Chapter 42: Si, Lontana Da Scienza

"Are you done with that yet?" said GLaDOS, with an apparently-disinterested tone that Doug was coming to learn actually meant she was annoyed.

"Take a guess." Doug twisted the screwdriver—not because he was trying to unscrew the paneling on this deactivated turret, but because he was trying (and failing) to pry it open. "You've got a fifty-fifty shot at being right."

Doug managed to get the flat part of the screwdriver into a crease, and did his best to leverage the handle and use some torque to his advantage. But his grip slipped, and the screwdriver scraped along the outer casing of the turret.

"You need to stop destroying my equipment."

"And you need to shut up," Doug said, without looking up.

"Hey!" said the cube. "That's not very nice."

"Neither is she," said Doug, jamming the flat wedge into the crease again.

He inspected the latest scrape mark that marred the casing of the turret, one of several marks. He had been at this for a while now, and the grooves seemed to be becoming more pronounced the harder he tried. He could already feel the aghast ghosts of the engineers scoffing at him for using the tool improperly and damaging it beyond repair.

But screw what they thought. What mattered right now was getting to this thing's control panel. Which, of course, was not easy.

"Is it really a good idea to irritate her like that?" said the cube, with a tinge of reasonable concern.

"Is it really a good idea to be here at all?" he said. Doug could see GLaDOS looking back and forth between him and the companion cube he currently sat on, as if she paid enough attention, she could successfully eavesdrop.

"Point taken," said the cube. "But still. Don't push it."

Yet the screwdriver slipped once more and Doug let the tool clatter to the ground with a hiss of frustration. He moved to stand, gingerly putting weight on his healing leg.

They—by which Doug meant himself—had gathered research to find the most minimally-invasive way to remove the troublesome bullet from his leg, but so many options required anesthesia. There was no way in hell he was going under, especially not under her supervision. She was absolutely not a certified anesthesiologist.

Luckily, their research (along with some imaging) determined Doug's leg tissue already healed around the injury. Removing the bullet would re-injure the leg, and he would have to start the process of healing all over again. There was also no guarantee removing it would alleviate his pain or decrease the limp. It may just make it more pronounced.

So, after much deliberation, Doug determined he would keep the bullet.

A souvenir from the gift shop.

In the days since Doug and GLaDOS had worked together so tirelessly to stabilize Chell's condition, he had a bit of time to process this new reality.

The limp would undoubtedly linger—a physical representation of the weight he would always carry from this place. It frustrated him to know he would always be falling behind a bit, that he would always have this additional disability. He knew he should be thankful he was alive—and he was, without question—but that didn't mean he couldn't be frustrated about this, too.

Doug reached to the floor, picking up the cane that had, at one point, been propped against the cube before it had fallen. The smooth surface of the handle was starting to feel reassuring in his hand. Something he could lean on, literally, to carry him forward.

Doug used the cane to help pull himself upright. Then, once he felt steady on his feet, he began to take a few careful steps.

"You're holding it wrong again," GlaDOS chimed in. She flashed up a diagram on one of the monitors she had brought in, even though Doug already knew what he was supposed to do. They had been over this before. More than once.

Doug swore under his breath and switched the cane to his other hand. A lifetime of seeing people unknowingly using canes incorrectly, on the side of their weak leg rather than the side of their strong one was hard to shake from his memory, even if he had never personally used a mobility aid before. The trick, he was learning, was to triangulate by putting the weaker leg and the cane forward at the same time.

He took another few slow and deliberate steps, doing his best to ignore the ache in his arm and shoulder. That had been a surprise—he hadn't considered that the hand with the cane would have to work so hard. The pain was nearly as bad as his leg sometimes.

But he was doing his best to build his strength. Doug began a slow walk around the main AI chamber. The concentric circles he was doing right now around GLaDOS were relatively close, but the goal was to move farther and farther outward until he was doing laps along the far wall.

He had already progressed to somewhere between one third and one half of the way out. But progress took time. Healing took time.

It frustrated Doug enough that he had spent so long here already, doing his best to...cohabitate...with GLaDOS. The only consolation was that the AI seemed equally uncomfortable with the situation.

The only reason he stayed in this room to begin with was because it was the one that Chell was in, waiting in her medically-induced coma. It was just a step above suspension, really, but it allowed for Chell's body to better heal itself.

