AN: Hello all. Is this late...yes, yes it is. But it's still a Friday, so hey, at least we have that. Goodness this one is long (3k+ words again!), but I hope you like it! Lots of general family fluff in here, despite the situation. As per my usual request, please feel free to comment/review if you liked it or had other thoughts-I really do appreciate it! With that, read on!

Chapter Eighteen

"T-that's not true." Alex stammered. Everyone around her was silent in the wake of GLaDOS's words, but it was not a comfortable silence.

It was a tense, calculating, planning silence.

"She never said anything about blowing the labs up. That'd be foolish, since she'd get blown up too."

"Maybe not." GLaDOS admitted begrudgingly. "But let me ask you this, then: if she hates you so much—and believe me, I know she hates you since I was stuck in there with her—what do you think she'd be willing to do to get you? Do you think she'd be willing to take out everything in the area as long as she gets rid of you?"

Her lengthy speech was uninterrupted by any of the group. Alex was stunned momentarily into silence. She hadn't realized just how much "Caroline" had…how much danger she had put her giant friend in.

But GLaDOS was a liar—Alex knew that intrinsically—and she also knew that the AI could not hide her willful untruths from someone closely attuned to her system. Someone like Alex, who had been judiciously monitoring her system during her little tirade.

"No. She wouldn't because…she can't get rid of me." Alex frowned, thoughtfully tapping GLaDOS's outer casing. "What aren't you telling us? I know you're leaving something out. Why can't she get rid of me?"

"I am not! I'm telling the—"

"—truth?" Alex resisted the urge to laugh bitterly and settled for a wan smile. "Trust me, I know when you're lying. And right now you're lying like a rug—not entirely sure why that's the turn of phrase, but I'm pretty sure that's the right saying for this situation—and I'm not going to let you do that. Not to them."

"How dare you? Fine, maybe we aren't going to blow up, but I need to get back in my body!" Alex could hear the anxious shifting of metal plates and the thudding footfalls of her giant friend as he took a few steps towards GLaDOS's core. "Wait. Wait, wait, wait! Don't you dare switch me off ag—"

GLaDOS went quiet, and Alex felt her systems slowly wind down, humming along at a gentle pace as she entered sleep mode.

There was an awkward silence, full of too many questions.

She noticed, however, that her giant friend had come to rest his rather large hand on her shoulder, as a warm, comfortable weight. She knew he trusted her, and she him. He didn't believe her lies.

But he did need to know what was true.

"Alex," Her giant friend began again, this time a note of gentle curiosity in his voice, "maybe now would be a good time to tell us why you were…why you were down in the labs, yeah? So we can figure out this mess, maybe…maybe figure out why she does want you?"

Alex swallowed, swallowed again, and shivered. She knew they deserved to know, and know the truth, but…

…just how much truth?

Wheatley had fixed them all tea in piping hot, chipped mugs. Chell sat at the table, across from Alex, and gently reached over, brushing some of her long hair out of her face. They'd clipped it shorter just hours ago, and though it was now a much more manageable length, Alex had insisted on keeping her long bangs. It couldn't exactly hurt, since they couldn't possibly impede her vision any more than…than it was already. With her new hairdo and borrowed clothes, she almost seemed like an entirely different girl than the sad creature with bloody feet they'd found on top of Foxglove.

Alex flinched at the touch, gentle as it was, and Chell slowly retracted her hand, surprised at how stung she felt at Alex's reaction. She shouldn't have been surprised, given where Alex had come from, yet it still stung. Was this how Romy and Aaron had felt when she'd first arrived, all those years ago? Having to try to take care of a broken woman who lashed out in her sleep and injured the very people trying to help her? Someone who simply couldn't help it, despite the very real, sometimes physically harmful repercussions against very kind people.

"I'm sorry." Alex mumbled, quiet but audible. There it was again, with the manners. Even for all that her behavior was to be expected, Alex still seemed to take it upon herself to care for whatever living thing might possibly be within hearing distance and apologize. Even if it barely make a lick of sense.

