Chapter Text
When he awoke, a sleeping face was an arm’s length from his. He blinked the night away, sighing himself lucid, and watched. He’d never really seen Alyx sleep before, at least not peacefully. The image of the bloodied table in the mines clung to the recesses of his brain at all times, reminding him that he had certainly seen her unconscious, a low moan escaping on her breath, writhing weakly as her body struggled to comprehend the damage done. She looked comfortable now, which comforted him in turn. A picture of her eyes closed without pain creasing her face.
His eyes started at the top of her head and worked slowly down. Her hair, for the first time, was loose around her forehead, shorter strands curling around her brow and longer ones touching her jaw. Her usual headband, though absent, had left her with a cowlick around her hairline where it didn’t settle quite right. Her forehead was more relaxed than he had ever seen it, smooth of the wrinkles of trouble. He observed as her closed eyes would twitch and blink every once and a while, indicating to him that despite her peaceful state, the cogs inside her head were still turning as they always did. It made a small smile creep onto his lips.
And as he thought of lips, that’s exactly what he saw. Unpursed in a concentrated thought, not frowning with grief. Neutral. Paused. Understandably chapped, as were his, and lip balm was not exactly on the priority list of things packed in their emergency sacks. Even so, his eyes lingered there. God, she was so beautiful. In the liminal atmosphere of the early morning, he allowed his thoughts to wander where he typically would not: the idea of being with her. Yes, on paper, he barely knew her, and that was something he was fully aware of. It had been just shy of a week since the day she loomed over him, grinning. Despite this he felt he had learned more about her than he knew of any friend he had ever had once upon an apocalypse. He knew that she preferred to flank him from the left rather than right when possible. He knew that she liked her coffee searing hot. He knew she hummed when she was idle, some old song he vaguely remembered but couldn’t quite put his finger on. If he was quiet enough, and concentrated enough, he could even almost hear her heartbeat through the vortessence.
He knew her. Forget timing. And with every hour that passed, the dialogue in his head that led his eyes to her body became increasingly difficult to ignore. He continued to gaze at her sleeping face, and his heart grew louder. The tenderness with which she had regarded him last night as she pulled him from his turbulent dream was enough to melt him even in the frigid weather. Her eyes sparkled so gently in the absence of light, brows turned upward in the middle with concern for him, the special brand of care that comes from someone who knows the torture.
In the window of his imagination he rose from the cot in that dim little room. He stepped closer to her. Her worried eyes drifted to longing, which brought her small, calloused hands to his hips. She tugged at the excess fabric of his shirt and he felt the exposed skin of her neck brush his facial hair as he leaned in to kiss her jaw, draping his own hands around her shoulder blades. As he felt her hot breath on his ear and heard her sigh, he sprang back to reality and rolled quickly onto his back, drawing his eyes away from her, still asleep. Shame on you.
Gordon knew he couldn’t. Inappropriate was a word that wouldn’t begin to describe just how perfectly wrong it would be to pursue her in that manner, and he was ashamed for even letting himself entertain the idea of it. To begin, they were in grave danger, mere miles from one of the biggest Combine operations they’d seen besides the late Citadel, not even mentioning the fact that she spiraled further into grief every day that they spent away from White Forest. She was dying on the inside without her father to guide her. Alyx wandered aimlessly through this experience, and he was fairly sure that wandering wasn’t something she’d ever done in any capacity judging by how calculated each of her movements had been until the hangar.
A professional relationship. Comrades. Friends. But that was it. Anything else would be irresponsible. So, he swallowed his desire and ripped the covers from his legs, ignoring the impulse to give her face one last glance as he exited the room in his borrowed pajamas.
The soles of his slippers clopped across the concrete as he trudged to the common area of the bunker. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead just as they had yesterday, and if the clock on the kitchen counter hadn’t read 0522 he wouldn’t have a clue what time it was or if he had slept through the night at all. It wasn’t as though he was inexperienced with a distinctive lack of sunlight. His year or so at Black Mesa trained him to stay awake despite the constant whine of artificial light, invading his head like the static on a television. Unpleasant but familiar, uncomfortable and yet comforting. He stood at the clock and closed his eyes, breathing in the filtered air and watching the negatives of residual light dance on the inside of his eyelids. For a moment, he sunk back into his desk chair. A chunky office keyboard clacked across the room at another cubicle. Somewhere, a phone rang, and if he really thought, he could smell the bitter scent of instant coffee wafting through as everyone struggled to come to full energy.
