For no reason in particular, Spencer decided that he wanted to camp out in the living room. He found a bunch of safety pins and a very large blanket which he draped over the TV, the couch, Valentine's armchair, and a rocking chair that had been sitting in the corner. Then he used the floor lamp to pitch up the middle of the blanket. The makeshift tent was just large enough to cover all of them as long as they were all sitting down. Marie brought in an electric lantern from her room and they pretended that it was a campfire.
"I've never actually been camping before," Wheatley said. "It always sounded like an odd thing to do. Why would you humans want to sleep outside when you have your nice, warm houses?"
"For one," Spencer said, "you can't have a campfire in your house so you can't make s'mores."
"What is a s'more?" Wheatley asked. "That sounds foreign."
"It's when you roast a marshmallow and stack it on a graham cracker and piece of chocolate. Then you put another graham cracker on top and eat it like a sandwich."
"What's a graham cracker?" Wheatley asked.
"You don't know what a graham cracker is?" Spencer asked, giving him a funny look.
"Whatever he actually knows about humans is what he's heard from the scientist who worked on him," Doug explained.
"It's not my fault that my knowledge on human culture was erased when I was put into the body of a bloody core!" Wheatley whined.
Doug decided to have a breath of fresh air outside while Spencer and Wheatley discussed more about s'mores. Marie cut in to mention how she'd never had s'mores either—or even a marshmallow for that matter. Doug sat on the little patio with the Cup in his hands and Toby sniffing the grass.
There had been some progress on the fence being built around the city. It stopped halfway past the back of the apartments. Doug still couldn't understand what everyone was trying to keep out. He hadn't seen anything yet.
"Are you sure about that?" the Cup asked. "You didn't see anything during your first night on the surface? You know, before you found me?"
"Well, I hallucinated something," Doug murmured.
"Are you sure it was a hallucination?" the Cup asked.
"What I saw was way too bizarre to be real," Doug insisted.
"What are you doing out here, Doug?" Valentine asked as she stepped outside to join him.
"I just wanted some fresh air," Doug said.
"It's kind of dangerous out here," Valentine said, looking out at the field nervously.
"If I see something, I'll hurry back inside," Doug said.
"Would you mind if I joined you?" Valentine asked.
"Uh, sure," Doug said. "I mean, I wouldn't mind."
Valentine sat down next to him. Toby trotted over and demanded attention from her. Doug looked down at the Cup as he turned it over and over in his hands. She started rubbing her arms to keep warm in the chilly night air, and Doug felt the almost uncontrollable urge to put his arm around her.
"Why don't you?" the Cup asked.
Because I just don't want to, Doug thought.
"Yes, you do. Just go for it! Be bold!"
I'm not the 'bold' type when it comes to women, Doug thought, rolling his eyes.
"Well, why not try to be?" the Cup insisted. "Come on, Doug! You really like her! I think you might even love her!"
Stop right there! Doug thought. A wrinkled appeared in his brow. I just met her. I'm not in love. But….I do really like her.
"Hey, Doug?" Valentine suddenly asked. Her voice startled Doug. He looked up from the Cup at her. "Why didn't you put yourself in that story you told earlier?"
Doug went back to looking down at the Cup. Looking her in the eyes made him clumsy and he fumbled a little as he turned the Cup over in his hands. "I just don't think I was that big a part of the, uh...story."
"How were you not?" Valentine asked. "You helped guide Chell through the facility."
"It also would have made the story more convoluted."
Valentine chuckled quietly. This made Doug smile but he tried to hide it.
How the hell am I going to leave her? he thought. What if I can't make it back out of Aperture?
"Is that why you left Nora out of the story, too?" Valentine asked.
"Yeah, I wasn't sure how to incorporate her into a fairy tale," Doug said. "She was mostly hiding from Chell anyway. She's such a shy little thing. Except for when she found me. She…tried to coax me out of hiding. She wanted to help me get out of Aperture with her and Wheatley."
They both looked back through the sliding door at the makeshift tent inside. They could vaguely hear Wheatley's voice prattling on about "strange" human activities such as camping and hiking and eating contests.
