"…So we made it through the suburbs ok, and for a while we thought we were home and dry. But then the portal storms hit, threw us right off the track. So we started walking, but a couple of the guys were pretty badly hurt. The Combine were on the move all around us; no way we would have made it through without the Vorts. They took care of the wounded, and the rest of us joined up with 'em; went hunting Shu'ulathoi." The alien word sounded even more fantastical in Barney's accent, as he grinned across at Gordon. "I even managed to take one out myself. Guess that puts me back on top of the league, huh?"

Gordon was tempted to reply with the details of his own recent trip to the overworld, but then he decided to let Barney have that one. After all, there were much more pressing concerns on his mind.

"Barney, when Alyx left, she wasn't… injured, was she?"

"No, she was fine. There was some sort of crazy computer thing going on, so she had to jump ship. She came back over here and helped us mop up the last of the Combine." This begged a further question, and it must have shown on his face. "Angelique was pretty badly hurt though. We had to get her back home, so Alyx had to go be copilot."

"Was she upset?"

"Course she was. But she's seen you pull off some pretty impressive stuff in the past. Plus her and her dad were pretty close to the Vorts, and you know the stuff they say about you." Gordon frowned. He didn't know, actually. But he let his friend talk, having learned from past experience that it was sometimes easier to just glean the information he needed from the flow of loquacity, than to try and interrupt with questions. "I couldn't believe it either, at first. I mean you're one of the clumsiest guys I ever knew, unlucky as hell, and kinda scrawny too…"

"Thanks?"

"But then Eli and Isaac told me more about exactly what happened at Black Mesa. And when you showed up in City 17, and I saw some of the stuff you did… and it's not just the stuff you did directly. Everyone was on such a high, just because they believed you were you."

"I am me."

"You know what I mean. There's something going on with you, Gordon."

Gordon could feel his face fall as he focused his attention on the snowy plains ahead. It was bad enough when people he'd never met were hailing him as a saviour, but Barney, whose presence in City 17 he had clung to as the one familiar constant, who had talked to him throughout the horrendous fighting as if they were back at Black Mesa and it was just another dash to be first in line at the cafeteria… his best friend, who was now old enough to be his – no, let's not ever go there. He could feel himself trembling, and breathing more rapidly. Barney evidently noticed something as well, and he placed his hand on Gordon's shoulder.

"Let's take five, I could use some food."

They sat with their backs to the huge tracked tyres, using the snowmobile as a shelter from the wind. Barney scanned the area, placed his rifle beside him in easy reach, and gave a sigh of contentment as he opened his ration pack. Gordon watched out of the corner of his eye, still marveling at how routine this all appeared to his friend. He wondered how many times he'd had to leave his base not knowing if he was coming back, how many times he'd fired his rifle, how many times he'd seen someone die. And then Gordon appeared out of nowhere, and seemingly within days the Citadel was falling...

Barney could always tell when Gordon was brooding. He was eating some kind of spread directly from the tube, and he turned to Gordon, smacking his lips and grimacing.

"If you could have anything in the world to eat, right now, what would it be?"

Gordon thought for a moment. "Macaroni and cheese."

"Hmm." Barney nodded thoughtfully, considering the proposition, as he repacked his kit and pulled himself back into the cab. "A good white sauce is one of the hallmarks of a competent cook, and it's not something we've really been able to replicate in a post-Combine world. It's weird though," he continued as Gordon gunned the engine and they set off, "it's the cheap synthetic stuff I really miss. You know, the kind of stuff where it takes a whole industrial complex just to make a can full of sugary crap. The day I get to eat Miracle Whip is the day I'll know we've won. And I could go for some Pop-Tarts, and a hotdog, and key lime pie…"

Thinking of the time prior to the resonance cascade, even just the food, always brought a deep sense of unease in Gordon, and he shifted, feeling the portal devices pressing into his leg, remembering their awesome effect. To him it was still so recent; he suspected that a blood test would find he still contained e-numbers. And yet he had been away for so long… Relative to an observer, he had been gone 20 years, but relative to himself, he had been thrown into the future; and the same thing had happened to him and Alyx at Nova Prospekt. Was the stasis he experienced just another version of Dr Kleiner's slow teleport? And if he could go forward, might it also be possible to go back?

