One week into the charade Lara and Sam were walking down along the beach, Richard had spied them on occasion.  Today he was there, hovering, watching and waiting for something.  The other shoe to drop perhaps?  Sam didn’t know, and she hardly cared.  She’d actually found herself having a good time, and eating.  Lara had force fed her food, first breakfast, then lunch and always a huge dinner.  Going as far as sitting there and spooning it into Sam‘s mouth like she was a child.  They’d laughed and Sam had always rolled her eyes.  Lara was becoming a rather good friend.

            “Is he still watching us?”  Sam asked Lara looked back over her shoulder and nodded.  Her hazel eyes meeting Sam‘s grey one’s, thinking she could fall for her if she wasn’t already in love with Dana.

            “Yeah, who is he exactly?”  Lara asked, wiggling her toes in the sand as they walked slowly.

            “He’s like one of the directors here enforces the rules.  Things of that nature.”  Sam said, sitting down on the warm sand and Lara followed suit.  Sitting very close to Sam, making sure the charade was being kept up.  For appearances sakes only, she thought to herself.

            “Are we breaking any?”  Lara asked with a curious look.

            “No, not really.  I think he’s watching me out of pure interest.  Or to protect you if I happen to be a bit too rough, push my anger and grief at you, I did just lose my wife…”  Sam reminded her, her voice becoming sullen suddenly and Lara put an arm around her. 

            In the last week, they’d become rather close.  Talking hiding from the other patrons of the Island and being two goofballs when ever the need arose.  Lara had been rather enjoying herself and she was fighting to hide it.

            “Why come here then?”  Lara asked having wanted to ask all week, but having lacked the courage.  Now, with Richard hovering nearby she felt a bit more confident, or safe that Sam wouldn’t botch the act they had going on.

            “To lose myself.  Wallow in ***** and swim in….”  Sam said with a flourish of her hands and Lara laughed, then she realized that Sam really hadn’t answered the question.

            “Ok, smart *****.  Are you going to tell me the truth?”  She smiled; and Sam smiled back, lighting up her face, then it turned serious again.

            “Truth?”  Sam sighed she thought she owed Lara that much.  “I came here to forget, forget that I have to go home to an empty house.  With an empty heart and a broken soul, that the reason I used to breath has ceased to exist.  To leave behind the car I bought of her, to put aside the fact that her father was and still is a selfish prick that disowned his own daughter for loving me.  All those things more maybe.”  Sam closed her eyes fighting away the swell of tears.  Lara pulled her close and Sam pulled away, wiping away a tear.

            “She wouldn’t want me to cry like a baby.”  Sam scoffed at herself, and Lara brushed back a strand of her dark blonde hair from Sam‘s face.

            “She’d want you to mourn her she’d want you to move on.  Can you do that?”  Lara asked the eternal question that now burned Sam at night.

            “Time, give me time.  Ready to go, we have dinner reservations.”  Sam said in an elusive voice and Lara simply nodded, following silently, rather happy that Sam was here with her.  In one week, they’d go back to the real world, and pretend that this adventure had never happened.

            They could do that, right?