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“Are you sure about this?”
Camilla threw an unimpressed look over her shoulder. “I don’t remember you being so hesitant.”
Lara let her arm swing free from a warm-up stretch. “I’m just making sure.”
Camilla bent her elbow over her head and leaned to the side, extending her stretch. “You can always back out if you’re scared.”
Lara scoffed. “I’m not scared.”
Camilla grinned, putting her fists up in a loose guard. “Whenever you’re ready then.”
This all started with an offhand comment by Camilla some weeks ago, sitting on that transport speeding away from the research lab. A little ways away sat Jonah who was making a point not to look at them as he spoke to Zip over video call. Lara’s gut still churned with the memory of the Wrath stone and what she’d almost done, even with the relief that she’d fought it and won.
“I could’ve taken you.”
Lara turned to squint at Camilla. “Huh?”
“I can hear you overthinking.” Camilla lifted her head from where it was leaning back against the metal wall of the transport. “I would’ve been fine. You weren’t going to hurt me.”
Lara laughed a bit, a small sound. “You had a shotgun.”
Camilla chuckled. “Even if I wasn’t armed. I could’ve taken you.”
Lara let her head fall back against the metal wall, mirroring Camilla. “I don’t think so.”
“That sounds like a challenge.”
“It wasn’t.”
Cam gives her a light shove with her shoulder. “So you wouldn’t be up to a friendly sparring match? When all this is over?”
Lara closed her eyes and didn’t bother to point out their odds of actually saving reality from imminent collapse. “I didn’t say that.”
She could literally feel Cam rolling her eyes. “Well Croft, consider that a challenge. And a promise.”
So here they were almost four weeks later, world saved and in Lara’s newly renovated gym at Croft manor. The sparring mat below them was brand new and the paint had barely dried. Camilla had simply shown up on her front step with bags in hand, her excuse being that her work with Interpol just happened to take her to England and her fancy hotel was a stone’s throw from the manor.
Lara rolled her shoulders to loosen them and mirrored Cam’s stance, fists in a low guard position. The two women began to circle each other in a dance that both of them knew well. Lara could see Cam sizing her up, considering her options.
A quick jab that she easily dodged. She returned it, swinging wide. Camilla grinned and went for a grapple which Lara rolled out and away from.
They continued this for a while until they both broke a sweat, but still no contact had been made. Cam’s grin had vanished behind a determined furrow between her eyebrows and a frown. After a failed leg sweep that Lara evaded, she huffed. “You’re holding back.”
Lara grit her teeth and went for a strike to the ribs which Camilla blocked. “No I’m not.”
The two broke away again and stood across from each other in the same position they started in. Cam narrowed her eyes. “C’est des conneries.”
Lara growled and struck again, a quick double hit with both fists that just managed to clip Camilla on the shoulder. She twisted away from Lara, rolling her arm. “Not bad.”
Lara let out a long breath through her nose like steam from a kettle.
She could see it now. Cam was provoking her.
Something red hot rolled up in her gut and she tensed, dropping into a lower stance. Cam’s eyes sparked and her grin was back.
The energy in the room cracked like a thunderhead and the two women collided again, their energy and speed renewed. Camilla landed several blows this time but Lara didn’t feel them. Her vision narrowed down to a pinprick tinted scarlet red, and suddenly it wasn’t Camilla in front of her anymore. It was a Solarii, Matthias, Trinity, Constantine. It was the neck of every man that had ever broken under her hands, all the fingers that had ever scrabbled at her arms as she plunged a knife into nameless throats.
No weapon weighed down her hands, and the smell of blood was overwhelming in her nose. Her opponent in front of her evaded her again and she snarled, whipping her foot out to catch the enemy around the ankle to bring them down to the floor.
Hesitation leads to death.
She rolled forward and hooked her elbow around her enemy’s throat and squeezed, ignoring the struggling body in her grip.
Kill or they will kill you.
Sharp pain in her ribs made her suck in a sudden breath, and everything came back into focus with an almost audible snap. She wasn’t back on Yamatai with the pounding rain and wind screaming in her ears. She was in her manor, in her brightly lit gym. Safe.
