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So it was going to be one of those nights then. Lara couldn't help the sigh escaping her lips. She turned fitfully from one side to the other, wincing when the movement put strain on the deep gouges left by a jaguar on her back. An attack which, Lara knew by all sense of logic and reason she shouldn't have survived, yet here she was. She gingerly lay on her side, careful to avoid putting pressure on her back and took a few measured breaths.
She and Jonah had found Kuwaq Yaku earlier that day and with it much needed shelter and food. Now that night had fallen and everything was shrouded in darkness and this godawful silence, Lara was lying on a rickety cot in one of the small huts Abby had put her and Jonah up in. It was the first time in a while Lara had the luxury of sleeping in a somewhat proper bed and she was exhausted and injured, yet sleep would not come.
Lara had long since come to realise that defeating Trinity was not the only reason behind this crusade she was on. This mission gave her a goal, something to run towards. She was always on high alert, never able to let her guard down. Just keep moving. Lara never allowed herself to stand still. As long as she kept running forward, everything made sense. Yet the moment she came to a halt, all of these unwanted thoughts and memories she had been so desperately keeping at bay seemed to suddenly drown her and this carefully constructed wall of self-preservation came crashing down.
So as much as her tired and beaten body was in dire need of rest, her mind would not have any of it. Her thoughts kept circling as they usually did, and one person, one name threatened to spill to the forefront of her mind. Lara let out a frustrated snort and threw her arm over her eyes, wincing at the sudden dull pain throbbing in her left brow which she hadn't noticed before. She gingerly let her fingertips brush over the ridge of her brow and the eyelid underneath, feeling it slightly swollen and painful to the touch. Huh. She must have gotten a blow to the eye without realising it, probably in that desperate struggle to get away from the jaguar that nearly killed her. She just hoped it wasn't going to develop into a proper shiner. The last thing she needed now was an eye that was swollen shut. She had to chuckle at the thought despite herself when she suddenly remembered the last time she had had a black eye.
She knew she was threading on dangerous grounds here. It would not take much more and in this oppressing stillness of the night she would lose herself to the memories tugging at the edges of her mind that she so desperately wanted to block out. She tried to employ the relaxation technique that therapist she had briefly been forced to see after Yamatai had insisted she use to calm herself down if the bad thoughts would not stop. She let the air fill her lungs and concentrated on her breathing. In – out. In – out. Come on Lara, you can do it, just empty your mind, get some rest. In – out. But to no avail.
~
“I am so sorry Sweetie. I really am! Do you need some more ice? I think there still is a bag of peas in the freezer” the truly apologetic look on Sam's face would have been almost comical to Lara under different circumstances.
As it was, Lara found herself sitting on the sofa of their shared flat with a bag filled with melting ice cubes pressed to her left eye, which was almost swollen shut and was taking on a funny shade of red and blue. She sighed. “It's okay Sam, you really can stop apologising. I've had worse.”
Sam bit her bottom lip and winced when she cast a glance at Lara's eye. Somehow she didn't seem convinced.
“I swear this was the last time in my life I touched a basketball.” she murmured and Lara snorted.
“Now you're overreacting. Just maybe next time try not to take my eye out, alright?” Lara raised the eyebrow of her eye that wasn't swollen shut and smirked. Sam just groaned and buried her head in her hands.
- Earlier that day -
“So, tell me again, how exactly did Tom convince you, of all people, to play ball rather than go for a pint on a Friday afternoon?” Lara couldn't hide the smugness from her voice. She and Sam were walking to the park close-by on a balmy late summer's day, where they were supposed to be meeting with a group of friends from Uni.
“Pff. Don't act like I never exercise. Just because I am not this insanely crazy workout machine like some of us doesn't mean I am a stranger to physical activity...” Sam frowned at Lara, who just chuckled.
Sam had in fact not been thrilled about the idea to go to the park to shoot some hoops, although she would never admit this out loud now. But she had been the one to ask their friends to meet them at the park this afternoon in the first place. Only when Sam had suggested it, she had been thinking more along the lines of a leisurely get together, maybe with a few cans of cider and a bag of crisps. But then Tom had gotten overly excited about the basketball court at the park and Will had joined in immediately and then Becky had said wouldn't it be fun to let the guys show them some moves and here they were.
