Ben ducked out of the room and Alyx turned to Gordon, adding, "…someday I'm going to get fed up with him and let him know I'm not one of his videogame chicks."She mimicked strangling herself to end it all, and Gordon chortled.

"Except for the part where you'll give him a one-hit KO?"She chuckled appreciately,"Exactly."

She opened the bottle of peroxide and began dressing his wound. Gordon winced out loud as the stinging liquid bubbled on his skin. Alyx gently waved air on it from her hand to ease the discomfort, then said, "You wuss,"at his reaction, while giving him her teasing smile. He breathed a soft laugh and then said, "Thanks for fending him off for me."

"Believe me,"Alyx said, "I don't mind putting him in his place. Sometimes I fantasize about taking that old Game-thing of his and hiding it in a headcrab nest. Is your arm still stinging?"On Gordon's nod, she added, "I'll rub the skin around it to draw the blood away when I'm done, that should help. Hold still, now."

They chatted about the mission they'd been on as she daubed the various chemicals on him, and then she got out the bandages and started wrapping him up. Alyx prided herself on how good she was at wrapping bandages—she'd done it so often in her life—and while she thought it was something to be proud of, Gordon couldn't help but feel a little sad for her. It wasn't a skill too many people her age had in the world he had come from, thank God.

But here and now, it was a vital skill, and being good at it was an accomplishment. Gordon chuckled as he thought about that word, accomplishment. He had sat through a movie adaptation of Pride and Prejudice in high school, trying to convince one of the girls watching it that he loved it—really, it was the most boring, insipid thing he'd ever watched and he didn't understand a lot of it—and now he recalled a dialogue some characters had about women being accomplished. The love interest in the movie had said the word was entirely overused and that he knew maybe four women who deserved it. The so-called accomplishments they talked about were things like singing and crocheting pillows. Gordon snuck a glance at Alyx, bandaging his wound, and wallowed in the irony. Alyx wouldn't be caught dead doing embroidery, but she was a whiz with computers and handy with a sniper rifle...and a shotgun...and a handgun. And of course, bandaging wounds.

She could hit a moving target with impressive accuracy, fight off a zombie with only her fists and legs, repair machines…and she was empathic, and warm, and never seemed daunted by any task set before her. Her sense of humor was cute and—

Watch it, Gordon, she's right next to you, a warning voice in his head said. Don't go thinking…dangerous thoughts.

He of course loved having Alyx as a friend, and he admired the crap out of her…but he had to resist letting it get too far. He had a job to focus on, and he couldn't get distracted or shift his priorities.

A melancholy air came over him. He would have liked to…to do what, exactly? Because he wasn't even thinking about being involved with her right now…no, that was out of the question. Alyx deserved someone who could give her the kind of relationship she deserved, someone she could walk hand-in-hand down the hallways of White Forest with, someone she could PDA with or call, "my boyfriend" and have people know exactly who she meant, someone…who could afford to return her feelings,dammit.

He couldn't give her those things. As long as this war was going on, and the G-Man had a hold over him, his life wasn't his own. Either one of them could die without a second's notice; Gordon had seen far too many meaningless deaths since Black Mesa for the fragility of life not to have sunk in. One moment you were here, talking with your friends, doing paperwork, illicitly watching a ballgame on a staffroom TV…the next…

…the next, the department next door to yours set off a resonance cascade and the building blew apart with you in it. You might have no warning that your life was about to be over. Your family and friends might not ever get an accurate story of how you had died, and that, coupled with the shock of the sudden loss, would leave them reeling.

And worse was the G-Man, Gordon's so-called "employer". Gordon doubted the man—if he was a man—had real human emotions. The grim-faced beaurocrat seemed to never care about emotion in his decisions, and often made heartless moves with other people's lives. Gordon could be plucked from this time and place at any moment, and wake up from stasis to find himself 200 years in the future, Alyx nowhere in sight. Yes, the G-Man "employed" Alyx as well, but Gordon knew it would be naïve to hope that they'd get paired together on their next "assignment"; the G-Man wasn't a third-grade teacher who assigned people to work with their friends, and Gordon suspected that the creepy representative of some unknown force would find separating them amusing.

