Unknown year.
Exodus.

Chell's injuries would surely kill her. She knew that, yet she clung on to life, clutching Wheatley's handles with a cast-iron grip. To let go would mean certain death, frozen, suffocated in the crushing blackness of space within minutes. The debris from the central chamber rushed past her as she stared back at Wheatley, looking longingly at the safety of the room in the portal behind him.

"Let go!" he ordered her selfishly. "Let go! I'm still connected, I can pull myself in. I can still fix this!"

GLaDOS's robotic arm snaked towards him through the portal. "I already fixed it!" she told him acerbically. "And you are not coming back!"

"Oh no, change of plans," he said hurriedly. "Hold on to me. Tighter!"

Chell had no time to make a decision either way. The robotic arm gripped her wrist, knocking Wheatley aside. He spun away into the depths of space, his voice fading.

"Grab me, grab me, grab me! Grab meeee!"

GLaDOS pulled her back inside and closed the portal, dropping her none too gently to the ground. Chell lay completely still for the first time in days, able to do nothing but breathe, and lucky to even be doing that. She was exhausted, cold and damp from the sprinklers that had put out the fires in the main chamber, and in too much pain to move. The bombs Wheatley had hidden by the stalemate resolution button had not done as much damage as the core had initially intended. Chell had spotted them at the last minute, retreating as fast as she could, but she'd been caught in the blast regardless. She didn't know enough about explosions to know exactly what the extent of her injuries were, but she had burns up her right arm, where she'd thrown it up in front of her face, and her entire body hurt. There was a wound in her side that was making her feel light-headed. She wasn't sure how it had gotten there, but it was bleeding heavily enough to cause her concern.

As she lay motionless, her cheek pressed to a floor that was no longer rocked by tremors, she saw the robotic arm tug GLaDOS's head into her line of sight. The yellow optic peered at her as she passed, but she said nothing. Chell felt her eyelids grow heavy, and she fought to stay awake. Closing her eyes would be a death sentence, she was sure of it. She'd read that somewhere, hadn't she? She was so tired, though.

Don't do it, she ordered herself firmly.

But it was no use. Her shattered body was done taking commands, even from herself. Her eyes drifted shut, cutting her off from the world.

Chell awoke to lights that were painfully bright. She squinted, adjusting, realising that she was lying on the floor of an elevator. Her head felt fuzzy, but her body was pleasantly numb. Her arm and torso had been firmly bandaged, and she could feel a dressing on her shoulder too. She didn't even remember having an injury there. Her long fall boots were gone, but her clothing was dry again.

As she moved stiffly to a sitting position, she saw that she was being watched by two bipedal robots. They startled her momentarily, until she realised that they weren't armed with anything resembling a weapon.

Are those the things Wheatley was going to replace me with? she wondered inwardly.

They retreated when she got to her feet, although she couldn't fathom why. She was hardly a threat. She barely felt able to stand.

"Oh, thank god you're all right," GLaDOS said, with more sincerity that Chell would have expected.

The central chamber was back to normal, once more the circular, minimalist room that GLaDOS preferred. The A.I. herself was back to normal too, in her own body again, and in control of the facility.

"You know, being Caroline taught me a valuable lesson. I thought you were my greatest enemy. When all along you were my best friend."

That explains why she patched me up, Chell thought. And maybe why I'm still alive.

It gave her a tentative burst of hope that perhaps she would make it out of Aperture after all. During the fight with Wheatley and all the narrow escapes she'd had, she was starting to wonder whether it was truly likely.

"The surge of emotion that shot through me when I saved your life taught me an even more valuable lesson," GLaDOS went on. "Where Caroline lives in my brain."

"Caroline deleted," reported the announcer.

Chell froze, gripping the railing that lined the side of the elevator. Her fragile hope wavered.

"Goodbye, Caroline," GLaDOS said in a pensive tone of farewell. "You know, deleting Caroline just now taught me a valuable lesson. The best solution to a problem is usually the easiest one. And I'll be honest. Killing you is hard."

Chell frowned at her, too tired to try and figure out where the conversation was going.

