AN: My apologies for the mishaps in chapter one with the lack of breaks between character perspective. They showed up in my document but when it posted here the breaks were gone. Hopefully this works better in chapter two.

The doctor didn't return the next day.

Instead, Doug was woken by an overly cheery Mel leaning over his bed with a smile that he was certain meant she was planning something sinister. When he tried to scramble away, allowing for a new wave of pain to shoot up from his stomach, the woman quickly placed her hands on his shoulders to try to keep him from moving any further.

"I'm telling you, you're going to hurt yourself if you keep jerking around like that," Mel warned him, her smile only wavering slightly.

He tried to break free of her grip but only managed to create another pang of pain that left him nearly doubling over. As gently as she could while still being forceful, Mel pushed him back down into a lying position. He curled up on his side as much as he was able, trying to protect his center from any new threats. That smile she wore was too uncanny. It didn't matter that she had brought him the cube, he didn't trust this woman.

"When you're crying because the doctor has to stitch you up again, don't complain to me," Mel told him, wagging a disapproving finger at his face. Doug only responded by attempting to curl up tighter, burying his face into his knees.

"Well, this won't do," the woman went on, backing away from the bed and, from what Doug could tell by sound alone, picked up something from the bedside table. It made a faint clanking sound, like glass, but slightly muffled.

"You can't eat if you're hiding your face like that," Mel explained, and at the mention of food Doug slowly poked his head back out. She was holding a bowl of what looked like rice, a spoon in her other hand.

His mouth watered. How long had it been since his last meal? It must have been days, if not a week. Warily, he uncurled himself and tried to sit up, though not without a bit of difficulty.

Mel handed him the bowl and spoon and Doug immediately set about shoveling as much rice into his mouth as he could fit. He barely took pauses to chew or even breathe, and his hands were still steadily shaking. Deciding that this was not the safest situation, Mel forcibly took the bowl and spoon away from him, leaving a very sad and confused looking Doug to stare at her in betrayal.

"You're going to choke that way," Mel said, handing him a cup of water. "Drink slowly."

He obeyed for the first few seconds, taking an easy sip, but as soon as the water went smoothly down his throat he gulped the rest of it as quickly as he could. He hadn't noticed how dry his throat had been, and having water for a change was the biggest relief he had felt in a long time.

Mel sighed, clearly disapproving. "You don't listen very well, do you?"

Doug made no response, only eyeing the still full bowl of rice greedily.

Mel scooped some onto the spoon, holding it out for him. "Open wide," she said, giggling when she noticed the face he was making. He was clearly offended by the treatment but obeyed nonetheless. Food was food, after all.

She fed him the rest of the rice, taking agonizingly slow in Doug's mind, and when she finished she promptly got up to refill the cup of water. Rice was never an exciting food to him, but in that moment he wasn't sure he had ever tasted anything so good. It was the freshest thing he had eaten in years, and it felt satisfying to eat a million of something.

Mel returned with more water, and this time Doug obediently took small sips, savoring the water instead of gulping it down as fast as possible. When he was finished Mel took the cup and placed it on the bedside table, to be refilled later. She was sitting in an old wooden chair pressed against the bedroom wall, sitting less than a foot away from the side of the bed. The room itself was very small, barely large enough for the single bed, table, and dresser in the far corner of the room. The cube sat on the other side of the bed, squished between it and the wall. It was all around very tight, but fairly large in comparison to the rooms he had been living in these past years, if you could have even called them rooms at all.

The woman crossed her arms, her usual pleasant smile now replaced with a more determined expression. It was almost frightening. Doug did his best to scoot away as far from her as possible, feeling the urge to curl up into a ball again in an attempt to hide from her gaze.

"Are you ready to talk yet?" Mel asked. Her voice was more serious now, intent even. It only made Doug more wary to answer her, and he shook his head in response.

"I know you can talk," the woman went on. "You had no trouble yesterday. I think after the help I gave you an explanation is the least that I deserve." Her words didn't sound threatening, or even angry, but more matter of fact. There was a patience to her voice as well, and it did help Doug feel slightly more at ease, if only a little.

"Let's start with your name," Mel said. "Just a name. It only has to be your first name, if you want."

"Doug," he said quietly, following her suggestion and only giving his first name. He wasn't keen on sharing his surname with anyone when he didn't have to, especially with strangers.

"Well that's a nice name," she said, a small smile coming back to her face. "Can you tell me what happened to you, Doug?"

He shook his head quickly, unwilling to bring that particular memory back up. Not yet, if at all.

"Alright, that's okay," Mel assured him. "Maybe we could start with where you came from? There aren't many towns around this area. You must have traveled far. Do you have any family looking for you?"

Doug shook his head again. No, he assumed any family he had died a long time ago. He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but from the state of the facility that he woke up in he could guess it had been more than just a few years.

