Chapter Text
“Are these real eggs?” Alyx Vance asked as she marveled at the plate of hot breakfast food in front of her. Eggs, sausage, and potatoes that looked like they may not have been canned, powdered, or long expired were a rare treat, and it was especially shocking to see them all on the same plate.
“Yep,” replied Barney Calhoun, through a mouthful of eggs from his own plate. “I had the kitchen folks save some for you since I had a feeling you were gonna be fashionably late for breakfast.”
He paused, leaving the word “again” unspoken and grinning knowingly at his dining companion, who pointedly avoided his gaze. “The whole chicken farming operation's still pretty small, though, and the sausage is definitely headcrab. So, don’t get too excited.”
“Still, thanks for saving me some,” Alyx said with a genuine smile. She chose not to dignify Barney’s comment about her tardiness with a response. “And thanks for waiting around this morning so we could catch up. I didn’t even know you all had gotten back last night.”
Barney sighed and ran a hand through his graying hair. “Yeah, it’s a quick turnaround and we’re headin’ back out in a couple hours, though. Got some new intelligence and needed to stock up on ammo and whatnot, but it should be a quick mission since almost everything’s already in place. Get in, get out, probably back by tomorrow mornin’. We’re pretty confident they don’t know we know they’re coming.”
White Forest sentries had recently picked up radio chatter suggesting that a contingent of Combine soldiers were heading towards the base. The surviving Resistance members weren’t inclined to take any chances with their newfound sense of relative security, so they’d been tracking the group for several days and plotting a counterattack.
Although most of the Combine forces remaining on Earth had been left weakened, semi-isolated, and disorganized by recent events, they could still be dangerous in large enough numbers. Barney had pulled together a squad of rebels to engage the approaching Combine in the Outlands and take them out before they could get anywhere near the base. Alyx hadn’t seen Barney in nearly a week, as he’d been busy training some newer recruits and laying the groundwork for the ambush.
Alyx enjoyed having a few minutes to really savor her meal as Barney described the rebels’ plan of attack in detail and solicited her feedback. She appreciated that her friend valued her input, and she was also thankful for his willingness to acknowledge that this wasn’t her primary area of expertise when he did so.
Since her father’s death, Alyx had often found herself in situations where other rebels expected her to possess the same knowledge, ideas, and opinions that her father had held, as if she could perfectly fill the void his loss had left in their organization and they could go on as if nothing had changed.
For the sake of team morale, she tended to keep her frustration to herself in these moments, choosing instead to vent to an always-sympathetic Gordon Freeman behind closed doors. It was nice to be reminded that Barney, too, understood that she and her father were—well, had been—two different people without having to be explicitly reminded of the fact.
As Barney finished his explanation, complete with diagrams hastily scribbled on the back of his napkin, Alyx offered a thumbs up. Provided their estimates of how many troops were coming were correct and the Combine stayed on their current path, Barney was probably right that this would be a quick “get in, get out” mission.
She swallowed a bite of potatoes and took a sip of her coffee before responding verbally. “Yeah, that sounds great. You can take Dog too, if you need him. I’m sure he’d enjoy an opportunity to get out and explore, and you know he’s a team player.”
Barney nodded. “Thanks. Might take you up on that one. Never hurts to have a little extra oomph in the field, and I’ve missed the big guy.”
As Barney took a long drink from his mug of coffee—his third since they’d sat down—Alyx was struck by a pang of concern for her friend. One could tell just by looking at him that he was exhausted; he clearly hadn't shaved in days, he seemed incredibly tense, and his eyes lacked their usual spark.
In a serious tone, she reminded him, “Take care of yourself and let me know when you get back, okay? I’ve missed you, and I’m sure Gordon’s going to be bummed that he missed seeing you too.”
“Jesus, I’ll be back in less than 24 hours,” Barney replied, casting her a playfully disgruntled glance. “Quit makin’ it sound like I’m dying or deserting, okay? We’ll hang out after I get back.”
After a beat, he added, “Where is Gordon, anyway? Don’t y’all usually almost miss breakfast together?”
Once again, Alyx ignored her friend’s transparent attempt to get a rise out of her. “He got up early to work on the new teleport,” she explained, very matter-of-factly. As Barney stared at her, seemingly awaiting more details, she shrugged and added, “I slept in.”
“Ah, gotcha,” Barney replied with an eyeroll. “Just like old times, huh? Gordon’s standin' me up for breakfast because he got too excited about an experiment… but I’m used to it, you know. I can take it." His expression shifted to convey righteous indignation as he continued, "He should be ashamed of himself for having the nerve to abandon you in favor of science, though. That is no way to treat a lady! I’ll have to have a little chat with him when I get back.”
Alyx acknowledged her friend’s dramatic posturing with an eyeroll of her own. “Thank you for defending my honor, Uncle Barney,” she teased, employing a nickname she’d rarely called him since childhood. “I think I can handle him on my own.”
Barney opened his mouth to speak, and Alyx held up a finger before shooting her friend a warning stare. “Whatever joke you’re about to make, don’t.”
He grinned, held up his hands in mock surrender, and simply winked instead.
Satisfied that she'd successfully neutralized whatever dirty joke Barney had been formulating, Alyx switched her focus to finishing her breakfast. The pair lapsed into companionable silence as Barney followed suit, seemingly intent on savoring the last few bites of his unusually delicious meal before he’d have to haul himself out to the middle of nowhere to fight a bunch of aliens. Again.
Alyx imagined that Barney must find it weird, sometimes, having to strike a balance between his occasionally overprotective, almost familial relationship with her and his friendship with Gordon that practically dated back to a different lifetime, especially now that the two were… involved. So far, it appeared that Barney wasn’t inclined to pick a side, instead preferring to alternate between playing both roles to an extreme whenever he had an opportunity.