Now Aperture had developed a means of punching holes directly through to the Combine universe, without the need for such massive, destructive releases of energy as resonance cascades and portal storms, and yet also seemingly without the need to relay around Xen. Might it be possible to cross to another universe altogether, one where another Gordon Freeman had slept through his alarm, or where he'd had the flu, or where he'd slipped and the dirty yellow crystal had smashed into radioactive shards and dust, scattered across the floor of the chamber? Would this reality vanish as though it had never been, or would he simply vanish from it, abandoning Alyx and Barney exactly as he would if the Grey Man decided to take him back, the fate he was desperately hoping to avoid…

He was jolted from his thoughts as the snowmobile scraped over the ground. Looking around, Gordon thought the snow seemed brittle and more icy, and he could see the dark green of fir trees dotted throughout the snow.

"…Deep pan pizza, nachos, sweet potato with marshmallows. Did we just hit a rock? Looks like we're gonna have to start – SHIT!"

They both ducked reflexively as a stream of bullets shattered the windshield. Combine Elite troops, their armour providing excellent camouflage against the snow, were spreading out in front of them. "Run 'em down, Gordon!" Barney yelled, whooping with delight as he did so. Gordon saw the fierce joy on his face as he sighted out of the window at the troops trying to flank them.

An APV overtook them on the right, it's tyres churning the snow, and slewed directly across in front of them. The collision was unavoidable, so Gordon jumped out to the side and rolled, breathless from the impact, snow flying up in his face. He rose to his knees and used the grav gun to lift one of the barrels of fuel from the back of the snowmobile, then turned and launched it into the hatch at the back of the personnel carrier just as it opened. The liquid flames expanded and filled the compartment, and he heard the digitized curses and screams, smelled the burning rubber and flesh, but he couldn't care less for his enemies at that point as he scrambled to his feet and ran around the wrecked vehicles, looking for Barney. There were more troops and they seemed to be converging on a point. With their backs to him, it was easy enough to snatch a rifle with the grav gun. A few bullets pinged from his armour, but he disregarded them and made swift work of the soldiers that fired them. Pausing to catch his breath, Gordon listened for the sounds of more troops approaching. Scanning the area, he dropped his gun with shock and began to run as he saw Barney, lying on his back, leg pinned under one of the snowmobile tracks.

Barney was evidently still alive and awake, as he brought his rifle to bear on the sound as Gordon came running over. "What happened?" he gasped as he dropped to a crouch beside his friend. He knew it was a stupid question, and Barney grinned and shook his head. He reached out; clasping Gordon's hand in his own, and his face grew serious.

"Something I gotta tell you, Gordon, shoulda told you a long time ago." He took a deep breath as if to gather his strength, and Gordon leaned closer, hanging on his every word. "When you're fighting, do you ever shout, "Back off man, I'm a scientist"? Cause you know, you really should…" He relaxed his head back onto the snow then, and closed his eyes, but Gordon could see that he was grinning, and in spite of himself he grinned back. "C'mon, Gordon, put a tourniquet on and get me outta here." Gordon nodded, fumbling to improvise a tourniquet from the strap of one of the weapons. He was fighting the urge to be sick.

"The snowmobile is too heavy for the grav gun… I'll have to dig the snow from around your leg and then pull you out."

"Well thank God for your subtle understanding of physics… Ow! Motherf... If you're gonna do that, at least get me a medkit first." Gordon retrieved the least damaged-looking medkit from the cargo area, snapped the top off the vial, and applied the green liquid to Barney's mangled leg. His friend hissed and groaned as it sank into the wound, but Gordon saw a little colour return to his face. "Ok, now do what you gotta do."

Gordon bent to his task, scraping with his fingers in the dense packed snow. Checking back, he noticed that Barney had closed his eyes again, and he reached out and shook him by the shoulder.

"You have to stay awake."

"Talk to me… keep me distracted."

"Um… no, you talk to me." Barney laughed at that, a harsh coughing sound.

"Typical Gordon."

"No, but that way I can tell you're awake without having to look at your face."

"I know, I getcha…" He gestured for Gordon to carry on digging, gave a great sigh, and began. "Ok… what song do you want at your funeral?" Gordon made an unconscious sound of distress at that, and his face must have shown his distaste. "No, come on man, I'm curious."

"Uh… actually, I think I'd like this jazz piece I heard once, no words, but I always liked it. It was kind of sad but uplifting at the same time, you know?"

