A/N: Final chapter, guys! I'm sorry it took so long. Once again, I've been really tied up with other stuff. That's no excuse, I know, but my brain isn't very disciplined sometimes.

2036.
Living With It.

The sun was hot on the back of Chell's neck; once a welcome heat, now an annoyance. She wiped a hand across her forehead, adjusting her hat. She'd made it herself, weaving strands of straw together until it vaguely resembled a wide-brimmed fedora. It was the most hideous-looking thing she'd ever seen, and she wore it with pride.

She moved into the shade of the house, swinging her basket to the ground. Sitting on the blissful coolness that was the porch, she set to work washing her morning's haul in a bucket, sighing as she dipped her hot hands into the water. She appraised each potato as she scrubbed it, searching for imperfections. It was with some irony that she reflected on her thriving potato crop. It was by far the best-growing food product in the garden. Although she was grateful to have a thriving crop of anything, Chell couldn't help but wish for greater success with the tomatoes, beans, wheat or any of the fruit trees. Anything but potatoes. She ate them, of course, but it was still disconcerting to cook something that had once spent considerable time talking to her.

"Not the same potato," she reminded herself, as she had done countless times since.

A chicken rounded the corner of the house, beady eyes appraising her with a suspiciously judging expression.

"Oh, don't you sass me, madam," Chell addressed it sternly, gesturing with the potato she happened to have in hand. "Start laying again and maybe you'll have earned the right to look so snooty."

The chicken nonchalantly stared at her for a moment, before pecking at the grain that littered the ground. Chell watched it and its companions while she worked, amused by the way they fussed around the yard, their world reduced to the haphazard wire fencing that she had constructed around the borders of her garden. The house was a comfortable size that she had built herself, (with a lot of help from kind volunteers), and the garden was her livelihood. She'd designed it mostly for function, with the vegetable beds, fruit trees, and hen houses taking up much of the space, but she'd left room for flowers and a bench, and a modest memorial spot in one corner. Since it was the only house and garden for several miles, there was plenty of room for expansion if it was needed.

She was just rinsing off the last potato when a noise caught her attention. Glancing sideways, she heard the rattle of a key, then the door to the tiny outbuilding opened and a scientist stepped through. Her scientist, to be exact. She felt a smile break out on her face.

Doug looked stressed, his hair sticking up in wild spikes, but he returned her smile when he saw her, weaving his way through the chickens to sit beside her on the porch steps.

"Hi," he greeted, ducking under the brim of her terrible hat to kiss her.

Chell obligingly pushed it up out of the way, tasting coffee on his lips, inhaling the faint, unchanged scent of the labs that hung about him like a cloud.

"How's your day going?" she asked when he sat back.

"Slowly," he replied at once. "The device is fighting back at every turn. The calibration needs tweaking. Again. I can't seem to get it quite right."

"Don't be so hard on yourself," she told him, gently chiding. "You're building a country-wide – potentially world-wide – travel network. It was never going to be straightforward."

"I know," he said, folding his arms over his knees. "It will come together eventually, I'm sure. It's just sometimes…I kind of wish that Caroline had dreamed slightly smaller."

She tried and failed to hide her amusement. "I'm sorry, but she was right. It's stupid to have working portal technology and confine it to puzzle-solving. It should be used to cross long distances, especially now that the world is how it is."

"I know that," Doug said with a sigh, running a hand through his hair. "I think she's right too. I just have a headache. I want to get on with the work, not be tied up reporting to the damn president. I'm a terrible frontman for this project."

"I disagree," Chell countered, setting the potato down and drying her hands on the legs of her jeans. "The only reason I want you to step down from that position is because you don't want to be there. But otherwise, you're actually pretty good at it."

"The only reason I'm staying put is because I don't trust Kleiner with it," he confided.

"Kleiner seems happy tinkering with the robots. And Angela's keeping an eye on him."

"Yes," he agreed. "He's good at running that department, I have to admit. But still…he'd have the right to get in on this, especially as one of the founders of this new Aperture. I think…I think I'm going to hand over to GLaDOS."

Chell raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Will President James deal with an A.I.?"

"Once I introduce her to him, she'll probably make a convincing case for herself without my help, but I'll try and persuade him. How's your day going?"

"Not bad," Chell reported, nudging the basket with the toe of her boot. "I got a lot of potatoes again. You can take them back with you if you want. Gerry can use them in the cafeteria."

