A/N: Thanks for the reviews, please keep 'em coming! Sorry it's taking me so long between chapters.

Props to KRSONMar for the beta read.

Gordon spent the rest of the day working in Dr Kleiner's lab. Eventually, when they had done all that they could do, they headed for the mess hall. It was filled with rebels; a spontaneous gathering that was part victory celebration, part wake for Eli and the others that had died. People shared their memories, some people sang, and then one of the Vortigaunts began to play a haunting, expressive melody on an instrument that looked obviously hand-made, but not by human hands. Everyone fell quiet, and he slipped his arms round Alyx. She picked at the orange and grey flecks on his sweatshirt, but she didn't say anything. He knew she was more than smart enough to have figured out what he'd been working on, which meant she knew that this evening was too precious to spoil.

As the party grew rowdier, more people performed. Gordon had a sinking feeling when Barney came up to them, slightly the worse for wear. "Regulate!" he announced. "C'mon, Gordon!"

"No way." He wasn't nearly drunk enough for that, and he didn't intend to be. He wanted to keep a clear head.

"Come on, Gordon, you know I can't rap."

"Neither can I."

"That's why it's so funny! You know we totally owned the Black Mesa karaoke contest…"

Gordon just laughed and shook his head. Barney laughed too, and headed off into the crowd. On impulse, he followed Barney and grabbed his arm.

"I think me and Alyx are leaving tomorrow, for the Borealis. I don't know if we'll find Judith, not by now, but we need to see what she found."

He wanted to explain to Barney that he needed him with him; because he was worried about Alyx and the way he suspected she was burying the reaction to her father's death; and because he feared dying or being captured, or teleported, or any of the other inexplicable things that seemed to happen to him, and leaving her alone in the Arctic wilderness.

Also, unlike Barney, he had no idea how to mount an assault on a military position. Nova Prospekt had been more luck than judgment.

It didn't need explaining. Barney just nodded.

"Yeah, sure thing, Gordon. I'll meet you back in here at sunup." Barney punched him on the arm, and Gordon smiled. For a moment he was tempted to try and tell Barney everything. The Grey Man who put him into stasis, and the mysterious connections he perceived between him, Eli, and now Alyx. The way the Vorts had bound him to Alyx; and his hope that when the time came, their bonds would prove stronger than those of the Grey Man's employers. But he had already asked his friend to give up the safe shelter of White Forest after only a day, and he didn't want to put anything else on his shoulders. Besides, tonight wasn't the night. He punched Barney on the shoulder in return, but it looked amusingly weird and unspontaneous, like it always did when he tried it; and Barney just grinned and shook his head affectionately. For a moment, it was like being back at Black Mesa. Then Barney wandered over to a particularly animated group of rebels and Gordon went and found Alyx. He took her hand, and they went to his room. He shut the door, and turned to her.

"I've been thinking, Alyx, we should probably set off tomorrow. The sooner we get to the Borealis and check it out, the sooner we can come back to…" His voice tailed off, and he spread his hands, trying without words to encompass their friends, their hopes for the future, and the relationship that was blossoming between them with an intensity that had surprised and delighted him. Alyx smiled, and he understood that she'd been waiting for him to be ready, holding back her desire to avenge her father because she wanted him to be there when she did.

"I think we should set off too. Finish the job, right?"

Gordon smiled with relief, and then his grin broadened as Alyx fixed him with an expression he'd quickly grown to love, and pulled him over to the bed.

The next morning, Gordon slipped quietly out of the room, showered thoroughly, shaved for what might be the last time in a long time, and went down to the mess hall. Barney was sitting in a corner drinking coffee, and he greeted him blearily.

"This is one mother-fie of a hangover, man." Gordon slipped into the seat opposite him with a grin.

"That's cause you got too fie'd up on booze last night."

Barney's hilarity on the day he first overheard Dr Kleiner's unique choice of curse word had known no bounds. The game had quickly developed as part of their friendship; and it was a welcome distraction from the craving Gordon felt for Barney's coffee. "Think you'll be able to avoid hurling all over the fie-ing helicopter?"

"Fie you! I've had worse hangovers than this." Barney paused for a moment and looked reflective. "Besides, getting killed'll seem less fie-ing painful by comparison.

Gordon was slightly taken aback. Barney's sense of humour had never been particularly cynical, apart from when he was talking about his job. But then he reflected that Barney, like Alyx, had spent the past however-many years under threat, and that was bound to give you an edge. Gallows humour was well known as a defence mechanism, so if he was going to really commit to the fight against the Combine, he supposed he should try it on for size. And besides, it wasn't as if he hadn't found some aspects of his situation during the resonance cascade and afterwards to be darkly comical. Being able to share that with someone else would make a nice change.

"If you die this hung-over, you'll leave a motherfie-ing well preserved corpse."

"True. Anyway, it doesn't matter, cause neither of us are going to die. Right, Henry?" Barney addressed this last remark to a passing Vortigaunt who was sweeping the mess hall after the revelry of the night before.