"Figures, but nowadays, you've gotta have something enough people remember the words to. I always wanted An American Trilogy. I love that quiet bit where it's just the flute, then those drums and trumpets kick in… that's how I wanna go out. " He pointed for extra emphasis. "And I want to be buried. No cremation."

"Really?" Gordon replied. "I sort of like the idea of cremation. All your potential energy gets released, and your molecules just float off and get used for something else…" Barney's face showed exactly what he thought of that idea. "Actually, I was always interested in the idea of a sky burial. It's a Tibetan thing, they would take the body and attach it to a platform on top of a pole, and just wait till the vultures pick it clean."

"Man, that's the grossest thing I ever heard!" He thought for a moment. "You could have an antlion burial."

They both laughed at that, and soon enough Barney was talking again, in the familiar twang that had formed the soundtrack to Gordon's life at Black Mesa, sharing jokes and gossip and whatever else Barney had on his mind that day. His voice was so comforting that Gordon actually found himself relaxing slightly, despite the grimness of the situation, and he despised himself for it, knowing that he should be the one comforting Barney, not the other way round.

Soon Gordon reached a point where he thought he had exposed enough of the leg to free Barney; and not a moment too soon, as his friend was definitely slipping, his voice growing weaker and his conversation more random.

"Remember the day it happened?" Gordon nodded absently, focusing on his task. There was no need to ask what day he meant. "He was there then. He looks like a fed, but he's not a fed. Watch out for him, Gordon…"

Astonished, he grasped Barney under the shoulders, but his friend was already on to a different topic. Gordon was about to pull when he heard an unpleasant sound behind him. Whirling around, he saw three of the dirty white husky creatures, edging their way forward slowly, their lips drawn back to reveal their teeth. Gordon felt a surge of horror and then, grasping his crowbar, gave quite an impressive snarl of his own as he swung for the nearest. He caught it with one of the sharp edges, pulling it to the ground, and beat it until it stopped moving, and then he moved to stand over Barney, breathing heavily and switching the crowbar from hand to hand.

The remaining creatures simply withdrew to a more prudent distance, and waited. Gordon knew he was a scientist through and through, lacking in the warrior spirit that Barney seemed to have been forced to develop and that Alyx was probably born with; yet at the same time he knew he could kill in order to protect his friends, if not happily, then - which was almost worse - easily. But now his anger was rapidly being replaced with despair. He could kill a hundred of these strange creatures now, but he couldn't do anything about the cold and the blood loss that were affecting Barney. He heard a rustling sound, and the sound of several footsteps moving closer and closer, and he renewed his grip on the crowbar.

A party of Vortigaunts emerged from a grove of trees beside them, carrying pine torches. They soon sent the predatory creatures scampering with their blasts of green energy. They held one of those multi-layered conversations that seemed to involve all of them talking at once, and then moved swiftly, fashioning a litter from the remains of the two damaged vehicles and lifting Barney onto it, their long limbs oddly delicate as they handled him.

"We shall attend to the Barney when we reach shelter," one of them called to Gordon. "Come with us, Free Man. There is much to communicate!"

Gordon ran with them, moving swiftly through the darkness, the torches crackling as they pulled the stretcher forward. Barney was gazing around, dazed, and Gordon tried to stay in his line of sight. Soon, they emerged into a small village at the edge of the tundra, a few ruined shacks surrounding a large central fire. More Vortigaunts assembled, and a human medic came sprinting over to Barney, clutching his pack. Gordon was lead towards a building on the far side of the clearing.

"The Freeman must come with us. A choice is to be made."

"Yes, yes, a choice, most important," the others chimed in. Gordon had a theory that these repetitive interjections and confirmations were the parts of Vortigaunt speech that were normally communicated via the "vortal inputs", and that they were only voiced aloud when they were speaking English for his benefit. Although annoying, he supposed it was rather sweet of them really, and so he followed them into the hut, where a ring of Vorts sat surrounding a smaller fire.

"Ah, the Freeman." A sigh of appreciation from a Vortigaunt whose skin was dry and wrinkled, making him seem older than the other smooth and sleek beings. "When first we saw you in corporeal form, we knew you were the one foretold. Your name is a most excellent confirmation of this. You have freed us from the shackles of our master, and closed the gaping wound in the vortessence. And yet a prophecy fulfilled under duress is no prophecy at all. And so now we give you the choice, to oscillate, or remain." It threw a handful of something onto the fire. "Breathe deeply, Freeman! Your ability to survive the extract is far greater than that of most humans, another attribute you share with vortikind."