And really, Gordon wanted anything other than for Alyx to fall into the G-Man's hands. He didn't know if the issue was up for debate—from his best understanding of what the G-Man had said while Alyx was healing in the mines, Gordon thought that maybe the G-Man was keeping Alyx off to the side for future use, and wasn't actively employing her yet—but he knew he'd do anything he could to prevent Alyx from being at the mercy of that cold, heartless…individual, as Gordon himself now was.

Plain and simple, Gordon couldn't be with Alyx. And that was why it was better that he not allow himself to admit to her these sneaky little emotions that threatened to completely override his logic and restraint.

Gordon was just thinking these thoughts when he realized Alyx had stopped talking a while ago, and looked over at her.

He froze.

Alyx was staring intently at his arm, a slightly glazed look on it, as she gently ran her fingers up and down the exposed length of his upper arm. He realized with a shock that she was admiring his musculature.

Gordon was amazed. Women didn't find him attractive. He was a nerd. And he'd always been a gangly, underfed-looking nerd…until, he admitted to himself, they had been required to keep in shape as part of the terms of employment at Black Mesa. That still hadn't been enough for him to not be stunned, the other day, when he had been inspecting a wound on his ribcage and was startled to see he had actually put on muscle since arriving in City a lot of muscle, of course—he didn't work out or anything—but always running and dodging and fighting for his survival had built up his body's strength, and now he wondered if he should explain that to Alyx.

But as he thought this, she pulled away from him as if his arm were burning metal. Her eyes wide and her mouth partially open, trying to explain, she quickly averted her eyes from him and ran her hand through her hair, stumbling for something to say to excuse the unmistakable meaning behind the gesture. Gordon felt mortified for having embarrassed her, and he too began to look for something to say. But he was distracted by the sudden notable absence, in his mind, of her hand on him.

How had he not noticed that?It had felt…it had felt good, actually. It occurred to Gordon just now that he'd been actually touched very little since arriving here. Or at least touched in a pleasant way—he was now used to being punched or struck, or else associating human hands with the uncomfortable vulnerability of being given medical treatment—and Alyx's tender gesture had awakened some instinct he couldn't quite put a name to yet. He told himself to resist—hadn't he just had a list of reasons a moment ago why he couldn't feel more than he did for her?—but that instinct was stronger, and as he looked at her burning face, he wanted to do anything to make her feel better.

So he said, haltingly, and in as distinct a voice as he could muster, "You…you could…keep doing that…if you wanted."Then he swallowed hugely and averted his eyes from her.

The ball was in her court now. And what if she said no? Now he'd stuck his neck out, and what if he looked like an idiot?He felt heat strong enough to cook an egg on rise in his face, and tried to think of something else to say—

—and then her hand was back on his arm, the pressure so gentle from the tips of her fingers that he involuntarily let out a small breath of relief.

He closed his eyes as he exhaled, opened them…and closed them again. He couldn't look her in the face somehow. But he could feel her fingers on his arm, and he realized all the muscles in the limb were slowly unclenching. Her fingers—from both hands now—travelled up and down his upper arm, gently feeling his bicep.

He should say something, he thought…but what? "That feels good?"Well, that would be idiotic. He found himself sighing again instead.

It did feel good, really. It felt very good. How long had it been since he'd felt the touch of a woman's hands on him? He thought about it...well, technically, it had been at least twenty years since anything had happened in his life at all, what with being in stasis, but even without counting that...too long, he decided, either way.

Gordon had little experience with...being physical with women. He had had only two encounters previously, each of them with different women because neither of them had come back for more. He had tried not to think too much about it; women weren't interested in him, at least not on a superficial, I-wanna-bang-that-guy level, and really, his academic career had been his focus for most of his life up until Black Mesa. It had been all-consuming, really. He'd just been starting to develop a life outside of work or academia when the Event had happened. He'd never really had a meaningful relationship with a woman, and hadn't really thought seriously about wanting one.