"The Free Man shall not return to the All-In-One." Barney's face fell.

"What about me? What about the Calhoun, Henry?" he called. The Vort ignored him and carried on sweeping. He shrugged with forced nonchalance, turned back to Gordon, and finished his coffee. "Guess you'd better go wake Alyx." He toasted Gordon with his coffee cup, and Gordon mimed clinking against it with one of his own.

"See you in the hangar."

Gordon stood up, and jumped slightly when he saw her. He wondered how much of the conversation she'd heard; judging by her look of amusement, it was most of it.

"You know Gordon, if you thought you made it out of the room without waking me up, then we really need to work on your covert skills." He hung his head in mock shame, and she smiled at him. He felt sudden pangs of longing shoot through him, and for a moment he wanted nothing more than just to stay there with her. This was the exact reason he hadn't wanted to wake her. She was beautiful, and smart, and he bet she'd be really good at the fie game.

Instead, he just smiled back at her and headed for the door. He knew he was being abrupt, but he didn't want to give himself any excuse for delay. Once they had been to the Borealis and taken care of whatever they found there, then as far as he understood Magnusson and Kleiner, the Combine would have no means of bringing reinforcements to Earth. It would go from being an impossible fight to a difficult but finite one, and he could return to being a scientist and make a life for himself in the same way his surviving Black Mesa colleagues had. And the thing that would give them the best chance of success was his beloved, hated HEV suit.

He hadn't realised until he took it off quite how different he was when he was wearing it. He didn't feel hunger or thirst, didn't need to sleep, and though he felt pain, the morphine ensured that after a while he didn't really care. To keep him moving despite injury it stimulated his sympathetic nervous system, which also made him mentally sharper and slightly more aggressive. Which was strangely enjoyable, but his relative invulnerability reduced his ability to empathise with others, and brought out a callousness that scared him slightly. It hadn't been an issue back at Black Mesa, because he had only needed it for an hour or two at a time, at critical points during the experiments. But if he put it on now there was no way of knowing how long he'd have to wear it.

Outside the lab, Alyx stopped, and put her hand on his shoulder.

"Are you ok with this?"

He had haltingly told her some of his feelings about the HEV suit on the nights they had whispered together in the small hours, too excited to sleep, wanting to learn everything about each other; and he could see in her eyes now that if he decided to not put it on, to head north wearing the same body armour as any other rebel, she would accept that. That, and the way she'd reacted the night before when he mentioned the Borealis, was what decided him. He would do what it took to help her get over her father's death, and the fact that it would deal a mortal blow to the Combine was the frosting on the cake.

Gordon squared his shoulders and stepped through the door. Dr Kleiner was there already, powering up his equipment for the day.

"Good morning, Gordon! And Alyx, my dear. Have you come to help Gordon out of his clothes?" He turned blithely to his monitor, unaware as Gordon winced and Alyx giggled. Gordon sometimes wondered whether his mentor's air of eccentricity was in fact an incredibly subtle performance, allowing him to get away with outrageous jokes and comments without repercussion. On the other hand, he thought as Kleiner began to search his pockets for the glasses that were already on his face, perhaps not.

Gordon turned. It was in the corner where they'd left it last night to dry, with the crowbar propped next to it. A fresh coat of paint had replaced the dents and bloodstains. Despite his reservations about the suitability of orange and grey as camouflage in an Arctic environment, he'd ended up leaving it the way it was the day he first saw it. Despite everything that had happened, they were still his favourite colours. The embossed lambda on his chest stood out as boldly as ever. Bring it on, Combine.

He thought of kicking back on the couch with a cold beer and a plate of nachos, reading the crisp new edition of the Phys Rev. He thought of spending all day in your PJs playing videogames, just because you could. He thought of walking into labs where the walls were sterile white tiles, the equipment was shiny and new, and if you needed something they didn't have, you could just order it off the internet.

He thought of his mom.

His world was never coming back, no matter what he did.

Then he looked at Alyx and thought of what he could still have, and suddenly it was easy. He stepped behind the screen and put the suit on; felt the sharp sting of the needle at his elbow, and the duller stabbing sensation of the catheter. The HUD appeared next, calibrated to holographically project at the optimum distance for his eyes to focus on automatically, as long as he was wearing his glasses. Apparently he was 90% healthy; pretty respectable, considering how ill he'd been only a few days before. He could feel the hot-cold tingling sensation as the automatic medical system went to work on his upper arm where the zombie had clawed him. On superficial wounds it was quite a pleasant sensation; when it was working on his viscera it was almost unbearable, so he made a mental note to avoid falling or getting shot this time.

Gordon moved across to the power socket, and smiled as he felt rather than heard the hum as the suit powered up around him. Going into danger through choice, rather than simply finding himself forced into a situation where it was fight or die, was oddly exhilarating. He also felt the excitement of intellectual curiosity. Instead of being surrounded at every turn by people who knew more than he did about what was going on, he was going out to the Borealis to discover what was on board for himself. Gordon felt suffused with optimism as he strode (the HEV suit was good for striding) across the floor towards Alyx. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a flicker on one of Dr Kleiner's monitors, but when he turned to look there was nothing there. He picked up his crowbar and headed for the hangar.

