I looked at my phone. 19:30. We agreed to meet Jonah at 20:00. I spend almost the entire day in our room, waiting for Lara. I went out a few times, downstairs for some food, or to take a look at the beach if perhaps Lara was there. I didn't find her. She was mad, I get that. She didn't want to talk to me, I get that, too. But did she really had to punish me like this? I had no clue where she was or what she was doing. I looked at her phone again, still laying on the nightstand next to her side of the bed. I bit my nail, could there be something in her phone which would tell me where she was? Perhaps she was meeting with Livia and there was a text from here with some details? I ran a few different scenarios through my head as I walked to the phone. They all ended with Lara and me even more mad at eachother. I decided to grab it anyway. I slid my finger across the screen to unlock it before the phone requested a pin code for access into Lara her personal life. Did she have a person life?

I stared at the ten digits in front of me and thought about Lara. Did she have any contact with someone beside me? Did she chat with anyone? Hell, did she have any other friends except me, Jonah and Reyes? I felt a chill run down my spine with the thought that I didn't actually know Lara that well. Though, it's hard to really know Lara when she's so closed off. Well, I did know the access code to her phone, that's something, right? I tapped on the 4 digits in the correct order, which I had seen lara tap on many times before. I felt my heart pounding in my throat as the phone granted me access. Why? I wasn't doing anything wrong, was I? I was just looking at a way to locate my friend who has been missing for almost an entire day… My eyes glided across the screen. 191 unread emails, 105 missed calls, 87 texts. Damn, she was a whole lot more socially involved than I suspected. Really, though, that's a lot of notifications. My finger hovered over the text messaging app as I started to feel guilty. Was I invading her privacy? She was mad at me for a reason, and left to probably cool off, rightly so. Was that enough reason to check her phone? I was about to put the phone away, until I realised I needed to know where she was. I just had to. I tapped on the text messaging icon and quickly skimmed through all the unread messages. It was weird, half of them were voicemail notifications, but the other half was from either unknown numbers, or numbers that weren't in her phone book. The phone only let me read to first few words without actually opening the message, but it was pretty clear that people were trying to get a hold of her.

Miss Croft, we'd like to know…

Hi, I'm with the BBC and…

Lara Croft, I'm hoping I could…

Please respond.

Lara, I need to know if…

My hands started shaking as I had just realised something. Something that I have completely missed before, and something extremely important to Lara. I used my shaky finger to press the home button and switch to her mail app. It was basically the same thing; everyone trying to get a hold of her. I ignored the goosebumps that formed and decided to open a random email. I had to know if I was right.

Dear Lara Croft,

I am Rebecca from the BBC and I was hoping it would be possible to have a word with you. I would love to do an interview with you. I have worked with your father in the past and I can assure you that I have no intention to taint your name. You can reach me on my mobile phone, as below.

Regards,

Rebecca Niles
BBC

A little tear ran down my cheek as I marked the email as unread and put away her phone. I had missed something. I had missed something dreadful. I wiped away the tear on my cheek and sat on the bed. Lara wasn't just a young girl going on an expedition that went wrong. She wasn't just some girl. She was the daughter of the world famous archaeologist and explorer Lord Richard James Croft and Lady Amelia Croft. She is the heir of the Croft fortune. She was Lady Lara Croft, Countess of Abingdon. And as her very first worthy expedition as the sole survivor of the Croft family, a lot of people got killed, and the island, accordingly to the media, was found to be totally useless. The Croft family name was tainted.

"Fuck." I quietly whispered as I looked down at the floor, defeated. She had only known for two days, though. Was that what was bothering her? She didn't seem to mind so much when she heard the news the first time. Maybe she didn't realize it was such a huge thing until every news agency in the country wanted to interview her. I'm glad the family had been so to herself, now at least no one really knows what Lara looks like. Yet. I let myself fall on the bed and looked at the ceiling, thinking what my next move would be. I then decided to grab my phone and call Jonah to tell him we were a bit later. I didn't tell him why, he didn't need to know. As I hung up I glanced at the time on my phone. 19:50.

