For the two days that Chell and Glados stayed in the infirmary, Rick spent the time coaching the others on how they ought to treat the women. Well, Chell at least. They were all in full agreement that Glados still needed to be dealt with, but Virgil wouldn't let them near the infirmary.

Rick's advice hadn't gone over as well as he'd hoped. Big Dipper and Ray had balked at the idea of having to take a shower every day now that ladies were around, Chuck wouldn't listen to him because he was already married and knew how to handle women, and Hugo flat out refused to lock himself in a closet until they left.

Craig was the only one who helped clean up a bit, but that was his normal routine anyway.

Rick cursed his very existence when Virgil showed up unannounced with Chell in tow, interrupting their classic movie saga.

"Hello everyone, as you know, this is Chell," Virgil gestured enthusiastically at Chell, who was looking particularly embarrassed and bedraggled, "Chell, these are my... compatriots."

And then everything did not go as rehearsed.

"Fact: We are not of the same country, therefore-"

"This is not the time, Craig," Rick hissed, evoking a glare from the other.

Hugo piped up, "It's never the time."

Ray poked his head out of his and Big Dipper's pillow fort, "Hi, Chell! Please tell me you know how to cook, because- oof!"

Big Dipper sprang from the fort, knocking it over on top of Ray, "Lady! Lady! I have something to show you!" and he ran from the room.

"There's a chart in the kitchen area where you can look at everyone's scheduled bathroom times-" Hugo was blithering on.

"Fact: You can ignore Hugo because he is an imbecile."

"Stop that! Stop calling me that! I am not an imbecile! Do you know-"

"'Who I am?' Unfortunately, yes we do."

Big Dipper came careening into the room sporting his prized astronaut helmet he had taken from a dilapidated Aperture display. "Lady! Look what I found down here! I'm Charlie, but you can call me Big Dipper. That's Helios, and Rick, and Hubble, and R-" his voice continued to increase in speed in classic Big Dipper fashion.

"Quit that, she doesn't care about your helmet!" Ray pounced on Big Dipper.

"Get offa me!" Suddenly Ray was floating towards the ceiling, giggling like a maniac.

"ALRIGHT! That's enough, everybody shut up!" Rick intervened desperately.

The sudden silence was filled with a gigantic snore from Chuck, who had been sleeping soundly on the couch despite the ruckus.

Rick turned to Virgil, who had managed to keep a grin on his face the entire time, his eye only twitching slightly. "Weeelll, as I was saying, I have some things I need to attend to and Chell here needs a tour of the place and someone to show her how to use the shower facilities."

"OH! ME! ME-"

"I'll do it!" Rick shouted, pushing Virgil backward out the doorway and slamming the door shut behind him before any of the others could escape.

To her credit, Chell didn't seem to be completely afraid of them yet, but Rick wasn't happy with how their first impressions were going. "I'm really sorry about that," he wheezed, pushing past Virgil and offering his hand out, "They're... crazy," he finished lamely.

'You seem to have crushed the door handle,' Chell pointed behind him.

"That was on purpose."

Virgil shrugged his shoulders with a smirk and spoke up, "Alright, I'll leave her in your capable hands then. I have a list of things to do today," and he started to walk away, "Behave yourself."

Rick rolled his eyes. He was the perfect gentleman.

He eyed Chell, "Let's just get you some clothes to change into once you're done. We have old uniforms lying around the place, so one of them ought to fit you."

Chell looked grateful as they walked silently down the catwalk.


"What am I going to do? What am I going to do...? What am I-" Doug was rocking back and forth, his arms wrapped around his knees. He was banging his head on the wall behind him ever-so-slightly.

What was he going to do? Chell was gone... the Englishman she had accompanied had lost his mind and killed both her and Glados. Yes, Doug had wanted Glados gone, but the problem still remained: How was he going escape? Although...

It wasn't as if he deserved to escape anymore.

'Doug.'