Wheatley settled himself in at the table, edging closer to Chell and wincing as the chair made a scraping noise with his movement. He was bouncing one of his legs, just under the table—something she had long ago recognized as a tell for his nervousness.

Although, considering Alex was his friend, she couldn't imagine why he was nervous. Perhaps it was simply the mention of that place, since he still had the odd nightmare about it. She knew, because she had them too.

"Right! So, Alex, just start at the beginning, I suppose. Of course, you could possibly start in the middle—that has its advantages too in some way…maybe it'll, well—or you could just start at the beginning, since we've got a bit of time." Wheatley quickly rubbed a hand on the back of his neck—another nervous tic—and glanced at Sophie.

"Well, we've got some time. You, young lady, ought to be heading off to bed, since it's a school night."

"Tch!" Sophie made an indignant noise in the back of her throat. "What? How can you expect me to concentrate on school when all this," she gestured wildly to Alex and the room in general, "is going on? And what about Abbi? Shouldn't I—"

"Sophie." Wheatley jumped in before Chell could say a word, taking a hard tone that was rare for him; even when forcing Sophie to eat her broccoli as a younger child, he rarely brought out what he called the 'head engineer' voice, preferring to coax obedience first if at all possible.

At the moment, however, the 'head engineer' voice was in full effect.

"We'll fill you in tomorrow, but for now, try to get some rest."

Chell could see Sophie struggling for a minute—she recognized the same stubborn if-the-emancipation-grid-is-broken-I'll-take-a-cube-with-me-if-I-darn-well-please look that had been on her own face often enough. But Sophie didn't buck, choosing instead to stomp off to her room.

Leaving the three of them alone.

Chell turned back to look at Alex, and Wheatley did the same, giving Chell's arm a gentle squeeze before he began.

"Right, so…?"

Alex took a deep breath. She looked pale.

"Are you sure you want to—"

"No. Yes." Alex burst out, though her voice remained relatively quiet, if hard. "You…you need to know the truth. I think…I think the truth is best."

"My full name is Alexandria—but I-I hate that name. It was…the-the name of my project, of me." She tucked her slender legs beneath her on the chair—given her rather small frame, there was ample room on the seat—and took another deep breath.

"I think the project was something about information. They wanted to be able to create a human brain—er, my brain—that would be able to…I dunno, remember a lot of stuff. They made me read piles of books and asked me lots of questions. Didn't matter though, because once they really got going, they got more interested in my telekinesis. They made me lift weights and things for ages to make me stronger, but some days I was just so tired…and of course, the computers, nearly forgot about that bit. It was like computers and I, well—it was like we could have a conversation without having to use a bunch of coding and things."

"My earliest memories are there, I don't…I don't think I remember being anywhere but down there. After a couple years, some of the scientists and the engineers who were on the project stopped coming in…I-I don't know where they went. When I asked about them, all I ever heard was that they'd been 'transferred', whatever that means."

Chell shot Wheatley a quick look. Ever since her excursion into Test Shaft 09, she'd been well aware of the company's forced employee testing policy, but Wheatley probably was a better expert on the subject than even she was, given that he'd worked there once upon a time. Alex went on.

"Not long after Mr. Davis disappeared—he was one of the scientists, course—Miss Caroline visited me."

"Wait, wait, wait," Wheatley waved his hands for a second, interrupting, "you're saying that you met the Caroline?"

"What was she like?" The question slipped out before Chell could stop it.

Alex turned towards her with a sort of surprise at hearing her speak, and, in a movement so minute that she very nearly missed it, Chell saw the girl shiver. She couldn't imagine why, since Alex was dressed rather snugly in some of Sophie's old things, which, although oversized in many cases, fit Alex well enough to keep her comfortably warm.

It made just as little sense when the slightest expression of worry flitted over Alex's childish features, almost as if it had been an unconscious reaction.