I was surprised by the door that opened. I was half expecting Lara went back to London already. I literally propelled my body towards the living area.

"Lara!" I yelled. I looked at her standing near the door. I expected to feel overjoyed about seeing her again, feeling sorry about what happened to her, feeling guilty about what I said before. But, instead, that all instantly disappeared and made place for anger. Anger about that she managed to just leave me alone for the entire day, while being on a trip, to worry myself to death. If she wanted to leave an hour, fine. Two hours, right, okay. But the entire fucking day? No.

"Hey." She said nonchalantly. "I hope you weren't too worried, I went to-..."

"I don't care." I interrupted her. "We're late for Jonah. Grab your phone and let's go."

"Sam…" She said softly as she put her hand on my shoulder. I immediately shrugged her off.

"Don't touch me. Just…" I closed my eyes. "Get your phone and lets go, please."

"Sam, look I want to-..."

"No!" I didn't let her finish. I felt furious. I couldn't help it, I didn't even want to, but I did. I was furious at her. "You don't just leave for the entire day and then calmly explain yourself!" I was yelling. Lara just looked at me. She wasn't scared, surely? She had looked death in the eyes, she can't be scared of me. But I wasn't sure if she was shocked I, of all people, was having a go at her, or if she was still angry. "Answer this one question." I said as calmly as I could. "During any part of the day, any part, were you unable to come back? Did you stay away the whole day knowingly how worried I would be, yes or no?"

"I… I-I didn't…" She stammered.

"Yes or no?!" I clenched my fists. My brain was running on full power now. I now understood why I was angry. It wasn't just this incident. It was everything, everything which I've been trying to ignore. But now it was all coming out.

"I just wanted to take a moment, okay? I just… I didn't know how to react. And yes, I know you'd be worried, but with the things you said and how you said-..." Lara said worryingly.

"You don't do that to me, Lara." I said calmly looking directly in her eyes. "You don't fucking do that to me."

"I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-…"

"No. Just no. I've had it with your closed off behaviour. I've had it with you not telling me a Goddamn thing. With you pretending that I'm some stupid person who doesn't understand what's going on."

"I don't think you're a stupid-..."

"Let me finish!" I yelled, pointing my finger at her. "You think I'm some brat who doesn't understand the pain you're going through. Some stuck up bitch who doesn't get what you've seen and experienced. And you use that to justify just plainly ignoring me. Never telling me a fucking thing. We're best friends. Hell, we fucking live together! What you are doing to me, is just cruel. Have you ever thought how you make me feel when you don't tell me shit? Well you know what, Croft? I am in pain, too, you know that?" I heard people walking through the hallway and I was sure they heard me yell. I didn't care, though, I had to say this I really had enough. I was still looking at Lara, and all she could do is look back. "I went through your phone." I said after a few seconds of silence.

"Oh?" Is all she could muster.

"That's what I'm talking about. One of the many things you hide from me." I sighed. I felt bad for Lara, of course. But she needed to hear this. "I'm so, so sorry you have to go through that, your family name being tainted and all that. But, Lara, listen to me. If you keep hiding things from me, treating me like a person who couldn't or wouldn't understand, I am leaving." I saw her mouth opening slightly as if she wanted to say something, but nothing came out. "I'm serious, I cannot go on with this. If you continue like this, that's your decision. It's your life and if you feel like completely shutting me out of everything, that is entirely up to you. But if you decide to live your life like that, there's no place for me in it. Do you understand me?" I would have never thought to ever be apart of Lara, but I was serious. I cannot go on like this.

"Yes…" She said softly. "I'm...I'm sorry."

"Get your phone. Then we can go."

"Shouldn't we talk about this, first? Please, Sam…"

"Later. Jonah is waiting." I said as I pointed towards the bedroom. "And give me your keys. I'm driving."

