Disclaimer: I do not own any of the named characters in this chapter.
Author's Note: This is a little late now it's the third chapter but I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has taken the time to read my story and I really hope you're enjoying it. I would also appreciate any constructive criticism at all, whether that be about the storyline or my writing itself, feel free to leave a review or PM me :) Thanks very much and I hope you enjoy this chapter :)
"FOR GOODNESS SAKE, SAM, PUT YOUR FOOT DOWN!"
"Safety first!" Sam squealed, pulling her seatbelt across her.
"Yes, safety first! As in get the hell away from the man with a gun! Who gives a shit about seatbelts?! Go!"
Sam didn't need telling again. She swerved out into the road, straight in front of another car. The driver sounded his horn and cursed out of the window, but Sam drove on- until she hit traffic lights at the end of the road.
Lara twisted round in her seat to see if the man the gun was still there. Much to her surprise, the balcony was empty.
She breathed a sigh of relief. "He's not there anymore, Sam. He must have ran off when we started to drive away."
Just as Lara finished her sentence, there was a loud BANG, followed instantly by the shattering of the car's back window. Sam screamed and ducked her head down below the steering wheel, knowing there was nothing they could do whilst stuck in a traffic jam. She was shaking hard and waiting for the usual word of advice or direction from Lara, but it never came. Sam looked up at Lara- she wasn't moving, but her breathing came in rapid jolts and Sam knew she was having some kind of panic attack. Sam dared to peek above the dashboard and noticed that the gunshot had scared people into driving on through the red light. Sam didn't hesitate to follow them and lifted her head and arms back above the steering wheel as she put her foot down, desperate to escape from the situation.
Lara barely had time to wince out a raspy "Sam, get down!" before the gunman across the road took a shot at Sam.
Her scream was deafening, so much so that it drowned out the shattering of the window. Her hands retracted from the steering wheel and Lara feared the worst, but she soon noticed the blood running down Sam's left arm and a very brief inspection told her that the bullet had hit the top of her left arm. She was still conscious and her foot was still down on the accelerator. In the rear-view mirror, the gunman was running in the opposite direction at full pace. But Lara wasn't taking any chances; there could be any number of those guys out there.
Lara's breathing fit had suddenly subsided as she was forced into action.
"The one bloody time we take the car," she panted, getting her breathing back.
She reached across and took control of the steering wheel whilst Sam still seemed capable of controlling the pedals. They drove quickly, probably breaking the speed limits, but Sam didn't seem to be in any fit state to care about a driving offense. Working together, they managed to get themselves safely to Lara's house. Once they had pulled up outside, Lara turned Sam's face towards her and saw that the glass had caused a deep gash across her forehead. There were tears and blood running down her face. Instead of flipping Lara into panic, seeing Sam in such a state just made her more eager to carry on.
"Sam, listen to me. We have to swap places so I can drive you to hospital, okay?" Lara said to her, gently.
Sam shook her head. "I'm not going there."
"You have to, Sam. It'll be okay, I'll be there with you the whole time, I promise." Lara put a hand on Sam's leg.
"No. They'll ask questions. We don't have answers," Sam argued, quietly.
Lara knew she was right. There was probably more than one man watching them and it couldn't be a coincidence- this must be linked to The Island and Himiko, right? The doctors and nurses would ask questions and they couldn't talk about The Island. The staff would think they were mad.
Lara sighed as she got out of the car and walked round to Sam's side. She opened the door and bent down slightly to speak to her.
"I know going to hospital would be risky, but how do you expect to be healed if you don't go?" she asked, wiping Sam's tears away.
"You can heal me," Sam replied, looking up at Lara with large, pleading eyes.
"You've got a bullet in your arm, Sammy. I can't do anything about that," Lara told her, smiling softly.
"Liar. You've got the Bag."
The Bag was a small green bag that Lara had labelled 'Medical Equipment I Probably Shouldn't Own'. It was full of complex instruments (usually only found in hospitals) that she had 'acquired' over the years. Thinking about it, Lara probably could fix Sam up with the Bag.
"I can try," Lara murmured, giving in easily. "Can you walk?"
"I got shot in my arm, not my leg... Yeah I can walk," Sam snapped at her playfully.
Lara rolled her eyes. "I thought you might have been less full of sass with a bullet in you... apparently not."
When they got inside, Lara got out a roll of surgical paper and covered a section of her living room floor with it before setting Sam down there. Lara peeled off Sam's leather jacket to find that the bullet was actually only halfway in her arm- the jacket took a lot of the blow. That was one cheep gun.
"Wait," Sam ordered. "Before you do anything..."
She grabbed Lara by her top and pulled her into a deep, passionate kiss. Sam laughed at Lara when they pulled apart.
"What?" she asked as she rummaged around in the Bag.
"You're all red and dishevelled. It's cute," Sam smiled.
"You know, Sam, if I was laid underneath the person with a number of sleep-inducing drugs next to her, I would be careful not to make fun of her," Lara teased, shaking a pot of tablets at Sam.
Sam laughed some more but stopped talking.
Lara got out a large pair of tweezers and tried to get at the right angle to pull the bullet out. It was a difficult movement and she frowned as she switched positions.
"Can I just..." she trailed off, one leg in the air above Sam.
Sam rolled her eyes and pulled Lara's leg over so she was straddling Sam's pelvis.
"Better?"
"Quite," Lara answered, blushing. "Now I must warn you, this is going to hurt."
"You don't say," Sam muttered.
