GLaDOS had come to a conclusion. She hated the HEV suit. More specifically, she hated not being able to do anything to it. She'd already memorized all the specific uses, mapped out its blueprints, and thought of countless ways to improve it. Yet, she could do nothing more than monitor the current resident's vital signs.

And his vitals were a nightmare. Several cracked bones, sprained wrist and ankle, lacerations, and contusions. It's a marvel he was still walking. Of course, GLaDOS realized it was the automated morphine drip within the suit that allowed that. It gave him just enough to not feel the pain, but not too much to make him tired. Combine that with the cocktail of adrenaline and trace amount of other drugs, he was a walking pharmacy.

Big whoop. Aperture did adrenaline shots for their test subjects when they were in pain, and it enabled them to perform better in the chambers. The suit wasn't so special.

Along with disliking not being able to control anything inside it, the overall design was terrible. It was bulky, ugly, and ugh… designed by Black Mesa.

The silver lining of the entire thing is that her central consciousness was still in her chassis at Aperture. It was a good thing too, because she had already needed to focus her attention on two separate groups breaching her facility. They had been taken care of with extreme prejudice, but she could feel more of them coming and congregating on the surface. They were getting ready for something big. She couldn't tell exactly, but it was something.

Not knowing worried her.

Another downside of being a passenger in the suit was the memories associated with it. It reminded her too much of her time as a potato. Unable to really see what was going on except for the expressions across her face. The anger, the annoyance, the way her forehead would crease in concentration. Then the smiles whenever she'd break one of the moron's monitors. That had been fun. So much so that she gave advice on how to break them a few times.

While she was thinking of a certain mute, GLaDOS's current traveling companion had been rather silent the entire flight back to their base. Ever since that moment in the Combine hangar… Her prodding had all been for naught as whenever she'd question him about it, he wouldn't say a word.

All the systems were functioning correctly. If she wasn't in the suit at that moment, the data would have been looked over as a momentary glitch. It was nothing more than a drop in the bucket of diagnostics and data running through the HEV suit, but she was the suit. For a full second, there was no data. It was as if Gordon was removed from the suit entirely, and he ceased to exist.

The missing diagnostics within that second revealed a mystery that GLaDOS needed to understand. What had happened to cause the disturbance? Was the suit malfunctioning? Did Gordon do something wrong? So many questions, yet the man refused to answer anything.

Within her digging, she did discover it wasn't the first time it had happened either. There were multiple occasions of these blips in the data occurring, and that puzzled her further. The frustrating part was that she couldn't even run an experiment because of her inability to test the suit in her current state. It was frustrating.

How could a grown man simply disappear into thin air?

She was still running through scenarios when the helicopter they were in flew over a valley and approached a sprawling base. From the air, GLaDOS recognized it as an old soviet bunker from an era gone by.

A quick search of the area back in the main facility revealed that this so-called 'White Forest' was purchased by Black Mesa back in the eighties. If she had to bet, it was an effort to allocate funds to ensure they kept their funding for the years to come. They couldn't do enough real science, so they had to throw money around to look like they were busy? Couldn't they have come up with a better name than White Forest? It was just the exact opposite in name to Black Mesa. There was no creativity in that…

The moment their helicopter touched down, GLaDOS became aware of a thundering noise of something large coming straight towards them. A few humans who had been milling about and excited to see Gordon and Alyx suddenly moved away from the helicopter just as a sizeable rusted robot barreled their way.

Alyx barely got to say anything before being grabbed by the robot. GLaDOS thought it was about to crush her. She hoped it wouldn't because it would be a shame to find more people and get them up to speed on the situation. Fortunately, Alyx started laughing as she hugged the giant robot back.

"Dog! I missed you!" She cried out while swinging her legs back and forth to try and get free.

The moment Alyx was set down, the large robot swiveled its head towards Gordon. He took a half step back, but that only made the robot leap forward and scoop Gordon up in a hug as well. With it being in close proximity to GLaDOS and the force being put on the suit, she could tell it was strong and rather impressive. Yet it was a lower form of artificial intelligence. Lower form as in nothing could compare to herself, after all…

She'd need to look further into the design of the robot later. From what little signal she could gather coming from it, she'd have to describe it as a mutt… Its code was a mess of alternate modes and attitudes to give it a playful yet protective nature. It wasn't originally built as it was, but had been added to and made bigger over time and with each addition, more code was added. That was reflected in its system with how much overlap she could feel. A mutt of different codes and designs to make what it is now. What else could she expect from Black Mesa?

When they were finally put down by the mutt, a human in a black padded vest ran up to the two of them and greeted the two humans warmly. Alyx returned the greeting but with less enthusiasm, while Gordon only nodded. Gordon and Alyx moved with purpose through the hall, but all the while more humans in the vests shouted praises and greetings.

"Someone's popular," GlaDOS said into Gordon's ear.

She felt the small rush of adrenaline through his body.

"Increased blood flow and adrenaline? It's amazing how one can measure human emotions if they know what to look for. Embarrassed, are we? That's almost funny."

Gordon grunted in reply and picked up the pace.

The two humans burst into Kleiner and Magnusson's lab after a couple minutes of walking. There was no sign of Magnusson, but Kleiner jumped in surprise at the sound of them entering. He turned his head in panic, but that quickly melted to relief and excitement to see Gordon and Alyx.

"You're back! Oh, my relief is astronomical. You were gone, far longer than I would have expected," he said, striding towards them.

Alyx and Kleiner hugged each other while Gordon shook his mentor's hand.

