When Lara first meets Alister she tells herself she's not going to sleep with him. Sure, he's cute and smart and funny, but so are certain members of the primate family and she's sure as hell not going to sleep with them.
She reminds herself, as he's doing cute things like antagonising Zip and ranting about Holy Grails, that he's not here for that. He's here for historical support and to support Zip's technical support. He's not here to satisfy her urges and take care of her needs.
Except... he flirts and smiles and touches her shoulder and bandages her wounds when she comes home battered and bruised. He touches her hair, smiles and walks away and she thinks maybe this could happen... if it wasn't such a bad idea.
She comes home wrecked the one day, a cut down the side of her face bleeding and sore and limping from a sore ankle. Zip is at home with his girlfriend and Winston isn't feeling well, so he went to bed early. Alister is the only one still around and he's the one that helps tend to her wound and says, "You need to be more careful, Lara."
She rolls her eyes, although she appreciates his concern, and says, "Right."
He sits down beside her as she stretches out her leg and rotates her foot, testing her ankle, and says, "You're tough, but you're not invincible."
She smirks. "And there I thought I was, Alister."
He sighs and she nudges him with her shoulder, which hurts more than it should and she realises, with a slight groan, that she's sprained that too. She hadn't even noticed, what with the pounding in her head and the throbbing in her leg.
"I'll leave you to recover," says Alister, standing up. "I'll come by in the morning to make sure you made it through the night."
And just like that, something changes inside Lara's head. Alister goes from being the cute, funny, primate-comparison that Lara would kind of like to sleep with to being the man who's going to get up especially early and come by to make sure she didn't die from her concussion overnight.
She doesn't say anything tonight, but when she wakes to him bringing her some breakfast and a nice hot cup of tea, she catches his hand as he leaves and whispers, "Stay," and things change after that.
They don't say anything, don't change how they act around each other, Alister just stays over sometimes. He shares her bed and they talk half the night sometimes instead of having sex. When they do have sex, it's good – it's very good – and Lara thinks this was a good idea.
They talk over the radio sometimes when she's camping overnight somewhere and Zip's gone home. No one questions the fact Alister stays at the manor those nights and Lara never asks him to, or asks him not to. He just does and they talk. They talk about what she's going for, they talk about history and the future, but they never talk about their relationship. Lara doesn't know what it is, doesn't know if they're together or just having fun, doesn't know if he looks at her and thinks girlfriend and she doesn't look at him and instantly think boyfriend. They just are, and that's enough.
He starts acting differently, though, just slowly. He disappears when she's in mortal peril and doesn't come back until she's out of the woods and then when she's in Scotland he does it again. She's about to ask him why when her radio buzzes and she hears, "Wh-Who are you?"
"Hey! Let go of me!"
"I demand you release us at once!"
"Zip?" she says. "Alister?"
No reply until Zip shouts, "Lara!"
She's off in an instant, running through the tomb she was raiding and grabbing the rope she came in by. She shimmies up and out through the roof and she can see them down below, fighting off armed thugs. "Zip!" She dodges gunfire, clambers down the edge and takes a couple of the thugs out faster than it took Zip to take out just one. Alister falls when a thug kicks him in the gut and she takes that one out with a bullet to the brain.
When they're all down, Zip clambers into the driver's seat and Lara and Alister get into the back of the van. "Did they hurt you?" asks Lara.
Alister, clutching his stomach, groans and says, "I'll... live."
She shakes her head. "Here, take these." She proffers some strong painkillers forth and he downs them with a large glug of water. When he places the bottle back in the hold, she says, "I don't want you out here with me anymore," she says. "You keep getting put in danger."
"Lara," says Alister, "you do this every day."
"Yes and you disappear from the radio every time I do." She scowls. "You missed the Loch Ness Monster."
Alister's eyes widen comically. "The Loch Ness Monster?" he says, voice almost a squeak.
"Yes." Lara leans back in her seat, eyes the way he's sitting and resolves herself to make him go to the hospital later. "I killed her."
He looks like he's about to cry. "You... you killed Nessie?"
She nods. "Gunshot right between the eyes." She points her fingers at his forehead like a gun. "Blam."
He looks weak, so she pokes him in the stomach and he makes a pained noise. "Must you?"
"You're hurt worse than you let on," she says. "Let me see." She climbs across to his side of the van and lifts his shirt. "Oh, Alister."
"I'm fine." He bats at her. "You've had worse."
"I'm used to it." She shakes her head in despair.
He squints sideways at her. "You were worried!" he says, triumphantly.
"No, I wasn't," she lies.
"Yes, you were." He grins. "You're getting fond of me."
"Well, you don't have to seem so chuffed about it." She glowers at him. "You're getting fond of me, too. You leave whenever I'm in mortal peril."
"I don't like listening to you almost dying."
She pokes his stomach again, but gently this time. "I don't like listening to you almost dying, either," she says.
"See?" he says. "Fond."
"I'm not getting fond of you," she says.
"Yes, you are, you just won't admit it."
She sighs. "Relationships don't work out well for me, Alister. One of us always ends up dead, heartbroken or both."
Alister grins. "You're still getting fond of me, though."
She chuckles. "Don't let it go to your head," she says. "I need it nice and clear for when I go to Bolivia."
"I'm just going to... lie down here and sleep the pain off if that's all right with you?"
She nods and presses a soft kiss to his lips. "Feel better," she says.
He catches her wrist when she tries to stand. "You were kidding about Nessie, yes?"
She smirks. "Yes," she says.
"Oh, that's good." He lets go of her arm and she stands, watching him as he lies down, holding his stomach and looking like a martyr. It's cute and adorable and she kind of wants to kiss him better, but he's already asleep so she climbs into the passenger seat and looks at Zip, who is peering at her.
"What?" she says.
He shrugs. "You're going to break that guy's heart."
She looks into the back and sighs. "And he's going to break mine."