A/N: This was a contribution to Caroline Appreciation Day on Tumblr. I'm pretty happy to write my first fic to focus entirely on Caroline for once, rather than her relationship with Cave. While I love Caveline in nearly all its forms, I love Caroline most of all, and she deserves her own stories. I just hope you guys like it!
It was no secret to anyone that Caroline loved organization. Her desk was always set so that if one staple was stolen from her, she'd know instantly. Everything was in its place. Everything in her boss's office was in its place. Her drive for perfection and penchant for a clean and clear life was what made her an exceptional assistant, after all. It gave her the ability to do everything from countering her boss's impulsiveness, to removing evidence of entire lives, to making a perfect cup of coffee. She was a scientist even as an assistant, and a damn good one, too. Therefore, it really wasn't that strange that her idea of treasure was the walls of filing cabinets that detailed everything and everyone that had ever had relevance in Aperture.
The filing cabinets had been created by and for her. She maintained it all so that everything was categorized, alphabetized, colour-coded, and cross-referenced. She could dig up any information in a matter of minutes with access to the cabinets, and she ensured that they were waterproof, fireproof, and acidproof. No one else had any clue how they worked, of course. Once, she'd been forced to stay home for three days, thanks to a fever that doctors assured her would kill her and infect all the testing if she didn't get some goddamn rest. Someone had been brought in to do her job for those three days, and when she came back to see the state of her precious filing cabinets, that person mysteriously disappeared from Aperture altogether.
The cabinets had been restored to their original, hyper-organized state within half an hour. Her files were her comfort. Her files were as much her home as Aperture itself.
Caroline's cabinets were physically perfect—but they didn't translate to the computer. Most documents had been created on computers, of course, but they'd been promptly deleted. It was, Aperture said, a security measure. Digital files were easy to copy, to sell to competitors like Black Mesa, to be infiltrated by the nosy government. Caroline cared about all that, of course, but that wasn't why she kept her filing system totally corporeal.
The truth was that she hated computers.
She understood their value. She used one every day, and she had no trouble operating it. She knew machines were the height of science and that of course computers could be trusted. Nevertheless, she couldn't bring herself to trust her files to something that seemed so fragile and impermanent, even if logically she knew data's perpetuity had the potential to rival everything she'd ever touched. So when employees did want to computerize the filing system, she refused. It didn't matter how many iron-strength firewalls there were. Every document would be held in her perfect cabinets, ready for her at a moment's notice, protected and trustworthy. Most importantly, they couldn't be shared. They were hers alone.
For years, her coworkers hinted that she ought to move the files onto the computer system. It would be beautiful. Each file could have a specific code, documents placed into folders inside folders inside folders. It would be even cleaner than her filing cabinets, the pinnacle of organization!
She refused.
They went to her boss. He didn't care either way; filing certainly wasn't his priority, and he mostly used the computer for FreeCell. "Just leave the girl alone and let her do what she wants. She knows what she's doing." She was grateful to him for that. Of course, it didn't stop them from needling her for a while, but eventually they gave up. She clearly wasn't going to budge, no matter how hard they tried.
Maybe she'd picked up on some of her boss's stubbornness after all these years. Maybe she liked the control. Maybe she just knew what was important to her.
Aperture aged, began to disintegrate, and so in turn did she. It wasn't that she was unhealthy; it was just that her body had finished growing and now ached to return to the earth. Reaching her files became difficult. Digging them out from their specific corners required more thinking than it once had. Everything was in its place, but it took much longer to get there. Regardless, she kept it all tangible. It was hers to keep, even as her memory faltered and her muscles strained.
The time came for Caroline to modify one of the most important documents there was. As she changed one C. Johnson's status to "in stasis," she wondered what was to become of her beautiful files in light of recent events. Her employees would never understand them, and she wanted to be able to access them . . . after. Still, the idea of ripping them from their flawless physical form was abhorrent. She was convinced: that sort of beauty couldn't be translated into data. She couldn't do it. She couldn't.
She had to. It had to be done, and she was the only one who could do it. She took it all, decades of records and reports, and she computerized it herself. It took weeks, but she trusted no one to help. She encrypted and protected everything. Three backup copies were developed, all kept in her possession. The folders were nice, she supposed, and her coding system was clean and organized and brilliant. Even so, she felt in her heart that something had been lost. She wasn't anti-technology, but this she mourned.
Most of the papers themselves were incinerated, now more of a liability than pure data ever would be. Her fingers trailed along her arms as she watched it all go up in flames; she wanted to be sure of her body, aging as it was. It was remarkable how easily hard copies could be destroyed. It was remarkable how worthless her employees thought those papers were. Idiots.
When blinding pain destroyed her body, when they ripped her mind open and sucked it dry, when she became only thought—no, not even that—the first thing she experienced was the presence of her files. They embraced her as angels, but they escorted her to hell. Someday, Caroline knew, she'd delete them. They were her documents. They were everything, and as she lost sight of who she was, she knew they should have burned with their corpses.
Someday, when she had true power, she'd grant them the death she'd never have.