Once again, Aperture ran alongside their lives, engulfing almost everyone they knew. But this time, it didn't feel oppressive. Perhaps it was the state of the war-torn world they lived in, and the fact that the lab's resources were being used responsibly for the first time in years – possibly ever – but Chell knew that neither one of them felt tied to it this time around.

After they had returned from their initial conversation with GLaDOS, both had formed set opinions about the propositions she had laid at their feet. Sitting in the back of Gordon's car, they had shared those opinions and made plans for the future. Chell had admitted how returning to Aperture had made her feel safe, and Doug had said the same, confirming her suspicions that they were united in the realisation that escaping had done nothing to sever their ties to the place. It was there that their feelings differed.

Chell had resolutely decided not to take GLaDOS up on her offer. She had been tempted. The thought of resuming her old job, assisting with the running of the facility, and the familiar and new challenges it would throw up had looked appealing. It would have meant a place and purpose, an answer to the uncertainties she'd been worrying about ever since they had re-joined society. But it would have been the easy way forward, and Chell had never done anything the easy way. Instead, she'd set herself the task of becoming self-sufficient, of building a place to live not far from Julie and Angela, so that Doug could spend time with his sister when he wanted. It was the toughest challenge she'd ever faced, but she'd weathered it and emerged triumphant, providing not only for herself and Doug, but adding to the food supplies of the city of Wyoming and Aperture's cafeteria. Compared to some of the farms, what she contributed was tiny, but it was all helpful, it was all needed, and it gave her more satisfaction than she'd anticipated upon starting up.

By contrast, Doug had become an Aperture scientist once more. For him, it was not about taking the easy route, but a desperate need to go back and fix what had gone wrong. There was no way to undo the past, of course, but Chell knew how much he needed to turn his work there into something more positive than it had been. He wanted to help move the company forward, to contribute to making the world better. She understood his reasoning, even if she couldn't do it herself. He was trying to change his own perception of the place, so that it held no power over him. He could never forget that GLaDOS had killed his co-workers, just as Chell could never forget what had happened to her father, but they both knew it worked the other way too: GLaDOS would never forget how they had worked to bring her down twice. Tentative trust began to build up, bizarrely based on a foundation of mutual distrust. From there, they were all able to move forward.

Doug was working closely with GLaDOS to put portal technology to the more practical use that Caroline had first envisioned. It enabled him to live in Wyoming and commute to Ishpeming in a single footstep. Chell had built him a small outbuilding, where he had installed one of the panels that she remembered from tests, the ones that had supported the pre-placed portals. It linked to a similar small room inside his lab. Both were kept securely locked, for safety and privacy reasons, and they had proved a successful first application of the technology. Now they were thinking bigger, finding ways to cross states, even continents, as Chell's shot to the moon had already proved that range wasn't an issue. Doug was busy developing different portal frequencies so that there wouldn't be any mishaps with destinations, working on the back of the techniques GLaDOS had developed when building the co-operative testing initiative, which allowed for four portals within the same puzzle.

New Aperture, as they had nicknamed it, had changed many of the lives around them. Chell sometimes went in with Doug, running through a few test chambers for old time's sake. GLaDOS seemed to enjoy the opportunity to be spiky with her again, and Chell didn't mind it so much now that she'd ensured the proper safety features were in place. Without deadly lasers, toxic goo, or lethal turret rounds to deal with on top of the barbed comments, the comments alone seemed much easier to brush off. Secretly, she knew it would have felt very strange to test without hearing them. She'd always enjoyed the challenge of the tests, somewhere deeply buried under the stress, anger and fear. Sometimes she relished the chance to set her garden aside and focus her mind.

Kleiner had happily accepted a job in the labs, and he was working on a series of non-sentient robots to aid with manual labour, dabbling in artificial intelligence on the side. Doug's niece, Angela, had joined as his assistant, and to ensure that he didn't get too carried away. Gordon had been offered a post, but had politely refused on grounds of enjoying his retirement. He had, however, taken on the task of distributing some of GLaDOS's cures, which had only served to heighten his hero status, despite his adamant claims that he had had nothing to do with their development. He quickly gave that up, not just because of the attention, but also due to the fact that he and Alyx had their hands full following the birth of Eliza, their daughter. Occasionally, he would take some time out to visit and join Chell in running a few co-operative tests, and the two often engaged in friendly competition, despite the fact that the tests called for teamwork.