"What should I do? Maybe I should just give myself away... maybe the boy would be merciful, you know? He probably didn't mean to kill her-"

'Doug.'

"Actually, that's exactly what I should do. I can't keep hiding like this forever... Can't keep-"

'Douglas!'

Doug started at the snap of his companion cube's voice in his thoughts, "What...? What? I'm sorry..." he groaned and pulled at his hair in frustration.

'Douglas, you can't keep blaming yourself for Chell's fate. Let's focus on the opportunity you do have now.'

Rattmann scoffed, "What opportunity? She fell into the abyss, Cube."

'Listen to me. That boy that now thinks he is in charge of Aperture is going to fall apart under the pressure. Glados designed the system to work with her own implant and deviation, whereas he is hanging onto it with pure luck. You could overpower him.'

Doug gave his cube a withering stare, "You usually give me pretty good advice Cube, but that 'boy' is still far more powerful than I am. I'm... I'm all alone. No offense."

He and his cube fell silent for a few minutes, contemplating.

'What if... what if I told you you didn't have to be alone?'

Rattmann sighed, "Look, I didn't mean you were worthless-"

'No, listen. I didn't bring this up before because it was too dangerous for you. But now we only have the boy to watch out for... you may have a chance to do it.'

Despite himself, Doug looked at his cube with growing curiosity, "Fine... go on."

'There is somebody who could be of much use to you that's been put into a Type 1 stasis chamber. You could get to the body and awaken it...'

"You're proposing a Chell 2.0? How do you even know there's someone here who can help me? You're literally a cube. A metal box."

'I haven't been entirely honest with you, Douglas Rattmann. Yes, I owe you my life for saving me from the incinerators and I've genuinely wanted to help you. However... I was hoping that, maybe... you would someday be able to return the favor.'

"But finding a body in a Type 1 stasis pod? Those are the most powerful Deviants Aperture has stored away... I can't get into those. It's maximum security clearance."

'You have to.'

"I can't-"

'Doug! It's your best shot at getting out of here!'

Doug was becoming exasperated, "No, I can't- I can't do this anymore! Who is in that stasis chamber you want me to access so badly?"

A beat.

'It's me. It's my body in that chamber and I want it back.'


"I'm fine."

"Yes, I know. You're welcome by the way."

"Then, Chell, tell this idiot to let me leave this little prison of his," Glados glared pointedly at Chell, who backed up with her hands raised.

'Unfortunately, Virgil's got a point. A couple of those guys out there want to wring your neck. It wouldn't really be a fair fight, Glados.'

"For them," Virgil coughed.

"Anyway, the infirmary is not a prison, so there's no need to be so melodramatic. I like to think I keep it nice and cozy in here!" He patted his ugly swivel chair affectionately.

"Riiiight. Well, I'm certainly not concerned with you or your precious man-cave. I'll just be taking my lunatic test-subject and we'll be on our way, thank you very much," Glados elbowed Chell backwards toward the exit.

Chell stood her ground, 'I'm... I'm not ready to leave just yet. Besides, your implant might be fixed, but your body still needs time to heal. I mean, I'm still sore and it's been a week now.' She gestured to herself dramatically.

If she was being honest with herself, Chell was really starting to enjoy the strange life the males had led down in lower Aperture. The constant dangers of the outside world were problems of the past... they had sustainable food, water, and even electricity... and the company was amusing. What would she do when she left? Where would she go?

Keeping these treasonous thoughts to herself was in her best interests, Chell knew, as she felt Glados' quiet rage practically radiating from her.

"Fine," Glados hissed, "But if that moron up there blows us all to kingdom come, then it's on you." She hoisted herself up onto the lab desk and folded her arms in an attempt to look taller and menacing, except she looked anything but.

As Chell exited the room, she vaguely wondered why she had ever been scared of Glados in the first place.

Oh, that's right... she had been a homicidal maniac in charge of the entire facility.

A little voice piped up from Chell's thoughts: And what will she do once she's restored herself to the mainframe...?