Doug eventually made it over there, and then paused to sit on the chair beside the bed. He eased himself into the chair.

Right now, her burns were the biggest issue. They were the justification for the coma—the pain while she healed would simply be too much, and for too long.

Who could have ever possibly guessed that having bombs go off in proximity to the face and torso could do so much damage.

Doug sat by her side, watching her steady breathing, he did his best to remind himself that she was healing. There was a reason for all this waiting. A purpose.

He thought about the last thing Chell must have consciously experienced—being yanked back to Earth, and then collapsing on the ground.

He hadn't believed what GLaDOS had told him. It had seemed so far-fetched, so impossible—more like an excuse than an actual event. So the AI had pulled footage from multiple camera angles, including Wheatley's view, to prove it was not something she had fabricated.

That, and she also showed him Wheatley's footage going back to GLaDOS's reactivation, because he had been curious as to what happened. Doug never would have guessed that showing Wheatley the location of Chell's vault would have ever resulted in this. All of this.

But at least it had caught him up to speed, and allowed Doug to feel more confident in the fact that GLaDOS was not completely lying about what had happened.

"If staring at her made her heal any faster, she would've been healed last week,"said GLaDOS.

Doug had been so patient for all of this time in Aperture. Why was he struggling so much to be patient just a little bit longer?

He was doing his best to pass the time—upon GLaDOS's request, he had even helped her remove the last vestiges of code injected by all of the other personality cores. Even the ones that had been attached to Wheatley while he was in the mainframe—ones that had previously been busted by GLaDOS—had done additional damage, even after they had been yanked off like the tumors they were. The malicious code remained in her mainframe, and so she had asked Doug to do what she could not, and change the code within the mainframe.

The cube had been against the entire thing from the start, but coding was something that Doug was familiar with, familiar enough that he would not be easily fooled by any possibly-dangerous-to-him task he was asked to code. If there was something he was unsure of, he simply investigated.

It had taken him a long time to investigate everything and reassure himself of what he was doing, but he hadn't gotten any complaints from GLaDOS. Surprisingly. Doug figured that she knew she wasn't in much of a position to irritate him, since this was something she could not do herself.

Now, after another moment of quiet, GLaDOS spoke again. "You know, there is still one thing I don't understand."

Doug glanced in her direction. She really did not like quiet, Doug had noticed. It was a lot for him to adjust to after having been alone for so long. Sometimes he had to step out of the main chamber for some peace and quiet.

"Why did she pick me up down there, when I was a potato?" she started. "By all accounts, it makes no sense—I couldn't do anything for her as a potato. I had offered her freedom, sure, but I couldn't act upon that until she had done her part of the deal and removed the moron—which she would have had to do anyway, even without bringing me along," she said.

She paused. This was a question that vexed her, no matter how many times she went over it from different angles of logic. She was thankful, of course, but it just did not make sense.

"My information at the time was incomplete," said GLaDOS. "If I were her— knowing all that she knows—I never would have picked up that potato. I would have let it be shredded to bits by birds," she said, even though the thought made her do the robot equivalent of shiver.

Yet GLaDOS was back safely in charge now, and wouldn't have to worry about that again. All because of a choice that Chell had made. A choice that GLaDOS would have never made.

"None of my past behavior would have indicated that I would follow through on any of my promises," GLaDOS continued. "So why did she do it?"

Doug stared down at his folded hands, and then to the unconscious Chell.

He had done a lot of thinking on this too, though not about the potato. The thing he had been vexed by was how, before everything had gone to hell, Chell had decided to work with CarolineDOS. It was a decision that had completely blindsided him in the moment, though in hindsight it made sense.

CarolineDOS had made Chell an offer that Doug and the rest of the team had refused to give her—a way out of Aperture. And, to be honest, he felt responsible for that. Very responsible. Not just for not trying harder to get her out, but also for telling Chell about Caroline's behavior before her death. How she had a change of heart, in a way.

He had thought that he could do the most good by staying in Aperture—doing his best to mitigate any potential damage caused by CarolineDOS. Grabbing Chell and making a run for it and ditching his team could have potentially allowed CarolineDOS to harm even more people. But that had been of little comfort to the girl trapped underground.

In hindsight, it had made sense that Chell would want to believe that CarolineDOS would exhibit some of those same changes as the late Caroline. That she could truly help Chell leave.

