Some people used to talk on their cell phones, she told him; some people used to drink lattes or fix their makeup. Some people had bad driving habits, and then there's you.

Never one to fit the mold, Gordon Freeman, truly like the solemn, soft-spoken gentleman he was, would tear the pin from a grenade using his back teeth and chuck the casing through the open windshield, one hand wrenching the wheel, and stamp down on the accelerator as it exploded behind them, rocketing chunks of silt and zombie detritus.

In retrospect, it was a wonder the car didn't catch fire sooner.

"How'd you get it stuck up a tree?" Alyx cried. Well, she did know, technically speaking, being glued to the passenger seat the whole time—she just didn't know how exactly one would go about ramming the car so far up said tree that it simply lay vertical on the trunk, headlights blinking on and off while the front wheels spun idle.

Dog poked his head over the ridge and, bleeping a taunt at them, quickly scampered away. She stuck her tongue out at him.

After pacing around the tree roughly three or four times, Gordon hauled the gravity gun from the trunk and punted the bucket of bolts back down. The errant electricity lashed out at a bough, causing it to crack and break, bringing down a smattering of dead leaves.

He plucked a leaf from his dusty hair. "All right," he said, "let's go."

"Uh, you know what, Gordon? I think I'll walk. White Forest isn't actually that far. I'll meet up with you later."

"It'd be easier to ride."

"You'd think so, huh?"

"You're safer in the passenger seat."

She blinked. "Gordon, I want you to listen to what you just said—" She stopped, not knowing whether or not to grin at his matter-of-fact expression. "Not that I'm complaining, but—why do you drive like such a maniac?"

He pushed his glasses up with his thumb and cranked the clutch. "Because I'm always running late."

Alyx howled the entire ride back.