A/N: A couple quick things: the sections written entirely in italics are flashbacks, so don't let that confuse you. Also, there's a part in this chapter that I've been looking forward to writing for a LONG time. I'm sure you'll know it when you get to it.

Enjoy!


Chapter 19 - Don't Do It

"Caroli—"

The door slammed before he finished his yell.

Henry swore.

No one moved from their seats, and the room dissolved into uncomfortable silence. Greg leaned against the wall and nibbled at a new slice of cake. He glanced up, seeing the balding man staring at him with a pointed intensity.

"What?" he said. The tines of his plastic fork flexed against the plate.

"You told me she'd stay here, not tear off into the depths of the facility like some mad woman!" said Henry, flourishing an arm in the exit's general direction.

"Hey, it's just as much of a surprise to me as you." Greg took another bite and swallowed. "Don't worry. She won't go too far."

"For all I know, she could already be OUT of the facility and driving away!" said Henry, jaw clenched. "You should've told me she'd try something like this."

"Well, you could've approached that a bit more carefully," said Greg, tapping his fork against the edge of the paper plate and scraping up a stray bit of frosting. "Cornering her like that—even I could've told you that would happen."

"Then why didn't you?" said Henry, voice accusing.

"Relax," said Greg. He took his last few bites of cake and tossed the plate into a tall garbage can. "Send a bunch of people and just look for her. Like I said, I doubt she went far—and she definitely hasn't left the facility."

"What makes you say that?"

"Experience," said Greg. "And I have a good guess as to where she might be."

"Then you find her," he said. "I didn't go to all of that trouble to let her slip through our grasp."


Her heartbeats steadied.

Caroline curled her fingers around the vent's blunted slats. She shifted her feet and craned her neck, keeping her eye-level even with a gap in the vent. Her gaze flicked from side to side searching an empty room for something that wasn't there.

She wasn't sure what she expected.

An angry mob wouldn't burst through those doors—at most, one or two people might check back here for her. Still, she wasn't about to take her chances and move from her spot. It may be calm here, but navigating the main areas of the facility would be next to impossible with all of those people looking for her.

Adrenalin trembled and seeped through her arms, lingering in case she needed to make another break for it. Honestly she wasn't sure how fast she could scramble out of the vent—but if she needed to, she would shove past anyone that dared to stand in her way between her and the facility's exit.

Pistons groaned. Air hissed though the vents. As the wing drifted into silence, Caroline briefly closed her eyes and clung to each and every sound.

A faint snore rose from behind her.

Panic flared inside of her, sending her heartbeat racing again.

Had she been anywhere else in the facility, she would've blamed it on the vent system. Sound travelled, and every so often an employee did crash at their desk. But this was her wing. No one but her and—

Her arms trembled.

Someone else must've sneaked ahead while she wasn't looking and crouched into this vent, lying in wait for her to arrive and then accidentally dozing off—

No.

That was ridiculous.

No one could've known where she planned to hide, much less beat her to it. When she left even she hadn't known where she would end up. No, she was simply tired. Spending that long at the testing track couldn't have been good for her. A rest did sound tempting.

Another soft snore came from behind her.

She wasn't alone in this vent.

And though she needed to turn and figure out who was in the vent with her, one slip of the hand would send the grate clattering to the ground. As far as she knew she was the only thing holding it in place.

Still, one hand should be able to keep it in place. Briefly.

Caroline twisted, slipping away one hand and latching the other onto the vent. With miniscule shifts and sidesteps she turned and peered down the vent. A dim and reflective glow dulled her vision of the vent's abrupt turn, partially obscuring a drop off into a tiny room. As she edged out as far as she could and caught a glimpse into the alcove, her elbow locked into place.

Caroline had spent enough time observing the dark-haired man test to immediately recognize the figure lying on the ground as Doug Rattmann.

Of course they ended up hiding in the same air vent.

She wasn't sure how, though, he'd gotten out of the testing track.