Lara, of course, hadn't been the least bit fazed when Sam told her they'd be going to the park to play some basketball. But then again Lara was about as sporty as they come and she would always prefer a decent workout over junk food and beer, which would have definitely been Sam's preferred way of spending their afternoon. However, she was not about to let her weakness show in front of Lara. Sam sometimes simply could not help the nagging feeling of not measuring up next to Lara. It wasn't so much that Lara made her feel inadequate, quite the contrary really, but it irked Sam that Lara always was just that tad bit better than her at everything they did. So today Sam was bloody well going to show Lara how it was done.
But, as it were, a little while later she and Lara were struggling to hold their ground in a two-on-two with the boys, mostly because Sam kept horsing around and losing the ball. Lara was growing increasingly frustrated, Sam could tell. She never did like losing. But, Lara being Lara, she had patiently put up with playing on Sam's team anyway, since she would also never put her own interests before Sam and not just in regards to some afternoon fun. Lara would always put Sam first, no matter what. This was something Sam had come to realise with a shocking clarity over the past year of their friendship and the implications of it scared the living hell out of her.
Sam suddenly found herself in possession of the ball, being pulled out of her musings. She threw a glance over at Lara who had come up just behind her after throwing the pass. Now was the time, she decided. “I'll score this shot!” she boasted, a determined expression settling on her features. She grabbed the ball tight with both hands before gaining momentum and thrusting the ball towards the basket with as much force as she could muster. Which, in hindsight, might not have been the best way to go about that shot. Because the ball hit the rim of the hoop with full force, but rather than going through it, it bounced backwards and came towards Sam at full speed.
For all her shortcomings in physical activity, Sam's reflexes seemed to be cat-like at that particular moment. Within the fraction of a second Sam had ducked out of the way of the ball that came barrelling towards her. Unfortunately for Lara, who was still standing behind Sam. The ball hit Lara in the face with full force, causing her to topple over before everything went black for a few seconds from the throbbing pain that was suddenly coursing through her left eye.
~
When Lara opened her eyes again, she half expected to see the blinding sun of a warm summer day in London overhead, blocked out by Sam's worried face but instead found herself staring at the wall of the shanty she was in. She blinked a few times, remembering the fading and dull throb in her left eye was not, in fact, caused by a basketball barrelling into her face at full speed. She was in Peru, not London. And Sam was … Lara closed her eyes again forcefully, as if trying to squeeze the unwanted images out. But she knew then she had lost the fight to the ghosts of her past that were taking over as she helplessly lay there in the crushing silence.
~
“Whatcha making?”
Lara startled at the slender arms suddenly circling around her waist from behind. She felt a sudden surge of heat rising to her cheeks and left her head bowed over the stove so as not to give herself away. She absent-mindedly kept stirring the greens in the pan. “Just some stir fry, nothing to write home about”, was her reply to Sam, trying to sound casual.
Lara had become used to Sam's displays of affection over the past two years of their intense friendship, but as of recently she couldn't help but feel that something had changed between them and she was becoming painfully aware of this every time Sam was close to her. Which was a lot of the time. Sam never had been shy about doling out physical contact but lately her touches had lingered, becoming more measured and, Lara wasn't sure if she was imagining this, but it seemed to her that rather than it being the casual contact that she had gotten used to, now there was a deeper meaning to their shared touches.
So when Sam had suddenly and without warning embraced her from behind while she was stirring away in the kitchen, she had at the same time been equally terrified and craving of this close proximity. This feeling only intensified when Sam rested her chin on Lara's shoulder. She could feel Sam's voice vibrating straight into her chest when she spoke again and it made her feel all kinds of funny.
“Thanks for cooking anyway. It's a good thing at least one of us got some domestic skills!” Sam snorted at that, the puff of air tickling Lara's neck.
“Well, if I had known you manage to burn water I might have reconsidered moving in with you”, Lara bantered with a smirk.