"I better head back inside soon," Valentine said. "Marie and Spencer might try playing some kind of trick on Wheatley. I can just feel it."
She stood up but stopped with her hand on the door. With hesitation, she turned back to Doug. "Tell me if I'm being too forward but….Would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow night? We can use one of the empty apartments in the complex."
Doug stared at her in confusion. Did she just say what he thought she said?
"I, uhh, sure," he stammered. "Yeah. Dinner. Um, l-like a date?"
"If you want to call it that," Valentine said nervously.
"Well, maybe I do," Doug said, taking a shot at being "bold."
Valentine smiled. "Great."
Doug felt awkward for the rest of the night. He kept handling the Cup and avoiding eye-contact with everyone as they told ghost stories. He wasn't used to this feeling anymore. Back in the day, when he had a crush on someone he'd just avoid her and try to forget about it. He'd eventually move on with his life and feel relief knowing that he hadn't made a fool of himself. However, this felt like an entirely different life. He couldn't just avoid Valentine. He couldn't just forget her.
Once he was sure that everyone else was asleep, he snuck into a closet in the hallway and tucked himself in with all of the storage boxes and coats. He felt like a freak for needing to be in such small spaces for comfort. There was nothing more that he wanted at this moment than to have never left Aperture.
How the hell am I going to leave? he asked himself. I don't want to leave her.
"Then take her with you," a voice said.
What? I can't do that! Doug protested. She has a daughter. I can't risk her life like that.
"But you also can't leave her," the voice coaxed. "So why not just take her? Wouldn't it be a lot easier than never seeing her again?"
Doug didn't want to dignify this with an answer, but he was starting to think that maybe this was the only option he had. He imagined living in Aperture with her. They could sleep in his dens and eat the rations they could find in the cafeteria. They could even bring Spencer and Marie there.
"Of course, this would all have to come after you get rid of GLaDOS," a pessimistic voice said.
We'll figure something out, Doug thought. I'm sure we will. This will be great.
His thoughts were cut short by a sudden, muffled sob. Doug quickly put a hand over his mouth, thinking at first that it was him. Then he realized that it was coming from down the hall. He quietly opened the door of the closet and paused to listen. It was definitely crying. He opened the door a little more and noticed Marie poking her head out of the tent. She was looking down the hallway, too. She looked at Doug sadly.
"Mommy is crying again," she said softly.
"Does she do this often?" Doug asked.
"Sometimes," Marie said. "And she talks to her friend."
"What friend?"
"Lance."
Doug raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Who's Lance?"
Marie suddenly got a look on her face as if she had gotten caught doing something bad. "Don't tell Mommy I mentioned him," she said. "I'm going back to bed." She crawled back into the tent.
Doug stared down the hall again, listening to Valentine cry softly for a few more seconds before climbing to his feet. As he made his way toward her room, he noticed that these weren't sobs of sorrow or grief; they were panicked sobs of fear. Doug could definitely tell the difference. He hesitated by her door, wondering if he should really be bothering her right now. He might not know how to handle what was troubling her.
I have to try, he thought. For her. I want to help her in the same way that she helped me.
He gently turned her doorknob and pushed open the door. In the darkness of the room, he could barely make out a shape under a blanket on the bed. It seemed that Valentine was completely covering herself, not wanting to be exposed in any way. She continued to sob under the blanket.
"Um, Valentine?" Doug asked quietly.
"Doug?" she called out, equally as quiet. "D-Don't come near me right now!" She sniffled.
"Are you okay?" Doug asked. He slowly approached the bed.
"Please! Just go away!" Valentine said, slightly raising her voice. She sounded almost frightened of him and it broke his heart.
"Valentine," he said. "V…Val, please. I want to help you. I want to make you feel better. What's wrong?"
He slowly continued to walk toward the bed. Valentine picked up on her sobs and flinched when he sat down on edge of the bed.
"Val…" Doug said. "What happened? I can tell that something happened."
Valentine tore the blanket away from her face, and she tried to glare at him but her eyes revealed too much terror. Doug wondered if this was how he looked when he was having delusions. And then it hit him.
"Valentine, are you….Are you schizophrenic?"
