They made most of the trip through the sewers towards their first destination, another old pump room, in silence. Eric's attention was split between his surroundings and the question that had been posed to him.
What was he going to do now?
He saw two clear paths before him. One led back to the Resistance, the other led to his life as it had been, going along with Mary and the others to the White Forest. And there was no obvious choice. Going back to the Resistance made a lot of sense, now that he was reactivated, but he knew it might bring a great deal of pain.
More pain than he might be able to bear.
On the other hand, living in the White Forest with his tenants might solve his problem, as that life might afford enough general danger and activity to keep him active.
Because even this, stalking through the dank sewers with a fellow Resistance member, pistol in hand, death potentially lurking around every corner, in every shadow, made him feel alive and invigorated in a way he hadn't for half a year now.
Choices, choices.
"We're here," he muttered as they came to the end of another long tunnel. He eased open the door while Lara watched his back and checked out the room beyond. It was similar to the previous pump room, except that there didn't seem to be anything in it. Just one, lonely barnacle hanging from the ceiling off in one corner, a small pile of rat bones beneath it.
"Clear," he said.
They slipped inside and she closed the door behind him. They both had their flashlights out at this point and now they played them across the interior. He saw a hint of orange spray paint sticking out from behind one of the machines. As he began walking towards it, something flashed dully on the filthy concrete floor, catching the light. Curious, Eric paused, crouched, and studied it. He laughed softly as he picked it up.
"Hello, friend-o," he muttered.
"What's that?" Lara asked as he looked at the coin in his palm.
"Quarter," he replied. The year read 1982. God, it had been traveling forty seven years to get here. And here was odd. Finding a quarter in the sewer of an Eastern European city struck him as bizarre and unlikely, though not impossible.
"Quarter of what?" she asked.
"A dollar," he said, rubbing some of the dirt off.
"Dollar? Oh...yeah. I remember people talking about that. I still don't really understand currency," she muttered.
Eric glanced briefly at her. It was a little hard to tell, but he thought she was close to his age, and was probably eight or nine when the Seven Hour War had hit. But he didn't mention how curious it was she didn't remember money. Both because it was hard to tell what concepts children grasped at what age, but also because memory could be a really touchy subject. Between the PTSD and the chemicals in the water, they all had memory problems now.
"It's like bartering," he murmured.
"I know, some older guy tried explaining to me once, but I have a lot of difficulty with the concept that little metal coins and pieces of paper are worth food, fuel, guns, whole houses…"
"It's a little complicated, but it doesn't matter now," he replied, then he flipped the coin.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Figuring something out."
The coin flipped through the air, came back down. He caught it and slapped it onto the back of his fist, then looked at it.
Heads. He smiled, then laughed bitterly. Well, that answered that question.
"So...what was that?" Lara asked as he tossed away the coin and walked over to the machine.
"When you have a binary choice to make, and it seems like you can't make up your mind one way or another, the best option is to flip a coin, or ask a person, roll a dice, just to 'let fate decide', or basically random chance."
"Seriously? How the hell does that help?"
Eric crouched down as he shined his light between the wall and the machine. There it was: both the orange Lambda symbol painted on the wall and a small box pushed to the back. Reaching in, he grabbed it and fished it out.
"If the answer chance gives you makes you happy, it means that's the one you wanted to do. If it makes you upset, it means that's the one you didn't want. Your reaction reveals what you really want," he replied, opening the box and looking inside. There was a whole medical kit in there, including antibiotics. "Turn around."
She did and he secured it in the backpack she had on.
"I guess that makes sense," she muttered. "So what did it tell you? What was the decision?"
"I'll tell you later," he replied.
She sighed. "You're really...guarded, you know that?"
"Yes, I do know that. Now come on, I want to get this job over with before anything nasty shows up," he replied.
"Yeah, that'd be nice."
They headed back out into the lengthy tunnel and began following it. They kept at it, passing their initial point of entry until it let out into a large, open area where a number of tunnels connected. They killed their flashlights and waited at the threshold, studying the place beyond.
"Which one?" Lara murmured.
"See the one dead across from us?" he replied.
"Yeah."
"It's the next one over to the right from that," Eric said. One of half a dozen pillars that divided the room in half blocked the entrance from view. The room was a lot more well lit than most of the rest of the sewers they'd been crawling around in, as grates in the ceiling let out at street level and sunshine poured in. Several of the grates were broken open, meaning anything could come down. And there was a lot of activity up there, it sounded like.
"Okay, let's go," he said.
They headed out into the sunlit room, pistols at the ready. They made it precisely three steps forward before he heard the distinct sound of a City Scanner drone. He cursed as one hovered down from above and immediately sighted them. It began coming for them, making a beeline, and Eric reacted on instinct, aiming and firing off three rapid shots into it. Sparks and metal bits flew as the bullets connected, and the Combine drone burst in a miniature eruption of flames as something crucial was hit.
