DAY 1

Lara lay back on the examination table, shirt pulled up and jeans unzipped, so that Dr. Kimura could peer at the healing wound on her abdomen. She was glaring at me so hard that I could feel it, but I didn't know what she was so annoyed about.

I'd filmed her in much more awkward situations than this back in school.

"Does this feel tender here?" Dr. Kimura asked, prodding gently around her surgical incision.

"No," Lara lied. I could see her wincing through the four-inch LCD on my camera.

"Liar," I declared. I ignored whatever withering look she was giving me and turned to Dr. Kimura. He was one of the finest surgeons in Japan and had a ton of degrees framed on his wall, but only I was certified in Lara's macho bullshit. "It hurts when she puts pressure on it. Like, she can't really lean forward when she's sitting down. I also notice her cringing sometimes when she walks up a lot of stairs."

Dr. Kimura looked at Lara over his tiny crescent-shaped glasses. "I see. Miss Croft, you have to be completely honest with me if I'm to help you make a full recovery. When did the tenderness start?"

Lara shifted uncomfortably. "I don't really know when it started...because it hasn't really stopped since the surgery."

"And I've told you a hundred times that it's because you refuse to take your pain medicine," I reminded her, pulling the bottle from my purse and shaking it. There was exactly the same number of oxycodone pills in it as when I'd first filled the prescription for her ten days ago.

"Sam."

Dr. Kimura frowned at her. "I see. At least tell me she's been taking her antibiotics three times a day."

"Yes, she has," I answered for her. That, at least, Lara admitted she needed. She would be twenty-two in a few months, but when she was stuck at home on doctor's orders, it was like taking care of a constipated toddler. She was a stubborn little pain-in-the-ass.

"And I don't suppose you've been resting at home and avoiding all moderate to vigorous activity like I asked you to?"

"Pshhh. Doubtful," I said, thoroughly comfortable with ratting out my best friend in front of her doctor. I still remembered the horrifying way she'd stumbled onto the docks after we came off the rescue boat. The blatant infection in her stomach wound had started to bleed through her tank top. Watching her fall, after all we'd been through, was the scariest thing I'd ever seen in my life. They had rushed her into emergency surgery, flushed her with antibiotics, and kept her in the hospital for nearly two weeks. Then, she had to have a second follow-up surgery. When they finally deemed it safe to discharge her to my family's mansion outside of Tokyo, I slept in her room for a week just to make sure she kept breathing.

Lara had better believe I was going to tell this doctor anything and everything I could, if it meant she would be okay.

"Isn't there a rule, no one's allowed in here unless they're a relative?" Lara complained.

"She told us she was your wife."

I smothered my giggles in one arm as she sputtered wordlessly, using my other to make sure I was getting it on film. No one would believe I got the brooding and serious Lara Croft to look so flustered, if I didn't record it.

"She is not my wife!" she cried, blushing so furiously that the pink spread down her neck.

"Well, then we can ask Miss Nishimura be dismissed from the exam room, if she is disturbing you."

I batted my eyes at her innocently.

"Oh, she finds ways to disturb me no matter where she is," she grumbled. I stuck my tongue out at her playfully. "Let's just get on with this. Yes, I've been having pain. No, I haven't been taking any of my pain medication. Yes, I've been...performing moderate to vigorous activities."

Dr. Kimura looked over at me. I shrugged and raised an eyebrow at Lara.

"I actually don't know what she's talking about. I've been making sure the most strenuous thing she does is take walks in the park."

"If by 'park', you mean 'Shibuya Fashion Mall'."

"You were the one bitching about sharing my clothes," I pointed out. When she first came to stay with me at my father's place for her recovery, she would just borrow my clothes. That arrangement lasted maybe two hours before she started complaining about her boobs spilling out of my 'outrageous' necklines and her ass hanging out of my 'criminal' miniskirts. "I got you all the blue tank tops and black v-necks you wanted, didn't I?"

Dr. Kimura was looking back and forth between us, probably wondering if we were sure we weren't married.