"I know we just got here, Dr. Kleiner, but we actually have to get to Aperture Science as soon as possible," Alyx stated before Kleiner could say anything else.

"Funny you should say that. We recently had someone arrive at White Forest, who was a survivor of Aperture. They had quite the story to tell." Kleiner mused.

"Aperture survivor? No, I know I killed all the scientists…" GLaDOS said, unheard by anyone but Gordon.

"Do you know where we can find them?" Alyx asked.

"I believe they went to the mess hall with Barney…"

No sooner had the words left his mouth that Alyx was marching out of the lab. Gordon couldn't help but notice that Kleiner looked a little dejected at how Alyx left in a hurry. He made a point to nod in understanding at his mentor.

Gordon had to jog to catch up to Alyx as she was tearing through the base like a bat out of hell. The purpose and determination that radiated off of her was enough to send any person in her path to skitter out of the way. Like her father, she had a commanding presence, but hers demanded attention while Eli's would coax you with a warm smile.

When the two finally entered the mess hall, Alyx and Gordon scanned the room. After a moment, they saw Barney animatedly talking with a man in a black padded vest and a woman in the standard rebel vest, but with an orange shirt underneath.

Upon seeing the girl, GLaDOS decided to pipe up once more, "Oh you have got to be kidding me…"

"You've got to be kidding me..." Chell laughed, a cup of coffee held between her hands as they rested on the table. "He actually had one of those things as a pet?"

"You're full of shit, Calhoun," Adrian laughed.

"It's true. Dr. Kleiner had Lamarr for like six years before she went missing a couple weeks ago," Barney said, arms crossing over his chest and a smile crossing his lips.

His eyes were still a little red from earlier, but there was a change in him. His shoulders didn't look as slumped, his smiles were less forced, and he acted… unguarded.

For the first time in weeks, Barney was able to relax.

So that's probably why when he saw two familiar people standing in the entrance of the mess hall that he practically vaulted over the table to rush and meet them.

"Alyx! Gordon! You're back!"

He crashed into them and pulled both of them tight to his body, his relief at seeing his friends alive and so close only heightened his sense of relief.

Gordon squeezed Barney tight to his body. The sight of him was a lot to take in, and it almost made him forget what they came to do. Alyx was the one to ensure he didn't forget as she broke away from the hug first.

"Barney, it's great to see you, but we are looking for someone," Alyx said.

Back at the table, Chell watched the two new people with both curiosity and apprehension. The woman wasn't familiar, but the sight of the man caused Chell to freeze up.

She squeezed her eyes shut as she remembered the visions the vortigaunts shared with her and the dreams that followed. That orange armor, the thick-rimmed glasses, and the damn crowbar he carried at his side. He was the one the people flocked to. The one who went up to the citadel with an entire antlion colony at his command. The One Free Man.

When he looked towards her, Chell couldn't decide if she felt like fighting or running away with the nerves building up in her stomach.

Chell watched as his brows furrowed in thought before looking up to meet Chell's eyes. He then tapped Alyx's shoulder and used his head to indicate her direction. Alright, that tension in her stomach was becoming stronger.

"Woah, where's the fire," Barney piped up as Gordon and Alyx made a move towards the table.

Alyx looks to Chell, then back to Barney, "It's great to see you, but there's something we have to do."

While Alyx and Barney continued back and forth, Gordon looked to Chell and gave a small wave.

She returned it with a nod of her head.

Then to her surprise, he raised his hands and starts to sign at her, and she could understand it. She didn't even realize she could read sign language. She'd have to ask Arne how she knew that later.

'My name is Gordon Freeman. Who are you?'

'I know.'

Chell assumed he must be deaf if he was signing. Strange how that never came up in conversation bef-

"So Gordon, what do you think about the place? Remind you of the old days?"

"A little," Gordon mumbles.

Chell blinks. Okay, he's not deaf, but why would he sign at Chell? Did he believe her to be deaf? Why would he assume that about her without asking?

That pit in her stomach only grew larger as apprehension increased.

"Barney, we are glad to be back, but we have something important to discuss with her," Alyx cut in while gesturing to Chell. "We need to get to Aperture Laboratories as fast as possible."

And there it was. The pit consumed her, and ice crawled up her spine. No way. Chell wouldn't do it. She couldn't go back!

Alyx approached the table, placing her hands flat against the table as she looked down at Chell, "We were told you came from Aperture. We need your help to get back."

Chell kept eye contact with Alyx as she shook her head.

"No? What do you mean by no?" Alyx glared at the women in front of her. She could have the key to saving the world, and yet she refused to fight for it? How could she be so selfish? How could she sit there with such an apathetic expression and deny helping?

The Combine has taken everything from Alyx, and here was a woman who was relatively unscathed by them, and all it took was a trip to Aperture to finish it. She had been inside Aperture and made it out. She was their best bet at navigating the massive facility. Still, when her time of need was coming, she was refusing to offer assistance.

"How can you say no to this?!" Alyx snapped. "My father gave up his life to stop these bastards!"

"If you step inside Aperture, you will die!" Chell responded.

Gordon blinked at her, unable to stop himself from asking a question. "You're not mute?"

Everyone looked to Gordon then, but Chell's surprised expression quickly turned to anger again. "Why would you think I was mute?"

Gordon had the sudden urge to shove his foot into his mouth. It didn't help that GLaDOS had suddenly gone quiet.

Chell stood up, her boots making her have to look slightly down at Gordon. Her eyes were ice cold, but her voice was calm. "Why would you think I am mute?"

Gordon shrugged his shoulders in defeat. "I think... we need to talk…"