She'd double checked all of the inside panels and the entrance and the exit multiple times. She'd been absolutely certain that no more manually-accessible panels existed in that chamber, much less any cracks between panels and the wall for him to wedge his fingers between and yank.

Getting out of there alive should have been impossible—and yet here he was.

Slam.

A door banged against the frame in the distance.

Constant and steady footsteps echoed through the hallway at a steady, walking pace. Running through Aperture sapped too much energy out of a man not accustomed to exercise. Plus, he might miss something if he rushed—better to take his time and comb through every room and every locked door (easily opened with an override code he'd picked up) until he found her.

"Caroline!" he said. No sense in remaining quiet—he couldn't sneak up on Caroline if he tried. She always seemed to know whenever he was coming. But she had to be around here, and as soon as she came to her senses he knew she'd give up this disappearing act of hers.

He half-expected to turn a corner and finding her in a swivel chair, arms crossed as if she'd been waiting for him.

"Wherever you are, just come out," he said, moving away from her usual path and into the back areas of the facility. For all he knew she could be continually moving through this place—staying ahead of him and switching from hiding place to hiding place until she slipped out of Aperture altogether.

So he kept moving—cycling through the same pleas and same phrases like a scratched record.

"Come on, Caroline," he called out. "It was just a misunderstanding—and you could've told me about this before. I wouldn't have said anything."

Not completely true—but still, Greg would have liked to know about her hidden plans before Henry called him yesterday and made him look like a lying idiot.


"—promise it'll make more sense once I explain, but I need to talk to her in front of audience for my own safety. The bigger, the better."

"Well, how important is this?" said Greg absently, flipping through dog-eared pages of a planner. Though he'd essentially inherited Caroline's old job as assistant to the CEO, he didn't mind it at all—many times before, Caroline had told him that he reminded her of herself. "It's going to have to wait for a few days. Tomorrow's her birthday."

"Wait," said Henry, adjusting the phone. "This is something the whole facility needs to know—and people always come to that stupid party. It's perfect. What are they even doing this year?"

"Nothing too exciting. Just a bunch of cakes. People like cake," said Greg, shifting in his chair. "Why are you getting so worked up about this anyways? It's just a party."

"Tier Three," said Henry—a statement more so than a question, as if he should instantly know what he meant by it.

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, come on—I know you've heard of it." Annoyance seeped through Henry's voice—there was no way Caroline could have kept a secret that huge hidden so well without a bit of help. "Don't lie to me."

"No, really," said Greg. "I've never heard of it before."


After that, he'd made arrangements to meet Henry at his office and go over the details of Tier 3—and after reading it, he felt dumb for not knowing. This had to have been one of the most well-kept secrets in Aperture.

And as loyal to Caroline as he'd been, this he couldn't push aside. Normally she shared so much with him—she genuinely trusted him more than anyone else in this company, and yet she still had hidden this from him. And this was something the employees of Aperture deserved to know.


He clicked on a flashlight and looked around the dim back areas.

"Look, I didn't know Henry planned to go through with this right away. He just said he'd talk about it!" he said, voice straining. "Please, you're making this harder than it has to be."

His flashlight swept through another empty area. Greg turned the corner. Just like Chell, Caroline couldn't hide forever.

Caroline's heart raced.

Through fuzzy gray stripes she saw her assistant slip into the room, calling out to her.

Oh, as if she'd come out now. After her earlier display, returning as if nothing had happened would be a death sentence. How stupid did he think she was? And the way he spoke—he must have known beforehand what would happen.

He hadn't warned her.

He hadn't given her the slightest hint that something like this would happen; instead he'd teased her about forgetting her birthday and urged her to get to the party on time.

As her assistant, he was supposed to stand by her. She had trusted him with some of Aperture's darkest secrets and he'd thrown her under the bus like she didn't matter at all.

She had always told him that he was like a younger version of herself.

Perhaps he was a bit too much like herself—because in all honesty, she couldn't say that she wouldn't have done the exact same thing in his position.

But as soon as she got out of here, she'd fire him first—along with Henry and his ragtag crew of people who dared to call themselves scientists.

