AN: Hello all. Goodness, another fairly long chapter. I'll spare you the gory details, but this one took quite a bit of re-writing before I felt it turned out all right (mostly). As usual, please leave a review if you enjoyed, or even if you didn't! With that, read on!

Chapter Twelve

There was a pop, and Alex jumped. Miss Caroline laughed.

"See, that was the uncontaminated gas reacting to the flame. If it's contaminated, it makes a sound a little like a dog barking. Do you want to help me with that bit?"

"Yes! We get to be a little sloppy this time, right?"

"Yes, but on purpose."

"Is science about being sloppy sometimes?" Alex carefully reset the experiment according to Miss Caroline's instructions.

Miss Caroline was quiet for a minute—probably thinking, Alex assumed. But she sniffed a little, and her breathing sounded uneven.

"Miss Caroline?"

"Oh." She sounded as if she had just remembered that Alex was there. "Oh, yes. I just…well, I was just a bit distracted. Science is about being sloppy sometimes…because sometimes mistakes can point you in a clearer direction. But…sometimes being sloppy and making mistakes can cost you something."

"Like what?"

"Like your life." Somewhere or other, Miss Caroline's voice had become warped, stretching into the nightmare voice Alex never wanted to hear again—

Her head was burning, flaming with horrible pain, and the monitors showed a monster with glowing blue eyes—

"Stop! Stop! STOP!" Alex screamed and yelled as loud as she could but it was no good, the monster wouldn't listen—

"Good job, hero. Look at what you did." That voice, that horrible voice, stabbed at her. All around, they were dead and dying and it was her fault—

Alex woke up without a scream. She tried to sit up, but everything went fuzzy. Her head hurt, her feet ached with a dull kind of pain that throbbed with its own heartbeat, and her ears rang with voices. Deciding that it was too much effort to be awake just yet, she closed her eyes and listened.

"For the last time Aaron, we don't know. She was up on Foxglove with—" A woman's voice, low with a slight rasp, as if not often used, was speaking.

"—with that thing that caused all the trouble all these years back." A masculine voice finished. It sounded slightly…fuzzy, as if there was something in front of the man's mouth.

"But look, she's not dangerous, I knew this kid, if you can believe it, and she's probably the only good thing that ever came out of that place—but that's not even the point, because the point is, the point is that—" Her giant friend's voice rambled for a bit before the feminine voice cut back in.

"—the point is that She's no longer in charge, and Sophie hasn't heard anything from Abbigail, who would warn us if something was wrong."

"What if she can't?" The fuzzy masculine voice asked.

"Abbigail is capable, and from what I understand, she's taken to exploring certain…safe spaces within the labs and has hidden means of communicating there. As soon as Alex's awake, Sophie can go send her a message." The feminine voice was practical, and slightly detached in the way it inflected. Something about it made her gut twinge, and something at the fringes of her consciousness burned with painful memory.

"Alright then, Chell, I trust your judgement on this kinda thing. Just keep me posted, ok?"

"I will, Aaron. Will you just…just calm everyone else down? I'm not sure how much to tell them yet but…" The woman—Chell—trailed off, her voice softening with uncertainty.

"I'll take care of it. I'd like to talk to little Alex if I can, maybe get a little more of the story." The man, Aaron, used a reassuring tone that vibrated deep within his chest and seemed to keep vibrating in the air.

"We'll do our best, Aaron, but you know how stuff is, memories fuzzy and whatnot. Probably doesn't remember much, especially being a kid and all, but you never know with this stuff—I mean we remembered bits and pieces, over the years of course, but—" her giant friend started off again, and Chell finished for him.

"He's right, we'll…we'll do our best." Her sentence ended with that crisp practicality, and Alex shivered. As a door shut with a gentle bang, Alex felt a warm hand rest on her arm and she knew that what little protection sleep offered her from the flurry of questions that was sure to come was dissolving quickly.

"Is she awake yet?" Her giant friend asked. Alex wished he could read her mind, to switch places with her and understand her silent pleas of don't ask me about it, please don't ask me about it—

"I think so. At least, she's slipped into a lighter sleep, since she started shifting around a lot. She might have been having a nightmare earlier." The soft voice moved during the last bit of the sentence, seeming to bob a bit in space. "I'm going to see if I can get in touch with Abbi." The door opened and shut again, slamming closed with a bit less care this time.

"Oh, oh." Wheatley's voice got soft. "Poor thing, isn't it? I mean, I may not remember much—isn't exactly as if I can just go search it up, now can I, and even then I wasn't much good at remembering things—but I do remember something went really wrong when they, when they…well I can't really remember that bit, but I do know that something for sure went wrong."

"A lot of things went wrong down there." The woman, Chell's, voice was so sympathetic, so empathetic that Alex knew there was no rational reason for her to mistrust her. And yet she did.