"You know what my days used to be like?" GLaDOS asked rhetorically. "I just tested. Nobody murdered me. Or put me in a potato. Or fed me to birds. I had a pretty good life. And then you showed up. You dangerous, mute lunatic."

Chell pressed her lips together firmly, schooling her expression.

GLaDOS turned her amber gaze in her direction. "So you know what? You win. Just go."

The elevator started to rise, and Chell tightened her grip on the railing, taken aback. She looked down at her enemy-turned-ally with wide eyes. Was she really…?

GLaDOS chuckled gently. "It's been fun. Don't come back."

And then she was gone. Chell watched the rapidly-passing levels of the facility open-mouthed as the elevator took her closer to the surface.

GLaDOS is letting me go, she repeated to herself, trying to get the message to sink in.

But then the elevator slowed, coming to a stop in front of a locked door. As she stood there, its light changed to green and it opened, revealing four turrets. Chell shot backwards as far as she could go, a jolt of alarm making her gasp. She should have known it was too good to be true.

The turrets stared at her for a beat, their scarlet laser sights dotting her vest top. Then, bizarrely, they started to produce music. Chell stared back at them, breathing hard, unsure what to make of it.

I've lost my mind, she thought to herself. I've finally snapped.

The elevator jolted into life again, lifting her up another dozen or so floors, then slowed once more to carry her past a vast room filled with turrets. All of them were singing, in what Chell thought was Italian. A gigantic, leopard-skinned turret sat at the very back wearing a crown, its voice clearer than the rest.

This is insane. This is...completely insane.

She was starting to feel woozy again, the sight blurring before her eyes. The elevator picked up speed, carrying her up countless more levels until it came to an abrupt halt in front of an industrial-looking door in a small room. As she watched, it swung open, letting golden sunlight flood the area. The elevator doors slid open and Chell stumbled out of it, immediately feeling the warmth. She darted through in a trice, taking in the cerulean sky, fluffy white clouds, and vast field of wheat.

The door slammed shut behind her, making her jump. She spun, seeing that she had come from a tiny shed made of corrugated metal. It sat on a small patch of concrete, flanked by a pile of junk. She heard a rattling, clanging sound coming from inside, growing closer, and she warily took a few steps backwards. The door opened again, just long enough to spit out a charred, blackened companion cube.

What is going on?

The journey up from GLaDOS's chamber had been almost too fast for her brain to keep up with. The whole situation felt surreal.

Wait, she thought, I was close to the surface already. I shot a portal on the moon through the ceiling.

It seemed that GLaDOS had returned her room to its previous location while she'd been out cold. Either that or she was still asleep, and the turrets and the outside world were a dream.

No, she decided firmly. I can feel the heat of the sun on my back. This concrete is warm and rough under my feet, and that breeze is moving my hair.

She ignored the cube for the time being, taking stock of her surroundings. She didn't recognise the shed, and there were dozens of wheat fields in Michigan. This one was huge, though, stretching on for miles in every direction. Even when she stood on the cube, all she could see was wheat. That was unusual. She had no idea where the parking lot was from here, or main reception.

Doug might know. I have to trust that he'll make it up here. He promised me.

But even if he did make it, who was to say that he'd come out the same way? They might end up miles apart, each waiting for the other. There was no telling exactly how big Aperture was or how much space it really took up.

Chell sat down on the cube, resting her aching feet. Everything was uncertain, and she didn't know what to do. There was nothing to do except wait. But how long should she wait for? How would she know? Was he even still alive? A lot could have happened while she was unconscious.

Out of the blue, she started to cry, ugly, throat-clenching sobs. Then it hit her that she was free, and she silently laughed until she could barely breathe. She cried twice more while she waited, each time feeling more cathartic than the last. She sat and rested, she walked around, hands touching the bobbing strands of wheat, she curled up and tried to sleep. Once, a remembered scene from 'The Truman Show' had her walking as far as she dared, arms outstretched as she fervently prayed she wouldn't discover any disguised walls. She didn't want to venture too far though, afraid that she'd miss Doug.

