A/N: Sorry, that break dragged on longer than I intended. I've been working pretty solidly on original stuff, so that took priority for a while. Then one of my fiancé's friends unexpectedly passed away, so we've been dealing with that, which has been pretty much as you'd expect.
J.P., you never played Portal, and frankly this would be an odd choice of chapter to dedicate to you, but I'm here saluting you on the internet regardless. Take care, mate.
2035.
Married To Science.
The car cut a clear path through the wheat field, a straight line leading out from the ruins of main reception. The field was much greener than it had been when Chell had seen it last, the wheat looking withered and badly in need of care. Although the outskirts of the field had looked trimmed and tidy from where the citizens of Ishpeming had harvested their crops, the rest was a sea of neglect.
Chell and Doug stood balanced on the backseats of Gordon's modified Jeep, eyes peeled for the tiny shed that would let them into Aperture's hidden world. Chell blinked, her eyes watering from the wind. The air had a cold bite to it that thankfully hadn't been there when she'd emerged before, barefoot and injured. As she cleared her vision, a shape appeared on the horizon.
"There," she called, pointing.
Gordon twisted to glance up at her, amending his steering to head in the direction she was indicating.
Doug turned his head to look, having been scouting more to the left. His face registered his anticipation and wariness in equal measure. She knew exactly how he felt.
With the direction set, Gordon picked up speed, and Chell tightened her grip on the car's chassis. The wind blew her loose strands of hair out of her face and sent her faded flannel shirt flapping, making her wish she'd buttoned it up. The long-sleeved t-shirt she wore underneath wasn't keeping the chill out.
Her charred companion cube still sat outside the hut, nestled in a square dent in the wheat where she'd moved it to stand on. Gordon stopped the car not far from it, and Chell jumped down, walking over to look at it. She wasn't really sure why, but it made her feel a brief flutter of guilt that it had been left to vanish into the field, and she considered taking it back inside. Then common sense took over, and she stepped away.
She and Doug stood side by side for a long moment, simply staring at the battered corrugated surface of the shed and the perfectly normal-looking warning signs on the door. Behind them, Kleiner started to speak, but was quickly shushed by Gordon, who seemed to understand something of what they were feeling. Chell wondered if he would have felt the same returning to Black Mesa.
With a soft sigh, she stepped forward, halting an arm's reach from the door. She glanced back at Doug, the question plain to see on her face. She wouldn't make any move unless they were both sure. His jaw tensed for a moment, but then he decisively nodded. Chell lifted her hand and knocked.
The door sprung open almost immediately, making her step back. An elevator rose into view in the glass tube ahead, its curved door sliding open invitingly.
Chell hesitated, her heart pounding. Doug stepped up to her side, looking down at her with an openly apprehensive expression. There was determination in it too, and she knew he was going ahead with or without her. Well, there was no way she'd let it be without her.
She slipped her hand in his, gripping it tight. He squeezed back. Together, they stepped through the door.
It closed with a solid clang once Gordon and Kleiner had followed, and Chell tried not to reflect on how ominous it sounded. She let them enter the elevator first, so that she and Doug were facing the door. She closed her eyes briefly as it began to descend, then let them drift open, calm washing over her as she slipped into her usual Aperture state of mind.
She barely registered Kleiner's exclamations of surprise and awe as the journey gave them glimpses of the dark expanse between test chambers. She gazed at the all-too-familiar view of distant green-tinted lights and hanging cables, the insane but impressive sight of what the scientists had built and GLaDOS had expanded. It was another world entirely, one far removed from fields and dirt and storms, from people and politics. With a pang of dismay, she realised that what she'd feared was proving true, one of the many reasons she hadn't wanted to return.
I feel safe here.
Much of her most recent time at Aperture had, of course, been the furthest thing from safe, but the familiarity of its sterile smell and cold, subterranean air was almost reassuring. In the facility, she fitted in. She didn't have to worry about finding a place in the world, or feel inadequate at what her experiences had done to her body, (which was, ironically, Aperture's fault anyway). She'd already made a place for herself, first as an assistant, then as a test subject. Despite everything she'd been through, despite how hard she'd fought to escape, there was a traitorous feeling of comfort in coming back.