“Ah, the Freeman is awake.”
On edge, his eyes flew open and he whipped around to face the voice, clutching the linoleum counter behind him. He had no idea there was a vortigaunt stationed here, nor that anyone at all was awake, though he quickly remembered that vorts didn’t really sleep.
“Sincerest apologies,” the alien continued, holding out their three-fingered hands. “I meant no harm.”
“No… no, it’s okay,” Gordon replied quietly, sucking in a deep breath to calm his startled heart. “I just didn’t realize anyone was up but me.”
The vortigaunt paused for a moment as if they were thinking. The eye dominating their face blinked in realization, and they looked back up at him. “Caffeine. This must be prepared.”
They have coffee, thank God. “I can do that,” he said as the Vort crossed through the kitchen, he assumed to find the coffee pot.
They waved a hand dismissively. “It is no trouble, Freeman.”
“Well… alright…” he trailed off. “Do you have, uh, a name or something?”
“The humans have a preference for calling this one Corinth.”
“Corinth,” Gordon repeated. “That’s interesting.”
He stood, awkwardly he would admit, leaning against the counter as Corinth followed the steps necessary to let the coffee brew. Once the plug met the outlet on the wall, the coffee maker came to life and began to make a characteristic growling noise as its inner mechanics went to work heating the coffee. The vortigaunt used a towel by the sink to wipe their hands of grounds and nodded cordially at Gordon before turning to disappear into the nook of the room from which they had appeared.
“W- wait,” he called out, and Corinth stopped, blinking at him.
“What does the Freeman require?”
Eli weighed on his mind, and so did the cold, unnatural eyes of the man in the suit. He would never have the chance to have that conversation with him about that man and his influence on the old scientist, and that shook him. The sudden outburst towards the vortigaunt was due to the memory of the collapsing Citadel at the moment of impact; the man’s attempt to pluck him from reality once again and his failure at the hands of the vortessence.
He hesitated before gesturing to the table. “Sit, please.” Only when they had both taken chairs and settled in did he continue. “I wanted to… discuss something with you. I have questions about something.”
“Questions are welcome to be asked,” the vortigaunt responded.
“I’m not very educated on the vortessence, but from what I understand it’s like… a network, is that right?”
Corinth thought for a moment. “This is a simplification, but it is adequate for your comprehension. Indeed, we communicate over a network of sorts.”
“So that means that you know everything that happens amongst all of your... kind.”
“We are one manifested in many bodies,” they clarified, nodding slowly. “One of us cannot feel or think disconnected from another.”
“That’s what I thought.” Gordon took a few seconds to properly articulate the words that would come out of his mouth next. “The… hmm. When… when Wallace Breen died. You took me and Alyx Vance and you moved us out of ground zero. But the only way you could take me was… was by stopping… him.” The alien’s expression shifted. “You know who I’m talking about, don’t you?”
“This man the Freeman speaks of has no name to us, but we know him. This man is… of great influence.”
He wasn’t sure what answer he was looking for, but the one he was given made him sick to his stomach. “Will you tell me about him?”
“There are things that should not be repeated outside of the vortessence.”
“Please. I think he’s the only reason why I’m alive. I don’t understand, and I want to.”
Corinth looked down, away from him. “One could call the man a catalyst. Molding the universe to prepare for the events that brought our worlds together. We suspect he has motives beyond the destruction of this rock.”
“Borealis,” Gordon interjected.
“Borealis. Perhaps,” they replied. “Aperture Science created a device beyond any technology at the disposal of the Combine or any force we have encountered. Borealis… is powerful. A change of possession after it materializes could prove catastrophic.”
Gordon’s fingertips tapped on the wood. “Why do you think he wants it so badly? I understand it’s important, but important enough to create a resonance cascade? Don’t you think--”
As he delved deeper into questioning with the vortigaunt, he heard the door of the bedroom swing open and tired footsteps trudge out. His head turned to see Judith. It was best to continue this conversation another time, he decided with a glance at his new alien counterpart.