Gordon wasn't sure whether to ask exactly what they meant by survive, or to explain to them that his surname wasn't exactly that unusual, or just to get the hell out of there. But as he rose to his feet, he was surprised to see that his body remained sitting cross-legged on the ground with his Vortigaunt companions. He could see the back of his own head, a clotted dark red wound behind his right ear, his hair speckled with a pale green crusty substance. His face bore the expression he used to sleep through meetings, the eyebrows slightly raised to feign interest, but the eyes themselves at least two-thirds of the way closed. Gordon had been on the research-publish-conference treadmill for most of his life, with little time for partying, and so he entirely lacked the vocabulary to describe what he was experiencing, but it was cetainly interesting. He felt deliciously light, and his thoughts danced through his head. Strings, branes and vortal cords, it all made so much sense. He laughed, and following a short delay he saw his body laugh as well. Then the Vortigaunt broke in.

"Attend now, Freeman." Gordon settled back down, feeling scolded, like a kid in church. "See the vortessence." He could see something, flowing past him although he was outside it, but as he moved his head forward something came over him, and suddenly there was a voice in his head, one that was strangely familiar…

…he was excited, and nervous, but also so hungry… hopefully Barney would remember to save him some pancakes from the cafeteria… after this sample was done he could eat, and then he'd go see Dr Kleiner and ask him about the implications of Everett's 1961 work for their theories, and Dr Kleiner would make him a cup of his awesome coffee… but maybe he should just go straight back to his dorm, he had a lot of writing up to do, hopefully this time he'd get co-author credit and not just assistant, the missed meals and the tubes that no man should have to endure had to be worth co-author... but tubes aside, this HEV suit was badass… why did everyone look so nervous this morning? And would the pancakes be buttermilk or buckwheat…

Gordon was overwhelmed with compassion for that young idiot, going so blithely to his doom. He pulled his head back instinctively and shook his head as though he had been immersed in water, an impression strengthened when he realised with a gasp that he'd been holding his breath. He turned to the old Vortigaunt, mouth agape. The creature appeared to wear a hint of a smile, as it gestured further downstream with its hand.

"The future is less clear to perceive…"

…there were no words in his head this time, just feelings… tiredness, sorrow and regret, but also pride in his accomplishments, and contentment, a complete lack of the anxiety that had been a part of him for as long as he could remember… a warm sense of responsibility for Alyx…

Snapping back to the present, Gordon knew exactly what he had to do. He got to his feet and walked out into the night, feeling as though he was gliding, passing the Vortigaunts and humans sleeping by the fire without a stir. At the edge of the clearing, he placed the portal guns on the ground, and raised his crowbar.

He thought back to Eli's desperation that he destroy the Borealis and everything on it, contrasting it with Dr Kleiner's enthusiasm to learn what was on board the ship and whether they could use it. Prior to the resonance cascade, Gordon had been very much in the Dr Kleiner mould. He was fed, housed and cared for by first his parents, then his college and finally his employer, leaving him with nothing more demanding to do than to think about physics. Gordon was no longer crippled by guilt over his inadvertent role in the Combine invasion, but he still knew he could no longer afford to be the way he had back then. People were relying on him, and there was a beautiful woman whose happiness and well-being were more important to him than anything he could have imagined in his old life. What he had with Alyx was not worth risking on the kind of experiments with portals that he'd been considering, the kind of experiment that had caused this whole thing in the first place. What was more, he wanted the chance to become that slightly older, wiser guy that he had glimpsed one day. Gordon thought he seemed kind of cool.

Breen's words echoed in his head once again as he crushed the guns beyond all recognition. With a slight twinge of guilt, he imagined the look on Dr Kleiner's face if he could see him as he scooped up the remains of the circuitry and the inner wiring, intending to throw them in the fire. But as he turned they slipped through his fingers in shock when he saw him standing there, the fed who was not a fed, his eyebrows slightly raised as he surveyed Gordon's handiwork.

After a chapter that was all Gordon, it's always nice to get the Barney in there and write some dialogue :D First time I've really written Vortigaunts too, so I would really appreciate some feedback on this one. Thanks so much to everyone who has been reading and leaving comments so far.

Will Barney survive? What does the G-man want now? And what is the green crap in Gordon's hair? Stay tuned to find out!