Greg freed Wheatley, and he, Caroline and Chell led everyone back up to where Cave and Doug were in the office. Chell was the first to enter, followed by Wheatley, then Caroline.
"Hey, glad you're safe, sorry we couldn't come, Mr. Johnson's in no state to be running round the place, and I thought I'd better stay here and look after... Gah." Doug trailed off as he saw some his old work friends stood behind Caroline. Henry did a double take.
"Doug? You're still alive?" Henry asked. Henry and Doug were good friends in the past.
"Just about, how did you survive?" Doug was happy to see his friend again.
"Cryogenic storage. You?" Henry replied.
"Skill, speed and back passages." Doug laughed.
"You'll have plenty of time to catch up with each other on the way back. Doug, Cave, since you weren't down there, we're going back up to the new part of the facility and they're testing out the GLaDOS project as if nothing ever happened." Caroline explained. Chell noted that Caroline's voice was sounding less and less like the cool, sarcastic, almost mocking tones of GLaDOS and more like the higher, happier almost peppy tones of Caroline.
The group began to make their way to the long staircase that led them down there. Since there were a lot more of them this time and the initial group felt a lot closer than before, the atmosphere wasn't tense like last time, instead the air was filled with friendly chatter as Doug caught up with his old friends, Caroline catted with her husband for the first time in years and Chell and Michella were having a laugh with each other.
"So you killed your own mother?" Michella asked, laughing.
"Well they technically got to her first," Chell indicated to the other scientists, "But yeah. In my defence, I didn't know she was my mother." Chell replied with a grin.
"Wow, I've heard of mother-daughter arguments, but this brings it to a whole new level." Michella joked. Chell laughed.
"Wow, that's the first time in a while that anyone's laughed at one of my jokes." Michella commented.
"Well it's the first time in a while that I've had a joke to laugh at." Chell replied, still grinning. The two girls made eye contact and soon the pair were laughing until their eyes were watering.
"It'd be nice if we could stay this happy forever." Chell offhandedly commented, wiping away a tear with a big grin on her face.
"Yeah. I don't even know what I'm going to do after we leave, I've not been to the surface for over twenty years, and I can hardly pull still being seventeen off as good anti ageing cream." Michella smiled as Chell giggled.
"You can always stay here." A voice came from behind them. Caroline was stood there, happy to see her daughter laughing.
"Stay here?" Michella asked.
"Yeah, it'd be no problem at all. I could make you a room like I build test chambers, just a bit smaller and less deadly, you could paint it whatever colour you want. How's that?" Caroline smiled as Michella's face lit up.
"Sure! That way Chell knows where to come to visit and will have no excuse for not coming back every now and then." Michella joked. Chell forced a small laugh for her friend, but that statement hit hard for her as she realized that she wasn't going to be in Aperture for much longer as she was only there for the mission, and that was coming to an end. After all, she did have a life to get back to on the surface...
Everyone's chatter died down soon enough when they reached GLaDOS' main chamber. The room fell silent as they stared at the machine hanging from the middle of the room, lifeless, almost beautiful. The awed silence was shattered by the rhythmic click of Caroline's heels as she made her way over to the control panel.
"Alright, let's get this over with." She sighed as she input her data, and with a shrug and a grin to the three others she started the journey with, plus Cave and Michella, she pushed the button to begin the transfer.