She had to begrudgingly agree that their dynamic, already somewhat bizarre and made more complex by the two decades Gordon had spent… not aging, offered quite a bit of comedic potential. Barney usually got much better reactions out of Gordon, who—unlike Alyx—had not had 20 years of practice tuning out their friend’s good-natured teasing.
A couple minutes later, as she scraped the last forkful of eggs off her metal plate, Alyx broke the silence. “In all seriousness, Gordon’s been doing really well lately. We both have.”
Barney smiled and extended a hand across the table to affectionately clap his friend on the arm. “You’re good for each other,” he said. “I know I complain about how he won’t shut up now that he’s in such an annoyingly chipper mood all the time because you two are boning, but seriously, it’s nice to hear him talkin' so much. Reminds me of old times.”
A moment later, he added, “And I take it you two are sleeping through the night now, or at least you’ve both found some other way to deal with the night terrors. Robinson says nobody’s come knockin' on our door in the middle of the night while I’ve been in and out lately.”
Alyx nodded, feeling sheepish as she remembered how many times she’d woken up Barney’s roommate when she’d gone in search of comfort after a particularly bad nightmare or an especially rough night of grief.
The guy, Robinson—she never could remember his first name—was a saint for being such a good sport about all the late-night intrusions, and also for not telling anyone else at the base that she’d been struggling a lot more with her grief and stress than she typically let on.
She supposed Robinson was especially deserving of gratitude if he’d also protected Gordon’s reputation while he'd been seeking comfort for the same reasons; she hadn't missed Barney’s implication that she hadn’t been his only occasional nighttime visitor.
“Yeah, we’re sleeping a lot better. We’re down to, like… maybe every three days with the nightmares, now? And it’s nice to wake up and have someone right there already,” Alyx admitted. “By the way, please don’t make me regret mentioning this, but thanks for the double mattress. I know you’re the one who set it aside for us.”
Barney snorted before responding with a cheeky grin, “You’re welcome. Honestly, it was worth it just to get you two to shut up about your back pain.” He made a show of hunching over the table and waving a fist in the air.
Adopting a stereotypical ‘old man’ voice, he continued, “You naïve young whippersnappers have no idea what real back pain is. Also, nobody forced y'all to share that tiny thing like you were hooking up at summer camp. My generous gesture was necessary to save you from yourselves and your foolish young love.”
Alyx rolled her eyes and offered a neutral grunt of acknowledgment. She wasn't going to provide any ammunition for future jokes at her expense if she could avoid it.
“What do you kids do for fun around here, anyway?” Barney asked, not quite ready to drop the curmudgeonly old man act. “I’m assuming the state fair’s not comin' to town this year, there’s nothing good in theaters these days, and last I checked, the Olive Garden wasn’t takin' reservations.”
In response to Alyx’s blank, unamused stare, Barney switched back to his normal voice and tried a different approach. “Come on, seriously, I put a lot of energy into tryin’ to teach that guy how to impress women, back in the day. Please tell me some of my hard work paid off.”
She shrugged. “There’s just so much going on around here,” she started, not quite sure what her friend wanted to hear. “We’re busy during the day, usually. We eat meals together, sometimes we go on walks or play with Dog when we have downtime, you know we basically live together… that’s how this is supposed to work, right?”
Barney dramatically shook his head and tsk, tsk’ed to convey his (mostly) faux disappointment. “You two seriously haven’t been on an actual date yet? Have I taught Gordon nothing?” He looked up at the ceiling and shook his outstretched arms to emphasize his despair, as if he was begging an omnipotent deity to tell him where he had failed, before bringing his gaze back down and suppressing a chuckle at Alyx’s confused and indignant expression.
He continued, “Look, I know there was an alien invasion and Gordon got caught in some kind of time warp and a bunch of other messed-up shit has happened, but that’s no excuse. There’s no romance! There’s no effort! What you two have right now sounds a lot more like therapy with benefits than a good old-fashioned relationship.”
To make his final point, Barney shifted back into his angry old man pose. “You tell Gordon that he has disappointed his elders, and I’ll deal with him myself later.”
“Wasn’t he like, two years older than you when you first met?” Alyx retorted, finding herself at a loss for a better comeback.
Barney conceded her point but did not back down. “I was basically the younger older brother he never had and desperately needed.”
Before Alyx could respond, a small group of rebels in full tactical gear entered the mess hall, clearly looking for their leader. Barney waved at them before turning back to Alyx with an apologetic expression.
“Guess that’s my cue to suit up and get ready to head out.” He said his goodbyes quickly as he scrambled to get up from the table, leaving his dishes behind. “Thanks for the company and don’t take any of that too personally, okay? You know I just like messin’ with you. Tell Gordon I said hi and I’ll let you know when we get back. Should be sometime tomorrow.”
Alyx reached for her friend’s arm as he retreated, intent on saying a proper goodbye, and he beat her to the punch by turning on his heel and dramatically swooping her into a bear hug.
“Hey, Barney…” she murmured into his chest, “be careful, okay?”
“Always,” he replied with a grin as he released her from the hug. As he often did before they parted ways, he offered a sloppy but heartfelt salute, which Alyx returned.
“See ya when I see ya!” he hollered over his shoulder before joining his squad and disappearing around the corner.
Suddenly alone with her thoughts in the nearly empty dining hall, Alyx rested her head on one hand and used the other to pick a few leftover pieces of sausage off of Barney’s plate and pop them into her mouth. She started to reflect on what he’d said about her relationship with Gordon, until she caught a glimpse of the clock on the wall above her.
With a start, Alyx remembered that she was due to report to the garage for work in just a couple of minutes. After taking one last sip of her coffee, she rushed to gather up the breakfast dishes and headed out to start her day.