“Dr. Freeman,” she began, sleep still heavy on her vocal cords. “I’d like to formally apologize for yesterday. Tensions… well, I could tell you that tensions are high, but that’s something I’m certain you’re fully aware of.”
“It’s okay, Doctor.” He nodded with empathy. “I understand. How are you?”
She looked quite taken aback with his question, and he saw her throat tense with a nervous swallow. Her eyes appeared as though she was fighting tears. “I’m sure you already know that too.”
He gazed down at the table again, hands linked together. “I do. I’m very sorry that you had to be the last to find out.”
The only reply he received was the sound of a mug being lifted from its place on a shelf and having hot coffee poured into it immediately after. The machine must have produced just enough for a partial cup in the time he had been in his discussion with Corinth. He bit the inside of his cheek at the idea of continuing that conversation. He needed more information. He was a scientist; without sufficient data, where was he supposed to be going? That was a deep-set fear for a man of science--not knowing something.
“Corinth,” Mossman chimed after several drawling moments of silence. “Would you mind giving us the room?”
“This one will venture to the garage and continue work on the Combine vehicle.”
“Thank you.”
With a nod of their head they turned heel and left through a door that led to the garage, after which Gordon’s attention immediately moved back to Judith. He waved her over to the table, but she remained in her position. Understanding, he surrendered and let her stand.
“I know that Alyx wants the ship destroyed, and you as well. I just don’t grasp why, nor do I understand why Eli would want the same.” Her mug clanked quietly down on the countertop. “If the Resistance were to gain control over Borealis it would change everything. Why would we work to seize it just to see it gone?”
He was desperate to help her understand. The constant exchange of animosity between Mossman and Alyx was clearly taking a toll on each of them and himself. If he could find the right words to articulate an explanation that might satisfy her justifiable curiosity on the subject, maybe she would find it easier to follow Eli’s wishes. He got her reasoning, he truly did; if it weren’t for the conversation he had had with the man mere minutes before his demise, he would find himself on that side of the table, too. But his friend’s words haunted him. He was truly sorry to both Dr. Mossman and Dr. Kleiner, but they did not know the things happening that he and Eli knew. They didn’t know about him.
“I don’t know,” he lied right through his teeth. “I honestly don’t. But he and Dr. Kleiner got into a massive argument about it when they’d finished decoding your transmission. Kleiner wanted to take control of it like you do, and Eli wanted it gone. He was afraid of another incident like Black Mesa.”
“Oh, Eli…” There was so much grief on her voice as she breathed out his name, sinking to lean more of her weight on the counter. “He’s always regretted everything so much, almost to a point of paralysis. I wish he wouldn’t let it consume him like that.” Her sad, gray eyes turned to meet Gordon’s. “I’ve tried so hard to convince him that it isn’t going to happen again, that Black Mesa is well behind us. But he won’t listen to reason. He… wouldn’t listen to reason.”
“I think he was most concerned about the risk of it surviving and landing in the wrong hands.” Such as the man’s. “Such as the Combine’s.”
“I know, I can comprehend him feeling that way. It’s a valid concern. But I see the potential gain and I think, why would we ever destroy something that could bring us forward… thirty years in teleportation technology.”
“Using the borderworld is a major security risk,” he pointed out.
Judith quickly shook her head. “There’s a possibility that the tech that lies on Borealis doesn’t take into account the borderworld at all.”
“...What? Really?”
“We have no evidence to suggest that the scientists working at Aperture Labs had any idea of the existence of Xen. And if they were privy to that discovery, they certainly didn’t make use of it in the way that Black Mesa did. It would be reasonable to assume that they figured out an entirely different way to teleport, and again taking into account the nature of Aperture’s work, that would explain how unstable the ship is.”
Gordon was dumbfounded. The past week of playing catch-up had granted him explanations of the way the teleports worked, how they used Xen as a sort of slingshot to swing matter from point A to point B. He was beginning to grasp these concepts as his mind recalled the sensations and properties of the strange spheres of light he had used to ping pong through the alien planet. This, though? This was too much.
“That is incredible,” he couldn’t help but utter as he tried to absorb the reality of what he was hearing. The Resistance would benefit from that kind of tech. If they were able to get access to the device, they could adjust it to stability and then engineer the most efficient and direct teleporters they had ever seen. It would change everything. But his brow darkened anyway as he looked down at his hands. “We still need to destroy it. The benefit of the Resistance gaining that knowledge doesn’t outweigh the risk of the Combine getting it instead.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.” Judith meandered around the small kitchen, finding her way to the chair next to his as she held her mug close to her body. “And, with all due respect, I wish you hadn’t.”