I listened to the engine roaring as my hands were clenched around the leather steering wheel. It was a short 5 minute drive, and, to be honest, we could have walked, but the drive seemed to take forever. We didn't say anything to each other. I started to doubt if my outburst had maybe crossed the line. Though, I knew I was right. I glanced at Lara again. Lara was looking out the side window while playing nervously with her nails. I hope I didn't upset her too much, she's going through too much already.

I parked the car in one of the spots and turned off the engine. We stayed in our seats in silence for a bit.

"You okay?" I finally asked.

"Yeah. I'm okay." She looked slightly surprised I was even talking to her. "You know I'm sorry, right?"

"So am I." I said

"You don't have to be sorry for anything."

"Yes, I do." I looked her in the eyes. "I don't how to act around you anymore, Lara. And that's not just your fault. It's mine, too. But when I don't know how to act, I'll just…. I don't know." I sighed. "See what works, I guess."

"You're right, Sam. I haven't been telling you everything. I mean…" Lara was looking for her words. "I'm not hiding stuff from you because I don't trust you or anything like that, I just… I don't want to bother you with it. I don't want to lose you."

"You'll lose me if you completely shut me out."

"I know." Lara put a hand on my knee. "I know, you're right. I'll...try. I mean, I'll try and open up, I guess."

"It's not just for me. If you tell me what's going on, I can help, you know?" I put my hand on hers. "I'm there for you. And don't worry, I won't steal away your precious study room time." I grinned.

"Maybe sometime you can help me with it." She smiled. She had such a gorgeous smile. The way her full lips were slightly pressed together and how her eyes were glistening. Not to mention her perfectly cute nose, and her silky smooth skin. And her hair, of course. Her beautiful brown hair, always in a ponytail and cute side bangs. I wonder how it would feel to kiss her. To kiss those beautiful lips, and run my hand over her cheek.

"So." Lara said. I blinked my eyes a few times as I was awoken from my Lara-trance.

"So." I repeated. "Shall we uhm… go inside?"

"Yes." Lara smiled again and got out of the car. God, what an emotional rollercoaster this day was. I went from worried, to extremely worried, to overjoyed, to angry, to… Well, I wasn't sure how I was feeling now.

I followed Lara inside the restaurant, The Lobstah. I would never find that name not beyond ridiculous. The restaurant was directly adjacent to the sea, and we'd probably experience a very pretty sunset tonight. The restaurant was crowded, which made me glad. Glad that Jonah his business was going well. We went straight for the kitchen and met Jonah.

"Girls, so glad you could make it, thanks for coming." He gave us both a firm hug. "How're you girls doing?" We were kind of the middle of the kitchen, and a few cooks made some grumpy sounds as they walked by.

"We're okay. Enjoying Brighton's sun and sea." I smiled. "How's the Lobstah, Jonah?" I said sarcastically.

"It's a blastah." He said instantly with an enormous grin. Lara burst out laughing so loud she nearly fell over.

"Yeah, I'm just going to pretend you've never said that." I said, though I couldn't contain a little smile. "By the way, shouldn't we get out of the way? I feel overwhelmingly unwanted in your kitchen." I looked around at the cooks and waitresses running around us.

"Your cooking skills aren't that bad." Lara said jokingly.

"You two should do standup comedy together." I smirked. I felt really relieved Lara wasn't feeling uncomfortable around me, after my outburst back at the hotel.

"Yeah, yeah." Jonah said. "Follow me." As he walked into the restaurant. He showed us a table in the very corner of the restaurant. "Dinner is on the house, obviously. I will join you girls after I'm done making sure we don't lose too many customers." He winked at us before he walked back to the kitchen. Not long after, a waiter came take our orders.

"You said 'it's not entirely my fault.' What did you mean by that?" Lara asked as the waiter had just given us our drinks.

