ATTN:/ I'm schizophrenic and that's depressing. All of my HL stories all relate to one bigger story-line, but breaking it up into smaller chunks helps it be more readable, IMO.

Plus I wanted to put this up because it's been somewhat quiet 'round these HL2 fanfic parts. /folksy talk

I'm really torn about two things:

Whether or not to even continue with this story line (ie if I'm even doing the awesome story of the HL universe justice)

If I should continue posting small snippets of story or save it all for one bigger one.

SO PLEASE, PLEASE REVIEW and tell me what you think!

One year after the 7-hour war.

Barney Calhoun stood there, his arms crossed and his foot tapping impatiently.

"NO! N FREAKING O, Doc!" Barney said, glaring at the man who stood (audaciously, in Barney's opinion) in front of him.

"Barney, I know I'm asking an extraordinarily difficult favor of you," Eli said pleadingly, "but we cannot live here forever. We will either run out of supplies, or be overrun by aliens, or the combine will find us and kill us all!"

"We will be fine! I will protect you and Kleiner and Alyx," Barney said, "A lot of people have died to get us here, and I'm not fixin' to waste their efforts, but I don't need to join the combine freaks!"

"We cannot stay safe forever. It's just not possible, Barney. You know that." Eli replied.

"I'm NOT joining them! You've seen what they do to people! They beat, torture and kill for FUN! I-I can't do it. It's WRONG!"

"It's what must be done. We've all got to make sacrifices," Eli said.

"WHAT sacrifice will YOU be making? What sacrifice have you made at all?" Barney spat bitterly.

Eli looked hurt, no doubt remembering his deceased wife. Azian had died a year ago during the Black Mesa Incident. Though a lot of people were killed, Barney didn't lose someone as close as Azian was to Eli. Barney immediately backed down, knowing he went too far.

"Look, doc," Barney said, regaining his composure, "I just can't do it! What if they want me to beat a woman? Or a kid? And what if I'm supposed to ship people to that prison…Nova Prospekt or whatever it's called. If they're really turning people into zombies there, then I…I can't do it!"

"What I'm asking isn't fair, Barney. If I could do anything to help, I would. But being that Kleiner and I were directly involved with the resonance cascade, we'll be killed….like Rosenburg was."

Barney hung his head, remembering what happened to Rosenburg. When the combine won earth, they took everyone and relocated them to Europe. When everyone arrived, they began running background checks on people. People were tortured and killed if they were deemed to be "threats" to the combine. Rosenburg, Dr. Bennett and Dr. Simmons were shot dead because of their involvement with the Resonance cascade- because they knew too much about teleportation technology and were a threat to the combine. Barney, Eli, Kleiner, Alyx and many others fled the camp into the forest amid a rain of gun fire from Combine pulse rifles, which ended up costing Eli his leg. A lot of people were shot and killed running, but the ones who managed to escape fled to abandoned and desolate houses in the middle of Alien-infested woods. The combine didn't even bother looking for the escapees, figuring that they would be bullsquid or antlion food. However, the refugees managed to keep the aliens at bay, mostly because the aliens were picking off wild animals for food, slowly eradicating earth's entire population of creatures once cherished.

Once in their refugee quarters, Vortigaunts- the brown aliens who plagued Black Mesa during the resonance cascade- sought them out and made peaceful contact with humans, finally providing them with an ally against the combine. A few Vortigaunts sacrificed themselves to sneak into combine cities where they were serving as janitors or maintenance hands in order to telepathically send back information about the combine to the vortigaunts living among the humans.

The Vortigaunts communicated information about the Combine, giving the refugees information about CP's, Nova Prospekt, and how the Combine controlled cities in general. All the information they received was terrible. In order to protect people from the horror of combine rule, the Vortigaunts shuffled some people out of the cities into refugee camps well outside of the cities, but they weren't able to do much because of their limited status in the combine cities, and the trek to a refugee camp was an extraordinarily long and dangerous one.

And if someone were lucky enough to make it out of the city and into the camps, the living conditions were less than ideal. Being that they were far outside the city, they were cut off from power and water, and it was very difficult to procure even the essentials. Worst of all, they were under constant threat from hostile aliens that were growing scarce on food after annihilating Earth's natural species.

Combine-controlled cities were protected from these aliens because of turrets, thumpers and other devices they installed in cities to protect them from aliens. The refugee camps in the country were considering, and relaying to each other via Vortigaunt, that if they could find hiding places within the limits of a combine-controlled city, but under the radar as to avoid detection, they would be able to have power, water, supplies and protection from ant-lions, head crabs, bull squids, and other aliens.

Other refugee camps had volunteers infiltrate the CP's, with mixed success. Some hacks were able to stomach their new positions, and procure good bases for rebels and refugees. Others, however, weren't able to bear torturing citizens in order to keep up their disguise and were, therefore, discovered and sent to Nova Prospekt for their spying.