Doug had done that. He had given Chell that hope. Yet he still couldn't say that it had felt wrong to give Chell that hope. Maybe it had come into play with the situation with the potato, too.

"You know how she's stubborn, right?" Doug eventually said. "Well, she's also stubborn when it comes to people."

GLaDOS moved as if to protest being compared to a human, but Doug raised a hand to cut her off. "If she thinks that there's a chance that you could do better, she will take it. She hopes you will do better. She expects you to do better." He paused, shaking his head a little bit. Chell really shouldn't. But she did. "Even when we disappoint her," he added. There was a pause, and it was almost like Doug could hear the robot thinking.

"Then I suppose we'd better not disappoint her again," said GLaDOS, eventually.

After another few minutes of watching Chell in relative silence, Doug grabbed his cane and moved back to his temporary workstation. As he began to walk, GLaDOS spoke again, and Doug was so sure that it was going to be about the cane again that he was already lifting it to show that yes, it was on the correct side.

Instead, GLaDOS said, "Blue and Orange completed their last data retrieval mission today." She let the information sink in. "I now have everything I need to plot the course to the Borealis. Telemetry is coming online as we speak."

Doug's grip on the cane tightened.

He hadn't known what to think when GlaDOS had filled him in on the transmission she had received, especially upon her speculation over the person behind the message.

GLaDOS had been forced to backtrack a little bit, though, upon his confusion over the Borealis and had quickly explained Chell's accidental activation of its long-range teleportation that had teleported it to god-knows-where.

Aperture had never received any kind of information from anyone about its discovery, and they hadn't even known it was missing, for the most part, so it had been lost at sea, so to speak, for years. That was, until GLaDOS had gotten that transmission and decided to comb through years of satellite imagery until she could reasonably narrow down its location.

She had found a few potential sites, especially after comparing satellite imagery from before and after the Combine occupation, since there were a lot more abandoned boats now than there had been before their arrival. But without all of the blueprints and specifications for the Borealis, she hadn't been able to narrow it down. At least, not until now. Not until Orange and Blue had fetched the blueprints she required.

Doug had been (and still was) skeptical about the entire thing. He had never met Judith, but based on everything he had heard about her from Chell, he wasn't sure if it was a good idea to orchestrate a reunion between the two. It also surprised Doug that GLaDOS also hinted at a fear of this reunion only hurting Chell. Both didn't want her first major experience on the surface to be a major disappointment.

He had talked to the cube about it, explaining everything he could remember about Judith, but it didn't have any insight to offer on complex interpersonal relationships. GLaDOS had supplemented Doug's explanation (despite being able to communicate with the cube) with some additional context from what she had gathered as well as what Caroline had known.

Combined, their information wasn't enough for them to make a decision on Chell's behalf. But it was enough for them to realize that this was a decision that Chell would have to make herself. They could only do their best to prepare for the possibility.

And so they prepared.

So, in GLaDOS's subsequent communication with the resistance movement (with Doug listening in and providing his input) they had not informed them about Chell. They had only said that the coordinates were being retrieved, and once they were retrieved—if they were retrieved—then a representative or two of Aperture would meet them there.

It would be Chell's choice. Once she healed. Once she woke up.

Doug had made his way back to the turret. He still wasn't sure about the idea of an expedition across a hostile, alien-occupied world, and had been hoping for something far more peaceful and low-stakes. When he had initially learned some of that information—when things were also going to hell within Aperture—he had mentally placed 'alien takeover' into a 'deal with later' box.

And now it was later.

But a few conversations with GLaDOS had convinced him to get on board with it anyway. He wouldn't let Chell go all the way out there on her own. Absolutely not. She didn't even have a driver's license. She wasn't even old enough, technically, to even enroll in a driver's education class. There was no way he was letting her drive all that way by herself.

Plus, GLaDOS made a good point. If Aperture possessed the ability (potentially) to help remove the alien occupation altogether, how could they not try?

Doug had agreed with that, if only for Chell's sake. She deserved a safe and peaceful future. He just didn't understand why they both had to be there to help out.

Though they wouldn't be there to help out, really. Their reason for going wouldn't be for helping the resistance figure out the Aperture equipment—they would be there for a reunion. If Chell so chose that.

When Doug picked up a slightly different screwdriver to go back to work at prying open the side panel on the turret, GLaDOS spoke up. "Press on the lens," she said, and it was less of a suggestion and more of an impatient demand. Doug hesitated, screwdriver floating in his hand.

