Another of the credulity-straining mechanics of the 2013 game is the one that allows you to keep exploring after you've finished the main story line. Just in case there was a nest of eggs or some other exploit you had yet to complete for a perfect score. Well, I saw Lara's choice to leave the PT boat after Samantha's rescue in a rather, well, darker way...
"Lara, get your ass on the boat!"
That was Reyes, all right. She still didn't realize the full extent of what had happened here. Or how it had changed all of them. Lara turned. Her step was somehow lighter, for all that she should have been flat on her back in utter exhaustion. She looked into the back of the boat, where Jonas was tending to the unconscious Sam. A very faint smile came to her lips as her gaze lingered on her friend.
"You'll need food and water to reach civilization," she said quietly, then. "I will meet you at Shipwreck Beach. If I'm not there at dawn, leave. It is still not safe here."
"Lara," Reyes said angrily, "Some of those men are still out there."
"I know," Lara said. "That's why I have to go."
Reyes looked at the young woman in incomprehension. Took in the bruises, then the well-used and carefully tended profusion of weapons she carried. Then the look in her eyes. Her mouth opened.
"No," Lara said quietly. "You are an ex-cop, Reyes. So we won't say it. We won't say it, ever."
"But…you are talking about murder!" Reyes said it anyhow.
Lara shrugged. It was a gesture entirely without sympathy. "You didn't see what they did to Stephanie."
"Is this some kind of revenge shit, then? Is that what you are up to?"
Lara shook her head, with that same masked expression. "No. The story of the Solarii is over. When word reaches the authorities, they will be back to clean up the mess here." She kicked a pebble, and for a moment looked achingly like the college girl who had set out on the Endurance such a short time ago. "And they'll ask questions. Lots of questions. About what happened, about what they did. About what we had to do back. What we had to do to survive. And I won't put her through that, Reyes. I won't have Samantha dragged back through her experiences. I won't have her questioned about her actions here. I won't have her hurt, Reyes. Not any more."
She hitched the competition bow higher on her shoulder, and turned away, striding back into the underbrush in a way that only underlined how naturally she moved in this environment, now. How much she was a part of it, an apex predator of this blood-soaked island.
At the edge of the small clearing she paused. She didn't turn, but her voice was clearly audible. "We'll tell them a story they can accept. One they can understand. And there won't be any competing voices."
"Girl..." It came out of Reyes by instinct, but this time it wasn't meant in a patronizing way. "This will destroy you." She didn't realize that she had made a full transition in her thoughts. She no longer saw Lara as a youngster who was too cocky for her own good and just lucky enough to get away with it. For the first time since they had wrecked on Yamatai she was now seeing, and believing, in Lara as an unstoppable force. That she could, and would, walk back into the island to stalk and kill every last surviving Solarii. Lest they hurt her friend. Again.
Lara shrugged again. "Maybe it already has." And then she was gone.