The walls seem like they're closing in on her. Sam's heart jumps when a sharp beep interrupts the quiet of the Saturday night and her hand goes to her side to reach for the knife. Only when she has a tight grip on it does she remember—she's home, it's only the microwave finishing it's job of heating up her takeout curry, and she's safe.

Right?

She thought a few nights in her own bed, curling up with Lara and watching TV all day would keep the rushes of adrenaline away whenever a loud noise comes unexpectedly from a passing truck or a fork, but she dreads to consider that it might take a bit more than that.

She tells Lara to let the gun stay in the cupboard, but she doesn't tell the archaeologist that she won't even step out of their room at night without the knife in her hand.

That's enough footage of them gutting the alligator, for now. The batteries should be conserved for later, not that she doesn't have plenty of spare ones.

Lara takes a wild guess and decides that Sam probably stopped filming because her hands are shaking too much to hold the video camera steadily. There's a hidden weight that drags down on the former vlogger's smile and it's too obvious for the woman whose all nighters have been graced by that same grin for years. Sam carefully tucks the camera back in her bag and sits herself down on the ground, sighing in relief at the feeling of being in clothes that are actually dry. She hopes she doesn't have to take any more showers today.

Her hand twitches when she feels Lara's fingers on her own ones. "Sweetie," She relaxes once more once she sees it's just her. "Hey."

"Hey." Lara thinks it's best not to mention that her companion looks a few shades paler right now. "Are you okay?" Her hand is cold, too, just like the body of animal being taken apart by their mercenary guards.

"Yeah." The answer could sound more enthusiastic. "That was... Wow."

She knows Sam's jungles have always been different from her's. The young woman's dwelled in cities of concrete and towers instead of the trees and valleys Lara's always been accustomed to on her digs and the few ones she's been to with her parents. She's never killed before.

"It was the same for me when I did it the first time." Lara closes her strong, calloused hand over Sam's smaller one. Her nails are still smooth and clean. She's never taken a person's life before. What is she supposed to say? "You'll get used to it." Shouldn't be her next words, but she can't think of anything else.

"It's really gross." Sam admits, trying not look at the bloody mess just a few feet away. She doesn't have to describe what she means, because Lara understands.

Stabbing wasn't a pleasant experience for her back then, either. "I know." The archaeologist cups her cheek when she sees Sam's eyes dart to what's going to be their dinner tonight and their breakfast tomorrow. "Hey, don't look." She says her words with enough subtlety as to keep anyone else from hearing.

Sam gladly welcomes her. The sound of flesh being cut apart by knives makes her queasy already. What came over her back there? The woman she's been for the past twenty or so years would never jump into a river to stab a fucking caiman.

Yes, that's what it's called. Fields had a field day correcting them about wrongly calling it an alligator.

She doesn't complain either when Lara pulls her hand. Sam willingly stands and lets herself be guided to a small spot a distance away where an old hollow trunk fell over and stayed for longer than she'd care to investigate. She sits and remembers the first time she had to gut a fish during their trip to Hawaii. She puked. "That was really hardcore." Sam wonders out loud.

"You were hardcore." Lara bumps her shoulder lightly, relieved to receive a response in the form of an intrigued smile.

"You're the one who jumped at it." Sam bumps her back. "I think you're the one who should be called hardcore."

"But then you jumped in after me." She bounces the compliment back. "You didn't have to do that."

Sam can't believe the absurdity. "Of course I do! I'd be the shittiest best friend ever if I let you rescue me from an entire cult of weirdos and let you get eaten by an animal."

"I think all the late night snacks you got me during our finals made up for it." Lara sheepishly grins. She still can't think of store-bought sandwiches without having intense flashbacks of the thick papers she'll have to memorize by the next morning, though. Energy drinks still make her uneasy.

"Does this usually happen on archaeology trips?" Sam asks. Maybe she's been watching to many adventure movies, but their current trip already sounds like it could be part of one. "I mean, back in Yamatai, do animals randomly attack you for no reason too? I thought those DVDs of yours said that they'd leave us alone or something."

"Sam, I had to climb trees just so the wolves wouldn't have me for a late dinner when I fell asleep." Lara doesn't seem too keen to elaborate. "So yes, it's happened before, I suppose, but I really wish it didn't." She also wishes Sam would stop averting the subject. She can still feel her hand shaking. "Your hands are cold."

"They are?" Sam supposes that pulling it away would just make the brunette more concerned. "I guess they are."

Lara knows the answer to the question she's about to ask, but she asks anyway. "You know there were three of us. We could have taken it, but you jumped in anyway. Why'd you do that?"

Sam genuinely looks like she's trying to find a good answer. Her nose scrunches up like she's in the middle of a particularly difficult exam, but then she exasperatedly sighs. "Just 'cause you were there and I just had to?" She blurts, giving up. "I know, I know, I could've just reloaded and kept shooting, but I'm kinda crappy with a gun and I just gotta-" She pauses. "Gotta fight."

That's the word. Fight. It's the word that's been ringing in her head for every single moment, and she still can't pinpoint the moment it started to be the voice that guided everything she did. "I know." No one else knows better than her. "I know the feeling, Sam."

