-1Disclaimer: I don't own Half-Life.

(A/N: Many inadequate thanks to hhgbh for beta work!)

The Black Mesa Incident

Chapter Seventeen: A Leap of Faith

Doctor Rosenberg was waiting for him at the top. The elevator didn't clang to a halt as it reached the top; it just sort of slowed until it was relatively still, still rocking from side to side as Barney stepped out. Rosenberg was smiling from ear to ear and put a hand on Barney's shoulder as they walked out into the hallway.

"Calhoun, you did it! We've already started setting up the device with the fresh power cell you sent up."

Bennett and Simmons were knelt in front of a complicated piece of machinery built into the wall on the left, which Barney guessed was connected to the teleporter in the room behind said wall. Both scientists looked up at him and gave him a nod and a smile, looking upon him as their own personal saviour.

The enthusiasm of his colleagues started to make him feel somewhat better in himself. The thought that he would soon be looking at the clear blue New Mexico sky helped, too. Hot dogs, beer, TV… actually, things were starting to look a whole lot better now that they were on their way home. As he started paying attention to where he was going, he realised that Rosenberg was leading him to the teleporter room, the secure doors already open.

"This time, however, the process is going to be a little more complex, so I'm going to need your help."

That just made Barney feel nervous.

"Uh… doc, I'm not really a science kinda guy… I mean I don't even know the basics like… how to calculate power and stuff."

"Power equals work over time," the scientist responded without pause, walking past the teleportation machinery and two a keyboard sticking out of a wall on the far side of the room.

A tight smile crossed his face, and Barney rubbed an eyebrow absently with his finger. "Well, thanks doc, but that's not really what I meant…"

Rosenberg, however, was somewhere else entirely, at least in his own head. He tapped furiously on the keyboard before nodding in satisfaction at something. There wasn't even a monitor in front of him, so how he knew what the results of his tapping were, Barney didn't know.

"All right." He looked at Barney over his shoulder. "I'll stay down here to monitor the system levels and engage the procedure. I need you-" he pointed to Barney, "-to climb up to the control room-" he gestured to a room on the upper floor that overlooked the teleportation array, "-and activate the main power."

That said, he wandered over to the yellow booth with the glass protection windows on it. Barney followed him hands on his hips in an irritated manner. Rosenberg didn't seem to notice, instead focusing on the myriad array of buttons and controls around him.

"Once the process has started you'll have to release the damping locks each time the system has charged in order to open the displacement field." It was then, finally, that he looked up at Barney and saw the look of simultaneous horror and anger. He smiled reassuringly, and spoke with a tone that actually went some way to calming Barney's frayed nerves.

"Don't worry, Mr Calhoun. The process is simple, and I'll let you know when you need to do something."

The security guard studied his companion of pretty much the entire day, running his tongue contemplatively along the front of his lower teeth behind his bottom lip. Finally, he nodded. "Okay, okay. Where do I go?"

Rosenberg pointed to a ladder that was on the opposite side of the room from the entrance doors of the lab. It led up to a walkway that ran along the width of the room and ended in the control room currently above Barney's head. It was the same control room Simmons had been inside before Barney's earlier journey to the alien world.

Thinking of the alien world invariably brought thoughts of innocent dying aliens to mind, so Barney jogged over to the ladder and occupied himself with climbing up the ladder to the walkway and concentrating on everything Rosenberg told him. Barney clambered up onto the latticework metal walkway, his eyes drawn to all the dials and controls on the right wall as he walked along to the control room. At the end of the walkway on his right was a metal secure looking door that for all intents and purposes was locked.

On his left was a drop down to what Barney deduced was the control room. A red ladder led down into the room, but Barney bypassed it since the drop wasn't that severe. He landed with a thud and walked into the small room. On the right hand side of the room was a big brown switch with 'MAIN POWER' written above it. Barney pulled it down, and the teleporter thrummed to life. Rosenberg's voice echoed from down below, and Barney walked to the front of the room, where an opening in the wall – made safe by guardrails running along the top and bottom - overlooked the teleportation machinery. A control panel with the words 'DISP. FIELD DAMPING LOCKS' written on a green plate with white letter stood in front of him, a big red button to the right of it.