"Anyway, I would have expected the swelling to have gone down a bit more, if all you've been doing is walking." He prodded at Lara's incision again. "I...ah, I didn't want to mention this before so as to avoid any uncomfortable situations but… I would have thought it goes without saying… Miss Croft, you really should be refraining from any sexual activity during your recovery."

Lara jerked up, cringing in pain at the motion. I put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down forcefully.

"I'm not!"

"For once, she's telling the truth," I said, rolling my eyes. "I could barely even get this girl laid before the whole Yamatai thing."

Dr. Kimura pursed his lips. "Forgive me if I am disinclined to believe you. Miss Nishimura, I must insist that you not engage in sexual activity for the next few weeks."

I scowled. "Wait, what? Why can't I have sex? Dr. Ozaki said I was fine, as long as I continue to see my psychologist once a week!"

Lara groaned. "He's talking about us, Sam. He's saying you can't sleep with me."

I blinked. "Ohhh. Well, okay."

"What do you mean okay?!" she demanded, that vein in her neck bulging hilariously. "We are not - we don't - what are you even - ?!"

Keeping a face so carefully straight that I should have gotten an Academy Award, I looked Dr. Kimura dead in the eye and said, "I will stop having sex with Lara."

"I don't - she doesn't - we're not - !"

"Good," he said. He got up and started to polish off his little glasses. "I'd hoped most of this inflammation would have resolved by now, but I can still remove these sutures. I just need to grab a few things from my office first. Excuse me a moment."

He left, and the minute the door closed behind him I dissolved into a fit of uncontrollable cackling. Actual, literal tears sprung in my eyes. My stomach cramped.

Lara was not nearly as amused.

"Sam, you insufferable little...little wanker!"

"Shhh, don't talk about wanking. Dr. Kimura just told us to cool it!"

"Sam!"

I was gasping for air at this point, Lara looked so scandalized. She was always so guarded about her sex life that even I, her best friend and the person that knew her better than anyone else in the world, never got any steamy details.

"I'm so glad I got that on tape," I wheezed, checking the camera to make sure the mic was working. Jonah was going to love this tomorrow when we saw him tomorrow. Reyes would too, but she'd love it secretly and pretend to think we were crazy. "Oh, my God. The expression on your face."

"I'm glad you're enjoying all this," she huffed.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I said, coming around wrap an arm around her shoulders and give her a kiss on the forehead. "I'll stop. You know I can't help it when you're being a prude."

"I'm not a prude." She scowled. "I just want a little privacy, especially now that we're all over the news. It'd be nice if there weren't any rumors going around that I had a sex injury."

I thought I was done giggling. I wasn't. Lara waited impatiently for me to stop.

"Okay, okay, I'm done." I managed to say between hacking. "Damn it. Okay, I'm good."

"And would you please stop filming for once? Jesus, Sam, this is a doctor's visit," she said, struggling to get into a sitting position. She swiped my camera from my hands. Lara had only ever done that once to me before, and that was in college when I used her jump drive and accidentally deleted her thesis to make room for a video of me teaching drunk Brits how to Dougie.

I was definitely in the doghouse.

"You...didn't say anything before, when I started the camera."

"Why should I have to tell my best friend to not record this?!"

I sheepishly reached over and switched the camera off. Over the years it had gotten to the point where a camera was basically an extension of my eyes and ears, and since Lara was the person I spent the most time around, it was only natural that she be the subject of nearly everything I shot. But when she said it like that...

"I'm sorry," I said sincerely. "I honestly...I film you all the time, I just didn't think. I'll delete the tape."

Lara sighed heavily. "It's fine. No matter."

"No. Really. I'll delete it," I said, taking back the camera and pointedly putting it down on the metal instrument tray. "That was stupid. I was just...I was having fun and I didn't think about how you felt about. You know how I get carried away."

"I do know," she said. "That's why I let you, and it was fine at first, but then the inappropriate joking started."

My brow furrowed. She was actually blushing again, which I thought was strange. People joked all the time about us being so close we were practically married. Her usual reaction was to roll her eyes and say something along the lines of 'God help me if that were true'. At what point had that stopped being funny? When did it start being inappropriate?