Alyx, though...she was a different matter. He wanted to spend as much time with her as he could, and couldn't envision getting sick of it. He wanted to mean something to her, something significant. He wanted to be someone with a special place in her life, so that years from now, if he were to die or be re-assigned somewhere else by the G-Man, she'd always remember him and think fondly of him.

But he knew that couldn't be the case. Maybe she'd think fondly of him, but it would be bittersweet; there'd be loss there too. He didn't want Alyx's thoughts of him marred by that, or by anything, really.

If he could, he'd be anything she wanted him to be. No woman had ever made him...want to be a man, so much. But he knew he could only offer her a limited amount of what he wanted to give her. And that wasn't her...or to him, he thought wryly, being completely honest with himself. He wanted the full experience of being her significant other—keyword:"significant"—and doubted he could hold back as much as was wise. Anything he got into with her would be a major commitment, and while it was one he was eager to make, actually, he knew it could only end badly and would just leave them both hurt and unsatisfied in some way.

And so he held back. And it killed him to do that to her. She had every right not to be strung along like this, as much as he tried not to; somehow he was sending her little signals that encouraged her to keep at it. And while he loved it, loved having the attention from someone like Alyx, who could have any man she wanted...that was just the thing. She was wasting her time, when any number of men would love to be with her as much as he would, and some of them might even make her happy.

He felt something like a painful punch in his chest at the thought. She could have her pick of men (and from what he'd seen, of women too, although she obviously didn't care about that), and the one man she wanted couldn't reciprocate her gestures, as much as he wanted to. It was the opportunity of a lifetime for him, and he wanted more than anything to take it...and instead he had to cause her this confusion and frustration. He hoped to God she didn't resent him for it, and wished he could explain it to her...but that would involve revealing his "employer", and apart from the fact that Gordon was sure no one wanted their mind blown in that way, he also got the distinct impression, although the G-Man had never actually said as much, that part of the terms of the G-Man's patronage was that Gordon keep it a secret. He didn't know what might happen if he tried to reveal it to Alyx—likely Gordon would be killed, he had a suspicion—and another complication was that he was afraid that revealing his alliance with the G-Man would make the creepy executive reveal to Alyx her obligation to him. Leaving her in the dark might be postponing the day when she'd have to live the same way Gordon did, always under the G-Man's tyrannical thumb, and if he could do anything to protect her from that, by God, he'd do it in a heartbeat.

Even if it meant denying them both what they wanted so badly it kept him awake at night with thoughts of nothing but an image of her face smiling at him.

That was all it took for him. One thought of that smile and the way it would reach to her amber eyes—those beautiful, gorgeous amber eyes-and the idea that it was directed at him...it was enough to form a powerful aching in his chest that hurt in a way that was beyond physical, and yet was something he wouldn't give up for the life of him.

At times like that, lying in the dark in the middle of the night, when everything in one's mind seemed magnified by ten, he thought he wouldn't mind being stuck with her for life. If it were just him and her and he could know that no one else would have a chance at her, and she wouldn't want it anyway...people his age were married, he knew. He had gone to weddings of friends back when he was still working on his Master's at idea that people as young as him would want to cordon themselves off to one person for the rest of their lives had seemed strange to him at the time...but then again, he had never had any significant relationship with another like that, not even close to it. Now he had an idea of what it was like, and while he knew that day was a ways off for him—even in a perfect world where he wasn't bound to some psychopath with a briefcase and the entire world didn't think he was Jesus of Nazareth with a PhD—in the wee small hours of the morning, when the mind worked differently than it did during the day, he understood the feeling. In the morning he'd feel stupid, and his first sight of Alyx for the day would leave him mortified and grateful that she didn't have to know the workings of his inner mind. Then he'd put up his resistance again, the careful wall he had to maintain against those feelings for her, and except for a few moments each day—moments which were growing ever more in number and frequency, he had to admit—he was able to keep the walls up, if he put up a decent effort. Of course, at night, the walls crumbled and he went through the cycle all over again.

