"Lara!" Her name feels like it was being ripped from my throat. It was like a stone log or something, spring loaded and it was moving iso fast/i that she is going to be crushed, Lara is going to be crushed! Someone is still screaming and I vaguely realize it is me as the stone crashes against a wall.

The sound reverberates through my chest. It's the worst sound I've ever heard, at least I'm certain in that moment. "Lara! Lara!"

My throat aches as I pant, my feet frozen where I stand. The air is filled with dust as warm tears carve a river down my dirty face. The silence makes my chest ache, but then I hear a shuffling. My feet start moving and I bolt towards the rubble. Traps, danger, I didn't care, as long as she's alive. I see movement and hiccup, "Lara! If you're dead I'm going to kill you!"

"Sam…?"

The sound of her voice makes something inside of me twist into a knot. I can't breathe, there's like this weight on my chest, threatening to constrict me. I must be a sniveling mess, and I'm crying and hiccuping and I probably look like a freak. But then I see Lara and she's okay. I hug her, tightly, too tightly because she makes a distressed sound and I loosen my grip. I don't say anything more, I'm incapable of saying anything, and she doesn't either.

If Lara's freaked out, she's not giving her emotions away. She's holding me, even swaying with me a little bit and I'm bawling. It's really gross, but my chest hurts so much and my head and I'm just not ready to lose her. I'll never be ready. I have this horrible thought, that she'll do something stupid and honorable like abandon me or dump me and my fingers claw into her shirt. I can't let her go, I can't I can't.

I open my mouth to make her promise she won't ever leave me. Not to protect me. Never to protect me. It would be cruel now. Not like before we confessed our feelings, before we had each other. I can calm down, I can handle this, and I'm already starting to. But she asks me a question instead and I don't understand it. "What?"

"I said, do you want to go on a date when we get back to civilization?"

I pull my head back to look at Lara. My face is streaked, I've left snot on her shoulder, she just nearly got smushed into paste, and that's the thing that's on her mind? Lara Croft, sometimes your brain mystifies me.

Apparently I was gaping, because her finger pushes my jaw closed and she says, "I know it's kind of a crazy moment for it, but I thought… I thought maybe it might reassure you."

"Oh my god…" And I start crying again. I'm this faucet that won't stop leaking because Lara's just being so sweet and she almost died. I love this woman so much and I punch her arm. I make sure she can't escape my most powerful pout. "Not dying, that would reassure me."

There's that dorky little smile of hers again. Her fingers find my face and wipe away the tears. I've never realized how nice that was until she does that to me. "I did this crazy flip, you know. You couldn't see it."

"Sure you did." I kiss her nose, then help her to her feet. She doesn't seem to be hurt, and wasn't limping, but I still check her over, thoroughly. She makes some kind of comment, I think asking if I was going to just strip her down right there. When I look up at her her face is the color of an apple.