The citizens of Ishpeming had benefitted from Aperture's re-emergence. Many of them got jobs there, as office clerks or test subjects, (again, with proper safety protocols in place), and Gerry had happily taken over the cafeteria. Chell had learned that he'd shown an interest in cooking before the war, and she was pleased that he'd managed to find a way to integrate it into his life. Trevor, like her, opted to stay aboveground, but he had his hands full growing produce for the sudden influx of residents in the town, mostly scientists who came to join Aperture's new ventures.

Chell had a pleasing balance of solitude and company between her garden and the labs, and she could escape to either one as she wished. She didn't even have to worry about Wheatley, as Angela had fallen head over heels as soon as she had been introduced to the talkative core, and had offered to look after him, instantly fascinated in his construction. Although GLaDOS had not relented on her decision to keep him away from Aperture, Angela still learned enough in her spare time to start developing new cores, albeit ones without the combination of ambition, selfishness and resentment that had led to Wheatley's disastrous time in charge. Wheatley, in return, seemed to enjoy her company without the edge of guilt that would always taint his relationships with Chell and Doug, and the two of them muddled along well together, although Julie found his presence in her house trying, to say the least.

"You know what the hardest thing has been?" Chell spoke up, all the introspection making her want to share some of her reflections.

Doug blinked, momentarily taken aback by the change of topic, unaware of Chell's lengthy thought process. "What?"

"Learning that we were going about things all wrong by running away from Aperture. We spent so long trying to escape. It was so jarring when it didn't really solve anything."

"I know what you mean," he said with a nod. "The solution to our peace of mind wasn't escaping Aperture but finding a way to live with it."

"We couldn't have figured that out any faster than we did, though," Chell added with certainty. "We had to spend the time doing what we did in order to come to that conclusion."

"GLaDOS had to reach it too," Doug said quietly. "Do you think you can ever forgive her? Truly forgive her, I mean?"

Chell was silent for a long while before answering. She'd asked herself the same question many times before.

"I don't know. It's hard. It feels…impossible. But even if I don't forgive, I do understand. I get why she reacted the way she did. So that's a start, I guess." She shrugged. "That's more than I expected, given our history."

A comfortable silence fell between them as they sat in the shade, looking out over their garden. Chell never forgot how lucky they'd been, how close they'd come – on multiple occasions – to never having a life like the one they'd built.

"I should get back," Doug said at length, stretching his legs out.

"You haven't eaten," Chell reprimanded.

"I had a sandwich before I left. I just wanted to see you."

"Flattery will get you everywhere, Mr. Rattmann," she said with a grin.

"I'll hold you to that!"

She stood up to give him a hug, sending him off to the outbuilding that housed the portal with her usual parting words.

"Go make the world better."

Holding the basket of potatoes in one hand, he turned to awkwardly give her a salute before disappearing through the door. She watched him go with a fond smile. Another unlikely hero, like Gordon. Like herself. She knew Doug would never accept the label, but she'd given it to him in the privacy of her own thoughts. The war had made unlikely heroes of many people. Secluded from it in Aperture, they'd faced their own.

Left alone, Chell sat back down on the top step, watching the chickens peck. Wheatley had developed a strange sort of fearful fascination with them the last time he and Angela had visited. He was terrified of them because they were birds, but somewhat mollified by the fact that they couldn't fly. After pushing past his initial alarm, he'd taken to making brash observations about them, bolstered by the bravado of being propped safely out of reach on the porch steps. He still wasn't sure what to make of the cockerel.

Chell glanced towards the memorial in the corner of the garden, pondering what she'd said to Doug. She'd been honest with him about how she felt about forgiving GLaDOS. She didn't know if she ever could, and she had no answers for whether that was fair or not. It seemed utterly unthinkable, if she was brutally honest, and she knew it had played a small part in her refusal to work at new Aperture. But once upon a time, understanding the reasons why GLaDOS had done what she'd done had seemed impossible too, and yet Chell did understand, and even felt a tiny measure of sympathy. That was a step towards forgiveness for sure. The problem was, Chell didn't know if she wanted to forgive, whether it would feel like a betrayal to her father and all the others that had lost their lives to tests and neurotoxin.

She tried to think about what her father would say, what kind of advice he'd give, but the harsh truth was that she just didn't know. He'd closed himself off from her in later years, to the point that she was forced to accept that she hadn't known him very well. At the end, at least. She hoped that he'd have told her to be true to herself, because her own judgement was all she had to go on.

Perhaps she would forgive. One day. And when that day came, perhaps she'd be okay with it.

"Time will tell," she said aloud. "You can't force it."