He sighed miserably. She was stroking his arm so gently, the tactile sensation was like water for a parched throat. His walls were down now, he knew...but his mind, which was normally a master-work of restraint and responsibility, didn't care right now, such was his need for her contact. It wasn't even panicking that he'd let down his defenses, or that she definitely knew it...it was too exhausted from putting up the front and denying itself, and welcomed her, welcomed how she seemed to want to take care of him in some way.

He needed her to, he knew that; he had been allowing her to do so in some small ways, for his own good, because he knew he wasn't good at it himself and that if it wasn't done, he was no good to the Resistance. But now he let her do it because, quite frankly, he needed her.

And he knew he wasn't just denying himself. He was denying her what she wanted as well, and that pained him. He saw her disappointment when he put his front back up after it had slipped, and while his instinct was to apologize or reach out to her, that was exactly the opposite of what he needed to do. Then he'd hate himself, and sink into a depressed mood until something lifted him out of it, while trying not to let Alyx see. Because she didn't need to deal with that from him as well.

That was when the emotional walls came in handy. Except for when his walls were weak, and then they both had to suffer for his denying her.

Like he was now.

Well, he thought, at least he could let her have this one moment. He hoped it meant something for her, something good, because it was all he could afford to give. He knew that when they left this room, he'd have to put his front up again—and that this time, it would take a monumental effort to do so—and they would both pretend it hadn't happened. He would have to be on his guard even more carefully for a while afterwards. Better enjoy it while he could.

Alyx was caressing him with both hands now, as if she were fascinated with this uninteresting part of his body. He thought of opening his eyes to gauge her thoughts...and then thought better of it.

Which is code for, "You're chicken", isn't it? he chided himself. Still, he couldn't bring himself to do it. It struck him just how much he was trusting her, as he felt his muscles still slowly unclenching, ever more and more. With each second, he could feel more and more of the pressure coming off of his mind and reflecting in his body, and for a moment, he tried to simply not think and just be, with nothing occupying his thoughts but the touch on his arm.

This was pleasant—his mind free of anything but this physical contact—and he drifted in it, allowing his mind to flow without words. Gradually, he began to be aware of...something...he wasn't sure what...like a dam swelling and about to break, within him. He had an inkling what it was, but knew that regardless, if it broke...

...he couldn't let it break. Especially in front of Alyx. Somehow he knew this, without being sure what the pressure was. He focused his breathing, keeping it steady and rhythmic, deliberate and something he could grasp a hold of to keep him anchored.

Then he felt Alyx touch the inner crook of his arm.

Strange, how such an innocent touch could make him so ecstatic, as if the physical sensations he might have in a sexual encounter were translated into pure emotion. As Alyx drew her hand down his forearm, he repressed a shiver and wondered why he was suddenly feeling as if he were naked in front of her. Normally such an idea would embarrass him, but he felt safe with Alyx being the one doing the exposing.

Some part of his thought that was getting lost in the current of his mind was aware that he was completely in her power, she held him in the palm of her hand—quite literally—and far from it being uncomfortable, he was reveling in it. Her face and name filled his mind, and he leaned his head back, basking in them, basking in the strange, wordless realm of raw, unfiltered emotion his mind was in, as if it were sunlight on a beach.

He swallowed, steadying himself, realizing what he was doing. She was tracing the follicles of the hairs on his arm, and that specific, concrete feeling brought him back, out of the unfamiliar realm he'd been floating in and into the physical, tangible world where things could be expressed in terms of everyday vocabulary. He was aware of himself again, and of the physical presence of Alyx, as opposed to the reflected form of her he'd just been holding in his mind. She was feeling his pulse, as if enjoying the reassurance that he was perfectly and highly alive, and he let her observe his lifeforce, willing her to know that in this moment, it was revolving around her.