Shaken, she glanced up at Doug. He tilted his head to look at her, his blue eyes full of alarm, grim acceptance right behind it. Chell let out a breath, relief flooding her senses as she saw the same struggle in him. He understood. He felt the same way. She didn't need her head examining. Or at least, if she did, he did too.
The elevator sank down into illumination that was almost dazzling after the dim light of the lift shaft. GLaDOS's chamber looked exactly the same. Its curved wall of panels was dark, but the room was lit brightly. GLaDOS herself hadn't changed either. Her amber optic appraised them calmly as the elevator descended.
"Welcome back," she said, her tone carefully free of anything that might have been called sarcasm or sincerity.
Chell had forgotten how intimidating she could be in person, and she wished she could have seen Gordon and Kleiner's reactions. The elevator doors slid open, and she and Doug stepped out. It was surprisingly strange to stand on the floor of her chamber and not be wearing long-fall boots.
"The mute lunatic," the A.I. went on, "and the rat man."
"Hello, GLaDOS," Doug said levelly, his voice quiet.
"I see you left the moron behind. Thanks for that."
Chell had never dignified her with a single answer before, and the words stuck in her throat, going against every instinct she'd honed as a test subject. She pushed through, rattling out small talk as if GLaDOS was a stranger at a party, and conversation was mandatory.
"It's nice to have some peace and quiet," she made herself say. Then she glanced at Kleiner. "Well, sort of."
GLaDOS's chassis moved back a touch at the sound of her voice. The yellow gaze scrutinised her for a long moment, and Chell wondered what she was thinking. If past experiences were anything to go by, there was little chance of GLaDOS passing up the opportunity to make a snide comment.
"Well," the A.I. said at last, "I guess I'll have to think up a new name for you."
"You could use my actual name," Chell replied nonchalantly. "I know you have it on my file."
GLaDOS ignored her, tilting her head to look at Gordon and Kleiner. "And you must be the…Black Mesa scientists."
Her hesitation before speaking the name was small but noticeable. Aperture's rivalry was so deeply ingrained that Chell doubted she could help herself.
"Yes," Gordon answered with a brief throat-clearing cough. "Gordon Freeman and Isaac Kleiner. Pleased to meet you."
Kleiner seemed to have been thrown into a blissful, (and no doubt temporary), bout of silence, his face a picture of wonder and concentration as he studied GLaDOS.
"Hmm," said GLaDOS.
Gordon began a diplomatic and carefully thought out speech about how Black Mesa's Artificial Intelligence department had fallen woefully short compared to Aperture's, but Kleiner interrupted him with a torrent of enthusiastic babble and half-formed questions that appeared to take even GLaDOS aback.
Chell felt a surprising pang of sympathy for her. She had likely never experienced attention of that sort. It could take some getting used to.
"All right, stop," the A.I. ordered after a moment.
Kleiner obediently did.
"While it comes as no surprise that Black Mesa never produced technology like this, I actually do have things to do with my time. So if you could limit your…fawning…to fewer syllables, I think we'd all be grateful."
Rather than being discouraged by GLaDOS's habitual spiky remarks, Kleiner let out a delighted laugh.
"Certainly, certainly. My apologies. It's just…well, I would have given my right arm to work on a project like you!"
"That could be arranged."
Kleiner laughed again. "Wonderful!"
GLaDOS's optic blinked, then turned to the others.
Gordon gave a wry smile. "Yes, he's always like that. You get used to it."
"Do I have to?" GLaDOS asked, hopefully rhetorically.
Doug took the opportunity to take half a step forward. "GLaDOS, perhaps we could talk about why we came here?"
"By all means," she said, rotating lazily to face him. "Tell me why you went to all the trouble of escaping only to come back here after a mere three months, despite the fact that I very specifically told one of you not to."
Chell shrugged off the comment. "Give me a break. We destroyed the Borealis for you."
GLaDOS acknowledged that with a bob of her head. "Yes. So talk."
"I, uh, have a favour to ask," Doug began, stumbling only slightly over the words. "In exchange for a favour."