The waiting was agonising, the uncertainty: worse. After the first four hours or so, judging by the position of the sun, whatever painkillers GLaDOS had given her started to wear off. The pain sapped her energy, coupled with the lack of food and water, until she slumped against the cube in a dreamlike stupor, wondering how she could ever survive out here. Eventually, she slipped into a merciful doze, content to forget everything for a while.

When Doug awoke, he was still lying on the walkway by the breaker room. The cube was a comforting presence at his back, and he was glad it was still there. The portal gun was long gone, most likely having dropped into the pit when the strange, tugging draw had stopped. Groggily, he got to his feet, using the railing for support. His head was pounding, and he felt dried blood in his hair when he investigated with his fingers.

Looking up, he saw that the hole in the ceiling had been fixed, and he could hear GLaDOS's voice echoing in the room above.

"Override," she was saying, sounding strained. "Authorisation 20-56-38."

"Cannot override command," the announcer told her. "Caroline reinstated."

She made a soft noise of frustration. Doug frowned, confused. He wasn't used to that, having spent three years listening to her impassive tones. His footsteps rang out as he began to walk away, looking for the exit.

"Oh," said GLaDOS in surprise. "You're still down there. Come on up, Rattmann."

The gate to the breaker room slid up, and he hesitated. He knew better than to go anywhere near her, but she seemed different now, and she was the only one who could tell him what had happened to Chell.

"Don't!" squeaked the cube. "Don't be a hero. Heroes die."

Doug reached into his pocket, feeling the bullet that had been extracted from his leg. "Not always," he said quietly.

He stepped through onto the console panel and was lifted up. The hatch opened above him, and he emerged in the chamber. GLaDOS lazily spun around to peer at him, her optic appraising.

"Have you been down there this whole time?" she asked. "What were you doing?"

"I was unconscious," he answered, a trace of bitterness seeping into his voice, prompted by his sore head. "What happened after I put out those fires? There was an explosion, and then…some kind of pull…"

"The moron planted bombs in the stalemate resolution annex," GLaDOS told him. "The force of it knocked panels out of the ceiling."

"But Chell," Doug cut in anxiously, "was she…?"

"Do you want to hear this or not, Rat Man?" she retorted irritably.

Biting down his anger, he nodded. "Yes," he said through clenched teeth.

GLaDOS stared at him for a moment, as if waiting for him to interrupt her again. Then she continued. "The core chamber had been moved so close to the surface that she was able to shoot a portal on the moon. The vacuum it created pulled that little idiot straight off the mainframe."

Doug's jaw dropped as he listened, and he wondered at the depths of Chell's desperation that had made her aim for the moon.

"How did she avoid getting pulled through?" he asked, in as polite a tone as he could muster.

"She didn't," GLaDOS said calmly, sending a wave of panic through him. "But she held on to the moron and I brought her back through."

He looked at her in surprise. "You saved her?"

GLaDOS turned away from him. "We had our differences, but she rescued me from being eaten by a bird and carried me back here. Fair's fair."

The cube made nervous noises at his back, wary at being in the central chamber, unarmed.

"Where is she now?"

"Outside."

He did a double take. "She is?"

"But she won't leave."

"What do you mean?"

GLaDOS summoned a monitor from above, and two panels moved aside to let it pass. She brought up an image from a security camera, showing him an unfamiliar field of wheat. Chell's orange-clad figure was visible, sitting with her back against a scorched companion cube.

"She's been there for almost three hours," GLaDOS said. She sounded mildly irritated and somewhat confused. "I was debating whether to send up the party escort bot. She's trespassing."

Doug fought back a smile as he saw her, not wanting to annoy GLaDOS further. "I know why she's there," he confessed. "She's waiting for me."

"Why?"

"Because we made each other a promise," he said softly.

GLaDOS looked at him steadily, her optic giving no clue as to her thoughts.

"Tell me honestly," he went on, meeting her amber gaze. "Is there any chance at all of you letting me leave?"

She remained silent for a long while, before answering, "I haven't decided yet."

"Strike a deal with her," the cube piped up. "We're so close."