"It's worth a try," said the cube, from under him.

Doug could feel his teeth grinding slightly, but he couldn't ignore how frustrating his lack of success had been so far. So, reluctantly, he reached forward around the tripedal robot, feeling at the lens that made up the center of its targeting laser, then pressed in. The lens depressed and made a click sound, the same sort of sound and feeling as placing a storage cube on a button.

It was surprisingly satisfying. As the button clicked, the side panel on the turret popped open. Doug set down the screwdriver.

"Told you," the cube said, though there was no smugness in its voice. Not too much, anyway. But Doug wasn't paying too much attention to that—instead, he was beginning to look at the panel that he had been so adamantly working at getting to.

"There. It opens. Ta-da." A party horn noise flared to life. "Are you happy now?" said GLaDOS, with a very slight sway. Doug could feel her eye on him, even when she was not directly looking at him.

"There it is," Doug said, a bit quietly, but with an assured finality to his voice. So he hadn't misremembered this detail about turrets, from back when he used to repair things and fiddle with other things. His memory wasn't completely shot.

"What is it that you were so determined to get to, anyway?" GLaDOS couldn't help but ask the question.

Doug pressed a (much smaller) button on the inside control panel, flipped a toggle switch, and then pressed an additional button to power on the turret.

"This," he said simply, as the turret came online and no laser sight beamed ahead. The turret's wings popped open, but Doug knew that it had no capability to fire. At least not now. In theory. Doug and the cube were still strategically positioned behind it, though.

The turret moved around, shifting, adjusting, momentarily taking in the sight of the central core watching it intensely. Its wings pulled back in a bit for a moment. Then, seemingly more relaxed, it opened them back up again.

And then, it began to sing.

Lullaby Mode.

As the turret sang a song of its own creation, made up of all its voice modulation options and sounds that its hardware could make, Doug watched GLaDOS. She was staring at the turret, and he could tell that she was mulling something over, based on the way that she swayed—he was beginning to pick up on her unconventional body language.

When the turret paused, its first song complete, GLaDOS shifted her yellow eye over to Doug.

"I have an idea," said Doug.

Doug wiped the sweat from his brow with the relatively-clean sleeve of his shirt. He'd actually been able to get his hands on a decent supply of new-to-him clothing, now that he didn't have to fear immediate and unexpected death if he got caught raiding.

He leaned and picked up the clipboard on his cube, scanning the long list of serial numbers. He looked back at the (powered-off) turret he had opened up—one of the dozens that filled this atrium. He squinted at the serial number, then at his list again, and then stared at the toggle switch on the side panel of the turret.

Lullaby Mode - ON

He made a satisfactory tick next to that number on his list—first scratching down a vertical line so that he could create a third column for tally marks. Yes, this was his third time individually inspecting each turret in the room to confirm that they were all in Lullaby Mode.

GLaDOS had claimed, repeatedly, that they were already in that mode and that this was a waste of time, but Doug refused to rest until he had checked each one—and checked, and checked. Three times may have seemed excessive, but Doug didn't find it to be a waste. Places like NASA had done these kinds of redundant inspections all the time. He could do it too.

All it would take was one overlooked turret still in live-fire mode for their planned performance to fail.

It gave him peace of mind, as well as something to do as they waited for Chell's body to finish healing.

"Almost done," he said aloud. He had yet to decide just how many rounds of checks he would do.

Doug almost hadn't been able to believe it, when, after trying out the lullaby mode in front of GLaDOS, that the AI had been able to procure such a large and spacious area under her direct control, and also along the elevator path between her chamber and the auxiliary entrance on the surface.

His initial idea had been to do something small—three or four turrets working together like the little quartets he had stumbled across several times in his time in the shadows. Listening to them come up with little songs and then performing them together had been one of the few joys in his life.

He would watch them for hours as they sang little songs, had short and stilted conversations amongst themselves, then tried out different tunes before settling on one.

It only reinforced his belief that so many things in here were alive. And they were good little musicians, too. Sometimes Doug had caught the cube humming one of those melodies hours to days after they had watched their little recital.

He hadn't been entirely sure if their singing was real, in the factual sense, or only real in the subjective sense. Though it did seem that while only he could hear the cube, GLaDOS could hear the turrets singing. Plus, the uncovering of the Lullaby Mode toggle switch confirmed that it would be real to Chell, too.