Barney was waiting for them by the helicopter when they arrived, along with a small group of rebels. Three of them greeted him enthusiastically; Lars the Viking dentist, now bearing the heavy pack and white armband of a medic; Tim, a heavyset far-Eastern looking man who Gordon thought he recognized; and a small Indian woman with an incomprehensible Scottish burr. The fourth man stood back slightly, and nodded when Gordon looked over to him. "Jarrod." he said, then climbed into the cockpit and became deeply engrossed in a map. The others began loading weapon and supplies into the back of the copter, and Gordon joined in. He noticed how Barney and Alyx were talking, their faces grave, discussing tactics, provisions and cold-weather survival. He felt surprised, but then realised he shouldn't be. Alyx's father had been leading the fight, and Barney had been right in the thick of it. This had been their life for 20 years; Alyx had grown up knowing nothing else. It was only natural for them to take charge, and he admired them for it tremendously.

On the other side of the helicopter, Magnusson was supervising the installation of a Magnusson Device dispenser. Latke was bolting it to the floor of the cargo hold; a pencil clutched in his third arm the way a human might hold it between his teeth. Magnusson addressed the mechanic, his voice a stream of oddly distorted vowels and hissing sibilants, and Latke replied the same way. Gordon felt his jaw drop slightly. He was genuinely impressed, and turned to Barney.

That's incredible! Has anyone else learned to speak their language?" Barney laughed, but his eyes were slightly uneasy. Dr Magnusson, however, just looked disappointed.

"That, my erudite friend, was Swedish." He gave the dispenser a tug to make sure it was in place, then turned and left.

They couldn't set off quickly enough for Gordon after that, and luckily the last of the ammunition was soon stowed aboard. Alyx gave him a brief, slightly bashful kiss and then hopped up into the cockpit next to the dark haired man. Gordon and the others piled into the back. Barney gestured to the mounted gun.

"Wanna do the honours Gordon?" Gordon swallowed, but eased himself behind the gun as they left the ground. He was unenthusiastic about heights at the best of times, but it made sense, given the HEV suit. The mood among the little group was light hearted, particularly after Barney demonstrated the emergency exits (one big one), the life jackets (none), and the range of duty free. It meant nothing to Tim and Alyx, but the others laughed appreciatively. Even Jarrod joined in, with a laconic "doors to manual" via the intercom.

The attack came after they had been flying for over an hour, just long enough for the initial apprehension to have worn off, but not close enough to landing for them to be on their guard. The gunship was suddenly alongside them, raking them with its cannon. Gordon's mouth went dry and he felt his palms sweating inside his gauntlets, which suddenly felt ridiculously clumsy. But he aimed and fired, and it worked, just like it always seemed to. He watched the tracer flowing out through the air ahead of him, saw the bullets impact and bury themselves in the creature's side.

It had initially been focused on the cockpit, but now it turned its attention to Gordon. A stream of fire struck him directly, agonizing, winding him. The familiar refrain began in his head. Major trauma detected… Automatic medical system engaged… Morphine administered. He ignored it and kept shooting, trying through the pain to focus his fire onto the narrowest part of the circular structure surrounding the gunships rotor.

"Jarrod, Alyx! Can you try and distract it?" He heard Barney yelling over the intercom, but it seemed to be coming from a long way away.

"Ah, that's a negative, we don't have a forward gun, over."

"Wait a minute…" Alyx's voice. There was the sound of breaking glass, follower by the rattle of her machine pistol. "We do now!" The rebels in the hold gave an ironic cheer.

The gunship was no longer shooting at him, but it was now shooting at Alyx, which Gordon liked even less. He slumped in his seat, trying to force his hand to keep squeezing the trigger.

"Dr Freeman! Are you hurt?" someone called.

"Of course he's hurt, you dumbass! He just got kicked in the stomach by a bomb." Gordon thought they should have used Barney's voice in the HEV suit, instead of the anonymous, cool sounding woman. That was a much better description than simple "trauma."

He saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and then Lars was by his side. "Here, take this med kit." He heard the electronic whooshing sound as the medic applied his magic green liquid directly into the external port of the HEV suit. A firey sensation spread throughout his system, and suddenly everything felt easier. He directed another stream of fire into the rotors, which were now smoking ominously. The creature began to turn back towards him, but ponderously now, as if it was as disorientated as he had been a few moments ago. He felt a brief spark of pity for it, but only very brief. Then the Scottish woman was handing him a rocket launcher.

The gunship howled mournfully as it fell away, explosions ripping through its body, but its cries were drowned out by whoops and cheering from people surrounding him. He could hear Alyx's voice over the intercom, praising him, and he grinned as he sat back, but his expression gradually changed to one of wonder. He'd never paid much attention to clouds, but when you were up this close to them, they were really quite... cloudy, weren't they?

Pleasantly full of morphine as he was, the remainder of the journey seemed to take no time at all.