“No, you wouldn't have.” Sam stated, sounding decidedly self-confident and knowing in her words.
Lara felt a sudden stab of anxiety. Had Sam figured her out? As long as they both skirted around the giant elephant in the room and just left it at this unspoken agreement they seemed to have come to that whatever this was between them, it was enough for either of them to feel comfortable with, there was no danger of destroying this precarious thing. But, and this Lara was sure of, as soon as she would voice it out loud, the possibility of this being more than just friendship, of Lara in fact being probably irrevocably in love with Sam, all of this would shatter. Lara was not sure they could deal with the reality of it all, not just yet. But still, she suddenly could not help but tell Sam, albeit with different words.
“No, I wouldn't have. Never.” she said quietly, staring at the frying pan as if it was her only salvation in this moment.
A long period of silence passed, at least to Lara's mind, before Sam spoke again in a quiet whisper Lara almost missed.
“I'm glad.”
~
Lara's eyes were swimming. She didn't know if it was with tears for the past or just because she was so utterly exhausted yet unable to rest. This was a memory that often resurfaced. She kept wondering if things would have gone differently if she'd just told Sam, then and there, that she loved her. Maybe her life would have taken a completely different turn. Maybe Sam would have loved her back. Maybe that would have been enough for Lara. Yamatai would have probably still happened and she would have probably still lost Sam. But what made it all the more unbearable now was that Lara never took the chance to tell Sam how she really felt.
Lara knew she would probably never see Sam again. And even if she wanted to, there was no way in hell Sam would want to see her. After everything Lara had put her through she knew Sam deserved the chance to start anew and she wasn't selfish enough to take that away from her. But it tore her apart to have to live with the knowledge that she'd loved Sam with all of her being and never told her. Sam would never know the depths of Lara's feelings for her and this was what made it truly agonising for Lara.
There was one more memory Lara's mind had in store for her, one last painful look at what had been through her mind's eye before she would finally, mercifully, fall into an exhausted and dreamless sleep.
~
So this was it then. Lara stared at the piece of paper in her hands. Bachelor of Arts in Archaeology, awarded First-Class Honours with Distinction. She had worked hard towards this goal over the past 3 years and now that she finally held her first degree in her hands, she didn't know how to feel about this. She was excited for the future, she wanted to be out there, to see the world, yet at the same time she had been so happy and content over the past few years that she was almost reluctant for the rest of her life to start.
Sam came up behind Lara, peering over her shoulder. “Can't get enough of staring at your degree, Miss Distinction?” she said with a teasing note to her voice.
Lara let the piece of paper slide to her desk and turned around to face her friend, choosing to ignore the banter. “This is it, Sam”, she said with a timid smile. “We've finished University. But what now?”
Sam knew full well that this question was not directed at the future of their professional lives. She mulled it over for a moment, staring at Lara long and hard. She, too, had been asking herself that same question. “We get on with it”, she eventually said “together.”
“Together”, Lara repeated, as if trying the word on for size. “I like that”.
Sam took both of Lara's hands to hold in her own. “You will be a famous explorer and I will follow you with my camera everywhere you go. Things won't be that much different from how they are, really. Just now we'll hopefully get paid for it!”
“That would be nice.” Lara agreed. She looked at Sam, suddenly feeling insecure. “Just the two of us, right?”
“Of course. It'll always be the two of us.” Sam reassured her, giving her hands a squeeze.
Lara looked at Sam, really looked at her and saw the determination in the other girl's eyes. Maybe she wasn't imagining things, maybe Sam really did feel the same. Maybe Sam wanted this, them, just as much as Lara. They were at a crossroads now. If this was made to last, the coming months would show it. Lara took a deep breath. Maybe now was the time to come clean, to finally put a name to all this. Start a new chapter in their lives, together. But she couldn't. She was too scared of the what if's. She could simply not risk to lose Sam, not over something as stupid as her own infatuation. They'd be together anyway, Sam had said so. No need to wake the giant sleeping elephant just yet.
Lara smiled at Sam instead.
“Always.”
~