"What do you mean?" I frowned.

"In the car. You said that you didn't know how to act around me anymore, but that it wasn't entirely my fault."

"Right." I said as I took a sip from my drink. Dammit.

"So? What did you mean by that?" She asked again.

"That it's also my fault."

"Sam…"

"I don't know, Lara. I don't know how to act around you, so I guess that means it's also my fault?"

"I'm sure you meant more than that." She pressed her lips together.

"I guess…perhaps that's a conversation for another time."

"That's mysterious." Lara frowned. "Are you serious?"

"I don't know how to explain."

"You're being so vague, Sam, honestly." She said. "Try to explain."

"I'm not sure...I…" I closed my eyes for a second. "Are we even best friends still? I mean, do you remember our time in college? How much fun we had, how close we were. We did almost everything together. Of course, you have never been an open and about person, but I didn't mind, because you still told me stuff. How you felt, how you were, how school was going. I always thought that would be forever. I guess that was just naive of me. I mean, after Yamatai, everything changed and that made me feel worse than actually being on the island. Maybe I wouldn't say that if I was back there, but you get my drift. I moved in with you again because I wanted to be there for you, and I was hoping you'd be there for me, too. But most importantly, I wanted things to be like they were before. Us being close, doing things together, telling each other almost everything. But that didn't happen. You stopped talking to me, you closed off even more than you already were. And, of course, I understand that you need to recover. What happened on the island is… Well you know what happened there. I just… the past few months felt like I was with you because you felt like we had to, not because we were even important to each other anymore, you know what I mean? We went through that shit together, and perhaps we felt that was a reason to stay close together, while in reality, our connection is gone. And I don't want that to happen, and I tried fixing that. But at the same time I didn't want to bother you, I wanted to help you recover, help you get back on your feet. I can't find a middle ground between those two. You're the most important person in my life, and I'm torn between helping you get your life back in order and making sure I don't lose you."

"Thank you." Lara said after looking at me for a while.

"For what?" I asked unsure.

"Being honest and telling me. It means a lot. And I'm sorry that I wasn't there for you."

"It's…"

"You know you're the most important person for me, too, right? I don't want to lose you either." Lara said. That put a smile on my face. She hadn't said that in such a long time, now that she finally did, it felt great. "You know...?" She continued.

"What?" I asked.

"The thing that keeps me up at night isn't even the stuff about Yamatai, or me feeling out of place. It's you."

"Huh?" I said with an open mouth.

"Girls." Jonah interrupted as he took a seat on our table. "Mind if I join?"

"Of course not." Lara said quickly and smiled. I looked at Lara and she returned my gaze. We'd have to save this conversation for another time. We spent the next few hours catching up with Jonah while we enjoyed the food. We talked about how he was, how we were, how his restaurant was going, what we did nowadays, about Yamatai being covered up and finally about the meeting I had with this Connor man. It was great talking to Jonah again, no matter the subject. We didn't end up getting a nice sunset as just before it got dark, it started getting cloudy and finally it started to rain.

It rained up until 1 AM. We were still at the same table, enjoying a few last drinks. Non-alcoholic this time. We were the only ones left, as the rest of people had left since the restaurant closes at midnight. I looked outside into the darkness. The rainy darkness. Whenever I looked into the dark night, it gave me a strong deja vu feeling. Obviously, I've looked in the dark night before, but recently it gave me this familiar feeling. It soothed me, in a way. The rain added to that feeling. Perhaps it had something to do with Yamatai?

"So you've heard nothing from Harry Thompson since?" Jonah asked.

"No." Lara said. "We've tried calling him countless times the past few days, but nothing. I don't understand what's going on. Though, I feel like it has something to do with this Conner guy, who approached Sam." I just looked at Lara, as I wasn't completely following the conversation. Despite the fact we made up, I still felt weird about what happened. Lara kissing a girl, the talk we had, the argument we had. I didn't know how to act around her before, now it only got worse.