So Doug and GLaDOS had done their best to orchestrate something special. A proper send-off, a proper celebration of everything that Chell had gone through. At his behest, GlaDOS had agreed to make sure that the targeting lasers would be turned off for all the turrets within this massive room. He didn't want to scare her to death.

"Almost done," he repeated, adding another tally mark.

"Good," said GLaDOS, "because she will be waking up shortly. I am beginning pre-wakeup protocols."

Doug paced along a path he carved in the field of wheat.

Though it had been a few hours (and this was not the first time he'd been up here this week) he was still having a hard time adjusting. The light—bright and unending and eternal—had been so overwhelming he had been forced to slowly adjust, opening his eyes one at a time until he was taking in the field—the bright and unending and eternal field of wheat.

It wasn't actually unending, though.

Doug stood behind a rise in the ground and in the midst of the overgrown remains of the aboveground parking lots. The blocks of asphalt were split apart by time and by growth, breaking into smaller and smaller chunks, paint stripes fading, until it was almost as if there had never been a parking lot to begin with. The only clue that remained were the rusting-out cars of people long gone.

Doug wasn't close to the shed, but he wasn't far away, either.

After discussing it with GLaDOS, they decided it would be too overwhelming for Chell to see Doug right after making it to the surface. They needed to give her time to process—she deserved it.

Doug needed the time to process, too.

"What's taking so long?" Doug said, still trudging along the same path.

His leg wasn't exactly healed—and he never would be, fully—so walking so much wasn't the best idea, but he also felt like he was going to explode if he sat down for too long. A side-effect of Aperture, he supposed.

The cube didn't respond.

That was the other thing that he was going to have to get used to. GLaDOS had provided him with an extensive supply of medication, and had provided him with the manufacturing details, as if he'd ever be able to just manufacture it on his own. But she could, at least. So that was something. He may have to end up getting his prescription refilled at Aperture once more.

Doug paused in his walking to rest his hand on the cube. He had taken one of the pills today—which meant no conversation from his faithful companion. It had been there for him for so long, and he would never be able to bring himself to just leave it here.

"She should be out here by now," he said aloud, even though he knew there was still time left before he really should start to worry.

He walked over to the vehicle that had been prepared for them—built specifically for their Aperture expedition. It didn't have any Aperture logos on it, thankfully, and GLaDOS had done her best to weather the freshly-fabricated armored van. It was a mixture of gray, white, and green, but in a way that made it seem weathered, like it had been sitting outside for twenty years. It almost gave the impression of chipped paint, as if this car had been painted over a few times, and those layers were wearing away.

It would help them blend in, if they did end up running into others—which was not the plan, but GLaDOS couldn't guarantee their route would be free of encounters with others.

Their route to the arctic wasn't a straight line, and they would have to go out of their way in several places in order to avoid any areas frequented by the Combine, as well as around the various cities scattered across the Earth. Each area would be given a wide berth, though GLaDOS had wanted them to be able to use roads as much as possible, even if they were crumbling.

The vehicle did have four-wheel drive, though, so they (well, Doug) could drive offroad if necessary, which would be necessary at some point. As far as fuel went, the car had been equipped with an impossibly-small nuclear reactor. Doug didn't know how GLaDOS had managed that one, and he didn't ask. Much simpler to just accept the fact that he now had more fuel than he could ever possibly need.

He moved to the back of the van, lifting a disguised panel to reveal a handle. He tugged, and the back of the van opened up. He didn't climb in, but he did take a moment to visually inspect their cargo.

Doug counted the boxes, mentally checking off the things that they needed and the things that GLaDOS insisted that they bring, such as a few spare turrets (in a new compacted version) and radios capable of transmitting across half of the world. She even included one ASHPD, the single-portal kind, with the other portal linked to a safe part of the facility.

Doug had laughed at that one. Yeah, safe. Sure. But she had insisted that it would be a safe, reinforced landing zone if they ever needed to abort their mission. It was a 'get out of jail free' card, except for the part involving having to return to the place that trapped him.

Returning to Aperture would mean they would have to scrap their journey and start over, but it made Doug feel better. Sort of.

He got up on his toes for a minute to make sure that the radio was still in place, stationed in a bracket at the front. It would also serve them well for navigation, as GLaDOS would keep her horrible yellow eye on the satellite imagery and whatever Combine communications she could intercept. Then, she could keep the travelers updated and allow them—well, Doug—to change the van's course and drive somewhere to hide.