Reality came rushing back and she gasped, releasing Camilla like she’d been shocked. Camilla rolled forward onto her elbows, sucking in air like she’d been drowning. Which judging by the way she was clutching her throat, she might as well have been.
Lara cringed back, stumbling until her back hit the wall. She clutched at the brick like it might have the answers.
On the floor Camilla rubbed her throat and coughed, fighting to catch her breath. Lara could only stare at her heaving shoulders in horror. “Cam, I – I’m sorry, I -”
Camilla held up a single hand to stop her. She painfully got to her feet and leaned her hands on her bent knees, still facing away from Lara.
“Cam… Camilla… I -”
“Lara.”
Lara pressed her mouth closed and chewed on her lip, still not daring to step into Camilla’s space.
Cam huffed and straightened back up, still rubbing her throat. “Lara. Please. Don’t say sorry.”
Lara squeezed her eyes shut and slid down the wall, her throat stinging and her head bowed under a familiar weight.
Several long moments passed. Lara waited to hear the scuff of Camilla’s shoes as she left, but instead they came closer until finally she felt her take a seat beside her. She opened her eyes to see Cam beside her, leaning her head back against the wall.
Lara stared at her knees for a long time, until a nudge on her arm drew her attention to a clear half-empty water bottle being thrust into her vision. She stared at it until Camilla gave it a little shake.
She met Camilla’s gaze hesitantly. The soft expression on her face made something in Lara’s throat stick. She shook the water again.
Lara sighed deep in her chest and took the water bottle, twisting the cap off and downing the rest in a few quick gulps.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you.” Cam kept her voice low.
Lara swallowed. “It’s okay, Cam. I should have had better control.”
Both women lapsed into silence. Lara took a few moments to breath, pulling from the newfound well of peace inside and letting the tension in her shoulders ease.
Camilla hummed before she spoke. “How many?”
“Hm?”
“How many people have you killed?”
Lara stayed quiet, taken off guard by Camilla’s bluntness.
Cam watched her for a breath before continuing. “Six. For me. I remember every single one.”
Lara ran her finger across the lip of the water bottle.
“I was twenty-two for my first. Just graduated from the academy. An art theft sting gone wrong.” Camilla let out a huff of a laugh, devoid of humor. “I didn’t even realized I’d killed him until the fight was over.”
Lara stayed silent.
“My mentor at the time took me aside and told me that I’d done what I had to do.” Camilla continued. “That I had to remember this moment and this feeling and understand the weight of taking a life.”
Lara set the bottle down and crossed her arms to lean against her knees, not taking her eyes off Cam. “Sounds like they knew what they were talking about.”
Cam huffed again. “Yeah. They really did.”
Silence again.
“I know how it feels, to suddenly go into survival mode. You or them. You don’t have a choice.”
Lara tightened her mouth and looked away, unwilling to see the expression on Cam’s face. “I… I lost track around the two hundred mark.”
Camilla’s sharp intake of breath made Lara squeeze her eyes shut, holding back the sudden burn of tears.
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I… I hunted them, Cam. Hunted them down like they were animals. I saw the fear in their faces. I liked it.”
She broke, turning towards the other woman with hot tears welling up in her eyes. “I was a monster, Cam. I almost killed you, just like them.”
Camilla moved before Lara had a chance to pull away and locked her in a tight hug. “Oh, Lara...”
The tears wouldn’t stop. She wept into Camilla’s shoulder with great heaving sobs, strong enough to rock the both of them in place.
She had no idea how long they sat there. Long enough for her back to hurt and her ass to go numb before Camilla leaned back, rubbing between her shoulders and a distant look in her eye. “You... don’t have to tell me. But sometimes I’ve found that talking about it can help. With the weight of it.”
Lara shook her head, the tears drying in her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I… can’t. Not yet.”
Camilla moved back and pushed herself to her feet, stretching her shoulders out with a heavy sigh. She turned, offering her hand and a watery smile. “It’s alright. We’ve got time now.”
Lara looked at the offered hand for a long moment, before allowing a small smile to return back to her face and she took Cam’s hand. “Yeah. We do.”