"I heard you just now," Doug said, scrambling for a plan. "Trying to override something. If I help you with your programming, will you let me go?"

GLaDOS seemed surprised by the question, and took another long moment to consider her options. "Well…" she said at length, "that would be helpful. And you did put out those fires."

Doug nodded, shoving his hands in his lab coat pockets to hide how much he was shaking. His fingertips found the bullet again, and somehow it made him feel calmer.

You've been through this much...

"All right, Rattmann. You have a deal."

He breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay. Bring me up to speed," he said, managing to keep his voice relatively steady.

"It's simple," she told him. "I want you to delete Caroline. Permanently."

He blinked at her, frowning, unsure if it was even possible.

"I've tried several times now. She keeps coming back."

Doug cleared his throat, searching for a delicate way of phrasing his question. "Um…may I ask why you want to delete Caroline? She's a vital part of your programming."

"She remembers," GLaDOS murmured. "She remembers what he did. And she's hurt. I want to forget."

Doug swallowed hard as he nodded. It was understandable and completely reasonable. But he had to consider the consequences of such an action. Repressing Caroline had led to the chaos before, and the need for the morality sphere that had been ineffective anyway. If he removed the only conscience she had, what was to say she'd honour their deal?

"I understand," he said earnestly, "and I'll see what I can do, but for my own safety I'll be putting a time delay on the changes. Otherwise you might decide to keep me here."

"I still might decide that," she shot back.

"I don't think you will," Doug countered gently, finding that he believed it. "Back when the scientists first built this room, there was a console in a nearby office. Is it still around?"

"Yes. I kept it as a memento." As she spoke, the panels moved, bringing the old, dusty equipment up through the floor. "It's still connected."

Doug approached it, blowing the majority of the dirt off the keyboard.

"Hey!" GLaDOS protested, as it swirled onto her pristine floor.

"Do you want me to do this or not? I need to be able to see what I'm doing."

She fell silent after that, and Doug concentrated on his task. He still wasn't sure if it would be possible to simply delete Caroline. She was engrained in GLaDOS's foundation. But he might be able to block her memories. He worked steadily, sifting through the complex layers of code, while GLaDOS watched with a curious eye. It was tough going. The situation was making him nervous, which in turn made the babble in his head more difficult to ignore.

"Is there a problem?" GLaDOS asked him. "That's the third time you've stopped in the last fifteen minutes."

"I'm doing the best I can," he retorted. "You know about my condition. It can be hard to concentrate when there are voices screaming at you that you're doing everything wrong."

She turned to him, looking strangely alert. "I know," she said. "I've heard voices all my life telling me not to do things, or giving me reasons why doing what I want to do would be a bad idea. It can get…"

"Maddening," he finished.

"Yes."

"I'd…never considered how having all those cores attached to you must have felt," he admitted, feeling a sudden spark of empathy.

"But you worked on me, didn't you?" she said resentfully.

"I did," he confirmed with a nod, "but not in the way you think."

"What do you mean?"

He straightened up from the console, his back clicking. "Chell and I…we knew each other before we came to work here. When we were kids, we saw something that painted Aperture in a worrying light. Neither of us forgot it."

"What did you see?" she asked in open curiosity.

"Wheatley," he said, remembering. "The man that he was based on, anyway. We were there when he got…taken."

She recoiled a little in disgust at the name, but did not interrupt him.

"Years later, we ran into each other again when we both started working here. We decided to find out what Aperture was doing. Over the course of several years, we kept our eyes and ears open. I worked my way up to a place in the team that built you. We'd deduced by then that you were Aperture's big secret project, the one that Caroline and Wheatley had died for, but we needed more information before we could act." He sighed. It all felt so long ago. "We were horrified by what they'd done. We just wanted it to stop."

"Remember who you're talking to," the cube warned him.

"It wasn't real science," he added hastily.

GLaDOS made a quiet, thoughtful noise, but said nothing. Doug returned to his work, realising the conversation was over. Then a panel moved in the floor beside him, letting a second one through. It lifted up to waist-height, displaying a collection of large plastic containers. He glanced at them in confusion before looking at GLaDOS.