Down below him in the lab on the lower right was doctor Rosenberg, stood working away behind his L shaped yellow booth of a control panel.

"Very good," he said quietly, and Barney almost didn't hear him over the rising noise of the teleporter. Rosenberg's voice rose. "Standby, Calhoun! Once the system is initialised it will take a few moments for the interpolating resonance coils to achieve focus!"

"Yeah, those things are a bitch!" he yelled back.

"I'm sorry?"

"I said 'yeah'!"

Rosenberg just smiled and nodded, although he probably had little idea what Barney was talking about. He looked down at a small monitor in front of him and nodded excitedly.

"The main capacitors are charging. When the main charge meter reaches full," he pointed to five stacked rectangular lights on the wall beside the teleportation platform, "I'll need you to open the displacement field!"

He looked up at Barney with a hopeful look, and Barney gave him a thumbs up. Even his science-fearing mind could understand the idea of pushing the big red button to save the day. The charge meter – which really seemed a fancy name for some lights – was lit up to number four.

"We're almost there…" Rosenberg announced, working feverishly on the control panel. Movement caught his eye, and Barney saw Bennett and Simmons walk into the lab, looking slightly fearful of the teleporter. Bennett stepped forward first as the meter reached full.

"The system is fully charged! Throw the switch, Calhoun!"

With relish, Barney slammed his fist on the now lit red button. The teleporter made a noise as though it were sucking all other sound from the room. The very center of the platform seemed to pull in little darts of light. Then, suddenly, a flash blinded Barney. When he opened his eyes, a green orb of teleportation energy stood floated in the middle of the platform, waiting for a passenger.

Rosenberg nodded and yelled to his colleague, who stood petrified in front of the glowing orb. "There! Go now, Walter!"

After a little shove from Simmons, Bennett squeezed his eyes shut and ran head on into the teleporter energy. It disappeared with a flash as soon as he ran into it, taking him with it. Barney felt pretty amazed, despite the fact he had already ridden that particular rollercoaster. It was still a pretty astounding thing to witness. The voice of Rosenberg echoing from down below brought him back to reality.

"Very good, Calhoun. I'll start charging the system for the next teleport event."

Again, the lights on the wall started lighting up, and Barney's excitement grew. This was really happening. They were really getting out of here.

"Almost there…" Rosenberg said. Barney could hear his voice trembling even over the noise of the teleporter.

Before he knew it, the meter had reached the top, and Rosenberg was once again shouting up to him.

"There, we've reached full charge again. Open the field, Calhoun!"

The same process again. Sound and lines of light being pulled into the teleporter, a flash of light, and then the teleportation orb.

"You must go now, Simmons!" The scientist ran inside at the same time as Rosenberg spoke, obviously needing no such encouragement. As before, the orb of light disappeared upon contact with its passenger, taking him with it.

Suddenly Barney realised something. What the hell were he and Rosenberg going to do? Didn't this thing need two people? Rosenberg started speaking again as the charging meter began to fill up.

"I'm going to go next-" Barney's heart skipped a beat "-but don't worry, Mr Calhoun. I've set up the system to automatically start the charging sequence once I've made it through! Just wait for the levels to reach full again and open the field like you've been doing!"

Although that sounded simple enough, Barney couldn't help but feel nervous. All alone in here with this machinery? By himself? What if something exploded? What if something malfunctioned and he had to find his way out of here? More fighting, more surviving, more corpses, more blood… he wasn't sure if he could do any more of that stuff today.

"It's ready!"

Barney's head whipped up and he instinctively slammed his hand down on the button in front of him. After the normal effects, the orb appeared and Rosenberg dashed around the control panel, running straight for the orb. He paused and turned, looking up at Barney.

"Good luck, Mr Calhoun! I'll see you on the other side!"

With that, he turned and went into the orb.