Unfortunately, there wasn't any real established rebel camps near the city they were outside of- City 17. That was, according to the vortigaunts, one of the hardest cities to infiltrate, because it was Combine world headquarters. The closest rebel camp taken by undercover CP's was 100 miles away or more, and was actually inundated with rebels and could take no more.

"Barney," Eli said, snapping Barney back to the present, "You are not listed in the human index. A current spy can put you in the system as a non-threat and you'll be able to blend in and join CP ranks and help us from there. From there you'll be able to secure us safe-houses in or around a city, where we'll have more supplies, power, water, and everything else we need. If Kleiner or I try anything, Dr. Breen will surely recognize us! You're our only option."

Dr. Breen was the old administrator at Black Mesa. A weasely, conniving snake with a constant villainous smirk on his face, Breen was summoned by the few remaining world leaders during the seven hour war, because his facility had caused the portal in which the combine came through. Breen convinced the leaders to allow him to broker Earth's surrender and from there, the Combine instated Breen as the administrator of Earth. Barney knew that Eli was right, and Breen would never recognize him- he was the kind of prick that didn't bother remembering the faces of "lowly" security guards.

Barney ran his hand through his hair and let out an annoyed groan.

"Please, Barney," Eli said, "I know it's a monumental task, but please consider it."

That night Barney mulled over his thoughts. He wandered about the refugee houses, where a dozen people slept in one room and ate head crabs or other things that could be scrounged from the forest. He knew that this set-up wouldn't be sustainable forever. He knew that everyone's eventual plan was to take down the combine and create a revolution, but how long would that take? A year? 10? 20? 100? He had no idea how long they were going to be under combine rule. He knew that not much was brewing in terms of resistance at the moment, so it would be at least a few years, if not more.

He surveyed the rebel's resources, which were comparable to the stone ages. There was absolutely no electricity or running water. The Vortigaunts could provide electricity through their powers, but it wasn't enough to keep them with electricity all day and night, plus they couldn't use it that much because it attracted hostile aliens. Instead, rebels gathered around candles and mumbled to each other about family members who have died, or were sent to Nova Prospekt and turned into god-knows what.

With Barney serving as an undercover CP, he could shuffle citizens out of the Combine-controlled cities. The combine would think that all the citizens are dead; let their guard down because they'll think the human population is dwindling, but reality they will all be waiting outside of the city. Barney also figured that he could save people inside the city. Instead of a citizen getting beat to death by a CP, Barney could step in and pretend to beat them himself, while actually saving the person.

However, he wouldn't be able to save all of them. Barney heard the stories of the failed CP spies- not only the ones who cracked under the horrific pressure, but the ones who tried too hard to save citizens from abuse or death, and blew their cover. If Barney tried too hard to save someone, it would blow his cover to bits. If he saved too many, same story. Therefore, there would be times were Barney would be helpless and would simply have to watch as someone was beat, killed or shipped off to Nova Prospekt.

That situation simply wasn't a part of Barney's nature: to sit by and watch bad things happen to good people. Barney was always the type to get involved- to jump in when someone was getting mugged, whereas someone else would run away and not get involved and just simply hope the cops would come. Barney knew that a lot of times, his over protectiveness put him in very real danger, and maybe he did have an overly-involved persona, but he always figured it was better to be too involved and help someone than to be under-involved and maybe let someone get seriously hurt!

He would have to change his entire being in order to fit in with the CP's. Worse, still, he would not only have to NOT get involved, but he would have to be the one inflicting the pain upon someone. Barney wondered if contributing to the eventual take-down of the combine was worth having to abuse and hurt people. Would that be a big, story-book "happy" ending?

Maybe, he guessed, "happy" was really just a sum of many parts. Maybe a million crappy things would be outweighed by the monumental accomplishment of taking down the Combine.

But still, those million crappy things would exist. He would have to do atrocious things to defenseless people. Even if they were ever able to take down the Combine, these unforgivable atrocities would still weigh heavily on his soul.

Barney walked into a room where Alyx Vance, Eli's 8 year old daughter, was sleeping. She was attacked just today by an antlion, which was why Eli was so insistent on moving them into the city ASAP. Barney had to admit that seeing Alyx almost impaled by an antlion made him sick to his stomach with panic. He had to shoot the antlion himself and carry Alyx back with extremely shaky hands. Barney had fought so hard to keep Alyx safe, and it was almost gone in an instant that day. Barney didn't like the prospect of joining the ironically named Civil "Protection," but the idea of losing innocent Alyx Vance to a bullsquid, or an antlion, or some other horrendous alien was worse.

It took him many days to accept the idea, and he never actually fully accepted it, but he finally reluctantly agreed to join the Civil Protection.