Lara ignored her and leaned down to carefully pull the bullet out. She did it slowly and with steady hands. Out of her peripheral vision she could see Sam's eyes were screwed up tight and her teeth were biting her bottom lip. Lara tried her best to concentrate on the medical procedure rather than the patient she was carrying it out on, but that was harder than the procedure itself. Sam groaned quietly as the bullet was removed, but she let Lara clean and bandage the wound anyway.
"There," sighed Lara, letting go of all the concentration. "I think it'll be okay like that."
She looked admiringly at her handy work before looking down at Sam. She was met with a glowing smile.
"Can I get up now?" Sam asked, raising her eyebrows.
"I need to clean your head wound first," Lara pointed out.
"Do I have to be laid on the floor for you to do that?"
"Well... No, but-"
"But you're Lara Croft and you have a power complex and whatever you say, goes, so if you want me on the floor, I have to be on the floor. Am I right?" asked Sam, starting to sit up.
"Maybe I need you to be on the floor," smiled Lara, straddling Sam again.
"Wants and needs are different, Croft."
"Well when a want is this strong I think it becomes a need, Nishimura."
"Ooooh somebody's gaining a little confidence," Sam teased as Lara's face was an inch from her own.
"Sam...?"
"Lara..."
"Do you want to go to hospital?"
Sam giggled. "No."
"Then be a good little Yank and let me stitch up your head," Lara growled.
"Yank? Seriously? Oh go make some tea with the queen or something," Sam snapped playfully.
They both started to laugh which resulted in another long kiss before Lara pulled back.
"Your head, Sam..." she mumbled.
Sam nodded, giving permission for Lara to put a series of butterfly stitches across the cut.
"Okay, now we're finished," nodded Lara once the job was done.
Sam thanked her and made for the door.
"Hey, where do you think you're going?" Lara asked, frowning.
Sam frowned back, before, "Oh yeah, my jacket."
"Ah no. You're not leaving here today. I won't let you stay at home by yourself, there's something going on. People are obviously after you," Lara explained.
"Me? How do you know they're after me? That guy could just have easily been aiming for you but I got caught in the crossfire. Ever think of that?"
"Yes I did think of that. But I also thought it would have been very easy for him to get to me too. In that car we stopped at those traffic lights long enough for him to get down from the balcony and run across the road to my side. But he didn't. Instead he stayed on the pavement on the other side and shot you. Trust me, if he had wanted me, he would have got me."
Sam hesitated.
"Don't argue," Lara ordered, a slight smile on her face.
"Even if you're right, I'm still going home," decided Sam.
"What? Why?" asked Lara, the smile leaving.
"Because as long as I'm here, you're at risk. If it really is me that they want, they will have watched me come in here and they will be watching me now. If they come and attack us, if they-"
"If schmif. Sam do you really think I care about that?" Lara interjected.
Honestly, Lara did care a little. Her time away from working and those nightmares were all there because of the things she had seen and the things she had done at The Island. She couldn't even call it by its real name, for crying out loud. Although she was getting better, one way she had learnt to put it behind her was by telling herself it was all over, it was in the past, it had finished. But if this really was to do with The Island, maybe it hadn't finished. Maybe her adventure had just found the mercy to give her a break before rebooting and throwing itself into her own town. Lara didn't know if she could deal with that.
"Sam, really, it's no bother. I'll take the pull-out, you can have my bed," Lara continued, finally deciding that Sam was more important than her own mental health.
"Fine. I'll stay," Sam sighed.
"I'll need to go change the sheets on my bed," Lara murmured, getting up.
"Don't be stupid, Lara, I don't care about that," Sam said, strategically leading the conversation on.
"But they got all sweaty last night."
"So you did have a guy round?"
"No, of course not. I actually had a nightma- oh shit I wasn't going to tell you that," Lara groaned, her head in her hands.
"Ha. I knew it. You're taking the bed tonight, you need to sleep properly-"
"But-"
"Don't bother Lara, it's useless. You're sleeping in the bed."
They left it at that. The rest of the afternoon was spent thinking and talking about the gunman that had chased them. Lara poured over books related to The Island and the soldiers that inhabited it, giving a quick glance behind the curtain and out onto the street every now and then. She worked all afternoon and only ate later that evening when Sam force-fed her.
"You know," Lara said through her sandwich. "I never actually realise how hungry I am until I eat."
Sam just rolled her eyes and shook her head.
When it started to get late, Sam made sure Lara was asleep in her room before leaving her to go to sleep on the pullout. But what felt like two minutes after she had fallen asleep, she was woken up by crying and sobs coming from upstairs. Initially confused, Sam stumbled out of bed and tried to get her bearings. When she understood her surroundings and the owner of the cries, she raced upstairs to Lara.
In her double bed, Lara was thrashing around and shaking, cries and inaudible whispers emitting from her mouth.
"Lara!" Sam exclaimed, trying to wake her. "Lara, it's okay it's a dream. Lara!"
Lara woke up in Sam's arms, still shaking and sweating. She cried more as Sam came into focus.
"It's okay," Sam hushed her. "It's gonna be okay."
Lara held Sam's waist tight and sobbed harder, her breathing rapid like it was in the car.
"Sam... I didn't... I forgot..."
"Forgot what?"
"To go... to gym... five hours yesterday," Lara explained through gasps and sobs.
Sam closed her eyes, disappointed, realising that was her fault. Instead of speaking, she laid down next to Lara and cuddled her closely. She stroked Lara's hair and back soothingly and waited until she had calmed before speaking to her.
"You're okay now, Lara. Nothing will happen to you so you can go to sleep okay?"
Sam felt Lara's head nod beneath her chin so she started to get out of the bed but was stopped by Lara's hand clamping round her wrist. Sam turned round to see Lara's sad, empty eyes sailing up to her.
"Stay?" whispered Lara.
So she did.