And as Greg continued wasting his time speaking, the snores behind her stopped.


Doug Rattmann jerked awake, sharply inhaling at the loud and uncomfortably voice just outside of the vent. He scrambled onto his feet as silently as he could manage and shifted into a crouch.

Someone was close to his vent.

He twisted to see if he could shrink farther back into his little alcove and farther back into the air vent—but instead, it took an abrupt, ninety-degree turn and rose into the ceiling. And while he could attempt to climb up and into the narrow space, the inevitable clanging would reveal him almost instantly.

He crept as far back as he could into a dim corner, back pressed against the wall. So long as whoever was out there didn't look to closely, they shouldn't see anything but an average vent covering—

—the grate.

His heart skipped a beat.

In his haste to escape, he forgot to replace the vent cover.

Leaving the cover propped against the wall couldn't have made it any more glaringly obvious. He'd almost guaranteed his capture now. How could he have been so stupid?

Doug edged to the left and glimpsed back toward the duct's entrance.

There should be a distinct light source up ahead, but instead the vent seemed dimmer than he remembered. He blinked.

Sleepiness clung to him like a thick, unpleasant medicine—leaving a groggy aftertaste minutes later, even after he should feel fully awake. He squinted and rubbed the crust from his eyes. Perhaps he had just been seeing things again. After a steadying breath and letting his eyes adjust to the dark, he looked again.

He saw a dim figure backlit by even slats of light—like blinds drawn over windows in the middle of the day. And that distinctive white jacket and long, dark hair could only belong to one person: Caroline.

Doug darted back to his corner, hand raising to muffle his inhale. This didn't make any sense. She didn't move, and she didn't speak. She didn't even turn around, and her posture was as rigid and frozen as her heart.

"Wherever you are, just come out."

The sheer volume at which the distinctly male voice called out made it hard to not hear him—and Doug knew that this person had to be searching for him, the twice-escaped test subject.

And yet, he couldn't put his finger on it but it felt almost as if he was talking about someone else—

"Come on, Caroline. It was just a misunderstanding—and you could've told me about this before. I wouldn't have said anything."

—like Caroline.

But that didn't make sense.

Caroline ran Aperture—she was the heart and soul of this company. She had no reasons to be hiding, much less in the same air duct as himself. Doug, on the other hand—well, he had a lot more reasons than one to stay hidden.

But as much as he wanted to figure out why she was here, he also couldn't let her find him again. So Doug kept his movements slow and breathing shallow and slipped as far back into the alcove as possible. Soon enough the man would move on, and hopefully Caroline would slip out without noticing Doug at all. Then, he'd be able to get out of here.

"Look, Henry only told me he would talk about Tier 3. I didn't know he was going to through with it right away. Please, just come out?"

Tier 3.

The only way he could have possibly known about that—in fact, the only way anyone at all could have known about that—would have been if Henry had followed through and actually looked at the slip of paper he'd given him.

His heart soared.

Whatever scene that must have gone down had caused Caroline to take off running through the facility, and Doug couldn't help but feel a cold splash of hope.

He'd done it—he'd managed to get that information out there, and it just might be the thing that saved him.


Caroline stiffened and slid her fingers back. She clung to the vent's edge with only with her fingertips; she couldn't risk being discovered for a reason as stupid as her fingers sticking out of the vent.

She just knew that any moment now her assistant would walk over here and pry the metal cover from her locked fingers an see her panicked face staring right back at him.

Minutes ticked by.

Greg moved on and ventured further into her wing. She let more time tick by and more silence seep in, and when she was absolutely sure that he'd left, she kept one hand on the grate and twisted back to glance once more at Doug Rattmann.

She knew he'd woken up.

That abrupt shift in breathing—combined with the soft scuffling sounds afterwards—confirmed what she has assumed: her inadvertent vent companion had woken up.

She knew he had to be just out of sight—it wasn't as if he could go anywhere else in this dead-end air duct. Caroline leaned further down the vent.