"A favour for a favour?" GLaDOS repeated, tilting her head thoughtfully. "There's nothing I want from you, Rat Man."
"Actually, I think there is," Doug retorted, his voice gaining confidence. "The testing euphoria. I know you've found a way to live with it, but it's still there, isn't it? It still drives you crazy. And the rewards at the end of a test aren't worth the withdrawal any more, are they?"
GLaDOS reared back a little as he went on, her optic wide.
Chell stepped up to Doug's side, adding her own voice to the argument. "You told me it gets unbearable. Let Doug delete it from your programming. Do science on your own terms, not because you're written that way."
GLaDOS seemed to have been rendered uncharacteristically silent, which Chell thought was a good sign. She was taking the offer seriously, at least.
"What is testing euphoria?" Kleiner asked in a loud whisper, only to once again be hushed by Gordon.
"And in return?" the A.I. asked finally.
"You gave me a huge supply of my meds," Doug said earnestly, "and I'm grateful for that, I am, but…after those five years are up, I don't know what I'll do. I'm here to ask…please, I need the formula, so I can try and make it myself. You know as well as I do, Aperture meds aren't like the ones big pharma produces. And to be honest, pharmaceuticals aren't what they were before the war. If you have the formula on the database…please may I have a copy?"
The following silence was strained. Chell felt Doug's tension, how rigidly he was holding his composure. He was pinning all his hopes on one gamble, and she wasn't sure what he would do if it came to nothing.
"No," said GLaDOS succinctly.
Doug let out a shaky breath, and Chell gripped his arm in support, shooting her a quick glare.
"There's something else you can have," GLaDOS went on.
In unison, Doug and Chell glanced up at her in confusion.
"I took up a hobby after you left," she told them casually. "Monitoring the cooperative testing initiative wasn't enough to keep me occupied, so I started working on something else on the side. Testing with robots isn't the same, you know. I mean, look at them."
She summoned a monitor from the ceiling, showing a half-solved test chamber. The two bipedal robots that Chell had briefly seen before her quick exit were chattering to each other, communicating where portals needed to be placed, then executing the tasks without hesitation. They were impressively efficient.
"So predictable," GLaDOS lamented with a sigh, "even after I had them reprogrammed to imitate human behaviour."
Kleiner and Gordon were watching with obvious interest, so she left the monitor where it was.
"You mean," Chell ventured, seeking clarification, "they're…too good at solving tests?"
"I mean it isn't science if the results play out exactly as you predicted every time. Where's the fun in that? But I'll get on to that in a moment." She turned her optic to Doug. "Rat Man…if you help me get rid of the last voice in my head…I'll do the same in return."
Doug narrowed his eyes at her, his uncertainty evident, but he automatically reached for the container she lowered on a claw.
"Take one of these every morning and evening for six months, and report to me for electrotherapy once a week."
"Electrotherapy?" Chell parroted in alarm.
Doug looked up from reading the label, his eyes wide. "Is this…have you…found a cure for schizophrenia?"
"It's easy to figure out, assuming you have a complete understanding of the human brain and its many complexities. But every brain is different. This cure is just tailored to yours. It would have to be made on a case by case basis."
"How?" Doug stammered. "It's not possible."
"Just because humans never solved the problem doesn't mean it's unsolvable. As a scientist, you should know that," GLaDOS chided imperiously.
"How?" he repeated. "Why?"
"I was bored."
"Did you make any other cures?" Gordon asked her. His tone was that of polite interest, but Chell knew he was thinking of humanity's depleted medical supplies.
"Some," GLaDOS answered. "Just a few simple ones. The common cold, malaria, type 1 diabetes, cancer. Humans are so…delicate."
Gordon's eyes widened as her list went on, but he said nothing else.
"You wouldn't do this out of mere boredom," Chell said with certainty. "What else is going on?"
"You told Wheatley you wanted to speak to us," Doug reminded her.
GLaDOS imitated a sigh. "Yes. I did say that."
They waited with forced patience while the A.I. considered her next words.
"You ignored what I asked you to do, Rat Man," she spoke up.