"She, well…" Alex paused, "she was a bit dull—but you have to understand that she was very…very sad, when I met her. I think something horrible must have happened. But she was kind, and…and I mean, she did a science experiment with me, so she wasn't too bad."

"But then she left, and…and I didn't see her again. Then, one day I went to sleep, and when I woke up, everyone…" Alex struggled, "…everyone I'd known was gone. Mr. Jorge, Mr. Davis, Miss Abernathy—"

"And then you escaped, right?"

Alex stopped in her tracks, her already grey-tinged face—nearly bleached of warm color from years in stasis—going pale.

"No-o…" she trailed off, her voice fading to silence awkwardly.

"What do you mean? Wasn't that when you woke up—what is it now—a day ago?" Wheatley asked.

Chell was wondering the same thing, but she feared she wasn't going to like the answer. If she knew anything for certain regarding Aperture Laboratories, it was that they were particularly fond of misapplying previously invented technology for the wildest purposes purely as a means for preserving their non-existent funds. If not that, then perhaps just for the science of I-wonder-what-would-happen-if-we-blank. In her experience, they generally considered either one of those options a higher priority than something mundane, say, like safety.

Even if that meant using a human being—a child—for their own purposes. The thought made her sick but didn't surprise her.

"When they woke me up, they-it was…they—" Alex seemed to struggle to find the right words, "—they were scared—not of me, I don't think—but everyone was very anxious about something. Some project coming up, I suppose. But it was so…so strange, because when I woke up, it was like I somehow knew all of that stuff already, even though they hadn't said anything."

Chell shivered now. She'd heard stories, of course—she knew as much as anyone in Eaden—about the mysterious monsters that had come and gone some many years ago—even before she'd walked out of the labs for the first time. Perhaps more importantly, she'd heard about what they could do—so eerily similar to what Alex was describing.

The ability to communicate purely through thought.

"What happened then?"

Alex blushed, but at least she didn't seem quite so frightened as much as embarrassed. "I told them to…to shut up." She ended in a whisper, flushing red with shame, as if being rude to the scientists was the worst of her problems. Although, perhaps that was her odd sort of way of dealing with the trauma, Chell mused; manners, after all, were much more easily corrected and easy to focus on than the horrifying reality of being a lab rat.

Much as Chell could relate to the ignominy of being observed and criticized for every action for every hour of your existence, this was unique vein of misery she was thankful to have missed out on. It was bad enough to be critically analyzed by a spiteful AI who toyed with you for the sheer entertainment of it, but worse still was the same treatment from a person who had the wasted possibility to be empathetic or compassionate towards their fellow human beings. It was crueler, somehow, to know a happier life rested within the power of someone who consciously made the choice to deny you the option. An AI had little such autonomy.

"It's just—I mean it was so loud, you know? All those voices…but they just sort of jumped, as if they'd seen a ghost, and they put me back to sleep again. After a while, they woke me up in another room—not a stasis pod—and they sat me down and told me that…that they…er, well," Alex shivered, a little inadvertently, and smiled weakly.

Wheatley rose for a minute, coming around to rest a gentle hand on Alex's shoulder—from here, his gangly frame dwarfed Alex's like a giraffe standing next to a young fawn—but Alex relaxed the slightest touch. When Wheatley tapped out a quick sequence of taps on her shoulder, her face curved in the gentlest semblance of a smile, and she returned the series of taps.

Chell opened her mouth, fully prepared to ask what had just happened, but Wheatley flashed her a quick glance that seemed to say that he'd explain later. For now, Alex still had to finish, and Chell could tell from the drooping of her eyelids that she was quickly losing steam.

"Right," she began again, if a bit shakily, "so…they told me that I had a job to do, and didn't I want to help a whole lot of people?" Alex's face became animated. "And I mean of course I want to help! Helping people is—I mean it's what I'm meant to do, forever and always, and helping…helping makes me feel happy. So I said yes, of course I'd do my best to help…then they started putting me through all sorts of training. They were extra careful to focus on the computers, and they told me to connect to them for as long as I possibly could."