"I know you're back there," she said.

Doug didn't respond.

"Look—before you say anything, this isn't about testing," she said. She wanted to reassure him, before he made any sudden motions or loud noises. The mere thought of those made her stomach twist.


After the thick haze of sleep drifted into a thin fog, the realization of just where he was—and who he was with—seeped in. He was next to her, and he boiled with a sudden rage.

"I'm not going drag you back there," she said, hushed yet firm.

"And I'm supposed to believe you?" he said, voice bigger. "Forgive me, but I've been burned by that one before." As far as he was concerned, every word out of her mouth was a flat-out lie.

Sadness flashed across her face as she turned. As much as she wanted to deny it and convince him otherwise, a pang of her heart told her that what he'd said resounded with truth.

"I promise you, this isn't what it looks like," she said, pulling in a breath and straightening her spine in the cramped space.

"Then what is it?" he said, his boldness from earlier making a second appearance. Though Caroline had thought—and wished—that his unexpected bravado would dissipate like a misplaced portal, it seemed to have latched on. "You've literally driven me to exhaustion and blocked off my only exit. Before that man arrived, I would've through you'd crawled in here to personally mock me while you waited for your goonies to arrive. But he's looking for you, not me. So tell me what's going on."

"Give me a second and I'll tell you what happened," she said, keeping her voice hushed.

"Just let me explain."

He gave a small snort and remained in his position in the back of the room—as far away from Caroline as he could physically get. Through the anger, frustration crept into him and created a careless and yet terrifying mood where he was so mad that he simply didn't care anymore. "You know what? Fine. Go for it. It's not like I'm going anywhere until you move."

"First off, when I climbed into this vent I wasn't trying to find you. That was just horrible luck on my part, really," she said. "You might as well get comfortable, though. This might take a few minutes."

He folded his hands together, pressing them together and then squeezing while he listened. He gave a slight nod, then remembered that she couldn't see his action. "Oh," he said, then cleared his through.

"Just—please keep your voice down while I'm speaking. If you make a single stray sound, I will personally see to it that you won't live to make it out of the testing track a third time."

"—got it," Doug said, voice a bit softer. He swallowed, still folding his hands together.

"Well," she said. "You've been working here long enough to know that there's a tradition around here that comes up on my birthday," she said. The celebration itself—in its earliest years—had landed on Cave's birthday, but after a few years he insisted that it be changed to Caroline's birthday. She cleared her throat. "So those last few chambers I really was trying to hurry you along. Today is my birthday, and I didn't want to miss my own party. And besides," she said, almost wistful, "I really was looking forward to it."

Caroline shifted her weight from her toes back onto her heels. Doug said nothing, instead sinking back and pressing his chin into his knees. The initial threat had passed—and judging by the way she kept fearfully glancing out the vents and the way her arms trembled slightly, she was in no condition to force Doug to do anything—at least not physically.

He took the slightest bit of comfort in this and allowed himself to relax ever so slightly. But that same feeling burned inside of him and made it hard to focus on anything other than what Caroline had done to Chell. It took so much effort to even focus on the words coming out of her mouth with those recent memories still blaring across his brain.

"So what happened?" he said, more out of a desire to keep her talking and letting her calm down than a genuine interest. Though a calm, more rational part of him really did beg for her to hurry up and tell him what could have possibly happened since the last time they'd spoken.

"They threw me under the bus. All of them—after everything I've done for this facility, every single person turned against me," she said drawing in a short, shaky breath. "They set me up."

The reality of her words hit her all at once, and Caroline gave another small, choked sound. After a simple speech, of all things, she'd lost everything: her power, her status, and the respect of everyone within this facility. Even her assistant turned on her—and all over something she'd tried to erase from her life a long time ago.

She was stupid—so stupid. Perhaps if she'd just followed that crazy man's last wishes and let the scientists simply work on the GLaDOS project, they might've made more technological leaps and bounds instead of suffering constant setbacks.

If she hadn't hidden it, perhaps the procedure itself might have even been safe by now.