"Would it help if I told you where I'm from?" Mel asked, now giving him an encouraging smile.

He looked at her cautiously, doubting that would actually help to alleviate any of his anxieties. He had no interests in speaking of Aperture. That place was better left forgotten, to rot underground in hell where it belonged.

"Though I doubt you would believe me if I told you," Mel went on, looking off to the side as if recalling a memory. "I can barely believe it myself."

Doug was giving her a curious look now. He doubted that anything she had to say would be as unbelievable as the things he had seen, but then again, he had no idea what sort of state the world was in now. Perhaps it was worse up here than it had been down there?

"Would you believe me if I told you I was from the 1950s?" the woman asked, almost laughing at her own statement.

Doug's expression had changed from curiosity to bewilderment. If she didn't have his attention before, she certainly had it now.

"It's true," Mel went on, her voice growing softer. "I'm over one hundred years old, in a manner of speaking." She waited for Doug to make some sort of response, but he remained silent, listening intently. "In actuality I'm only thirty-four," she continued. "But thanks to an . . . unfortunate situation, I found myself here, one hundred years in the future."

One hundred years? Had it really only been around fifty years since he went under? Something must have happened, something terrible for the facility to have been brought to the state it was in when he woke up.

"How?" he asked, the word barely coming out clearly between his hoarse voice and shock.

"Would you believe me if I told you I was a science experiment?" she asked, laughing again. "Or at least of sorts. It was meant to be a simple test, I was only supposed to be asleep for a few hours. When I woke up, however, the world had changed, and one hundred years had passed."

Doug's heart nearly stopped. She didn't mean . . . no, it couldn't be possible.

Mel gave him a knowing look. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

Instinctively, he looked down at his shirt, to where the Aperture logo had long since been torn away, only to realize his coat was gone. He hadn't had the chance to notice, but he was only in his button down shirt and slacks. Both his lab coat and shoes were missing.

"Your coat is being mended," Mel explained. "It was starting to come apart in some places, but I don't see the sense in throwing away good clothes if they can still get use out of them. Where did you find that coat?"

Doug didn't answer. Instead, he wrapped his arms tightly around himself, suddenly feeling very vulnerable. She couldn't possibly be from that place. He would have known if someone else was there, wouldn't he?

"Did you work there?" Mel asked, not needing to say the name. She knew he knew perfectly well what she was talking about.

Doug nodded, looking down at the sheets instead of meeting her eyes.

"I didn't know anyone else was alive in there," she said quietly, almost remorseful. "What happened?"

Doug held himself tighter, almost feeling sick. He didn't to talk about it, didn't want to remember it. But he also needed to know. Who was she really? How was she possibly from Aperture? And how on earth did she escape?

"How much do you know?" he eventually asked, looking up to face her.

Mel thought for a moment. "Not much," she admitted. "Everyone died, I know that. Machines have taken over the place. One even helped me escape." Her voice trailed off, as if she were lost in the memory. "Just as I was about to leave, we found something. The core that helped me seemed . . . scared of it. I'm afraid we might have allowed something dangerous to be woken. This was two years ago."

Doug's felt his heart stop for a moment. Something dangerous? He was certain he knew what she was talking about. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well, there was a security machine," Mel explained. "It seemed to think me and the core that helped me were responsible for everyone's death. So we shut it down. Unfortunately, it was also trying to stop that other thing, the one that the core was so afraid of. He seemed to think that by stopping the security machine, we had indirectly allowed for that other thing to stay alive. From how my friend reacted, I get the feeling it was something better left dead."

Doug nodded. From the sound of it, she wasn't the one responsible for reactivating the AI, so it had to have been someone else. Perhaps it was her? No, he wasn't going to think about that. He wasn't going to think about her.

"Do you know about it?" Mel asked, interrupting his thoughts.

He nodded again. "I helped build it," he admitted.

Mel bit her lip. "Could you explain? I want to know what happened since I fell asleep."

Doug looked back down at the sheets. He didn't want to talk about it, didn't want to relive it. Though now that she told him what she knew it almost felt like an obligation to repay her.

He kept it as short as possible, only explaining the essentials. He told her that he worked there during the early 2000s, and gave a brief synopsis on his involvement in the GLaDOS project and work on the ASHPD. He had expected her to be amazed and confused by the mention of the portal gun, but she explained that she had already encountered an earlier model herself. In as few sentences as he could, he told her about the takeover, and how eventually a test subject took her down. When it came to speaking about the test subject, he left it anonymous, giving neither information about her nor his involvement in her being chosen as the first test subject to use. As for what happened afterwards, all he told her was that he was shot and only had enough energy to get himself to a cryogenic storage chamber. From there, he simply woke up one day and managed to get himself out.

