn't need to fix. Also why the first bit of the chapter is almost a little too silly.

Would you like to know why Lara accidentally pluralized? Because I accidentally pluralized, and then decided to go with it. And then the chapter got away from me and then I didn't want to split it because of the content matter and that's also why it got a little long.

Is it clear why Lara sleeps better, or am I seeing it through my own eyes and my own eyes only? I made a tumblebumble so I could throw a post up there or something.

Also, I'm writing something else atm and can I just say? It's really hard to switch out of second person POV after sitting here typing so much of it. Blargh.

alternative dubstep song for this chapter, because i am trash™: Believe Her by Mr FijiWiji feat. Meron Ryan

What adventures can we look forward to in an upcoming unnamed chapter? something happier that's for damn sure and more furniture shopping, if things don't get away from me again