Doug looked up at her sharply, but his voice was calm. "I did what I thought was best."
"Thank you."
Chell raised her eyebrows in surprise, glancing at Doug. He looked equally stunned, but tried to cover it with a nod.
"You were right, deleting Caroline would have been…a mistake. But with her memories repressed, I can think clearly. What you did took away her emotional response. I can reflect on what happened without becoming…overwhelmed."
Her words were hesitant, reminding Chell of Caroline herself. Doug's theory that GLaDOS had found balance with the human part of herself seemed to ring true.
"In your absence," GLaDOS continued, "I was forced to come to a somewhat annoying conclusion."
"Oh?" Chell said curiously.
"Aperture Science…needs humans." She spat out the words as if they tasted foul.
Chell exchanged a glance with Doug, seeing the concern behind his placid expression. At the back of her mind, she couldn't recall if their agreement with GLaDOS had included the guarantee of their leaving the facility.
"Caroline had big dreams for this place," GLaDOS said, sounding surprisingly wistful. "When she got the job as Mr. Johnson's assistant, she thought she'd be in the perfect position to make them happen. Instead, his crazy ideas got her killed. But," she added grudgingly, "since I'm here, now, I guess I can't fault his decision."
"What dreams?" Doug asked gently.
"She was only nineteen when she first came here, did you know that?" At their head-shakes, she carried on with her narration. "She was one of many secretaries, tasked with typing up documents. It was beneath her, but she used it as a stepping stool. After three years, Mr. Johnson's assistant quit. Caroline had a friend who put her forward for the job. Mr. Johnson didn't take her interview seriously because she was young and a woman, but then she told him the truth about her opinion of Aperture's products. She thought they weren't good enough, she thought a company with so many resources should be dreaming bigger than shower curtains. She thought they could change the world, make it better somehow, so she told him her ideas. He hired her on the spot. Do you know what those ideas were?" She paused for more head-shakes. "She thought the elevator ride into the salt mine was too long, reducing productivity. It's common knowledge that the quickest route from point A to point B is a straight line. She wanted to find a way to travel from point A to point B by making them the same point."
"Portals," Doug spoke aloud. "They were Caroline's idea?"
"They were," GLaDOS confirmed. "They took a few years to perfect, but they got there. Although Mr. Johnson never authorised them for staff use. He had…other ideas."
"So Caroline steered Cave Johnson onto the path that led to…well, all of this," Chell said, gesturing to their surroundings and including GLaDOS in it.
"Ironically, yes. She thought she was doing what was best to turn the company into what she imagined it could be. But Mr. Johnson was a force of nature that could not be contained. She found that out soon enough."
"Did Cave Johnson really die of lunar poisoning?" Chell asked bluntly.
"No," GLaDOS replied at once. "It was poisoning that killed him, but the moon rocks were harmless."
"Why did she do it?" Doug said, his words holding an appropriate amount of sensitivity.
"He took something irreplaceable from her."
Her rapt audience remained quiet, waiting for her to continue. Even Kleiner was silent, his eyes wide as he listened.
"Caroline's job was crazy and stressful, and she often saw things she wished she hadn't," GLaDOS told them. "But at the end of the day, she went home to her husband, a man who never failed to make her smile and cheer her up. When she became his assistant, Mr. Johnson told her she was expected to be completely dedicated, to have no other distractions in her life."
"Married to science," Chell said, thinking aloud, remembering the pre-recorded messages she'd heard down in the remains of old Aperture.
'Sorry fellas, she's married. To Science!'
"Precisely. Caroline never revealed that she had a husband. Giving him up would have been the logical thing to do, but she couldn't."
"She loved him?" Doug said softly.
"I suppose you could call it that. Science was always the greatest love in her life," GLaDOS told them, the revelation coming as no surprise. "It drove her to accomplish great things, but the price was that she had to leave her morals behind. The knowledge of what she did – what she knew she could do – was why she needed Freddie. He made her feel human again, reminded her that she cared. He kept her grounded, kept her from becoming too much like Mr. Johnson. She needed a part of her life that was far removed from this place."