She gripped the fabric of her pants tightly, hand curling into it. She wasn't sure if it was in anger, or an attempt to keep herself calm. Either way, she was trying so hard to keep it together. She couldn't let Doug see her like this—she couldn't let anyone see her like this.

"What do you mean?" he said.

"There's something I've been hiding for a long time. Years, actually," she said. "And, well, someone found it and now the whole facility knows," she said, throwing up a hand and letting her voice sink into a sarcastic bitterness.

"I had no idea," she said. "No clue at all. All I wanted was to just sit down with the rest of the facility and enjoy a slice of cake because it's my birthday and I should have every right to do that. They sang to me, and just as I thought they would show me whatever great and fantastic thing they'd come up with this year. But instead," she said, "those idiots started singing to me and then Henry of all people managed to get his hands on something I thought I'd gotten rid of a long time ago."

She paused, pulling in a breath.

"Tier Three. It's…something Mr. Johnson came up with right before he, well, died. I don't bore you with the details, but after Henry's little episode leaving this facility alive will be next to impossible."

But before she could slip further into a Tier-3-induced rage, Caroline heard a distant sound—still rooms away—and cut off her speech. She raised a hand and closed her grip into a fist, a quick and easy signal to stop.

"He's coming back," she said shakily. "He missed us the first time; he might miss us again. Just stay quiet."

Patches of light striped Caroline's face as she glanced out and into the room, waiting for the moment that her assistant—no, former assistant—entered the room. She tightened her grip on the vent.

"And why should I? I don't owe you anything," said Doug, "and there's nothing you can do stop me from yelling and drawing his attention back over here right now. You are the one standing between me and my freedom, after all—not him."

"I'm telling you—that man out there isn't much different than myself. If you think for one moment that he'll just let you walk free once he finds the both of us, you are absolutely wrong. One loud noise and we're both dead."


Dead.

The word itself felt like a sudden push into a frigid lake, throwing him into dark and disorienting memories and leaving him struggling for air. He glanced away, squeezing his eyes and glad that Caroline was still staring ahead and not looking back at him.

"No," he said, low. The anger he felt earlier swirled with this sadness. It was her fault—all of this. "I'm not going to—not after what you did."

"I swear to you that I didn't mean for that to happen." she said, voice growing softer yet quicker.

"You killed her, and you don't even feel anything," he said, voice wavering. "You just wave it away like it was nothing."

Caroline fell silent.

"You're wrong," she said a few seconds later. "I do feel remorse. "

"Oh, come on—we both know you're lying through your teeth."

Caroline's knuckles tightened, and a fresh wave of emotion cracked and chipped at her steadily-crumbling façade of togetherness. "Listen to me. You were right," she said, voice wavering with an unusual amount of emotions. "I pushed things too far, and I really am a horrible person," she said, pulling an arm tight around her legs. "You have to believe me when I say I truly am sorry."

"But that doesn't change what happened," said Doug. "You can't know what it's like to be hunted down in this place, having time spin against you as you struggle to find a spot to hide. A part of you knows that it's useless because no matter what you do or no matter how well you think you've hidden yourself, they're going to find you," Doug said, a hint of desperation in his voice. "You can't know what that's like."

"Actually, I do," said Caroline. "And I'm going to be completely honest with you, which is something I haven't done in a long time. Listen to me: Aperture is my home, and has been for a long time. It's the only place I've ever felt truly comfortable. I just had the company that I have spent my entire life building up completely turn on me. And now they want me dead," she said.

"Come on. You can't hurt so many people and turn around and expect them to stay loyal. It doesn't work like that," he said, trembling with an intense hatred that flaring as hot as the incinerator in Chamber 19. "And after what you did to Chell, you deserve everything that's coming to you. When he comes back in this room, I won't hold back."

"No, please—" she said, voice shifting into an almost desperate whisper. "What I told you in Chamber 15—I meant it." Her voice was sincere—and yet, Doug knew that Caroline was one of the most manipulative liars he'd ever met.

