Nora must have gone into sleep mode because the next time she opened her eye, she felt a lot better. Well, physically. She still felt terrible emotionally. Doug was sitting in the opposite corner of the room, his head resting against the wall. Was he dead or just sleeping? How long had she been out?

"Doug?" she called. "Are you okay?"

Doug roused from his sleep. When he saw that Nora's eye was open, he smiled.

"Glad to see you're okay," he said. "How are you feeling?"

"Better," Nora said. "I was thinking about something while you were gone."

"Oh? What's that?"

"When you said that there's still someone we can save, I realized that there's still hope for that woman. I mean, we can't be certain that she died. She did have on the Long Fall Boots."

"That's true," Doug said, scratching his scruffy beard. "So what do you want to do?"

"I want to go down to where the lady landed so I can try to help her back up here," Nora explained. "Do you think that's possible?"

"Well, hopefully she isn't down as far as I think she might be."

"And how far is that?"

"The Aperture Science Enrichment Center used to be a salt mine, and that goes down really deep. I'm not sure if she'd be able to land safely from that kind of height, even with the Long Fall Boots. But unfortunately, I have no idea how far she did fall, landing safely or not."

Nora looked disappointed. Would she be able to find the lady in time to help her? Who knew where she could have been! Doug saw that Nora was anxious about what to do.

"Nora, I made it to the outside," he said. "I was free for a few minutes."

Nora's pupil shrank in surprise. "Really?" she asked. "How?"

"I found an exit."

"Well, why didn't you leave? You could have saved yourself."

"But I had to save you."

Nora was confused by this confession. "Why…Why are you telling me this?" she asked.

"Because I want you to know that even though Wheatley—" Nora flinched at the name. "—moved rooms around so that it will be harder to find that exit, we can still find one if we're careful enough."

"But what about the woman?" Nora asked. "We can still save her."

"If we can even find her," Doug said. "It could take a long while until we find her again."

"What's with the change of heart, Doug?" Nora asked.

"I thought about this and decided that it would be safer for both of us if we just tried to find an exit rather than try to save Chell."

"Doug, I think we should help her," Nora insisted. "I'm sure she wants revenge on Wheatley, and I want to help her with that."

Now Doug saw what Nora was getting at. She obviously just wanted revenge on Wheatley, and she wanted to use Chell to get it. Doug supposed that Chell might want revenge, as well, but she probably just wanted to get out of here more.

"Nora, you're not thinking clearly," Doug said gently. "You're letting your anger towards Wheatley guide you."

"I need to help Chell," Nora said, her voice trembling a little. "I need to help her get back up to this level of the facility so she can take her revenge on Wheatley for trying to kill her." As she kept talking, her voice became more passionate.

Doug sighed and stood up. "I can see that there's no changing your mind," he said as he approached the core. "Very well, go down and help her, but I'm afraid I won't be able to go with you."

"What? Why not?" Nora asked, panic rising up inside her as she looked up at Doug from the table.

"I can't move nearly as fast as you, especially if the direction we need to travel is straight down. You'll find her faster if you just travel downward on vertical management rails."

"B-but Doug," Nora said meekly. "I can't do this without you."

"Sure you can," Doug said. He laid a hand on Nora's case and stroked the smooth metal. "You're stronger than you think, Nora. It's amazing that you're still here after getting hit so hard. And you must have helped Wheatley with guiding Chell around the facility when I couldn't so you're also clever. You can do this."