And Barney Calhoun was alone in Black Mesa Facility once again. The meter started charging. A clanging noise assaulted his ears, and for a brief terrifying moment, Barney thought the teleporter had malfunctioned. But then he realised… it sounded more like someone slamming into something solid, something metal, something…

His eyes widened and he ran to the ladder, clambering up to look at the secure metal door. Sparks flew from the lower left corner and slowly started to travel up. The military. The military were here with blowtorches and they were breaking in. He ran back to the control room. The meter was at three.

"Come on, come on…"

He checked his holster. Nothing. He had used up all his weaponry on that huge alien thing down below. Why hadn't he picked anything up?

"Dammit!" he yelled.

The meter reached four.

He heard radio chatter, not just from up above him, but also from down below. They were coming in from the entrance down below as well.

"Oh, for f-"

The metre reached five. He slammed the button and ran to the ladder just as he heard the metal door above get kicked down. Without hesitation, he clambered up. Two soldiers were stood in the doorway and looked over at him in alarm.

"Oh, screw that!"

Barney charged straight into them, knocking them on their backs before turning tail and sprinting down the walkway towards the ladder on the other side. He gripped the side and slid down, gritting his teeth as his flesh burned from the friction.

The entrance to the lab exploded open, two more soldiers pouring in as he reached the bottom of the ladder. Barney ignored them and ran to the glowing orb, hoping to God that there wasn't some sort of power failure that would make it suddenly vanish.

A green object clanked to the platform beneath the orb. A grenade. Undeterred, Barney reached the edge of the platform and leapt in. The explosion sounded like a distant pop as the green light consumed him.

Blackness surrounded him.

After another green flash, Barney could suddenly feel fresh air around him. Sunlight poured down on his face, and he put his hand up to shield his eyes. He heard a clanking off to his left, and he looked over to see Bennett in front of a fence, whacking a padlock attached to the exit with a crowbar. It didn't look like he was having much luck. They were on a road leading out of a tunnel on Barney's right, the sign above it reading 'BLACK MESA ACCESS TUNNEL 50 MILES'.

Wow. That was pretty far out. The road was pretty bare, sand on either side leading into rocky hills that ran along the roads. On the other side of the hot tarmac surface was a Black Mesa SUV, where Rosenberg was stood with his back to Barney. He was talking to someone working under the hood of the van, presumably Simmons. He turned and looked shocked when he saw Barney.

Why did everything have a green tint to it?

"Ah, there he is!" Rosenberg smiled and bounded over, almost falling over himself as he came to a stop in front of Barney.

"Calhoun, you've arrived! When you didn't come through right away we thought that the…" his smile faded and he looked Barney up and down. "…oh no. There's something wrong here."

Oh, that sounded good. Barney frowned and looked down at his body, that green tint making him look like a Martian. Rosenberg called over his shoulder.

"Simmons, come look at Calhoun!" As Rosenberg continued, Simmons sprinted over. "His body seems to be in some kind of resonance displacement and I-"

A flash of green cut off the good scientist and Barney had never felt more alone. So he was going to die like this? With a green strobe light party going on in front of his eyes?

That was it. Next time he found a gun, he was going to shoot himself. Or at least concuss himself so he wouldn't think that everything going on was so bad.

After another flash of green, Barney found himself back on the alien world.

"Oh… groovy…" he grumbled. This was unlike the misty, grey/green world he had visited, though. Around him was just blackness, the only light coming from the huge yellow crystals on the small floating island upon which he now stood. He walked to the edge and saw several more islands around him. And on one of them… was that a dead body? Barney got to his knee and squinted. It looked like whoever it was… they wearing a Hazard Suit.

"Hey! Hey! Are you okay?"

Green light danced in front of his eyes again, whisking him away.

He landed on his back, and was pleased to see a very mundane, very human ceiling looking down on him.

Voices that belonged distinctively to the military made their way to his ears, and he quickly sat up, suddenly alert.

"Where're we taking this Freeman guy?"

Freeman? What? Barney looked around. He was in a storage room, a mop and bucket leant up against the wall. He couldn't see any light switches (or lights, for that matter) anywhere around, and struggled to see anything in his dim surrounding.

"Topside for questioning."