Doug couldn't deny that the thought of having to navigate an alien-occupied version of Earth made him feel seriously unwell.

With Aperture, his enemy had been known. Well known. As well as the extent of that enemy's influence and reach. But this alien occupation was so vast and unknowable that it gave him acute panic to think about. So, he didn't.

He was, once again, thankful for the supply of medicine given to him. At the very least, it would keep his paranoia from eating him alive. If he didn't have some sort of aid, he feared that it and delusions would thrive in an environment like this.

GlaDOS agreed.

The cube wasn't so sure, but it had never been keen on the medication to begin with.

Doug closed the doors of the van and paced again along his path carved from wheat. As time wore on, this path was eroding farther and farther outward. If he kept this up long enough, he might end up with a crop circle.

He continued to pace for a long while, eventually sitting on the cube to rest, leaning against the cane. He was outside—free!—yet he was unable to relax until Chell —

Slam.

The slam caught Doug's attention. He pulled himself out of his worries and out of the van.

"Is that—?"

"Shh. Get down!"

Right. Doug ducked behind the cube, then poked up his head just high enough to see Chell standing outside of the shed.

For a long time, Chell stood there, watching the door, as if something bad would happen if she took her eyes off of it for even a split-second. That very well may have been Doug's paranoia talking, but he felt that, after everything, Chell had developed a healthy paranoia over all things Aperture.

So she remained. Staring. Processing.

And then, carefully, she pivoted out toward the field—the endless, shimmering sheet of summer gold.

She reached out a hand to run through the growing grain. After a moment, she separated one stalk from the others, snapping it off and rolling it in her palm. She didn't even mind the sticky bite of the grain against her scarred palm, because this wheat was alive—organic, whole, and thriving—and felt like a lifeline since she had felt something so undeniably real.

Real.

This was real. The real outside. She could feel it in the sun on her face, raw in its directness after spending so much time under artificial light. She could feel it in the smell of the breeze, undeniably stronger than the occasional drafts inside Aperture. The breeze picked up, making the wheat around her rustle in a long wave, in a way that made Chell think of wind chimes.

She sank to her knees, digging her fingernails into the hard dirt. She clawed her fingers like a trowel in a garden bed and yanked out a clump, crumbling it in her hands. Dirt jammed under her fingernails and she knew she'd be scrubbing her hands for ages to get it out. Yet all she could think about as she dug her hands into the dry and rocky dirt was the same refrain.

Real, real, real.

After another moment, she tipped forward, pressing her forehead against the ground, not even caring that the dirt might get into her hair.

She felt the tears begin as she shifted, rolling onto her back and relishing the sound of the dry snap of the wheat stalks as she sprawled out her limbs, ignoring the jabs into her back as she looked up at the sky—the vast, beautiful, cerulean sky.

The breeze, when it stirred again, was a cool contrast on her wet face, but she didn't care.

She had made it.

She stayed on the ground for so long that Doug grew worried.

"I'm sure she's fine," the cube tried to reassure him, though it said less and less these days as he worked on adjusting to consistent access to medication.

Doug wished that he could have taken the time to walk away and to go over inventory one more time, just for something to do with his nerves, but he couldn't risk looking away from the shed and missing anything important—like glancing up to see that she had disappeared, wandering off in any other ordinal direction than the one that she was supposed to be headed. Doug hadn't come this far just to lose her in a field.

So he waited.

He was good at waiting, after all.

So, while he waited, he tried to think ahead to what he would tell Chell about how this expedition of theirs was going to work, contingencies and all. He knew they did not strictly need to arrive in the Arctic in order for this to be successful for the resistance—they already knew the location of the Borealis.

He also knew that, if Chell chose to do this, then they would be going there, Doug's reservations and all.

Staying safe would be a priority (hence the turrets stored and built into the car) yet wielding a gun made Doug uncomfortable. He could use a gun, but he really, really would rather not. Yet Doug needed something to defend himself and Chell with on this newly-hostile surface. GLaDOS had compromised by creating him a rifle-like weapon that generated and dispensed smaller high-energy pellets. GLaDOS hadn't understood the logic behind that one, considering the high energy pellets nearly electrocuted anyone they came in contact with, the possibility of death much higher than the already-dangerous bullet.