It was clear he wasn't telling her everything. Most of his story had obvious holes, and he barely met her eyes all throughout his explanation. But Mel didn't press him for further questions. Why, he didn't know, but he was grateful.

"I don't know too much of what happened out here," Mel explained once he finished his story. "Just the basics. Alien takeover, the rise of a resistance, can you believe it? Just like out of a science fiction book."

Doug stared at her in shock. He was certain she was pulling his leg but he really had no evidence to prove that. For now, he decided not to worry about it. What he had already learned that day was overwhelming enough without added information to give him even more anxiety.

"I guess we're both out of place in this world, huh," Mel said after a moment of silence.

Doug nodded in agreement. He was starting to feel sluggish, most definitely from having eaten so much for the first time in years. He tried to lie back down, realizing how sore he had gotten from sitting in the same position for so long. Mel helped him, straightening out the sheets and blankets and pulling them over him, gently tucking him in. It was strange having someone looking after him in this way, it almost felt maternal. He still felt a twinge of distrust, but much of it had been alleviated through their conversation.

She seems nice, the cube remarked once Mel had left the room and closed the door behind her.

"I thought you didn't like her," Doug remarked quietly.

I can change my mind, you know, the cube retorted. You aren't alone anymore. That has to count for something.

Doug thought about that. He had been alone, minus the cube, but even with that it didn't completely replace the need for fellow human contact. He wanted to be happy, to feel some sense of relief with his situation. But it didn't come. He might be free of the facility, but he was now trapped in a strange world that he no longer understood. And there was still the matter of her. She was still out there. The thought of her, of meeting those eyes again, sent chills down his spine.

He fell asleep with that image in his mind, tainted only by splotches of red.

When he woke up the world was dark and completely silent. The room felt cold, almost sterile, and there was a metallic smell to the air.

He was back.

Panic began to rise in his chest. He tried to move, but found it impossible. Something was wrapped tightly around him, completely constricting any movement he might have been able to make. In the distance he could see red pinpricks of light. They almost seemed to blink, twitching from side to side, searching. They were going to spot him at any moment. They were going to find him and he couldn't move, couldn't do a thing to stop it.

He was going to die.

Where was the cube? He couldn't hear its voice at all. Everything was so silent, the only sound he heard was his own breathing and rapid heartbeat. The red glowing lights seemed to only grow brighter in the distance, coming closer. He tried desperately to move, to free his arms, anything. He tried jerking his leg, which only resulted in a sharp pain from his center. Why couldn't he move?

"No no no no," he muttered, watching in vain as the lights drew closer. He continued to struggle but it made no difference. He was trapped. He was going to die.

Something grabbed him, shaking him by the shoulders. He tried to fight against it but it only gripped harder. Finally, his eyes shot open and he found himself face to face with a very worried Mel.

The world was still dark, but not entirely. There was dim light coming from his side, which upon further inspection he saw to be a lamp. He still couldn't move, and discovered that he managed to get himself tangled in the blankets. He felt damp all over, covered in sweat from the stress of the nightmare. That's right, it had only been a nightmare. Nothing more than a bad dream.

"Hold still," Mel instructed, carefully attempting to untangle the blankets from around him. When he was free of them, he immediately sat up and scooted back as far away from her as he could.

"For the last time, you've got to stop jumping around like that," Mel chastised him, dropping the blankets. She reached out and touched his forehead with the back of her hand, causing him to flinch.

"You're burning up" she noted, a look of concern coming across her face. "How are you feeling?"

He didn't have to answer that. His expression alone stated clearly that he was not feeling well. Though, he didn't feel sick, if that's what she had been asking. Panicked, yes, but not sick.

"You need to cool off," Mel decided. "Come on, give me your arm."

Confused, Doug kept his arms wrapped tightly around him, not trusting where she was going with this.

"If you don't give me your arm, I'll get the water sprayer," Mel told him, holding out her hand.

Not liking the sound of that at all, Doug slowly relented his arm, which Mel gently took and bent over so he could wrap it around her shoulders.

It took a bit of maneuvering, and a good deal of discomfort, but Mel slowly helped Doug get to his feet. He was shaky and completely unable to stay up on his own without Mel's support, but he was able to hobble beside her out of the room and down the hallway. Luckily, they were both rather small and could fit side by side in the cramped space.

The bathroom was next to the room Doug had been staying in, and it was just as small as he would have expected. He was surprised a toilet, sink, and bath could manage to fit into the tiny space, yet they did, and he and Mel both managed to fit themselves into it as well. However, there wasn't much room for actual movement.

Mel helped Doug sit down on the side of the bathtub and began to busy herself with turning on the water, adjusting the temperature so that it was pleasantly warm. All the while Doug watched with suspicious eyes, not liking where this was going.

Mel straightened up, turning her attention back to Doug. "Get undressed," she said, in the most deadpan tone he had ever heard.