"Don't delete the tape," Lara said suddenly, reacting to whatever face I was making. I must have looked pretty put-out. "I'm sure I'll find it funny at some point. In a future that is not right now, right here in the doctor's office."

I thought she would have. That was why I had brought the camera along in the first place. I had hours and hours of footage dating back to the day we met, many of them featuring a grumpy Lara Croft. One of our favorite things to do was to watch those videos months later and laugh, poking fun at ourselves. Lara was a serious, bookish, and mature, but she was also always secretly a big happy dork.

I hoped that wasn't one of many things that changed after Yamatai.

"Maybe we should stop those long strolls of ours," I said, switching the subject. I couldn't stand this thing we did sometimes, where we'd work up to something resembling a fight, but then back down before anything really got heated. It was worse than actually arguing, all build-up and no climax. "I didn't realize just walking was messing with the healing process. I guess it's more strenuous than I thought."

"It's not."

"Well, you're still all swollen there," I pointed out. I gently touched the tender skin around her stomach and the muscle almost seemed to recoil on contact. "Oops, sorry! Did I hurt you?"

"No."

It sure seemed like I had. She hadn't grimaced, but she had pulled away pretty quickly. "Okay, well, maybe we'll go on shorter walks."

"Walking isn't the reason the swelling hasn't gone down, Sam."

I looked at her curiously. Lara was purposefully avoiding my gaze, a sure sign of guilt.

"Then what is?" When she didn't answer, my eyes narrowed. "Lara."

"I've, erm...well, I've been sneaking into the Tokyo shipyards."

"What?!"

"At night after you went to bed I'd climb out the window, to avoid activating your mansion's burglar alarms - "

"You'd what!?"

" - and sneak into the shipyards, where they're keeping all the artifacts we managed to collect from Yamatai. I've just been getting a headstart on cataloging them, is all. They just won't let me access the cargo until it arrives in London with us and, you know, the customs department is being all sorts of unreasonable about it all."

I gaped at her.

"I mean, they haven't even told me which artifacts are staying in Japan and which we're bringing to the British Museum. What if they're categorized incorrectly, or sets are separated, or something breaks?"

"You're serious," I realized. Lara was actually that crazy, although I guess I'd always known that. I'd known since we were first years and she'd decorated her dorm with tarnished relics instead of empty ale bottles and Christmas lights, but it was always bewildering to actually see her particular brand of crazy in action.

"Er, yeah. I guess all the climbing and moving crates did some harm. There was also that time my shirt got caught on the top of that chain link fence and…" She trailed off at my expression. "Never mind."

I moaned in disbelief. "God, Lara, even when you're an acrobatic ninja superhero, you're just the biggest fucking nerd about it."

She grinned slightly. "So you're not angry?"

"Of course I'm angry!" I cried. She blanched. "Are you kidding?! Lara, I'm infuriated with you! You're an idiot!"

Since the minute we stepped off the boat, I'd never left her side. I was there every step of the way, except for when they'd had to pull me away from her stretcher so they could wheel her into the operating room. Lara had always been there for me, always, ever since we were just lonely first years wandering the UCL campus. We had each others backs all through our time there, and got a flat together in London after graduation. Even when she told me she'd gotten a job on some dinky old ship, I followed her. I'd follow her anywhere, and she'd do anything for me. That's just how we were.

So when she pulled shit like this, lied to me so she could put herself in danger without my knowing about it, I got royally pissed off. This was totally worse than filming her at the doctor's office.

"You could have hurt yourself," I hissed. "You just had two major abdominal surgeries, are you fucking kidding me!?"

"I'm just...restless, Sam. And I feel helpless. Pointless, almost."

"That's ridiculous," I scoffed. "You're the archaeologist who solved one of the world's greatest mysteries. You saved all our lives. You're a hero on so many levels, I can't believe you don't realize this!"

The world was singing Lara Croft praises. Historical societies and universities were throwing money at her from all directions and she had developed a cult online following online. Nishimura Entertainment was nearly finished developing a documentary about her and Yamatai, using what little of my footage they could salvage. She was being added to textbooks, she had a Wikipedia page, she was even getting some kind of newly discovered grass species named after her. She was beautiful, badass, and had that killer accent. People loved that.