She drew her fingertips down to his wrist now, the inside of his wrist where it was sensitive and vital. He reacted instinctively, without having to will it, by letting his hand slowly, slowly open under the touch, and knew that this was his body's way of telling her he trusted her. His defenses were completely gone now, no pretense of his walls remaining. One of those parts of his brain that was normally dominant but was now pushed into a corner let him know in a tiny voice of this fact and that he'd suffer in some way for it afterward...but the little voice was so tiny and meaningless to the part of him that was in charge right now that it was instantly forgotten. He realized his breathing was restricted, each breath a small addition to the air being hoarded in his lungs or trimming of the used portion thereof. The part of him that normally monitored his behavior wasn't interested at the moment, though, because it was wondering if maybe he should open his eyes, or say something to her...or kiss her...

But now she was edging her fingers into the palm of his hand, a millimeter at a time. The touch alone was wonderful enough, but he knew what was on her mind, and when her fingertips had all come to a shaky rest in the center of his hand, he edged his fingers closer to them. His mind wasn't thinking right now of G-Men and intergalactic wars and the terrifying job he had to do; it had regressed to when it was 13 years old and trying to get the courage up to hold a girl's hand, rallying itself onwards as if this were a Herculean feat... he could feel his heart pounding in his chest and his blood pulsing through his veins...his fingers were halfway closed over hers now, and hers were shaky with anticipation and her own nerves...

He was aware of footsteps and Alyx snapped her hand away. His eyes jolted open, adrenaline shooting through him suddenly, wondering if the Combine were charging in on them...

...And he was in a doctor's examination room, the arm of his HEV suit off, and Alyx busying herself with noisy wrappers.

Oh.

Oh.

There was a world. A world at all, and it wasn't just him floating in his own weird subconscious-land, and it didn't consist of just him and her linked by some magical connection, and it wasn't confined to this...doctor's room.

Why was he in a doctor's room again? Oh.

Right.

Reality took a few moments to take hold again, and by the time it had, the owners of the footsteps he'd heard had entered the room; his sympathetic nervous system was glad to see the noise was not, as it had initially believed, someone trying to kill them, but Mike and Soeren, two of the medical staff, and they were saying something to Alyx...She began talking and his attention snapped back to his surroundings.

"...Gordon got a flechette in his armor, but it didn't do any significant damage. Rodney and Ben wanted me to patch him up, since it was just a basic job and they couldn't spare anyone at the moment,"Alyx said, and bravely turned around to smile at the men. Gordon was impressed with how quickly she could put on an innocent face, and hurriedly tried to make sure his mind was where it needed to be.Yep,all set, it told him, and went back to the man called Mike, who was chatting with Alyx.

Gordon realized they weren't here to talk, however, and due to his normal lack of speech they were talking only to Alyx. He took the moment to catch his breath, rallying himself, because he knew that in a moment, he'd be alone in the room again with Alyx. Bitterness rose up in his as he realized...what, specifically? He was annoyed with himself, but for what? Well, that was irrational.

So many reasons, he answered himself, and bizarrely enough, they were conflicting with each other. Part of him was frustrated they'd been interrupted, another was annoyed he hadn't done anything, and a third was his defensive self coming back in full strength to tell him off for letting his walls down so completely and utterly. He glared at the tiles on the floor, but knew he'd have to sort through this later; he pushed it all aside, put his walls back in place—with a small amount of ruefulness, he was aware—and composed his face to show no trace of...whatever the heck had just happened.

"Thanks Alyx...take care, ,"the man called Soeren said, and he and his co-worker marched out of the room carrying what Gordon supposed was the medical supplies that they had come in here for. Gordon was mildly disappointed he wouldn't have time to get his walls back up and running thoroughly by talking to them, but now he had to figure out how to interact with Alyx.