What remained of the drone dropped to the ground. Eric looked up as he heard even more electronic buzzing sounds overhead.
Half a dozen Manhacks hovered in.
"Shit!" he snapped. "Lara, go secure the tunnel! I'll deal with these!"
"On it!" she replied, racing off.
Eric popped off another four shots in rapid succession as two of the Manhacks went after her. One of them exploded, the other began emitting a wild squealing sound as it lost control of itself and crashed into one of the pillars.
He holstered his pistol and pulled out his custom crowbar. This was one of the exact reasons he carried the thing around. It was so good for knocking Manhacks out of the air. Gripping it like a baseball bat, Eric stood his ground. Two were coming for him, the other two were hovering, almost like they were uncertain of who to go after.
The first one came for him and he swung as hard as he could, bashing the thing to bits as the metal bar connected with the shoddily-made machine. Manhacks were lethal, to be sure, but it didn't seem to take a lot to put one down. Ducking as the second one made right for his face, blades buzzing madly, he swung around and got lucky, smashing it to pieces as well. Eric sidestepped as he realized the other two Manhacks had made their move, coming at him from behind. They blew past him and immediately began coming back around.
A few more swings and one call close enough that he felt the hot air of the blades' passage and he put the remainder of them down. A part of him felt the intense urge to pick through the remains, grab some parts, namely their batteries, as he'd done a thousand times before, but there was no time for that now. He tossed a glance skywards, saw that the openings remained vacant for the moment, and hurried to join Lara.
As he approached the tunnel, he heard a loud groan, followed by her cursing and two rapid shots popping off. The tunnel flared twice as he stepped inside and he saw her standing over a dead zombie, covering it with her pistol.
"Clear?" he asked, making her jump slightly.
"Yeah, looks like it," she replied. "Out there?"
"Yeah, for now."
He moved up to join her and the two of them set off towards their next destination.
Eric felt like he'd gotten off easy as he walked back into Upsilon Station.
There had been a few headcrabs lurking among the shadows and he'd very nearly walked into a barnacle, but otherwise, they hadn't seen any other action. Finding the second cache of medicine, they'd hustled back to the outpost.
"Damn," Holt said as Eric passed him the pair of small boxes. He popped one open and looked inside, then laughed softly and passed it to another Resistance member, this one a woman with a red plus on the beanie she was wearing. "Here, get this to the others."
"Thank you," the woman said to Eric and Lara, "you have almost certainly saved lives with this."
"Happy to help," Eric replied, and Lara just kind of nodded awkwardly.
"So," Eric said, returning his attention to the Captain, "we have a deal then?"
"Yeah, there's just one other thing before we conclude our business," he replied.
"And what's that?"
"Tell me who you are."
Eric crossed his arms, staring at Holt. He glanced at Lara, then around. A couple of people in the central room were looking at him. He sighed, then began walking over to a side door. "Come on," he said.
Holt and Lara followed.
"Not you," Eric said.
"Why not? You're being a dick about this," Lara said, but she stopped following.
"Just...I have my reasons," he replied.
She let out a frustrated growl. Eric and Holt got over to the door. "What's through here?" Eric asked.
"Sleeping quarters," Holt replied.
Eric heaved a sigh and looked around. They were probably out of earshot of the others in the room, who busied themselves when his eyes came their way. He stepped closer to Holt and lowered his voice. "I'll tell you, I just don't want you telling anyone else. It's...I left the Resistance under not the best circumstances and you've probably heard my name."
"I've seen your face before, I know we must've worked together at some point," Holt replied.
Eric leaned, his voice barely a whisper. "I'm Eric Bishop."
As he leaned back, he saw that Holt's expression had gone flat, and felt a stone of anxiety settle firmly in his gut. When he had left the Resistance, he knew there were some people who hated him when certain things had come out. A few people had wanted to kill him. He'd almost let them. He had imagined that the rumors had spread like wildfire in the last six months. If anything, he thought it was very possible he was reviled as a monster, which made his reaction to the coin flip all the stranger. Holt had obviously heard of him.
The Captain abruptly snapped to attention and saluted him. "Sir," he said sharply.
Eric swallowed and looked around. Now every single person was looking at him. Lara looked surprised and confused.
"Great," he muttered, but it was a good reaction, he had to admit.
"Thank you, for all you did for us," Holt said. "And…" He suddenly hugged Eric. Awkwardly, Eric hugged him back. He'd been half-expecting a punch to follow the salute. There were a lot of people who respected all the missions he'd pulled, all the victories and battles, but it was entirely possible they also hated him.