"It wasn't worth it. None of this was," she said, throwing out her free arm to gesture to the facility beyond her—and the people no doubt searching for her.

And yet, the slight shakes and slips in her voice told Doug that she might not be lying this time. She didn't hold herself in a tall and intimating way—and for once in her life, Caroline looked crumpled and defeated.

But she was still responsible for Chell's death, and nothing she could say could ever be worth a moment of his time.

"I'll do anything," she said. "Just stay quiet—I'm begging you."

One noise.

One loud clang or one loud yell would be all that it would take to draw attention to this vent and get Caroline out of his hair forever.

He could claim it was self defense—she had killed Chell, after all, along with countless other people. And no matter how hard she'd tried to convince him that she truly was sorry—he wasn't sure if he could accept that.

Both fell silent, a sparking tension zapping between them. They knew what was at stake here—what one stray voice above a hiss or a whisper could do.

One noise, and it would all be over.

Footsteps sounded in the distance. Greg's voice echoed through the hallway once again. In less than a minute, he'd be in the room and all of this would be over. This truly was her last chance to try and convince him to remain silent.

She tore her eyes away from the slats of the vent and locked her gaze onto Doug.

"Please," she said. "Don't let him find me."


—they'd finally done it. Though a both were a bit injured after their escapade, they'd managed to get Chell out of that impossible relaxation vault.

And now here they were, waiting for an elevator that would no doubt take them in the opposite direction they wanted to go—deeper into the facility.

But that was only temporary.

Soon enough he'd figure out a way to get her out of this place and then come back for her, but for now he pulled her into a warm hug. For the most brief of moments, the two of them were actually safe—they'd made it out and they were free.

But Doug had no guarantee that things would stay that way..

"I think I know another way out—just trust me."

"I do," said Chell—her voice almost cracking. "Just please. Don't let her find me again."


He hadn't kept his promise.

Not a few moments later, he'd told Chell just the opposite of what had actually happened—that no matter what, he wouldn't allow the lady to find her.

Caroline's words cut through him, as jarring and sudden as if she'd slammed her fist against the air duct's metal siding. What Caroline had said—it was far too close to what Chell said just days ago.

But he still had failed her—and he honestly wasn't sure if he could let something like that happen again, and to another person.

Caroline's gaze lingered for a haunting moment before she twisted back to the vent.

Greg entered the room once again, and his soft, searching calls more panicked and desperate than before.

"Caroline, come on—this is getting ridiculous."

Her entire posture sagged; her elbows drooped and her head sunk so that she was barely staring at the vent at all. Her hands barely clung to the vent—contrasting her white-knuckled grip from before, and she let go with one hand altogether and slipped into a sitting position. At least here she could sit without having to bend forward too much.

Caroline leaned her head against the wall of duct and pulled in her knees. It was almost as if she knew that this was the end—that she only had moments of freedom left in her life.

Doug opened his mouth.

A tremor ran through Doug as he opened his mouth—just looking at Caroline and seeing how utterly defeated she looked—and his throat constricted. He couldn't do it.

Doug Rattmann said nothing.


Caroline was, without doubt, a horrible and awful woman.

She was a killer—though never in a direct way. People simply vanished off the face of the earth. So many employees and test subjects had been riddled by bullets or fell into acid or found themselves transferred to a department working on a dangerous, deadly experiment. And those she took a personal interest in—like Chell—suffered even worse fates.

And yet—as he watched her sink even further into the floor, accepting of her fate and yet clinging to the slightest bit of hope that perhaps Doug wouldn't say anything and that somehow she'd make it out of here alive—Doug felt his anger dissipate and his stomach twist.

He couldn't do it.

She was a completely different woman than she'd been hours before—genuinely sorry and genuinely scared for once in her life. He'd never seen her like this, and he wasn't sure if he ever would again.

Caroline was a horrible person, yes—but she didn't deserve to die. Not like this.

Because despite all of the terrible things she had done, Caroline still deserved a shot a redemption.