Then they were alone, and the awkward silence set in. Gordon was aware of it the way one is aware of the sun while being unable to escape a sunburn. It stretched on for agonizing seconds, and he could feel each fraction of a second acutely as he struggled to think of what to say. Alyx, however, bailed him out, and he envisioned a Renaissance-style painting of a saint with Alyx's face mentally Photoshopped over it:"Gordon, I can clean up in here...why don't you go check on your suit?"

Gordon wanted to compose hymns in her name, and wryly thought to himself, Alyx Vance, patron saint of socially-crippled nerds. He steeled himself and snuck a peek at her face, trying to feel out the terrain...but she either didn't see him or wouldn't look at him. That was fine, he admitted to himself, because he wasn't sure what he'd do if she were to return his gaze.

"..., okay," he managed to say, and pushed himself to his feet. As his feet hit the floor he felt strangely aware of the sensation of the impact on his soles, and the blood rushing back into his legs where it had petered off from them being dangling over the table ledge. He was momentarily amused to think that maybe all of the blood in his body, even all his neurological awareness of his entire physical self, had been concentrated in the foot-and-a-half or so of space that his arm took up. He let the circulation return to his body in full, and used the moment to figure out what to do next. Because there was no way he was just leaving without saying something.

He realized he was rubbing his arm as he thought, as if trying to catch some lingering essence of her there, and developed a strategy that would have seemed brilliant to his flustered self in middle school. Speaking in a voice calculated for the perfect balance between casual and not-too-casual, he said, "Hey Alyx?"She responded before he could freak out while waiting for her to respond, "Yeah?"

Do it, Freeman, he growled at himself, and brought his eyes to meet hers. She looked like he felt; like she was struggling to regain and maintain her composure. He wondered if, if he tried hard enough, he could somehow telepathically let her know how grateful he was to her. His mind, doubting its initial plan, floundered, trying to find words to express the mess of emotions he was feeling toward her: gratitude, apology, awkwardness, a feeling he knew the word for but wouldn't think...

...And then he chickened out and went back to his original plan. Ducking his head away from her—because looking her in the eye was taking such a monumental effort—he murmured, in as distinct a voice as he could muster, "Thanks."The word hung in the air, and he desperately hoped she would know he wasn't merely thanking her for the bandaging job.

But she said, "No problem," and the way she studiously avoided his face convinced even his raging self-doubt that she knew what he was thanking her for. He felt a rush of relief at knowing she had met him halfway.

He hesitated now, wondering what came next. Should he say any more, any of the mountain of things he wanted to say? Explain to her why he had his defenses up against her, and that he'd have to keep them up even higher now, so please would she not be hurt if this didn't happen again? Try to strike up an innocent conversation and change the subject? He dimly remembered that his HEV suit needed recharging...

Shoulders drooping with self-defeat, he knew he wouldn't be able to get any farther. Knowing he couldn't manage any more, he resolved to go for his suit. Before he could mess anything up by saying anything else, he darted out the door, taking one last look at her before he left; she was determinedly staring into the cabinet, putting the ointments away. He ducked out the door and left.

Outside the small examination room, in the main room of the medic bay, he was surprised by the fact that the world was still moving, oblivious to the two tiny people in a room together having...some kind of experience that, he now realized and admitted to himself sheepishly, felt like a lot more than it was. People moaned in pain from their injuries, medical staff bustled around hurriedly, shouting orders to each other, and the coppery smell of blood was in the air, reminding him that they were fighting a war. He was reminded of the role he and Alyx each individually had to play, and of the horrors that were now daily occurrences for him.

For a moment, as his mind pondered those everyday terrors, he thought with amusement to himself that he could fight a squadron of Combine soldiers single-handedly, take out an antlion guard with a shotgun by himself, and had even snuck into the Citadel and lived to tell about it...but what terrified him more than any of that was the idea of openly expressing his feelings for a woman who, while she was certainly a force to be reckoned with on her own, was the best ally he had and by all accounts thought the world of him. He felt himself blush and tried not to chortle at himself.

Then he went to see where his suit arm had gotten to.