Sure, there were skeptics. Particularly about the ancient sun queen trying to shove her soul into my body and the giant stormguard ogres that tried to kill us. If I hadn't seen it myself, I would have called bullshit on us too. Especially since all evidence had disappeared without a trace after Lara destroyed Himiko's remains and dispersed the storms. That whole thing was mostly unclear, but it seemed that all the supernatural stuff had been tied together, and when Lara destroyed it's source, the whole thing went up in smoke.

The public was mostly ignoring that bit of our story, and when it became evident that no one would believe us, we decided to shut up about it, too. Everyone just chalked it up to mental and emotional trauma and focused on Mathias and the Solarii as the bad guys.

But it was still a triumph. Yamatai was still Yamatai, the centuries-old legend suddenly turned real, and Japan in particular was all over it. There were boatloads of valuable artifacts being excavated from the island, not to mention the new mystery of the Solarii cult that people were already starting to write conspiracy theories about. Lara was a legitimate celebrity in this country, and no doubt it would be the same when we finally got back to London.

"I just feel like there's more out there," Lara insisted. "I know there is. More than just Yamatai. My parents dedicated their lives to unravel these mysteries and everyone just scoffed at them. Myself included. Why do I get to reap all the rewards?"

"Lara…"

"It's all true, Sam. All those things my father said and his colleagues deemed nonsense. Those myths about gods and magic. He was onto something, and I owe it to him to find out what it was." She cringed, clutching her stomach and laying back on the exam table. I jumped up to help her, but she just waved me off. "But I can't do anything because of this. This is the most frustrated I've ever been!"

"You're saying you want to do all that stuff again?"

"No, no," she shook her head. "Not exactly, anyway. I'd be more prepared, have all the equipment I needed. I'd be able to use my...skills more effectively. And I wouldn't put you in danger."

"Just yourself," I said dryly.

She sighed. "I can take care of myself."

I had heard her, back on the rescue ship that brought us to Japan. When the first mate told her she'd be home soon, I'd heard what she had murmured to herself.

I'm not going home.

A chill had run down my spine because I knew she wasn't just saying that. This was about more than adventure, now. Lara Croft had always seemed to be waiting for something. She wasn't like our other friends. Even when she agreed to come out and have fun with us, when she took all those odd jobs to pay for school, when she humored me and attempted to try dating, it always seemed like she was just biding time until something bigger came along. All the hikes we went on, all the trips we made around the world. It was just her looking for that something.

Then Yamatai showed her the way. Lara had become part of a world bigger than she could have ever dreamed. This was what she had been waiting for all along, and I knew she would never come all the way back to me.

But the part of her that did, the part of her that was still here with me, I wasn't ever going to let go of that.

"Well, good luck trying to get rid of me." I smirked. "You need to have someone along to document all your groundbreaking discoveries!"

"Sam, I already have too much death on my conscience. I don't even know what I would have done if I'd lost you too."

God, she had even dropped her head backwards on the table melodramatically. I had to smirk and roll my eyes.

"Oh, would you please stop with that? Seriously."

"I know you still have nightmares," she said quietly.

That shut me up for a little bit. They weren't as bad now, not since I'd started seeing a therapist, but I would still occasionally wake up in the middle of the night sobbing. I didn't have to run across the hall to the guest room anymore, though. I no longer had to make sure Lara was safe in her bed, no longer had to find her wide awake too and crawl beside her just so she could hug me. I was already better, even though I still never felt completely okay unless she was near. When Lara carried me down that mountain in her arms, that was the safest I ever felt in my entire life.

I didn't know she could still hear my sobs.

"Yeah, well, you have your scars. I have mine," I replied gently, looking at her wound. "Therapy is really helping me. It'd help you too, if you actually went. Stubborn ass."

A hint of a smile. "I'm fine."

"Bullshit. I'm fine."

"No, you aren't."