“I know, and I’m sorry.”
She nodded, eyes fixed on the black surface of her drink. “Eli may have been right. Now that he’s…” She trailed off to regain a firm grip on her composure. “The Combine has all of his expertise now. They know the entire structure of the Resistance top to bottom, our projects, our defenses. If they were to gain even more of an advantage over us… We don’t have the manpower for a One Hour War, much less another Seven. It would be a battle we’d doomed to lose from the start.”
The door to the room where other rebels had been sleeping opened once again to reveal two more people just waking up. After them followed a bleary-eyed Alyx. Gordon couldn’t stand to meet her gaze, instead opting to get up and pour himself a cup of coffee. He paid attention out of the corner of his eye as she watched Judith and then swiftly diverted to the others.
“Do you guys have any powdered eggs?” she asked one of them.
“Yeah, up there,” he responded, gesturing to one of the overhead cabinets.
“Ah. Thanks, Bradley.” Bradley. He’d have to try and remember that one.
He focused even more on his coffee as she walked by with the bag. “It’s nice to eat something that’s not an MRE,” Alyx continued. “Hey, save some for the rest of us, Gordon.”
“What?” He looked up at her and she gestured towards the pot. It was empty now, new liquid brewing, every drop sizzling on the bare floor of the glass. “Oh. Sorry.”
“I’m just kidding,” she replied with a hint of concern. “You good?”
He turned his attention back to his drink in an effort to lock away his thoughts from the early morning. “Yeah.”
Her forehead wrinkled as she processed his answer, but she eventually nodded and continued her mission to cook breakfast. “Please tell me you’ve got salt and pepper.”
The other rebel spoke. “We packed up in a pretty good hurry, Miss Vance. We could only grab so much.”
“Damn,” she sighed. “Guess we’re having sad eggs this morning.”
Suddenly, the atmosphere of the base that he would have previously called “cozy” became much too small. A rising feeling in his chest cried for space away from the others to think, to calculate what the vortigaunt had said, to make a plan. His body reacted before his brain and carried him to the bathroom tucked away into the corner of the bunker.
A single light flickered over the mirror. It was a dingy room, to put it politely, showing the same level of aging that White Forest did. Depressing, but luckily still clean. He locked the door behind him and sighed. The latrine stood out to him as a reasonable place to sit down, so he did just that, not before lowering the lid. His glasses came off and folded easily to rest on the lip of the sink. His hair felt vile as his fingers threaded through to clutch his scalp, the sensation of caked dirt shot him for a moment back to Black Mesa, where the blood of others and himself coated the brunette strands. He felt like ripping these clothes off and leaping into the shower, but by now the aging pipes of this forgotten station would moan and creak with the effort of pumping in gallons of water, and he would be even less likely to be greeted with anything other than frigid ice raining over him from the faucet.
The plumbing of White Forest, maintained much better, would prove satisfactory for a shower once they arrived home. If they arrived home. He supposed it would be a reward.
He removed his fingers from his oily hair and rubbed them on the legs of his pants to rid himself of the feeling.The grime would have to take a backseat in his mind for now. Every hour that passed gave the Combine more time for reparations after their break-in and subsequent breakout yesterday, which meant they needed to make a plan as soon as possible to infiltrate the compound once again. Judith and her team hopefully had the information necessary to make reentry as smooth as it could be given the circumstances, and he also prayed that they had enough intel regarding the ship itself to grant them a leg up on boarding it.
Gordon sighed again, longer and thinner this time. His head came to lean back against the wall, his back resting on the tank of the toilet. Laid out before him, the steps to completing their mission seemed extremely simple. Get in, use some large force of energy to neutralize the ship, and leave. He knew it wasn’t that easy. Ice-blue eyes flashed across his own. The cold grimace of his employer reminded him that he was powerless to breach his contract. Getting rid of Borealis while he was looming over him would be incredibly difficult, if not completely impossible. The vortigaunts might know how to fend him off. Temporarily.