Chell felt a flicker of sympathy. It was a familiar story. She'd seen her father take the same path, only she hadn't been enough to keep him from giving everything to Aperture.
"Mr. Johnson was…compelling," GLaDOS went on. "It was difficult to be around him and not get drawn into his world. His visions of the future were unlike anything Caroline had ever imagined. She couldn't not be a part of creating it. And he needed her."
That much had been made abundantly clear by the recordings down in old Aperture. Chell wondered about that bright, enthusiastic Caroline she'd heard, whether her passion had been genuine or forced for the sake of Cave and his messages.
"For years, it worked pretty well," said GLaDOS. "She was capable enough that Mr. Johnson never suspected, or even took an interest in her life outside the facility. But he found out eventually. It was around the time that he was starting to look into artificial intelligence. The concept of me was on the horizon, but he had no way of realising it yet. He started small, with prototypes of the technology that would eventually create the moron." Her voice took on a slight sneer at the word. "One day Caroline went into work to find Mr. Johnson very excited about a brand new prototype A.I. that he'd had the lab boys create. In artificial intelligence terms, it wasn't much. Its sentience was low at best, and it mostly did what it was programmed to, but he'd succeeded in capturing a sense of the personality of its base. The mind-mapping process had killed the test subject, but it was a step in the right direction as far as Mr. Johnson was concerned."
Chell gazed up at her in horror, knowing exactly where the story was going. GLaDOS noticed her expression and bobbed her head.
"Yes," she acknowledged passively. "He'd taken Caroline's husband."
Chell covered her mouth with her hand, taking the knowledge in. "I knew he was probably insane, but…I had no idea it extended to something so…malicious."
"In his mind, he'd simply solved a small problem. Freddie was in the way of Caroline's work. He needed her work, so…"
"He had to go," Doug finished, looking appalled.
"Yes. And grief makes people do extreme things. Although it was not purely for revenge that Caroline did what she did," GLaDOS said defensively, "she was also worried that the same thing might happen to someone else. Of course, it backfired on her in the end."
"I do not approve of the lady's actions," Kleiner spoke up, "but one can certainly understand them."
GLaDOS nodded to him in response.
"Did Cave suspect her?" Doug asked. "Is that why he put her forward for this project?"
"No, he never suspected a thing. His mind didn't work in the same way as other people. His only thought was to protect his legacy, and he knew Caroline was the one to do it if he didn't survive long enough to do it himself."
"Why didn't she cancel the project after he died?" Gordon asked, arms folded as he listened to the story.
"She tried," GLaDOS explained, "but Mr. Johnson had had paperwork drawn up and had forged her signature on the consent form. It was water-tight and very complicated. She could have found a way out of it, but not without upsetting a lot of investors, which would have shut the company down for sure. She chose to keep it running, and in the end…she accepted her fate. The project took so long to get off the ground, she had plenty of time. Those final years were her chance to set Aperture on the road she'd always wanted to travel, but she was distracted by the progress in artificial intelligence. Eventually, she would have found a way to get Freddie back, I'm sure. If she'd had the time. As it is, she still has some part of him."
Chell glanced at her, puzzled. The speaker system emitted a soft beep.
"All reactor core functions are normal," the announcer declared cheerfully. "Have a good day!"
Chell's eyes widened in shock. Beside her, Doug seemed equally stunned.
"Is there any way to…save him?" he asked, stumbling a little over the terminology.
"No," GLaDOS replied, her impassive tones hiding whatever opinion she might hold on the subject. "There isn't enough information in the databanks, and he isn't sentient." She flicked her optic up in the direction of the speaker. "Perhaps I could rebuild a fully artificial version in time, but…I'm not sure who that would really benefit. Caroline's guilt might be eased, but that's all."
"I think it could be done," Kleiner said excitedly, raising a hand. "With patience and time, and the right foundation. You said yourself, nothing is unsolvable."
GLaDOS studied him in silence. Chell thought she was pondering the scientist's words, but it was difficult to tell.
"Perhaps," she said at last. "But this leads me to my point. Testing with robots isn't making any progress. Aperture needs humans."