Everything in her gut, in the core of her emotional center, was screaming at her to get far away, for some unknown reason. Much as Alex had learned the value of trusting her gut when it came to people—specifically scientists who rarely had her best interest in mind—it baffled and mystified her to no end. Unlike her predictable, rational mind that functioned with the precision and efficiency near-equal to a supercomputer, this sense that someone or something was not what it seemed was tied to this terribly, irritatingly murky thing deep within her. It was unpredictable and wild, and as helpful as it was, it terrified her with its strangeness.

But there was no use hiding behind the pretense of sleep anymore. If worse came to worst, perhaps she could feign amnesia.

Alex opened her eyes, and was met with light. She could tell that the room where she was was brightly lit, but her eyes could discern nothing beyond that. However, her arms seemed to feel the difference between the bright laboratory lighting that offered no warmth and this…this new light that warmed the skin on her exposed arms and made the hairs stand on end.

"Oh good, you're awake!" Wheatley's cadence drew her attention, and she smiled, briefly. Just in case he didn't get the message, she nodded, letting him know that she'd heard him. She'd always been a good listener. It'd been the foundation for their friendship, after all.

"Well, that's fantastic! How are you feeling? I'd imagine it's been a bit rough, getting out of suspension and all, and, and-and maybe you'd like something to eat—oh! I've got it, you'll love this!" There was the slip-thud sound of rather large feet pounding their way to what Alex assumed was the kitchen.

"So…" Chell began, that practical voice bringing that burning memory closer, so that it was battering at Alex's consciousness. What was it about this woman that she couldn't remember? Why did it burn?

"…can you tell us what brought you out?"

Alex hesitated, letting the words gather themselves in her mind. An answer—tentative and sparse yet hopefully acceptable—began to crystallize.

"The tank I was in…the tank woke me up. I disconnected, found an old jumpsuit, and I sort of started walking around."

"Okay, then what?"

"Then…then, I tried to find an office so I could search for Mr. Wheatley. I knew…" Alex paused, searching for the right words, "…I knew that if I could just find him, I'd have a good chance of getting out. He was…friendly towards me. I thought," she struggled with the next bit, "I thought they'd just stick me back in a tank."

She knew now that that would never happen. Because they were all just gone. Her mind, flexible and incredible as it might be, couldn't comprehend the thought.

"The…scientists?" Chell asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Alex felt herself nod, but her mind was a thousand miles away, trying to escape the looping thought threatening to drown her, they're dead and it's your fault, they're dead and it's all your fault…

Wheatley came back with his galumphing big footsteps. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! Alex clung to the surfaced memory like a lifeline, saturating her mind with the fragile happy feeling. Wheatley brushed her hand, opening it before he placed something smooth and circular and warm in her hands.

"Thought…well, thought you might like some tea." He offered, with perhaps the shortest single sentence he'd ever spoken to her. Alex wormed her fingers through the curved handle and took a sip.

Warm liquid, piping hot and fragrant, singed her tongue, but she didn't care. After a lifetime of intravenous feedings and carefully controlled pills and nutrient bars, it was perhaps the most delicious thing she'd ever had. Well, perhaps not the most delicious thing. Another memory bubbled, happy and warm, and Alex let it buoy her spirits up.

"Thank you." She tried to stuff as much of the warm gratitude she felt into those two sparse words.

"What happened then?"

Alex armored herself with happiness, took a deep breath, and answered. "I…I attracted Her attention, so I ran. I guess I wasn't…I don't know. Next thing I knew I was falling through the floor."

"Through the floor?"

She growled in frustration, struggling to put the experience into words. "The floor was solid, then it wasn't, and there was this strange noise. And two robots. Pretty sure they were robots. I think maybe she sent them after me, so I ran from them too. Broke some cameras, stepped on some glass—"

"You broke the cameras?"

"Yes I—" Alex stopped. The more they knew about…well, the more they would ask…and they couldn't ask because if they asked—

"Alex," Wheatley's voice interrupted her thoughts, "it's ok, I remember." He took her free hand—the other still clinging to the mug of tea—and squeezed tight. "I'm not afraid of you. None of us will be."

"Mr. Wheatley, I don't know if you—"

"Alex, it'll be alright, I promise."

She hesitated. Then, with the greatest of care, she rose into the air. She clutched at the mug, abusing the smooth material with tight fingers as she awaited their reactions with bated breath.

A brief silence hung in the air.

"Do you still remember how to juggle, er, well, I suppose it doesn't really count as juggling—since that means throwing it up in the air and all, and you're really just making it float—but do you remember how to make things float in a circle, I suppose, is what I'm saying?" She could hear laughter behind his voice, and knew somehow that everything was alright.

She smiled.