His stomach lurched. The only options he had were to obey the man for self-preservation, or to defy him and face the punishment. Death was one thing, and he had risked his life a hundred times before, but there was no indication in that nauseating glare of his that death was the worst case scenario.
A knock on the door jolted him from his mental whirlwind. “Hey, are you gonna be long in there?” asked the voice of one of the female rebels whose name he hadn’t caught yet. “I really gotta go.”
“Uh-- no,” he responded as he rose from the latrine and flushed it to mask the fact that he had been sitting aimlessly. He threw his hands under the cold water of the faucet for good measure before opening the door to the woman. “Sorry.”
“No problem. ‘Preciate it,” she replied as she traded places with him.
“...so we had the ATV so stuck and didn’t have the gravity gun with us, and Barney and I ended up having to pull the damn thing out of the mud ourselves.” Alyx’s voice slowly filled his ears as he rounded the corner into the kitchen. She was clutching a bowl of scrambled instant eggs close to her chest while she told a story to the rest of the rebels who were gathered around her. She seemed vibrant as ever. Gordon wasn’t sure how she did that--pretending to be okay when she wasn’t. Perhaps growing up in the apocalypse forced you to be that way to survive, he decided. “By the time we got it back on the road we were absolutely covered in mud.”
The team chatting around her laughed at the image, and as Bradley piped up to add something else, Alyx’s eyes caught his own. She went from decently jovial to troubled in an instant, eyeing him up and down as if he had jogged her memory of something. Was he a reminder to her?
“Have you heard anything from Barney, Dr. Mossman?” he turned to ask her after Bradley.
She frowned at her coffee. “I’m afraid I haven’t. But Calhoun has always been capable and incredibly stubborn. I don’t doubt we’ll be hearing him as soon as he’s able to reach us.”
“He got over the bridge before we did,” Alyx chimed in. “As long as there were no other collapses ahead of us… he and the other refugees should be fine. They’re most likely moving in a pack to White Forest.”
Judith nodded. “Or they could have already arrived. With everything that’s happened in the area, radio communication is an absolute nightmare. Towers most likely went down in the portal storms.”
They were both right. He didn’t need anything more to worry about, so he forced himself to swallow their explanations for his silence and accept them until he could find otherwise. After a deep breath, he nodded and reached for his mug once again.
“Listen,” Daniel said hesitantly. “I don’t mean to break up the party, but I feel like now that most of us are awake we need to consider our next moves.”
“No, you’re right,” another added. “The longer it takes us to get back to the Combine facility, the lower the chance of finding Allison and Curtis alive.”
Allison and Curtis?”Gemma… I’m so sorry,” Judith murmured with grief. “I didn’t tell you. They’re dead.”
Judith’s recon team--the ones she mentioned in the interrogation room with a heavy breath. Gordon tried not to learn their names sometimes. He never meant to be rude, but most of the people that he came in contact with were fleeting. It was a miracle if he knew them for a few days or weeks, and par for the course to watch them die mere hours after meeting their eyes for the first time.
A blanket of melancholy fell on the team, and it went silent. “Oh, god…” whispered Gemma, who sunk all of her weight into the kitchen counter and put her hand over her mouth.
His gaze focused back on Alyx and he saw her eyes flash with pain as she stared at no place in particular. Her voice was gravelly and dark when she spoke. “We’ve lost too many good people.”
“No shit,” Bradley huffed. “Dammit. Allie’s husband was at New Little Odessa last time I heard anything from him.”
“I doubt he’s alive, either,” muttered Daniel, rubbing his temples.
Another period of quiet filled the room, suffocating them like cotton. The atmosphere lay heavy on their shoulders as they mutually re-experienced the losses of the war. There would be more. An unavoidable consequence.
“They gave up their lives to get us access to that fortress of theirs,” Alyx finally stated, firm enough to cut the grief and tension surrounding them. “We can’t afford to hurt for them right now. We have to use it as fuel for the fire. Would they want us to stand here under two feet of snow, crying over their bodies? No. They would want us to rise.”
Gemma’s face darkened. “How can you say that? You just lost your father, for Chrissake.”
“I don’t have room.” A dry, smileless laugh exited her mouth. “I’m full up on missing people. I can’t.”
The room seemed to nod unanimously. “Well,” Judith spoke first, “then let’s get to work.”