"I'm like, ten times finer than you, at least!" I declared. She laughed. More seriously, I said, "You saved me. You always seem to forget that. You saved me."

"Did I?" she challenged. "I can't even stop you from crying at night. After everything I've done, I can't even help the person that matters to me most."

"Lara," I squeezed onto the exam table and embraced her as tightly as she could tolerate. "Shut up. We're not having this conversation again. It only ever goes in circles, anyway. I don't blame you for anything, and no matter what that stupid brain of yours says, that's the bottom line."

She rested her head on my chest and took a deep breath. I let her lay there for a moment before speaking again.

"Don't forget I'm still angry at you for breaking out of my house and sneaking into the shipyards without telling me, just so you can fondle a bunch of old horse statues and ceremonial fans or whatever. Super angry."

"I just feel like everything is being taken out of my hands. After all that we've been through, everything is just...gone," Lara admitted. "When I'm holding the artifacts, I can say 'At least I did this. At least I made a world-changing discovery. At least I made some kind of difference'. But now that everything's being scattered, and tomorrow Jonah's going back to New Zealand and Reyes to New York, I feel like...all I have left is the bad things. The bad memories. All the killing, Himiko, Mathias, the Oni, losing Roth, Grim, Alex, and even Whitman. The blood and gore and fire and - "

"You still have me," I interrupted, putting a hand on her cheek. "At least you have me. At least you saved me. At least I'm not a reincarnated demon queen. You can still say that."

I could feel her smile into my shirt.

"Say it, Lara."

"At least you're not a reincarnated demon queen."

"There you go. Now take your damn pills, I feel like it's gonna hurt when he pulls those stitches out."

She snorted, pushing away the bottle I was trying to give her. I knew this was just her stubborn ass punishing herself for what happened. No matter what anyone said, she was going to shoulder that entire burden until the day she died. She couldn't even forgive herself for me, and I actually came out alive with minimal injury.

Time heals all wounds. That's what my therapist told me about my nightmares, that's what the doctors told us about Lara's injuries, and that's what I hoped would eventually happen with all the guilt Lara felt.

"Dr. Kimura is taking an awfully long time," she said.

"Maybe all that talk about the two of us sleeping together made him need some alone time in his office to cool off."

"Ew, Sam."

"What? We're hot as hell."

"Sam."

I wished that we could stay like this forever. Well, maybe not exactly like this, in a doctor's exam room sitting on a paper sheet as Lara lay with a long wound exposed on her abdomen, but somewhere nicer. A beach, maybe, or even some big old library. As long as I got to be with her, and she wasn't running off chasing myths and legends trying to leave me behind. I knew she was serious about not putting me in danger, but for some reason she couldn't understand that concern going both ways. If I ever lost her…

I realized with sick satisfaction that I was glad she had to suffer two extensive surgeries and would be sidelined for basically the entire summer. It meant she was safe and stuck here with me. At least until the doctor cleared her for activity, I had some peace of mind.

Suddenly the door opened and Dr. Kimura came in, holding a small suture removal kit. He gruffly eyed Lara and I, cuddled together on the exam room table.

"Don't forget what I said about not having any - "

"We won't bloody forget what you said!" Lara rolled her eyes and I snickered.

"Or else this will never heal," he said threatened. I hopped off the table and gave him room to do his work. "You need to take it easy for at least six weeks, all right?"

"Okay! Jesus!"

I held up my camera, searching Lara's eyes for permission and found it in a slight nod and exasperated smile. Grinning, I let it roll.

"So, Dr. Kimura, can you repeat that one more time so I have it on film?"

He looked up at the lens, his face all stern lines and seriousness.

"Miss Croft is not allowed to exert herself with any strenuous activity for six weeks."

"And a verbal confirmation?" I prompted Lara.

"I will wait six weeks before throttling you for this," Lara said sourly as Dr. Kimura snipped the first suture.

Author's Note: After finishing up the Tomb Raider comic series I just felt like things should have gone differently, so this happened. Anyway, obviously this isn't compliant with the Dark Horse comics series, and probably won't jive all that well with the upcoming Rise of the Tomb Raider either.