When Holt stepped back, releasing him, Eric saw tears in his eyes. "That was for my brother, Edward Holt. They told me the story...of how he died. They said you stayed with him for hours, and no one else wanted to visit him at the very end, it was too much. The medic who was treating him said you were there every time he came in to check. And you were the only reason that my brother didn't die alone. And you were the one who buried him."
"Yeah," Eric said quietly. He remembered that long night. It had felt impossible, five hours that seemed unreal in their longevity, apocalyptic in their horror.
"I hate that I was never there, but I will always thank you for what you did," Holt replied.
"No one should have to die alone," Eric said. Edward had been hit by a grenade. One leg blown off, and then an infection had taken hold, and they had tried to fight it off, but it was too much. Eric happened to be at the outpost that night and one look at the guy had told him everything he needed to know. He'd fight, long and hard, out of his mind with pain because they didn't have any real painkillers left, and he'd die. He didn't know how he knew, he just had.
"I'll make sure your people get to where they're going. I'll make for damn sure."
"Thank you, Holt. It would mean a lot to me...I gotta go see them."
He nodded. "Understood. I'll start making preparations."
Eric walked through the now silent room back to where his friends were waiting, and Lara trailed after him. She said nothing, though, as he walked back to where the others were waiting. They all looked at him expectantly again.
"All right everyone," he said, struggling for a moment to keep his voice steady. The fact that he would probably never see any of them again, and the conversation he'd just had with Holt in there was getting to him intensely. He cleared his throat. "I've secured passage for all of you to White Forest. Captain Holt will do everything he can to make sure you get there safely. But...I'm not going with you. I have other business I need to attend to and, well, this is where we part ways."
He was interested to note that none of them looked particularly surprised. It had been basically an open secret among them all that he was former Resistance. That they were in a Resistance outpost after being raided had probably led them down this particular avenue of thought. Eric took the next several minutes to say goodbye to each of them personally. Given the sheer amount of people he'd run into over the past two years, he'd gotten good at creating a sort of instant, artificial rapport with people. And he'd learned that, apparently, he was surprisingly charismatic. Although he knew at least some of that had to do with some of the stunts he'd pulled early in his 'career' as a rebel. As Eli Vance had once told him when he was lamenting how awkward it was getting: "People need heroes, and since Gordon Freeman is still missing, you'll have to do for now."
It had helped, in that he'd come to realize that regardless of his feelings about it, he needed to just get with the program and use his reputation to boost morale. Which was frequently in short supply given just how laughably outgunned they were.
But the relationships he'd made with his tenants were a bit different. He'd never had to spend so much time around one group of people since coming to the future. There'd been so much movement, it just wasn't possible.
In his old life, goodbyes had, for the most part, been pretty quick. This was different, and difficult. He spoke with each of them, and ended up standing in a corner with Mary. She held his hands, smiling sadly at him.
"I'm never going to see you again, am I?" she asked.
He sighed softly. "Probably not," he admitted.
Her smile brightened a little. "That is something I've always liked about you. Even when things were darkest, you never lied to me."
"And you like that?" he asked. "People lie to each other all the time, to make each other feel better."
"Our world is pretty fucked, Eric," she replied. "A little white lie isn't going to help with anything, so we might as well revel in the truth." She looked at him for a long moment. "I can't rightly say if I loved you or not, but I don't think it really matters. I respect you, I trust you, I feel safe around you, and...I believe in you. And I did love what we had."
"I did too, Mary," he replied awkwardly. Here was another thing he'd never really gotten used to. A lot of his relationships in the Resistance could not be called that. Usually, they never called it anything. They just did it whenever they saw each other.
She gave him a long hug, and a longer kiss.
"If you do ever find yourself out in the White Forest, and you find yourself with some time, I will always be glad to see you again," she said, letting go of him.
"If I can, I'll try to make it happen someday."
She smiled. "I'll take that. Now, go be happy."
He laughed ruefully. "I'm not sure if that's on the table any longer, but...I'll settle for helping people."
"It's a good goal, but...watch out for yourself."
He just nodded, and he didn't say what he was thinking: I forgot how.
They shared another brief kiss, and then he told her goodbye, and began walking away. He saw Lara was staring at them, and when their eyes met, she quickly looked away, her cheeks reddening. Again, she said nothing as he walked past her and she fell in step behind him. They moved back into the main room, and instantly Eric could tell the atmosphere had changed. It was tense. Holt was at the radio.
"Tau Station, come back, we missed your last. Please repeat, Tau Station," Holt said, his tone urgent and terse. He grunted and stepped back from the table, then looked around. His eyes fell on Eric and Lara. "I need your help."
"What's happening?" Eric replied.
"Tau Station reported an emergency, but we couldn't get a clear idea of what's happening. My money's on a Civil Protection raid. Do you think-"
Eric was already heading for the exit. "I'm on it."