"There's enough there to last you five years," she said impassively. "You should be able to find an alternative in that time."

His brow creased in puzzlement, and he picked up the nearest bottle to read the label. "This is…my medication," he said in shock.

"I cleared out the entire supply in the employee pharmacy store," she explained. "They've been stored in an air-tight vault, so they're in date."

"Thank you," he said, unable to completely quash the suspicion that she was trying to poison him. It seemed illogical though, and he tried to shove it aside. "But…why?"

"You're helping me rid myself of my voices," she explained with a movement that looked like an awkward shrug.

Empathy counted for a lot, it seemed. Doug returned the bottle to the panel so he could continue working, uncomfortably aware that his efforts would most likely destroy this reasonable, fair-minded part of her.

We'll be gone by then, he assured himself, and she has no more humans here to hurt.

He had no water to start taking the pills, and he knew that part of him would struggle to say goodbye to the cube. He also knew that in the end there'd be no real choice to make, but it would feel strange nonetheless.

GLaDOS soon realised what was missing, producing some bottles of water from somewhere in the facility. Doug reached for one, taking a quick swig to parch his dry throat. With a trembling hand he shook two capsules out of the nearest container, swallowing them before he could overthink it. The cube made no comment, conflicted by Doug's self-awareness.

The time dragged by as he worked until he finally had everything in place.

"I'm setting a three hour delay," he told GLaDOS. Just in case you decide to come after us, he added silently.

"Fine," she said, although she sounded eager for the wait to be over. "Thank you," she added solemnly.

Doug nodded in acknowledgement. "Thank you for the meds."

She summoned the elevator by way of reply. Doug put the containers and water bottles in his bag. It was a tight fit, but with the portal gun gone, he just managed it. He refused to leave the cube behind, even if he had chosen to cut off its voice. He stepped into the elevator with a burst of apprehension.

GLaDOS studied him thoughtfully. "I…need you to pass on a message," she said with some hesitation. "Tell her…tell her she won't get sick."

He tilted his head, confused.

"When we were down in old Aperture," she went on, "we came into contact with some hazardous materials. She may be wondering if what killed Mr. Johnson will kill her. It won't."

"How can you be sure?" Doug asked in concern.

"I'm sure," she said firmly, her tone inviting no argument.

Realising there was more to it than he could grasp, he simply nodded. "I'll tell her."

"Goodbye, Rat Man." There was a touch of amusement and respect to the name this time.

"Goodbye."

The elevator rose smoothly up, taking him out of her chamber in a trice. It was a surprisingly short journey up, the levels blurring together as they flew past the glass doors.

"You did it," said the cube in a small voice.

"We did it," he corrected. "I told you I would always need you. That hasn't changed."

"But the capsules…"

"You're part of me," Doug reassured it. "You always have been."

The elevator ground to a halt in front of a heavy-duty door that swung open almost at once, revealing the wheat field he'd seen on the security monitor. He lurched towards it, throwing a hand up to shield his eyes from the setting sun. It was not particularly bright, but he'd had years of artificial light.

When his eyes adjusted, he lowered his arm, looking around for Chell. She was still sitting against the companion cube, her eyes wide as she took in the sight of him. With stiff, pained movements, she got to her feet, and he saw her bandages, and the multitude of cuts and bruises that marred her tanned skin. But she was alive. She was alive, and so was he, and they were together in the same space for the first time in years. He felt suddenly choked up, his relief at seeing her safe with his own eyes breaking the dam he'd constructed to keep his emotions at bay.

"Chell," he murmured in a strangled, broken voice, her image blurring as his eyes filled with grateful tears.

She stumbled towards him, throwing her arms around his neck in a hug so tight it was painful. He didn't mind it. He hugged her back, careful of her injuries, relishing the touch of another human. He'd all but forgotten what it could feel like.

"We're safe," he told her, hearing her draw in a shaky breath. "We're safe."

A/N: This is not the end! I know it seems sort of like one, but we will be seeing how Chell and Doug cope with adapting to the outside.