Out of Habit
"And what, pray tell, is so wrong about my plan, sir?"
A ticking of heels and nervous footsteps flew past the door. Soon, a vigorous slam isolated the office from the rest of the world.
"Money," Cave Johnson barked. "Money! That's what is always wrong with your plans! You are worse than a nagging housewife when it comes to that. We need more!"
Caroline stood in a corner of the office, shaking with repressed anger. She had not deemed herself capable of so much disbelief in a long time.
"Sir," she hissed. "We don't have any more."
She had been there too long to ignore it. The word impossible did not fit in that man's dictionary; repeating what he couldn't hear was a desperate measure.
Then again, they were, beyond any reasonable – or not – doubt, stranded on desperate times.
"If that is the case, how are we supposed to catch up with Black Mesa?" He was yelling without restraint, his face tinged and warped by the kind of fury that bursts all of a sudden. "Bastards stole all our unfinished research. They have funds, don't they? Then we must live up to them. Fund new projects. Experiment. We are science innovators, Caroline, not old ladies struggling to get up from their seats!"
If there was something anyone knew in Aperture at the time, it was Caroline's endless patience. From such a modest starting point, the amount of influence she had now was a goal only accessible to the most skilled and daring. She had been the one to broaden her restricted access to Aperture's complex business – and even more than cunning, grace and discretion, it had been her patience to do the trick.
Still, the truth ran deeper than that. Cave Johnson had first realized it far into her career, when it was too early to fully comprehend and too late to go back. Only in moments like these, with the two of them surrounded by silence, could he fully appreciate and fear her.
Yes, he had to admit it. Her calm was terrifying.
He watched her lips open from afar. Their motion was light, yet unmistakable.
"Very well, then," she said, stretching each syllable with a defying grace. "I quit my job."
"What?"
It was definitely one of those times. He had seldom seen her eyes become stone cold, losing all traces of warmth and silent negotiation. This was a different woman, a different person. A strong person.
Which didn't feel like Caroline at all, and yet was the one version of her that could make sense.
"I won't stay a minute longer, sir." Her features, still so noble in her older age, hadn't lost an ounce of their collected balance. "Not where I can't handle my jobin my own way."
He sat at his desk, curiously stuck in a situation he thought he could have faced better. Her face, motionless, was fiercely overwritten by a memory – a young secretary at the peak of her youth, beautiful, scared, helpless.
The past and present images of her clashed with the violence of an explosion. He was forced to ask himself a question, as upset as he was suddenly tired.
How many times had it happened already?
How many times had he slipped away from his duties, and loosened his grip on what he could control? Too often, for sure, she had silently offered to take his place – how early in their careers had he started to agree to this?
How much of Aperture was his, and how much had only been shaped by her?
Cave Johnson was, more than a businessman, a man of action. The figures and planning before the result had never bothered him. He had never cared, from the start, about the journey – he was all about the destination.
Like that, day after day, he had eventually come to depend on her.
Then, in front of her indignation, he did not find the courage to start remembering. It hurt too much. His own days had been shaped by her presence and her attitude – he could return hour after hour, back and back through the years, to find her touch in every moment of his success. She had rebuilt the weave of his life from the roots, always in silence, always delicately and apart.
He had taken her for granted. Now he couldn't do without her.
It had been a mistake. Coarse, predictable, not like the man he was. It still didn't feel like a mistake, even with the full weight of his frustration.
Come what may, he would always trust her.
"Stay, Caroline," his mouth spoke for him, ridding him of any chance to think it through. "Please."
She rewarded him with a long look, apparently neutral, yet full of a dignified superiority. Her answer came in a low breath.
"Yes, sir, if you leave it to me."
And as she walked out, graced by a thin smile he did not need to see, he knew she had won the war before it even started.