"Of course you do, sweetie." She did it for her, after all.

"I got hurt a lot back then because I let the panic take over." The cuts and bruises have all melded to a blur in her memories. There were so many that she didn't keep track. She was too busy trying to stay alive. "Just please be careful, Sam. I got into a lot of nasty situations because of it. Don't do the same thing, okay?"

"Okay." Sam is more than relieved that the Croft didn't ask her to leave. The thought bothers her more than it should. She holds her arms open the way she always does when she comes home from her annual trips back to Tokyo. "C'mere, you."

Lara gladly does. Her arms are around her in an instant and she just holds her right there for a moment. It's just like how they stay in the bed together until they're too hungry to put off breakfast any longer. The scent of Sam's favorite expensive shampoo isn't as strong as usual, but that only means that she can bury herself deeper in the nape of her neck to catch the whiff of vanilla and the curious bit of canned food they had for breakfast today. She can feel Sam's lips accidentally touch the tip of her ear. The slight contact makes the tempo of her heartbeats speed up.

"You're kinda like my Terminator, Lara."

The pleasant hug suddenly seems more confusing than nice. "Uh, what?"

"Well, a good one." Sam corrects herself. "Hey, you're strong... uh, not a robot, and you don't have sunglasses either. Okay, that was a bad comparison."

Lara understands the message, though, and she pulls away to look her right in the eyes. Her hands are still on the documentarist's shoulder and the other one is still where it belongs, around Sam's waist. "Sam, you know I was just trying to stay alive and save you."

"What's wrong?" Sam leans forward to get a better view of Lara's face. "Lara, you've been acting really weird."

Because I'm just trying to figure everything out and you think I'm doing so much more than that. "Just worried, Sam. We just got here and you—"She slipped up. "We already got attacked twice."

"It's an animal, Lara, you don't tell it to track us down and eat us." Sam dismisses, shrugging. "Well, not unless it's trained, but what are the chances?"

Lara's face darkens. "You didn't forget about the men who attacked us on the way here, didn't you?" She asks, worry laced in her sentiment.

"Of course not." She can still remember the smell of concrete, gasoline and blood merging into one. It still makes her uneasy in the stomach, but no one needs to know that, though. They don't seem the least bothered by it, and she doesn't think she should too. She may not have carved a bloody path through the island like Lara did, but she survived and that should be enough.

No. You were saved, you didn't survive.

"It's not like I don't trust you, Sam." Lara says, but it doesn't make her feel better.

"You're just worried, I know." She finishes her words for her.

"Maybe-"

Maybe we should go back? Something stirs inside her like a storm trapped in flesh. Her blood runs with the force of a torrential river and her voice booms with the strength of a tornado. "No." She doesn't say it loudly, but the command is clear. Nothing changes, it's still the same pitch and she still speaks her vowels the way she always does, but the single word makes Lara's spine straighten like she's a soldier being scolded by a drill sergeant. Just like that, the sturdy log they're sitting on crumbles like a flimsy branch, falling apart as if being torn apart by the seams. The very air caves into it and it crumbles. They fall.

Lara looks quite stunned as she stays on her spot, sitting on a pile of broken wood.

"What was that?"

Sam doesn't notice Fields standing there until she hears his voice, but she has no answer. She just stares back at Lara while she doesn't make a move to get up.

Fields sighs in relief when he sees no one else. "The old logs are fragile. I would suggest a better place to sit and talk. Preferably somewhere closer."

"This isn't close enough?" Sam asks, finally getting on her feet again. She carefully beats the dust away from her pants, but not before she makes sure there are no splinters caught anywhere.

"We've heard of people taken away during... Bathroom breaks." He doesn't look like he has any desire to elaborate, and judging by the less than pleased look he has, he doesn't want to answer any questions.

"Okay, then." Sam snickers knowingly. It's more than likely that he more than heard of the incident. "Yeah, don't you just hate it when people throw you over your shoulder when you're minding your own business?" She offers Lara a hand as she imagines the scenario in her head. She can't contain her amusement, and it shows greatly in her grin.

"You'd hate it even more if you had to catch them while they were doing it." He looks even paler than he was before. "It was one of our darker moments." His eyes fall a bit distant at those words and his lip quivers uncomfortable before he blinks everything away. "We're done undressing the caiman. Let's go, we're behind schedule."

"Wait, we're going to carry all that?" Sam crinkles her nose.

"Yes." He doesn't seem even a little but fazed.

Lara doesn't, either. If anything, she's pleased about their situation. "Take your food where you can find it, right?" She smiles.

"Right."

The Croft has no idea what scares her more, how she notices the knowing look in his eyes or how he doesn't seem very surprised at all.

Okay, I know I have horrible update times. I'm really working on it, guys! I'm thinking of doing "shotgun updating", as in binge writing for one story and updating a lot in a short time before focusing on other stories that I started before this one. I made the mistake of doing too many at a short time, but I made a promise to not abandon anything and to not keep everyone waiting!