"What the hell for? We got him, let's kill him now!"

Barney whipped around to face the direction the voices had come from. A grate in the wall was at head level, looking out at ground level into another corridor. He rushed over to it as he saw two soldiers walk past, dragging an orange clad figure with them. As they passed, Barney instantly recognised his lolling head, his eyes barely open behind his thick rimmed glasses.

It was Gordon. The military had Gordon. The scientist seemed to look at him, but appeared so drowsy Barney had no idea if he recognised him or not. The soldiers, oblivious to his presence below them, continued on with their conversation as they walked further away.

"And if they find the body?"

"Body? What body?"

The soldiers laughed. His teeth grinding, Barney brought back his fist to slam it into the grate blocking his way. If he could knock it down he would be able to squeeze through and take them by surprise. Then, if he could get Gordon awake again, they could-

Green light consumed him and he cried out in frustration.

With another flash, he arrived outside again, where Bennett had managed to force the gate open. The SUV waited patiently in front of the open entrance, Simmons at the driver's seat while Rosenberg and Bennett stood around outside it. Simmons' eyes widened as they made contact with Barney, and he pointed him out to Rosenberg.

Rosenberg turned and smiled, rushing over to him. "Oh, thank God you made it. I thought a malfunction occurred at the last moment and you might have been caught in an infinite harmonic reflux. If that's the case then you're lucky to be standing here! But then again, we're all lucky."

He didn't even bother to try and understand what the scientist was saying. All he could thing about was Gordon being dragged away by those soldiers, preparing to do God knows what to him.

"Well doc, there are some people in there who aren't so lucky," he said, pointing over his shoulder to the tunnel behind him. "And I've got a duty to help 'em out. So, I'll see you guys off, and then I'm going back in."

All three scientists exchanged looks of horror.

"You're… what?" Rosenberg managed.

"I'm going back in. While I was teleporting around there, I saw a good buddy of mine in a lot of trouble. I've gotta get him outta there."

"But you have no idea where he is in the facility, Calhoun! Even after you've made the fifty mile walk back there, you'd have no idea where he would be! Think about this for a moment!"

"I have, doc. And I'd love nothing more than to just hop in that car with you and drive away. But I can't do it. So… see ya."

With a wave, he turned back to the tunnel.

"Calhoun-" Rosenberg was cut off gently by one of his colleagues.

A gentle hand rested on Barney's shoulder, and he stopped. Upon turning, he found Walter Bennett stood before him, hands in his pockets.

"I know how you feel, Calhoun."

His gaze was focused entirely on the tunnel before them.

"Somehow I doubt that, doc," he snapped, feeling annoyed by these scientists treating him like an equal when usually he would be nothing but dirt underneath their shoes.

He looked at him, tilting his head to the side. "No? I'll have you know my daughter is a security guard at the Black Mesa facility."

Barney blinked, and then lowered his gaze, feeling ashamed for his outburst.

"I… didn't know that. Sorry."

Bennett waved a hand, dismissing the apology. "It's perfectly all right. I've seen my share of sudden, angry outbursts today, let me tell you. Mostly from you-know-who," he said, pointing a conspiratorial finger at the worried figure of Dr Rosenberg a few metres back.

That elicited a smile from Barney, one of the few he had experienced since this day began. Both of them enjoyed the rare moment of levity for as long as it lasted.

Barney's smiled faded. "So… how come you're leaving without her? Your daughter, I mean."

"Because there's nothing I can do to help her from here. There's nothing I could do from inside the Black Mesa facility."

"But I can, doc. I've got the training and-"

"It doesn't matter, Calhoun. How long do you think it would take you to walk all the way down a fifty mile tunnel?"

He shrugged.

"Too long," Bennett finished, his hands now firmly on his pockets. "By the time you reached him, your friend would most likely be dead, correct?"

An image of Gordon, beaten and bloody and lying in some abandoned office sprang into Barney's mind.

He took a deep breath and blew it out. "But how… how am I supposed to live with it?"

"By telling the world what happened here today. By getting help. Real help, not this military farce."