Virgil said he had disabled the emotion-repressing program in her implant, so the chances were things would be different. Right?

Right.

Chell wasn't ready to tackle that particular problem quite yet.

Besides, they hadn't felt any more earthquakes, so the chances were high that Wheatley had figured out how to control the mainframe. Hopefully.

"Lady! Hey, Lady!" Big Dipper came running down the catwalk, his old Aperture long-fall boots clanging loudly against the metal.

She caught him as he nearly bowled both of them over the railing, 'Yes, yes...? I told you to be careful down here,' she scolded lightly.

He managed to look somewhat sheepish, "I know, I know, I know. Sorry, but I thought of your name! Your space name!" his excitement overcame him and he hugged her around the waist with stars in his eyes.

Chell affectionately patted his head and with some effort, peeled the boy off of her. Big Dipper had grown quite fond of Chell over the past week and she secretly wondered if it was his way looking for a maternal bond. Either that or it was a kid crush. Poor kid.

'So... what did you decide on?' She was curious to know what his nickname for her would be. He had given space-related names to all the others and she had laughed when he called Glados 'Prometheus'. When she had attempted to correct him for mixing up his Greek mythology and astrophysics, he had launched into a very intellectual conversation about space. Apparently Prometheus was the name of a small satellite orbiting Saturn... who knew.

"Your name is Polaris!" he grinned up at her, "The North star!"

'Oh...?'

"Yeah, because Rick says you're gonna lead us out of here! We'll follow you to the outside world and we can look at the stars again. Real stars!"

Chell's smile faltered. The North star. A guiding star...

'Did he now?'

Chell had seen the growing tension among the rowdy group since their arrival and had tried to ignore it. A few, mostly Rick, wanted to high-tail it out of Aperture and get living in the world again. Others like her... not so much. She pitied Big Dipper, honestly. He had no idea what it was like out there.

'Charlie...'

"It's Big Dipper."

'I know, sorry. Look...' she bent down to eye-level with the short pre-teen, 'Did Rick tell you anything else about what's outside?'

She watched his jaw clench in a very adult fashion, "I'm not stupid, Polaris. I remember what was outside. My daddy and I lived there when the bounty hunters took him away..."

Chell was taken aback, 'Oh, I... I should have known better. I'm sorry,' she fidgeted nervously.

He smiled at her with tears in his eyes, "Y'know... he taught me all about space. He said in the future we were going to forget all about deviations and we were gonna take rockets into space again like we used to... He was the Big Dipper and I was the Little Dipper."

"We were gonna build our own rocket together and go to space."

He sniffed and looked into her with determination, "Now that he's gone and I'm the Big Dipper, I've gotta get back to the surface and build the rocket for us. I can't get to space from down here."

His demeanor shifted again and he pushed away from Chell lightly, "Ima go help Hubble make dinner. He promised no potatoes if I help clean," and off he ran.

Chell sat and pondered on the catwalk after he had gone. What were any of them going to do with themselves?


"I can't believe you didn't tell me about this earlier," Doug muttered to his Cube as he squeezed through the empty tube leading to the highly-secured stasis chambers. The highly-secured stasis chambers where apparently its body was kept.

'It wouldn't have helped anything. I've been spending the past four years keeping you sane.'

"Still," he grunted as his lab coat caught on a piece of metal, "It's give and take, Cube. You know basically everything there is to know about me and you never gave me any indication that you still remembered who you used to be."

The abandoned Companion Cube project that Glados had led as a child had left hundreds of human consciousnesses stuck in metal cubes. It was her second attempt at creating AI's and the other scientists had thought it a brilliant idea to involve the human brain itself. It was deemed a dead end and the Companion Cubes were discarded. Doug had rescued his cube after hearing its voice calling to him with his telepathic deviation.

He had known his cube's consciousness was in a much better state than the others (the other cubes had never had one coherent thought and had only babbled at him). He kicked himself for not realizing it went further than that.

"What makes you think your body is still there and still alive?" he had asked.