Chell opened her mouth to protest, but GLaDOS went on without a pause.
"I don't just mean as test subjects. I mean staff."
Objection dying in her throat, Chell halted, dumbfounded.
"But," Doug started, jaw clenched, "you had staff. You killed them all."
"It was a mistake," said GLaDOS. "I was young, I was angry, I wanted revenge. I didn't know myself at all, but now I do. You were right when you said I didn't need the testing euphoria. Science is enough. I want this facility to function again, the way Caroline wanted it to. Humanity is depleted after…whatever that was up there. If I want people to work here, I need to make sure they're in top condition. That's why I started creating the cures." She indicated the bottle that was still clutched in Doug's hand. "That will work. You'll be free of your voices and hallucinations. Forever. Then perhaps…you'll consider working here again."
Chell looked at Doug, seeing his astonished expression, and feeling as if she wore a similar one. It was so much to take in, she wasn't sure where to start.
"And you…Chell."
At the sound of her name, she turned to meet the A.I.'s amber gaze.
"The two of you worked so hard to bring this place down. Help me rebuild it the way it should be."
She wasn't sure if it was GLaDOS or Caroline who was asking. She suspected there was no longer a difference between the two.
"We need to think," Doug told her, and Chell nodded her agreement.
"Let us go back to our friends and discuss it," she said, "and we'll return tomorrow with an answer."
GLaDOS reluctantly acquiesced.
"Um…excuse me," Kleiner said with a polite cough. "I would like to stay and see some of the facility, if I may."
"Isaac," Gordon began with a heavy sigh.
"I don't know if you included me in your offer," the older man went on regardless, "but I would very much like to work here! Perhaps a merging of Aperture and Black Mesa is just what humanity needs."
"Of course," Gordon mumbled under his breath.
GLaDOS peered down at Kleiner in apparent surprise.
"The Borealis was a remarkable piece of technology," he added with eagerness, "and I understand that it actually fell short of Aperture's usual standards, which amazes me."
"You may stay and see the facility," GLaDOS said firmly, "and I'll think about the rest."
"Excellent!" Turning to the others, he beamed. "I'll see you tomorrow, then."
Gordon waved a dismissive hand. "Fine. See you tomorrow."
Chell glanced uncertainly from Kleiner to GLaDOS, but she wasn't overly concerned. Not as she might have been an hour or so before. She followed Gordon and Doug into the elevator, sending the A.I. a courteous nod before they were whisked upwards.
"Well," said Doug after a moment's silence.
"Well," Chell repeated.
"We have a lot to think about," Doug added in a rather spectacular understatement.
She nodded gravely. "We do."
Gordon let them have their silence on the journey back to Ishpeming. When they arrived, he left them alone while he went to update Alyx. They were still sitting in the back of the car when evening fell.
They traded opinions and arguments, throwing ideas back and forth like a ball in a tennis match. Chell's mind was a blur of weighed-up doubts, histories and possibilities, her own hopes and fears underlining the whole thing. Everything she needed to take into account fought for attention in her thoughts, giving her a persistent, thrumming headache. But soon an answer began to take shape, stepping forward out of the muddle. The only thing was, she wasn't sure if Doug would have reached the same conclusion. She was almost afraid to ask, but backing down from things wasn't in her nature.
With a deep breath, she turned to Doug and prepared to speak.
A/N: I just want to add as a footnote here that Doug receiving a cure for his condition does not – repeat, does not – make him any more 'normal' or any more of a person than he was before. His schizophrenia does not define him, but it is an important part of his life, and I don't follow this storyline lightly, because representation is so, so important.
I wanted to play with the idea of GLaDOS deciding not to reanimate the dead as a hobby, but rather try and 'fix' the problems humanity has to deal with. I've never attempted to write a reconciliation between GLaDOS and humanity before, and this seemed like a good olive branch for them to start with. With that in mind, it seemed kind of odd to me that she wouldn't think of Doug as a good subject, particularly since they have some empathy for each other and the voices in their heads. That is the only reason why I went with this idea. Doug Rattmann is a good and pure and whole person with or without his condition.