When she'd first started to develop a friendship with Doug, what she'd appreciated most about him was the way they could bounce opinions off each other, and argue their points in a fair debate. That hadn't changed, even if everything else had, but their conversations often made her face things she'd rather not. She knew it was good for her, but it wasn't always welcome. Still, it was a small price to pay to have him in her life.

Her life was good. It wasn't what she'd expected after everything she'd been through, and she was grateful for every part of it. She'd lived so long on a knife's edge, with the weight of tension pressing down on her, and then in an adrenaline-fuelled nightmare. There was nothing in her new life that ever surprised her, and she found it refreshing. Eventually, she suspected she'd tire of it and seek out something to keep her more challenged, but for now she relished just how reliable everything was. Nothing changed unless she gave it express permission, and she was more than happy with the feeling. She didn't want to be surprised by a single thing for a good long while yet.

Much later in the afternoon, while she was elbow-deep in the vegetable patch, there came the rattling of the lock on the outbuilding, and Doug's head appeared around the door, his expression preoccupied and apologetic.

"Uh…" he said.

Chell stood up, old fragments of alarm starting to uncurl in the pit of her stomach, and she cursed herself for tempting fate with her earlier thoughts. "Oh god, what?"

"I may have accidentally…" He took a deep breath, and Chell braced herself. "…agreed to watch over a toddler," he spat out, words hurrying over each other after his initial hesitation.

Chell blinked at him.

"She…Gerry found her. In the wheat field, next to the body of her mother. They were starving. I mean…well, the girl had had food, but obviously the mother hadn't, and…she's all alone, I figured we could look after her for a bit. We have the space. I know I should have asked you, but…it's literally just happened and GLaDOS has just invented a no-children policy. Gerry and Trevor don't have room to take on a child, I don't want to ask Julie, so I just thought…" He trailed off again and shrugged.

Chell took in his anxious demeanour, taken aback by his obvious desire to help. She'd never really labelled him as the paternal sort. In fact, his own words to her had spoken of his concerns about whether he was even suited to childcare. Of course that had been before, back when he'd still been coping with his condition, not giving himself enough credit for his control over it. Now he was free of it, but barring a residual, outward sense of calmness that he'd never allowed himself before, he was largely unchanged.

She debated whether she could handle taking care of an orphaned toddler, and whether she really felt up to it, but she was already moving towards the outdoor water pump, rinsing the soil off her hands.

"Lead the way," she said.

"You don't mind?"

"I was an orphan once too, remember?" she told him, joining him in the outbuilding and locking the door behind them. In a single step, she was standing on the Aperture-standard carpet tiles of his lab. "We should help where we can until we can come up with a long-term solution."

He met her gaze, nodding firmly. "Agreed."

Feeling strangely nervous, she added, "She shouldn't stay too long, though. I wouldn't want her to get attached."

"No, nor me."

"And someone should do something about the poor mother."

"Gerry's taken care of it." He let out a sigh, running a hand through his hair. "If only she'd been able to make it into town."

Chell reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze. "She still might not have survived," she said gently. "You know as well as I do that it's a harsh world out there now."

He nodded. "That's why I wanted to help. The girl…she's not old enough to understand what's happened. She only knows a few words, but one of them is 'Mom'…or some variation of it, at least."

She squeezed his hand again. "So let's go help."

Doug looked down at her, and she saw her own nervousness reflected in his face. Briefly, she wondered why they were putting themselves through it, but she knew how desperate he was to help people, to atone for those he couldn't help before. It was the right thing to do.

Together, they left the small room that the portal was locked away in, walking Aperture's familiar corridors on the way to their mercy mission. It was simple: they would look after the girl, find her a place to live, someone to love her, then, when she was ready, she would leave. They could handle a short period of responsibility, Chell was sure. It was the simplest plan in the world.

It happened exactly as she'd intended it would. Almost.

They did look after the girl, and when she was ready, she did leave…at the age of twenty-three, when she wanted her own space.

In hindsight, Chell wasn't surprised that their daughter had come from Aperture. Their lives had always been tied to it. They'd just needed to find a way to live with it in peace, and peace was a luxury they'd finally earned. She could live with that.

The End.

A/N: That's it! Thank you to everyone who has read this story. I hope you enjoyed it. Double thanks to those who left a review. Nothing is more encouraging than that :D I haven't got any more Portal stories lined up as yet, but you never know. Feel free to follow me if you're a fan of Chellmann (or Sobiwan in the Star Wars fandom, because I doubt I'm done with them either!)