'All the bodies are still alive,' the Cube seemed to be scoffing at him, 'They used the consciousness of the Deviants they most wanted to keep. It was a win-win scenario for them: They kept the body alive and could thus harvest the Deviant DNA for as long as they wanted and they also could use the mind for their other little lab experiments. Luckily, the experiment seemed to be successful on me to the point where my mind is still intact.'

Doug was still reeling as he shimmied down the tube, nearly hitting his head against the grate leading into the room. 'This is their highly-secured stasis room?' He switched to telepathy to avoid detection.

'It was before that English boy was put in charge. He has no idea how to the run the mainframe... I told you so. If Glados had been in charge you would have been torn to shreds by the laser-grid net that's supposed to be here.'

Doug jumped slightly, pulling away from the grating.

He swore the cube laughed at him, 'Just kidding. Relax, Douglas.'

"You sure know an awful lot about this place for being an excised consciousness in a box," Doug growled out loud.

'Look, we can talk more about me once you've reunited me with my body. Let's focus on the task at hand here,' the cube retorted.

"Are you certain the boy won't be watching this chamber? It's an awful leap of faith if you ask me..."

'Getting cold feet now? You were going to throw yourself to his mercy before. I promise you if you free me we will get out of here safely. You have my word, Doug,' the cube reassured him.

The cube wasn't wrong. Doug kicked the grating out and lowered himself into the cool chamber, taking in the dozens of pods neatly stacked in rows up to the ceiling.

"There aren't that many of them," Doug breathed a sigh of relief as their presence didn't seem to trigger any alarms.

'Yes, well, if Aperture got its hands on all of the most powerful Deviants out there, then they wouldn't actually be that good, would they?'

"You just basically called yourself a failure, you know," he opened the registry and started to scan through it.

'Far from it. I told you we'll talk about me once I'm back to myself again. Look for the last name Nakajima,' the cube told him.

He swiped up on the screen, "Found it."

Mechanical arms rotated and lifted a pod out from the wall near the ceiling, lowering it down to Doug.

He used his sleeve to wipe a thin layer of dust off from the pod's transparent top. He stopped and found himself staring.

"This is... you?"

'Yes. Good job, Doug.'

"It's a woman."

'Really? I had never realized...'

"No need to be snarky. I just hadn't thought about it..." Doug trailed off.

'What did you think I was? A bird?'

"It's just that, your voice never occurred to me as being male or female. It was just a voice in my head. You have a real identity... and you've been stuck in a cube. I'm... I'm so sorry..." his voice wavered.

The cube was silent for a moment.

'Okay, don't get all emotional on me, Douglas. It wasn't your fault... I never told you everything, remember? Now focus on setting up the processor like I instructed you...'

After an hour of setting up the right technology and hoping he didn't bungle it up, Doug sat his cube on the pod, ready to restore the consciousness to the human body.

His hand wavered over the restoration button, "What if this doesn't work... what if it leaves you brain-dead or something?"

'It won't.'

"You have too much confidence... I can't be alone like this, Cube-"

'It's Lira. My name is Lira. And you're not going to be alone. This is going to work... you'll see.'

Doug took a deep breath, steadying himself, "Okay, Lira Nakajima. I'll see you on the other side."

And he pushed the button.


Hi everyone! I'm so sorry about the long delay. Like I said, I've been super busy and finding time to write is kinda tough... It's still a really busy Fall coming up, but hopefully I can knock out a chapter here and there. Thanks for your understanding!

Also, I never submit chapters so soon after writing them, so I hope it turns out okay. I usually let them sit for a few weeks before posting so I can look them over, but since it's been so long I figured I'd just post it. :) Enjoy and have a great weekend all!

-Moe

(P.S.- OC warning...? Kinda? I mean, I consider the Companion Cube to be a character too, but I had to get a little more creative with who I wanted it to be. She was created for good story flow and I had a lot of fun with her character design too. I'll post that one up on my dA when we get further along in the story... ) ;)