Barney closed his eyes, bowing his head. Eventually, he nodded.

"Okay," he said, his voice barely a whisper.

The two walked out of the tunnel and back to the hopeful looking Rosenberg.

He didn't say anything to Barney, he just cocked his eyebrow at him questioningly.

Barney smiled and nodded. "I'm comin', doc, don't worry."

With a smile that almost made Barney laugh, Rosenberg opened the back door to the SUV and gestured for Barney to get inside. He didn't get in.

"I've got one condition."

The scientists all paused in what they were doing. Simmons froze in his readjusting of the wing mirror. Bennett froze in his doubled over position as he crawled across the back seat. Rosenberg froze with his hand on the open door.

"Which is?" Rosenberg asked.

"I drive."

All of his companions exchanged nervous looks. Finally, Simmons shrugged, getting out of the car and holding the door open for their security escort. As he slipped into the front seat, Barney realised that from now on that was probably what he was going to be for the rest of his life. A security escort for these doddering scientists as they came up with weirder and stranger experiments for him to get caught up in.

It sounded like a sitcom. Simmons sat shotgun beside him, while Rosenberg slipped into the chair behind Barney. He looked over at his passengers.

"Everybody ready? Seatbelts fastened?"

They all checked and came back nodding.

"Got all our supplies?"

Again, they nodded.

"You guys gone to the bathroom? Because once we get going, I'm not stopping."

They looked at each other, confused.

"It's a joke, guys."

Although unsure of what was so funny, they all nodded and went 'ah', as though they all suddenly got it.

Barney shook his head and turned back around, starting the SUV. The engine thrummed to life, the whole vehicle vibrating soothingly.

"Okay, then. Say goodbye to the Black Mesa facility, folks. Because we are out of here."

"Calhoun."

He turned to look at Rosenberg.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

"For what, doc? It's my job."

"Not anymore it's not."

He laughed. "I guess not. Let's just say it's in my blood."

"I mean it, Calhoun. We will all be eternally grateful to you for what you've done today. Thanks to you, we were able to pull off this half-brained idea. We made it, Mr Calhoun."

Rosenberg looked around to all of the other scientists in the SUV, who returned his near euphoric grin. It truly made him look like the inspirational leader Barney knew his colleagues saw him to be.

"We made it."

Barney slipped the SUV into gear, dropped the handbrake, and eased off the clutch. They set off through the open gates. Barney looked in his wing mirror and spotted something. He stopped the car and leapt out of the car, running back to behind the fence.

"Calhoun! What are you doing?" Rosenberg yelled out of the lowered window.

He returned in a few seconds, the crowbar Walter had been using to open the fence clutched in his hand.

"Just a little souvenir," he said, waving it about in the air. He handed it delicately to Rosenberg through the open window and hopped back into the driver's seat. As he clicked on his seatbelt, he looked in his rear view mirror. Rosenberg and Bennett were studying the crowbar.

"I'm curious, Calhoun," he said, looking up at him in the mirror. "Why the crowbar?"

Barney shrugged as he started driving for places unknown.

No, not for places unknown. To safety. To the future. To his friends. Because he knew Gordon would get out of whatever the military had set up for him. He knew. He knew that Gordon would sneak and fight his way out of that place, because despite his mousey exterior, that guy had a fighting spirit in him.

Barney knew that he would see his extended family from the facility again.

Kleiner, Eli, Gordon.

He would see them all again.

Barney noticed that Rosenberg was still looking at him, expecting an answer.

He smiled. "You never know when you'll need a crowbar."

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(A/N: Just goes to show that the spontaneous stuff is the best; that last bit with Barney picking up the crowbar was completely unplanned, but just seemed like such a great moment, as well as giving the story some more continuity (which I can't get enough of, personally).

And so we bid adieu to Barney. Hopefully you've enjoyed reading him as much as I've enjoyed writing; he's got a brand of humour that Gordon and Adrian can't really do, so I'll miss that. On the other hand, it's kind of fun to concentrate on the two big stories.

Anyway, reviews much appreciated, as always!

Next Chapter: Residue Processing)