"After a while—gosh, I dunno, maybe a year or something—they took me for a walk and we went into this big 'ol room, and it was so, so cold in there. I heard a lady screaming all of a sudden, but nobody else was noticing and the screaming got louder and louder…"

Alex paused, wincing. "I asked about the screaming, but they said something about, 'not yet anyways', and the scientist I asked laughed at me. I didn't think that was very nice, but the screaming stopped all of a sudden, so I thought maybe I was imagining it."

"Anyways, they plugged me in, with—"Alex paused to reach around and touch the back of her neck in an eerily familiar motion, nodded to herself, and went on, "—with this." She turned, giving them full view of the back of her neck, where, previously hidden by hair, a tiny metal port lay embedded in the warm skin.

It was so small, you might have missed it, had you not been looking. Or had you not been already familiar with the sight.

Wheatley flinched at the sight of the port, but he tried to cover with a nervous smile—though Alex couldn't have seen either motion—and he rubbed his own neck in sympathy.

"Ah yeah, I remember that. Neural inter-whatsit, you called it."

"Yeah, something like that." Alex frowned. "It was there when I first woke up—not literal first time, second time, of course—and it was so awfully sore. I-I hated it. I still do." Alex sounded uncharacteristically bitter for the barest second, then quickly tried to smile again, as if she didn't consider it proper behavior to be displeased with something.

"Why did they plug you in? What was…?" Chell trailed off, and Alex swallowed anxiously.

"It was a, it was—oh, but it's so hard to describe!" Alex sighed, making an exasperated little chuff noise through her nose. "It was big, is the best way I can put it. So, so big—and all these little white-hot bits of things flashing through the deep coldness of it all. But then all of that didn't matter because they said something about 'waking her up' and then everything was this burning hot anger—" Alex broke off, looking close to tears.

"I'd never—" she choked, "—I couldn't imagine hating anybody that much—I'd never understood how anybody could be that angry but, b-but…then I understood. It was horrible. But I understood."

Chell had been edging away from the table in mute, fascinated terror for the last few minutes. Alex's voice seemed to have the same simultaneous magnetic draw and gross repulsion as a bad traffic accident as she went on and on.

It was becoming abundantly clear to her just what Alex had been plugged into—Her—but as to why, Chell still hadn't the foggiest. The simple understanding of Alex being effectively trapped within the waspish AI's system and forced to stew in the simmering hatred of her nature seemed to discourage further thought on the subject.

But she had to ask.

"Why?"

"She wanted to kill everybody, and they couldn't figure out why. Until they could, t-they needed someone to calm her down, and…and if it came to it, somebody to shut her down. T-that's why they gave me the admin code. They told me not to use it unless it was an emergency, b-but—" Alex broke off, unable to continue for the tears streaming down her face.

Chell shoved her chair away from the table in a sudden scraping noise, too angry for words. Once again, she shouldn't have been surprised—couldn't possibly be surprised by Aperture again—but all the same she was angry. Imagine being so simultaneously desperate and low to stoop to forcing a literal child to cure the monster you'd created.

But the tale had been told. It was over, and Wheatley had picked Alex up, resting her weary, weepy head on his shoulder and rubbing soothing circles into her back. He made various gentle shushing noises, rocking her side to side as sobs racked her slender frame. Eventually, they subsided to gentle sniffling.

"It's alright, Alex. It's alright. You did good. I'm so proud of you, luv, I can't even tell you. You did so good, now, why don't you take a quick nap, yeah? Just have a nice little sleep, alright?"

Wheatley's voice was like a metronome, rocking back and forth with a steady, predictable sort of rhythm. It was effectively sleep-inducing, and Alex nodded sleepily from his shoulder. Chell watched her lids gently droop closed with exhaustion.

After a quick minute, and after he was certain she was asleep, Wheatley glanced up, and he and Chell shared a look. After nearly eighteen years together, that single look communicated more than the average bystander might have suspected, had they been privy to such an intimate scene. Between their shared gazes was a question, loud and clear.

What were they going to do?