Doug had been unable to explain it, either. Yet she had obliged his request and created the thing anyway, all the while telling him exactly what she thought about it and how inconvenienced she was.

It had been late in the afternoon when Chell had been released, and the steady trek of sun across the sky told Doug it was shifting from late afternoon into evening. Had Chell had fallen asleep there, basking in the sun? Even if she had, he didn't want to approach her and risk scaring her to death by waking her up. If there was anything that she deserved, it was rest.

After what felt like entirely too long, Chell pushed herself upright, the sound of crunching wheat breaking the calming monotony of rustling grain.

"She's moving," he said, narrating to the cube. "Back toward the shed? Wait, no. She's going for the cube," he said, a bit of relief in his voice.

She bent over and pressed on the side of the cube in a particular manner The cube opened, and Chell reached in, then pulled out the only thing inside—a loose, folded sheet of paper. "She found the note," he said, then began to ease himself back into a seated position on the cube, knowing that this would make him more visible once Chell began to rise up the crest that separated the shed from the parking lot.

Chell frowned as she began to unfold it, fully anticipating some sort of passive-aggressive typed note. But then Doug saw her straighten abruptly, as if six inches had been added to her height.

She twisted, whipping around and raising a hand to shield her face from the late-afternoon glare, and then glanced down at her paper again. Then, after confirming the direction, she took off toward the rise. At first she walked quickly, with purpose, continually glancing back down at the note to make sure she was reading it correctly. She began to climb the rise, the change in slope not even slowing her down the way it had tired Doug.

Then, she caught sight of the van.

Her steps moved from a brisk walk into a jog. If she had been going up stairs, she would have taken them two at a time

Then, she caught sight of Doug.

She paused, for just a moment and then the brightest smile Doug had ever seen brightened Chell's face. She shouted something Doug couldn't discern, then began to run. A few strides in she tripped, stiff stalks of wheat tangling in her steps. She caught herself and then laughed, and that Doug could hear.

She hardly slowed down as she sprinted up, then nearly knocked Doug off of the cube with a crushingly-tight hug. He wheezed and then laughed, and she let go only after he made a joke about being unable to breathe. "It's good to see you too," he said.

Chell pulled back, pausing to look him over as if making sure he was real. "What? How?" She straightened, nearly bouncing in her steps. "You're here—!" She broke off to glance back at the shed, then settled back on, "How?"

Doug gave a small, tired laugh. "Now that is a long story," he said. "Probably almost as long as yours."

"I—yeah," she said, pausing to clear her throat, voice still needing time to adjust to being used consistently again. Chell gave another laugh, and Doug could see the remnant streaks of tears—she must have been crying earlier, staring up at the sky. "That's one way to describe it." Chell paused. "Did she—does she know?"

Doug nodded. "She does," he said, calmly. "She's the one who sent me out here to wait for you."

Chell made a noise of disbelief and exclamation, then proceeded to barrage him with questions. Doug did his best to give abridged answers, promising more detail later.

She couldn't stand still while she did this, asking questions and then doing a cartwheel and then circling the van and then picking apart heads of wheat as she listened and then asked even more questions. The smile on her face made him smile as well, the spirit of her youthful curiosity shining through.

Eventually, a semblance of nervous energy spent, she plopped down on a patch of wild grass near Doug, having finally fallen silent. She sat, cross legged, staring out across the horizon. As the sun dipped lower and lower into the sky, the colors of the sunset slipped into the lingering clouds like watercolor paints dropped onto a wet sheet of paper, all manner of pinks and oranges and purples and even a burst of rich red dyeing the sky.

At one point Doug faintly heard her crying, and yet when he turned to look there was still a smile on her face. "We made it," she said softly.

"Yeah," Doug said, shifting his bad leg. "We did."

And so the two of them sat there in companionable silence, reveling in the understated joy of the moment. The depth of their joy and relief was not reflected in their shouts and laughs, but in the sounds of the wind sifting through golden grain, the visual sweep of waves rolling across the field, the growing chime of crickets as they quietly watching the sun—the beautiful, celebrating sun—wash the plains alight in vibrant gold before it dipped beneath the horizon.

A/N, 15 April 2023: This chapter includes references to one of the lesser-known official tie-in materials for Portal, the "Turret Lullaby" comic that can be found here: turret_comic/