AN: Just a short piece I've been wanting to do for a while. Set fairly soon after Yamatai, Inspired by Rise of the Tomb Raider trailer.

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Since Yamatai she'd been a mess. Without the constant danger and the desperate struggle to survive driving her onwards Lara began to come apart at the seams. Night terrors plagued her in her sleep and her waking hours were riddled with the echoes of her past ordeal.

Yamatai had left its mark on her, both physically and mentally scarring her. While time healed all wounds she knew she would never truly recover.

Barely holding on, Sam's constant presence, and adventuring had been all that had kept her going.

She was getting better, slowly.

But it was hard and she was not the only one suffering.

Her continued adventuring, the self destructive and needless, reckless self endangerment had consumed her. Her coping mechanism was not the safest or the most rational, but for a time it was the only thing that kept her from crumpling under weight of the traumas she had suffered.

But it also blinded her to the pain she was causing to the only truly important person she had left.

Sam worried about Lara. Having just come away from the terrifying ordeal of Yamatai the stress Lara was causing compounded with the still recent mental scarring from the time served to almost succeed where the island had failed to break her.

It had come close, but she had been straddling the edge when she' broken down and tearfully begged Lara to stop before she killed herself and she was left alone without anyone.

Lara had truly hated herself in that moment.

So here she was, at a small site that she'd stumbled across, accompanied by Sam and an eclectic team of archaeologist, scientists and historians as they examined and catalogued everything within the ruins.

The 'tomb' - as she liked to call them, even if most weren't actually tombs, was one that she'd stumbled across when she'd still been unaware of the strife she was putting Sam through.

As far as ancient ruins went it was interesting enough to satisfy her while the general lack of danger pacified Sam and appeased her worries.

No traps or dangerous cliff faces to scale. She got to explore and study a set of fascinating ruins and she made Sam happy by keeping out of danger.

Sam and the others were in another room down the hall surveying and cataloguing a set of pictographs depicting two great whale like deities fighting, entwined artistically around the figure of a girl dressed in white and blue.

She'd left them to it to go exploring further ahead after having a promise to be careful extracted from her by Sam; her protests had been half hearted at best. The Ordeal of Yamatai had made her realize just how important Sam was to her; that there might be something more there than just mere friendship.

She'd never liked disappointing Sam. Compiled with the revelation of her own feelings and Sam's recent state as a result of Lara's disregard for her own safety had left Lara unwilling to do anything that might upset her, and so she'd promised to be safe, that she would not be reckless, that she would be careful.

The rest of the ruins so far had been unremarkable except for the presence of the occasional intriguing etching or artefact of interest.

Eventually though she came across something that was more than interesting. It seemed like she might have found the reason why all of this was built.

A faint singing filled the room; first on the edge of hearing, and then calling through the air until Lara was sure she wasn't imagining things. At first glance the object occupying it seemed to be a statue of some sort and it was unlike anything she had ever seen.

As she drew nearer the truth of what she was looking at became apparent.

Encased within a strange material that resembled bubble filled water what she'd first thought to be a statue was, perfectly preserved, a man. Young, he was dressed in strange clothes, with blond hair and tanned skin. Strange adornments covered him and he appeared as he were encased by and fused with some great serpentine sea beast.

Fascinating...

As she examined the strange shrine a voice spoke, though there was no sound and she thought she saw the faint shade of someone resembling the man encased within the waterlike material.

"You and the other girl, you love her don't you? But you haven't told her."

"Take care of her and keep her close."

"Cherish her and everyday you spend together."

A pause and then...

"It may not last forever."

And with that last wistful sigh his form seemed to shiver, slowly breaking apart into orbs of water and light before dispersing into nothingness.

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AN:

I adore Sam x Lara, and of course Yuna and Tidus.

I've loved tomb raider since I was little, so the idea of writing a fanfic for it came about naturally.

FF x is my favourite Final Fantasy and it was my first, I spent hours playing the originals on the ps2, the recent remaster was pretty exciting for me.

Now a bit about the differences to the ff x story:

Tidus is leviathan, Yuna's Final Aeon.

They actually did permanently stop Sin and the story is basically the same as in the game except for the method of Sin's destruction and the end of Tidus and Yuna's story; with Tidus trapped in Aeon form rather than simply disappearing.

The pictograph mentioned depicted Tidus' Aeon form and Sin fighting and the material surrounding his Fayth is the same material that Tidus' sword is made of.