"And the company he worked for?" Jonah asked.

"Called them, too." Lara continued. "They said it's classified. Even for me. The morons." It was cute when Lara talked like that. I almost went in another Lara-trance when I was startled by a knock on the front doors of the restaurant.

"Expecting company?" I asked confused.

"No." Said Jonah who looked even more confused than I probably did. I looked at the doors. They were made almost entirely of glass, but I couldn't see who it was due to the rainy dark night. I stood up and walked towards the doors. "Hey, little bird, let me open up." Jonah said.

"I'm fine." I snarled at him. "I can open doors." Jonah sat back down as I walked towards the doors and opened them. Connor Bennet stood in front of me.

"Mind if I come in?" He said. I just stared at him in shock. I heard Jonah getting up from his chair.

"Can I help you?" He asked as he joined me.

"Yes, please, would you mind if I come inside?"

"Depends." Jonah said. "What do you want?"

"Is that how you treat your customers?"

"You don't look like a customer."

"I have something to discuss. With all three of you."

"Which is?"

"Please?" Connor said as he made a gesture to step inside. Jonah looked at him for a few seconds and then stepped aside. "Thank you very much." Connor stepped inside and took off his coat. The water drops were running down his bald head. Jonah gestured him to take a seat at our table.

"I am Connor Bennet." He started right away. "I am sure Miss Nishimura has already talked about me." He smiled towards me.

"Yes." Lara said. "What do you want from us?"

"We need your help." Connor said.

"To retrieve a stone in the Amazon rainforest, right? Sure when does the plane leave?" I said sarcastically.

"Yes, that." Connor nodded his head. It's a very long story. First, let me first introduce myself. I am Connor Bennet and I work for the TAFDI. The Trinity Archeology Findings and Discovery Institute. We-..."

"Were you involved in the cover up of Yamatai?" Lara interrupted.

"We are a very large institute, Miss Croft. In all honestly, I couldn't tell you if TAFDI was involved. It they were, they wouldn't have told me."

"So, that's a politically correct yes, then?" Jonah said.

"Again, I can't tell. I would've told you if I knew." He then looked at Lara. "Though, I am very sorry that happened. I can understand the frustration."

"But you still need our help." Lara said.

"Yes, that is correct. Again, it's a very long story, I'd gladly-..."

"Then cut it short." Lara said. "Very short." Connor nodded.

"It's a good idea if you would meet with my superior, who can explain everything to you. Short, long, easy, complicated, anything you want."

"Why should we trust you?" I asked.

"We can meet in a public place."

"That's an evasive answer." Lara said.

"Well, Miss Croft." Connor said as he was getting a bit annoyed. "Perhaps this is a way to reclaim the reputation you've lost."

"Who says I care about reputation?"

"Maybe you don't care about your own, but you do care about your family's reputation."

"That's-..." Lara said, but was interrupted.

"There's a seminar in two days." Connor continued. "in London. It would be a good idea to attend this seminar." He put down a pamphlet with information about the seminar on the table. "All three of you. Even if you decide not to help us, I am sure we have some information regarding Yamatai that would be of interest to you." We all looked at the pamphlet in silence. This was so odd. It was so out of the blue and overwhelming. I looked at Lara, and I could see her think about the situation. "I understand this can be a bit too much and all of a sudden." Connor continued, as if he had read my mind. "But you didn't expect to make such a huge discovery, and then continue your life as if nothing happened, right? Look, there's no harm in joining the seminar. And if not, well then we'll have to find another way."

"To make us join you?" Jonah asked.

"No." Connor tried to put up a friendly smile. "Another way of retrieving the stone." He got up from his chair and put on his coat. "I won't bother you people any longer. I do wish I can welcome you at the seminar soon." He made his way towards the doors.

"Why is the stone so important to you?" Lara asked.

"Come to the seminar and we will explain everything." He said without turning around. He opened the doors and left.