Doug just stared at her in bewilderment. "Excuse me?" he asked.

"You need a bath; now, are you going to get undressed, or do you need help?" Mel asked, her words all business.

Doug was horrified. "No," he said, crossing his arms tightly around his center.

"No offense, but you smell really funny, and I don't want to think about how long it's been since you've properly bathed," Mel stated. "Now don't be a child and get undressed."

What happened next Doug tried to block from his memory forever. Mel was completely insistent, and he was powerless to actually fight against her. In no time she had him completely undressed, sitting in the bathtub with his knees pulled up to his chest as much as he could for some last shred of modesty, and a deep scowl on his face.

His wounds were wrapped tightly with bandages, but Mel still tried to be careful as she took the movable shower head and began rinsing him down. A fine layer of dirt and grime immediately began to wash away, however underneath was yet another layer of grime that would require some amount of scrubbing. Doug could take care of most of it himself, but Mel insisted on helping him with reaching the places that would be too difficult with his injury. It was humiliating at best, but he didn't dare argue with her. She was holding the shower head, after all.

Washing his hair was an entire new challenge in itself. Not only was it long and unruly, but it was horribly knotted and nearly matted in some areas closer to his neck. Since he wasn't allowed to lift his arms any higher than above his chest, Mel took charge of the hair washing.

After the initial discomfort, it almost became soothing. While the whole situation still rang a note of 'extreme danger' finally getting a wash after so long of being covered in layers of grime and sweat was relieving. It was unnaturally vulnerable, but he knew it would feel worth it in the end.

"Exactly how long has it been since you've washed your hair?" Mel questioned, yanking at a particularly difficult tangle, causing Doug to yelp. "Sorry," she apologized.

Doug shrugged, having to think about it for a moment. "Years," he decided, unable to discern anything more exact. It was too late at night for him to be thinking so much, let alone taking an aggressive shower.

"My hair wasn't in this state when I woke up," Mel commented. "Then again, from my perspective it was only a few hours that I spent in that place."

Doug would have nodded as response, but Mel was very insistent on him holding his head perfectly still while she worked.

"That core," Doug said, mostly thinking out loud and hardly realizing he had actually vocalized the words. "Who was it?"

"He was a maintenance core," Mel answered simply, though there was a note of affection in her voice. "He called himself Virgil."

Doug thought about that. He had heard towards the end about some of the cores creating names for themselves, as to why he couldn't say. He didn't work with the creation of the personality cores directly, only minor configuring on the ones specific to the GLaDOS project, and even then it was just to help with minor lines of code. He understood little about the cores themselves, or why one would have bothered to help a human escape. They weren't ever supposed to have that much intelligence, but knowing Aperture, he could only imagine what secrets surrounded their creation.

"I think you managed to meet the only nice thing in that place," Doug mumbled.

"You didn't meet anything nice?" Mel asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

Doug shook his head (earning himself a reprimanding pat from Mel).

"I suppose I got lucky, then," Mel said, grabbing the shower head and beginning to rinse out the shampoo. "Close your eyes."

Doug listened obediently, but Mel still held her hand over his eyes for extra protection. The rest of the bath went on in silence, Mel finally managing to untangle most of his hair after a great amount of effort and yanking on her part. When she was done, she grabbed him a towel and helped him dry off his hair, leaving the rest to him for modesty sake. While he finished up Mel went to retrieve his clothes, having went out and found him a decent pair of pajamas the day before. They were a little big, but luckily the pants had a drawstring and could be adjusted to fit. They made their way back to the room, where Mel carefully helped Doug back into bed.

"I'll have to clean these sheets tomorrow," Mel informed him, pulling the blankets back over him once more. "Do you think you will be game for getting up tomorrow?"

Doug responded with a nod. It still hurt to move, but the idea of getting out of this tiny room was impossible to pass up. Even the shower was a good change of pace, despite the great amount of discomfort that came with it.

"Good," Mel said, patting his head. Doug made a face at that. He wasn't sure he liked how she treated him like a child. It was patronizing, but he tried not to make too much of a fuss. She at least seemed to mean well.

"Try and get some sleep," she said before turning off the lamp and leaving the room, quietly shutting the door behind her. Doug almost asked for her to leave it open, but when the words were finally ready to come out he could already hear her walking down the hallway.

You look different, the cube inquired.

"I bathed," Doug explained quietly.

Bathed? The cube asked, clearly perplexed.

"It's cleaning yourself with water," Doug told it. "Maybe we can bathe you next?"

He could sense the cube shuddering. No thanks. Water isn't safe.

Doug chuckled at that. He had held the same opinion only an hour ago. But it was true, he did feel much better after showering. He hadn't felt this way in years, and it was like finally getting to feel like his old self again.

To feel human again.